Ayn Rand: Hypocrite

@Phoenix32890,

I read the books when I was in high school. I remember very little about them. Certainly, I don't remember any rape scenes! I would think high school kids would have been interested in rape scenes.

1 Reply

@plainoldme,

Well, in the books the men were a tad aggressive!

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@Phoenix32890,

talk is, clearly, someone who strived to take Rand down a peg or two.

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@talk72000,

talk72000 wrote:

Both Howard Roark the hero of Fountainhead and John Galt of Atlas Shrugged rape the heroines and they (women) seem to love it.

That's your argument?

Your interpretation of the sex scenes she wrote?

Good Lord, I though you had some evidence that she personally supported known rapists.

Give me a break!

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

Are you aware that women were often told in the case of rape to sit still and enjoy it?

"Often told?"

By whom, and how often?

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

On November 24, 1976, his weather spot came up just after a report of a violent rape of a five year old girl. Tex, who had only been aware of the topic of the report, and not the fact that a child was involved, thereupon quipped: "With rape so predominant in the news lately, it is well to remember the words of Confucius: 'If rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tex_Antoine

Tex Antione was a very popular (and often very drunk ) weatherman on NBC television in the New York market. Does anyone remember Uncle Wethbee??? Tex was the one who spoke that famous line. (I was watching, and I heard it).

He was out of a job right after that remark.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

I wish that just one of you wing nuts did not live in an hermetically sealed chamber. Notice I used the past tense? When I was in high school -- 1961 - 65 -- females were advised to never fight a rapist but to allow the rape to run its course and to enjoy it.

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@plainoldme,

I too was told not to fight a rapist, because most men could overpower a woman and hurt or even kill her.......................but enjoy it???? I think not.

I was once nearly a victim of "date rape". It was my first date with this guy.We had had a very nice evening together, and he appeared to be a gentleman. I asked him up to my apartment for a cup of coffee. All of a sudden he was all over me. I let my voice drop to a monotone and told him that I was very disappointed in him, and did not expect that kind of behavior from him.

I think that fact that I did not get hysterical or upset saved me, and probably "took the wind out of his sails". He apologized and left.

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@Phoenix32890,

Yes, the idea was that most men are bigger and stronger and can overpower a woman. The speakers always used the word enjoy it as a coda.

Here, I use the word speaker not simply to signify the person who did the talking but to indicate an actual speaker, standing behind a podium and using a microphone. I no longer remember the context, just the words and the discussion among other women that followed. I clearly remember that one of the women was named Elaine and she went to college with during our freshmen year. Elaine was charismatic, forceful and could really put her point across.

The problem with enjoying it is that the act then ceases to be rape.

The cup of coffee for the ride home was always dicey. To most women, the cup of coffee really was fuel for a safe commute, but to most men, it was a prelude to sex. It was the early edition men are from Mars and women are from another planet entirely.

1 Reply

@plainoldme,

Quote:

The problem with enjoying it is that the act then ceases to be rape.

This is where things become difficult. At what point does seduction become date rape? I think that the mores have changed since I was out in the dating world. It was very acceptable then to believe that a woman would say, "no", when she really meant, "yes". It was not considered "ladylike" to be too forthright in expressing sexual desires.

Nowadays, since the sexual revolution, women have become more assertive in their sexual desires. Unlike in earlier times, when the man was expected to take the lead, women have become very forthright in what they want. Therefore, it follows, that if the woman says, "no" she really means it.

1 Reply

@Phoenix32890,

I think you're right about no meaning no.

I, too, have been out of the dating loop for a long time.

However, I remember, even back in the late 60s and early 70s, some men saying sex on a first date surprised them. Petting didn't but intercourse, even fellatio, did. However, the men who were willing to discuss the matter were all rather nice.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

After Cameron retires from practice, Roark looks for work at other firms and briefly opens his own office. However, he has trouble finding clients and eventually closes it down rather than compromise his ideals to win business from clients who want more conventional buildings. He takes a job at a Connecticut granite quarry owned by Francon. Meanwhile, Keating has developed an interest in Francon's beautiful, temperamental and idealistic daughter Dominique, who works as a columnist for The New York Banner, a yellow press-style newspaper. While Roark is working in the quarry, he encounters Dominique, who has retreated to her family's estate in the same town as the quarry. There is an immediate attraction between them. Rather than indulge in traditional flirtation, the two engage in a battle of wills that culminates in a rough sexual encounter that Dominique later describes to herself as a rape.

Quote:

In Atlas Shrugged, the first sexual encounter that the ideal woman Dagny Taggart has with the flawed but heroic Hank Rearden is described in the following terms: "It was like an act of hatred, like the cutting blow of a lash encircling her body: she felt his arms around her, she felt her legs pulled forward against him and her chest bent back under the pressure of his, his mouth on hers" ([1957] 1985, 240).

Several nights' later, Roark enters her bedroom in the middle of the night through a French window, like a common rapist. Rand describes Roark's subsequent treatment of Dominique: He "took her two wrists, pinned them behind her ... wrenching her shoulder blades," and "forced her mouth open against his" (217). "He did it as an act of scorn. Not as love, but as defilement" (218). Then, after mutual orgasm, he leaves with-out a word. Yet as long as a week later, Dominique still thinks of the act in exalted terms: "I've been raped .... I've been raped by some redheaded hoodlum from a stone quarry .... Through the fierce sense of humiliation, the words gave her the same kind of pleasure she had felt in his arms" (220).

http://www.troynovant.com/McElroy/Rand/Paradigm-Darkly.html

Why did she employ this rape scene? Maybe she adopted the communist methods "The End justifies the Means" The hero John Galt manages to get "innovators" to get together and boycott the world. Sounds very much like the Communist "Unite All Workers of the World"

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@Phoenix32890,

Did Tex often make that comment throughout the country?

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@plainoldme,

Bullshit

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@edgarblythe,

I can concur, that the loudest mouths I've countered against the social programs and the government regulation: were a) employed by the government b) the lesser contributors of income taxes , c) the recipients of either social programs or taking advantages of various government subsidies through spurious means

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@failures art,

It is important to show that cult figures for what they are. Very often cult figures, especially in religion the odeous behavior is interpreted as being okay as it is being performed by the founder. So this behavior which is socially obnoxious becomes the accepted norm. Ayn Rand has a sort cult figure status and everything she had done may become acceptable to her followers and they may follow her example that being a hypocrite is okay. To show that it is not acceptable would limit the growth of her following.

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@timpam,

Timmy me boy, you've never encountered me and my friends and colleagues.

Our mouths are very loud in opposition to excessive social programs and governmental regulations, but we

A) Are not employed by the government
B) Pay a ****-load of taxes
C) Are not collecting a dime from the government

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

C) Are not collecting a dime from the government

Maybe not directly. But you benefit tremendously from the government and gov't services. You ought to acknowledge that.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

I'm happy to acknowledge I benefit from governmental services, but I'm paying too much for them...including the ones that benefit me very indirectly.

I'm pretty sure I can get the same benefits I "enjoy" now for a lot less of my money, but if not, and waste and corruption is inevitable and unavoidable, I'm willing to see less services in return for keeping more of my money.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

I'm happy to acknowledge I benefit from governmental services, but I'm paying too much for them...including the ones that benefit me very indirectly.

You pay less for those services than any other industrialized country on the planet's citizens pay for their gov't services. You also receive a greater degree of stability and protection from the gov't than any other country What makes you think you pay 'too much' for them?

Quote:

I'm pretty sure I can get the same benefits I "enjoy" now for a lot less of my money, but if not, and waste and corruption is inevitable and unavoidable, I'm willing to see less services in return for keeping more of my money.

You can't get stability and defense privately, at all. You can't maintain the roads privately cheaper. You can't ensure your food is free from poison or that your kids aren't kidnapped at school cheaper. In fact, you can't do a whole host of things that you rely upon Gov't to do, cheaper or in many cases at all. You ought to admit that the bedrock that your company - and all of our success - is built on is a stable nation, one that is supported by our tax dollars. Your tax dollars.

My guess is the 'services' you are willing to see less of are all ones that benefit other people more than yourself. Goes back to the 'I'm rich, and **** you' attitude that you ooze out in every post. I wonder if you have any clue how bad your life would be, if services for the elderly and poor vanished overnight. You'd have a little more money in your pocket - a tiny amount, really - but you'd be forced to deal with a hell of a lot of social problems that right now you just sort of ignore, or pretend don't exist.

Lots of historical precedent for that. You should read up on what happens to societies who ignore wage disparity and the poor long enough. I doubt you would enjoy it.

Cycloptichorn

2 Replies

Ayn Rand: Hypocrite

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