I'll bite: yes. If you show me images of goatse or mutilated bodies in a war zone without my consent that’s mind rape. Same with bring politics forcibly into the workplace, showing Fox news at the bbq joint while I’m trying to eat or at the gym while I’m trying to exercise, or screaming at me in protest while I’m trying to access family planning services. Whether its appropriate or not depends on set and setting.

Just like women have the right to walk the streets in whatever attire they damn well please without getting raped, I have the right to experience the world without constantly being bombarded by commercial and political mind rape.

> If not, where do you personally draw the line? And, just as importantly, who do you feel should get to decide in the general case?

Consent. Is that such a hard line to understand? If you want to challenge peoples viewpoints go to college or start a poker night with a bunch of philosophically diverse neighbors who like to argue politics. If you want to shove ads down everyones throat, go join an influencer support group.

Everyone else deserves to live free from constant mental assault.

Exactly. Our minds are sacred.

Do men, and lesbian and bisexual women, have the right to walk down the street without seeing a woman dressed in a way they find distracting?

I think you will say that they have no such right. But if so: What makes this form of attention-grabbing behaviour (wearing a skimpy dress) acceptable, and the other form (advertising) unacceptable?

This example highlights that (a) we are, in fact, capable of managing distractions to quite some degree, and (b) in both cases there is another party involved whose interests oppose our own, but whose rights nevertheless also need to be considered.

Billboards on a highway: mind rape.

Advertising is by definition noise. Superfluous. Information I did not ask for. Irrelevant stuff that someone paid money to put in front of me. Information I explicitly ask for is not advertising, it's simply information.

My cognitive functions are inalienable, they are not theirs to sell to the highest bidder, nor are they currency to pay for services with. I have attention deficit disorder. It's hard enough for me to focus without these corporations trying to grab my attention. I consider their attempts to do so a violation of my personal integrity. I consider ad blocking to be justified self-defense. I will literally do everything in my power to avoid looking at ads.

I always try to make sure my online contributions are worthy of the valuable attention of their readers they take up.