Crying Wolf

But shortly after this a wolf actually did come out from the forest, and began to worry the sheep, and the boy of course cried out “Wolf, Wolf,” still louder than before.  But this time the villagers, who had been fooled twice before, thought the boy was again deceiving them, and nobody stirred to come to his help.  –  Aesop

I’m sure everyone is so familiar with the fable of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” that the two lines of my epigram are sufficient to call the entire story to mind, yet there are many people who seem to have never internalized its moral and so go about wrongfully shouting “Wolf!” and then reacting with surprise and even offense when nobody listens.  Unfortunately, in modern mass communication the role of the shepherd boy is often played by an entire group, and though it may be that only a small minority of that group plays the “wolf” trick the whole group must bear the stigma.  Feminists in general and neofeminists in particular seem to derive great satisfaction from crying “violence against women!” where no violence of any kind exists, and because of it men and even society in general have grown increasingly skeptical of such claims even when they happen to be true.

The most widespread example of this is in feminist “rape culture” rhetoric which characterizes any form of sex which is not initiated by a woman as “violence” even if it isn’t.  The second-wave mantra “rape is a crime of violence, not of sex” characterized any unwanted sex as intrinsically similar to murder or mayhem, even though it should be obvious to anyone that this simply isn’t true.  Burglary is a violation of its victim’s rights and can leave that victim feeling violated and unsafe, yet nobody would characterize it as violent; Bernard Madoff’s massive fraud totally ruined many of his victims and was certainly a heinous evil, but there was absolutely no violence involved.  The same can be said of a sober man taking advantage of an incapacitated woman; I would definitely classify it as rape, but it isn’t violent.  Using the word “violence” as a synonym for “violation” may be effective rhetoric, but it’s a dishonest use of the language which must inevitably water the word down in the same way that “terrible” has been diluted;  only a century ago it was nearly synonymous with “terrifying”, but now it usually means “of extremely low quality”.

This is obviously not what the neofeminists want; when they refer to prostitution and porn as “violence against women” they intend to associate them in the listeners’ minds with things like brutal beatings, gang rapes, acid attacks and dismemberment.  But since most prostitution transactions and porn movies aren’t remotely violent (and everyone but the most deeply indoctrinated neofeminist stooge knows it), the effect of the rhetoric is the opposite of what they intend; their repeated cries of “wolf” do not induce hallucinations of marauding lupine predators, but rather cause their listeners to ignore the word when it comes out of a female mouth.  I suspect that Melissa Farley realizes this is happening, hence her recent attempt to convince gullible and ignorant women that whores’ clients literally commit violence against them rather than settling for merely defining a completely benign and mutually satisfactory arrangement as “violence” for the crime of violating neofeminist principles.

But it isn’t only the neofeminists whose use of the word is tantamount to the way a well-fed American child uses the word “starving” when his dinner is 15 minutes late; even most mainstream feminists do the same.  Crude comments, verbal or internet-based insults, unwelcome sexual advances unaccompanied by threats, job discrimination, patronizing male attitudes and even the refusal to give in to female demands are all sometimes described by overenthusiastic feminists as “violence” even though none of them are violent by any normal definition of the word.  And now, apparently even male sexual preferences constitute “violence against women”:

Rosario Dawson says of receiving compliments when she lost weight to play a drug addict in Rent:  “I remember everyone asking when I was doing press for the movie, ‘What did you do to look so thin?  You looked great’ and I’m like, ‘I looked emaciated’…It’s a form of violence, in the way that we look at women and how we expect them to look and be — for what sake?  Not health, not survival, not enjoyment of life but just so you could look pretty.”

You heard it here first, guys:  A virtually talentless Hollywood airhead who makes a living off of her looks says that compliments are a form of violence; next thing you know she’ll be comparing a lucrative promotional contract to the Holocaust.  Given that it’s an article of feminist faith that “intelligence” is the most important and desirable female characteristic, these women clearly must not realize how incredibly stupid they sound; maybe it’s time for someone to explain it to them before the wolves come for the rest of us.

One Year Ago Today

“Nothing In the Dark” explains why sensible professionals don’t allow clients to turn off the lights during their appointments.