Thanks for your reply, all your points are good ones.
Re your first point: I do think a weak part of my argument is the assumption that the average apple eater feels anything like me on this. I may be falling for a like-mind fallacy here. Given the touchiness of the subject, it’s rather hard to talk about it and find out (which is why I’m posting here!). However I’ll note that before experiencing a culture of the old way, I didn’t feel any awareness of discomfort from apple brandishers, so many apple eaters may not be aware of how apple brandishing affects them. It’s only after comparing my culture (US) to another that I noticed how much more relaxed I felt in the latter.
Given this, it’s totally possible that (Re your second point) someone born into an old way culture just has much more subtle triggers than I, and so has no comparative relief. The conservative middle eastern countries are probably good evidence of this, since they can get angry over, as you say, the shadow of a leaf. And for the record, that level of modesty is way beyond any I’d support.
Re your third point: I’d absolutely make an exception for feeding infants. That clearly outweighs my concerns. (Though it could be difficult to get a social norm that accepts that while frowning on other apple brandishing.)
Re your fourth point: I avoided going there to keep my essay short, but you make a good point. I hadn’t heard that orange theft might be as common as apple theft, do you have the source on that? However to address this I’d just say orange brandishing also strikes me as wrong. (And I’d say that just as easily if you handed me proof that apple holders suffer from orange brandishing to the same degree that orange holders suffer from apple brandishing. I’m not trying to play favorites here.)
Dropping the metaphor because it’s tedious to write around--
It is difficult to square men being harmed by seeing scantily clad women with the popularity of strip clubs, softcore porn, cheerleaders, Game of Thrones, etc. It’s one thing to argue that men aren’t aware that they’re being harmed, and quite another to argue that they are deliberately seeking out something that harms them.
I think a useful point of comparison is evangelical modesty culture, which does have a real “there is no way to win” problem.
I do think it’s pretty easy for people to distinguish feeding a baby from deliberately flashing people; for one thing, in only one version is a baby present.
The CDC collects sexual violence information. Women raping men is classified as “forced to penetrate,” not “rape”; if you combine the statistics, you get ~25% of lifetime rape survivors being male and ~50% of past-year rape survivors being male. (No idea why the discrepancy.)
Thanks for your reply, all your points are good ones.
Re your first point: I do think a weak part of my argument is the assumption that the average apple eater feels anything like me on this. I may be falling for a like-mind fallacy here. Given the touchiness of the subject, it’s rather hard to talk about it and find out (which is why I’m posting here!). However I’ll note that before experiencing a culture of the old way, I didn’t feel any awareness of discomfort from apple brandishers, so many apple eaters may not be aware of how apple brandishing affects them. It’s only after comparing my culture (US) to another that I noticed how much more relaxed I felt in the latter.
Given this, it’s totally possible that (Re your second point) someone born into an old way culture just has much more subtle triggers than I, and so has no comparative relief. The conservative middle eastern countries are probably good evidence of this, since they can get angry over, as you say, the shadow of a leaf. And for the record, that level of modesty is way beyond any I’d support.
Re your third point: I’d absolutely make an exception for feeding infants. That clearly outweighs my concerns. (Though it could be difficult to get a social norm that accepts that while frowning on other apple brandishing.)
Re your fourth point: I avoided going there to keep my essay short, but you make a good point. I hadn’t heard that orange theft might be as common as apple theft, do you have the source on that? However to address this I’d just say orange brandishing also strikes me as wrong. (And I’d say that just as easily if you handed me proof that apple holders suffer from orange brandishing to the same degree that orange holders suffer from apple brandishing. I’m not trying to play favorites here.)
Dropping the metaphor because it’s tedious to write around--
It is difficult to square men being harmed by seeing scantily clad women with the popularity of strip clubs, softcore porn, cheerleaders, Game of Thrones, etc. It’s one thing to argue that men aren’t aware that they’re being harmed, and quite another to argue that they are deliberately seeking out something that harms them.
I think a useful point of comparison is evangelical modesty culture, which does have a real “there is no way to win” problem.
I do think it’s pretty easy for people to distinguish feeding a baby from deliberately flashing people; for one thing, in only one version is a baby present.
The CDC collects sexual violence information. Women raping men is classified as “forced to penetrate,” not “rape”; if you combine the statistics, you get ~25% of lifetime rape survivors being male and ~50% of past-year rape survivors being male. (No idea why the discrepancy.)