Further notes from Severity: The Magical Powers of "Act As If".

[featherynscale]

"My goal is to always come from a place of love...but sometimes you just have to break it down for a motherfucker." - RuPaul

Because I love you, I'm going to divulge a secret of the universe to you, one that is not taught or understood by many pagan or magical groups in the world. Like all such secrets, it's pretty damned simple, and yet still seems to elude a fair number of people, even people with a lot of letters after their names. Also, like all such secrets, it may not be a thing you're going to like, because knowledge of it places more of the burden of controlling your life and your fortunes squarely on your back.

So here it is:
For the most part, people are going to treat you in the way that you indicate you should be treated. If you act as if you are undeserving of notice, people will not notice you. If you act as if you are unworthy of friendship, people will avoid befriending you. If you act as if you are not a fully-functioning member of society, people will treat you as such.

On the other hand, if you act as if you are beautiful, people will line up to flirt with you. If you act as if you have your shit together, people will come to you for advice. If you act as if you have every right to do whatever it is that you are doing, people will get out of your way and let you do it.

Don't believe me? Try it. Try convincing yourself that you are something that you do not generally believe that you are, and then observe how people react to you. I think that you will find that for the most part, people take their cues on how to react to you from you - your words, your vocal tones, your body postures.

This has particular relevance to something I've been bugged about for the last few days, that being the perception by a significant portion of pagandom that non-pagans are automatically going to act like pagans are weird and icky as soon as they find out that the pagans are, well, pagans. I disagree. I think that, following from the above, if pagans act like paganism is a faith worthy of respect, and not something silly, strange, or shocking, that other people will generally follow along with this. I think that if you don't act as if nobody will understand you, you will find that a fair number of people do, in fact, understand you. And I think that if you don't go out of your way to shock people with your faith, that fewer people than you might expect to will find your faith shocking.

The problem here is this: in order to be accepted as respectable, serious, and dedicated, you have to stop acting like you're not those things. You have to give up your inclinations to shock people, to offend people, to throw your faith in their face just to get a reaction. And no, not everybody is going to accept you. This has nothing to do with your faith (although, yes, it can be a handy excuse) - there is not now and never was a person on this earth that everybody likes, not even Jesus, Jimmy Carter, or Mother Teresa. Some people are dicks. Sorry about that.

This has been a moment of Severity. Thanks for reading.

NOTE: As noted below, there are people who take this to mean that the victims of violence are to blame for the event. I believe that this is wrong - just as rude people are to blame for their own rudeness, violent people are responsible for their own violence. I do, however understand that there are violent people in the world, and will choose to present myself as if I were a poor target for violence, in accordance with the above.

Comments

perceived reality, from the Corkscrew of Mildness

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I think you're both right, and both wrong.

In the course of my day job (as featherynscale well knows), I have to talk to people all the time about how not to be victimized. A lot of that advice centers around how you present yourself. Walking confidently and purposefully gets you a lot farther than peering into windows in dark alleys trying to find the record store.

But, with all due respect to the women's movement, how you dress and act DOES affect what people think of you. If you go to a club in a slinky top & microskirt and dance to Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" like you mean it, people are going to look at you. If you don't want them to look, don't go. Or don't dance. Or don't present yourself as if you were someone worth looking at. You can object when they do, and have some reasonable expectation that the normal members of society will try to abide by your request. But you participated in that transaction. Too much of the "sexual harassment" culture focuses on reactions, not actions, IMO.

This in no way excuses the psychotic fuck who follows you back to your car from his actions, of course; but you are playing the odds. Yes, nuns get raped in convents by priests, but the odds are generally against it (and that's a different sort of rarefied environment, when you get right down to it). Be aware of the potential consequences of your actions, and decide if the risk of participating in life is worse than the consequences of not participating.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I've always been of the school of thought that believes that if I wear a low-cut top, I am inviting people to look at my tits, and have little business getting cranky if they do. The permission there is explicit, and it is the only permission granted. People who choose to grab my tits because I am wearing a low-cut top do so at their own risk. (Unless, of course, they are a person who has recieved general permission to grab my tits - this too, will have been explicit.) Likewise, I consider a man in a kilt to be giving general permission to gawk at his legs, and perhaps wonder if he's regimental, though not to run my hand up and check.

I suppose I'm not a part of the women's movement, though. Or the kilted men's movement.

Re: perceived reality, from the Corkscrew of Mildness

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

You seem to be conflating a woman's desire to be regarded as sexy with a desire to be sexually assaulted.

Going back to the original premise (people treat you as you indicate you should be treated), indicating that oneself should be treated as a sexy person is not the same thing as indicating that one should be raped.

I agree that it is possible to present oneself as weak, or easily victimized, and that doing so puts one at greater risk for being assaulted, but working backwards to say that if you've been assaulted it is probably because you indicated you should be assaulted, is patently false.

That's what I'm trying to get at.

Re: perceived reality, from the Corkscrew of Mildness

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I agree that it is possible to present oneself as weak, or easily victimized, and that doing so puts one at greater risk for being assaulted, but working backwards to say that if you've been assaulted it is probably because you indicated you should be assaulted, is patently false.

I don't know that I can agree with that. I would like to, as it seems like the polite thing to do. You're talking about blame/fault, and I'm talking about responsibility/control. I don't think that the two are equivalent.

Here's a hypothetical, starring you and me (not that I'm suggesting you're a rapist, it's just easier to talk about you and me than Person A and Person B).

If I fly to Seattle, and you meet me in the airport, drag me back to your car bodily and beat and rape me, I think it's pretty clear who is to blame. However, had I not chosen to fly to Seattle in the first place, the event would not have happened. Hence, even though you are to blame, I could have prevented the attack and did not.

Similarly, if the situation were the same, but I had presented myself as a person worthy of avoiding in the area of violence (i.e. I caused you to think that I was armed/had a strong martial arts background/had caustic blood like in Alien), the chances of that attack are significantly reduced. Again, if you choose to attack me, you are to blame, but I am exercising some degree of control over the situation, which will reduce the probability that you actually will attack me.

Had I not exerted that control, I would not have done all that I could to prevent violence. In a sense, it would be true that the reason you beat and raped me was because I presented myself as an easy target, since changing that fact would probably have prevented the attack. I don't think that's the same as saying I'm to blame for having been attacked.

And I agree with you that an invitation to sexual attention is not the same as an invitation to sexual violence. It's worthy of note, though, that I am aware that there are people who are incapable of making that distinction, or who choose not to, and I try to behave accordingly.

Re: perceived reality, from the Corkscrew of Mildness

[lysana.livejournal.com]

If you had no reason to believe you were going to be attacked, you bear no responsibility for the choice of flying to Seattle leading to your being raped.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

What I'm trying to illustrate here is that the events themselves are not the same (to me) as the moral or emotional perception of the events.

In a strict objective sense, one of the things that caused event B (the attack) to happen is event A (my flight). There are, of course, probably hundreds of other events that feed into event B, but regardless of all of those things, if event A does not occur, event B cannot occur. It is possible that if I don't fly to Seattle, my assailant will spend the evening beating and raping some other person (Event BB?) but I can't say that with certainty.

When you are talking about moral content of the events, you are right without reservation, it is in no way my fault that these things have occurred.

I'm just saying that it is possible for me to be part of the cause of an event without bearing any blame for the event.

Re: perceived reality, from the Corkscrew of Mildness

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

That's all very reasonable, but it doesn't mesh with your original premise, unless you believe that visiting someone you've never met before is in some way presenting yourself as a person who should be raped.

Even if I were to attack you in that situation, it would be false for anyone to say that I did so because you consciously chose to present yourself as deserving of such.

Failing to do everything that you could to protect yourself from possible attacks is not the same thing as indicating you should be attacked.

Re: perceived reality, from the Corkscrew of Mildness

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

That's all very reasonable, but it doesn't mesh with your original premise, unless you believe that visiting someone you've never met before is in some way presenting yourself as a person who should be raped.

I'm not saying that - I'm just trying to illustrate the difference between being a cause and being at fault, as in my response to lysana. I think that this is similar, but not the same as, a situation in which presenting yourself as an easy target could cause you to be attacked, without making you guilty of the attack.

Also/alternately, to clarify

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Maybe this is a better way to say this:
What you originally challenged me on seemed to be that you could make the assertion "The way you act affects how people treat you, and knowing this, you can use it to make people treat you the way you want to be treated" mean "A woman who is raped is to blame for her rape because she acted in a way that was (something)".
The whole thing with the flight and that was intended to show a difference between being a cause of something and being to blame for something. I think that these are different things, having a causal relationship to something and being guilty of something. I think that taking the original statement "The way you act affects how people treat you, etc." and making it into "A woman who is raped is to blame for her rape, etc." is a gross distortion, and is taking the original assertion into a moral realm, where it may or may not apply.

Re: Also/alternately, to clarify

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

Ah, but that was not the original statement. The original statement was "[P]eople are going to treat you in the way that you indicate you should be treated."

It is not a gross distortion (semantically, at least) to deduce from this that "The way people treat you is the way you indicate you should be treated," and further, "If people treat you a certain way it is because you indicated that you should be treated that way."

...

"The way you act affects how people treat you" is a far better way of phrasing your idea, because affecting others' behavior is not the same thing as choosing their behavior. Your original premise suggested that it is possible to choose how people will treat you.

Re: Also/alternately, to clarify

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

If it's reading that way, then I have said the wrong thing. I do not believe that you can choose the way that others will behave with certainty. I do believe that you can affect how others choose to behave, which was the point I was trying to make.

Re: Also/alternately, to clarify

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

*nod*

I agree wholeheartedly and without reservation.

This is a very good example of why I regard clarity of expression as being of the utmost importance. Your original statement was far too easy to pervert into something you did not intend. Your clarified statement, while not as powerful as the original, is truer, and therefore not subject to the same kind of hateful perversion.

Re: Also/alternately, to clarify

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Hazards of writing the way you speak, partially. I never meant to imply that the way you act is the sole determinant of the way people treat you. Had I said this, instead of writing it, it probably would have passed.

I didn't originally understand your objection, but once you pointed out where you were speaking from, it was apparent. Thank you for being my adversary today, I think it's been very productive (just in the sense of "personally useful", not in the sense of "getting things done at work").

Re: Also/alternately, to clarify

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

Quite welcome! I am always happy to improve productivity, especially if I can simultaneously subvert it.

Re: Also/alternately, to clarify

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Yep. On further re-read, the original post could be taken as speaking in absolutes. I know me, and I know I'm not speaking in the sense of "these things are generally/often true", but I have no assurance that this is going to come across to other people. Thank you for pointing that out to me.

I don't believe that I am.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

You seem to be conflating a woman's desire to be regarded as sexy with a desire to be sexually assaulted.
Now that the semantic argument seems to have concluded, I'll see if i can get at what you're saying.

My original statement (as opposed to featherynscale's) was "how you dress and act DOES affect what people think of you." Full stop. Not only did I avoid the absolute phrasing, but I was speaking of thoughts as opposed to deeds (or at least, deeds that impact the other actor in the situation). When the rapist *chose* to target her, he based that on lots of factors. Some of those were presented by the woman, in a cause/effect (but not blame/fault) relationship. If she had not attracted his attention, she may not have been raped. If she had presented an unattractive target, she most likely would not have been raped. If she had walked out with someone, she probably would not have been bothered.

All of these things increase/decrease the *likelihood* of an event happening, but they never address the *responsibility* (I think I'm using this word in a different sense than featherynscale for the event happening. He still chooses to initiate action, and is never anywhere near <50% responsible for that action.

Does that clarify?

Re: I don't believe that I am.

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. And I agree that one's dress and behavior affects others' perceptions. We weren't (or at least I wasn't) talking about perceptions, however, but rather about treatment, i.e., actions.