Those who have come from Pz's blog, aka THAT thread

[DaveD]

It's in keeping withe our proposed new name.

[Robert_S]

PZ's a member here. Is it appropriate to have his pic in you avatar like that?

[DaveD]

PZ's a member here. Is it appropriate to have his pic in you avatar like that?

I'm tearing it down as fast as I can!

[hadespussercats]

Come on - it's circumcision-related trivia...

Yeah you'd think I would be the one to have come up with that link given my heritage

And for all those who don't yet know: Cogwheel is the grandson of Marilyn Milos - the founder of NOCIRC.

Small world...

Ah!

Thanks, on my son's behalf.

[Woodbutcher]

PZ's a member here. Is it appropriate to have his pic in you avatar like that?

There have been much worse.
PZ, shave more often. You should not grow stuff on your face that grows wild on your ass...

[Robert_S]

From Pharngula comments.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... ent-413038

Why Pappa’s rape joke wasn’t funny

Dear PZ,

While it’s tricky and acceptable to tell a rape joke, there are instances where they are absolutely unacceptable and inappropriate.

A joke that threatens a specific individual sends this message: you have no value, are powerless, vulnerable and subordinate to me. You are no longer safe. It’s hateful and demeaning.

So I can only imagine what you must been thinking when you saw his post, and a couple of other people joining in the joking. A couple of others spoke out against the joke itself, without denouncing papa for his joke. The rest of the community didn’t say a word.

You may have visited some of our threads about the Skepchicks, reading quite a bit of derision and mockery towards them. And finally, the controversy surrounding the Skepchicks made this joke even more threatening. You had no way of knowing that Pappa wasn’t someone who would never do that by reading a few of posts of his. And frankly I would not expected you to go through the due diligence. If I had just read something that elicited the same his role anger and disgust that Pappa had to this post:http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 0#p1196689.

Given the choice of protecting someone’s safety, over someone’s reputation I would take the former.

What you did was the right thing to do, and your readers reaction was perfectly justified, given what they knew. You and your readers were not responsible for the shitstorm that hit Rationalia.

Sincerely,

Mai Dao-Horton

[orpheus]

Hi everyone,

Sorry I've been away for a while. How are things going? What's new?

[Kristie]

Hi everyone,

Sorry I've been away for a while. How are things going? What's new?

Hello!
Same ol', same ol'!

[lordpasternack]

As a counterpoint to Mai's post - this is something I posted on the Rationalia Facebook group the other day - very slightly edited:

I think the main problem is that these people don't know anything about Pappa, other than this comment. And they have, understandably, taken it at some kind of face-value, and assumed that Pappa generally finds rape a joke-worthy topic.

I really do think it was in terrible taste to joke about the relative morality of raping an identifiable group of women - and can imagine how truly SHOCKING it would appear to outsiders (and not just permanently outraged Pharyngulites). Rachel herself cringed - and she knows Pappa more than well enough to know how flippantly he had intended the comment.

I was also a bit disappointed when Pappa doubled down - instead of acknowledging and regretting the offence caused to women who really do fear rape, receive GENUINE remarks about people considering raping them, or have been raped - and also showing more awareness of how the comment in the OP would appear to those who have never known him. (I'm aware also that PZ's insistence on stoking outrage over the issue put Pappa on the defensive.)

And it's a fucking bother that now that THEY THINK PAPPA HAS MADE THEIR POINT FOR THEM. All of the occasionally annoying feminists in the atheist movement feel utterly vindicated by Pappa's comment. They, quite forgivably, don't catch practically ANY of the nuance. They take it seriously. For some it's a jackpot of victimhood and entrenched misogyny, served on a platter - and for others it's just a bit of a shock to the system. But the thrust of the matter is that they think it's 'real'. They feel as shocked by it as Pappa would feel about a joke on the morality of lynching an annoying group of black atheists, or giving an annoying group of gay male atheists HIV.

And also - I really regret that this is now the sole impression that some people now have of Rationalia - the thread started by this stupid comment, written by a guy who founded the forum, which they had every right to miss the nuances of. NOTHING of how closely knit we are - of the deep friendships, the camaraderie, the meets, the transatlantic romances, the weddings to which we've traveled to celebrate with friends from the forum, and the funerals to which we have turned up to mourn friends from the forum who are now gone. Nothing of how genuinely easy-going and nice Pappa is… (If we're lucky, they might remember us as the forum where all the drama was happening at the time of forumgate.)

No, all they see is this crass joke, uttered by some apparently clueless stranger on the internet, who hasn't had the decency to apologise or express any kind of regret as to how his words may have been received. And PZombies aside - there will be many decent silent strangers watching that thread who will walk away thinking that Pappa is a bit of a clueless berk, and that this tenor of 'joking' is somehow representative of Rationalia.

And now Rationalia is the focus of vexation - some of which not unlike Pappa's vexation with Skepchicks. And that bothers me.

And it bothers me that there is practically nothing I can say in our defence other than "I know him and he's not like that", and "I know us and we're not like that"…

[Bella Fortuna]

Hi everyone,

Sorry I've been away for a while. How are things going? What's new?

Meh.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The amount of hate being directed toward a group that most of the speakers have no real knowledge of makes me proud to say I don't belong to the blogosphere.

[JimC]

I have a hard time seeing why someones genitalia should define what they do with their lives.

It depends of the field. They seem essential, if one's goal is to be a stripper, prostitute, or tangentially a model of some sorts. If one wants to be a "leading man" in Hollywood films, having a penis probably comes with the territory. That sort of thing.

A humorous reply, but one that shows that the occupations that depend on the type of one's genitalia are actually few and far between. The vast majority don't; if they tend to anyway, it's probably a historical legacy that is already fading, or destined to fade. A reasonable feminist perspective might involve encouraging the fading process...

Other than that, there may be true gender-based preferences for occupations (statistically, with exceptions, of course), which do not represent any form of gender-based inequity at all...

[Robert_S]

The amount of hate being directed toward a group that most of the speakers have no real knowledge of makes me proud to say I don't belong to the blogosphere.

How have we responded? More of the same.

The first salvo came from over here.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The amount of hate being directed toward a group that most of the speakers have no real knowledge of makes me proud to say I don't belong to the blogosphere.

How have we responded? More of the same.

The first salvo came from over here.

I disagree, but I'm sick of this shit, so you win.

[Ayaan]

As a counterpoint to Mai's post - this is something I posted on the Rationalia Facebook group the other day - very slightly edited:

I think the main problem is that these people don't know anything about Pappa, other than this comment. And they have, understandably, taken it at some kind of face-value, and assumed that Pappa generally finds rape a joke-worthy topic.

I really do think it was in terrible taste to joke about the relative morality of raping an identifiable group of women - and can imagine how truly SHOCKING it would appear to outsiders (and not just permanently outraged Pharyngulites). Rachel herself cringed - and she knows Pappa more than well enough to know how flippantly he had intended the comment.

I was also a bit disappointed when Pappa doubled down - instead of acknowledging and regretting the offence caused to women who really do fear rape, receive GENUINE remarks about people considering raping them, or have been raped - and also showing more awareness of how the comment in the OP would appear to those who have never known him. (I'm aware also that PZ's insistence on stoking outrage over the issue put Pappa on the defensive.)

And it's a fucking bother that now that THEY THINK PAPPA HAS MADE THEIR POINT FOR THEM. All of the occasionally annoying feminists in the atheist movement feel utterly vindicated by Pappa's comment. They, quite forgivably, don't catch practically ANY of the nuance. They take it seriously. For some it's a jackpot of victimhood and entrenched misogyny, served on a platter - and for others it's just a bit of a shock to the system. But the thrust of the matter is that they think it's 'real'. They feel as shocked by it as Pappa would feel about a joke on the morality of lynching an annoying group of black atheists, or giving an annoying group of gay male atheists HIV.

And also - I really regret that this is now the sole impression that some people now have of Rationalia - the thread started by this stupid comment, written by a guy who founded the forum, which they had every right to miss the nuances of. NOTHING of how closely knit we are - of the deep friendships, the camaraderie, the meets, the transatlantic romances, the weddings to which we've traveled to celebrate with friends from the forum, and the funerals to which we have turned up to mourn friends from the forum who are now gone. Nothing of how genuinely easy-going and nice Pappa is… (If we're lucky, they might remember us as the forum where all the drama was happening at the time of forumgate.)

No, all they see is this crass joke, uttered by some apparently clueless stranger on the internet, who hasn't had the decency to apologise or express any kind of regret as to how his words may have been received. And PZombies aside - there will be many decent silent strangers watching that thread who will walk away thinking that Pappa is a bit of a clueless berk, and that this tenor of 'joking' is somehow representative of Rationalia.

And now Rationalia is the focus of vexation - some of which not unlike Pappa's vexation with Skepchicks. And that bothers me.

And it bothers me that there is practically nothing I can say in our defence other than "I know him and he's not like that", and "I know us and we're not like that"…

Did you post that at Myer's blog?