Yeah, I see how that could have come across as arrogant - and it was a little bit, but towards anime fans (sorry! 
). I genuinely tried to recall any misogynistic rape/torture scenes I've seen and struggled to do so, while scenes of people (mostly men) being murdered in various ways popped up in my head one after another, and so I felt you were exaggerating. Although to be fair, it's pretty much always men committing the violence, regardless of the gender of the victim. Which mirrors real-world statistics I'm afraid.
Yeah, I'm really not surprised, like I've said before, lot's of men don't get it, and I've seen dozens of other guys do exactly the same mistake before. Men being killed in action scenes is not the same as a helpless victim being raped, I know several men who are perfectly fine watching James Bond movies and films like Saving Private Ryan but visibly recoil at the mere suggestion of watching Pulp fiction or Deliverance, not because they are more violent, but because they show men being raped, and it's frustrating how many men get this when it comes to male viewers but can't understand women feel the same on depictions of female characters. Like, I'm fine watching Lara Croft and similar female action heroes get shot at, risk death in ancient death traps, and fight female opponents,
but this article pissed me off.
In any case, I could be wrong. If you want, I can try to list the last 10 movies / TV shows I've watched and you point out the violence against women that you see in those.
Well, I think searching their titles on
Unconsenting Media might be a better idea. Granted, not all movies and TV-series has been added to their database, but most mainstream works can be found there. From my experience, their statistics are a pretty good representation of mainstream TV.
Maybe just one question: is the implication supposed to be that Martin is a misogynist?
Personally, no, I don't think Martin
intended to be misogynistic, however, I think he makes a common mistake lots of male writers do in thinking that merely showing tons of gruesome violent acts against women counts as a good criticism of misogyny and woman-hating. However, firstly, many men fail to understand that sexual violence isn't the same as fantasy violence, as author
Chuck Wendig puts it;
If I were to sit in a room full of 100 people, how many of them do you think have been beheaded, cock-chopped, throat-slit, war-murdered, skull-asploded, and so on, and so forth?
Probably none.
Except Gary. Poor Gary.
But how many do you think might’ve undergone sexual assault or rape?
That’s a higher number, innit?
Secondly, more often than not, throwing in scenes of sexual violence normalizes it to the viewers, and rather than thinking it's wrong, many viewers start thinking it's normal, and looking at the Game of Thrones discourse, I've seen an alarming number of people defend the rape scenes using similar arguments used against real-life victims!
There have even been scientific studies showing rather disturbing connections between watching films with sexist violence on screen, and increased victim-blaming in the audience.EDIT: This might be hard to believe, but I didn't realize you were a woman until your last post - for some reason, "Blondbraid" made me think of a Viking beard or something 
. So here's a question: is it wrong if that changes how I read your posts on this topic? Because I have to admit it does a bit, which makes my whole "gender isn't important" spiel sound somewhat hypocritical . I'm conflicted!
Okay, this is actually the first thing you've written here that
did surprise me! Years ago, when I first discussed different ideas for a username with my mom, she told me "Blondbraid" was rather feminine and it might risk getting associated with bimbo /barbie stereotypes, so I didn't think of it that way. As for your question, I'd say it's complicated because as much as I'd like to be judged as a person rather than being judged for my gender, I think it's wrong to deny one's sex and gender strongly colors one's experiences and outlook on the world, because I certainly read your replies seeing you as a man and with the perspective that many men never have to think about such matters unless someone brings it up to them, and while I think that the advice to write women as people isn't wrong per sé, I've seen plenty of male writers fall into the trap of writing women like men who just look like women, because in their eyes, a well-rounded human being = man. It's similar to video games where you can choose the gender of the hero, but if you choose to play as a woman you get a female hero who visits strip clubs, participates in all-male sports tournaments, and has a bunch of female NPCs otherwise portrayed as straight suddenly fawn over her, none of which is particularly relatable to most women.
