"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls." - M. Cartmill

***

From a Facebook thread on the campaign against marital rape (about which, perhaps, more in the future):

A: my friend brought up the horrors of the forum discussion as well, and kindly summed it up for me:

1. If you don't want to fulfill your marital right, u better not marry.

Me: Actually non-consummation of marriage is valid grounds for annulment, so sex *is* an obligatory part of marriage.

[Addendum: What are the grounds for annulling a marriage?

"Non-consummation owing to wilful refusal"

Note also that there is no time limit for the inability or refusal to have sex, so sexual relations are truly a necessary criterion for marriage under Singapore law]

A: Gabriel - doesn't mean it should be non-consensual.

Me: No it doesn't, but it means the first point "If you don't want to fulfill your marital right, u better not marry" is valid

B: What does not wanting to have sex have to do with marital rape? Are you saying that if this law is abolished then no wives would have to put out and the men will have no recourse (being that currently they can just rape to fufil their needs)?

What a dismal view of female sexuality and heterosexual relations.

Me: No, I'm saying that it's unjustified to laugh at people who say that marriage is supposed to involve sex, and also that you're supposed to have sex with your spouse.

B: Don't think anyone's laughing at anyone who is making that point.

Certainly sex is something that happens between two consenting adults in a marriage. I think the rest of us take umbrage when that autonomy is either threatened or used as a weapon.

Me: Laughing, tut-tut-ing - either way it's disapproval.

And if only more people took umbrage when the weapon was used in the opposite direction.

B: Right, why don't anyone ever think of the men who are suffering at the hands of these vindictive and sex-witholding bitches.

Life's hard for you, isn't it?

Me: Actually I was thinking of false sex crime accusations, but if you want to pursue that we should take it off this thread.

B: All I will say to that is that it's one of the biggest strawmen arguments ever constructed and has been used most consistently to undermine rape victims and is one of the main reasons rape is an underreported crime.

You're welcome to take off this thread anytime.


Off the thread,

Me: *something, including evidence for 20-40% of rape accusations being false*

B: the points you made on the thread [are not] valid in any way (i.e. that sex in marriage is an obligation and the implication that rape is a recourse for not getting any).

And what does any of this have to do with abolishing the protections for perpertrators of marital rape?

Me: I did not say that rape is a recourse for not getting any - if your spouse does not want to have sex with you you can always divorce him/her.

I was pointing out that under the law, non-consummation of a marriage is grounds for annulment. It is obvious that sex is considered part of marriage.

If you think this sounds preposterous, consider that if I take some money from the wallet of a stranger on the street, this is considered theft.
On the other hand, if a spouse takes money from the other party's wallet, this is part of marriage.

It is hardly controversial to say that marriage involves financial, material, temporal and emotional support, and a consistent unwillingness to provide any would be grounds for divorce - why the double standard?

Finally, I did not say that this had anything to do with abolishing the protections for perpertrators of marital rape (though I have my own unorthodox views on that).

I was just pointing out that describing as a "horror" the view that "If you don't want to fulfill your marital right, u better not marry" was silly.

B: Wow. So you introduced a completely tangential point so you can talk about false rape accusations.

You are a troll.

Me: I made a minor point which had nothing to do with false rape accusations, which eventually provoked a response from you claiming that [I] viewed [wo]men as "vindictive and sex-withholding bitches".

Thank you for showing once again that the bulk of self-identified feminists are crazy.


I was musing about how many sane feminists there really are out there, and someone said that she "was wondering that too... But not recently. Gave up." (maybe she'll be called a gender traitor, or more likely someone who has internalised patriarchy).

Someone pointed out that the parallels I pointed out between feminism (and progressives in general) and religious fundamentalists potentially applied to ANY activist, whatever the gender or cause, though admitting that environmentalists are particularly susceptible.

I didn't find this to be a contradiction, not least because most activism is progressive in spirit; in activism you are passionate about something. and when your emotions overwhelm you you go cuckoo.

Yet, without emotion you will not be motivated to fight for social change and improvement in the first place.

Thus, the pertinent question is: how do you fuel your activism with passion and emotion without letting these same drivers cloud your mind and potentially cause more harm than good?


There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.