i agree entirely with what you say.The cops are just as bad .My wife befor i married her was left alone one night and some pig tried to rape her.I have seen the scene you describe of a girl being helped/marched out of a pub.and now i see it in the way you say.I will be aware in future.Like you i am an old guy but i have a way of dealing with shitheads.

That was a pretty full-on comment. I was maybe underplaying how I feel. I had a girlfriend raped by a taxi-driver once. She was drunk but she wasn't 'asking for it'. The police were nowhere. Other taxi drivers caught him before I could ('bad for business' ) and they didn't leave much of him for me to attack.

It is brutal and barbaric and macho but it is all we have. You either get your friends and family and neighbours together and take the rapists out of society, or you wait on the police turning up three days later demanding a humiliating physical examination that will be ridiculed in court.

It's not a nice side of me, or of you, but if you mean what you said, well done, be proud not ashamed. It is how we regulate ourselves. It was a local fascist group that drugged me, and this is hard to say but I have no idea if I was raped or what happened for seven hours. You can be sure something worse is going to happen to the ones I can remember soon enough.

I'd ask the feminists reading this not to criticise the macho attitude. Think of how Dworkin felt when he was raped. There is seriously a wave of date-rapes happening, this isn't tabloid hype, this is street, this is everyday.

Don't ever leave your drink unguarded, don't ever walk on by an incapacitated girl and pretend it isn't your problem. That is your sister being marched out the pub.

I'm pretty smart, I'm going after the dealers. I'm not even going to name the drugs but if you deal them then you know what they are used for. So stop dealing them or look up vigilante in your dictionary. You can be found.

I know fine well this post is going to make me look like a sad and bitter old man. Or as the resident spook said "I know people who play the "feminism" card if I make a joke that is risque- as though I should modify my behaviour and thoughts because I am in the company of fragile little girly girls- little girlies who need big tough men to fight their corners unmandated." That from an self-confessed girl-beater!

Still, I was shopping in my local Asda “part of the WALL*MART family” - I know I shouldn't have but I am broke – and I came across a T shirt that said 'If at first you don't suceed then buy her another beer. Ha fucking ha. That's incitement to rape. So being sad'n'bitter, I went into Mary Whitehouse mode and fired off an angry letter and made a calmer telephone call. Seemingly I wasn't the only one offended at the implication of the slogan, the sympathetic girl on Asdas PR line said she had been taking thousands of complaints. And Asda withdrew the T Shirts, and down played it claiming to have only taken ten complaints.
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6526211.stm

Sure. Now, I just got a rather dismissive letter from their PR folk, a Mr Mark Wright. He used the fact they had sold 15,000 of the T shirts to show how unreasonable I was being complaining. He called the T Shirt 'simply a bit of fun'. He pissed me off in other words. And I'm not the sort to see the funny side or to back down from a fight, so I'll add my letter of response. I've never went up against Wallmart before so I am being careful in my choice of words, but I am also deadly serious while having 'a bit of fun'.

Oh, and if I come across any male wearing one of the 15000 Asda T Shirts, they are going to get a kicking. I have zero-tolerance on this issue. I find them joking about raping a drunk slightly less humorous then them waking up in a hospital bed - that is a punch-line I appreciate.



Dear Mark Wright,


Thanks for taking the time to reply to my complaint about the T Shirt. You apologised 'if I found this T Shirt offensive' and ask if my faith in your 'commitment to customer care has been restored' by Asda no longer selling it. I'm afraid not.

Firstly, I wasn't complaining about the T Shirt being offensive, I was complaining about the slogan being irresponsible. It condoned and encouraged what in my country is seen as statutary rape. Perhaps you feel justified in calling it 'simply a bit of fun'. And perhaps the men who get your daughter or neice , or your younger female employees, drunk simply to rape them would call that 'a bit of fun'. I hope you would agree that it is not acceptable or legal to force sex upon someone too drunk to give consent, that is rape at least in Scottish law. For your store to sell 15,000 T Shirts encouraging this attitude is socially irresponsible and may have contributed to subsequent sexual abuse.

Since complaining I have heard that you have been targetted by a letter-writing campaign on this issue. I am not part of that campaign, I am just genuinely shocked at Asda promoting rape. I don't feel it is enough simply to withdraw the T Shirts. Say you had been selling race-hate crime T Shirts, it wouldn't be enough to pass it off as a bit of fun, or to simply stop selling them, the police would be arresting your staff.

You made a small profit on those 15,000 T Shirts. I see that as profit made from a criminally negligent act, a T Shirt that enourages a criminal act. What I asked for in my original letter is that you donate that profit to a rape charity. I know Asda have promoted both mens and womens health charities in the past, I see that as commendable and it is part of the reason I chose your store over the many other local retailers. I think you have yet to realise exactly how reprehensible that T Shirt slogan is, and so have failed to properly make amends. I think you realise you have made a huge PR blunder, especially since most of your shoppers are female.

One way you could turn that around is by following my suggestion and donating the small profit you made to an appropriate cause.
Another way you could make amends would be to promote a rape charity in your store.
Another suggestion would be an Asda led campaign educating about the dangers of date-rape drugs, which recently has become a huge problem in my home town.

I hope you realise although I feel strongly about this, I am making positive suggestions rather than threatening consumer boycotts or legal action, and I hope you consider some of the suggestions I have made. However, if you don't agree with any of my suggestions, I myself design T shirts and could easily sell quite a few outside your stores with the design included, with the profits going to some rape charity. If you find them offensive then I promise to withdraw them once I've sold 15,000.

sincerely,

I had no idea that ASDA had stocked these disgusting t-shirts as I do not shop there. I will await eagerly what kind of reply you receive from their customer relations department. But as someone who worked in Customer Relations for one of the largest motor insurers I can tell you that you'll probably get no joy.

In those departments you are not allowed to think for yourself. I would suggest everyone who reads this article to write a letter to ASDA asking them to take up the points mentioned in your letter and to make a grovelling apology and appropiate reparations for their quite frankly appalling behaviour. If I was in charge of ASDA then everyone who was in charge of approving and buying these t-shirts would be sacked for bringing the company into disrepute.

Well off to write my letter to ASDA now.

Thanks for the vindication, especially from a male, I wasn't sure if I was 'flying off the handle' on this. I don't really believe in the power of writing letters, I am more of a T Shirt spray-painter, but if you are seriously going to write a letter then let me save you five minutes.

His address is

Mark Wright, Customer Relations Management
Asda House
South Bank
Great Wilson Street
Leeds LS11 5AD

tel 01132435435
fax 01132418666
minicom 08000683003


And here is the standard reply I got in case you get the same one, and since you are from his industry I trust you can see through the bullshit :

"Thanks for your recent letter to my collegue Andy. I've replied in his abscence since I am his customer service manager.

Naturally, we're sorry you found this t-shirt offensive. Our range of comedy t-shirts are intended to be exactly that - simply a bit of fun. They've been very popular with both male and female customers alike. The entire design was produced by a team of women who certainly didn't mean for it to be itnerpreted in this way.

We've sold 15,000 of these t-shirts, but we always listen to our customer feedback as it's an invaluable tool which helps us improve our products and services. In response to what our customers have told us, we''ve now withdrawn this particulat t-shirt from sale.

I hope this action restores your faith in our commitment to customer care. We look forward to serving you again."


Rape Crisis Scotland seem to have been placated by the withdrawal of the t-shirt. I guess they can't be seen to pressure a corporation for funds. I can though, and I can squeeze hard.

Anyway, here are their links which I first accessed just now, like I said I complained before I heard of Rape Crisis.


 http://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/rcs.php?fileid=news.htm

ASDA T-SHIRT INCITEMENT TO RAPE - PROTEST!

Asda are currently selling a t-shirt depicting 2 women sitting back to back like the Kappa logo. Round them is the slogan, “if at first you don’t succeed, buy her another drink and try again”. We deplore the contempt for women and incitement to rape this encourages and have written to Asda demanding the removal of this item.

Anyone wishing to complain about this can call 0113 2435435 or write to Asda, ASDA House, Southbank, Great Wilson Street , Leeds LS11 5AD

You can see a copy of our letter here.
 http://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/documents/Asda%20t-shirt.pdf

When faced with the power of a faceless corporation, it really is better to fight fire with fire. Hence this report to Kappa:


I am aware Kappa have used a liberal attitude to sex to sell clothes. I have no problem with that, I have never been offended by any of your logos. Asda, the UK branch of Wallmart, recently stole the Kappa logo to sell a 'comedy t-shirt'. It has eventually been withdrawn after a storm of protest. However Asda/Wallmart are refusing to donate the profits of the 15,000 Kappa-style t-shirts they have sold to a rape-charity. They portray this as 'a simple bit of fun'.

 http://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/rcs.php?fileid=news.htm

Getting a woman drunk for the purposes of having sex with her is definded as rape under Scottish law. It is hardly a simple bit of fun. I don't have much power over such a large multinational as Wallmart. But you do. You could sue them and donate some of the settlement to a suitable womans charity.

If I were you I wouldn't want my logo being misused by another corporation to promote rape.