Giant Bomb Presents: Nikki Glaser

I probably should not engage this this conversation ... but whatever. There are statistics out there that show that especially in the US rape and sex-crimes are on the decline, and they have been for ages. "Women live lives in which no kind of man can be trusted" is such a (sorry) fucked up statement. Women are (far) less likely to be the victim of every kind of violent crime (including rape) than men ... So if there is a gender that should trust nobody it's males.

But no male does that because living your life with the expectation to be a victim is a life not worth living. If you worry about that stuff you might as well lock yourself in your house and never leave. This whole notion of "every man is a rapist" is pure fearmongering and honestly destroying the relationship between genders in the long term.

Let me be clear: Rape is a terrible crime, probably the worst crime next to murder. And rapists should be punished hard. But this cultural notion of "there is an evil man thats wants to rape me behind every corner" has to stop, its not true and does way more harm than good.

@2headedninja:

I dare you to tell a woman that.

That's all I have to say in response to this sentiment.

@ottoman673: Hey there. I understand how you feel, but... your post actually doesn't really help. You're actually only on page 2, and I can count the comments that were reactionary to Nikki's talk about gender on one hand. And - they're not even THAT disrespectful. They are just a little bit clueless. I haven't caught up with the thread since yesterday, but at the time people were being pretty civil. Let's at least allow for these things to work themselves out in the comments before we start shaming everyone.

Welp, despite my above comment, I've now caught up and am a little bummed at the tone as well. Guess I'll put in my two cents:

RAPEY MEN ARE RUINING THIS FOR YOU. NIKKI GLASER IS NOT.

Be mad at the right people. God help us all.

For people who aren't buying the "she's a commedian" defense - nobody is saying it was an actual, choreographed joke.

They are saying she's gonna be prone to phrasing things crudely because she's a comedian. Have you ever heard a table full of comedians chatting it up? It's raunchy and offensive. This is how they do. Generalizations abound. This shouldn't be any different.

If Giant Bomb wants to half-ass a wrestling podcast, and just arbitrarily update it sometimes when they can get everybody together sometimes, that's fine.

If Danny (and co-pilot Dan, didn't realize it was mostly Danny's thing until today) want to run what is apparently an advice podcast that doesn't just skip over the more troubling emails, they can't just half-ass it. And frankly on some previous episodes, they gave some real half-assed advice. I think on the Paul Ryckert episode, some guy writes in with a super low sense of self worth and basically says nothing in life brings him joy anymore, and the best they could come up with is "Hey, go for a run or something, physical activity makes you feel better than just sitting on the couch." TECHNICALLY TRUE ON A BASIC BRAIN CHEMICAL LEVEL, but the guy's situation sounded bad enough that that's probably not enough. Like, they didn't even attempt at the end of that question to say "OK but for real, go see a professional counselor, your problems go beyond the scope of this podcast." Just like, NOPE, next question, hope you went on a good jog. I know every advice podcast starts off with the whole "Haha, we're not professionals, this is for entertainment purposes, cover our ass from a lawsuit" sort of disclaimer, but also a lot of advice podcasts skip over the emails where someone is clearly incredibly troubled, and instead answer the emails that are like "My roommate keeps adopting too many stray cats, isn't that craaaAAAAAaaazy?" If you're going to answer the more serious questions (which Danny seems to want to do in curating the emails they answer on Danswers), don't half-ass your way through them.

So there was that. Then when it got to the point there was a 3-month gap between each episode, it was more like "Ohhhhh, so now we're half-assing the advice AND half-assing the schedule. We've double half-assed our way to a quarter-ass or something. Great. Do you guys actually want to do this podcast, or is it just like, the 47th most important thing you've got in the works and you just do it occasionally and give out irresponsible advice sometimes?"

So that's why I made my post. And yeah, I'd rather they just shitcan the whole podcast if the alternative is that they're going to continue to half-ass it that much. Someone directed me to Danny's video addressing the future of Danswers, so it's good to hear that he is reexamining how they approach Danswers.

If someone were to say some of the things that I have seen in this thread but put a color or religion in front of it, it would be unbelievably farked up.

Really great podcast, thanks so much to Nikki and Dan!

@kcin:You're quite alright.

@bisonhero: I tend to agree with all of this. I'm glad to see that Danny's trying to think of how to do this thing more seriously, but man, I don't know...

@amirite: It wasn't just the Nikki comment, it was all the people complaining about this being under the "Presents" label, then the ones who say Dan and Danny give irresponsible advice, and also the ones who say they either need to do it more regularly or stop altogether.

There are some hilarious, golden Dan stories in here, like the Game Boy Camera one and him waking up on a random fire thrower's couch, and content like this is incredible, and I want more of it - but I can see why the hosts would be hesitant with so much negativity.

@disabilityfishy: That part almost gave me cancer. Stopped listening right after she said that. Unbelievable.

I was trying to write this exact post and fumbled it badly. Very well put!

@kcin Just because someone perceives something to be the truth, that doesn't mean it is the truth. People have been telling women they are in danger from men for generations. Of course they will believe they are in more danger than men, even though crime statistics show otherwise.

I guess an interesting question would be, if there is indeed no factual evidence that men pose a greater risk to women than they do to other men, WHY have we been telling women to stay away from men and to fear them? I can think of one reason, but it's just speculation.

Further more, when you tell women to be afraid, and that they are being chased by evil rapists lurking around every corner, then you undermine them, their self esteem. Every interaction between man and woman will be viewed through this lens of threat and danger. Needless to say, through this lens, anything can and will be viewed as sinister.

stay classy, GB comments section

The idea that men are always and inherently threatening to women is used overwhelmingly to justify the harm and abuse of men of color, disabled men, and trans people. It is patriarchy through and through.

Haven't listened to the podcast yet, came here for the comments. Knowing the shitfest that the Nikki Glaser Danswers episode created I expected this to provide more grade A drama. You guys didn't disappoint. I can always count on Nikki Glaser to rustle everyone's jimmies.

The Danswers episodes are all great by the way. I hope the drama in the comment sections doesn't persuade them to stop doing the podcast. It's always fun to listen to and occasionally insightful. And usually I come to the comment section afterwards with a tub of popcorn.

I don't think anyone is mad at Nikki.And i don't think anyone doesn't understand her point.

Everyone understands the prior bit about people messaging her on twitter/other and saying unwanted things.

The issue we on the first page had was with the reason she gave for them not being allowed to say those things.

you're a fucking man you're not allowed to talk to women like that cuz you're a guy capable of rape

That's what made people react, and those who did react basically said the same thing, "I hope she didn't meant it the way it sounded"

Because it sounded like it would have been okay to say those things were you not a guy, and only an issue if you said it to a woman.

If she would have said

You're not allowed to talk to people that way because you don't actually know each other

No one would have batted an eye.

After that, i think most of the discussion isn't about Nikki at all, it became a disagreement between @kcin and others about statements he made like

Actually, this is no coincidence. Women are speaking out about how the majority of men are threatening every day.

I mean, I know women have a high chance of being groped every time they get on a dancefloor, and all the rest, but some of the stuff Kcin is saying is extreme stuff i've never heard any woman tell me, so of course I'm going to argue with him about it.

DevildollAnund

Truly hopeless. A couple of guys who refuse to contextualize her comment for fear of the conversation not being about them, and a couple more who insist that, because they haven't heard enough about sexual violence against women and since they haven't experienced it themselves, the issue must be blown out of proportion. I think the absolutely-fuck-it moment for me, though, came when more than one person insisted it is MEN who are telling women to be afraid of men, and not OTHER WOMEN.

How egocentric do you have to be to not even consider the possibility that a woman - indeed, MANY women - might be saying to women that they can't trust most men? Must these words come from a man before they have any import? Am I truly the first person to have said these things to you? Any of you? And perhaps you should consider why a woman hasn't expressed these sentiments to you. Have you asked? Have you looked? Did you read any of the #WhenIWas tweets? Did you listen to a woman talk about her experiences in life? Literally any woman at all. I sincerely challenge you to find a woman who has not experienced rape culture personally. Consider that I have had no difficulty finding a new and unique source of a woman lamenting lifelong sexual harassment/abuse for every day I have engaged in this thread, and some of you have claimed to have never seen or heard one in your life.

Some troubling serendipity: I got a call from a friend who needed to vent about street harassment she had just experienced literal moments after my last post. A man walked up to her and said "hey mami" and made kissing noises in her face. Started following her. She said, "Fuck you." He said, "Oh you wanna fuck me? You wanna fuck me?" She screamed at him and ran at him. He ran way, acting like she was threatening him. Called her a bitch.

I take it back - maybe instead of contextualizing Glaser's single sentence, contextualize your lives within a world filled with women.

Indeed, stay classy, Giant Bomb comments section. I sure hope no one here wonders why literally every commenter in this thread is a male.

I loved this episode, by the way. Glaser is fantastic, her Snapchat is a joy, and she seems like a cool person. I'm glad @danryckert knows her. He's a lucky guy to be friends with someone like her.

YummyTreeSap, @amirite, AMyggen - It's good to see others are similarly supportive of women, and are level-headed enough to get that a comment about men might be about - here come those dreaded words - "NOT ALL MEN".

EDIT: just to stay true to the motif of my posts: today's breaking news story about women suffering at the hands of men, this time in the house of DC Comics

http://www.theouthousers.com/index.php/news/135141-dc-restructures-vertigo-fires-shelly-bond-provokes-naming-of-open-secret-sexual-harasser-in-upper-management.html?utm_content=bufferd5778&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The people taking issue with the line of Nikki's are just people looking to get upset about SOMETHING. What she said in the context that she said it (in her life, a situation that scared her) is completely fine and made total sense, and didn't even have a hint of "all men are rapists" like some of you are acting like it did. Relax.

Also, to the person that said it almost gave them cancer...man, stay classy.

@kcin:

Am I truly the first person to have said these things to you? Any of you? And perhaps you should consider why a woman hasn't expressed these sentiments to you.

yes you're the first, and I'm assuming it is cause the women i know don't share that view.

And again, i'm talking about the extremes you've said here, not the stuff that people have written on #wheniwas.

Because that and the fact that most women have probably been harassed is something we can agree on.

@devildoll: The "extremes [I've] said here" and the #WhenIWas hashtag are intrinsically connected. If we agree that most women have been sexually harassed or assaulted, the only baby step left for you to take is to see, from their eyes, how those experiences frame a woman's outlook on men. Until you realize that, we will not agree.

Where do you take that "fact" from. Most (as in >50%) woman havent been harassed in the western world (not even fucking close) unless you water down the meaning of harrassment to a degree that it means nothing any more.

I'm sorry, but there is data out there that shows the problem is blown way out of proportion. Don't get me wrong but in the western world, especially in the US, rape and sexual assault has been on the decline since the 70's. Thats data ... stuff you can build an opinion on.

There are areas in the world we should focus on when it comes to helping women, but it's not the western first world, it's countrys in the 3rd world.

Also, i could say: "There is guys out there that heard about sexual violence against woman and since they experienced it must be a HUGE problem." That argument goes both ways.

I feel for every woman and man that is a victim of sexual assault, I honestly do with all of my heart. But when it comes to how we as people and as a society deal with this, single victims are meaningless, what counts are statistics about the problem as a whole.

There will always be terrible crime, there will always be murder and rape, there is nothing anyone can do about it. But poisoning the relationship between the genders based upon fearmongering is something we can stop.

What value are statistics for events that do not get reported? As a recent example, Bill Cosby stands accused of sexual assault on over 50 women over several decades. When did we learn? When a man spoke out on their behalf (Hannibal Buress) last year, and then one came forward, and then the others. Now there are fifty-fucking-seven women. Not reporting incidents of sexual violation is not unusual - it is, in fact, the norm. I know women who have been told by police officers that they can report their father for beating them or molesting them if they want to go to a foster home, or they can forget about it. I hope the tone is pretty clear here: don't report it. And good fucking luck getting a police report completed on being sexually harassed on the street.

How typical of a man to turn to reports or other men for information on women, rather than the women themselves! Feeling invalidated is one of the primary reasons I have heard for not bothering to tell anyone about sexual violence. It is just something that happens, and no one will believe you anyway. I urge you to ask the women around you what their experiences are like with men they do not know. You can sit pretty with your numbers (which you failed to cite anyway, rather surprisingly given your adhesion to them), or you can talk to women. Goodbye.

That`s an absolutely absurd statement. Of course we can focus on both.

Your whole post reads very much like `rape isn`t statistically that big of a problem and there`s nothing we can do about it, BUT THINK OF THE MEN WHO GET GENERALIZED!` which is preeeeetty close to MRA territory. Is this really a big problem for us men in the grand scheme of things?

so because we disagree on one thing, you can't agree with on another thing that i at least think we both know? ( the harrasment )

I can't read #WhenIwas, and then claim to know that those women think that

1. think the majority of men are threatening every day.
2. think no kind of man can be trusted. Fathers. Brothers. Friends. Neighbors. Strangers. Clerks. Police. Peers. Bosses. Patrons. Clergy. Judges. Elected officials.

I would need more than baby steps come to that conclusion, sorry.

I can't assume to know what they think about other people just by reading the first date that something has happened to them.

@2headedninja yeah, fact was a bad word for me to use.

@devildoll: Riddle me this: how would you feel if the men you trusted most in your life - the ones on whom you relied for your very well-being - betrayed you so grievously in the way that only a man is physically capable of, that you felt like killing yourself? Now how do you think someone like that might feel about a stranger? The One Weird Trick here, and I know it's super hard for most guys, is to imagine what it would be like to be a woman, because, again, you will have to imagine. There aren't hard-and-fast facts on which you can found an Informed Opinion. You will need to use your emotions, and you will need to project them onto the life experiences of others.

There isn't one hashtag that will help you, nor one blog that will inform you, nor one case study that will change your mind. Information is available worldwide, from the mouths of survivors, and no one is going to spoon-feed it to you. If you WANT to understand, you will have to TRY to understand. Or, you can continue your life as-is, since the only way any of this affects you is how you react when a woman lowers her gaze as you walk by her on an empty street. Good luck.

I'm sorry, but yes, exactly. As I said: I feel for every woman and man that is a victim of any form of sexual assault. But in the grand scheme of things the numbers are insgnificant on a personal level. Woman are probably more likely to die in some sort of accident than to be the vicim of sexual assault yet we talk like it's totally fine to just assume that every man that walks around is just a rapist that just is looking for a someone to rape.

Thats just not true, and painting the world that way that is toxic for everyone. Trust me, I do understand that is a very cold way to look at an emotionally charged subject, but we just need to stop to talk like there is an evil man behind every corner just waiting to rape and/kill a woman. It's just not true.

Also you say "MRA" like it's something evil. I believe in gender equality. That means that both sides need to be listend to, even *gasp* men. Men are (way) more likely to die of violent crimes, work accidents and suicide than woman. If we (rightfully) pay so much attention to problems women have, isn't it fair to also investigate what problems men have?

You don't need me to google statistics for you, I assume you are capable of doing that yourself.

Women should be encuraged to report any form of assault, there is no question about that. But your logic is: "We don't know how many assaults didnt get reported so we just assume it's so many that pretty much every man must be an evil person that can't under any cicumstances be trusted", what kind of reasoning is that?

I admit I didn't follow the Cosby-Case too close, but if he is found guilty I applaude any punishment he gets. I have to stress: I agree 100% women (and man, you don't really seem to care about male victims of sexual assault too much) must be encuraged to report assault. And people who commit those crimes must be punished. But as I said above: I strongly disagree with your A to B logic.

@2headedninja: It just seems so weird that you get defensive on behalf of men. So what if some people generalize this issue a bit, what harm does that do to you and me as men? I have no idea how it`s relevant that women might be more likely to die in an accident than to be a victim of sexual assault. That has nothing to do with how big of a problem rape is, or how widespread it is. Just comparing it to other dangers accomplishes nothing when discussing this.

Also, I`m well aware that men are at risk of violence and the other stuff you cite, mostly from other men. But again, why is that relevant here when we`re discussing sexual assault? No one is saying that that isn`t the case, but that`s not what we`re discussing here. There`s plenty of focus on preventing violence and other crimes, plenty of legislation to that effect. That can of course become a lot better too and we can also discuss stuff like the impact the war on drugs has had on especially aspects of urban life and family, but that isn`t relevant to this discussion.

I just have a fundamental problem with the `think of the men!` arguments that always pop up in these discussions. Yes, men have problems too. But that changes nothing with the fact that sexual assault and sexual harassment is a big and a very under reported problem partly because it`s still not taken as seriously as it should be taken by the society. Why not just focus on that here, there`s plenty of time to also focus on some of the problems men have. Sexual assault and sexual harassment is a huge problem mainly for women.

Also, you know full well what I`m referring to when I say MRAs. I`m referring to redpillers and the like. If you think those guys have some points then it`s probably impossible for us to discuss this.

edit Goddamn this comment section has gotten predictably out of hand.

This is what happens when you challenge the status quo in a way that might make a man look critically at men. It is a lost cause. There is no reasoning with those who refuse to see the issue of rape culture through anything other than the lens of how it affects men.

For example, you are not allowed to talk about rape culture without also being very sure to speak about sexual assault against men - a notion so devoid of empathy and relativity that I would laugh if it weren't so tragic. (And gee, I wonder what gender is largely responsible for sexual transgressions against these male survivors? But I digress.)

We must also presume that, although it is documented fact that rapes go unreported daily, worldwide, (indirectly 'documented' through reports of rape that come through decades after their occurrence, illustrated in stark detail through the Cosby allegations), we mustn't assume their existence because, without being reported, they are not quantifiable, and quantification of rape culture is the only means by which we are able to discuss it. It is simply illogical to assume there is rape culture if it isn't written down somewhere by an Official - the mouths of the survivors themselves won't do.

What would happen to the world as men know it if we began to account for these things? Surely something terrible. We might have to face something insidious in our genetics: an energy that drives men from all walks of life, from everywhere in the world, to do the same terrible things, regardless of class, color, or creed. That's why Glaser is derided by nearly a dozen guys here, that's why so many chose to actually stop listening when she made an off-hand comment about rape culture, and that's why we are three pages deep with no sign of a changing tide. And, if we are thoughtful and we want some perspective on this, we again wonder: why is the GB community largely male? Or, more specifically, why is it that those who choose to speak within it are largely male...Lord, who knows. Who knows.

I had a feeling this would happen.

@kcin: Your last point can be generalized to the gaming community as a whole, or all of `nerd culture`, more or less.

@visualizer: When I first heard Nikki`s off hand comment I just knew this would be the conversation.

The gaming community...the gaming industry....the tech industry.....It's almost like this has been a huge issue fucking worldwide for decades....Oh well man. We tried. Try, try again next time I guess.

Visualizer: It sucks that the only thing most people were able to take away from this podcast was that one sentence. You can't just let that bullshit go if you have a spine, though. Let me rephrase this: You can't just let that bullshit go if you care about women. It plays into why there are basically no women speaking their minds in this community. In any community, really.

Just don't be an asshole and you won't have to worry about women making judgements about you.

I'm a dude with long hair and I've been catcalled at multiple times from dudes who only saw me from the back. Definitely helped changed my perspective on how women are treated.

Every time topics like this come up it gets more and more difficult to justify being a woman in this community bc some of y'all just really don't care, do you? If your defensiveness is actively making me wonder why I bother engaging in discussions in comment sections and on the forums when I'm seen as someone who just likes to whine about my life and how hard men make it, it bums me out.

I don't even particularly enjoy sex-driven comedy regardless of whether it's coming from a man or woman, but Nikki's sentiment was dead on and hardly unwarranted. People always find a way to attach a woman's interest or passing references to sexuality right back onto her and then get pissy when she doesn't want to engage with them in a sexual manner. It's fucked up, and it's happening all the time.

@vocalcannibal: So when would you say it got bad in here, page one or later?

And i'm not disputing your last sentence there by the way.

@reruns: This conversation has centered completely around the reactions of men who don't like the idea of a woman finding men threatening by default. Every post by everyone talking about this in this thread has been about that. Choosing to focus on that subject alone doesn't mean that trans people or genderqueer people or any kind of people who are abused by any other kind of person besides a man don't matter, or that experiences have been erased or minimized. This has always been about how men are reacting to the idea of a woman finding men threatening. That is completely it.

The status quo at GB, that which I was and still am referring to, is that men shouldn't feel like they need to consider the role their gender plays in their experience here. Judging by the reactions, it has been challenged.

Was thinking the same thing while reading through the comments. But eh, being blind to the faults of generalizations it's quite easy (i'm sure it happens to me too without me noticing)

A woman was brave enough to come forward and corroborate the beliefs of another woman! Did anyone listen?

Hadn't heard of Nikki Glaser before this podcast and seeing as how Dan was interviewing her, I just assumed she would be a wrestler.