Eugine_Nier comments on I've had it with those dark rumours about our culture rigorously suppressing opinions - Less Wrong

26 Post author: Multiheaded 25 January 2012 05:43PM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 28 January 2012 03:52:12AM 1 point [-]

In post-war America, rape jokes (...) were relatively common.

Perhaps, but the moralists of the day also condemned them. See the Hays code for an example of this. If you were to ask one of these moralists what was wrong with having rape jokes in movies, they'd probably answer some version of arguing that it promotes rape.

Comment author: TimS 28 January 2012 04:52:55AM 0 points [-]

I agree that "moralists of the day" have always condemned what they saw was wrong, probably including rape jokes. But the social theory of post-war American moralists held that women's social purpose was to stay home and have babies. To that end, they asserted the empirically false theory that wearing revealing clothing was a cause of rape. In short, I don't trust that those types of theories were trying to have an empirical basis.

I'm not sure that the Hays Code is a good example, because it was aimed on more "core" moralist issues (like nudity, non-marital sex, anti-homosexuality, and depictions of crime without punishment). Also, it was limited to movies.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 28 January 2012 06:06:03AM 1 point [-]

the empirically false theory that wearing revealing clothing was a cause of rape.

I'm not sure what you mean by saying this theory is empirically false; if two women were to walk through a bad neighborhood one wearing revealing clothing, the other wearing concealing clothing, the woman wearing the revealing clothing would be more likely to get raped.

Note, I'm not saying that this means we should necessarily bad women from wearing revealing clothing (since outside bad neighborhoods this effect may be small) and the restrictions on freedom may very well do more damage. But I doubt you favor a bad on rape jokes for the same reason.

In short, I don't trust that those types of theories were trying to have an empirical basis.

I suspect they had (at least slightly) more of an empirical basis then feminism, mostly thanks to memetic evolution.

Comment author: TimS 28 January 2012 05:58:37PM 0 points [-]

I suspect they had (at least slightly) more of an empirical basis then feminism, mostly thanks to memetic evolution.

I don't understand the argument. Feminism is later in time than Hays-morality, so why isn't it the more evolved? Plus, Hays-morality is the descended from theories that said things like "showing the ankle leads to the end of civilization," which I think is falsified for reasonable definitions of civilization. That is, allowing women to wear bikinis has not caused a return to the state of nature, but that is what Hays-code moralists seem to have predicted.

I'm not sure what you mean by saying this theory is empirically false; if two women were to walk through a bad neighborhood one wearing revealing clothing, the other wearing concealing clothing, the woman wearing the revealing clothing would be more likely to get raped.

This is intuitive and what one would expect. That doesn't necessarily mean it's true. For example, there are reported instances of serial rapists targeting housewives, which is pretty clearly uncorrelated (if not anti-correlated) with revealing clothing. In short, citation desperately needed.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 28 January 2012 08:48:35PM 1 point [-]

I don't understand the argument. Feminism is later in time than Hays-morality, so why isn't it the more evolved?

True, but they made a point of disregarding the accumulated wisdom of their predecessors.

Plus, Hays-morality is the descended from theories that said things like "showing the ankle leads to the end of civilization," which I think is falsified for reasonable definitions of civilization. That is, allowing women to wear bikinis has not caused a return to the state of nature, but that is what Hays-code moralists seem to have predicted.

BTW, I suspect that the Hays-code people's main argument against revealing clothing is that it would promote adultery, which it indeed has.

Comment author: TimS 28 January 2012 11:12:58PM 0 points [-]

BTW, I suspect that the Hays-code people's main argument against revealing clothing is that it would promote adultery, which it indeed has.

That's probably an accurate summary of their intent. I'm still not sure that I believe their empirical claim. Adultery and non-marital sex have been common in pre-immodesty Western history across many social classes.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 29 January 2012 01:57:29AM 1 point [-]

Adultery and non-marital sex have been common in pre-immodesty Western history across many social classes.

Adultery certainly existed, I don't think it was as common as it is today. Certainly people were much less likely to have kids out of wedlock, or to not even bother getting married before having kids.

Comment author: TimS 30 January 2012 02:03:41PM 0 points [-]

That assertion about adultery might be appealing to believe. But that doesn't make it true. And citation to an essay asserting increased social stratification is not evidence that out-of-wedlock births are more common now than in the past, or that marriage is becoming uncorrelated with child-rearing.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 31 January 2012 03:43:08AM 3 points [-]

By the way, do you have a citation that rape jokes increase rape, since near as I can tell the evidence for it is of the same kind of vaguely anecdotal/common sense that you like to dismiss when it supports a conclusion you don't like.

Comment author: TimS 31 January 2012 08:14:05PM *  1 point [-]

That's a fair question. To be clear, my assertion was that society's response to rape would be "better" if we gave negative feedback to rape jokes, which would reduce their frequency.

  • I think it is pretty clear that the frequency of rape jokes has substantially decreased since the 1970s, caused substantially by negative feedback.
  • In that same time period, I think society's response to rape has significantly improved.

Concrete examples of recent changes:

  • In many American jurisdictions, rape was once legally defined to include an element of force. That is, proof of non-consent could only be shown by the woman's "utmost resistance." Nowadays, the legal definition has been changed to remove the force requirement or interpret it as satisfied by the force of penetration.
  • Spousal rape was once legally impossible or difficult to prove. Now, spousal rape is treated as legally similar to other kinds of rape.
  • Once, rape victims needed to worry that their dress or promiscuity would be used to discredit their testimony in court. Now, the rules of evidence have often been amended to restrict the admissibility of this kind of evidence.

At this point, I think the evidence shows a strong correlation between anti-rape-joke attitudes and society's responsiveness to rape. That's not proof of the causal mechanism I'm asserting (reducing rape jokes causes attitudes towards rape to change in the general population), but it is suggestive.

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