You have two options.

[innerbrat]

1) This is an April Fool's joke, implying the Evening Standard think rape is a joke.

2) Nick Erikson of the BNP actually did write the following posts on his blog:

Give Her a Slap!The truth is that Home Office figures have shown that there is an equal amount of violence perpetrated by men and by women, but the feminist media keep repeating the

Comments

[kadrin]

My sympathies for your troll infestation.

So, for one thing, there's the obvious. (Not funny as a joke, and probably not a joke for the reason that these ideas are often taken seriously in the national discourse, horrifically enough; as such, for the same reason that you wouldn't post "Black people = lazy" or "I think we should immediately attack Iran" as an April Fools' Day joke, these are probably "serious" posts. At least seriously intended.)

What gets me is the guy saying he's trying to raise an important issue in a provocative yadda yadda yadda...

Not because it's plainly stupid, but because it's not a new argument. He's not raising a "provocative issue"; he's alluding to foolishness that's been raised, debunked, raised again, debunked again, put in the mouths of fictional characters to show their chauvanism, probably used as a tattoo, printed on newspaper used to wrap up fish and chips, and finally left to an elderly relative who says that after we die there's going to be a planet for a French and a planet for the Chinese and we're all going to be a lot happier.

At least say that rape isn't a crime because, I dunno, society has constantly been accepting of rape in some form or another (bride prices, The Fountainhead, FATAL...) and as such it's an important part of society, not to be criminalised. That's still an infernally stupid argument, but at least it's a new infernally stupid argument.

Saying "HEY GUYS I'VE HAD THIS BRAND NEW IDEA THAT CHAUVINISTS HAVE ACTUALLY BEEN CHUCKIN' AROUND FOR LONGER THAN I'VE BEEN ALIVE" means you don't only fail as an enlightened human being, you even fail as a retrograde troll caveman. It's even disappointing for mockery purposes.

And while this is massively hypocritical of me, after having a whole spiel on originality, I must address Mr. Erikson with the standard, overused quote... "I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

(Also, while not by any means on the same scale as rape, force-feeding a woman chocolate cake would be assault. She plainly doesn't want chocolate cake at this time, you'd need to keep her in one place, most methods of force-feeding often cause minor to major injuries - hence the "force", it symbolically takes the choice of feeding herself away from her, and if she's lactose intolerant or even just full you run the risk of making her very sick. So, Mr. Erikson, your very bad and stupid analogy also shoots you in the foot. See above RE: no points, mercy.)

[batyatoon]

(Also, while not by any means on the same scale as rape, force-feeding a woman chocolate cake would be assault. She plainly doesn't want chocolate cake at this time, you'd need to keep her in one place, most methods of force-feeding often cause minor to major injuries - hence the "force", it symbolically takes the choice of feeding herself away from her, and if she's lactose intolerant or even just full you run the risk of making her very sick. So, Mr. Erikson, your very bad and stupid analogy also shoots you in the foot. See above RE: no points, mercy.)

See, yeah, that's what I was going to say.

But then, force-feeding hits a squick button of mine that I'm aware isn't universally shared.

[innerbrat]

Actually, I disagree with Kadrin in that I think it is on the same scale as rape, but that's possibly because of my attitude to sex - abuse is abuse is abuse and force feeding is a traumatising experience and a form of torture.

[kadrin]

I'd been tossing up about that bit, actually. I suspect it's because of the tone used - when something's presented as "obvious absurdity", it can be difficult to completely disengage one's brain from that to say "well, actually..."

I agree with you on abuse being abuse, to be honest. What I really mean by "not on the same scale" is that since force-feeding chocolate cake doesn't bring up gender politics, you'll be unlikely to face the judgement of a society that murmurs into its beer "That's just what you get for being a woman". There don't seem to be any really damaging assumptions about "eats chocolate cake" that can be reinforced and amplified into major upset. As such, I suppose I'm saying that while the original issue is on the same scale, the aftermath is less damaging - if only because society is not designed to focus on chocolate cake crime.

Having said that, I probably did put things wrongly, or misunderstood/misstated the premise. I will say that this particular issue is a new idea to me, and as such one I'm still putting out feelers about and trying to find the shape of what I think. The comparison of force-feeding to rape is not something I commonly think about, but as I recently said in comments to someone else, one's beliefs are always stronger for examination.

[lienne]

...actually, given the context, I'd think his definition of force-feeding here doesn't actually involve force per se. I imagine it going more like this:
"C'mon, lookit this delicious chocolate cake. You know you want to eat it. It's cake! All women love cake! You're going to love it. Mmmm, delicious cake. CAKE CAKE CAKE YOU WANT SOME FUCKING CAKE NOW."

Until the poor beleaguered woman just opens her mouth for the fork so he'll shut the hell up. Which is still nasty, but it's a special kind of nasty slightly lower on the Nasty Scale than holding her down and cramming food into her mouth.

And wow, I've creeped myself out now. D:

[davegodfrey]

And applying that back to sex its certainly grounds for divorce, but I'm not sure you could get a conviction out of it.