[new_corp_dev]

> "Teach men not to rape."

That is word-for-word the way I hear it phrased, and no context can make it right. It implies that men are rapists who don't know any better, and need educated on what rape is and how not to do it. It implies that all men are sociopaths, and need to be taught basic human empathy.

Saying that all/many/most men are rapists is an unsupportable claim, as in much of the Western world rape has been (and still is) defined specifically as unwanted male-on-female penetration. Until statistics can be presented that have substantiated backing, this is an unfair assessment.

"Teach X not to Y" is an ineffective method for preventing Y. You can put everyone in the world in a class telling them not to mug, murder, rape, pillage, stab, shoot, or use the Oxford Comma. People will still act according to their own personal motivations and (presence or lack of) morals. If I want to prevent myself from being mugged, I will learn to recognize the sort of dangerous situations that could lead to that eventuality. I will take personal responsibility for my safety. I will also understand that there will be times that there was nothing I could have reasonably done to prevent it from happening, if it should.

[electronvolt]

See, I really don't get that from "Teach men not to rape". All I see it implying is that there are men who rape--this is indisputable, with most reported rapes being male on male or male on female, and almost all of my female friends in the past either having experienced either a rape or a sexual assault by a man. That doesn't make me a rapist any more than it makes you a rapist: but it makes some men out there rapists. Consider the studies cited here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/05/01/campus_sexua...

If the numbers agreed with you, then I'd say that "teach X not to Y" being ineffective was true.

However, the numbers really don't agree with you, given the repeated case of things like this being effective: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/dont-be...

And even for things like muggings/theft, a lot of the time the crime is an impulsive act, and there's also evidence that you can teach people to avoid making that impulsive jump to mugging/etc. It's a bit more complicated than just telling people "Don't mug", but something pretty much resembling "Teach X not to Y" is used by the US Govt. to reduce recidivism in criminal offenders: https://www.crimesolutions.gov/ProgramDetails.aspx?ID=242 and there's a large body of research that shows that it's effective. (There are other studies of similar CBT based programs in inner city schools with similarly good effects on people who aren't yet criminals but are likely to become criminal.)

[new_corp_dev]

You don't get that it's offensive to men to say "teach men not to rape"?

What about "teach black people not to murder"? Does that not sound incredibly racist to you? If it does, and I really hope it does, what is the effective difference? After all, there is ample data that the majority of murders are by blacks.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/...

Regardless of the effectiveness of "Don't Be That Guy", the ends do not justify the means. It would also be effective to immediately throw into prison the people most "at risk" to commit a crime, but that does not make it morally right. After all, how well do you think a "Don't Be That Black Guy" campaign would go over in Detroit?

[electronvolt]

> What about "teach black people not to murder"? Does that not sound incredibly racist to you? If it does, and I really hope it does, what is the effective difference? After all, there is ample data that the majority of murders are by blacks.

Phrased like that, yes, it does sound a little racist. However, your point is slightly facetious: I think you and I are both aware that the statistical link between murder and blackness is poverty (i.e. control for poverty/neighborhood and the link between murder and blackness goes away), which is exacerbated in the US by a lot of structural racism/etc. that black people face.

However, from a practical standpoint, I believe that I actually advocated for exactly that, and I stand by my arguments: my point about CBT-based crime prevention (teaching people to not X)? Perhaps obviously, those programs are most effective at reducing criminal behavior from those who are most likely to commit crimes in the future. In the US, the places where they've been shown to be effective are for youth from high crime, poor urban neighborhoods and current prison inmates... both of which are populations that are predominantly black. I'd totally advocate for the expansion of programs like the ones I mentioned if they continue to show statistically significant results RE: reducing criminal behavior, and I think most people would. Teaching people who are most likely to commit criminal acts to instead not commit criminal acts is a net benefit to society and to those people. I'm not, I hope obviously, claiming that being black makes you criminal (or more likely to be a criminal) or that black people alone should be targeted with programs like the ones I mentioned regardless of location, risk, etc. at the expense of similarly high risk white people, in the same way that I'm not claiming that being a man makes you inherently a rapist.

RE: "Don't be that guy" and the ends do not justify the means: It's possible to come up with all kinds of exaggerated scenarios to argue this. I would agree that, say, killing all men to prevent male on female rape would be both very effective and completely unjust.

So let's keep in mind the comparison you're making here: we are talking about, variously, (a) a public advertising campaign about how it's bad to rape people versus actual rape, (b) a course that lasts a few days at the start of college or a week in middle or high school on the importance of consent (tbh, I'd claim it'd be good for it to be aimed at men and women) versus actual rape or (c) a month or semester long course on self control and healthy behaviors in middle/high school/prison versus actual mugging/assault/murder. The "means" we're talking about are not exactly things with a particularly high human cost, especially when compared to the "ends".

[new_corp_dev]

My example is not contrived at all, and equally relevant. You can take any feminist argument and search/replace "men" with "black people" and the underlying hate speech becomes readily apparent. The specific group of people does not particularly matter, it only highlights the very apparent cumulative effect this sort of feminism has had on convincing society as a whole that men are disposable enough to be talked about in such a manner.

If your "means" involve teaching young men that they are considered sociopathic abusive rapists by society and that they need extensive education to learn otherwise, and you do not consider that a "particularly high human cost" then I think we should leave this conversation as it is. Neither of us will be able to convince the other of our position, and we'll only talk in circles trying.

[electronvolt]

I don't think any sensible solution to rape or to crime involves "teaching young men that they are considered sociopathic abusive rapists by society" or even "teaching young black men that they are expected to be criminals." That really is only likely to increase crime/rape.

Rape prevention education is generally along the lines of "This is what consent is. It's important! If you don't get consent and have sex with someone, that's rape, and that's bad! These are situations where someone really isn't capable of consent: when they're incapacitated, if you're blackmailing them, if you're holding them down and they're verbally objecting, or really if you haven't gotten a clear and enthusiastic "Wow I want to bone you" from them. You may see someone try to have sex with someone else under those circumstances: that would make you a bystander! If you are a bystander, here are some things you can do to keep that person from raping someone: (a), (b), (c). Etc." Similarly, the crime prevention things I linked and referred to take a different tack of "These are ways to control your emotions and think through the consequences of your actions".

Your portrayal of it as anything else leads me to believe that you haven't ever gone through a rape prevention course and have done absolutely no research on what they usually entail. The reason I'd advise them for everyone is because they're valuable courses for women, too: both because if there's a explicit culture of "nobody is getting laid without an explicit 'yes'", it's shocking how quickly people will start actually getting explicit 'yes'es (See Antioch College), and because I've known of at least one woman who got a man extremely drunk, well beyond where he could remember or consent, and then had sex with him. (Spoiler alert: The guy there was me. I remembered none of it and only found out we'd done anything a few weeks later. I never pressed charges, sought help, or reported it, because like in many situations these things are complicated and she was a friend. When we discussed it later/I'd found out it happened, she didn't think she'd done anything wrong, and that was probably the most messed up part of it. Let's just say universal consent training is something I have personal reasons to feel strongly is important.)