Regina wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:
If however he did know who she was then he has arguably less justification for feeling wronged at her public referencing of him

You think having sex with a blogger automatically waives your right to privacy? Jaysus.

Hey, maybe he did it on purpose hoping that she'd give a public talk on him! Everybody wants to be an internet celebrity, y'know.

Spinozasgalt wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:
There however seems to be some difficulty in accepting or understanding that and as a consequence that tends
to cloud judgement on all matters feminist. A more logical and less emotional approach would therefore be more preferable. Though I get the impression that some of you are not really trying that hard in the first place. But it
is nonetheless very interesting to see such a variety of opinion being referenced here on the thread that just
refuses to die. But try to be as objective as you can rather than let your subjective interpretation
dominate instead if at all possible

Do you know why I find the argumentation you and IT have used suspect here

You have tried to dismiss this because something else vaguely related ( Elevatorgate ) resulted in abuse of Watson : the
funny parallel is with Dawkins Dear Muslima - there is something worse in the world so this does not deserve our attention or should be dismissed. You have then described Watson as somehow having grounds for slagging off the guy because he failed to fulfill obligations to her or her expectations in regards to sex : that' is funny because it is an MRA talking point and it is used for, among other things, rape apologism and the slagging off of women. You have tried to tell people here that they are letting emotion cloud their judgment before you even engaged with them in a substantive way on this latest point and that they need to be more logical : that is funny because women have had to put up with such dismissals for quite some time and it is something basic to even silly forms of feminism that it is not acceptable. And when I / we pointed out what goes on in the video, IT said that until we prove it she does not care. Meh is her word. She sticks with the claim that it is comedy and will not budge

Just for the record you are one of the more logical contributors to this thread and so I can assure you that you were not who
I was referring to. Not that you should care what I think about you anyway but I do not hate anyone just because they do not think the same as myself. I actually value alternative views even if they are motivated by emotion and not logic. I just happen to think that emotional responses cloud judgement and make for bad arguments. Which is why I try to avoid
making them myself

I do not think Rebecca was engaged in slagging off here. It was more sarcastic than malicious. She could have done a lot worse but as I said she was attempting to be humorous and so malice would not have worked. Now admittedly this is my subjective interpretation and as such it is no more valid than yours or anyone elses. But as there is nothing else to go on other than the video then subjective interpretation is all anyone can engage in. Though I try to be as logical as I can in mine

Imagination Theory should not be making an informed judgement on something she has not seen based on the subjective interpretation of others which is more emotional than logical. She should reserve judgement until she has seen it herself
and no one should be consciously or subconsciously informing her of what is happening. Both her own judgements and the interpretations of others that she is responding to should be disregarded. Their ulterior motive is not her skeptical analysis

I have been engaged with the honourable members here before on this thread and my position then as now was in the minority. So please forgive me if I inadvertently anticipate the response of others before giving due consideration to
their wise counsel. One would have thought that atheism and feminism were mutually compatible but apparently not if the contributions of many here are anything to go by. But as I said before I welcome all opinion including that which is based on emotion rather than logic. It is just however that here at Rat Skep the modus operandi is that ideas are subject to probing critical analysis. It is perfectly possible to do that without resorting to ad hom directed at those referencing those ideas. I do not actually care what anyone says about Rebecca here as I believe in absolute free speech so have to let all comment pass But I retain the right to criticise honourable members where I see them being less than respectful to her. That is to her and not what she is saying however. That gets precisely zero respect till it has been critically assessed to the best of ones ability And which is the natural default position for all viewpoints that make their way onto the forum regardless of anything else

Regina wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:
It should however be pointed out that he could have wanted to fuck her because of
who she was which would be him taking advantage of her without her being aware of it

Watson is not Angelina Jolie she is a blogger who is known in a tiny online community

surreptitious57 wrote:
If however he did know who she was then he has arguably less
justification for feeling wronged at her public referencing of him

You think having sex with a blogger automatically waives your right to privacy

I am sceptical of your claim that Rebecca is only known to a tiny online community. I suggest to you
that she is more widely known that you think she is [ or would want her to be ] I may be wrong but
unless you can provide evidence to back that assertion then I shall continue to remain sceptical of it

I do not think having sex with a blogger automatically waives their right to privacy

Let me put it this way: when I mention the name Richard Dawkins to those of my colleagues who are biologists they know who I am talking about. I severely doubt that Miss Watson is known to any scientist of my acquaintance who is not a member of a certain subset of the English-speaking skeptic community.

Hell, I'd assume if he did exist he was someone she picked up at one of her speaking events. It doesn't make any difference: his motivations for trying to sleep with her are irrelevant to any of the points surr is failing to make,. But I can see he will continue to ignore this and wax about how logical and rational his responses are, even though it's clear that from his perspective RW can do no wrong.

Feminism and atheism are certainly compatible, but RW is a pretty shitty feminist. Her very public track record inspires neither confidence in her ideas nor respect for her personally.

Regina wrote:
Let me put it this way: when I mention the name Richard Dawkins to those of my colleagues who are biologists they know who
I am talking about. I severely doubt that Miss Watson is known to any scientist of my acquaintance who is not a member of a certain subset of the English speaking skeptic community

What an interesting analogy that is. But you failed to provide any actual evidence which is what I asked for. Had you done
so then I would have accepted it. But you did not so I have to remain sceptical about your original claim. Furthermore the analogy itself is flawed. It is reasonable to expect other biologists to have heard of Richard Dawkins because he is the most famous biologist today. However when you apply the same criteria to Rebecca you fail to mention the fact that she is not a biologist so is less likely to be known to them. The proper analogy would be to ask other feminists if they have heard of her because she is the most famous feminist today. So your response was both flawed and superfluous. Now I will give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that it was not a deliberate attempt at misrepresentation on your part but even so I was actually anticipating a better response than that. I seriously expected some evidence. How foolish of me to make such
a presumption. Come on now Reg. You can do better than that

SafeAsMilk wrote:
it is clear that from his perspective RW can do no wrong

Just for the record here is a list of things some feminists
[ as opposed to just one feminist ] and I disagree on :

Abortion
Free Speech
Transsexuals
Lesbian Porn
Straight Porn
The Word Cunt
Male Depopulation
Schrodingers Rapist
The Word Prostitute
All Penetration Is Rape

surreptitious57 wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:
it is clear that from his perspective RW can do no wrong

Just for the record here is a list of things some feminists
[ as opposed to just one feminist ] and I disagree on :

Abortion
Free Speech
Transsexuals
Lesbian Porn
Straight Porn
The Word Cunt
Male Depopulation
Schrodingers Rapist
The Word Prostitute
All Penetration Is Rape

I said RW, not feminists. I'd hope you would disagree with some feminists on those issues, seeing as feminists have adapted wildly differing views on all of them

I could not think of anything that Rebecca has said that I fundamentally disagree with so made it more general by extending it to anything any feminist has ever said instead. I probably find it hard to be absolutely sceptical about everything Rebecca says because of my overwhelming desire to defend her from the abuse she regularly receives. But I like to think that I can maintain enough critical capability to do so. I shall try to avoid making this point too often as it annoys many here and I do not want to sound like a broken record. But I believe in standing up for those who are abused for no other reason than they have a brain and a vagina. I will defend their right to be treated a s a human being. And I will not accept any justification to the contrary. Rape and death threats are not funny and I will consistently condemn them even if no one else does

You may not be aware of this but Rebecca once seriously contemplated giving up blogging and speaking because of the abuse. To her credit she did not and for that alone she has my unqualified support. I seriously think that those who abuse
her are not aware of the psychological damage that they have inflicted on her. It is wrong and it should be universally condemned. Now I defend the right of anyone to say whatever they want but with absolute freedom comes absolute responsibility. And that is the bit they forget. But I do not forget it which is why I do accept complete responsibility for everything I say and would have zero problem in my words being reproduced anywhere in a free and open environment. I
will even sit in a room full of the most extreme radical feminists and be quietly taking notes and learning. Because that is
what interests me. Not making rape and death threats. That does not interest me at all

I shall leave it there for now but will continue at regular intervals to defend Rebecca from the abuse she receives. If you want me to stop going on about it then the abusers just have to stop abusing. It is that simple. Remember : with absolute freedom comes absolute responsibility. You cannot have one without the other. Thank you to all those who agree with me
I know I am not alone in this even though it may look like it at times. And in spite of the tone I am actually in a neutral
state of mind. I do not believe in getting angry when trying to formulate posts as it can cloud ones judgement

surreptitious57 wrote:I believe in standing up for those who are abused for no other reason than they have a brain and a vagina.

Surely you don't think the criticism Rebecca Watson receives has come for no other reason.

surreptitious57 wrote:Rebecca once seriously contemplated giving up blogging and speaking because of the abuse.

Rebecca Watson is not quite as dumb as those who follow her around to skeptic conventions, to whom one might apply 'dumb as a bag of hammers', but she doesn't have any obvious skills and is following in the footsteps of any number of woo-merchants to try to make a living. Prominent among her missing skill set is a public speaking presence, like what you'd find in a Hitchens or a Dawkins. Rounding up an audience by preaching to the choir is not a measure of success in blogging and speaking, unless you define success as not starving to death.

Cito di Pense wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:
I believe in standing up for those who are abused for no other reason than they have a brain and a vagina

Surely you do not think the criticism Rebecca Watson receives has come for no other reason

surreptitious57 wrote:
Rebecca once seriously contemplated giving up blogging and speaking because of the abuse

Rebecca Watson is not quite as dumb as those who follow her around to skeptic conventions, to whom one might apply dumb as a bag of hammers but she does not have any obvious skills and is following in the footsteps of any number of woo merchants to try to make a living. Prominent among her missing skill set is a public speaking presence like what you would find in a Hitchens or a Dawkins. Rounding up an audience by preaching to the choir is not a measure of success in blogging and speaking unless you define success as not starving to death

Criticism and abuse are not the same thing. I am all for criticism and especially that which is informed and referenced
by reason and logic and knowledge of the subject matter in question. Zero problem with that and I actually support and encourage it by my membership of this forum and in my considered responses on a variety of topics here. But rape and
death threats do not constitute criticism and should be condemned without reservation

Your second paragraph is completely superfluous to the point I was making. It does not matter what Rebeccas level of skill
is in speaking. What matters is that some made her seriously consider giving it up because of the unrelenting abuse she was receiving on a regular basis just because she was spoke on issues pertaining to feminism. Issues that the internet misogynists did not want to hear so decided to shut her up in the most vicious way they could think of. So once again for the hard of hearing : rape and death threats do not constitute criticism and should be condemned without reservation

Where does the idea come from that Watson was doing standup comedy?? When did she become a standup comedian??

stijndeloose wrote:Where does the idea come from that Watson was doing standup comedy?? When did she become a standup comedian??

That came from IT who allegedly hasn't watched the clip.

Just as puzzling is the notion that there is any question that Reginald did not want/refused to wear a condom. As is the notion that sarcasm cannot be malice.

surreptitious57 wrote:You have to remember that she was expecting Reginald to give her an orgasm and he did not because of his reluctance to do a perfectly reasonable thing.

Whoa, way to drop a double standard. Let's switch that around and see how it looks:

You have to remember that he was expecting Rebecca to give him an orgasm and she did not because of her reluctance to do a perfectly reasonable thing.

Sounds perfectly unreasonable to me. Should Rebecca have been slagged off at an open meeting if she had declined to give someone an orgasm? I think not. RW is an arsehat. Period.

Scarlett wrote:

stijndeloose wrote:Where does the idea come from that Watson was doing standup comedy?? When did she become a standup comedian??

That came from IT who allegedly hasn't watched the clip.

Just as puzzling is the notion that there is any question that Reginald did not want/refused to wear a condom. As is the notion that sarcasm cannot be malice.

Yes...

I'm still puzzling over what Rebecca was trying to achieve by recounting the story. She found it amusing because she laughed at several points during the talk.

On the comedy front; the other talk that was posted here was all about using comedy to rebut opponents in discussion. She obviously thinks that she's quite witty.

She comes across as being a bit of a half wit though.

The video suggests the recounting of an actual event but the way she delivers it has the structure of a comedic monologue except that the punchline was rather weak. This makes me wonder if it was a real event she was referencing or just an imaginary scenario or more likely a combination of the two. But she did commit a couple of howlers : she referred to Reg
as a boy. Now unless he is under eighteen this is wrong. And especially so for a feminist. And that is because of the casual indifference men have when referring to women as girls. It annoys the hell out of feminists and rightly so too. I never call a woman a girl unless I am being ironic. So for Rebecca to call Reg a boy if he was not is something she should not have done Number two was the questioning of his mental state of mind because he did not drink alcohol. Let me explain something here : there is no correlation between mental illness and teetotalism. Conversely there is much between mental illness and alcoholism. So to make a judgement about someone based on one event is completely wrong. Rebecca is not a qualified psychiatrist and so cannot make such pronouncements and it was even worse to do so for comedic effect

However if it was just an imaginary scenario then fair enough. I do not actually mind what she said in the video but I am just referencing it from the point of view of political correctness as regards the use of language which is a big thing for some or many feminists. For example around the use of the word cunt. Some feminist bloggers such as Jadehawk will not engage with you if you use gendered slurs

I also noticed in the video that Rebecca grew her hair which makes her more physically attractive. She also has a sexy voice too. I also liked her when she made the famous remark than began it all back in the day. She was very sexy then. I loved the red hair. But when she appeared next to Richard in Dublin I did not find her sexy at all. Now I hasten to add that her physical appearance has no bearing on my ability to treat her as a human being and not just the personification of lust. I can actually admire a woman for both her beauty and her brains and if the woman in question is not physically attractive to me I can still admire her for her brains. I would be lying if I said that female beauty is not sometime I am partial to but I try very hard not to let my hormones do my thinking for me. That said there is absolutely nothing wrong in finding another human being sexually attractive as long as you do not violate their boundaries in the process of doing so

Made of Stars wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:
You have to remember that she was expecting Reginald to give her an orgasm
and he did not because of his reluctance to do a perfectly reasonable thing

way to drop a double standard. Let us switch that around and see how it looks

No let us try it another way instead : Reginald and Rebecca were going to have sex. They both should have enjoyed it with
it culminating in a beautiful double climax. Preferably but not necessarily simultaneously. I hasten to add that I was actually thinking of the scenario I have described here even if I did not reference it as such before. There is absolutely no reason why women should not enjoy sex as much as men. And men should be just as focused on giving the woman pleasure as the woman is on giving the man pleasure. It is after all a commutative process not a unidirectional one

surreptitious57 wrote:[snip] There is absolutely no reason why women should not enjoy sex as much as men. And men should be just as focused on giving the woman pleasure as the woman is on giving the man pleasure. It is after all a commutative process not a unidirectional one

Indeed, it's more enjoyable to include as many directions as possible.

Let's break this down, it will entail me watching the fucking clip again so you guys owe me

Seconds in to her "talk" she provides the man in question with the name 'Reginald', this ilicits a giggle from the audience as I'm sure it was intended.

The phone numbers were exchanged and subsequent date took place. RW made it very clear she was intending on getting quite drunk (her joke about ordering everything behind the bar), this was then followed by her first big fail. He ordered water, that was considered a bit "odd", I have no idea who RW associates with on a daily basis but in my world going to a bar and not drinking alcohol is not considered remotely odd, there may be a million and one reasons why someone would choose not to drink alcohol. One of those reasons may, and that is possibly the millionth and first reason, is that they "have some horrific thing in their past that has caused that to happen". Now, am I missing something here? Is that quite possibly the most awful conclusion she could have chosen to titter about? Yes RW, it's fucking hilarious that the guy you're on a date with might be suffering mental health problems due to past trauma, and that such people are "not good date material" . But that is by the by as she didn't actually ask him, in her own words, she just "assumes" that's why people don't drink alcohol.

She then waxes lyrical about how he is actually a really nice guy, kind and thoughtful, doesn't drink (funny how that appears to have become a pro when 30 seconds or so beforehand it made him "odd" at best), but this is then put down to the fact that he tells her he's an ex-mormon, it makes sense to her as he has that "mormon look about him" and "several thousand brothers and sisters". I have no idea why his past mormonism has any bearing on the story whatsoever, I can only surmise it has been used as another stick with which to poke at him, there is nothing else in the story that indicates his behaviour was influenced one iota by his past belief system.

She then "gets him back to her apartment" and things become "sexual in nature" resulting in them together in her bed, naked. She's quite pleased that he looks "just as good naked", one wonders what his opinion on her body was or if indeed it'd have been frowned upon if he had commented.

They are then past what she likes to refer to as "the point of no return", I wouldn't have thought that phrase was suitable for an advocate of feminism who I'm sure supports the idea that there is not a point of no return defence when it's referencing rape.

Next is the condom question which appears to be causing some confusion. She rolls over to her bedside table and offers him a condom from an array of different types, this is a perfect chance to get in one of those lovely mature jokes about penis size when she quips that she doesn't want to offer him the magnum if it's not his "deal" and will make him feel "inadequate".

Now this next bit is where surr in particular needs to pay special attention. After the offer of a condom he does indeed ask her if she's on birth control, this in it's self as RW points out is not unheard of and there will be men who will prefer sex without a condom. She uses that horrible patronising tone to say "Aww sweetie, I know it feels better for you, but it feels better for me not to get syphilis". HOWEVER, and this is a big however surr, he apparently then made it very clear that he was in fact willing to wear a condom but that he would prefer her to be further protected from pregnancy by the birth control pill. Al little bit of confusion about why she's not on the pill, choose between her just moving to the city and not having a gyny doctor yet or the fact the she doesn't want to take it because it makes her "crazy", irrelevant really as it's not a requirement for her but does indicate her confused thinking IMO.

Further conversation ensues which results in her saying that he could "just stick the condom on your dick and just fuck me", and here it is surr, according to her he said "I DON'T FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH THAT, I DON'T THINK THAT'S ENOUGH".

Now this is where IMO she starts hitting well below the belt, she calls him an "ex-mormon fucker", bearing in mind his ex-mormonism appears to have only been an issue for her and has had no other bearing on the story as far as I could surmise, that's a cuntish thing to say. She then rattles on about how "he thinks he has super-sperm!", when again there is no indication that he has a large ego at all, quite the contrary in fact, she said initially that he was really nice, kind and thoughtful. She goes as far as to tell him he has "human sperm", now at this juncture I'm pretty convinced she making at least vast chunks of this story up, because if I was him I'd have been out of there, but she is so appealing apparently that he stays, and after some reassurance that she would take the morning-after pill if there was a condom failure he changes his mind. To which the response from RW is "Get the fuck out of my house!". Keep it classy sister

Scarlett wrote:
Just as puzzling is the notion that there is any question that Reginald did not
want / refused to wear a condom. As is the notion that sarcasm cannot be malice

Saying you are going to wear a condom and actually wearing a condom are not the same thing. You may have missed this but in all the time Reginald was with Rebecca he never once actually put one on while she was patiently waiting for him to do so If he did not want to then he should just have left it at that. He of course wanted to fuck her but she had to be on the pill But that was his fault for assuming she was. He should have left and gone find a woman who was on the pill and fucked her instead. And sarcasm can be malice just not always. I actually did state this but you must have missed it in your rush to remind me. I am grateful but you really did not have to bother Scarlett. But thanks anyway [ wink wink ]