A Public Service Announcement from the Good Men Project
Today, GMP’s Alyssa Royse (the same who defends her friend who raped a sleeping woman because he’s so nice and she was TOTALLY FLIRTING WITH HIM) did us all an enormous favor by posting this status update publicly* on her Facebook page (all of the below quote is <sic>, and accompanied a link to the piece Schroeder wrote about how awesome they were to print, anonymously, an account of a rapist who has no plans to stop raping):
THIS IS SO GOOD. Especially, fine Joanna Schroeder’s comment that begins to totally break down the Lisak stud that forms the foundation of the Yes Means Yes Movement that was founded by the brand mane feminists that are soooooo brutally attacking Joanna, Lynn, and myself. By asking WHY men rape we have accidentally threatened their supremacy and the notions that they have built their fame on. Most of which was built on faulty data that was badly interpreted. We created a shit storm the likes of which no one could have imagined. But, I’m finally getting to the place where I can ask, “well, we’ve got all this energy and attention, what can we do with it?” This is such a good piece.
I don’t want to say much about this, because it speaks pretty clearly for itself. But I can’t resist pointing out a few things:
- I don’t know what “brand mane” feminists are “brutally attacking” GMP writers, but it’s certainly not me. Honestly, I’ve been mad busy running a nonprofit at the end of a calendar year, and as a result, have mostly been relying on other folks to say smart stuff that I can amplify. I am curious as to what constitutes a “brutal attack” in Royse’s eyes, especially given that the subject at hand is rape, which, let’s remember, Royse thinks is bad, but not cause to end a friendship if the perp is otherwise really “nice.”
- I’m not going to dignify with a response the suggestion that I’ve been doing anti-sexual-violence work since 1992, for most of that time in total anonymity, in order to “build fame.” But I will point out that she is talking pretty plainly here about wanting to use this “shit storm” to build their fame. And how are they doing it? By using controversy to troll for clicks, and by pandering to rapists, rape apologists and generally misogynist MRAs. And the result of that pandering is sure to be increased belief in the myth of misunderstanding, one of the main pillars of the social license to operate that allows rapists to keep raping with impunity. In other words, they’re “building their fame,” intentionally or not, by fostering more rape.
- One more thing, which has nothing to do with this statement, but which I got off my chest on social media today and want to get down for the record here. Something that hasn’t been said enough about the GMP argument about rape: it’s insulting to men. GMP is promoting idea that lots & lots of guys — most guys — are already rapists or might rape at any moment. It’s worth repeating that this is not only insulting, it’s untrue. Most men aren’t rapists. But beyond that, it doesn’t really demonstrate a belief in good men, now, does it? It’s us “scary” “radical” feminists that actually believe in good men.
*Royse and I are not Facebook “friends,” and yet I could see this statement just fine.
yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com 
Great post. I’ve followed this whole thing pretty closely and I didn’t see any evidence on twitter or anywhere else that Alyssa was being “bullied” or “brutally attacked” like she claimed. Disagreeing isn’t bullying and criticizing isn’t brutally attacking. Honestly the only attacks that I saw came from Alyssa’s own facebook updates (which as you mentioned are public), like the ones in which she repeatedly called Jill a “troll” for covering this on feministe, or the ones where she claimed that a feminist “lynch mob” was on a “fatwah” against her.
My sample size is small, but none of the men I’ve been sexual with have identified as feminists, and yet all of them were very, very concerned that I have a good time, that I be into each thing we were doing, that we only go as far as I was comfortable with. While naked, while intimate, they’d ask, want to be sure.
If you see sex as something people do together to their mutual enjoyment, this is a matter of course. If you see sex as something you’re owed for certain behaviours, or something to be tricked out of a person who isn’t paying sufficient attention, then you’re a piece of filth well on your way to being a rapist. It’s really not complicated.
Yeah this is majorly on point. Not to say that there aren’t grey areas, but that’s the darn point…if you believe in mutual enthusiasm/enjoyment you’ll want to work for clarity and shared decision making.
This exactly. My last sexual partner was by no means a feminist. He didn’t read about this stuff, he didn’t take classes, do research, etc.. Yet somehow he was completely safe. People who don’t want to rape don’t. People who want to rape do. People who don’t care either way likely will if they haven’t already. Thankfully, most people actually, actively don’t want to rape.
So glad you wrote this. Thank you. I have felt triggered, betrayed, and disgusted with the three articles the GMP have decided to publish in the last week or so. But happy to see how many men and women were not willing to sit back and give rapists a pat on the head and a wowwipop for being brave enough to share their rape stories…
I first drew the attention of my fellow contributor over at It’s Just a Hobby to TGMP. feel almost guilty about that now. Anyway,one good thing is we have fond this blog, and I thought you might like Carter’s post from this morning on the whole mess
http://itsjustahobby.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/ahem-we-told-you-so/
In addition to being untrue and insulting to men, GMP’s bullhorning of rape myth acceptance is probably contributing to a culture that increases men’s “rape proclivity.”
(http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1068316X.2010.492349)
I haven’t seen that study before, Emily. Thank you!
It would help your argument if GMP had not published this piece last year written by Hugo Schwyzer that accused all men of being rapists and received a ton of feminist support. It is odd that accusing all men of being rapists is insulting now, but not then.
Toysoldier, I don’t know what feminists supported Hugo’s argument, but we certainly didn’t. And it wouldn’t take too much research to find out what we think of Hugo here, either. https://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/on-hugo/
Okay, please don’t take this as an attack but I do want to ask a question about the first acticle. I didn’t get the feeling that the writer was defending her friend from raping the sleeping woman (at no point does she deny what happened was rape and that it was unacceptable), just that she was bewildered at how someone she had prevously believed to be a good person could do something like that, and was exploring the rape culture that led people to believe that having sex with a (non-consenting) sleeping person was not rape.
I reminds me of a survey done where men who strongly identified as not being rapists, but when asked if that had taken part is various scenarios (sleep sex, cooerced sex, etc) admitted they had. They had no idea that what they had done was actually rape.
Anyway, I got the impression that the first acticle was an exploration of the rape culture that leads people to think raping a sleeping woman is actually not rape. I apologise if I’m missing something here.
Skull Bearer,
The survey you are talking about is part of the information that Thomas used to write his excellent post “Meet the Predators” on this very blog site. Give it a read and then you will see the conclusions of the survey were not that “They had no idea that what they had done was actually rape.”
What a great post. Thank you 🙂
Just wanted to say THANK YOU to you (and Jessica V.) for pulling together this book; I’m working my way through it now and so enlightening; this is a conversation we need to have, and KEEP having. I’ve seen too many articles and comments online that indicate people don’t think things like misogyny, sexism, sexual assault and rape aren’t that big of a deal (or, worse, that we’re overreacting or lying about it) but these are aspects of our culture that are, quite literally, keeping women from living their lives. Why don’t people get that?
My only regret is not having read this sooner.
I am really glad that you wrote this. Thanks for calling out rape apologists. I’m a survivor, and Royse makes my skin crawl.