AT THE RISK OF MY BLOG. . .

Do not read this unless you think Google will approve.

On August 2, 2013, I wrote a blog called “What’s So Bad About Rape?”  The main illustration was a Dolce and Gabbana advertisement of a man holding a woman down while three men stood by watching, possibly waiting.  There was a certain amount of nudity but everyone was “pretty.”  The other images were not quite so suggestive, though there was one in which a man was being restrained by a crowd of men.

This was my pay-off bottom line:

RAPE IS ONLY ONE WAY -- ALBEIT ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL AND DESTRUCTIVE WAYS -- TO INVADE THE INTIMACY OF ANOTHER HUMAN BEING, BECAUSE IT REMOVES MEANING, WHICH IS VITAL TO SURVIVAL.

So just recently a commenter asked me why the media thinks that a woman being thrown down and raped in an alley by a stranger is worse than a man being thrown down in the same alley, beaten into critical condition, knifed, paralyzed for life, etc.  The person doesn’t ask for a pure moral judgment but asks a straightforward question about the way people react.  The commenter does not seem to realize that a man can be raped or that a raped woman might also be beaten, knifed, paralyzed etc.  But that’s not what he asked -- he asked about the way the media differently weights the two events.

The post was essentially a list.  Part of it came from a friend who counsels violent rapists in prison: not to make them feel better about it, but to help them figure out what inner maelstrom or arrogance is motivating them so they’ll stop.  I’ll make another list.

First, I want to note that this inquirer is not gender-identified, age-identified, or, let’s say, “education-identified.”  Following are things to think about.

1.  Either males or females can be raped.  Physiology for both requires lubrication.  Rapists do not normally carry K-Y jelly.  Rape without lube means torn flesh. Rape is access to viscera which are vulnerable.

2.  Raped men can be aroused as easily as raped women.  It is a deep reflex, unconscious, not related to pleasure, often related to violence and death.

3.  All rapes are by definition violent and unwanted.  In a culture defined by pride in one’s individual flesh and immediate space, it is not just physical and not just moral, but also a sanity invasion, forcing the surrender of personal identity.  The brain and nervous system is deeply confused, scrambled, traumatized esp. in an inexperienced person, which is why the idea of raping nuns and children is powerful.  Not just a physical event or even a destruction of innocence, but an attempt to destroy what makes us human.  (For the rapist as well, but they don’t get that.)

4.  Rape is a formally defined war and terrorism weapon.  It is dominance behavior.  War is arousing.  Part of the arousal is terror, contempt, rage.  Playing rape for the sake of arousal is often defended if it is done with consent, but it’s risky business in more than one way.

5.  Part of the confusion about rape is that “statutory rape” is possibly with consent and even real desire, so it’s wanted coitus.  What’s the problem? One is the possibility of conception if it is a female being raped, which is a physical burden she will have to carry as well as a psychological problem as well as a social problem she will have to manage: like how to get a good education, where to find the money for a baby, managing stigma.  In many states if she wants an abortion she will have to find the money to travel to a clinic, maybe a long ways, because there are some people who believe that punishment makes problems disappear.  All for “love.”  In some countries the problem of dealing with a rape victim is solved by killing the victim.  Her family does it.

6. HIV/AIDS is not equivalent to pregnancy.  It cannot be aborted.  It will be far far more expensive than birthing and raising a child.  HIV/AIDS will be contagious.  For the rest of one’s life it means a formal regime that will only keep one healthy with medication IF a schedule is followed, one that means weekly travel which -- in a northern climate in a remote place -- can be life-threatening in itself, requiring constant medical monitoring and invasion, that is simply unpleasant --  the meds are not exactly aspirin.  Only one-third of people in any circumstances who have this disease will have the self-discipline and determination to follow the regime.  But that’s no different from, say, diabetes or the tissue-rejection meds after a transplant.

7.  Self-discipline is a skill.  It is not a moral issue nor a psychological issue -- which it becomes in our authority-defiant society -- but a learned self-management that cannot be acquired from authority-figures imposing monitoring like a parent making you get up in the morning or do your homework.

8.  Historically women and children were “owned” by men the same as if they were horses.  They were domestic animals.  Their labor, their bodies, their ability to produce more humans which would add to the man’s wealth, all belonged to the man.  This conviction still persists and may be part of the reason men rape their own children.  They think they are entitled by ownership.  The women and children “belong” to them and therefore must obey them the same as a horse would have to.  Since rape is a benefit of owning someone, then a stranger who “uses” them is the same as a thief stealing money.  It’s interesting that often the most prudish men are the ones who find money the highest value in their practical lives.  Not sex.

9.  Until recently matters involving sex were hushed up by newspapers.  Now that the internet has enlightened us, the other media can also finally let us know the particulars, the proper terms, and the estimated pervasiveness of problems.  As when Kinsey discovered “men having sex with men” and even homosexual intercourse in stable relationships, we are hearing statistics like 20%, one in three, and even higher figures about sexually abused children, physically invaded women -- so common and accepted that people like Joe Biden and George Bush don’t hesitate to put their hands on women at public, high status, formal, diplomatically significant events monitored by cameras, microphones, and many attendants.  The conclusion has to be that keeping everything secret did NOT persuade people not to put beans up other people’s noses.  Rather it seems to have taught them that everything is as innocent as the ball pit at McDonalds.  But ignorance is not even good for children, who must be taught to keep balls where they belong.

10.  This does not exhaust the topic but it exhausts the writer.  I have a strong suspicion that Google is pursuing what I’ll call the Obama boomerang strategy.  When you are constantly criticized for something hard to defend but which yields a nice profit, if you comply with whatever it is that the controllers want to control, the calculated outcry from the other side may intensify so much that they will provide all the arguments and ammunition that would be useless if they came from you.  Pretty soon the critics will be overwhelmed and have to withdraw.  I certainly hope that’s the case with this sudden moral turn Google has taken.

Oh, and what about Wikipedia?  Isn’t that our marker for what the People know?  Think of something sexual so extreme you don’t know what the term for it means, look on Wikipedia and you’re likely to find a detailed description and a photo.  

And isn’t censorship a form of rape in the sense of wanting to own for profit, take identity where it doesn’t want to go?

CHRIS, QUEENS, AND WIKIPEDIA -- OH, AND BARRUS.

Chris

Queens

February 3rd, 2011 12:38 pm

@TimothyBarrus, I am not familiar with your case, but the article is nicely cited with reliable sources. There is only one blog post cited, which is used to reference the opinion of the (notable) author of that blog. Unfortunately for you, you are best known for the coverage of your alleged hoax, and the article reflects that.

Chris

Queens

February 3rd, 2011 1:00 pm

@Elisa, Wikipedia is not a place to publish original research. If you are interested in the topic and there really is no documented information about it, you can conduct your own research and publish it in a journal or other scholarly outlet. And frankly, just because it isn't easy to quantify those effects does not mean that it can't be done: that is the role of the social scientist. There is nothing biased, traditionally or otherwise, in this type of rigorous scholarship.

Wikipedia needs  money. They’ve begun to reach the limits of what people are willing to post and professors STILL refuse to accept a wikipedia citation since they are often inaccurate and circular in their documentation.  Take a look at two comments from a recent article in the New York Times complaining about the statistical under-representation of women both in the subject and the behind-the-scenes operators at Wikipedia.  http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/02/where-are-the-women-in-wikipedia

The comments are accumulating.  But I just want to turn some attention to “Chris,” an androgenous name for someone in Queens, where people live when they can’t afford Manhattan.  

Chris is not familiar with Tim’s “case,” has evidently never read any of his books, is not an expert on Native American literature -- much less the many labyrinthine and emotional issues of authenticity in relation to it, where the “hoax” accusation came from, or any of the relevant blogs -- including mine -- and vlogs -- including Tim’s.  But in his or her opinion the article is “nicely cited” with “reliable sources” -- which are the LA Weekly (the LA arm of the Village Voice) and Time magazine where there was a promotional squib by Sherman Alexie who was making an all-stops-out pitch for “Smoke Signals.”

Chris says to Tim,  “You are best known for the coverage of your alleged hoax.”  That’s it.  Maybe Chris and his little circle only know about the hoax and nothing else, but there’s much more out there, worldwide.  Chris’ definition of the world is himself (or herself) and people like her (or him).  If he knows a person’s reputation, then that’s enough.  Very small town junior high.

Next look at his instructions to Elisa:  “Wikipedia is not a place to publish original research.”  He instructs her to use the conventional means of becoming approved, which he takes to be reliable.  It is getting published in a journal “or other scholarly outlet.”   “. . .The role of the social scientist. There is nothing biased, traditionally or otherwise, in this type of rigorous scholarship.”   Clearly Chris is not keeping up.  These days “rigorous scholarship” in regard to ANY social science is being called into question.  PHYSICS is being called into question!

If I were guessing what Chris (male or female version) is like -- what his or her “reputation” was, I’d guess a low level of academic achievement but not in the field now.  Otherwise there would be far more awareness of the challenges these days, not least of which are the Foucaultian assault on authority.  Demographic and economic forces have just about dismantled the tenured prestige of people who have managed to run the gauntlet of previously certified experts who don’t care to be contradicted.  Wikipedia's concept is based on contempt for the recognized authorities -- turning to anonymous persons.

With more awareness of the eRevolution Chris might understand that the whole system of print journal, peer review, and editorial control is now being addled and closed down by online journals in specialized fields who allow (freely) instant feedback and correction by anyone who cares to read.  That’s where the real action is now -- not Wikipedia, which is for high school and junior college level inquirers.

So Chris’ attitude is that he knows everything there is to know about how the world works.  Where he is.  Among his sort.  At his level of accomplishment.  It’s a very slick media-constructed world.  He has no awareness of its constructed and unreal nature.

Once The New Yorker published a famous cartoon drawing of the United States that consisted of a huge Manhattan and then a country that dwindled away through the hinterlands until it bulged again on the California coast with LA and SF.  In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in the window of a bookstore there was a very clever reversal -- a huge Saskatoon and far away, falling over the edge of the world, the tiny island of Manhattan.  

I think I could draw Valier to take up the page with everything else receding and that would be a fair depiction of Valier's natural xenophobia.  Valier IS in Wikipedia, but the entry was not written by anyone at all.  It is an aggregation of demographic facts from statistical surveys of small towns, mostly for governing and real estate purposes.  It does not cite any of the several blogs written here, not even mine.  (Whether that’s fortunate or unfortunate for me depends upon your definition of fortune.)

Chris thinks he knows all about Barrus, at least by reputation, yet resists knowing anything from the people who know him and work with him.  

Wikipedia includes an article about Bob Scriver, to whom I was married in the Sixties.  I wrote it and posted it.  Then they "annotated."  They note my blog about Bob (www.scriverart.blogspot.com) as being by his “ex-wife.”  Not as a co-worker, writer, minister, teacher, etc.  None of my qualifications except that sneering “ex-wife.”  Does that tell you anything about the attitude towards women?  Wikipedia still thinks Bob Scriver is an Indian.  Isn’t that perpetrating a hoax?

Wikipedia is bourgeois, interested in re-establishing the Victorian world where those of the upper class hand down opinions and reputations, while always keeping alive a vigorous secret life behind the scenes that might not meet with approval if subjected to public scrutiny.  A sit com with this premise would be delectable.  

Although, that much interest in sex would be tiresome.  One can look up in Wikipedia all the sexual things that could not be found in either dictionary or encyclopedia when we were children and the authorities were in charge.  Where’s that fellow who was so scandalized by ants?  Hasn’t he looked up sexual parts and practices in Wikipedia?  The Victorian gentlemen have been busy there.  

GOOGLE LOOP

Some of us giggled ruefully over the recent Dilbert comic strip in which the “Topper,” who always exaggerates to a ridiculous degree in order to top everyone else, made an impossible brag and advised skeptics to wait ten minutes, then check Wikipedia. Topper had discovered how to use the hollow backside of a wiki, namely that it is at the mercy of whoever cares to post. Misinformation doesn’t work very well on topics everyone visits -- someone is sure to recognize the post as a fabrication and correct it. But if it’s in a rather obscure corner, it will be overlooked.

Worse, if someone wants to use the website maliciously, they can create a “Google Loop.” This is when a hostile post, supposedly based on some citation which no one ever checks as to validity, gets picked up by the Google search crawler, put on the list about the subject so that it’s visited by someone else who accepts that information uncritically (thinking, “Oh, it’s in print-- must be right”) and cites it on their blog or in an article. Whereupon the Google crawler picks it up again and adds it to the list until one hostile post has been expanded by repetition to what seems like dozens of new posts.

In the professions (doctors, lawyers, ministers, professors) one is required to demonstrate somehow one’s qualifications, how one has mastered a body of knowledge. Exams, certification, boards of review, mentors, and institutions all play their part, but one of the important sources of authority is the citation. We recognize them as footnotes or endnotes, often supplemented by bibliography. The idea is that the person proposing an idea shows on what previous body of thought their argument rests -- how it is validated by what has gone before and how the present contribution builds on that body of thought. Which authorities one cites is a way of situating a writer in the great family tree of knowledge. And if the citations are misquoted or just wrong, that shows the person is not qualified. But someone has to recognize the names and sources.

I met this notion at seminary and was rather offended by it. Being forty instead of twenty, I valued experience in real life far beyond reading, esp. since ministry is presumably about real life people. But the religious studies program at the U of Chicago is meant to prepare professors of religious studies rather than ministers, and so I was over-ruled to the point of near-failing. Theology is about reasoning one’s way through a body of knowledge. (I’m told there is now a growing new discipline of philosophy called “x-philosophy.” (Check out http://experimentalphilosophy.typepad.com/) It seems to be rather like fMRI brain studies as it tries to get past our assumptions to something more, well, REAL.

By now there is so much knowledge and so much of it is specialized, that most of us only register that there are a lot of citations that look important. How can an ordinary mortal tell which matters? Or even a well-educated professional whose basic introduction is now outdated by the enormous shifts in so many fields? To the rescue came the idea of a journal, like the New England Journal of Medicine or JAMA or a host of specialty journals. But their efficacy could only be guaranteed by the diligence and morality of the journal writers and editors and the loopholes began to appear.

One little scam loop has been uncovered by Bob Grant writing in The Scientist, May 7, 2009.

“Scientific publishing giant Elsevier put out a total of six publications between 2000 and 2005 that were sponsored by unnamed pharmaceutical companies and looked like peer reviewed medical journals, but did not disclose sponsorship, the company has admitted.

“Elsevier is conducting an "internal review" of its publishing practices after allegations came to light that the company produced a pharmaceutical company-funded publication in the early 2000s without disclosing that the "journal" was corporate sponsored.”

Determined corporate forces are like junior high school students, always feeling around for devious ways to beat the system instead of devoting their energies to straightforward achievement. Innocent but suspicious persons wishing confirmation of salesmens' promotions would find that in these journals, neatly leaping over any necessity for testing. Then new journals quote the phony ones, and the loop completes.

But this doesn’t just happen in the professions, unless you think of publishing as a profession. Publishers have managed to figure out how to convert authors’ efforts into the publishers’ salaries and rent while merely feigning publishing. By constantly requiring more from authors desperate to be published (their desperation is another blog): pay for your own research, provide all illustrations, pay for someone to do the indexing, prepare a detailed advertising plan, secure blurbs from other authors, and so on -- and then deducting all the publisher’s expenses (lunch, haircuts?) from any money earned by the book (noting all the time that the cost of actually printing a book is going up), refusing to offer advances, charging “handling fees” for royalties, and delaying any payment until all copies are gone (“sell through”) -- publishing has become the next thing to a Ponzi scheme.

It becomes a Google loop when critics are persuaded to say either good things about a book (great if you can arrange for it to win a prize) or bad things about a rival publisher’s book. Then that’s cited in a host of theoretically individual judgments of the book from overwhelmed reviewers. It’s best if you can smuggle the book into the news by using some kind of purported sociological tendency, supported by citations in articles, which soon appear in Google, then in footnotes, and then as another round of articles. Properly done, this can cause the ouster of the President of Harvard University. You could Google it. Outraged women whose thinking had been captured by a Google loop, managed to achieve it.

It worked for George Bush when he wanted to invade Iraq. Say something (remember uranium yellow cake?), get someone to quote it, cite that person, put it in an article, an editorial, a blog, and PRESTO! It’s on Google. Pretty soon it’s in Wikipedia.

More discussion here (tip of the hat to Dave Lull):
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/05/wikipedia-hoax-reveals-limits-of-journalists-research.ars