Everyone read this

Right, so. I’m angry all over again and I’m going to be angry for a while, because if I see one more idiot defending the rape scene over the fact that “that was just what happened in medieval times,” I am going to put a brick through my computer screen. This won’t be as long or as in-depth as I want it to be, since I have to go to work soon, but my medieval historian buttons have been pushed to a sufficient degree that I have to make some response to all this. So without further ado:

• Legislation to protect women and children was an idea as far back as the seventh goddamn century (and before), but it certainly appeared in the western Christian/Latin legal canon with Adamnan of Iona’s “Law of the Innocents.” Christianity itself modified existing Greco-Roman social codes to give women (who had no rights at all in antiquity) a surprising amount of protection and recognition in marriage and society. Was this always followed? Of course not. But you can bet your ass it was a thing, and one of the reasons early Christianity was so suspiciously received, due to its lenient treatment of women, slaves, the poor, the leprous, and other outcasts.
• On that note, we call them “the Dark Ages” because we are a bunch of Eurocentric assholes who figure all of civilization collapsed when Rome fell. Yes, Western Europe wasn’t doing so hot, but everywhere else was flourishing – socially, culturally, religiously, artistically.
• The Vikings were forward-thinking as hell with their legal treatment of women (so, for that matter, were the Welsh). Both cultures allowed a wife to separate from her husband with no penalty if he was abusing her, and in the Vikings’ case, he would be shamed and socially ridiculed for being such a low-down tool as to mistreat a woman. The Vikings did not fuck around. And among the Welsh, maternal inheritance and property rights counted just as much as paternal.
  
• Rape was physically and brutally punishable in England from at least the 11th century on. Prior to the Norman Conquest, it was treated as an offense for which one had to pay weregild – literally “man money” – the same as when someone was murdered. Post-Norman Conquest, you got your goddamn dick chopped off, the same as thieves lost a hand and oathbreakers lost tongues. You see the pattern? It was a serious crime. People weren’t just out raping all and sundry. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (otherwise not fond of William) eulogized him as a “violent but very wise” man, and praised him for making England so safe that an unarmed man or maiden girl could travel the roads without fear of robbery or molestation.
• If you were a dude that everyone hated, you got accused of rape and mistreatment of women. It wasn’t cool.
  
• Due to the teachings of the third century Roman physician Galen, it was believed that a woman could not conceive if she didn’t have an orgasm. No, this does not mean that medieval couples were trying positions from the Kama Sutra every night (the Church still had strict guidelines on when and where and how you were supposed to do the do) but it also doesn’t mean that women’s pleasure was some completely mystical and/or unthinkable idea.
• Likewise, early consummation DID happen (Margaret Beaufort, Eleanor of Castile) but it was frowned on. The Church imposed penalties on husbands who consummated their marriage too early, and while noble girls were generally married around 14-16, commoner girls were about the same age as today (early-mid twenties) and could often marry for love, depending on their social station.
  
• While marital rape and abuse was not legally recognized or classified as a crime, that didn’t mean it went unpunished. Since most noble marriages were business transactions, that meant the wife was an investment of some value, and a sure way to piss off her menfolk (and the Pope) was to mistreat and abuse her. King Philip II of France spent years under interdict and excommunication for his appalling treatment of his second wife, Ingeborg, and was ultimately forced to capitulate and take her back. The Pope would in fact often champion the causes of mistreated noble wives (usually to force concessions out of her husband, but still). Annulment and separation, while unusual, were not completely impossible, and did happen – one of the chief grounds for it being granted was mistreatment and abuse.
• Furthermore, the code of chivalry specified honorable treatment for noblewomen. Of course, this did not mean it was lived out in practice, and common women were fair game, but there was in fact an existing and well-known legal framework for how you were supposed to treat your womenfolk – Ramsay would have been as reviled in the medieval era as he is to our modern sensibilities. Medieval people weren’t different from us and out rape rape rapin the livelong day. In fact, I would hazard a guess that it’s gotten MORE common now that we, you know, no longer chop the goddamn dicks off people and they generally skate with no consequence.
• Besides, the “the medieval era was dark and barbaric” attitude relies on the mistaken narrative of “progress,” i.e. things were terrible back then and have been constantly evolving to this point in time, where we no longer do the gross things they did. DING DONG YOU ARE WRONG! This is a historiographical fallacy to excuse our own atrocities and act like the cost of the modern world was “necessary” for “developing” us to who we are now, and that all the bloodshed, death, colonialism, world wars, etc can’t possibly be as bad as what they did Back In The Day. Saying “people got raped back then!” is implicitly saying “and they don’t get raped today, because Progress.” It’s incredibly stupid and hypocritical. So don’t even start that shit with me.
• Last, these are not real events magically happening outside anyone’s control. This is a television show written by 21st century people. They have repeatedly used rape as a clumsy plot device in the past. They continued to do so and twisted it this time to happen to a beloved major character purely for the self-admitted purpose of shock value. They planned it since season 2 and waited for Sophie Turner to come of age so they could shoot it legally. So acting like GoT is this pseudo “medieval world” where nobody had any control over the fact that Sansa was put in a position to be violated by Ramsay is again, laughably facetious. They manipulated the story, characters, and narrative to be sure that this happened. They made a writing choice. Hence we are going to criticize that writing choice. We have as much right to do that as they do to create it in the first place. It’s called consequences. “Free speech” does not mean you get to say whatever you want and no one can challenge or correct you. It means the government can’t put you in jail or otherwise legally harass you with the mechanisms of the state for it. Someone else using their free speech to call you a fucking idiot is perfectly legal.
• In conclusion: No, the medieval era was not some beacon of rights and happiness for women. Terrible things could and did happen. But they excited just as much public outrage as they did today, and were oftentimes more harshly punished (at least if you were noble born, because CLASSISM! Take a shot). Every bit of development and progress we HAVE made was extremely hard won. But quit acting like it was just an inevitable, normal, and necessary fact of life in medieval times. Because you know nothing, Jon Snow.
  

Feminists say that if they walk around naked and get raped, it’s not their fault.  Let me ask you this, if you owned a bank and left the doors wide open with no security and you got robbed in the middle of the night, is it the robbers fault or yours?

Literally the robber’s fault??? They walked in and took something that wasn’t theirs??? They knew pretty well that they shouldn’t steal things??? What is your argument even trying to prove???

Exactly

If the door is wide open, then it’s the fault of the one who left it open, knowing someone would take what was inside if they came across it.

yes except people aren’t banks and we don’t have doors. when a crime is committed it doesn’t matter how careless or whatever you want to argue the victim was. what matters is that someone made the conscious choice to not care about how their actions would affect another person.

it doesn’t matter if the door was open or if a person is naked. what matters is that a crime was committed. enough with the analogies, we aren’t banks. we’re people.

This is a blog post that’s incredibly confusing and painful for me to write.

Yesterday morning, Josh forwarded me a tweet that said:

TIL: Max Temkin, co-creator of Cards Against Humanity, raped a friend of my friend while attending Goucher College. I don’t support CAH.

We assumed this was someone making a tasteless joke, and I replied to tell him that it wasn’t funny. But after some more digging, I found a Facebook post from a girl I knew in college accusing me of sexually assaulting her, and urging people to boycott Cards Against Humanity.

This is totally, patently false. I have never sexually assaulted anyone, or previously been accused of any kind of assault.

I had a really brief relationship with this girl in college; her dorm room was next to mine, and after a few evenings staying up talking all night, we made out. We spent a few nights in each others’ rooms, but we never had sex and neither of us pressured the other into doing anything we weren’t comfortable with. After a few nights, I broke things off in the cowardly way that 19-year-old guys do, and I just stopped returning her calls and texts. I can imagine she was hurt by this, I know that I would be hurt if someone broke up with me that way.

I haven’t spoken to this girl in nearly ten years. If she felt I did something wrong in our relationship that she never confronted me about it or brought the issue to the school.

But yesterday, as near as I can tell, she saw a newspaper article about me in the Baltimore Sun, and made a Facebook post attacking me and Cards Against Humanity:

Several people that I went to school with have posted a Baltimore Sun article from 2012 about the success of Cards Against Humanity, a popular indie party game created by a Goucher alum.
That is my rapist.
Having his face pop up on my news feed unexpectedly in any context has the capacity to ruin my day. Seeing him praised in the press is giving me a panic attack.
He should not be held as a good example of the excellence that Goucher grads have, can and will continue to achieve.

Her more recent posts have called for a boycott of my work, and she (or her friends) started a Twitter account to tweet at celebrities and organizations that I work with calling me a rapist.

Part of rape culture that hurts everyone is that it makes it difficult to talk about what is and is not consent, and makes it incredibly scary for people to speak up when their boundaries are crossed. It is entirely possible she read something completely different than I did into an awkward college hookup. If any part of that was traumatic for her, I am sincerely sorry, and I wish we would have had a chance to address it privately. I’ve sent her an email and a Facebook message and given her my contact information, but so far I haven’t heard back (but she did edit her post to remove my name).

I spoke with my lawyer, and she thinks I have a clear case to sue this woman for libel and get a restraining order, but I have no desire to bully or harm her. Additionally, I’m not wild about the precedent that sets for other women to come forward in cases of actual sexual assault.

I have made a career on the incredible power of social media, and the radical new ability that we all have to say whatever we want to a mass audience. Today I can’t help but feel hurt by those same tools that I love.

There is no evidence for this story. I will never have a chance to defend myself. The structure of the modern internet is such that these things never reach resolution and never go away. This is just baseless gossip that will now haunt me for the rest of my life.

Here’s what’s going to happen moving forward:

• I will continue to be a feminist and an advocate for women’s rights to the best of my capacity. Cards Against Humanity will continue to hire amazing, talented women.
• We removed all of the “rape” jokes from Cards Against Humanity years ago. We’ll continue to use the game as best we can to “punch up” and not “punch down.”
• You will not harass or threaten the woman making these claims. I am not looking for a mob of people carrying pitchforks on my behalf. If you harass her or go after her in any way, you are not a friend of mine, and you are not a friend of Cards Against Humanity.
• I am probably going to take a brief internet break; the last few days have sucked. If you see me this weekend at GaymerX, I could use a hug.