I think people use the word 'raped' too liberally. I play video games and it is unfortunately way more common in that world.

Even that Ukrainian girl in the PG&C thread posted just recently "today I got raped by two guys" (meaning 2 villians gave her a hard time at the table). I dont like seeing anyone say that stuff.

Indeed

I get accused of being too hypersensitive about usage of the word "rape" and "gay" when I talk about this in other forums on 2p2. But I like to think that if I make even one or two people think twice about it, then that's a good thing, even if it makes some people think I'm some sort of politically correct feminazi (which anyone who knows me knows is like the furthest thing from the truth).

Much of the problem is just the anonymity of the internet. It's just words on a screen. Even if you point out "would you say that to your sister/mother/wife", it just doesn't have the same effect because they just don't visualize random user names/avatars as real people.

As I say repeatedly, context matters. You can say/do plenty of things with friends (and everyone laughs/is comfortable) that you shouldn't say with strangers, or at work, etcetera etcetera. People treat the internet as if it's a gathering of very close (and very raunchy) friends when they should probably treat it more as if it's a gathering of random strangers at a very large and somewhat awkward social gathering. You need to get to know people (and I do think you can make friends with people on the internet) before you start with the overly familiar jokes.

To be fair i think the whole "rape you" comment was just meant in if the card had come he would have owned you in the hand...... basic online talk there whether it be video games, poker or forums. Dont want to be flamed but i think you all take this to seriously i agree saying to a woman is wrong but when its said daily between guys sometimes you forget the impact it could of had.
Not like he was actually about to buss out some sexual assault on the green felt.

It's almost like you've read absolutely none of this thread and have just decided to wade in with your uninformed crap.

I'm used to grumpy players who dislike women. Typically, it's a fantastic edge because if there's one thing they hate even more, it's losing a pot to a girl. Personality wise, I'm pretty abrasive, so as a poker player it's very beneficial that I genuinely am amused by such behavior. I have a feeling many females would become insecure, tilted, or hurt by the way some men behave.

The only incident I remember being shocked by a comment was in a WSOP event in 2010. This ******* at my table was berating the dealer after basically every hand. Great dealer actually, this guy just couldn't lose a hand with any grace, and called the floor every time he felt like it, to ask about different rules. So, finally, after calling the floor over again (and I forget what rule he wanted to "be proven right" about this time) I said "listen, the dealer is absolutely correct. you've called the floor a hundred times and we're getting way fewer hands a level. he's only going to tell you you're wrong, because you are incorrect." The man proceeds to tell me "no girl is going to talk to me like that unless she's ****ing me." I don't believe I've heard anything actually demeaning in that sense before. He actually got a penalty, just grumbled as he waited it out, but continued to make comments after. It's in my nature to give it right back, admittedly I've got a mouth on me. But that man was just vile. It's always interesting to hear what these idiots say to others. Moral of the story, I cringe if I forget to grab my headphones.

I usually say stuff when people use "rape" too liberally. Saying something like "Actually, being raped and losing a big pot don't feel at all alike in my experience" usually stops people cold, haha. (Admittedly, I don't usually feel safe enough to say something like that at the table, but when I do it really does seem to work.) Otherwise, I will ask them to rethink what they said in the future. I hate not saying anything; it's tacit agreement that someone saying they "raped" someone else is okay! It's really, really not.

I had to change tables last night because some guy was being the grossest. I sat down and he was like "Oh, a lady, we can't swear anymore. .....or talk about B****." (emphasis on the curse word while looking right at me.) Ooookay, whatever. I ignored it. But then he started talking about crude sex with whores so I immediately asked for a table change. I admit, I was scared to do anything, and it was clear the table wouldn't have my back! I hate just leaving; poker's a boy's club and I hate to concede ground but I also usually don't actually feel unsafe at tables.

If I were a new player, and that was my first casino experience, I sort of think I'd never play poker again.

Men don't "speak up" because its incredibly hard for me to relate to what it must be like for you to overhear a comment like this. Men don't "speak up" because real life conversations happen really quickly, and its tough to instantly be prepared to call someone out when 5 seconds ago you were daydreaming while waiting for a live poker hand you weren't involved in to finish. Moreover, real life conversations aren't like message boards where each side is legitimately interested in debating the various aspects of a topic.

The guy who made the rape comment just lost a big pot. Its very typical to let a player who loses a huge pot to steam a bit, especially if hes a fish who may proceed to tilt off more buy-ins. I think its silly for you to expect the men at the table to suddenly be more concerned with debating a moral issue than taking the steaming fish's money.

Imo you should continue to do what you are doing- raise our collective consciousness by letting us know what it is like to be a rape victim and have to hear these types of jokes. However, imo the "if only everyone else would help me with this" attitude isn't fruitful.

I think that, by far, the best solution to OP's situation would be to wait at least 30 minutes before saying anything. If possible, engage the player in normal conversation to the point where theres some common ground. Then before leaving try to pull the guy aside and explain exactly how and why his comments were so hurtful.

I know that if I had unknowingly offended someone like this and they approached me in this manner, I would profusely apologize and go way out of my way to remedy the situation. Plus I'd be super impressed with the way she handled it, and it would be very likely to actually change the way I expressed myself in the future. Basically I strongly feel that compassion and empathy are the ways to effect change in the world. Most likely the guy who made the comment wasn't a bad person at all and would be glad to make a positive change in his life- but arguing with him over an off-hand comment made right after he loses his stack is not the best method.

Yeah, I don't think you got the point of my post at all.

I do speak up (plenty). I have no problem doing so. But it's a cultural/bro environment type issue as much as anything else.

You don't have to be raped to know what it feels like. I don't need to have cancer to know that it's terrible and someone saying "You suck and I hope you die of cancer" is a douchebag.

I have no problem with blowing off steam and have said some fairly colorful stuff in my time after a bad beat (mostly along the lines of just cursing as opposed to calling my opponent names - I'm 100x times more likely to say "**** me" than "**** you"). But I believe there are certain lines that shouldn't be crossed without a (metaphoric or verbal) slap to the face. We'd think a very mad person who started calling someone the n-word was over the line. I'd like to see gay slurs and casual references to rape reach that same status.

Whether or not they do is a different issue altogether, but waving it off as "he was just mad" is silly. We arbitrarily expect people to hold to certain standards whether they are mad or not. And as a culture, we get to set those standards.

It's just really hard as women in an extremely male dominated culture to get men to care about something like this, which is why I think women should (when they feel comfortable) speak up, and men who agree with this should do likewise. Maybe that would be more effective if you wait to say it after he calms down; depending on the person and the situation that's probably true. For people who just say it casually or trying to be funny/cool, I'd say a more immediate "yeah, that's not cool/funny" is probably just as effective.

This imo is a terrible way to try to affect change in the world. It makes the person feel as if you're judging them and will result in conflict a huge majority of the time.

I am of the belief that most people try to be good people. Nobody wants to be miserable and unhappy. But when someone makes one off-hand comment(after getting stacked!!) and you jump all over him like this, theres no way thats optimal for positively affecting change in the world. As SGT RJ said:

The reason that you are getting this type of backlash is most likely due to the attitude demonstrated from redhat_jane's and dhcg86's posts. Most men will feel tremendously embarrassed when a woman calls them out publicly, and dismissing her as "an uptight bitch" is an easy way to deflect attention. However, I'd be willing to bet that if you approached the man privately a few hours after the incident then he'd be a lot more willing to reconsider his views and change the way he acts in the future.


I'm 99.9999999% sure that he meant it to mean "take all of your chips." Do you disagree?


Honest question: If the poster you were responding to had been raped, would that change your views here? Would that, in your opinion, give him more of a right to comment on the usage of the word "rape"?



A few posts up you responded by saying "You aren't a woman, you've never been raped" as if that meant his opinion carried lesser weight. Now you're saying that having been raped should play no role in weighting one's opinion. Which is it?


this so much, definitely gonna steal for future use

[x] misclicked on this forum ~2 hours ago
[x] still reading and responding now


You're right- I didn't fully understand your point. I agree completely with you here.


I wasn't waving it off as "he was mad" as much as I was waving it off as "I care more about taking a fish's money than I care about debating ethics right now." In other words if a fish busted used racially insensitive language before he bought back in, I probably wouldn't go out of my way to have a discussion of racial equality with the guy- I would just assume that hes an ignorant jackass and I wouldn't try to engage him in any further conversation.

Well, then we're back to the issue discussed previous that comes up for women - do you speak up (even when uncomfortable/offended) or just sit back and try to take the money?

And there isn't a right answer for that. The answer can change from person to person and situation to situation. I like to think/hope that for some people, speaking up is something they would do at least some of the time.

When it comes specifically to the issue of using rape so casually when there are so many other words that can be used to mean the same thing, I'd (personally) like to encourage people to speak up maybe more frequently than they might otherwise to (hopefully) curb its usage. Then when/if it was really rare and everyone thought someone doing it was a complete ******* (as I believe we'd all assume if someone starting calling someone else the n-word), our work would be done.

And I say that without actually believing anyone who uses rape that way (or even anyone who uses the n-word) is an absolutely irredeemable *******. I certainly believe that people who really aren't racist (or sexist, or homophobic, or w/e) can say fairly abhorrent things under the right (or wrong, as it were) circumstances. But I think most people would look down on someone using the n-word, which is why it's relatively rare, which is a good thing, because it's offensive.

So is such casual usage of the word rape. And I don't believe you have to be a rape victim yourself to understand/appreciate that any more than you need to be black to understand why the n-word is offensive.

I find this such a horrible way to go about discussing women's issues though. The way for you to get men to relate to your issues is by relating them to issues that men might've gone through themselves. So during the course of the conversation when a man brings up issues he has gone through, for you to respond by saying "this isn't the place to discuss that!!" is completely missing the point imo.

The point is that we've all got issues that we have to go through in life. And the best way to solve these issues is to try to understand what it must be like to live life through someone else's eyes. So when a man raises a point about issues he has faced, I think its very counter-productive for you to just say "Thats not what we're talking about here! Lets ignore that and focus on the women's issues that we are discussing." A much better approach imo is to try to be sympathetic towards everyone and understand what life must be like from their perspective.

I'm not sure why it's the women that need to try to understand things from dude's perspectives, as opposed to the job of men who come into women's spaces and women's conversations to not make the conversation all about them. I mean, I sort of think it's standard to ask people not to derail, right?

I mean, you came into this forum and into this thread. Shouldn't you be doing the majority of the work to keep up with the conversation and understand what's been said? And again, not derail? In a spot specifically designed to be for women and women's perspectives?

And for that matter, I am pretty sure we all understand that when a dude uses rape casually, it's (usually) not an actual explicit threat. But some days (very rarely lately, fortunately), hearing someone claim I raped them, or that they raped me, or another player, or whatever, does me ACTUAL harm. I understand that he's not trying to make me relive a trauma by catching me off-guard. I understand it's a thing people say. I understand he's letting off steam/adrenaline. But I agree with the other posters who wish people would stop. At BEST it trivializes rape by comparing it to losing a poker hand. At worst, a survivor gets triggered into a flashback. My comfort is worth just as much as yours.

I think it is the job of human beings to try to best understand the viewpoints of other human beings, regardless of gender.

Personally, while I've never been an active participant in rape culture, I've definitely been a passive participant before(in that I have never stood up against it). And I'm proud to say that this thread, and in particular some of SGT RJ's posts, have helped me see the female perspective on this issue and change my mind.

Anyway, as for the actual posts we are discussing here- Bladesman87(a male) came into this thread and made 2 long posts. I won't quote them since they're quite long, but a few key excerpts:



redhat_jane's response to this was to post a series of GIFs mocking him and then saying:




And so, as someone who is now sympathetic to the cause you are promoting in this thread(anti-rape culture), I felt that I should point out to redhat_jane that I think she is going about fighting for her cause ineffectively. I felt that Bladsman87 gave her a perfect opportunity to rationally and articulately explain her side of things, but instead she decided to be completely dismissive of his concerns and basically told him to f*ck off in lesser terms.


To go back to SGT RJ's post earlier:

Bladesman87 was a potential "man who would speak up". He heard your complaints, and rather than ignore your plea as often happens, he actually responded and tried to provide his best insight. Judging by the length of his 2 posts, I wouldn't be surprised if he spent over an hour thinking about these issues and what he would write in this thread. And when a person spends that much time on an issue, they obviously have some degree of interest in that issue.

I'm not saying anything regarding the correctness of Bladesman87's points; I'm merely saying that if you wish for "men who would speak up" then when a man mentions some of the similar struggles he has gone through, it would probably better serve your interests to try to relate to his issues instead of instantly dismissing them and insisting that your issues are far worse.


I mean, redhat_jane literally said " we're not here to talk about why boys have it bad or why we should be sympathetic to where they're coming from. we know where you're coming from." She obviously had no interest whatsoever in trying to see things from another perspective, and she even insisted that she already knows about that other perspective(as a man, I disagree strongly with her on this). Maybe if she showed more of a willingness to see things from someone else's eyes then Bladesman87 would've returned the favor.


Anyway, I've found this thread interesting and am glad I misclicked on this forum today

Congratulations for writing a whole bunch of words that basically boil down to a logical fallacy

If you actually want to help I suggest stopping this derail.

thank you. i was all set to go off on this yoyo about how clueless boys masquerading as intellectuals really need to quit telling women to "be polite!" if we want to be taken seriously but then i got to your post and my blood pressure returned to normal.

<3

You can't be more wrong imho. Also, the kind of actions you advise sound terrible to me.

I've just read the whole thread and at least you cared to write detailed answers and speak you mind clearly, thank you for that.

The thing is that there is a limit to the number of experiences you can relate to. We can enlarge our views a lot and teach ourselves to think from someone else's point of view as much as we want but this is the reason why, I think, it is an extremely dangerous path.

I agree that it may be the most efficient way to deal with issues in the short term but you will have a hard time changing things bit by bit in the long term imo. You also have to take the harder way at the same time, every time you can: taking a stand and defending the values you believe in. It doesn't have to be political, heavy or anything, but you just can't let it go lightly.

I understand that you have to let it go sometimes but if you take some form of action, I think joking or retaliating is not enough. You can try to win the one's conscience without hurting them but I think you have to act firmly as well.
For the 'ass' thing you must notify the dealer. You might want to keep the mood up and just say 'Does he has the right to say that?' instead of asking for a ban to the floor manager, but you have to get the local authority or people around involved. You can't win these fights alone.

Delaying the response to adapt to the guy's mood is also terrible.
You quote SGT RJ with the 'angry bitch responding' and you're jumping onboard explaining that this is why you have to wait a bit.
I do think you have to act immediately to draw the line, especially if the guy on the other side is angry. You have to draw it.
Let's try something else: if a guy you know is drunk and you are helping him going somewhere, would you allow him to grope you a little? It sounds that you may do that, because obviously he won't be able to think about what he's doing. I think you have to do both, draw the line immediately and talk later as well.

Regarding the broader issue of getting the men's point of view, you have to say to their face that they are plainly wrong when you think they are.
I agree that one should always try to understand in details why someone else would think or act like that. You might decide not to say anything which I understand that ; but once you act accordingly, you can't let it go so easily.

SGT RJ and other's are not dismissing Bladesman87's effort, they're just pointing that being a guy in a rough environment and being a women in a rough and mostly male environment is not the same thing. Losing face in a male setting and being threatened of getting raped is not the same thing. And I think there is no way to relate to the constant pressure a woman can feel regarding these threats or jokes.

That's very hard to say and I think we are not the best judges to give a conclusion.
Being a man in a male dominated society brings some advantages that are hard to see from a man's perspective. So even without taking an active part, it is highly probable that a man is part of the problem, however fair his action may be.

Saying something is of a different nature doesn't imply that it's is worse or better. They just meant that there are some thing that you can't relate to.
That might sound feminist but it is not.
I had the same kind of conversation with the wive of friend of mine. She's a very smart beautiful young woman, but not the kind aware of her beauty, she feels average, is not acting in a seductive way / not using her beauty as some women would. She would not admit that her life experience is different from a woman of equal wits that has to struggle to get some attention.
I kept explaining that a lot of things in a social context are easier for her but she wouldn't agree at all (and not strongly disagreeing at all).

Note : I'm a guy so competition was not an issue here.

He might have, but the problem is that we have to deal with people who don't want to see things from another perspective. Making people see a situation from another perspective is just part of the problem; and it is the easiest part of the issue.
Society becomes more civilised everytime one's able to fight for values one can hardly relate to. Hence the 'other men should voice their concerns regarding the word rape'.

Words are often extremely loaded. I talked about that a couple of years ago with some friends. Two of us kept saying that using the words white and black to describe someone is already offensive as white is always something good and black is always negative.
The other four kept replying it was not a big deal or that it is just a description of skin color, but a real description would be something like 'pink' and 'brown'. Picture someone with a pure white or black skin!

I hope the word rape will be as loaded as the N word someday. Given the replies here there is a long way to go.

I'm not sure exactly what this is in reference to but if it was about my convo with redhat_jane(assuming so due to her post above) then....

My posts to her had 0% to do with tone or politeness. My posts were merely suggesting that we(meaning men and women) should try to understand each other as best as possible, and then try to live our lives with respect to what we've learned about the other gender through this process.

To give a very real practical example, this thread totally made me aware of this issue. And while casual use of "rape" was never a part of my vocabulary to begin with, I've now dropped from a ~1% chance of ever using it to a 0% chance. To me using "rape" casually is now akin to using a racial slur. I would've thought that me coming in here and changing my views on this would've made me go over quite popular here, but Matt Crocker is giving me a snarky post that starts with "congrats on writing a lot of words" and redhat jane called me a "yoyo" and a "clueless boy masquerading as an intellectual."

And so when I see someone(regardless of their gender) who is demanding that other people see and understand their viewpoint but then outright insists that they already understand the other viewpoint and need to do zero work whatsoever in order to try to better understand it(which is exactly what she was doing)....well thats just sh*tty behavior imo, and it prevents us from having a better mutual understanding of each other.




From your link:

Coming in here, trying to understand the viewpoint of the women on 2p2, and changing my views = treading on someone's toes????






If your post was talking about my discussion with SGT RJ then I have already said I agree with her. I think she makes a ton of sense ITT and I think she will effect change on this issue in a hugely positive way due to the (imo) near-optimal way she goes about discussing this issue. I think redhat_jane should most definitely try to pattern herself after SGT RJ's awesome example. I mean, even a "yoyo/clueless boy" like me can see that this isn't an effective way to make change in the world:

The toe-treading comes from that "1% chance" of casually using rape.

Also I like that your entire post is "this isn't an effective way to help change" when it's changed your views.

Matt,

I came into this thread without much of an opinion. I open-mindedly engaged in some debate, putting forth my best thoughts, but fully being open to the possibility that I was wrong. SGT RJ's posts convinced me I was wrong, and I changed my view. Since that interaction, I have said nothing but positive things about SGT RJ and her posts.

On the other hand, I found redhat_jane's posts to be incredibly narrow-minded and, if anything, they pushed me away from trying to understand her plight. Since I now find myself on the side of the women in this debate and since I realized that what just happened to me(changing my views) was THE EXACT GOAL OF THE WOMEN ITT, I thought it might be helpful to provide feedback to them. So I expressed my views that SGT RJ's posts are great for the cause but redhat_jane's most definitely aren't(at least in the case of men like me). I would be willing to guess that you don't actually disagree with me on this, but rather you are disagreeing with a misunderstanding of what I said(that "politeness" was the missing ingredient).


May I ask why you continue to post in a really snarky and mean-spirited manner towards me("Congrats on writing a whole bunch of words", "Also I like that...")? Can't we debate in a kind manner as friends might do? I have no desire for hostility. If you are right and am I wrong, then I will be delighted to have you show me the way....theres no ego or rudeness on my part here.


You posted that analogy AFTER I had gone from 1% to 0%