Rape allegations against Jimmy Tarbuck

[pissflaps]

It sickens me that there are so many men who abuse their power in this way. It is pretty clear that the (powerful) human male is the single most dangerous thing threatening most people's lives today.
It's endemic and it comes up time and time again, rapes, sexual misconduct, abuse of power, wealth gain, war.....
It seems that the human male is still inherently controlled by genetic programming of millions of years of evolution designed to make them fight each other for a female.
It seems Intelligence means nothing..........

what a load of sexist shit lol!

 

[existentialist]

This is my point, though I should have made it clearer to start with.

The thing is, to what extent is it a general responsibility not to hurt the feelings of someone in that situation, and to what extent do such people need to be able to take responsibility for their own feelings?

Some jokes about abuse are pretty much guaranteed to offend everyone; others may well be offensive/hurtful to some who have been abused; and others will only be offensive to a minority of people. Where do we draw the line?

I think that the jokes being made on this thread have fairly obviously been made to achieve a polemical point - in other words, it's not just a bunch of mouthbreathers cracking oh-so-funny abuse jokes, but people attempting to make a point, perhaps in response to your reactions.

I do believe that humour does have its role to play in this, because I think that it is important to make sure the subject doesn't continue to be taboo, and if jokes are part of the process of opening up debate, then they have their place. There are abuse jokes that would offend me, but I haven't seen any of those here yet: it would seem that your own threshold is a little lower, and that's perfectly OK.

What isn't wise, though, is to challenge those jokes merely by saying they shouldn't be made. If people don't want to offend you, then they will need to know that you are offended; but they themselves may be offended by the implication that, just because you're offended by them, they shouldn't make them. So it comes down to a fairly simple choice, in my view: if we're offended by what someone has said, we need to make that clear, but we have to stop there. If they are not ignorantly making them, they will hear what you say, and take what they consider to be appropriate action; if, on the other hand, they are making them with the specific intention of causing offence, then what you say isn't going to make a lot of difference, and may even encourage it to happen more.

 

[existentialist]

It sickens me that there are so many men who abuse their power in this way. It is pretty clear that the (powerful) human male is the single most dangerous thing threatening most people's lives today.
It's endemic and it comes up time and time again, rapes, sexual misconduct, abuse of power, wealth gain, war.....
It seems that the human male is still inherently controlled by genetic programming of millions of years of evolution designed to make them fight each other for a female.
It seems Intelligence means nothing..........

Can I just make a tangential point here? True, all of the high-profile abusers have been men, and it is likely that male perpetrators will always be in the majority. But rates of reporting of abuse with female perpetrators have been rocketing over the last few years. It's unlikely that this is the result of a sudden increase in abusing behaviours by women: it is more likely to be a result of the general lifting of the taboo about abuse in general, and consequently about female-perpetrated abuse in particular, which has always tended to be regarded in much the same way that Queen Victoria regarded lesbianism - a flat refusal to believe that the stereotypical female role was capable of such things.

We've already seen quite a few cases where women were at the very least complicit in abuse directly perpetrated by men, but it is becoming increasingly clear that sexual abuse is not solely a male province.

So let's at least acknowledge that this is not entirely about "human males", powerful or otherwise.

 

[pissflaps]

important not to confuse an increase in behaviour with an increase in people getting nicked.

 

[existentialist]

important not to confuse an increase in behaviour with an increase in people getting nicked.

I'm not talking about the criminal perspective so much as the apparent rate of occurrence. Only a tiny proportion of those who abuse (of either gender) get convicted in any case, so conviction isn't a particularly good indicator of prevalence.

 

[jusali]

Can I just make a tangential point here? True, all of the high-profile abusers have been men, and it is likely that male perpetrators will always be in the majority. But rates of reporting of abuse with female perpetrators have been rocketing over the last few years. It's unlikely that this is the result of a sudden increase in abusing behaviours by women: it is more likely to be a result of the general lifting of the taboo about abuse in general, and consequently about female-perpetrated abuse in particular, which has always tended to be regarded in much the same way that Queen Victoria regarded lesbianism - a flat refusal to believe that the stereotypical female role was capable of such things.

We've already seen quite a few cases where women were at the very least complicit in abuse directly perpetrated by men, but it is becoming increasingly clear that sexual abuse is not solely a male province.

So let's at least acknowledge that this is not entirely about "human males", powerful or otherwise.

Mimicry?

 

[pissflaps]

I'm not talking about the criminal perspective so much as the apparent rate of occurrence. Only a tiny proportion of those who abuse (of either gender) get convicted in any case, so conviction isn't a particularly good indicator of prevalence.

true. but getting caught and getting convicted could be considered mutually exclusive.

 

[existentialist]

Mimicry?

I hadn't got as far as speculating about cause! At the moment, it seems as if there's enough difficulty in recognising that it even occurs, before we start to concern ourselves with why.

 

[existentialist]

true. but getting caught and getting convicted could be considered mutually exclusive.

 

[Pickman's model]

Can I just make a tangential point here? True, all of the high-profile abusers have been men, and it is likely that male perpetrators will always be in the majority. But rates of reporting of abuse with female perpetrators have been rocketing over the last few years. It's unlikely that this is the result of a sudden increase in abusing behaviours by women: it is more likely to be a result of the general lifting of the taboo about abuse in general, and consequently about female-perpetrated abuse in particular, which has always tended to be regarded in much the same way that Queen Victoria regarded lesbianism - a flat refusal to believe that the stereotypical female role was capable of such things.

We've already seen quite a few cases where women were at the very least complicit in abuse directly perpetrated by men, but it is becoming increasingly clear that sexual abuse is not solely a male province.

So let's at least acknowledge that this is not entirely about "human males", powerful or otherwise.

Equally there's a general belief that men are rarely the victims of sexual violence: tho this belief is based on belief rather than hard evidence. Studies of sexual violence in time of conflict have shown men to be victims of widespread sexual violence: and I suggest it is not unreasonable to assume there is a great under-reporting of man on man (& woman on man) sexual violence.

 

[Mungy]

one word, terry fucking pratchett.

That chelsea player will fuck anything

 

[coley]

Equally there's a general belief that men are rarely the victims of sexual violence: tho this belief is based on belief rather than hard evidence. Studies of sexual violence in time of conflict have shown men to be victims of widespread sexual violence: and I suggest it is not unreasonable to assume there is a great under-reporting of man on man (& woman on man) sexual violence.

I think men are, by and large,more ashamed and embarrassed to report sexual violence esp rape

 

[ViolentPanda]

one word, terry fucking pratchett.

Pats dk on his innumerate flatcapped head.

 

[coley]

Pats dk one his innumerate flatcapped head.

FFS, don't say he's been lifted?

 

[ViolentPanda]

What does enable abuse if not normalisation of it within culture?

Those who think it is suitable subject matter for 'joking' think it is as rare as a space-craft crashing, apparently. Which is maybe why they think it's OK to joke about it. They don't have to confront the consequences on a daily basis and, apparently, it doesn't occur to them that two thirds of the population does.

What you're talking about isn't a normalising process, though. It's generally a process of self-management that enables the individual to get a handle on transgressive ideas. In the UK our male Victorian predecessors rarely spoke or joked about such things, yet their capacity for having sex with children was, by most accounts, rapacious.
As for your first question, "what does enable...?", that'd be people turning the other cheek. Those people who, when another dead or abused child is found, say "I knew something was going on!", but sadly never stirred their arses to report it.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It sickens me that there are so many men who abuse their power in this way. It is pretty clear that the (powerful) human male is the single most dangerous thing threatening most people's lives today.
It's endemic and it comes up time and time again, rapes, sexual misconduct, abuse of power, wealth gain, war.....
It seems that the human male is still inherently controlled by genetic programming of millions of years of evolution designed to make them fight each other for a female.
It seems Intelligence means nothing..........

It seems that way, but we're not quite engaged in social relations on a Hobbesian level. Projecting the behaviour of a minority as the behaviour of all is a fair journalistic trope, but it's not entirely accurate, is it?

 

[ViolentPanda]

what a load of sexist shit lol!

The premise that it's mostly males who have shat on this planet and on the human race, is accurate. The premise that it's either exclusively a male issue, or that all males are involved simply by being male is a bit pants, though.

 

[jusali]

I'm not being a journalist I'm just pointing out my views on the subject.
As for 'minority' I'm not so sure either. Workplace bullying, Road rage, drunken brawls, muggings, are all indications of the same aggressive and domineering characteristics of the male.
Naturally there will be both male and female victims whichever is perceived, by the perpetrator, to be the most easy victim.

 

[elbows]

I'm not being a journalist I'm just pointing out my views on the subject.
As for 'minority' I'm not so sure either. Workplace bullying, Road rage, drunken brawls, muggings, are all indications of the same aggressive and domineering characteristics of the male.
Naturally there will be both male and female victims whichever is perceived, by the perpetrator, to be the most easy victim.

That still offers no evidence at all that its more than a minority of men. There are a lot of people out there, it only takes a minority to make all of those things relatively prevalent in society, and even a sizeable minority is still a minority.

Plus I have to say that I've witnessed a depressing level of bullying and unhealthy competition between women in the workplace, often against other women.

Its not really clear to me where all these observations get us, beyond the obvious fact that many humans end up doing shitty things to other humans for a multitude of reasons, and that men often have very visible ways of doing it with bad consequences.

 

[Sprocket.]

Having said all that;
Lisa Tarbuck was outraged yesterday after reports labelled her father a comedian!

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'm not being a journalist I'm just pointing out my views on the subject.

I wasn't suggesting that you are a journalist, I was stating that it's a standard of behaviour I'd expect from them, not from you.

As for 'minority' I'm not so sure either. Workplace bullying, Road rage, drunken brawls, muggings, are all...

minority pursuits. If they were as prevalent as you're impying, we'd be awash with street crime, our roads would be in gridlock because people were abandoning their cars in order to ruck at the slightest opportunity, and pubs would be utter no-go zones, even the "grandad" pubs.

...indications of the same aggressive and domineering characteristics of the male.

Aggression and dominance are socially-constructed categories. You appear to be implying that they're natural/biological/genetic traits as opposed to potentials that only play out in accordance to social stimuli. They only tend to be developed traits in people with disorders of the mind and/or of the brain.

Naturally there will be both male and female victims whichever is perceived, by the perpetrator, to be the most easy victim.

And there will be male and female perpetrators too.

 

[jusali]

Aggression and dominance are socially-constructed categories. You appear to be implying that they're natural/biological/genetic traits as opposed to potentials that only play out in accordance to social stimuli. They only tend to be developed traits in people with disorders of the mind and/or of the brain.

I dunno, I think we have to educate that out of humans in our education system and family upbringing. Certainly a toddler is liable to lamp anyone or anything in order to gain access to what he/she wants......

And there will be male and female perpetrators too.

If a female is involved it will generally be combined with Male company in some way or another...

 

[ViolentPanda]

I dunno, I think we have to educate that out of humans in our education system and family upbringing. Certainly a toddler is liable to lamp anyone or anything in order to gain access to what he/she wants......

You can't "educate it out", you can only really ever "educate it down", because sometimes it is the appropriate response to a situation.

If a female is involved it will generally be combined with Male company in some way or another...

That's not really reflected in stuff like the BCS, or any of the (ridiculously few) surveys of violent crime by females in the UK that I've read in the last 20 years. The sisters are, as Annie Lennox put it, doin' it for themselves!

 

[Dandred]

Ridiculous that so many stars of that time were up to that sort of thing unhindered, mebe?

What does that say about society? Obviously it wasn't only stars. And obliviously this isn't a new phenomena. Do some humans have predisposition to noncing around? The Greeks were quite good at it with young boys...

 

[Citizen66]

Power corrupts.

 

[jusali]

You can't "educate it out", you can only really ever "educate it down", because sometimes it is the appropriate response to a situation.

Because it's in our nature?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Because it's in our nature?

"Nature" (of the "human nature" sort) is a social construct, and generally reference to it is as an excuse for selfish action.


You can't educate aggressive response out of people because it acts against basic limbic and cortical responses to stimuli which are (nigh on) impossible to remove without interfering with basic functioning. So, what you do is educate people in order that their responses can be attenuated as is dictated as necessary by the social situation they're in. In other words, socialisation. True, you'll still get arseholes who feel no responsibility to tame their own aggression, but they're a minority of people. Most of us have a "line" we won't and don't cross.

 

[ike_obi]

They sure know how to pick their victims don't they ?....vulnerable working class kids.. the kind our society always looked down upon and seen as problems.

Its a shame.

 

[ibilly99]

This is potentially interesting particuarly so as no politicos have been pulled up so far though some big names are being mentioned on less cautious boards.

http://7493021a.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/stuart-hall-another-cover-up-is-happening-before-your-eyes/

 

[Dandred]

What does that say about society? Obviously it wasn't only stars. And obliviously this isn't a new phenomena. Do some humans have predisposition to noncing around? The Greeks were quite good at it with young boys...

Power corrupts.

You mean the power that adults have over children?

I disagree, lots of adults have power over children and don't nonce it about.

Or, are you talking about power in society?

I disagree again, child molestation isn't reserved to those to have power in society.


So what do you mean by "power corrupts" in this context?