For those that are interested, I'll clarify where I am on this - and quite why I've ended up locking horns with ymu....
My attitude to the slutwalk - and to sexual violence and harassment of women - I made clear in
this post - no 299.
The "debate" subsequently moved on with Gromit's rather ridiculous railing against women who supposedly con men out of drinks with the promise of sex. I said nothing, but did comment on Edie's (post 396)
with (post 400)
Entirely sarcastic - I did no such thing, clearly. I was simply parodying what appeared to be Edie's approval of mercenary behaviour. But that (also clearly) was in no way agreeing with any suggestion that women who
might flirt with/talk to men with the intention of drinking for free then bring sexual harassment/unwanted touching upon themselves.
Next post was a self-deprecating piss-take;
which (probably rightly) went ignored until pk stuck his oar in;
to which I replied;
Old animosities did, unfortunately, flare in consequence - posts 420 - 429. And ymu interjected;
That post was clearly directed to the posts from me, pk, paulie and pickman's - and
not to anything that might have been posted earlier by Gromit or gavman. So I took her up on it;
And in what followed, I made clear why (posts 434 - 444) but I'll expand. I have no issue with objecting to the derail, no issue with a "take it elsewhere" response and no issue with objecting to the
behaviour - it was the clear attribution of such behaviour to maleness, to biology that I was pulling her on.
And I did that for a reason - the whole fucking point of this thread is, surely, that it is neither inevitable nor excusable that men will behave in a particular way (sexual harassment/rape) if women behave in a certain way (dress "slutishly" or accept drinks from men in bars). That behaviour is
learned and it can be changed - in my view, that change can happen to some degree on an individual level, but will largely require a different sort of socialisation and the way that society thinks of what it is to be a man or a woman. Of course, that's perhaps another debate, though I've no doubt that such change is possible.
In the particular context of this kind of debate, I do think that the clear implication that I was objecting to in that post of ymu's - that objectionable behaviour in men is explained by maleness, by biology, needed addressing. Her response?
Fair enough.
But equally - fuck her.
Blokes fancy you, you can take advantage of that. Genuinely, I don't think self respect is the issue there.
