Dear Internet Interlocutor, criticising rape jokes does not mean censorship of rape jokes, so how is bringing up free speech relevant again?
My latest comment responding to somebody objecting to Melissa McEwan’s statement that “rape jokes are rape culture” in her Rape Culture 101 post which was crossposted to Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog.
but every one has the right of expression and freedom of speech. This includes expressing rude or inconvenient things.
Having the right to do something does not make doing that thing a moral act. Having the right to do something does not mean that others do not have a right to respond to that action negatively and make a judgement on the character of those who do that action. Freedom of speech does not and has never ever meant freedom from criticism.
People who make lazy/nasty rape jokes just for shock value are self-entitled insensitive jerks, it is right and proper to call them out for being self-entitled insensitive jerks, it does not infringe upon their right of expression or freedom of speech to call them self-entitled insensitive jerks. People being self-entitled insensitive jerks about rape IS rape culture.
Nobody is trying to take away their right to be self-entitled insensitive jerks, they’re just telling them that self-entitled insensitive jerks is what they are.
Oddly enough, many many many people do not like and do not want to be around self-entitled insensitive jerks. It’s a bit rich for the self-entitled insensitive jerks to then moan about being criticised and/or avoided because of their free choice to engage in free expression of speech that others find creepy and/or triggering.
Expanding a bit, social penalties such as criticism, disapproving looks and even outright ostracism do not infringe upon one’s rights to freedom of expression/speech. They are not legal penalties, they are other people exercising their own rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association. There is no right to freedom from other people deciding that one’s actions appear to be those of a self-entitled insensitive jerk and telling others that this is their opinion of one’s character.
Can these social penalties be used in a restrictive/biased/oppressive fashion? Yes they can, just like that freedom of speech that this guy is so keen to defend. All freedoms to act come with the freedom of other people to react negatively; with criticism, disapproval, scorn, disgust, anger and more. None of these reactions infringe upon anyone else’s rights or freedoms no matter how vociferously they are expressed, as long as they do not violate the integrity of anyone’s person or property. None of these reactions is free from negative responses from yet more others in turn.
This makes the “bbbbbbut – FREE SPEECH” argument irrelevant to engaging with criticism of an act of free expression. The criticism is about the moral/ethical aspects of what has been expressed. Stop whingeing about having the right to express what you did and own your responsibility for any negative responses to your expression. You expressed it, so you elicited the response, and you can’t demand only positive responses. It’s fine to end up saying that you don’t care about negative responses and you plan to keep on doing the same thing, but it’s not fine to argue that others have no right to express their negative responses to it.
Now, dear readers, as a little exercise for the little grey cells this Monday morning, what other perfectly legal acts can you think of that mark the performer as a self-entitled insensitive jerk yet nobody is planning to make actually illegal? (And let’s note right up front before a critic chimes in – many people see aborting a pregnancy as the act of a self-entitled insensitive jerk and they are planning to make it illegal, so that doesn’t count.)
I’ll start with:
- Abandoning a pet.
- Having an affair if one is not in an “open” partnership.
- Divorcing a loving spouse because they get older/fatter and you want a fancier trophy partner.
Wotcha got?
Similar Posts:
- Feminism Friday: More on how Rape Jokes Just Aren’t Funny by tigtog
- Quotes OTD: Self-Proclaimed Good Guy Who Simply Won’t Take No For An Answer by tigtog
- Internet Censorship on MMM’s Spoonman Part Two: with Iinet’s Steve Dalby by Lauredhel
- Draconian, repugnant and unnecessary by tigtog
- Due process? by tigtog
{ 70 comments }
← Previous Comments
Scolding your kids for letting their bad mood spill into other people’s lives when all they did was answer in monosyllables and not smile sweetly at the world.
Proceeding to let your own bad mood ruin the entire family’s day not just by not smiling, but by shouting, scolding and generally being an ass to everyone.
Refuse to eat cheap and thus boring foods in order to save money for that dental treatment your partner needs but cannot yet afford, insisting that a glass of wine a couple of times a week is necessary for your quality of life.
Be late for appointments and letting others pick up your slack, because you were out on a date with your girl/boyfriend and totally lost track of time. (This is semi-excusable if you’re still a teen)
Complain that the partner you’ve decided to divorce is getting the better deal in the divorce, when you conveniently forgot to tell them you’d been planning to divorce them for a couple of years and then had help for three years rebuilding the house that you’ll be keeping.
Be offended when your wronged partner points out the above.
Be offended that the partner you’ve decided to divorce wants to be out of your house ASAP.
I know there seems to be a theme to this – and the common denominator is my father, who has been such a self-entitled jerk to my mum (and us kids) for so long, I don’t know how she’s kept going. And now he’s the one leaving her.
@ tigtog. Sorry about the use of your name in upper case. Your name is in upper case at the top of this page and I thought I was doing the polite thing by copying it. It’s not shouting to me. Shouting is something I do with my voice. And I didn’t go to any special trouble using upper case either. I merely hit the “Caps Lock” key and off I went………
The use of the lethal injection comment was merely an exageration, like if I had said something like “He made me so angry my head nearly exploded.” Of course my head didn’t nearly explode it’s just a colourful exaggeration.
@Anna. Yes of course abandoning a pet is only something someone with an intellectual disability would do. For fucks sake, it was merely ONE possible fucking example.
@Lauredhel. My nephew drives because he has legally obtained his driver’s licence from the Department of Motor Registry. Forget the vision, it’s the lack of concentration that really scares the shit out of me when he gets behind the wheel. He is a grown man with a legal driver’s licence and there’s nothing I can do about that.
Now I can see that you lot are spoiling for a fight but today is too nice a day and I really couldn’t be bothered, so I’m off to hang out with some nice women. Seeya!
Sure you can.
The grandmother of a family I know suffers from severe short-term memory loss and oncoming dementia, and retains a perfectly legal driver licence. Because she used to forget where she was and where she was going while she was on the road, and had to be driven home more than once by the Police, her children got together and took her car keys away.
She hated it and resented them for the explicit denial of her own freedom of movement, but it was honestly for her own good and for that of other people. Someone who’s unable to concentrate enough to park in one spot should really not be behind the wheel of a car.
I’ve got another one: leaving offensive, upsetting comments on blogs, then not checking one’s privilege, ignoring people’s objections and doing it all again. And THEN putting it all onto the people whose lives get affected by attitudes you’ve just displayed!
Organizing work schedules to suit support workers’ timetables even though those schedules do not match with the needs of the person requiring support, suddenly deciding to replace one worker with another without providing an opportunity for transition and introduction and then pathologizing and scapegoating the person who points out that this is unacceptable.
But on the other hand- 2) ringing service providers and saying “this would not have occurred if you had done your job properly in the first place and stop treating us as charity cases, we do not have to be grateful for poor service provision” and then slamming phone down, when you know that it is in your child’s best interests to cultivate a good relationship with the service. *sigh*
I haz been a jerk a couple of times in the last 2 weeks -urk. And of course-it’s all about meeeee :/
You know, su, until you left that comment, it didn’t occur to me how incredibly shitty Don’s homecare workers are being.
He’s had the same personc ome by once a week to wash his hair, trim his beard, and make sure his back gets a very thorough wash and that he’s *clean*, and she’s just started a new job. We haven’t even heard when the new person is coming, what their name is, or anything at all about them. We haven’t even heard *from the agency* that is *being paid* about this change.
And, it didn’t actually occur to me quite how shitty that behavior is.
So sorry to hear that, Anna, it really is shitty, just so disrespectful. And yes they are being PAID and yet they treat the people most intimately involved as if they were somehow tangential to the process. As if they were an employment agency for their workers rather than, you know, an agency for supporting People. Gaah.
I am a big fan of the direct funding model, where funding is allocated directly to the people who need it and they can buy the services they need. It could be a case of the grass is always greener but it has to be better than the system we have here where services act like they are charities dispensing aid gratis /rant.
Clambering past the eau-de-bridge left behind by Shelby, I merely observe that it’s most odd to look to an all uppercase byline as an indication of how someone presents their handle rather than, say, the comment just upthread to which one is replying. Also, I have severe doubts that someone whose IP number changes with every single comment would have graduated to that sort of internet configuration without at some time previously encountering the detail that electronic forums view all-uppercase as shouting.
The whole “I was just joking” or “I was just exaggerating for effect” is not a get-out-of-saying-something-offensive-free card. At best, it’s a slight mitigation that perhaps one wasn’t intentionally being offensive, merely being unthinkingly insensitive instead of being maliciously insensitive. But if it doesn’t come packaged with an “I’m so sorry that I used those words and I regret that they upset you” then it’s just dodging responsibility for one’s poor choice of words.
I’m also pretty sure that in just about every jurisdiction the police are willing to receive a complaint about someone whose vision makes it unsafe for them to drive and able to act upon that complaint to do their own assessment and to then if necessary confiscate that person’s driving license. One’s local desk sergeant would be able to advise on the proper way to proceed, and the driver in question need never know who made the complaint.
su and Anna, I’m most sad to read of such disrespectful treatment from carer agencies. I have nothing to add other than (((((su, Anna))))) hugs
@tigtog. I genuinely hope that you don’t post this comment because I’d rather speak directly to you and not the whole bunch here, but when you say “I merely observe that it’s most odd to look to an all uppercase byline as an indication of how someone presents their handle rather than, say, the comment just upthread to which one is replying. ” it sounds to me as if I am being discriminated against because I looked at the top of the page to find the author of this piece. I’m so fucking sorry I looked at the top of the page to find the fucking author.
Then when you said “I have severe doubts that someone whose IP number changes with every single comment would have graduated to that sort of internet configuration without at some time previously encountering the detail that electronic forums view all-uppercase as shouting.” tigtog I have no idea what a fucking IP number is, let alone how it changes or what significance that could possibly have. You can no doubt see my actual real name from my email address. That don’t change.
I used to come here because I found the stories interesting. All I fucking said, basically, was that people who corner me on purpose with their own agenda and won’t shut up give me the fucking shits. Now I found I’ve been pounced on by all and sundry for something that wasn’t intentional and despite apologising I find that you continue to make assumptions about me.
And if you think I’m going to hang out at the police station every time I see a fucked driver, then you are delusional.
I’m really angry now. Thank you for ruining my fucking day. I won’t be back.
Shelby, as you have not been placed into moderation your comment was published automatically.
You say you have apologised. Apologies do not required continued self-justification. The claim that you didn’t intend to offend does not excuse you from having been offensive. Lack of intent to offend may mean that you are not a deliberately/gleefully insensitive jerk, but the continued self-justification is making that appear less and less likely. If you just dropped the self-justification, people would not keep responding. Of course, if you are trolling, it’s working beautifully. Well done you.
Blaming everyone else for ruining your mood/day, when you’re completely free to go away and not read/listen/partake.
Check.
Jemima: Internet comments can ruin your day. To say otherwise is speaking from a position of privilege.
Back to the topic: People who work in the child care profession and talk about children who have been sexually abused as a huge inconvenience to you.
Hey areshole, get the fuck away from my kids!
Of course they can. I’ve had my days ruined multiple times, difference is I blame only myself for being stupid enough to read stuff I know holds a risk of being hurtful. Read my post again for better understanding. I did not claim they couldn’t ruin your day. The problem is not the comments, the problem is the apparent idea that you had no option to avoid those comments.
Shelby was well aware that it would ruin her mood to hang out here – she stated so herself – and yet she returns on the same day Nov 13th and then accuses everyone here of ruining her day, when it would have been easy for her to simply stay away like she said she would.
Unless of course she has something akin to a compulsion, in which case we’re talking about something entirely different.
Jemima: Or you could be having the comments delivered directly to your inbox. where it’s really hard to avoid them.
Look, I’m not agreeing with her stance, not even talking about it. I am talking directly about your comment.
It really struck a chord. Here’s an example of an internet comment ruining my day. Sure, I could have just walked away. But what was said was still said, and yeah, it ruined my day. And the fact that every time that person made a reply it was sent straight to my inbox made it kinda hard to avoid.
Ouch, yeah, I can see how that’d ruin your day. I’m sorry. And the jerk actually called it a flounce when it was merely self-presevation. Yich.
Still, though, comments delivered in my Inbox can still be left unopened for days. I don’t know what mail program/site you’re using obviously, but if I’ve concluded that comments on a specific blogpost will be potentially hurtful, then I can still leave them in my Inbox for a time when I feel ready to deal with the crap – or not deal at all and just delete them. Admittedly it took me quite a while to learn that I did not owe anyone my attention, but that’s not everyone else’s fault.
Of course things overlap, and while it is their fault that they’re being hurtful, it’s not their fault that I choose to read anyway. If it was the first comment and it caught me by surprise, yes, then there was nothing I could have done, and it’d be their fault. But if it was the third comment, and I could see where it was going, and then contrary to better judgment going back to read more, then it’s me ruining my day. They’re still being jerks (or maybe they’re not, depending on who’s being the self-entitled one) and that doesn’t change, but as long as I have every chance in the world to not expose myself to their presence, I can’t really blame them alone for ruining my day. Same reason I don’t show up to nazi-meetings and other racist bull. It’ll ruin my day or even week/month, so I stay away.
@PharaohKatt,
My own position was initially more closely aligned with Jemima’s, but receiving the comment notifications from FF101 regularly in my mailbox makes me appreciate your point quite viscerally. I hope for support for the arguments I’m making, and am often confronted with vitriol instead, and it is a burden.
Shelby, like any other new commenter, is still Schrödinger’s Troll for me – I don’t know what will be found when/if the box unfolds, and until it is fully open I am wary. Especially when other signs appear to point to the undesirable result. Could those signs be a coincidence, and not necessarily The Mark of The Troll? Of course. But I do not apologise for being wary of Schrödinger’s Troll, just as I am wary of Schrödinger’s Rapist, Schrödinger’s Racist, Schrödinger’s Fat-Hater and all the rest.
Jemima & tigtog:
Yup, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the discussion.
Thanks to you both as well. I suppose, what with my blog being rather unknown, I’m spared much of the Inbox horrors others receive. It’s fairly easy for me to delete one or two messages, I can see why it’ll be a strain to have 50 times that amount. Most of my experience comes from messageboards, and goodness knows I’ve had my share of ruined days on them.
But that brings me back to the actual topic, with one of those examples:
Questioning someone’s sanity because their opinion differs from your own.
That ones pisses me off so bad every time.
Oh yes, I know what you mean. It’s a nice way to ignore someone’s argument with a little ableism thrown in. Blech.
can i add that, free speech doesn’t extend to private spaces.
If i organise a conference, then you’re gonna stick to our rules. In our conference there are no rape jokes by speakers allowed. This isn’t a restiction on anyone’s free speech – they can go organise their own conference, and i’ll express my disgust at their special “rape jokes allowed” conference.
← Previous Comments
Comments on this entry are closed. If you wish to re-open this discussion, please leave a comment on the latest Open Thread.