When Solid Gold Bomb withdrew the 'rape' garment it also posted a statement on its website which said: "We have been informed of the fact that we were selling an offensive T-shirt primarily in the UK.
"This has been immediately deleted as it was and had been automatically generated using a scripted computer process running against 100s of thousands of dictionary words."
Not on sale: computer generated t shirt advocating rape.
>Not on sale: computer generated t shirt advocating rape.
Assuming this is a computer generated t-shirt as you and OP suggest, how can anyone be certain that the shirt refers to rape as in forced intercourse?
More often than not when I hear someone use the word rape, they are not talking about forced intercourse. Rather they are using the word rape as a synonym for "debellatio", having nothing to do with a sex.
Examples:
1. I just took my final exam and I raped it.
2. Did you see the superbowl? SF was getting raped until the second half, then they made it a good game.
If the rape t-shirt was not made by a human, but an algorithm, can anyone say for certain that the algorithm intended to mean rape as in forced intercourse or rape as in debellatio or any other definition whether it comes from urbandictionary or Websters?
The usage you cite here is indeed common, and the fact that it is common is a terrible thing. I'm not going to repeat a dozen other posts in this thread, but this usage does a great deal to normalize rape in our culture: it makes actual rape seem a routine part of life. Regardless of the intent of the speaker, this usage encourages actual rapists to believe that their peers don't see rape as a big deal, which in turn makes them more likely to rape. (I'm not an expert on this stuff so I don't have a whole list of links at hand to back up these statements, but pretty much every actual expert that I've seen writing about this topic seems to agree. I've given a couple of links for formal support in earlier posts here.)
>The usage you cite here is indeed common, and the fact that it is common is a terrible thing.
+1 because I agree, and I know you disagreed with me on another comment, but I want to make clear I personally do not use this word in this context.
> Regardless of the intent of the speaker, this usage encourages actual rapists to believe that their peers don't see rape as a big deal, which in turn makes them more likely to rape. (I'm not an expert on this stuff so I don't have a whole list of links at hand to back up these statements, but pretty much every actual expert that I've seen writing about this topic seems to agree. I've given a couple of links for formal support in earlier posts here.)
I will obviously defer to the experts; however, to be honest it is hard to apply that logic to a real life example I have been known to use:
Did you see the superbowl? SF was getting KILLED until the second half, then they made it a good game.
I have used kill and killed in the sports context, so according to the experts logic my usage of kill/killed does a great to normalize killing in our culture, and it makes actual killing seem a routine part of life. I find it harder to believe that by using kill/killed in this context I may have encouraged my peers to not see killing as a big deal, which in turn makes them more likely to kill.
"I want to make clear I personally do not use this word in this context."
Oh, good! :)
As for your later point, again, I'm not an expert on this either, but I'd guess that context is essential for these things. I've lived my entire life in communities where lethal force was essentially never used, and just from the fact that you participate in this forum I think it's pretty likely that the same is true for you. In that context, I don't think there's an existing cultural norm that killing is routine for your comment to reinforce.
However, I might guess that the same would not have been true in Northern Ireland at many points in the past century, or in some American inner city neighborhoods today (or in a foxhole in the Vietnam war, for that matter). In those contexts, I would worry a lot more that language like what you describe would indeed reinforce the broad existing societal expectation of violence, and that it would contribute a little bit toward encouraging those around you to devalue human life. In fact, my impression is that it's only been quite recently in the history of civilization that significant fractions of humanity have been lucky enough to grow up without such norms; heck, dueling was still an accepted (or even expected) way of settling grudges in the early days of US independence (e.g. Burr and Hamilton). It's entirely possible that the usage you describe is a linguistic holdover from that earlier era.
Women, meanwhile, have been stuck living out their lives in rape-Belfast more or less forever. It's only very recently that that's started to change, anywhere.
a) Does it matter what the "intent" was, if the result is very offensive and advocates rape? Edit: Intent matters, but knowing the computer meant something else doesn't change the meaning of this item for a lot of people.
b) Your examples are offensive, and I don't appreciate people who carelessly use the word "rape" like that. You might think it's OK in some twisted way, but it's probably worse than calling random things "gay" even though they have nothing to do with homosexuality.
>You might think it's OK in some twisted way, but it's probably worse than calling random things "gay" even though they have nothing to do with homosexuality.
I never said it was OK - I simply asked how does anyone know which definition an algorithm selected and does it matter? I thought you gave an insightful answer noting intent matters, but in this case you feel it does not because either use is offensive.
I did give the examples of how I have heard rape used in non-sexual contexts, and I am sorry if you were offended - but more importantly it is you who personally gets offensive by saying I am OK with that usage in some "twisted way". Did I ever say I was OK with it? No. In fact I go out of my way to explain that is how I have heard it used, but that is not enough you go on to say my being OK with using the word rape in a non-sexual context (which I don't) is worse than some form of homophobia where one calls things "gay".
Please do not make up behvior I do NOT engage in and then compare it to other forms of behavior I do not engage in.
Finally, you may have unknowingly brought up real insight to who you are, because even if I or others were to call something "gay" who is not to say it is being done using the traditional definition of gay meaning "happy or joyous"? Are you offended the same way when people use "gay" to describe something as "happy or joyous" having nothing to do with homosexuality, the same way you get offended when others use "rape" in a non-sexual context?
It's hard for me to read your original post in a way that does not imply, "This would not be as troubling if the word 'rape' was not intended to refer to forced intercourse." That may not be equivalent to saying, "This usage is OK", but its certainly suggests that you'd see less reason for concern if a (supposedly) non-sexual definition were intended. If that wasn't your intent, I think your original post was rather unclear.
As for your final paragraph here, I'm pretty sure that you know perfectly well what the previous poster meant. Nobody actually confuses my grandmother happily exclaiming, "Oh, the decorations in this room are so gay!" (true story) with a seventh grader dismissively saying, "Social studies is so gay!" Discussions like this one proceed far more smoothly when everyone avoids deliberately misconstruing each other's words.
> Nobody actually confuses my grandmother happily exclaiming, "Oh, the decorations in this room are so gay!" (true story)
Notice how you had to qualify your hypothetical statement with "grandmother", re-read your own statement without your qualifier: "the decorations in this room are so gay!"? Still think "nobody" would confuse that?
Honestly, if you change your qualifier it only becomes more confusing what that statement means or which definition is intended:
1. What about your hypothetical seventh grader what would it mean if the seventh grader said, "the decorations in this room are so gay!"? Does it automatically become offensive unlike your grandmother saying it? What if the seventh grader was LGBT?
2. Finally, please tell me what an algorithm means when it automates the same statement, "the decorations in this room are so gay!"? Is the algorithm your grandmother or the seventh-grader?
The key words are 'happily' and 'dismissively'. If an algorithm is saying something then check its tone. If it's using text to make a statement have it add some smilies. Smiles are great for non-native speakers.
I suspect that the English "rape" has its roots in the Latin "rapio", which is very much not about sexual conduct--though the meaning clearly could be mutated over time (as it seems to have been) to mean forced intercourse.
EDIT: For a further stack trace, consider "enrapture", derived from "rapture", itself derived from the future form of "rapio": http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rapture .
And people say that a classical education and liberal arts is useless. :)
Except for when it's a plant (canola, a.k.a. Rape/Rape-seed).
I get your point, though, but it was clearly generated by a computer, as are all the other shirts in that companies "KEEP CALM AND ______ ON" line. Most of them don't make any sense whatsoever.
The computer doesn't "mean" any particular use of the word, because it's a computer, and couldn't tell the contextual difference between "rape" and "yell" or "run".
The fault here is a poorly (or not at all) checked pool of words, and no human interaction between "generate slogan" and "submit to Amazon"
The dictionary gives 3 examples of rape in a non-sexual context. Again, know that I am not saying the t-shirt was not offensive or in bad taste generally, I certainly would never buy it or wear it if given to me (no one I know would give it to me).
At the same time, in a hypothetical where an automated Google car hit someone, would it make sense to yell and the Google car and say watch where you are going? See in this exagerated example, it becomes clear I am soliciting insight to human interaction to an automated system that did not have intent.
I saw the show in 2001 and still remember how hard it was to not cringe at that word even though the context was clearly different and the show was comedy.
I am not saying that a shirt advocating more kidnapping would be appropriate, but thought you might appreciate the alternate use of the word from a historical perspective.
If either of those phrases was printed on a t-shirt, it would be just as offensive. Your examples still propagate rape culture by trivializing victims of rape.
I would suggest most people would disagree with your primary definition which seems to have been taken from Urban Dictionary; your argument is rather specious.
I did not say it was my primary definition, I simply said when I hear the word spoken (I did not say when I use it), more often than not, it is being in a non-sexual context. My primary definition would be that of any other human, but that is the point the shirt was not created by a human it could have picked the word based on another definition, such as Urban Dictionary like you mention.
>your argument is rather specious.
What arguement? I asked a question in context of the algoritm picking the word/phrase. For those offended, would it matter the intent/definition of the word? I did not make an arguement on behalf of any position.
As far as Urban dictionary, I do not think you are likely to find the word "deballatio" in the urban dictionary. My examples aside (which again are real life examples how I have heard it used, not how I have used it), I defined rape in a non-sexual context as a "deballtio", which admittedly is not a real definition and some could argue "debellatio" is as offensive if not more so than rape.
You're living in a dream world! Rape means forced intercourse. Nobody says "sf was getting raped until the second half" - nobody except a complete moron with the sensitivity of a very insensitive thing. Among my friends, someone saying those example sentences would make the others there cringe and feel embarrassed by the person talking like that.
This post will examine the use of a term 'raped' to mean 'suffer significant setbacks in a sports game' on Twitter, specifically regarding the Superbowl. It will make no moral judgement for or against the use of the term.
I could look for some more, and easily find them, but you get the picture.
Conclusion: The term 'raped' is widely used to mean 'suffer significant setbacks or defeat in a sports match'. I will hereby question who is living in a fantasy world where "nobody says" these things. I will ALSO note the irony of calling all these people out for being insensitive while using the term "retarded", which may be offensive to people whose mental development is actually in fact delayed, or those who would identify themselves as differently-mentally-able.
I will make suggestions: Limit yourself in the future to calling the comments using a "rape" metaphor for sports crude and offensive, and leave it at that. Avoid undue disparagement of people who disagree with your values - you can leave it at disparaging their values. Avoid attempts to use peer pressure to assert cultural norms, it doesn't work outside your cultural peer group, you may be in the minority, and isn't really a compelling argument anyway. Kthx.
(replying to my own post because post depth limit reached)
etfb: Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not a cultural relativist and believe people who use the term are in fact crude and insensitive. All my observations suggestions still stand, though. These people are not retarded and many may in fact be highly intelligent. (And it's not nice to call people retarded anyway.) They may or many not outnumber you, but are a significant cultural force one way or another, so the peer pressure argument is ineffective. And describing the matter as "nobody uses this metaphor" with exceptions is a poor way to describe the matter at best.
"If Jeff keeps making that annoying noise I'm gonna kill him."
"Traffic was absolute murder today..."
"Being stuck in a stuffy office on a day like this is torture."
Are these example's of insensitive trivialization of murder and torture?
Only if you're completely incapable (or unwilling) of making the distinction between words and their intended meaning.
If hearing someone saying "murder", "kill", "torture" or "rape" in a non-serious context can make you take those ACTS less seriously then you're a a worryingly gullible/amoral person, then the problem lies with you, not with people who don't happen to have a joyless, unerringly literal approach to language that they use to make themselves self-appointed sensitivity police (i.e enjoy that practise humans enjoy so much that is telling other people they're doing stuff wrong).
Of course, you'd never take murder or rape less seriously just because it was used non-seriously as word; only stupid people would do that. It's only those other people who would be influenced so easily by language, and its for them language has to be regulated.
"Wait, someone is using the word rape in relation to the result of a trivial sports result? That must mean raping people isn't a serious issue! Thank god society has given me permission to violate other people through non-literal use of language!"
This is the same kind of nonsense that makes people say videogames with fantasy violence in them are bad because they desensitize people to violence. Sorry, us intelligent, compassionate people are actually capable of distinguishing between fantasy, hyperbole, metaphor, and real life immoral acts.
Even young children are capable of making this distinction when they play soldiers or whatever and pretend to kill each other and die. If you're abilities in sensitivity are being surpassed by children, you may want to redress your values instead of focussing on what you see as faults in others.
The difference is Bobby Knight is a human, what I am getting at is people are offended by an algorithm that has no intent, and for all anyone knows could have picked the word based on another definition that others are over looking.
I just asked the question (I was not advocating or taking a position)and it is clear from the responses most people want to be the first to cast a stone at the algorithm, irrespective of the intent or definition used, that is fine, I am not here to judge.
You know, reading more of the comments here and on the blog, I think Pete Ashton may be right in calling out technological illiteracy. Some people seem to be unable to make a distinction between something said with no ill intent by a human and something said with no ill intent by an algorithm.
It really seems to me that this is the result of a failure to properly internalize the full implications of what algorithms are capable of, how they work... really just what they are.
You may as well be offended by what a toddler says. It is very very easy for a toddler or an algorithm to say something that could, in other contexts, be offensive. In the correct context however, primarily the realization that there is no intent present, you would have to not understand what a toddler is to be offended by what a toddler says.
Those items you highlighted could be taken as tongue-in-cheek humor. Shirts with slogans like "Keep Calm and Rape Her" or "Keep Calm and Hit Her" are vague, and this lack of content makes it harder to find deeper meaning other than the face value.
The irony here, is that the outrage over these generated t-shirts is increasing their visibility and promoting something that no one had ever heard of or cared about before.
The sadness here is that disparaging boys is much more acceptable, and people immediately assume that these shirts are referring to raping women, completely overlooking the fact that men can be victims of rape as well.
Nobody overlooks that men can be victims, and it's every bit as tragic when they are as when women are. But it would take willful blindness to suggest that rape is not overwhelmingly often a thing that men do to women. That reality shapes women's daily lives enormously more than the reality of male victims of rape shapes men's. (When was the last time you saw someone explicitly offering men advice on how to avoid getting raped?)
But it would take willful blindness to suggest that rape is not overwhelmingly often a thing that men do to women.
Actually there is an open question whether the USA currently experiences more rapes man-on-man inside of prison or rapes man-on-woman outside of prison. One place to start looking into this topic is http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/....
However given the choice, there is no question that men who are inclined to rape overwhelmingly would prefer to rape women. And outside of a prison setting, women are overwhelmingly the targets.
(All of this is not counting child sexual abuse, which is its own chamber of horrors.)
The articles I've seen also indicate men are raped more in the US due to prison based rapes. You're going to find that few people care about the man-on-man rape inside prisons. It's an extraordinarily vile double standard.
I agree that the silent acceptance (and normalization) of prison rape is horrific. There is no excuse for it (except "out of sight, out of mind", which of course is no excuse at all).
But, as I keep saying here, the biggest impact of rape in our society is not its effect on the victims, terrible as those effects are. The much broader impact is the culture of fear and blame that women (and largely only women) have to live with every day of their lives. Our society demands that women follow strict (and often contradictory) guidelines for avoiding rape, and then we vocally make excuses for their rapists whenever someone assaults a woman and she didn't follow every single one of them to the letter. (For example, either "Why did you make him angry by rudely brushing off his advances?" or "Why did you lead him on by responding politely to his advances?", depending on the circumstances.)
Prison rape is terrible and must be stopped, but the one and only thing that prevents it from being as harmful overall is that its effects don't really bleed over to warp society as a whole. The results of men raping women affect essentially all women, essentially all the time.
You must have overlooked my examples. It is routine, after a man rapes a woman, for people to ask things like "What was she wearing?" or "Why was she at that party?" or to say things like "Well, after all, she has a reputation for being 'loose'" or "Goes to show that a young woman shouldn't be out so late alone." (The example questions in my previous comment are also very common, and illustrate the "can't win" situation that women wind up in.)
It may not be immediately obvious that those questions boil down to "making excuses for rapists", but if you sit and think about it for five minutes it's a hard conclusion to avoid. The focus routinely shifts away from "that man did something awful" and toward "that woman made some mistakes".
There's a big difference between giving safety advice and excusing rape.
The same could be applied in other situations, for example if I go out alone late at night in the wrong part of town whilst displaying my expensive consumer gadgets , leave my house unlocked and go out or leave my server connected to the internet with a blank root password people might rightly ask "why the hell did you do that?". This doesn't in any way condone the actions of a mugger/burgler/hacker etc but sadly one must acknowledge that there are bad elements in society and recommend appropriate mitigation.
So yes, a woman who put her in a situation where she was likely to be raped did make some mistakes, but that doesn't excuse somebody who takes advantage of that.
> The same could be applied in other situations, for example if I go out alone late at night in the wrong part of town whilst displaying my expensive consumer gadgets
This is a great example. I went to a university inside of a major city and at several points during freshmen orientation we were told to be careful about what sort of electronics we display while outside, particularly at night. "Don't wear your expensive headphones while walking around the city, consider buying a case that covers your phone, travel in groups when possible." ..that sort of thing.
I don't think anyone has ever claimed that they were making excuses for muggers.
It's really not a great example, though there are obviously similarities. Rather than repeating myself at length, I'll just suggest that you read my response to the parent post.
This stuff is complicated, and I know that it took me an awfully long time to begin figuring it out (or to even accept that there was something I needed to figure out). I used to say things that sounded a lot like your comment here.
I don't anymore. Give it some time, and some thought.
Do you agree that, to the extent to which the safety advice given to women mirrors the safety advice given to starry-eyed freshmen about muggers and thieves, such safety advice does not represent a manifestation of rape culture?
I don't think victim blaming is an imagined phenomenon, but I do think that the extent to which it permeates it's society is often exaggerated, to the extent that people who give reasonable safety advice can occasionally be vilified as contributing to it.
I more or less agree with what you've said, though it still makes me uncomfortable that it only applies to women. Some level of advice on ways to reduce risk is clearly necessary.
But, as I've said elsewhere, it is my strong impression that the advice given to women regarding rape does not merely mirror other safety advice. There are many places where those starry-eyed freshmen would be forgiven for letting down their guard against muggers (inside their own dorm, for instance), but women are allowed no such safe spaces. The freshmen are given just a few rules to remember ("Don't flaunt your expensive headphones south of 61st St."), but women are given endless lists. The freshmen hear their advice when they show up at college, but women get rape prevention tips drilled into them from childhood so they completely internalize it. And by and large, the advice those freshmen get is simple enough that it doesn't contain any Catch-22's like my earlier example: a woman can be blamed for angering the man who raped her by being rude OR for leading him on if she's polite, so some people will fault her either way.
Yes, this always looks like just "giving safety advice", and yes, similar advice does get offered after other crimes. The difference in the case of rape is the extraordinary range and intrusiveness of such "advice" that all women (and only women) are expected to follow every day to avoid being faulted for negligence if they wind up being a victim. As illustrated by the contradictory example questions in my earlier comment, it's quite common for people to find a way to portray a rape victim as negligent no matter what choices she made.
I completely understand if you're not on board with this perspective right away; it took me a long time, too. But honestly: keep your eyes open from here on out when you read media reports of rape and you will see how universal this "fault the victim" attitude is. Watch for it for a while, and then really do sit down and think hard about it for those five uninterrupted minutes.
Here's an example for starters: media coverage of an 11-year-old girl forcibly gang raped by 18 grown men. You'd like to think they wouldn't have bothered reporting on how she dressed, wouldn't you? http://www.salon.com/2011/03/09/new_york_times_blames_11_yea...
I would agree that it is unfortunate the lengths that women may have to go to in order to minimise their risk, however I don't think that ignoring these factors does anybody any good. Ideally nobody should have to take any measures to prevent anything bad from happening, but that's not how the world is.
I am in the UK , so perhaps culture is somewhat different here but I would expect that if a woman reported a sexual assault to basically anybody either a vigilante mob or police investigation would be mustered in short order rather than the incident trivialised or the victim blamed.
In fact there have been cases of premature "justice" taken against individuals before all of the facts are in. And it's not completely unknown for threat of fake rape accusations to be used as a method of blackmail. In other words branding somebody as a rapist is a sure fire way to fuck their life up, quite different from "everyone blames the victim".
Even though it is not pleasant reading I don't think it hurts to report on all of the facts in such cases if doing so might help others to avoid these situations. For example if I had a daughter I know I would want to give frank and strongly worded advice if I thought it might make her even a little bit safer, but if something were to happen I would certainly not blame her.
"I would expect that if a woman reported a sexual assault to basically anybody either a vigilante mob or police investigation would be mustered in short order rather than the incident trivialised or the victim blamed."
Unfortunately, this is not typically what happens. Remember, we're not usually talking about some guy leaping out of a dark alley and grabbing a stranger walking by. Most rapists know their victims and interact with them socially in the lead-up to the assault. Many deliberately arrange circumstances designed to create doubt about what happened and whether it was consensual.
I hate to link to a scumbag, but there was a reddit post several months ago by a serial rapist describing his methods that illustrates this quite clearly: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/x6yef/reddits_had... It is absolutely chilling reading, but horribly informative (as are his replies to questions later on). I'm as skeptical of anonymous comments as the next guy, but in the aftermath I saw a number of people saying, "Don't give him the attention he wants: you can see exactly the same methods and mentality in formal studies of convicted rapists instead." (Sadly, I never saw links to those studies, so I'm still linking to the scumbag.) It's clear that this isn't the sort of thing that inspires vigilante mobs, but my understanding is that it's by far the most common scenario.
Meanwhile, you need to be really cautious about bringing up the "false rape accusation" objection. Yes, they happen, and it's awful when they do. But every statistic I've ever seen indicates that the number of false accusations is miniscule compared with even the number of reported rapes, let along the number that don't get reported at all (perhaps because the only evidence was "he said/she said" that would get brushed off as potentially a false accusation). Treating actual rapes and false accusations as some sort of evenly balanced poles deserving equal consideration is not justified by the statistics.
I'm not going to dive into the rape statistic minefield, but the last time I did, the assumptions where that a more on-male rape numbers were in the dark because of still prevalent gender stereotypes (as in: Men don't get raped and they should be able to defend themselves).
Again, it's honestly not about the statistics. Perception is, in this case, the major issue. Women are constantly pushed to change their behavior because of the danger that they might be raped, and practically every time a woman's rape is reported people ask "What was she wearing? Why was she out alone? Had she been drinking? Did she smile at him first?"
Men do not face that pressure. And yes, I'm sure that there's a corresponding judgmental tone in questions like "Weren't you man enough to fight him off?", but everyone understands that a man can be beaten in a fight. It's an entirely different atmosphere.
The problem is that questions like "Weren't you man enough to fight him off?" don't get asked, the threat of those questions prevent men from telling anyone.
And of course it's bullshit (the rest as well, but that one is just especially idiotic) to ask "What was she wearing?" (in general). But that's something that people are actively trying to better. Not for men.
You are continuing to ignore my central point. Men in our society are not indoctrinated in a culture of fear about rape the way women are. People do not routinely lecture men on things they should do to avoid getting raped. Most men walking by themselves at night do not worry about rape as one of the principal dangers to be wary of. Completely ignoring any question of how frequently rape happens to men, the mere existence of rape does not have anywhere near the impact on men's lives as it does on women's.
It is plausible to me that there is also a culture of shame affecting men who have been raped, along the lines that you have described. But if so, it is very silent compared to the rape culture surrounding women, and thus has far less impact on men who are not themselves victimized. It is no doubt no less awful for men who are the victims of rape, and I agree that any such culture must, must, must be fixed.
But at the same time, I can't blame the activists out there for targeting their primary effort at the side of the problem that has the broadest effect and the widest societal impact. And also, I optimistically believe that if we eventually do manage to fix the culture of shame and blame attached to rape that affects women, a lot of that progress will automatically carry over to the case of men who are raped, too. Feminism has never been just about making things better for women! That's just where the first big steps are naturally found.
Did you read those recent tweets? None of them mention gender.
You're looking for a bias that just isn't there. Our society most definitely has a problem with rape and sexual assault— specifically towards women— but I don't see any Twitter users making the assumption that "t-shirt advocating rape" == "t-shirt advocating rape against women" There are men who are victims of sexual assault and rape, and you do them a disservice by ignoring them to push your own agenda.
Several of them include the #NotBuyingIt hashtag, a hashtag specifically related to sexism against women.
I really hesitated to respond to you again, at this point it seems you are doing nothing more than post hoc rationalization of your original inaccurate assertion.
You're right. Several of the tweets included that tag. However, it doesn't seem to me that those tweets were from people who were thinking these shirts are targeting women. If you take a look at the hashtag on Twitter[0], many of them have nothing to do with boycotting an item. Is it safe to assume a person would see that hashtag and use it thinking it isn't specific to sexism? I think so.
I should also clarify that I am in no way arguing that rape is equally a male and female problem. Women deal with rape culture much more than men. My argument is that I don't believe these twitter users were upset because it was targeting women. I think they were upset because rape is a terrible thing to happen to anyone.
When Solid Gold Bomb withdrew the 'rape' garment it also posted a statement on its website which said: "We have been informed of the fact that we were selling an offensive T-shirt primarily in the UK.
"This has been immediately deleted as it was and had been automatically generated using a scripted computer process running against 100s of thousands of dictionary words."
Not on sale: computer generated t shirt advocating rape.
Still on sale: human authored book advocating throwing rocks at boys. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Boys-Stupid-Throw-Rocks-Them/dp/0761... human authored 2013 calendar, boys are stupid: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Boys-Are-Stupid-2013-Calendar/dp/184...
Also on sale: bunny suicides: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bunny-Suicides-Grid-Calendar-teNeues...
And Nuns having fun: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuns-Having-Calendar-2013-Wall/dp/07...