Your Most Controversial Opinions!

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Do you realize that the rapist is not the crazed, inhumane monster you don't have anything remotely in common with?

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Sure.But women who rape are very rare.Most violent acts in general are done by men, and certainly most people convicted of violent crimes are men, not women.I still don't understand why it's wrong for me to be aware of this.

O.k., so it can be a brutal, violent world out there when you move from the cocoon, with sexual predators on the prowl waiting for their opportunity. You think quoting stats or laying blame will change anything? If women are too naive or reluctant to learn the basics of self-defence and still venture into precarious situations, then who`s responsible? Being involved in the martial arts scene for a couple of decades gave me an opportunity to hear the range of excuses:
'One day, I`ll get around to it'
'Too busy'
'Never happen to me'
'I can handle myself'
'Yuck, who needs it'
'Six months? I want to be an expert in two lessons'
'I`m married'. or its alternative 'I have a boyfriend'
'Not in my family'
'It looks too hard'
'I can practise one night a month, is that enough?’
'Men are too strong'And when you get them near a mat:
'Take off my jewellry/lipstick/cut my nails? Forget it'The main problem to overcome in most confronting situations is the shock factor when your life is overturned by family/friend/assault out of the blue, and you are like a rabbit transfixed in headlights. If you do react positively, it has to be effective. You can try verbal defence”pleas, threats, screams, but assailants usually pick their spots, and help is such a dodgy thing to rely on. Forget the knee to the cohones”perps are awake to that as a first defence.Weapons are frowned on by the law and judges unless you are the perp, so most times you won`t carry, and if you do, are you competent and are they near to hand?The only cure I`ve found is to practise all kinds of situations until you react with habit,with decision, with knowledge. It doesn`t take forever to learn the basics, where to avoid, backup methods, best approaches.You might even enjoy the training. Sure, you mightn`t win, or even survive in a determined attack, but at least you improved your chances, faced the demons and didn`t give them an easy victory. And possibly changed the stats.Btw, that`s a generic ”you’

Thank you for this very candid admission, Schraf. It can't have been easy. But you did say you wanted people to feel disturbed. The brevity of your introspection when confronted with your own challenge--one word--suggests you find the idea every bit as disturbing as you intended. It seems we are all in the same boat.You make an excellent point in suggesting it is too glib to say 'I'm not like those creatures. They're monsters and I'm not.' But surely you recognize that it's just as glib to say 'I'm not like those creatures. They're men and I'm not.' It's the same gambit.We distance ourselves from our own capacity for aggression by telling ourselves all the crime is 'out there' somewhere. That other person has a shadow side. Not us.The truth is that all human beings have a will to power. We are all capable of aggression. We all tend to become predatory in the presence of weakness. We can all behave in hostile ways to people who don't deserve it.Women show just as much tendency to aggression as men. Men, as you note, are more likely to inflict the pain through physical means. Nature has endowed males with an advantage over their female peers in this department. Women favor using social mechanisms--words, alliances, stigmatizing, ostracism--to deliver their beatings. Nature has endowed females with an advantage over their male peers in this department.The gap in style between the genders begins in childhood. It is widest in early adulthood and gradually closes afterward.The type of physical aggression favored by males confers an advantage in war zones and wilderness--places where human social structures have relatively little traction. There, one is obliged to fight the kind of physical war we call 'hand to hand.' The type of social aggression favored by females confers an advantage in communities where complex social structures are in place. There, physical violence is condemned and punished. One is obliged to fight the kind of social war that does not get a person arrested.Pockets of each environment can exist inside the other. We speak of a wilderness having 'an oasis of civilization' and a city having an 'urban war zone.' One can live day-to-day in one arena and still find oneself thrust, with little warning, into the other. In such situations people are capable of suprising, even shocking shifts in behavior. I don't see why it's wrong for any of us to be aware of all of this.Thank you for raising the subject.___

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I get the feeling that I and others are subtly being labelled by yourself as some cruel and misunderstanding "other".Am I or am I not allowed to respectfully question your positions without being judged as an apologist for rape?Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

LOL....The notion of New York and romance having anything in common just kills me!

Now this makes me laugh!Crash, everyone knows that the "platonic and understanding best friend act" is the oldest charm trick in the book! Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

I can personally see my capacity to end a life. One does this with conviction. however I do not have the capacity to rape.

OK, so Pittsburgh gets token representation if we stretch the city limits to include Punxsutawney. Exceptions that prove the rule.Does anyone ever fall in love in Detroit? Richmond? San Diego?Even when people from Seattle and Baltimore fall for each other the movie has to end in Manhattan.__

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Bill Paxton, while occasionally amusing (in the distant past) is a malfunctioning robot. I would rather die before paying money to see him in another movie.

I'm curious what evidence you have for this apparently counterfactual statement. From where I'm sitting, men constitute more than 95% of convictions for violent crimes, which pretty strongly suggests that, in fact, men and women are not equal in their aggressive tendencies. Nobody ever died from losing a friend. Your attempt to equivocate boorish social manners with rape and murder is specious at best. And your boldly inaccurate statements and sweeping generalizations of differing gender trends - "nature made women to be gossips" - are hamfisted and ridiculous, and I notice that you supply absolutely no evidence to suggest that these are anything but society's stereotypes for how the sexes are "supposed" to be.

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O.k., so it can be a brutal, violent world out there when you move from the cocoon, with sexual predators on the prowl waiting for their opportunity. You think quoting stats or laying blame will change anything?

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Yes, in that when good, non-violent men wake up to the fact that it's likely that some of their buddies aren't so good or non-violent towards women, they won't tolerate it in their friends.Women can't make men stop. Only men can do that.

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If women are too naive or reluctant to learn the basics of self-defence and still venture into precarious situations, then who`s responsible?

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I'd say that the person who commits the violence is responsible for the violence.And just what do you describe as a "precarious situation", anyway?A date?You do realize that most rapes are not "a man jumps out from behind the bushes in a dark alleyway in the dodgy part of town", don't you?Most rapes are committed by someone known to the victim. Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

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Women show just as much tendency to aggression as men.

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Maybe, maybe not. I'd like to see some back-up for that claim.

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Men, as you note, are more likely to inflict the pain through physical means.

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Yes, exactly.

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Women favor using social mechanisms--words, alliances, stigmatizing, ostracism--to deliver their beatings. Nature has endowed females with an advantage over their male peers in this department.

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Yeah, but so what? I was talking about rape which is in large part a physical attack (albeit with a psychological terrorism/domination component),

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The type of physical aggression favored by males confers an advantage in war zones and wilderness

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...and in interpersonal relationships when the man believes he is entitled to sex and/or control over another.Yes, women can be agressibve in ostracizing people, but so what?That has nothing to do with rape...which is what we are talking about.Why do you want to talk about the alliance-based manouverings that women often engage in when the subject is the violent crime of rape?I mean, why bring that up at all?

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I get the feeling that I and others are subtly being labelled by yourself as some cruel and misunderstanding "other".

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No, not cruel, but possibly misunderstanding.

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Am I or am I not allowed to respectfully question your positions without being judged as an apologist for rape?

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Of course you are, and I haven't read anything by you in this thread that I find objectionable in the least. I don't think you've been an apologist for rape.It's just that I can tell that Crashfrog "gets it". He gets it like other women "get it".

Except the ones who committed/attempted suicide? Many girls suffer years of systematic gossiping at school. My own sister was haunted by it. It's a common problem. Ah hem.Stop School Bullying: Topics of Interest--Bullying Among GirlsDo please get off your politically-correct high-horse! If you have a daughter/sister just ask them about girls and bullying - this ain't no mystery. Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

The rapist. Duh.See, prosecuting someone for committing a crime against you isn't contingent on you meeting society's expectation that you "take responsibility", etc. Society is the one with the responsibility to make public streets safe for human travel. Not rape victims.I don't disagree with your recommendations for personal defense - indeed, I've advocated them in the past - but you need to be more careful how you frame it. Not everybody has the physical capacity to be a martial artist - the handicapped, for instance. Not everybody has the time. And insinuating that, if a woman didn't study martial arts for six months, she has no right to walk down a public street without being raped is pretty insulting and demeaning.