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Wolf in Man’s Clothing
By Jeff Fecke | July 9, 2008
A trigger warning applies.
Being a feminist ally is not always easy. Aside from the fact that you have to actually engage and grapple with parts of yourself you’d rather not have to admit exist, there is often, from friends and enemies alike, the subtle question of why one has become an ally. The MRAs are always the quickest to assert that any feminist man is really only doing it to score with women. Feminists are generally more pleasant about it, but there’s still an understandable delay while women try to ascertain just what a man choosing to declare himself as an ally is actually after, and what truly motivates him to stand with women.
This has never bothered me. Though it’s been frustrating at times, I know why I’m a feminist — because of my sister, my daughter, my female friends, my female acquaintances, and indeed, my male friends and family and acquaintances, who I believe also benefit from a world that is more egalitarian in nature. But nobody living outside my mind can know that for certain; they have only my actions and my words to judge me by, and only they can decide whether I’ve demonstrated my trustworthiness.
If that bar is higher today than it was yesterday, I understand, because there is some disturbing news out of Iowa about a man who called himself — still calls himself — a feminist ally. He is anything but.
Kyle Payne attended Buena Vista University, where he worked as a Resident Advisor, and where he was an active and staunch supporter of feminist goals. He maintained (and maintains) a blog, where he has written volumes about his anti-pornography and anti-rape views.
And by the way, he sexually assaulted an inebriated woman. And taped the act.
An Iowa blogger who claimed to use activism and education to promote “a more just and life-affirming culture of sexuality” for women, especially those women who have been victims of sexual violence, has pleaded guilty to photographing and filming a college student’s breasts without her consent.
Kyle D. Payne, 22 of Ida Grove, presented his guilty plea Monday in Iowa District Court for Buena Vista County. He agreed he was guilty of felony attempted burglary in the second degree and two counts of invasion of privacy, a serious misdemeanor.
In documents filed with the court, Payne agrees that “with an intent to arouse my sexual desire, I photographed and filmed Jane Doe and her breast without her consent.” A portion of the plea agreement stating that Payne was of sound mind when the incident took place in early 2007 was stricken from the document, leaving only the portion where Payne agrees that he is currently of sound mind.
Needless to say, Payne’s actions are sickening, and I hope he gets the book thrown at him. And they’re disturbing and frustrating for me because Payne’s actions make it difficult for women to trust the men who claim they want to help — for obvious reasons.
People often misread the statement “every man is a potential rapist” to mean “every man is a rapist,” or “every man would rape if given the chance,” or “every man wants to commit rape.” That is not what the phrase means. What it means is that because of the way rape culture operates, women must identify every man as a potential rapist, knowing full well that most aren’t. Because rapists don’t hang signs around their neck proclaiming themselves as such, because rapists don’t act like evil bastards all the time, because rapists indeed can comport themselves as friendly, helpful, even feminist, women must be on their guard until they believe that they have learned enough about a man that they can trust him. And even then, it’s a leap of faith, as anyone who’s experienced acquaintance rape can tell you.
And men like Payne make it harder for women to take that leap of faith, and that pisses me off. Because while I know I would not rape anyone under any circumstances, Kyle Payne was a person who would have said the same thing, even as he did.
I don’t know why Payne presented as an ally while assaulting a woman; maybe he believed if he worked as a feminist ally it would help him defeat his demons, or maybe he felt it was an act of atonement, or maybe he felt it was a good way to look for victims, or maybe he convinced himself that he was an ally, until the day he decided not to be.
I don’t know, and I don’t care. I can’t control Kyle Payne, and I can’t answer for him; his sin is his own, and I hope he pays dearly for it.
And I can’t control whether this puts women more on their guard against me, whether they react to this by revisiting suspicions they’d laid aside or not. It may or may not be fair, but it’s totally understandable, and it’s not about me personally.
All I can control is myself. And all I can do is go forward and do what I’ve been trying to do — help advance the cause of feminism, so that my daughter can live in a safer world where she has more options and more equal opportunities than now. I don’t have to make sure I’m not a rapist — I know I’m not — but I do have to make sure that I continue to confront rape culture, a culture that does spread the message that rape and assault are something other than violent and inexcusable crimes. And hope that my teaspoon can help to level the hill of garbage that men like Kyle Payne continue to deposit every day.
Topics: Feminism, Sexual Assault | 22 Comments »
July 9th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Personally? I’ve never loved the “every man is a potential rapist” trope, myself. Not because I’m a starry eyed little naif who thinks I can easily identify The Bad Guys at all times; more, well, bluntly, I don’t necessarily trust woman all that much either. Even sexually, yeah: I mean, there was also Evelina Giobbe:
http://feministblogs.org/tag/prostitution/page/2/
* At the time, Giobbe had a sixteen year old foster daughter, known to me a few years later as “Lee,” who had come into contact with her as a client of WHISPER (for Women Hurt In Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt, the erstwhile Minnesota nonprofit), when she was struggling to get away from her convicted murderer pimp. Giobbe essentially used Lee for PR purposes, showing off her charge at meetings of radical feminists who naturally cooed over what an awesome rescuer she was, while at home Giobbe was abusing her physically, sexually, and emotionally. (The fact that she sent Lee on her drug runs is barely the tip of that iceberg.) When she was doing her research for the “WHISPER Oral History Project,” she interviewed a number of pimps, and insisted on conducting at least some of those interviews in the home, while specifically introducing the pimps to Lee (against her stated wishes) and bragging about how she’d “gotten” her. This was part of a pattern Giobbe had of regularly threatening Lee that she could be turned back out on the streets at any time, which, of course, she ultimately did, on the night before Lee had final exams at the high school she’d finally been able to enroll in (about which Giobbe had said, “Education is a privilege – not a right“), which naturally resulted in her ending up back in prostitution. Giobbe, of course, would later lie to her colleagues about this, claiming that Lee had run away – “what else can you expect from these girls”?
Basically, I’m already pretty fucking cynical, but figure “by their fruits you will know them.”
There are other reasons why I’m already skeptical of men, particularly, like Kyle, taking center stage in a movement purporting to be all about women; but well, this goes beyond any of that.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
as for why Payne presented as an ally: someone pointed out to me just now that y’know, Ted Bundy was a rape crisis counselor at one point in his career, too. Not something you want to think about, but looking at this guy’s vlog and just how smooth he is, I am thinking…well, I don’t know how to parse the mindset of someone like this, but whatever it is boils down to CREEPY with a capital EEP, let’s leave it at that.
July 10th, 2008 at 1:27 am
Jeff, it’s plainly obvious that you love your daughter. It’s perfectly natural for a father who wants the best for his kids to do everything that he can to prepare them for the world. But it seems that what you’re invested in is preparing the world for your daughter. It’s utopian thinking. No matter what laws you can get passed, no matter what cultural indicators reveal greater sensitivity about victim’s safety and humanity, you will never advance your particular daughter’s safety more effectively than you would by teaching her to make smart choices with her friends, her appearance, and her overall life.
I believe that this burden that you bear — a struggle for a political cause which is made more difficult when some men commit crimes — has little direct benefit to your loved ones. What do you expect? That someday, we will all live in one accord and respect each other as equals? That violence and predation will just wither away? Don’t be a fool. Don’t waste your efforts on a political and utopian dream.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.”
July 10th, 2008 at 6:55 am
A longtime friend raped me. He was feminist, socialist, and very active in lefty political circles. He was also, in many other ways, a decent guy. Maybe he still is; I don’t talk to him anymore.
And yet, the advice to women is always “be careful who you’re alone with, be careful who you get drunk around, be careful who you trust.” As if there’s a way to identify the ones who will rape. Just another way to blame the victim.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Dr. Confused said:
Boo-hoo! At least you’re safe if you don’t expect society to change, and instead take your safety into your own hands.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:36 am
First, thanks Jeff, for a thought-provoking and introspective piece. I’ve always found that men who identify as feminists or as feminist allies were a great comfort, partially because I was raised by one and partially because it does create a bubble of safety; a feeling, if you will, that this is a guy who is a part of the same process of change I myself am, that I don’t have to explain why I am a feminist, because they get it.
So to have that trust and feeling betrayed, even by proxy, by someone like Kyle Payne really does suck for feminists everywhere -men and women- because it puts us on the defensive with people we should by all rights not have to feel defensive around.
And John Dias-
Many women who have been raped have taken their safety into their own hands. It was not enough. My mindset, my self defense courses, and my choosing of my own outfits and friends based on safety is not enough. What is necessary is for us to expect for society to change, and for society and the other members of it to rise to the occasion.
I assume that you expect your own MRA group to exert some change upon society. So why deny that change to us? Why put the onus on us to remain safe? Why blame us if all of our precautions are for naught, and why insist that we sequester ourselves away for our own safety instead of admitting that we should be able to actually be able to walk outside and feel comfortable and unthreatened?
July 10th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
petpluto wrote:
The point is to prevent victimization, while at the same time preventing our civil liberties from being undermined. If the primary solution that you advocate is to enact ever-more draconian laws that remove due process protections and the presumption of innocence, then it’s evermore possible that the innocent might be unjustly caught up in the web of the justice system. Do we really want to clamp down on civil liberties in order to achieve a violence-free society? We can become a society like Singapore, where the slightest infraction warrants draconian punishments — but to me that just makes victims out of innocent people who otherwise might have lived free and peaceful lives.
To me, it seems much more effective to promote individual safety and responsibility.
July 10th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
[...] Blog of the Moderate Left [...]
July 10th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Fun stuff from Kyle Payne’s blog:
“I feel compelled to admit an unpleasant reality that most people are apt to miss. The men who assaulted Melissa are not awful, terrible, evil monsters, nor are they strikingly different (at least from what we know) from other men. This is not to say that we ought to condone or ignore their actions – doing so would be irresponsible and would provide support to a rape culture that has no place in a civil society…
Just as the men who assaulted Melissa are not extraordinarily different from other men in our male supremacist culture, there is nothing about the assaults that could be described as unique…
The horrifying truth of the matter is that all men are capable of rape, and we live in a culture that teaches men to feel empowered through exploiting women’s bodies. And the notion that “good guys” are okay and it’s really the “bad guys” we ought to be concerned about not only creates an unrealistic picture of men’s violence, it also endangers women’s lives.”
Indeed. I wouldn’t say I’m sympathetic to the fellow per se, but it seems that he knew himself well. In fact, there is no contradiction in saying that all men are capable of rape, and then going out and committing rape.
July 10th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
John Dias, the point is for prevention to come from both sides. It is not a woman’s fault if she is attacked; no more so than it is a man’s fault if he is car jacked or a couple’s fault if their home is robbed. There are precautions to take against each; walking in pairs, locking doors, etc. But it is not an attack on civil liberties to say that changes must happen within society to make attacks on women lessen -or to make home invasions or car jackings less prevalent.
It isn’t an attack on anyone’s civil liberties to say that we need to lessen the cultural influences that permit rape. It isn’t a call for “draconian punishments” but an overall overhaul in how we treat women -and how we treat men who abuse their positions of power in society.
Saying “boo-hoo” in response to the criticism of victim-blaming is part of the problem.
Saying “at least you’re safe if you don’t expect society to change” is definitely part of the problem. Because we aren’t safe; and that is the point.
July 10th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I don’t see what tangible benefit is provided to a victim (male or female) when they can claim the right to blame others, and to be immune from blame by others. So what if someone blames you? And so what, if you the victim blame someone else? So the hell what??? How are you any more empowered than you were before?
To be fair, I have heard it said that the only shred of a silver lining that a victim has after the fact is a sense of blame, of moral superiority over the victimizer. The idea is that you’re “robbing” the victim of even this last shred of dignity when you suggest that they somehow might have avoided their victimization. That seems like a compassionate position, if you care to be compassionate. But what I see is not compassionate people showing sensitivity. I see victims, and more often victims’ advocates, trying to silence others whether they have compassion or not, trying to use social authority and pressure to paint as “insensitive” those who would emphasize true personal empowerment. It seems to me that this hyper-political atmosphere surrounding victimization is inherently weakening to the social fabric, because it depends on consensus about how we define sensitivity, and it enforces compliance through social pressure.
There are many ways to fight a culture of violence, most of them carrying some sort of trade-off (security vs. liberty, and blame vs. responsibility). I personally believe that the best way to ward off violence is to have a sensible head on your shoulders, and a good can of pepper spray at the ready.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
What I see in your world view, John Dias, is that you wish to retain the liberty of saying sexist and morally reprehensible things whilst I take forego my own liberty for the sake of security simply because I am a woman and you are a man.
Comprehensive rape laws aren’t about a victim’s right to “blame” others. It is about establishing justice for the victim, establishing that the person who committed the crime takes responsibility for it. But apparently only victims have to take responsibility for the actions taken upon them in your world view. And I find that in itself to be reprehensible.
July 10th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
PetPluto wrote:
Wow, that actually does sound like a pretty good deal. Wish I had thought of that.
July 11th, 2008 at 7:05 am
[...] Blog of the Moderate Left [...]
July 11th, 2008 at 7:06 am
John, you’re not getting it. What exactly would you have proposed I do to protect my own safety? Choose not to be alone with a man I had known for years, that was in most ways a genuinely nice person? Are you really suggesting that women just stop being around their friends, their dates, their husbands?
July 11th, 2008 at 10:19 am
You, Mr. Dias, are a typical rape apologist, attempting to shift attention from the perpetuator to the victim.
It should not matter what women do or don’t do. The focus should be on the men who rape, on catching them and securing convictions.
To take refuge in the trite “but that’s not the way the world is” is simple-minded, chauvinist thinking. Yes, unfortunately it may not be. But it’s never going to change if idiots such as yourself don’t work to shift society’s perceptions of rape and its victims.
So why don’t you take some “personal responsibility” and call out rape culture and/or entitlement mentality among your male acquaintances? That would be a helluva lot more effective way to fight the “culture of violence” then coming here and pissing all over women who have been victimized.
July 11th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
You know, I think I agree with you guys… I think it would probably be a good thing if we made rape illegal. Don’t you agree?
July 11th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Okay, that was a little glib… I suppose I owe you more detailed replies than that. So here goes…
Dr. Confused wrote:
What could have been done from a legislative or cultural perspective? Would it have prevented it? Would sensitivity training have prevented your victimization? What exactly are you asking for, prevention measures, or sympathy after the fact? What could be done to make the world more secure (yet just as free) that has not already been done?
What could YOU have done? Nothing? Then perhaps it was not preventable. Bad things happen to good people, and sometimes they cannot be prevented. It does not necessarily point to a systemic defect that sometimes victims are created.
Bonnie wrote:
I think you meant “perpetrator.” I most certainly want to empower potential victims so that it doesn’t happen in the first place. What do you want, for more people to get raped and then get validation and sympathy after the fact?
July 11th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Let’s go ahead and “empower” potential victims of all violent crimes. Like murder. Parents should teach their children to always think of themselves as potential murder victims and to make smarter choices with their friends, their attire, and their lives. Murder probably happens a lot becasue of the shitty choices of victims. Potential murder victims should take personal responsibility for this and make better choices. Like maybe just cowering in their homes. Except in cases in which people are murdered by folks who are actually in their homes. Which constitutes an awful lot of cases. Which we will blithely ignore for the sake of our argument.
July 11th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Jeff started this thread by pointing out how it was more difficult for him to avoid being perceived as a threat, due to the actions of someone who was caught, prosecuted, and duly sentenced. The justice system did punish the offender, working as it was designed to work. The greater point Jeff was making is that perceptions of the larger population of men have now been downgraded because of the actions of a few.
What he is referring to is unfair public perceptions of non-threatening men. I say that it’s futile to become fixated on this, because you can’t control how people think. You can clamp down on crime, but this may in fact confirm the perception! You can give safety advice to potential victims, but ideologues may interpret this as insensitive to those who have been victimized (again, a perception issue unrelated to public safety).
Too many people are worried about hurting feelings, in my opinion. Fixation on who is and isn’t blamed tends to do that. Simply do your best to avoid being victimized, while at the same time supporting crime prevention efforts of law enforcement. By the way, law enforcement tell us to make smart choices every day! The victim blamers!
July 12th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
I think Jeff speaks for Jeff just fine.
August 4th, 2008 at 2:42 am
Wow. What a surprise. John Dias who never knows when to shut up is an MRA