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Peikoff on date rape

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Ninth Doctor

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I was referring to people like you. Concrete-bound "Objectivists" who shallowly apply a single context-less principle to a single context-less concrete and then think they're smarter than Peikoff based on their shallow interpretations of a single concrete thing that he says. It's a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Peikoff has been studying, integrating, applying Objectivism since before I was born. I'd never be pompous enough to unquestioningly think that I'm right and Peikoff is wrong when me and him come to such incredibly opposing and contradictory conclusions. I would try to understand his reasoning first before I conclude that he's a depraved lunatic and that my reasoning is superior to his. And so far I have agreed with his reasoning on all of these huge controversies. Because I reference reality, and search for the principles, facts and context that give rise to the controversial things he and Rand have said, while everyone else is screaming about how horrible he must be because he said something that's too selfish for them to feel comfortable with. You should already be doing this when you study any written work of Rand's or Peikoff's. Why don't you do this when you hear something you don't like on his podcast? Granted I don't always do so. But whenever I am eventually exposed to the full context, whether by someone else exposing me to it or me finding it myself, I find that Peikoff was taking the fullest, broadest context and body of knowledge into account in his conclusions. People acting like he's a moron for these stunningly shallow reasons is a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. A student in a high school small engines class would never be pompous enough to think he knows how to build an engine better than his teacher who has been building engines his whole life. So why does this shit still fly in philosophy? Do you not know that ideas have just as absolute of an identity as engine parts do? Do you have no respect for people who have been masters of this field for longer than you've known it existed?

I see that you are well practiced with the argument from authority. Please remember that it’s a logical fallacy. Psychologizing is also a bad practice, for example you don’t know whether I think I’m smarter than Peikoff or not. Next, you say “shallow interpretations of a single concrete thing that he says”, this is not a concrete, it’s principles that we’re discussing. If he’d said he thought Kobe Bryant was innocent, and all we did was debate the not so clear facts of that case, then we’d be “concrete-bound”. Next, “because he’s too selfish for them to feel comfortable with”, what on earth are you talking about? You call me an Objectivist (albeit, a concrete-bound one), then you assume I have a problem with selfishness? Next, “people acting like he’s [Peikoff] a moron”, who’s said that? People think he’s wrong, very wrong, and since he’s not a moron he should know better. Finally, “respect for people who have been masters of this field”, oh I love this one, it’s my favorite. One word, a name, according to Peikoff the ultimate master of the whole field of philosophy for the last 230 years: Kant.

Gonna pay some respects?

immanuel-kant.jpg

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You tell me, you guys are the ones reading things into what he said

I am trying to be patient with you, but you are making this exceedingly difficult.

You say I am "reading things" into what he said. I made a simple statement - so it should be easy for you to identify the "things" that I am "reading into" his quote.

Here is that simple statement again: a woman politely saying "I withdraw consent" without actually trying to leave the situation.

Is that scenario the one to which Peikoff was referring? If not, where have I got it wrong, given that the two facts are 1) the woman says "I don't consent", and 2) the man freely continues having sex? If you disagree that those are the facts about the scenario, then please identify which are wrong, and what the actual facts are.

Edited by brian0918
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I'm sorry Scarlett. I should not have gotten snippy with you. I didn't know that you were misinterpreting me. I get angry when I see threads like this and I feel like if nobody else is going to stand up for what's right, then I will. So I get "Fired up" so to speak in debates like this where it's the world against Peikoff for what I see as no good reason.

SNerd, I personally would simply say "That's alright." And she'd be free to go. Maybe I'd grin and say "Aw..." before doing so to wittily express continued desire. Maybe I'd ask her why. Though she did get my hopes up by getting undressed and getting into bed with me. So I'd be disappointed, and rightly so. So I'd think it was immoral of her to let it get that far if she was just going to change her mind. If I value her though, I think personally that I'd give her the benefit of the doubt.

I focused on the woman because everyone was so busy focusing on the man. I wondered why only the man is culpable for fraud in a sexual scenario. For some reason, we as a culture tend to place 100% of all sexual blame on the man in every scenario, and that seemed wrong to me. They do that because the man's desire for sex is "selfish", and the man is generally considered the "stronger" of the two sexes. The woman is always considered an innocent victim of the man's selfishness in every scenario where a man desired her and had his way with her, due to hatred of the good for being the good, regardless of the context. I couldn't be sure that there wasn't such a cultural influence at play here, so I wanted to look at the "other side" of the issue.

I think the difference between what you're doing and what I'm doing is that I'm trying to discover what Peikoff could be thinking that resulted in him saying that. Whereas you guys are focusing literally on what he said. Maybe I can conclude that he could phrase it better. But there's no way he actually meant that a man is good to go and force himself on a woman. But depending on the context, it could be okay. She could be one of those types that wants to be taken and wants to offer resistance, and the man may have identified this in her. It's risky, and the price of being mistaken can be high.

Ninth Doctor, I'm getting sick of you. It isn't an argument from authority. An argument from authority would have been if I'd simply said "Peikoff says this, and he's an authority, therefore it's right." Citing Peikoff's intellectual achievements as evidence that his judgment is sound is just referring to the facts of reality. Plus I offered an argument in support of what he said. Someone who has created such huge amounts of value for us Objectivists deserves at minimum the benefit of the doubt. But you have a track record of jumping on the anti-Peikoff bandwagon every time he says something controversial. I've seen you do it over and over again. So excuse me for trusting his judgment over yours. He's earned it at least. He has never demonstrated to me that his judgment can't be trusted, like you have.

And you know damned well what I meant by "masters of this field." Or at least you should. I think you pointing to Kant as a "master" is a way to evade what I was pointing out. "Just because he's been in the field a lot longer than me doesn't mean that he's better than me. Just look at Kant! His ideas were dominant for much longer!" You (should) know damned well I was talking about good philosophers, consistent Objectivists, when I said that.

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SNerd, I personally would simply say "That's alright." And she'd be free to go. Maybe I'd grin and say "Aw..." before doing so to wittily express continued desire. Maybe I'd ask her why. Though she did get my hopes up by getting undressed and getting into bed with me. So I'd be disappointed, and rightly so. So I'd think it was immoral of her to let it get that far if she was just going to change her mind. If I value her though, I think personally that I'd give her the benefit of the doubt.
Other than what you would personally do, would you consider it either morally or legally acceptable for the man in that situation to physically restrain the woman in any way, in order to have sex with her.

I think the difference between what you're doing and what I'm doing is that I'm trying to discover what Peikoff could be thinking that resulted in him saying that. Whereas you guys are focusing literally on what he said.
As I said in a recent post, I think Peikoff did not mean what he said, and might even say so.
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Snerd: Hmm. I think it depends on the context. If you can tell that she's one of those types that wants to resist and have her resistance overcome, then it can be okay. I think it can also be okay if she's unsure of herself like I mentioned before. She could want it, but could be evasive about it, not letting herself know. If you can tell that she's one of these types, I think it could be okay to firmly push for it, and even restrain her if that could be the point where she gives in to her desire. Either way, her resistance would probably be weak. She wouldn't be fully sure that she wanted you to stop. You're taking a huge risk though. If you're wrong, you're attempting to rape her, and you'll be able to tell that you've gone too far. Her resistance will be fierce and righteous. She may show signs of disgust with you. Or she will just seem absolutely sure that she doesn't want it.

But otherwise, I'd say no, it's not morally or legally acceptable. Not 100% sure of myself on this, but I'm fairly confident.

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I was actually already thinking of this. I'd say the authorization comes with implicit expectations. The woman wants to receive satisfaction, so the consent should still imply reasonable limits. If the guy takes a dump on her chest for example, authorization is obviously legitimately out the window, because he's doing something that is just, absolutely not a part of the deal. Unless she's into that sort of thing..

It is literally impossible to come up with a list of "implicit expectations" that the average person has about a sexual encounter, or that one might expect one's partner to have, ex ante. There is an immense variety across genders, cultures, sexual subcultures, religions and moral systems, and individuals in general. It is also unnecessary to produce such a list. Nobody needs one, for the simple reason that one party does not get to decide whether the other's reasons for calling it off are legitimate or not. It's not about being reasonable or unreasonable, rational or irrational. When determining what the guy should do, it's only about rights and consent.

What I'm referring to is a woman who, say, wants sex from the man. But she's evasive. She doesn't let herself know that that's what she wants. She flirts, sends all the signals, goes up with him to his room, all the time telling herself that it's just innocent fun, that it won't lead to anything, but secretly wanting it to lead to something. And then when it inevitably does lead to something, she finally has to face what she's been evading. Can she then, morally speaking, "get out of it"?

Yes, absolutely. It is up to her at that point to decide what will happen (well, up to her and the guy, as he could also call it off at that point if he wanted). It's her sex life, it's her body, it's her call. Simple. She was certainly immoral for lying to herself about her true intentions, and for putting herself in this situation to begin with, but that's irrelevant to what the guy is obligated to do if she asks for it to stop. Morally speaking, she probably should call it off if she suddenly starts facing some inner turmoil about sex. She needs to sort all that out before she does anything with anyone.

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Snerd: Hmm. I think it depends on the context. If you can tell that she's one of those types that wants to resist and have her resistance overcome, then it can be okay. I think it can also be okay if she's unsure of herself like I mentioned before. She could want it, but could be evasive about it, not letting herself know. If you can tell that she's one of these types, I think it could be okay to firmly push for it, and even restrain her if that could be the point where she gives in to her desire. Either way, her resistance would probably be weak. She wouldn't be fully sure that she wanted you to stop. You're taking a huge risk though. If you're wrong, you're attempting to rape her, and you'll be able to tell that you've gone too far. Her resistance will be fierce and righteous. She may show signs of disgust with you. Or she will just seem absolutely sure that she doesn't want it.

But otherwise, I'd say no, it's not morally or legally acceptable. Not 100% sure of myself on this, but I'm fairly confident.

Okay, so what you're saying is that words are only one part of the factual evidence. One must consider the totality of her words and actions. Given this totality, if we conclude that she means "no" then the man should stop: morally and legally.

I agree with you if that is your principle. One can argue about what acts and words may mean "no", but I don't think that's the thrust of this topic anyway.

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Ninth Doctor, I'm getting sick of you.

Try Dramamine. I always keep the TARDIS well stocked.

It isn't an argument from authority. An argument from authority would have been if I'd simply said "Peikoff says this, and he's an authority, therefore it's right." Citing Peikoff's intellectual achievements as evidence that his judgment is sound is just referring to the facts of reality.

The little boy in The Emperor’s New Clothes referred to the facts of reality. You need to bone up on what the argument from authority is.

http://www.don-linds...nts.html#expert

Plus I offered an argument in support of what he said.

Where? When? What? I’m ready to be convinced, are you?

Someone who has created such huge amounts of value for us Objectivists deserves at minimum the benefit of the doubt. But you have a track record of jumping on the anti-Peikoff bandwagon every time he says something controversial.

Jumping on the bandwagon? I made this damn bandwagon.

Alright, I confess! The first post on the thread is loaded with NLP trickery. NLP being neuro-linguistic programming, it’s kind of like the Jedi mind trick from the Star Wars movies. But, like in the movies, it only works on the weak-minded, and now I’ve been caught! And I’d have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids! And your little dog too! Wait, that’s Toto, not Scooby…aw hell.

But look at how many people I tricked! Ha!!

I've seen you do it over and over again. So excuse me for trusting his judgment over yours. He's earned it at least. He has never demonstrated to me that his judgment can't be trusted, like you have.

You’re not going to tell us when I demonstrated to you that my “judgment can’t be trusted”? Actually, I’m only concerned that people trust my facts, meaning, am I an honest reporter? Did I transcribe Peikoff correctly, or did I maybe insert ellipses improperly, do unacknowledged editing, or otherwise obscure/alter his meaning? I expect that readers can make up their own minds, do their own evaluating; in fact I insist that they do. I fear that the attitude you’re evincing here is what Ayn Rand called, I believe it was in her Apollo and Dionysus lecture, a “mentality that’s ready for a Führer”. And Peikoff is one very odd choice for Führer, hate to say it but he’s never been charismatic in the least. Then again, neither was Hitler.

Physically, he was a toad, he had a shrill voice. How could such a man whip crowds into a frenzy? He must have possessed psychic powers. Perhaps, instructed by some Druid from his hometown, he knew how to establish contact with the subterranean currents. Perhaps he was a living valve, a biological menhir transmitting the currents to the faithful in the Nuremberg stadium.

Foucault’s Pendulum

, Chapter 99

And you know damned well what I meant by "masters of this field." Or at least you should. I think you pointing to Kant as a "master" is a way to evade what I was pointing out.

No, it’s a way to mock the form of your arguments. They’re just so laughable, and the fact that you seem blind to it makes this all the funnier. And all the more disgusting. Given the option of puking or laughing, when possible I choose laughter. If you were standing in front of me talking such cultist drivel, good chance I’d puke on you. Involuntarily, of course.

I think I’ll close by letting Richard Dawkins speak to the value and function of ridicule:

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The full context of the chapter established that she wanted Roark badly, but she was evading her desire. Roark knew this fully, so he knew he was not raping her. The reason not to act this scenario out literally in real life is not because Ayn Rand isn't a real god to say that it isn't rape. It's because you can't know the other woman's intentions for sure as well as Roark knew Dominique's.

Indeed. In fictional works, characters can know others' thoughts, and they can be certain of things that people in reality cannot be certain of. In reality, Roark's actions would be extremely risky. If a woman in real life were to give a man the same signals that Dominique gave Roark, the man had better be aware of the fact that doing what Roark did would have a very high chance of landing him in prison. Roark, or any other fictional character, should not be used as a philosophical model or as the basis for what constitutes consent. The aesthetics of symbolism and "sense of life" effects should not be confused with ethics.

I get angry when I see threads like this and I feel like if nobody else is going to stand up for what's right, then I will.

I've been standing up for what's right. I've been standing up for the position that it is never "too late" to not consent to any activity, and I've been standing up against the opinion that a woman's presence in a man's room frees him to have sex with her regardless of what she says.

So I get "Fired up" so to speak in debates like this where it's the world against Peikoff for what I see as no good reason.

Yeah, you seem to be making it into an issue of people disrespecting someone you admire rather than people disagreeing with ideas as stated.

I focused on the woman because everyone was so busy focusing on the man.

We've focused on the man because in the scenario that was given, Peikoff claimed that the man had the right to have sex with the woman regardless of what she said. If the woman were the aggressor in the scenario (if Peikoff had presented a hypothetical in which he claimed that a woman could have sex with a man regardless of what he said), we'd be focusing on the woman.

I wondered why only the man is culpable for fraud in a sexual scenario. For some reason, we as a culture tend to place 100% of all sexual blame on the man in every scenario, and that seemed wrong to me. They do that because the man's desire for sex is "selfish", and the man is generally considered the "stronger" of the two sexes. The woman is always considered an innocent victim of the man's selfishness in every scenario where a man desired her and had his way with her, due to hatred of the good for being the good, regardless of the context.

I think you're really stretching things there. You sound as if you went out looking for an Objectivist cliché to explain things, and grabbed the first one that you stumbled across.

I think the difference between what you're doing and what I'm doing is that I'm trying to discover what Peikoff could be thinking that resulted in him saying that. Whereas you guys are focusing literally on what he said. Maybe I can conclude that he could phrase it better. But there's no way he actually meant that a man is good to go and force himself on a woman. But depending on the context, it could be okay. She could be one of those types that wants to be taken and wants to offer resistance, and the man may have identified this in her. It's risky, and the price of being mistaken can be high.

I agree that it's possible that Peikoff may have really fumbled on this one. Perhaps he's not very aware of the details of the Kobe Bryant case, and perhaps he wasn't paying close enough attention to his choice of words in his podcast and he needs to clarify things. But I also think that it's possible that Peikoff meant exactly what he said. During the past several years, he's made several bizarre statements, has taken anti-Objectivist positions, and has behaved in a manner which I would say is closer to Rand's fictional villains than her heroes. Despite some of the good work that he's done in the past, I can't say that I trust him not to take a completely irrational position out of the blue on one subject or another.

J

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Indeed. In fictional works, characters can know others' thoughts, and they can be certain of things that people in reality cannot be certain of. In reality, Roark's actions would be extremely risky. If a woman in real life were to give a man the same signals that Dominique gave Roark, the man had better be aware of the fact that doing what Roark did would have a very high chance of landing him in prison. Roark, or any other fictional character, should not be used as a philosophical model or as the basis for what constitutes consent. The aesthetics of symbolism and "sense of life" effects should not be confused with ethics.

I was just watching Louis CK (a comedian) and came across a surprisingly relevant bit about his reaction to a girl telling him she liked it when guys just went for it, held her down and had sex with her. Doesn't exactly contribute to a discussion, but thought I'd share. WARNING: Profanity

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I read that quote and the first thing I thought of was the Dominique “rape scene”, but only in the fact that Peikoff has defended that scene so many times that he has now completely lost context to real situations. Then I re-read it and realized just how bad he did it.

The analogies Ninth Doctor makes is apt considering the best way to exploit a principle is to take it serious. He did it and showed just how off of practical application Peikoff is. He isn’t saying that Peikoff would actually indorse something like anal rape, merely that is the end of the road once you accept the premise. If you want to put it kindly, the real problem is that the practical seems to be defaulting more frequently on the balance sheet of application.

But there is no excuse for this. At best you can only claim he didn’t mean it the way it comes off and hope he clarifies it now that it has spread across the web. Whether he does so, or not, considering his general disdain for these self-inflicted O-fires and those that insist on talking about it, remains to be seen. Likely he’ll go on the offensive and issue another argument from intimidation, a tactic he has used enough to certainly make me not issue him a blank check accounted to an innocent mistake. Mistake? Sure, but hardly innocent. As someone else put it better, he should know better.

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How about this, Nicky? Defend what he actually said, rather than sniping at people who after all only tried to follow it to its logical conclusion.

Defend it from what? There are only two categories of people, in this thread, attacking the quote:

1. People who are falsely claiming that the quote encourages the use of force.

2. People who are claiming nothing, commenting nothing, and adding nothing except their feelings: horror, disgust, etc.

Everyone else is patiently waiting for clarification. I defended it against both attacks. If better arguments come along, I'll decide whether I want to keep defending it or not based on them.

I also attacked the quote, btw. I said that Peikoff must be factually wrong about the Kobe case. I did not attack the man, or his standing in Objectivism, however, because it's stupid to do that based on this little.

P.S. I'm not even sure what to defend. The quote is very vague. The question was whether the use of fraud is morally permitted in sex, and Peikoff answered that clearly. Then he made a vague side note on the issue of consent, which people jumped on with ridiculous attacks.

Edited by Nicky
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Defend it from what? There are only two categories of people, in this thread, attacking the quote:

1. People who are falsely claiming that the quote encourages the use of force.

... ...

I defended it against both attacks.

No, you did not defend against the idea that the quote implies the use of force. The point that I and others made to you was that words are not some type of rationalistic things floating detached from concretes. Rather, words refer to actual things in reality. Therefore, when one uses words, one is actually describing a certain range of actual concretes. One cannot simply hide behind he notion that the word force was not used. One cannot say "He said jump off the skyscraper, he made no mention of crashing to the sidewalk".
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No, you did not defend against the idea that the quote implies the use of force. The point that I and others made to you was that words are not some type of rationalistic things floating detached from concretes. Rather, words refer to actual things in reality. Therefore, when one uses words, one is actually describing a certain range of actual concretes. One cannot simply hide behind he notion that the word force was not used. One cannot say "He said jump off the skyscraper, he made no mention of crashing to the sidewalk".

None of that proves that you correctly deduced "use of force from" from "have sex".

One cannot simply hide behind he notion that the word force was not used. One cannot say "He said jump off the skyscraper, he made no mention of crashing to the sidewalk".

That comparison is a bit arrogant. You are implying that your inference has the same merit as Isaac Newton's. That your (unmentioned) line of reasoning has the same strength as the laws of physics.

when one uses words, one is actually describing a certain range of actual concretes

Yes, and apparently several people in this thread think that the word sex describes the range between "plug your ears and bang away" and anal rape of a man. I disagree. I guess I must also think gravity is fiction.

Edited by Nicky
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None of that proves that you correctly deduced "use of force from" from "have sex".
As I and others have pointed out, the quote was not about "have sex" alone. Peikoff might have meant nothing more or less than "have sex", however the whole discussion is about what he actually said. What he actually said was not simply that the man may "have sex". If Peikoff had said a man may have consensual sex why would anyone discuss that?

Why are you ignoring the totality of what he actually said? Is it because you want to focus on the totality of what he must have meant? The only way I can understand your defense of him is that you are not defending what he said, but what you think he must have meant.

if so, simply tell us that Peikoff obviously mis-spoke because we know he could not have meant that a man may have sex in a context where a woman has obviously refused.

Edited by softwareNerd
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None of that proves that you correctly deduced "use of force from" from "have sex".

Can we agree that it is initiation of force to have sex with someone without their consent? The quote concerns deducing a woman's consent from her presence in the situation. If, as I and others have argued, this notion of conveying consent is wrong, then applying this incorrect notion of consent will result in having sex without the consent of one's partner. That is where we're seeing force.

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Defend it from what? There are only two categories of people, in this thread, attacking the quote:

1. People who are falsely claiming that the quote encourages the use of force.

2. People who are claiming nothing, commenting nothing, and adding nothing except their feelings: horror, disgust, etc.

Everyone else is patiently waiting for clarification. I defended it against both attacks. If better arguments come along, I'll decide whether I want to keep defending it or not based on them.

I also attacked the quote, btw. I said that Peikoff must be factually wrong about the Kobe case. I did not attack the man, or his standing in Objectivism, however, because it's stupid to do that based on this little.

P.S. I'm not even sure what to defend. The quote is very vague. The question was whether the use of fraud is morally permitted in sex, and Peikoff answered that clearly. Then he made a vague side note on the issue of consent, which people jumped on with ridiculous attacks.

I'm curious as to what you'd say if Peikoff, in coming weeks, were to clarifiy things by stating that he meant that a woman's presence in a man's room late at night constitutes consent, and that the man then has the right to have sex with her even if she says no, and even if she struggles fiercely, and he has the right to use force (only enough force to hold the woman down so that he can have what she has consented to, and no more), and his use of force cannot be considered the initiation of force because he has her consent even though she's trying to revoke the consent.

What would you say then? Would you say that we're still being vicious Peikoff attackers and we should wait for even further clarity from him, because he obviously didn't mean what he said, and we must be misunderstanding him? And then if he gave even further clarity, you'd demand that we still not judge what he said, because we'd need even more clarity from him?

J

Edited by Jonathan13
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I'm curious as to what you'd say if Peikoff, in coming weeks, were to clarifiy things by stating that he meant that [...]

“I say what you say, even black is blue…”

Actually, I’m only concerned that people trust my facts, meaning, am I an honest reporter? Did I transcribe Peikoff correctly, or did I maybe insert ellipses improperly, do unacknowledged editing, or otherwise obscure/alter his meaning? I expect that readers can make up their own minds, do their own evaluating; in fact I insist that they do.

When I wrote this yesterday I was going to include a phrase about whether I provided a link so people could check the quote for themselves. Being mildly obsessive-compulsive, I decided first to go back and check the link in the opening post, and it didn’t work. Peikoff’s site was down. I checked again last night, still down. And again this morning, and again now. Could this be the prelude to a retraction? I read into softwareNerd’s comment a day or two ago, where he said that he expects Peikoff to respond, a hint of inside information; that he’d maybe communicated with someone in the vicinity of the throne. I guess all we can do is stay tuned.

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“I say what you say, even black is blue…”

Exactly!

I guess all we can do is stay tuned.

Thanks to google's cache we can listen to Peikoff's statement while his site is down. I googled "rape" and specified a search of peikoff.com. Here's a link to the relevant result: http://webcache.goog...off.com&ct=clnk

I've downloaded the audio file just in case it gets disappeared.

Edited by John Link
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I read that quote and the first thing I thought of was the Dominique “rape scene”, but only in the fact that Peikoff has defended that scene so many times that he has now completely lost context to real situations. Then I re-read it and realized just how bad he did it.

There's another scene from The Fountainhead that might also be in play here. The following conversation between Wynand and Roark, in the company of Dominique, appears on page 565 of this edition: http://www.amazon.co...28824843&sr=8-1

Wynand asked:

"Howard, that 'Yes'-once granted, can it be withdrawn?"

She wanted to laugh in incredulous anger. It was Wynand's voice that

had asked this; it should have been hers. He must look at me when he

answers, she thought; he must look at me.

"Never," Roark answered, looking at Wynand.

Edited by John Link
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Defend it from what? There are only two categories of people, in this thread, attacking the quote: 1. People who are falsely claiming that the quote encourages the use of force. 2. People who are claiming nothing, commenting nothing, and adding nothing except their feelings: horror, disgust, etc. Everyone else is patiently waiting for clarification. I defended it against both attacks.

You've ignored my post #72 then.

I was willing, for the sake of argument with the unimaginative, to forgo the claim that Peikoff's stand logically implies an endorsement of rape and focus solely and concretely on Peikoff's claim that a woman is not allowed to change her mind during sex. Hell, I even totally ignored the part where she only has to be in the room (with her clothes still on?) under certain circumstances to have consented irrevocably to sex.

That is what Peikoff actually said, and I argued in #72, not that it led to rape (even though I think it does) but that it was mistaken on its concrete face. Now defend it. Don't prate to me about how Peikoff isn't endorsing rape; I am willing to pretend (so that you cannot use the non-existence of the word "rape" in Peikoff's statement as an excuse to declare I am mischaracterizing him) that I don't think rape is an inevitable consequence of the principle LP enunciates here. Address, please, what he did say. He did say that once a woman shows up in a hotel room, it's too late for her to refuse the man sex; she may not change her mind. Defend that specific statement, then, since you are too concrete bound to infer its consequence and decide from the consequences that maybe as a statement of principle, it's utterly abhorrent. Defend that specifc, concrete statement, if you can.

Now, if you want to state the LP didn't mean this and clearly it's careless on his part, GREAT. At least then you'd be admitting that the statement was wrong. I hope he doesn't think this way. I really do. But if he did publish this egregious a mis-statement of his opinion, I cannot see how it's in his interest to simply allow it to stand, no matter how extemporaneous it might have been. It's now published. (And if he chooses to stand by it...)

Edited by Steve D'Ippolito
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Hell, I even totally ignored the part where she only has to be in the room (with her clothes still on?) under certain circumstances to have consented irrevocably to sex.

I think a lot of the difference in opinion might hinge on different readings of the phrase "in certain contexts," which he uses. I'm inclined to think that since he did not explicitly define those contexts, they would be rather narrow and unusual and difficult to explain out of an actual context. People who think he is advocating rape seem to hold that his position is that almost anytime you have a woman in your room then you have every right to rape her. My inclination is based on my past exposure to his beliefs which would contradict the broader interpretation.

Most people that know me well at all, know that I'm an atheist, so when I say something like this or that action will rot your soul, they do not take it to mean that I have suddenly found Jesus. I, and it seems that most who hold my opinion are choosing to extend Peikoff that same courtesy.

It's only anecdotal, but I can count on one hand the number of times that I have explicitly been granted approval to have sex with women, and you would be hard pressed to find one who would accuse me of rape. Most human communication is nonverbal and this is especially so in relationships, so when a woman decides on no, it is imperative that she make that clear and explicitly, verbally so as a bare minimum. If she doesn't, and further gives many nonverbal indications that she does acquiesce, like coming up to your bedroom and taking her clothes off, then it would be hugely immoral for her to call it rape. That is what I am inclined to imagine those "certain contexts" are what he had in mind. Until and unless he clarifies the point though, I would encourage everyone to keep in mind his formal defense of rights generally, and especially with regard to abortion rights and a woman's right to her body, as the best barometer of his actual thoughts on it.

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