(TW : Discusses rape stats) AIBU to find this interview with Louise Perry insulting to both women and men?

[Carla786]

I still think Louise Perry has valid points in her 2022 book The Case Against The Sexual Revolution and some of her Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast interviews, although I've always had disagreements with quite a few of her points

I cam across this interview today and was shocked, however. She badly states that she thinks 1/3 of men would commit rape given the chance of getting away with it.

Evidence? In her book, she does cite a study of US college students where 1/4 of the men said they would force sex if they could get away with it. (Higher numbers said yes when asked that than when asked if they would commit rape if they could get away with it).

But 1/4 is not 1/3, and a sample of US college students is not 'all men'. I searched for other studies giving such high numbers, but could find none. I myself believe that the numbers of men who would do that are higher than we'd like to think, but I certainly don't think they're as high as 1/3, and tossing around this kind of unsubstantiated claim feels insulting to men on general

She's spoken of the huge impression working for Rape Crisis for her gap year had on her, so maybe that's given her a skewed view?

Furthermore, if she sincerely believes that 1/3 of men are that evil, why on earth does she keep encouraging women to marry as early as possible and have kids younger? I don't think there's anything wrong with marriage and kids young, but I certainly wouldn't give that advice if I believed 1/3 of men were potential rapists! lt feels profoundly immoral to encourage women to prioritise marriage so much if you believe 1/3 of men would rape. Particularly as someone who claims to be so knowledgeable about abuse surely knows that those men who would rape or abuse are more likely to step that up when a woman's pregnant or raising a young kid.

MN thoughts? Am I overreacting, or is this position both disturbing and profoundly insulting to both men and women?

I never said you were a troll.

Start a new thread and be clear you want to talk about torture, murder and sadism. See how quickly it gets pulled.

Thought you were off to lecture feminists about niqabs, @Carla786?

The thread has a prominent trigger warning, which presumably works for those who might find the topic ‘inappropriate’ for a ‘parenting forum’.

@RegimentalSturgeon yes, a trigger warning about "rape stats", not the other stuff.

I would be very grateful if you could make your own judgement and if you are satisfied that I did not start this thread for negative reasons, allow me to continue it without constant derailment from the above 2 posters.

You mean you want a space to talk to women about rape, with yourself as the centre of attention, with nobody questioning your motives. Are you aware of how inappropriate it was to bring up strangulation in your response to me? Not once but twice. What did you want to happen?

I didn't lecture, we've been having a productive conversation. As you can see here :

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5442265-article-raising-some-interesting-but-flawed-points-on-why-some-muslim-women-wear-niqab-full-face-veil-with-gap-for-eyes

Thank you.

Also a fair point.

I'm happy to adjust the trigger warning to include, I am really sorry for not offering sufficient warning, I didn't start this thread to distress anyone. I thought the original TW was sufficient but clearly not.

It wasn't me who brought up murder, but bigliness, I've already gone into that in my previous post.

I don't understand why people are angry or surprised that a thread about the possibility that a disturbingly high percentage of men may be willing to commit rape would discuss the disturbing psychology of why that would be, or use Internet VAWG as a comparator.

Your posting history isn’t helping your case. I’ve seen that thread and it’s the same theme, which is intellectualising women’s suffering. That thread showed the same pattern which is you pushing conversations into the darkest possibility territory.

So you can't see trying to discuss women's oppression with any distance in any other way than 'intellectualising suffering'? The posters on the thread didn't seem to agree. Are they also 'intellectualising suffering'?

'Pushing into te darkest possible territory' - that's how you read that thread too? Incredible.

You think any discussion of the oppression and violence women still face has to avoid any kind of distancing or it must mean the person discussing must be cruel or have an ulterior motive?

Nice try.

Discussing oppression isn’t the issue. Your behaviour is. On that thread you personally escalated it into graphic violence as you did here. Just like when you introduced strangling to me, unprompted, twice. You’ve tried to drag other women into conversations about graphic subjects on this thread as well that have nothing to do with statistics.

It’s you constantly pushing boundaries and steering unrelated discussions into the darkest possible material and pretending it’s normal. That’s the pattern. And now it’s been pointed out you’re pretending to be confused about why people are uncomfortable.

You keep pretending these escalations are organic. They’re not.

I’ll ask you again, why did you bring up strangulation to me?

How was that thread 'Pushing boundaries', 'escalated into graphic violence' and 'the darkest possible material'? You mean because I mentioned DV stats, honour killings and other atrocities women face in Pakistan? It was relevant to the discussion, and no one objected.

You know perfectly well why I mentioned strangling. It was specifically in the context first of why it's legitimate to discuss this kind of issue on MN (using it as an example of a disturbing but relevant issue which is discussed on FWR), and then of women increasingly suffering this kind of violence unprompted from men who think it's normal due to online content, making VAWG unfortunately extremely relevant to now.

Do you come to MN to discuss anything other than violence against women?

View my post history, I've discussed plenty of topics.

The niqab thread is about general misogyny, not VAWG specifically.

You know perfectly well why I mentioned strangling

Yes,I do. Because it was already on your mind and you wanted to talk about it.

When someone raises a concern that you’re displaying a morbid fascination and your instinct is to bring up strangulation in response, that is you trying to expand the discussion, not provide context. It hadn’t been mentioned by anyone else and was completely irrelevant. So yes, I know perfectly well why you brought it up, and so do other posters.

The wide eyed “am I naive” opener doesn’t even remotely match the reality of your posting history. You haven't just stumbled into this conversation, you’re on dozens of threads all circling violence against women from every possible angle. Nobody arrives at that level of research by being naive.
The contrast is glaring. The innocent act in the op does not match the obsessive breadth of material you keep bringing here.

Let’s be honest, the confused act about statistics were just a pretext. The real goal was to have yet another discussion about violence to women.

I have participated on some threads about VAWG, chiefly on FWR. I started a thread on the Midlands attacks on Sikh women as I felt they hadn't got enough attention, for one. I have certainly not participated in 'dozens' of threads on it, or in an inappropriate way. Most threads I've posted on were not about VAWG.

I have also participated in threads on, among other subjects: Kittens, lycees, motability, cheerleading, Corbyn and Your Party, Shein, Gaza, Shabana Mahmood, Strictly, being British, BBC, autism, 'chavs', salaries, immigration, fireworks, Dubai, social status, therapy culture, Taylor Swift.

Are these 'dozens' of threads about VAWG, 'all circling from every possible angle' with 'obsessive breadth'?

You are blatantly distorting the facts. Why are you doing this?

I looked at your post history very briefly earlier - how come you started TWO threads about the attacks on Sikh women (one under a different name)?

Because the second was about the fear of the wider Sikh community after 2 attacks, and nobody else had posted about it afaik, I thought it should be discussed. The first thread was just about the first attack, which I posted about for the same reason (because I couldn't see any other threads on it & thought it should be discussed) under my previous username.

I don't see anything wrong with drawing attention to these attacks and the wider effect on Sikh women in that area.

I guess it's just a bit confusing that you seem to be really concerned with VAWG, yet the whole basis of this thread was that you didn't believe (and were even offended by) the suggestion that around a third of men would commit such acts.

I am very concerned by it and still think it's not as spread across the male population as that. There's been plenty of high-profile cases where assailants have offended a lot of times before being caught - and that's just the ones who are caught.

Otoh, I am beginning to rethink this after pps.

I’m not distorting anything. The pattern is undeniable. You collect enormous amounts of disturbing material and keep dropping it into a parenting forum, framing it as context or discussion.

Theres no lived experience behind any of it, just information hoovered up and regurgitated in lecture form. You collect articles on women’s suffering like other people collect recipes. It’s performative, right down to the teacher tone and the intellectual flex you keep trying to pull.

Women here don’t need you explaining these topics at them as if you’re some sort of expert. I don’t think you even understand it. You treat violence like a hobby, and you treat us like the audience for it. We’re not. You use this forum and the women on it as an outlet for what is a deeply unhealthy obsession.

Its weird, unhealthy and obvious.

I looked at your post history very briefly earlier - how come you started TWO threads about the attacks on Sikh women (one under a different name)?

This poster has no idea how their behaviour looks to others. I think this person has been indulging this morbid fascination across various forums for years.

Apologies for resurrecting this thread : but I've been reading Diana Souhami's travelogue Coconut Chaos recently, which is about Pitcairn and deals with the abuse case as well as the previous history.

I do think Pitcarn says more about wider male behaviour than one wants to think...but otoh, I also think Pitcairn was an exceptionally horrible situation with some factors which are not shared by most normal societies. The colony itself was founded by aggressive, antisocial and sexually violent men : Fletcher Christian and his team of sailors, who had children via assaulting Polynesian women they kidnapped in the late 1700s. The population of the island was small to begin with and shrank further in the 1850s, leading to serious inbreeding. I don't normally set much store by genetic arguments, but there is evidence genes can predispose people tp certain kinds of behaviour. This obviously does NOT mean the abusers on Pitcairn had no choice : what it does mean is that they probably had innate tendencies to sexual violence and aggressive/antisocial behaviour, above and beyond men in a regular society.