A case of 'know your audience' is at work here I think. He's an idiot. An unfunny idiot.

"Idiot" is the kind of word I reserve for people who aren't also rapists. Something a bit stronger is in order here, I think.

I do think they assaulted her because she's a woman.

That's a different question, though. Subhuman assholes like this don't even deserve to be called men, let alone define how I feel about half the species.

And, I think this may be the crux of the discussion. We have one group looking at this from the perpetrator side (subhumans) and others looking at it from the victim's side (women--mostly).

Is this a gendered problem from the subhuman side? No. Not all subhumans are men and not all men are subhumans.

Is this a gendered problem from the victim's side? I say yes because the victims are usually women. Should it be is another question. And, no, it shouldn't be. It should be a human problem, but it realistically isn't.

ION, 9,000-Year-Old Dental Drill Is Found

WASHINGTON -- Proving prehistoric man's ingenuity and ability to withstand and inflict excruciating pain, researchers have found that dental drilling dates back 9,000 years.

Primitive dentists drilled nearly perfect holes into live but undoubtedly unhappy patients between 5500 B.C. and 7000 B.C., an article in Thursday's journal Nature reports. Researchers carbon-dated at least nine skulls with 11 drill holes found in a Pakistan graveyard.

That means dentistry is at least 4,000 years older than first thought -- and far older than the useful invention of anesthesia.

This was no mere tooth tinkering. The drilled teeth found in the graveyard were hard-to-reach molars. And in at least one instance, the ancient dentist managed to drill a hole in the inside back end of a tooth, boring out toward the front of the mouth.

The holes went as deep as one-seventh of an inch (3.5 millimeters).

"The holes were so perfect, so nice," said study co-author David Frayer, an anthropology professor at the University of Kansas. "I showed the pictures to my dentist and he thought they were amazing holes."

How it was done is painful just to think about. Researchers figured that a small bow was used to drive the flint drill tips into patients' teeth. Flint drill heads were found on site. So study lead author Roberto Macchiarelli, an anthropology professor at the University of Poitiers, France, and colleagues simulated the technique and drilled through human (but no longer attached) teeth in less than a minute.

"Definitely it had to be painful for the patient," Macchiarelli said.

I think they assaulted the person because she is a woman.

Well, yes. Would you feel it was a gender issue if you read about a man being raped by his husband, or a friend? Or a girl being raped by her girlfriend, or a female friend? Or an elderly person being raped by a person in a position of power?

I just don't want to feel more outraged for a woman victim simply because I identify more with her, or because women are more often the victims of rape. I feel like that means there's less outrage for other victims.

"Idiot" is the kind of word I reserve for people who aren't also rapists. Something a bit stronger is in order here, I think.

I didn't realise he was actually one of the people implicated in the case. In that case, yes, I think you might be right.

Still loving Ziggy, although he may be "off the hook" in real life, too. Although I've long thought of him as heroic to Buffistas(not just because "he's" well-endowed, but because his character took a moment during a murder confession to pick a word that "just sounds better, you know?") We would do that. If we didn't know to lawyer up early and often after opening fire in an electronics store, that is.

Not all subhumans are men and not all men are subhumans.

My ethic doesn't allow me to designate some people as subhuman, no matter how loathsome they may be. That's bad philosophical mojo for me (and Buber, I guess). From what I've gleaned from history this kind of behavior is entirely human and pretty fucking common at that.

Y'all are free to designate anybody subhuman as your conscience dictates, of course.

I just don't want to feel more outraged for a woman victim simply because I identify more with her, or because women are more often the victims of rape. I feel like that means there's less outrage for other victims.

I don't think anyone has said there should be more or less outrage based on who the victim is. And, frankly, in the U.S. there is significantly MORE outrage if the victim is a child or elderly than if it is a woman.

Is this a gendered problem from the victim's side? I say yes because the victims are usually women. Should it be is another question. And, no, it shouldn't be. It should be a human problem, but it realistically isn't.

I think this may be it. I might be looking at it from a sort of detached idealist point of view. Curse of an education in anthropology, I suppose.

I don't actually think your friend should have been charged, based on what you've said, but that's a different story.

I think he was charged because he was young, fit (oh, VERY fit), and he won quite dramatically. I don't see it going very far, but it's an incredible hassle even if he's found innocent.

Is this a gendered problem from the victim's side? I say yes because the victims are usually women.

Hmm. Part of me is thinking that it's a problem for the women that were attacked. It's a potential problem for me because I may be more likely to be attacked (or maybe I'm no more likely than the average guy to be attacked--there are things that can mitigate one's potential victimhood--is it still a gendered problem for me then?). It's a problem for men because they are affected either as being painted potential attackers for no reason other than sharing a gender, or because even though they're not the primary victims the reverberations will ripple out past the woman who was raped.

My ethic doesn't allow me to designate some people as subhuman, no matter how loathsome they may be. That's bad philosophical mojo for me (and Hannah Arendt). From what I've gleaned from history this kind of behavior is entirely human and pretty fucking common at that.

Very much in agreement. I dont like to distance myself from behaviour like this too much, because that's when I start thinking it's not my problem. I live in the same world they do. It is my problem.

Also, ita, I like your logic.