“Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love the truth.”

Joseph Joubert

If this were a forum for Christians seeking to grow in their faith, would I be expected to tolerate regular attacks from atheists?

No, but there’s a reason for the distinction. Religions are supposed to be … well … religions. Secular ideologies are not; they either accomplish what they are supposed to accomplish or they don’t, and if they don’t, it’s in their adherents’ best interests to know about that. The fact that religions actively shun debate, evidence, etc. is one of the reasons we have a formal separation of church and state enshrined in the Constitution. We don’t have a constitutional separation of feminist ideology and state; if we did I’d be happy to leave well enough alone.

Isn’t there something to be said for having a space for like-minded folks where you don’t have to constantly explain the basic premises of your shared convictions every danged thread?

No, there isn’t. Valid convictions are not threatened by debate; in fact, they’re enhanced by it. Only invalid convictions are threatened by open debate. And why on earth would you want to help perpetuate those?

If this were a forum for Christians seeking to grow in their faith, would I be expected to tolerate regular attacks from atheists? Isn’t there something to be said for having a space for like-minded folks where you don’t have to constantly explain the basic premises of your shared convictions every danged thread?

Like it or not, that’s my foundation stone. Others are free to start their own blogs, as I started mine.

The “how not to rape” workshop deals with how consent is negotiated, and how we learn to distinguish between silent acquiescence and genuine enthuisiasm. The former, we argue, is just a “no” in another form much of the time.

It’s not just for men, but having women learn how not to rape is almost akin to teaching men how to have a healthy pregnancy. (And no, you don’t get to refute that, my MRA boys. Take it up elsewhere.) Women do need workshops that address agency, that address their own often suppressed ability to voice their wants and desires, but those aren’t quite the same needs.

Do you think only men rape and only women turn tricks? Interesting that you think “how not to be a rapist” classes are only relevant to men.

I’m beginning to wonder if your “feminist only” rule (which, given your response to PJ’s constructive criticism, appears to have devolved into a “my particular brand of feminism only” rule) is really just a tacit admission that you know your ideas are too weak to survive a vigorous debate. This seems to be a popular tactic among left of center bloggers, who see their blogs more as a forum for advocating a particular ideology, right or wrong. You routinely allow commenters to bash MRAs in threads, then criticize the MRAs for responding. TalkLeft allows known conservatives to comment only three times per thread - and the threads can be extremely long. dKos doesn’t allow even liberal icons to post if they dare to publicly entertain the idea of running against Democrat incumbents. Etc.

By contrast, I can count on one hand the number of commenters I’ve banned, and all were for grossly abusive behavior, none for being insufficiently “conservative-friendly” on any issue or overall. I don’t know of any right-wing bloggers who impose ideological restrictions on commenters, either. Most of us *want* a good debate, because we figure that if we’re right, we’d like to prove it, and if we’re wrong, we’d rather be shown to be wrong than to go through the rest of our lives believing the wrong thing. IOW, we’re more interested in actually being right than in convincing ourselves that we are. What are you trying to accomplish? Promotion of “feminist” ideas as an end in themselves, regardless of whether they do harm or good? What exactly?

Anti-feminist jeremiads don’t belong here — this is a forum for feminist-friendly voices only, something I’ve made clear for months. This is not a forum for debating the merits of feminism.

It’s sad that such sexism is so rampant in society today, and feminists remain silent or else are willing participants in campaigns to paint men (or boys) as rapists by default.

It must be hard to grow up as a young boy today - folks implying you are a rapist, psychologists and “counselors” trying to erase any maleness in you vis a vis competitiveness, aggression, etc., and all the while the helping professions are willing participants in trying to remake boys as traditional girls. Confusing and wrong.