In Your Face Jam - Jul 9, 2014

[Exciter]

The thing is, I'm while I'm not convinced at all she was right in her accusations. It's mostly just that people say a lot worse about creators for a lot dumber reasons and aren't so viciously derided for doing so.

You could take my word for it that she was not right in her accusations, but that's just what some guy on the CBR forums is telling you. The only evidence that she was not right in her accusations is the book itself. If you review that evidence, there is no question that Jet was of age and no statutory rape occurred.

It’s not about saying bad things about a creator for dumb reasons that is the issue here. Harshly deriding Rick because you think FrankenCastle sucked is very, very different than fabricating a story that Remender had Falcon rape a 14 year old girl in order to ignite outrage and get the man fired. Rape is an issue that many take very seriously, with good reason, and we know that most people were not, in fact, reading Captain America. It was a misrepresentation designed to leverage what would have been valid outrage IF the event in question actually happened.

However, the fact is that men are more likely to be the victims of a violent crime than women and it irks me when people like Brett White perpetuate the stereotype that men "never have to worry" about things like walking home at night because it's untrue.

Everyone has to be concerned with violent crime. Though, personally, on the scale of horribles, I’d rather be robbed or assaulted than raped. It’s not to say that men have nothing to fear, but women face a particular threat that, in all but the rarest circumstances, men do not.

Although, this is far afield from the statutory rape issue that originally caused the controversy.

[Clea]

But I'm willing to admit that I don't know everything, and the fact that a lot of women found the scene in question to still be ill-conceived makes me want to listen to why it can viewed that way. Honestly, I want a civil discourse on both sides; I don't want one side rallying troops and pitchforks and demanding a person's job be taken away, but I also don't want the people in power with hundreds of thousands of followers waving off the complaints of people that have read a scene differently because they have different life experiences.

See? This stuff is complicated.

I just posted something similar over in the Axel-in-charge thread. I think there was a lot of over-reaction on both sides, fan and pro, but at the very same time there was a lot of discussion happening about other aspects of this story that some fans found to be problematic. It's important not to shut down discussions like this and tell all fans to simply hush up and go away. IMO, it's especially important not to tell the female readers to hush up if they tell the (largely male) writers that something has come across as being very problematic to them. The internet makes it very easy to communicate but also to mis-communicate. I think it's already difficult to address touchy, problematic issues in person, among friends and colleagues. The internet makes it very easy for loud voices to drown out civil discussions.

I ran across a post from someone urging people to not read "Storm" -- the very first ongoing series for the most prominent woman of color in all of comics -- because the OP assumed that Greg Pak is a white man, when he's actually half-Korean and one of the loudest voices for diversity in comics.

See why Tumblr can be so frustrating?

The flip side of this, of course, is that when someone on Tumblr says something foolish, other Tumblr fans quickly step in and correct them. Fans are not shy about taking each other to task to point out mistaken thinking. I do wish that people would stop making blanket statements about 'Tumblr fans' as if they were a monolithic entity that shared a single brain cell. Sure, there are lots of foolish, immature people on Tumblr but I've seen more than my fair share of foolish, immature people here on CBR and elsewhere on other internet forums (and in person at conventions, in comic shops, etc.). I've also seen a lot of very smart, very enthusiastic, and very, very well-read, knowledgeable fans on Tumblr, too. These fans avidly read the comics every week and watch each of the movies as they come out. A very large percentage of them are female, too, which should make the Marvel PTB very happy because it means that the Marvel market share is truly expanding outside of the traditional male readership.

[Guest_1001]

I'm gonna quote the same article you used:

"With the exception of rape, males are more likely to be the victims of violent crime than females are."

If we're discussing walking home at night, you can't just say "Well, with the exception of getting raped, you're totally safe, women!" because that's taking a huge factor out of the equation.

I dare say you're misunderstanding the article; every other form of violent crime is more likely to happen to men. I didn't dismiss rape at all but you seem to be saying, "well if you include rape, that means women are much more likely to be victims than men are and therefore men have no reason whatsoever to fear walking home! Unlike women". This isn't the case.

Incidentally, and I can't believe I have to look up these statistics when my only claim was "Brett White shouldn't say men have nothing to fear", rape is far less likely to happen than aggravated assault; according to the FBI's statistics from 2009, there were around 88,000 forcible rapes compared to around 800,000 aggravated assaults.

Also, I never said anything about women! It's kind of ridiculous that trying to point out a fact about men being victims is met with the response, "how dare you say that women can't be victims!"

Everyone has to be concerned with violent crime. Though, personally, on the scale of horribles, I’d rather be robbed or assaulted than raped. It’s not to say that men have nothing to fear, but women face a particular threat that, in all but the rarest circumstances, men do not.

I'd say it depends on the kind of assault. And I severely question that "all but the rarest circumstances" line, when considering both prison rape and the fact that men are less likely to come forward out of fear of not being taken seriously.

[Exciter]

I'd say it depends on the kind of assault. And I severely question that "all but the rarest circumstances" line, when considering both prison rape and the fact that men are less likely to come forward out of fear of not being taken seriously.

Why would you consider prison rape in your walking home analogy? Even if you did, since a very small fraction of men go to prison and not every one of them is getting raped, yes it is a rare circumstance that I'd venture to say the average man will never have to face. I'm from New York, and while I've been concerned about assault and robbery, never have I legitimately been on the streets in a situation where I thought I might get raped.

[crimsonspider89]

Rape by force is very small actually.

Majority of rape is date rape, friend rape, family rape.