Okay here’s the “sequel” to my other Rape Culture post. For a lead-in I bring you the very brutally honest and true comment by Q Grrl from the ‘Amanda presents some real Anti-Rape Advice’ thread.
Q Grrl Writes:
June 28th, 2005 at 11:35 amYou know, I honestly tried to come into this thread on rape with an open mind, hoping that, well, we wouldn’t get the same tired bullshit about prevention, the false equivalency between men in high crime districts and the rape of women, and the otherwise general unwillingness to address rape as rape. But I can’t do it. At least not the open mind part.
Having said that, I fully believe that the ONLY way a woman can control/plan for/avoid/restrict rape is to NOT BE BORN A WOMAN.
Enough said about that. Now my mind is no longer open and you all can deal with my anger at your (general) unwillingness to address rape per se and to make excuses for the men that rape.
Virginia writes:
“Actually, as a health psychology student, I can appreciate your analogy to safety-related behaviors such as looking both ways before crossing the street. “?
And not to pick on Virginia, but I’m using her very succinct summary of the posts above hers as a launching pad.
This “analogy”? of safety-related behavior assumes that all parties involved wish to avoid the same risks. No two drivers at any given time want to hit each other. The risk is fairly equivalent between both parties. No particular driver wants to hit any particular pedestrian, both believing that the risks outweigh the benefit in any particular situation.
Rape is none of the above. Rape carries benefits; for those of you unwilling to look at those benefits, the are:
Male orgasm
Male access to sex performed on women’s bodies
Male restriction of women’s access to public space; to include parks, neighborhoods, public facilities (banks, grocery stores, schools, court houses, etc.), government facilities.
Male restriction of women’s political voices (just go to dKos if you wonder what I mean)
Male restriction on women in combat
Male restriction on responsibility for other men
etc.Furthermore, the sidetracking of rape discussions into issues of how men are also socially hurt is complete horseshit. You cannot place rape in a vacuum. Rape co-exists with prohibitions on women’s access to birth control and abortion. Rape co-exists with the institution of marriage. Rape co-exists with socially condoned dating norms.
Rape is MOST unlike a man getting high off of recreational drugs and walking around in a high crime district.
In fact, rape has nothing to do with that.
But, by all means, we should be socializing girls and women differently. We should socialize them to fight back, to look men straight in the eye, to go for the balls everytime.
WHAT WE SHOULDN’T BE SOCIALIZING THEM FOR IS THAT IF THEY FAIL TO DO THIS, THEY DESERVE THE OUTCOME OF AN ACTION FREELY CHOSEN BY A MALE PERPETRATOR.
How is it that ya’ll are capapble of missing this distinction?
What year is it anyway? 2005?
Lovely and I agree with this :-) So,…. rape culture, gender, women, victim-blaming, men’s responsibility or lack thereof, dating, prevention, marital rape, “boys will be boys,” why do men rape?, patriarchy’s role, acquaintance rape, stranger rape, excusing rape and sexual assault because “guys just can’t help themselves so put all of the burden of prevention on women,” how and why men benefit from rape, how does pornography play into this, shaming of the female victim, men as potential rapists, men and women’s sex drives, relationships, socialization,etc. Have at it!
One more note, Aegis and the disrespectful and rude troll Nephandus are NOT permitted–hence banned–from commenting on this thread, due to their piss-poor and outright disrespectful behavior towards me and others. Any comments of yours’ on this thread will be automatically deleted and seen as further proof of your refusal to show any respect or consideration of others–especially to the moderator.
But sadly, trolls possess the ability to regenerate very quickly (ok, first and last geeky D&D reference).
Shorter trolls on the rape threads: So what if you got raped? Let’s talk about how I don’t like feeling like I have to care about a mere female.
piny –
This is becoming a trend…
Where do you get the idea I don’t know anyone who has been raped? Certainly not from anything I ever said.
I said my daughters had not been raped.
How do I know?
Im sure they would have told me because we have a solid relationship and we talk about such things and support eachother.
I dont know what kind of family YOU have but signs are it might have serious issues in this regard for you to baselessly assume such about mine.
Sad indeed.
Neal
I went to a high school party once where there was a long line — I assumed it was for the bathroom. But then I saw the bathroom door open, facilities available. So I went to pee. When I came out, I wondered about that line.
Then this guy came out, drunkenly. “Hey guys, this girl is ready and she’s taking on everybody!”
I was stunned. I was more stunned by the non-reaction of most everyone there. Here a serial gang rape was happening to a 17 year-old girl whose “yes” consisted of having drunk too much gin.
Suddenly her friend was there, yelling at the guys. She took her friend away. I saw the emotional wreckage on her face. I’ll never forget. I didn’t know her, and I was so shocked I felt the last thing she needed was a stranger trying to help.
The party went on. Nobody gave a shit. Nobody ever was charged. In fact, I bet most of those guys have not given that girl a second thought in the years since. Some I’m sure have had daughters and worried about their welfare. After all, they know what guys are like.
What guys are like. That’s the passive apology for rape culture. I could go on and talk about the incidents that hit me and my family directly, but the point is not our suffering but the lack of suffering, lack of accountability, lack of consideration by men who do this … and men who watch this happen and don’t even blink.
Why study rape as a gender-neutral phenom, though? Why? That makes no fucking sense at all. Sorry, but that just pisses me right the fuck off. It’s not a gender-neutral phenom anywhere in the world, and I’m not going to coddle trolls. They get enough as it is. Why do more? Why give them a safe space on a feminist board? All they want is our attention? They deserve nothing but our scorn.
Josh, you know what we need to teach men? To be afraid of women. To be afraid of pissing women off when they don’t listen to us. I think that would work just fine.
I’m not a big person but when I was catching shoplifters I managed to scare the shoplifters a lot more than the guys did. Why? Because some guys really fear women. I have to wonder if they think, subconsciously, they deserve it.
Amanda –
Interesting, unlike you apparently I dont consider much to be “boys only areas” aside from male locker rooms (there are female locker rooms that are girls only too) and male restrooms (same deal as above).
Excuse me for saying this but I think it is assinine to claim parks and the like to be ‘boys only’ places. I see women and girls in parks all the time.
What are you going to do to ‘reclaim’ them? Try and pass laws banning males from public parks? That would be even more assinine than your underlying premise and wouldnt stand a snowball’s chance on the syrface of the sun of coming to pass.
Puh-LEEZE!
Neal
So a woman who was arguably going to become a troll is banned from this discussion, only to allow it to be hijacked by an obvious asshat?
Makes sense.
Kathleen –
Are you serious?
Was that an actually serious question you asked me?
I have never said you should be responsible for minimizing your risks of being raped for anyone but yourself… if you choose to try and help other women, good on you, but it is hardlt required of you.
Your attitude, however, seems to be that of the pedestrian who chooses to cross whereever without looking, wandering in and out of traffic at random, not feeling any need for self preservation or thinking they need to be bothered worrying about such and just putting it on the motorists to guarantee their safety when they act in such a reckless manner.
Good grief! Use some common sense will you?
You try and equate me rightly challenging the ludicrous concept that I should take responsibility for the criminal acts of those I don’t know, don’t see, have no knowledge of their habits and have no power to intervene even if I did….and compare this to your strawman argument that allegedly I expect you to be the protector of all women?
Have you taken your meds today?
Are you sure?
Neal
What cclough said. But hey, I suspect the moderators just haven’t noticed what’s going on.
Yeah, that’s what Neal is talking about. The good old days, before date rape was anything but a good time—for a rapist.
I fear for his daughters. And I wonder about his ‘good time’ past. He sounds almost nostalgic when he talks about the good old days.
BStu –
WTF?
Where have I taken your story for my ‘agenda’?
What exactly do you claim I ‘obsess over’?
Methinks you doth project too much.
It is seeming like all of you are hopeless wingnuts who havent the critical thinking skills of an average 4 yr old.
Sheesh!
Neal
“Have you taken your meds today?”
Anybody wanna email PA?
I don’t think they have meds for what this asshat suffers from.
Troll: Date rape used to be just having a good time. Now it’s all legislated and organized and shit, and you can’t have a good time any longer. True?
It’s the ‘true?’ for some reason that gets me. Like even he can’t fool himself.
Ah yes, troll strategy to derail a thread #7–pretend that you don’t know what someone is talking about and assume that they are being stupid. Neal, we don’t have a widespread problem of women walking into men’s locker rooms and getting raped. However, we do blame women for getting raped in ostensibly mixed social occasions, which means we are subtly promoting the notion that bars and parties are male-dominanted spaces that women should only enter if they are up for being raped.
Neal, I’m anxious to hear your responses to Kathleen’s post #81 and Antigone’s post #91. I think that they clearly address the issues that the women on this board are trying to explain to you and illustrate both the ludicrousness of both the idea that not being a rapist constitutes a sufficient amount or degree of anti-rape action and the statement that men’s-only places and activities do not exist (you do yourself no credit with the “men’s bathrooms and men’s locker rooms” response — or, perhaps it is an accurate reflection of your interpretive reading skills, in which case, that’s too bad). It’s past my bedtime right now, but I’ll check back to see your response in the morning
Jeff –
Where do you get that is all I do?
I said I teach by example. That is not your ‘and leave me alone Im not doing anything but not raping’ line of unadulterated bs.
I taught my daughters… I taught them to teach others. I will do whatever I can but I take no responsibility for anything outside my sphere of influence. It is ludicrous to do so, it will just make you crazy.
Now my sphere of influence happens to include my state legislature. If they try and pass a law promoting rape you can be sure I will be there to speak against it.
If they try and pass a law stupid enough to try and redefine accidental bumping into someone as felony rape you can be sure I will speak against that as well.
You see, overreaching ludicrous crap like the collegew plan to sign off on each step, ludicrous redefinitions and such HARM the cause of combatting rape.
How?
Because it takes a serious subject and makes it into a big joke no one takes seriously… like when those opposed to the ERA got the discussion focussed on ‘personhole covers’ and such nonsense preventing the ratification because by that time it waas seen as nothing but a big joke.
Think about it.
Neal
# ginmar Writes:
June 28th, 2005 at 6:26 pm
Yeah, dipshit? You’re the one who thinks that date rape was a good time and now it’s been retroactively rejiggered. Well, you know, I could waste my time with such ignorance, but I don’t.
Fuck off.
I respond:
Excuse me?
Where did I ever say I thought date rape was a good time?
I think in commenting about ignorance you are clearly projecting.
And save the profanity for someone it will shock. I was a NYC cabbie for a couple summers in my youth… you won’t shock me.
Discredit yourself, likely, but shock me? not a chance.
Neal
News for Neal –
I don’t care what kind of a relationship you THINK you have with your daughters – with the attitude you’ve displayed here – I would guess you would NOT know whether one of your daughters had been raped.
I would also guess that most women (or girls as the case may) be do not tell their fathers – esp. all of those date-rapes that you don’t consider to be rapes anyway.
# audio-visual Writes:
June 28th, 2005 at 6:28 pm
I’m thinking that maybe it’s time to start a thread devoted specificly to discussing rape that does not occure in the ‘female victims, male rapists’ pattern? Both because sexual violence is an issue that feminists should be (and are) concerned about, no matter it’s victim or perpetrator; and also so that when folks like Neal come on threads like these, we’ll be able to point to something, so that a thread about women and rape does not get derailed by arguments over how feminists supposedly ignore rapes where a women is not the victim and a man is not the rapist.
Would that be possible, P.A.?
I respond:
That is just so typical and laughably so…
create another thread for a separate part of a complex interrelated issue and send discussion there as if that actually separated the issues.
It doesnt.
But this mere suggestion demonstrates how pollyannish some of you can be, how closedminded and intolerant of anything outside your own pitifully limited little mindset.
It also shows why you will never succeed with your alleged goals of getting people to get along together because you are all about separating yourselves from anyone who might actually have other ideas.
You know nothing about compromise or synthesizing differing opinions into a workable conglomerate.
You are all 100% your way or you consider it a total loss.
And you will not bring the other segments of society to work with you towards a common goal with that kind of mindset.
You will just sit and obsess in your little bubble while the rest of the world laughs at you.
I think DSM-IV has a lot to say about what I have seen here since I started posting… but I wont go into it here.. it is all online tho.
Neal
Shorter trolls: That you disapprove of a pro-rape culture proves that you are certifiable.
troll behaviour # 17: selective quoting. What Ginmar actually said was
Oh – and here is where you said it.
Jesurgislac wrote:
Do you feel it would draw away the trolls who don’t want to talk about the male rapists and their (mostly female) victims?
While I don’t really want to placate trolls, I think would be helpful and important to have a place to talk about non-male-rapist-female-victim rapes, so that threads like this one will not get derailed.
ginmar wrote:
Why study rape as a gender-neutral phenom, though? Why? That makes no fucking sense at all. Sorry, but that just pisses me right the fuck off. It’s not a gender-neutral phenom anywhere in the world, and I’m not going to coddle trolls. They get enough as it is. Why do more? Why give them a safe space on a feminist board?
(Assuming this was directed at my suggestion:) I would never propose to look at rape as a gender-neutral thing; I certainly think that even homosexual rapes are highly gendered, and are violence against the concept of women, if not actual women. That said, because the vast, vast majority of rapes are by men, against women, I think it’s not at all a bad idea to have a seperate place to look at how homosexual or other types of rape, so that discussions about rape in general (which means rape by men against women, because that is the general type of rape) can just get on. I just want threads about rape can just go on without distractions; hell, I’d moderate the thread myself if I had to.
Neal wrote:
But this mere suggestion demonstrates how pollyannish some of you can be, how closedminded and intolerant of anything outside your own pitifully limited little mindset.
Look, if this thread were made, you could have your cake and eat it, too; it could be a place where no-one could criticize you for being off-topic when you want to talk about non-male-aginst-female rape. I certainly would like to hear what you have to say, without all of this arguing.
Neal the troll asks… “Where have I taken your story for my ‘agenda’?”
Probably around the time you said “I ca relate to the situation you presented and I agree…” and then proceeded to co-opt my story to make the exact opposite point even going so far as to accuse the woman I was with of partaking in “BS” and “code games”. Is that new code for “mind games” by the way? You used my story as a basis for reaching the opposite conclusion I was suggesting. I could appreciate your response if you claimed you had a right to co-opt my story to prove your own point, but this “Who me?” act isn’t cutting it.
Oh, and as has been pointed out, you most certainly expressed mocking scorn towards date rape and explicitly expressed fondness for the good ol’ days you when you could get a woman drunk and have your way for her. I was rather aghast in that thread, too.
Nope. You can discuss male victims of male violence just fine on a rape thead. What you can’t do is coddle woman-haters like Neal, who will have won. Let him go deal with his own issues on his own board. This is like putting urinals in a lady’s room. It’s like those white eejits who complain that there’s no White History Month. Ban the fucker and teach him a lesson. You want to coddle someone who says shit like this? ?!
think what the hand-wringers TODAY define as date rape was VERY common 40 yrs ago… go out, get your date a bit drunk and when she is inebriated go for it.
What was normal date procedures even less than the above is today considered date rape.
How many movies from the 60s and before have the woman saying no repeatedly while the man plows on until she finally says yes?
By today’s loony standards that was date rape.
Nowadays you almost have to get forms signed in triplicate, notarized, publicized, circumcised, 312 other -izeds, lost, found, filed, refiled, misfiled, put up for a community vote in Botswana and submitted for joint approval by the Pope and Charles Manson before you can even freaking HOLD HANDS, much less get even a peck on the cheek.
SHEESH!
Heck, glancing at her chest or his crotch or either’s buns without the above written permission today is considered date rape.
So it depends on the standards you use… today’s standards (everything is date rape) or the standards of 40 yrs ago (only criminal rape on a date was date rape and maybe not even then)… otherwise you are talking past eachother.
True?
Neal
# Antigone Writes:
June 28th, 2005 at 6:30 pm
Neal, the troll (sorry hun, but you’re entire tone is dismissive and annoying, thusly, I call you a troll) does have a point. It’s buried in there, but it is a point:
I respond:
EXCUSE ME!?
*I* am dismissive?
It is YOU FOLK who are the ones being dismissive.
I have tried, OH how I have tried, to take most of you seriously but you just won’t allow it, will you?
Im dismissive?
Shya, right… in what part of the twilight zone.
If you want examples of dismissive, I suggest you check out the menagerie of your fellow travellers here.
You wrote:
Social mores about sex need to change DRASTICALLY.
I agree. First and foremost, females like sex.
Females do not like being told that they ar sluts when they admit. Females do not like being treated as some sort of prize. They do not like it when guys they were fucking brags to his friends that he totally “scored”?. They do not like it when their sexual needs are considered secondary, or hidden under the all-together ridiculous attage of “Girls get pleasure from having their partner happy”?. Females do not like being called a “cock-tease”? when they don’t want to go any farther. Females do not like having to say “No”? five hundred times to a guy and then have the guy get pissy, or even worse, saying “no”? 499 times, and then yes just to get him to shut-the-fuck up so she can sleep. Females do not like it when if they are mad at a boyfriend or a husband, and do not feel like sleeping with them, the bf or husband says “You are just using sex as a weapon”?. Females do not like it if a guy takes them out to eat, buys them flowers, buys them jewlery, they are supposed to “put out”?, and they really don’t like being refered to as “Sure Thing Sue”?.
These things make women NOT like sex. Make it something one HAS to do, instead of something that one chooses to do, and it is no longer fun.
Men, you are not entitled to sex. This is a big thing that needs to be emphized over, and over, and over again until it sinks in: YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO SEX OVER SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT WANT IT. They are not being a bitch, they are not being frigid, they are exercising control over their own body. You don’t like it? Guess who’s behavior has to change?
Guys, also, do not like being called, “wuss”? “loser”? or “pussy”? if they are not getting sex, and/or respect a women when she says no. Stop doing that to each other, don’t call your friends these things.
Once those start to sink in to the human consciousness, then rape won’t be such a problem.
I respond:
Nice list.
May I suggest then:
If you don’t want to be treated as a prize stop acting like you are something to be won.
If you dont want to be accused of using sex as a weapon stop using sex as a weapon.
If you dont want to be thought of as selfish, greedy or the like stop acting like it… stop draining guys wallets at bars getting free drinks by leading him on then dumping him when he rightly gets irritated about it when he figures it out… stop insisting that men shower you with gifts… I dont know how many women I have known getting diamonds and whatnot all the time and never getting the men who give them such a bloody thing other tha when they find out it only cost three months pay whining ‘is that all?’ and so on.
If you dont want to se seen as sex objects or looked at by men stop dressing in such a way as to scream out “LOOK AT ME!”. I knowm you only want SOME men to look at you,but sorry male vision doesnt have that level of discernment. W see what is there… not just what you would only like us to see. Example… girl worked in an office I worked at. She was the standard blond pop tart britney model… came to work in accentuating halter tops, short short skirts or shorts, tattoo art from base of scalp to tips of toes, at least a dozen piercings (that were easily visible) and so on. She started a month in making complaints in HR that she did not like the men in the office looking at her. (Of course the male model type in maintenance she was alwas especially strutting for and all over… him she didnt complain about once). Each guy she complained about was called in and interviewed. It was pointed out that 1) it would be unnatural under the circumstances to NOT notice (what did they expect? that they only hired eunuchs?) and 2) there were clearly (this being one) why there was a company dress code that all her problems were because she was violating just about all of it. Needless to say, she was let go for flagrant and frequent violations of the dress code she signed upon being hired, and none of the men were discipled (nor the two lesbians she complained about too).
Maybe you get my point without an exhaustive list, Maybe not. If the latter I likely cannot help you.
But this is why I say it has to be BOTH sides that must radically change. Not just one. And as a third component to the equation, society as well… not just the male and female parts of it.
Due to social inertia I would not expect full change to become significant, even IF we all started working TOGETHER real hard tomorrow morning for a few centuries. 40,000 years or more is a lot of inertia to overcome.
Neal
Where’s PA to ban this fucker? He just goes on and on. The desperation of his whines only serves to increase reasonable suspicions as to his history.
Oh, and btw Antigone…
Your ‘you have no right to sex’ does not apply in a marriage.
Granted there are reasonable constructs but to just flat out cut the spouse off (and this goes the other way too… women in marriage have a right to expect a reasonasble sex life with their spouse as well.”
Otherwise you have absolutely no right to expect fidelity.
You cannot have it both ways.
Ask any reputable psychologist and they will tell you the sex drive is natural and suppressing it is unnatural and leads to any number of psychological AND PHYSICAL maladies.
If you are just shacking up and want some kind of basic sex life claim on your paretner, marriage is your option. (if heterosexual… if homosexual unfortunately for now you need to move to where gay marriage is legal, or civil unions, or deal with being outside looking in).
Just to cover something important I missed in your response earlier.
In marriage using sex as a weapon by withholding it as a punishment is kind of a mutually assured destruction process for the marriage. Eventually the one being denied will say “OK I cant get it from him/her I will get it somewhere else” and that almost universally leads to eventual ending of the marriage.
Neal
Keep that in mind.
Yeah we get your point. Proibably not the one you intended to make though.
Now will you go?
“Men get raped too.”? No one disputes this. But since at a conservative estimate 99% or rape victims are women and 99% of rapists are men,”
Quick pedantic point: while I am fairly certain that 99%+ of rapists are men, I would doubt that 99%+ of rape victims are women; I have a feeling that male-on-male rape is more common than that. On the other hand, it is probably true that in most of the male-on-male cases, the victim is the “woman,” i.e. the penetratee, rather than the penetrator.
On the issue of whether or not women rape men and whether or not rape should be looked at as a gender-neutral phenomenon:
Well, in the abstract rape is not about sexism or male power or privilege, etc. But in actual practice, rape is akmostly always committed by males, and mostly against females, or when against males, in a way as to give the male the “female” role (i.e. the rapist penetrates rather than forcing the victim to penetrate them). So in analyzing rape in our society, the fact that it is overwhelmingly committed by males against females, or those who are seen as females, is something that should be considered one of the key points.
In other words, we are not talking about rape as an abstraction; we are talking about actual rapes and real society. So while in theory rape can be studied apart from gender; rape as it actually exists is obviously tied in with gender, and as such that needs to be discussed.
ginmar wrote:
You want to coddle someone who says shit like this? ?!
It’s probably naive of me, but I think that a lot trolls become trolls when they say something stupid in anger, and then get flusterd trying to take back something they know they shouldn’t have said. I don’t think that Neal really meant what it sounded like. I’m sure he wouldn’t want his daughters treated like young women were 40 years ago (or they way they’re treated now, for that matter).
You’re giving him too much credit. He was fondly remembering the good old days of date rape, remember.
It’s his job not to be an asshole. Plain and simple. He’s failing.
# Jeff Writes:
June 28th, 2005 at 6:39 pm
Amanda: I think that really could help things. One of the things I’ve noticed is that now that I’ve got more autonomy of association, I tend to avoid “boys only”? areas; I suspect other men who don’t want to deal with “macho bullshit”? do too. And I think that this intensifies the effect – the attitudes of the worst men in such a group will drive out the moderates, and it becomes an echo chamber. (Look at the men’s rights advocacy boards, for example.)
I respond:
You know, Jeff, those in the men’s rights advocacy boards would look in here and see the same ‘echo chamber’ that you acuse them of having.
Likely both would be right.
That is what comes from 100% screw the other side extremism… Polarization.
Some in those groups do have a point though…
The one sided nature of ‘progress’ on womens issues.
To them they are the ones always giving up where they were predominant (as likely they should) but for all the gains women have made they give up almost nothing. So many still expect the guy to pay for the drinks, pay for dinner, be the breadwinner while she hangs around the house (dont go off on housework, seen this attitude in women who have their husbands pay for cleaning services), demand primacy in child custody cases and so on where women in society have at least been perceived as being in the better position.
So there is an impression that women want the best of both sides and to leave men with the worst of both sides.
Whether true or not, all encompassing or not, trhere is still enough of it to keep the impression alive.
And that will never help getting the two sides together, now will it?
Neal
Neal Feldman Writes:
June 28th, 2005 at 7:54 pm
“Your ‘you have no right to sex’ does not apply in a marriage.”
—
I’ve got news for you:
“Currently, rape of a spouse is a crime in all 50 states and the District of Columbia”
I googled it just to make sure:
http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32701
——
Neal – you might want to rethink you’re entitlement to sex misconceptions.
A point about Antigone on #91:
“If I get drunk and start flirting with every guy at the bar (and I hope my friends are there so I don’t, buy you never know), I take the risk of looking like an idiot, I take the risk of alcohol poisoning, and I take the risk of passing out. What I shouldn’t be taking the risk of is getting raped.”
Agreed. But I hope you agree that if a female friend told you she was planning on getting drunk in the company of men she didn’t know you would advise her against it. My main concern is that people don’t take “it’s not your responsibility” to mean that people shouldn’t be taught to be wary of risky situations.
Does sound like that’s what he wants it to be, though, doesn’t it? My, my, Neal, keep doing that inadvertant revealing stuff. You do protest too much.
# Antigone Writes:
June 28th, 2005 at 6:40 pm
And the other thing:
It is NOT MY GODDAMN RESPONSIBILITY TO RESTICT MY ACTIONS!!!
I am not doing anything illegal or immoral if I like walking around, by myself, at night. Guess what geniuses? I work during the day, and it’s hot during the day. It’s cool and peaceful and there isn’t a lot of trafic when I walk at night. If I get raped, it still wasn’t my actions that were blamed.
If I choose to screw everything with two legs, that’s my pregotive. I take a lot of risks, STDS, pregnacy *shudder* general lack of value placed on sex, but I can still do it. If you start spreading it around that I’m a “sure thing”? and I tell you that you can go screw yourself, and you rape me, it was still not about anything I did, it was about what YOU did. My actions were not illegal, damaging, immoral, THE RAPISTS ACTIONS WERE.
If I decided that fishnets, tank tops and miniskirts are what make me happy and best express my fashion choices, guess what? Doesn’t mean I’m selling a damn thing, doesn’t mean I’m their for your enjoyment. I am dressing like this for MY enjoyment, not yours. You rape me? My behavior is not the one that needs to change.
If I get drunk and start flirting with every guy at the bar (and I hope my friends are there so I don’t, buy you never know), I take the risk of looking like an idiot, I take the risk of alchol poisoning, and I take the risk of passing out. What I shouldn’t be taking the risk of is getting raped. Again, this is my behavior, and it isn’t hurting anyone, raping is.
If I decide that I want to try and get to WA from ND, I run the risk of being cold, being wet, being hot, it taking a long time, and traveling in uncomfortable conditions. What I shouldn’t be risking is rape. (Well, in the case of MT, I risk being arrested as well, so I’d have to circle that state).
Succintly, MY behavior is just fine. A RAPISTS behavior is the one that needs to change. You want to prevent rape? Don’t tell me my behavior should change, tell them that theirs should.
I respond:
True, you are under no legal obligation to restrict your actions.
Be as reckless and irresponsible as you want to be.
Just don’t come crying to me when something bad but preventable happens because of it.
As you say you can be the #1 slut on the planet… but it puts you at risk of all manner of things INCLUDING but not limited to, STDs, pregnancy, a reputation that could limit you socially or professionally and so on… including putting you at increased risk of being raped. And if you were the #1 slut on the planet and a date raped you, how likely do you think he would ever be convicted?
Less than zero? Just about right.
See my example above about the pedestrian playing in traffic.
Have you heard the term contributory negligence?
People are expected to act reasonably for the circumstances. If I were to wander around Harlem with a shirt that said “I hate niggers” I have the RIGHT to do that, free speech. But would I be a moron with a deathwish to do so? Ya Betcha.
It is not reasonable to cross your arms, pout and stamp your little foot and demand the universe be nice to you.
Face it… the universe made the shark… the universe is not a nice place generally speaking. Survival and happiness in it are possible though not guaranteed, but take work, effort and bending to the universe as much as you want the universe to bend to you.
Maybe this is too deep for here. If so, my apologies.
Neal
Why does every risk for women boil down to rape, though? Why? EVery damned time, it’ s always rape. It’s not women we’re talking about. Why do men rape in so many different situations?
You can’t go to bars, dorms, your own home. You’re not safe anywhere, because there’s rape everywhere. Yet we’re talking about women. Why?
Neal, if rape is “about feeling better about themselves by showing they are superior (in their minds)”, then please explain how your inflammatory trollish crap separates you from rapists other than your self-proclamation that you have never raped (um, in a criminal way of course, not all those times you got “your date a bit drunk and when she is inebriated [went] for it”).
Some people were guessing at statistics… here are a few:
In 2001, 248,000 people were raped/sexually assaulted in the United States. This represents an 8.3 percent drop over a year.89 According to victims, only 39 percent of all rape/sexual assault was reported to law enforcement agencies during 2001.
Law enforcement agencies across the country received 90,491 reports of forcible rape in 2001, an increase of 0.3 percent since 2000. Of these, 44.3 percent were cleared.
In 2001, 91 percent of victims of rape/sexual assault were female.
http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32291
True, you are under no legal obligation to restrict your actions.
Be as reckless and irresponsible as you want to be.
Just don’t come crying to me when something bad but preventable happens because of it.
As you say you can be the #1 slut on the planet…
So this is the dipshit you all want to give a special place to?
Your ‘you have no right to sex’ does not apply in a marriage.
Of course it does, at least in the U.S. Very few states recognize a marital exemption to rape laws.
If your spouse denies you sex, you can divorce them. But you do not have any right to force them to engage in sex with you.
# Jesurgislac Writes:
June 28th, 2005 at 6:41 pm
I’m thinking that maybe it’s time to start a thread devoted specificly to discussing rape that does not occure in the ‘female victims, male rapists’ pattern?
Why? Do you feel it would draw away the trolls who don’t want to talk about the male rapists and their (mostly female) victims? Because that does seem to be a topic that gets most trolls on these threads extremely worked up, to the extent that they do not permit other people to discuss female victims, male rapists, even though this is overwhelmingly the most common kind of rape.
There is some equivalence to discussing male victims of male rapists, because often the male victim is – especially if he’s gay – dismissed or belittled in a similar way to female victims. Evidently to some men the ability to rape and get away with it is a privilege they wish to defend – not something they want to see being discussed honestly and openly.
I respond:
This is exactly what I am talking about.
This thread is called “New Rape Culture and Gender Thread” not “Rape subject from only the perspective of angry man-hatimg women Thread”.
The subject of rape is universal, why do you insist on subdividing it to excise men who are also harmed by it?
In this it is you being dismissive.
You are also being dismissive by just calling anyone not of your mindset ‘a troll’.
A troll is someone who drops in, says a bunch of inflammatory off topic stuff that does not further discussion and usually then leaves without responding to the firestorm they stir up.
I have done none of these things.
Nothing I have posted here is incendiary or inflammatory. Just because some oversensitive misreading obsessives chose to launch flames at me for speaking the truth on subjects clearly within the title topic of “New Rape Culture and Gender Thread” makes them inflamed, not my posts inflammatory.
What I have posted is to further discussion on the subject as the thread is titled, to wit: “New Rape Culture and Gender Thread”.
And I have not left without responding. I have tried to correct misrepresentations, tried to point out how your mindset and practices regarding anyone not of your mindset etc is harming your greater goals not helping them and pointing out how these various subtopics are related and interrelate since you seem to scared to accept it for some reason.
A truism is”Be wary of those afraid to face facts and accept reality, for while potentially dangerous the are mostly ineffectual.”
Neal
While I don’t really want to placate trolls, I think would be helpful and important to have a place to talk about non-male-rapist-female-victim rapes, so that threads like this one will not get derailed.
Well, if y’all don’t mind LiveJournal, I started a PHMT community a few weeks back for good-faith discussions of that sort of thing. Though somehow I don’t think that’ll help this situation, as (a) I think the people dwelling on this are actively trying to derail, and won’t be satisfied with “ghettoization” of their point, and (b) there’s no way I’m letting him in to disrupt that community.
To them they are the ones always giving up where they were predominant (as likely they should) but for all the gains women have made they give up almost nothing. So many still expect the guy to pay for the drinks, pay for dinner, be the breadwinner while she hangs around the house (dont go off on housework, seen this attitude in women who have their husbands pay for cleaning services), demand primacy in child custody cases and so on where women in society have at least been perceived as being in the better position.
Okay, here’s where I give up. Does anyone here “expect the guy to pay for the drinks, pay for dinner, be the breadwinner while she hangs around the house”? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? (incidentally, another quote that belongs in the AFI 100)
You’re basically making the same tired arguments as this guy [PDF].
You’re not only unwilling to help, you’re making things worse. So fuck off. Whine about how the horrible feminists won’t listen to your oh-so-rational and inoffensive arguments if you want (or read some of the older threads about “civility” if you’re interested in understanding why this sort of thing isn’t welcome); just fuck off. I’ve helped you derail this thread far too long.
Neal,
Nothing you said confused me. I understand exactly what you mean. I think you’re sexist, willfully ignorant and deeply unpleasant, and that your comments about date rate alone reveal that you have nothing useful to offer on this topic, but it’s not because I don’t understand what you mean. I understand only too well.
And by the way – Susan isn’t “hear”? Are you implying that she’s deaf? I believe that you meant she isn’t HERE, which as I already pointed out I did not realise when I wrote my post. Apparently your reading comprehension is about as impressive as your knowledge of the English language.
Oh boy-Jesus-titty-fucking-Christ.
Ban Him, he’s irritating. Make him go away. Make him go away right now, there is nothing that he is saying that is even worth listening too.
fuck… I’m going to respond:
If you don’t want to be treated as a prize stop acting like you are something to be won.
How the hell am I acting like a prize to be won? Excuse me?!? How is ANY girl acting like a prize to be won? By being attractive?
If you dont want to be accused of using sex as a weapon stop using sex as a weapon.
Sex isn’t a weapon, women don’t have it. It requires two people, hun. Making it into a business transaction makes it hurt the women a whole hell of a lot more than it hurts the guy.
If you dont want to be thought of as selfish, greedy or the like stop acting like it… stop draining guys wallets at bars getting free drinks by leading him on then dumping him when he rightly gets irritated about it when he figures it out
You buy me a drink? The only thing you’re entitled to is the pleasure of my company, and depending on how annoying you are, that’s debatable. You I think would be a one-drink limit. You DON’T need to buy a women a drink you know. You could probably just get to talk to her by not being annoying and having something of value to say. I’m not “leading you on” and there isn’t some sort of algorithum that says “x number of drinks = sex”. You show yourself here.
… stop insisting that men shower you with gifts… I dont know how many women I have known getting diamonds and whatnot all the time and never getting the men who give them such a bloody thing other tha when they find out it only cost three months pay whining ‘is that all?’ and so on.
Hun, you’re hanging out with the wrong women then. Again I go back to you don’t need to buy them a damn thing, try with finding out why they want the gift. Is it really the gift they’re after, or is it some sign of affection or attention? And if they are really that shallow, find someone who isn’t as shallow. Sex doesn’t factor this AT ALL.
If you dont want to se seen as sex objects or looked at by men stop dressing in such a way as to scream out “LOOK AT ME!”?. I knowm you only want SOME men to look at you,but sorry male vision doesnt have that level of discernment. W see what is there… not just what you would only like us to see. Example (really long winded, individual account where the girl was acting unprofessional blah, blah, blah, men can’t control themselves, we need to cover up)
We are not dressing in a fashion that screams LOOK AT ME. Each women is dressing how she LIKES too. If I wear a mini-skirt, it is not for your amusement, your entitlement, it is for MY amusement. Our showing of skin does not equate for your need of sex, or your arousal. And even if you do get aroused, it still doesn’t entitle you to sex. The interesting thing, we don’t have to act on every little impulse we have. For instance, sexist comments make me want to kill people. Their actions are causing a resulting response in me. As an adult, I do not act on that impulse. Do the same.
Be as reckless and irresponsible as you want to be.
Just don’t come crying to me when something bad but preventable happens because of it.
Okay, very much missing the point. It shouldn’t be considered “reckless and irresponsible”. If a guy did the very same actions, NO ONE would get mad at him.
As you say you can be the #1 slut on the planet… but it puts you at risk of all manner of things INCLUDING but not limited to, STDs, pregnancy, a reputation that could limit you socially or professionally and so on… including putting you at increased risk of being raped. And if you were the #1 slut on the planet and a date raped you, how likely do you think he would ever be convicted?
Less than zero? Just about right.
And that’s wrong, and completely fucked-up.
See my example above about the pedestrian playing in traffic.
The difference? I don’t have a right to play in traffic. I do have a right to all those other thing.
This isn’t a matter of what IS. This is a matter of WHAT SHOULD BE. Restricting my actions as a female is enabling rapists, not preventing them. The only person who’s actions should be restricted is the rapist.
Face it… the universe made the shark… the universe is not a nice place generally speaking. Survival and happiness in it are possible though not guaranteed, but take work, effort and bending to the universe as much as you want the universe to bend to you.
Maybe this is too deep for here. If so, my apologies.
The universe didn’t make a rapist. And we don’t just throw up are hands and say “well, there’s nothing we can do about it”. If that was true, then let’s get rid of all the jails.
And that last comment perfectly illistrated what I mean by “dismissive”
If there was justice in the universe, you’d wake up tommorow morning as a reasonably attractive women with a self-esteem problem. Enjoy
BAN HIM.
# Tuomas Writes:
June 28th, 2005 at 6:41 pm
Oh, I wish I could just ignore, but sometimes you need to get shit out of your system, you know?
Bait and switch, Neal. You started out with obnoxious, rude and out of place bullshit, now you go all “hey, let’s all be nice to each other, even though we have different opinions, don’t be so close-minded you know”?… Not falling for that one.
I respond:
Sorry but Im not falling for your straw man.
No bait and switch on my part. There was nothing obnoxious or rude or out of place in my initial posts.
If you want obnoxiousm rude and out of place I suggest you instead look to the RESPONSES from you and your closedminded an in large part foulmouthed friends.
You want dismissive? I suggest you look there too.
You wrote:
Maybe my reference to her confused you. If so my apologies.
Nice apology there (it wasn’t pointed at me but…). “Sorry you’re so confused”?. As if no one could be insulted by your comments. Lol.
Again you seem to just be an oversensitive prat. I had made a reference to something in a post that the responder I responded to seemed to misinterpret… so instead of outright accusing her of actively choosing to misrepresent my post and position (read:lying) I have the benefit of the doubt that maybe my reference had confused them and for that I sincerely apologized.
It is very sad to see you are of such a combattive extremist mindset that even a compassionate restatement (elsewhere in the post you took that snippet out of context from) and a sincere apology are taken by you through your clear prism of myopic hatred to be an attack.
Very sad indeed.
You wrote:
Tuomas I do not understand your question… I was not suggesting self defense classes to the rapists.. was suggesting to those who do not wish to be as likely victims.
Was I unclear?
I respond :
Yes, apparently you were. Here is what you said that I had replied to (aint copy/paste a wonderful thing when used PROPERLY?)
——
rape can be prevented without living in a cave. Self defense training, preparedness and most importantly *** being aware of one’s surroundings and always analyzing possible threats *** is essential.
Why would a rapist need such things? (I know what you meant, but let’s try this reversal for a while).
———-
How else would YOU objectively, if you even Can be objective at this point, read that response?
You wrote:
Eh, no, but was I unclear when I said let’s try this reversal for a while?
I respond:
What possible relevance outside of your personal twilight zone could such asn irrelevant and ludicrous reversal have?
You wrote:
The point is it possible for most, or some women to be physically stronger, more aware etc. than the average rapist. But plenty of women will never get that far.
I respond:
Then I guess I have a much higher opinion of women than you do.
I have seen a 7 yr old girl no more than 60 lbs toss a 200 lb grown man around a gym like he was a raggedy ann doll. She was a yellow belt. I am of the opinion that anyone, woman, male, whatever, can train equally or superior to her. Barring infirmities but we have to deal with average folks… but I dont see much point of discussing quadriplegics running in central park, do you? Blind? Seen em trained. Deaf? Seen em trained. One arm? Seen em trained.Seen some take on three armed attackers with noth arms strapped to their sides.
So you keep with your minimalist defeatist vctimthink mindset… I will assume they are capable until proven otherwise on a case by case basis, ok?
And how bloody tough is just being aware and alert? Think that takes a lifetime to learn, eh?
Again you seem to have an incredibly negative opinion of women and their capabilities indeed.
You wrote:
And I don’t see it as a failure. (Just to make clear, I fully support women getting more assertive and unrapeable, but they shouldn’t have to).
I respond:
Ah yes, the pollyanna comes out… shouldn’t have to.
And I need to eat, guess a healthy ablebodied person should not have to work to put food on the table or a roof over their head. Oh happy day, what a wonderful universe, we shoulnt have to!
I would love to just fly off to Bermuda or Rio whenever I want… Pay for it” I shouldnt havr to, right?
I think the picture is now clear about this nonsensical reality denying pap about ‘shouldnt have to’. Right?
You wrote:
And what the fuck is up with the prostitution/women say no when they mean yes/mixed signals stuff? So is rape about sex or no (you said no, but you still spout these tired cliches.)
I respond:
Where did I ever say any of that was an excuse to justify rape?
That associatiohn resides only in your fevered brain and that of some others here.
Those were brought up in specifuc contexts for specific reasons. For more details I suggest acrually READING the relevant posts cor COMPREHENSION. If you can, that is.
You wrote:
Also, you are a liar.
last one for a while I promise!
Exclamation mark and all! (Or to nit-pick, depends on the definition of “for a while”?, but…)
I respond:
For someone as dishonest as you demonstrate yourself to be here to so desperately reach like this.. oh PUH-LEEZE!
LMAO!!!
That was the last of my originating posts. Eveything else has been IN RESPONSE to the post of another… Since you clearly seem to lack the wit to comprehend the difference ( I believe my first response first line was a wow comment about how fast there were responses.
Seems to me you are qualifying as a troll more than I ever could.
You are truly a sad and pathetic excuse for a human being. I pity you. I pity more anyone forced to deal with your BS.
Neal
Ah, somebody help me out here, I thought I turned of the italics.
We shouldn’t have to. That’s not being Pollyanna, that’s the truth. WE shouldn’t bloody have to.
Do you think that guys should have to take self-defense classes to avoid being raped? Do you see guys taking anywhere near the same level of procaution that women have to on a daily basis? Are guys raised with the mindset that the other sex only sees them as only useful as a dick?
No?
We shouldn’t have to.
Fuck you and fuck your fake pity. Get a life.
Neal;
Since neither Amp, the main blog administrator, nor PA, the blog writer and administrator of this thread are available, I feel compelled after watching your behavior on this thread escalate into inflammatory baiting and insulting to ask you to cease posting until PA comes back to give you either permission or asks you to leave the thread. Since I’m the only other administrator available I feel I must step in, but I am hesitant to moderate her thread. I genuinely feel, however, that your behavior is not what she would want for it, so am going out on a limb and temporarily verbally banning you from participation until she’s here to make the call on her own.
That said, upon reading this response the only response I feel is valid prior to your ceasing posting on the thread completely is an ‘understood and sorry for causing any unwarranted disruption to the discussion’.
If you have any questions or arguments, please feel free to email Ampersand.
Ah, fuck it. I still think a thread devoted to discussing the dynamics and causes of homosexual sexual assault would be useful. That’s all I have to say.
/me leaves thread.
I wear jeans and tshirts. On rare occasions, I’ll wear a skirt. On ever rarer occasions, I’ll wear a mini-skirt. At work, I wear button-up blouses and dress pants. I don’t normally wear halter tops.
Occasionally, I’ll get drunk.
I’ve slept with four different guys in my lifetime.
I took self-defence classes, I’m up to a blue belt in Tae Kwon Do.
I walk with my keys between my knuckles.
I like to walk, alone, at night, in Grand Forks North Dakota.
When I’m home for the summer, I like to hike up Sehome hill during the day, which is heavily wooded and next to the University, and very well insulated from noise, it’s peaceful.
I have jobs that require me to work until 10, 11, 12, 1, 2 at night, and I walk back to my car, or accross campus because my car is in the way far parking lot by myself.
I have a lot of guy friends. Thusly, I do in fact go to their rooms, apartments, bedrooms, by myself with them. Occasionally we even drink.
Do I deserve to be raped?
FYI for the board.
A little googling shows that “Neal Feldman of Salem is a parental and family rights advocate and a longtime critic of how child protection agencies operate in Oregon and elsewhere.”
http://www.fightcps.com/2002_07_14_archive.html
I expect that is the same Neal Feldman that has been arguing here.
PA and/or Amp
PLEASE ban the troll. This one is far more offensive than Susan was. This one is a waste of oxygen, and arguing with him will do no good to anyone.
And yes, I know I was guilty of addressing him to. Knee-jerk reaction (emphasis on the “jerk” part).
In the meantime, how about we all take a vow to just ignore him so that the grown-ups can talk?
Now why can’t I find PA or Amp’s e-mail address? It’s too hot today and my brain seems to be melting. I ws thinking one of us could contact them and politely request that the troll-banning commence.
There seems to be a consistent pattern among trolls like this, including long rants of pseudo-logic, with lots of repetition, setting up straw men to knock down, declaring the illogic of everyone who disagrees with him, and then declaring victory. Add in a healthy dose of victim-mind paranoia and you have a verifiable MRA nutcase.
But leaving trolls to their mudholes, I find it very interesting when men declare themselves authorities on the life experience women have in this world. Sure, men’s views are perfectly valid from their own perspectives, but I would hope some would have the decency of recognizing that when it comes to what it’s like for a woman to live in a rape culture, they don’t know nuttin.
In our society, most men behave well most of the time. Some are downright gentlemanly. But quite a few are obnoxious, and all too many are pretty fucking scary and dangerous. What the rape culture does is give them cover. While most men probably would not beat their wives or girlfriends, most men also would not intervene if they saw a man slapping his girl around. If a girl is raped at a party, the scorn in our society is for the girl, not for the men who raped her.
I’m coming in late and can’t really add much to what’s been said (and re-said) already. I’m glad I missed the troll war. It’s bad enough living with apes in the world without grappling with their apologists.
“It is seeming like all of you are hopeless wingnuts who havent the critical thinking skills of an average 4 yr old.”
“As you say you can be the #1 slut on the planet… but it puts you at risk of all manner of things INCLUDING but not limited to, STDs, pregnancy, a reputation that could limit you socially or professionally and so on… including putting you at increased risk of being raped. And if you were the #1 slut on the planet and a date raped you, how likely do you think he would ever be convicted?”
and…
“This thread is called “New Rape Culture and Gender Thread”? not “Rape subject from only the perspective of angry man-hatimg women Thread.”
Oh these things aren’t inflammatory at all. Suggesting or hinting that the female commenters and the moderator on this thread are man-haters, or refering to women as “sluts” because they have “too much” sex for your liking isn’t inflammatory at all. No, you’re just some poor guy whose being misintepreted by a bunch of pro-slut-man-haters.
You see Robert(this paragraph is for Robert because he called me out),….this is why I have lost all patience for these people. I’m tired of being nice to idiots. They drop in, say things deliberately to derail the thread so they can steal the spot light, and make it all about them. I usually don’t get involved in my threads unless the shit has hit the fan. And I can’t put up a new thread about the Rape Culture without getting a trollish-moron or two by the fourth, fifth, sixth comment. We don’t talk about the subject, we don’t talk about the post, we spend 200+ comments responding to the inane ramblings of a zealous troll posing as an intellectually honest commenter–which is bullshit. Never mind they disrupt the entire thread and discussion, never mind they say inflammatory things (or hint it in their comments) about women and the female commenters and the moderator, never mind they dismiss other people,….No–you want me to coddle them and make them feel special for their interesting points that they purport as being absolutely true (because hey–they were never raped/sexually assaulted so it must have never or rarely happened, and they don’t need stats to prove it, they can just refer to the rest us living in some wacky “rape-obsessive twilight zone”), and give them far too much bandwidth than they deserve. I don’t care, Robert. We hardly discuss anything on these threads because we keep playing tag with trolls. Cite one time when I have said I would be kind and gentle to commenters exhibiting trollish behavior? There, now you’ve had your special attention, moving back to Neal (and always remember, I don’t care, and I refuse to suffer for the sake of allowing trolls to waste bandwidth)….
Neal, your comments were inflammatory. You suggest and hint within your comments that the women on this thread are “man-haters” because we’re focusing on how men’s role when it comes to rape. Other people have declared you to be a troll and disrupting the discussion, so hence, you are banned. Remember Robert, I_don’t_care. Besides, you’re not one of my professors, so your high-horse lectures are meaningless to me.
All the rape apologists on this board are beginning to worry me that they have very bad personal reasons to condone rape.
If the troll war is over, I’d like to ask a question:
Is it possible that one motivation for blaming the victim is that it makes us feel more secure? That is, if you can blame the way that the victim acted for her victimization, you can reassure yourself that you (or someone close to you) won’t be victimized because you (or someone close to you) will behave much more sensibly?
If we tell ourselves that bad things only happen to bad people, then we can feel that we have more control.
PA, it might be productive to create an invitation-only thread. Invite all the people who you think are non-trolls to participate, and just auto-delete anyone not on the list.
Glaiv, I think there’s a lot to that. It’s been noted before that often women will be harder on rape victims in trials than men will be, in an effort to distance themselves from her pain and terror.
Neal said
“Trust me if a woman doesnt want REALLY doesnt want to get undressed it aint easy”
Which I’m willing to bet he knows from personal experience.
Sorry to feed the troll everyone, I just couldn’t resist it.
Glaivester asked
“If the troll war is over, I’d like to ask a question:
Is it possible that one motivation for blaming the victim is that it makes us feel more secure? That is, if you can blame the way that the victim acted for her victimization, you can reassure yourself that you (or someone close to you) won’t be victimized because you (or someone close to you) will behave much more sensibly?
If we tell ourselves that bad things only happen to bad people, then we can feel that we have more control.
”
I’d say that you’re right on the money. I think that people use the same logic when talking about a lot of crimes (mugging, robbery, car theft, whatever). Admitting how random most crime is is a scary thing.
Two things that really resonated with me upon reading these comments are the point that Antigone makes that she and others should not have to restrict their actions to “prevent rape” and the rant Neal made about how “everything” now counts as rape. These seem like two sides of the same coin: laws have been tightened/better enforced from, say, 40 years ago, but women are still blamed because of their actions – really, Neal seems to be saying it’s the actions that are the problem, since they should be coded as consent rather than, for instance, normal behavior. One thing that might improve this situation would be heading it off when people are young by talking frankly (*gasp*) about sex, consent, dating, communication, etc. That is, making a common message about what is and is not okay and communicating that to all children; personally, I’d like to see this replace the monologue (or series of monologues) that are commonly given to girls and young women about how to protect themselves. Included in this message, and hopefully to the culture at large (i’m speaking from an idealistic perspective here), should be something about consent and how it can stop at any point. After watching a movie in a class intended for those teaching fellow students about health, I was appalled when many of my classmates felt the woman in the film was given mixed messages. Yes, she was kissing the guy. Yes, she was in bed with him and they were naked. And yes, everytime he took out a condom or made a move towards intercourse, she said no. To me, that’s a perfectly clear message and one that isn’t allowed when women are told not to put themselves in “compromising” situations – i.e., any sexual situation. In the class, people said she should have thrown him out for even asking, or gotten herself out of the situation – these comments, like many comments about date rape, ignore the fact that women should have choices, sexual agency, and also that there are *feelings* involved in many cases. The first time your partner asks you to have intercourse and you don’t want it, are you sending mixed messages if you say “No, I don’t want to” but still kiss the partner instead of throwing them out of your bed, never to speak to them again? Focusing on what women should do to avoid rape doesn’t address how to cope with situations embedded in emotions and social constructs (like most rapes are, since most rapists know their victims). I guess I’m wondering what other people think about the possibility of communicating clear standards of communication and conduct (including the right to say *yes* as well as no) as a way of influencing the rape culture. This could also address the conception of sex as something men must get from women in any way possible (i.e., the idea that one “scores” and that people who can’t consent are people to score with…).
(Sorry, I know this is a bit off topic of what people had been talking about, and doesn’t address gender as well as I would like it to, but I wanted to maybe start something not related to trolls and their ideas…)
Actually Robert, Amp and I, and I think Kim too, have been discussing doing something like that, due to the way these threads end up with trolls running amok. Oh and everyone, raise your hand if you want me to put up my email address and contact info. I don’t put up my email in order to avoid spam such as online casinos, mortgages, music downloads, porn, Viagra (what the hell am I going to do with Viagra?), and other things. But I’ll put it up if you folks want me too, just in case you have a particular question for me or something. Please don’t send me any webcam stuff. Not knowing what you people look like adds to the nice little illusion I have going ;-)
“Is it possible that one motivation for blaming the victim is that it makes us feel more secure? That is, if you can blame the way that the victim acted for her victimization, you can reassure yourself that you (or someone close to you) won’t be victimized because you (or someone close to you) will behave much more sensibly?”
Yes, it’s the “well I’m not as stupid as you for doing that, so rape will never happen to me,” faux-security-blanket complex.
That’s a good question actually – how do we go about communicating a better “frame” for sex to kids? Because, as the troll above, Aegis etc demonstrate, it’s pretty damn hard to change people’s frames once they’re well established. What would feminist sex ed look like (nothing like the sex ed I got in school, that’s for damn sure)? And what should/could remedial training for those who’ve already been subjected to the poisoned framing look like?
Also, so we even know where and when kids pick up their frames? I was really surprised by epi’s story above, because I don’t remember the girls in my school reacting that way to the sex ed videos we saw, or to movies and TV in general. The concept that women could refuse sex at any point was pretty commonplace, at least among girls. Epi, what timeframe are you talking about? How old were the kids? I’m wondering if something has changed in the culture since I grew up. Actually I’m fairly sure it has.
I’d be interested in going back to the issue Amanda brought up way back in 84 (I skipped over most of Neal’s stuff – there aren’t enough hours in the day…). I think getting rid of the “no girls” mentality would go a long way toward solving a lot of sexist problems. I work at a place that had, until a few years ago, an all-men bar – no women allowed. Women pay the same dues to use this place that men do, and finally their objections overturned the “all-men” rule. Then the “titty twister” mentality kicked in, and (I find this most interesting of all) the men started defending their territory with a veritable piss-ring of pornography. Any woman going in to use the place got to walk past a bulletin board full of Hooters paraphenalia and booby postcards from Hawaii. I’m not completely anti-porn (or at least not anti-sexual imagery), but I do think men have traditionally wielded it to keep women in their place, and it has been very effective. If we’re going to get rid of the “boys only (show us your tits!)” mentality, what do we do with Hooters?
The other part of the equation is that we need to train boys from an early age to relate to women as people like themselves, the same way girls learn to relate to men as people (I read somewhere that girls are generally willing to identify with male protagonists in stories – Harry Potter, for example – but that boys were far less likely to identify with female characters). I appreciate the men who are exceptions to this rule (including many of the posters here), but in general, men seem to have little interest in women who are not pretty and young (or unusually sexy for an older woman) – and they do not identify with these females at all: they are absolutely “other.” These men, when they discuss “women,” are usually generalizing solely about this small subset of womankind (this came up over and over again in the “women’s sexual power” threads here a few weeks ago). Until men can stop doing that, I don’t see any hope of men as a group seeing women as a group as being enough like themselves for them to understand the full horror of rape and really try to put a stop to it.
By the way, media girl: what an awful story.
MG
PA, please do post your e-mail address so that we can bring things like the troll of the day to your attention. I do sympathise with the spam issue (for some reason I get penis enlargement spam, even though I do not in fact have a penis – maybe they’re thinking I could purchase the pills as a gift?), but it would be useful to be able to contact you when necessary.
Limiting access to rae threads might work to allow those of us who actually want to have a real discussion talk to each other. My concern is that it might end up excluding new people who have something useful to say.
*raises hand*
I’m pretty sure I’m not a troll :D
There is a point where guys do honestly become confused about consent, beyond the “oh, she was easy, so of course she wanted sex” set.
No means no, right up to, and even after, penatration. If a girl was “into having sex”, but then something changes like she suddenly doesn’t feel right about it, that’s her preogative to stop. Or, in the case of everyone’s favorite doctor, she passes out, consent has herewith been revoked, as you cannot give consent. If a girl says “no”, it really is better for everyone involved to respect that she’s saying no. If she doesn’t say anything, it is in everyone’s best intrest to ask her to clarify if she’s okay with it.
There are exceptions, I think. But, those exceptions still require a great deal of communication. For instance, the best sex I’ve ever had was with my ex-boyfriend came home, picked me up off the couch and took me to the bedroom. He didn’t ask for consent, even though I was still consenting. The big difference? We had been dating for quite some time, we were on equal footing with each other, power-wise, we had discussed fantasies (that being one of mine) and he respected me enough that if I would have said no, he would have stopped. I know, because he tried it another night, when I was busy studying. I said I had to study, and he backed-off.
“Implied consent” is where there’s a problem. You wanna stop rape? Pretend like there is no such thing. Her wearing a mini-skirt does not imply consent. Her drinking around you does not imply consent. Her coming to your room does not imply consent. Her kissing you does not imply consent. Her saying “no” at a particular juncture, but still kissing you, does not imply consent.
And, worst and most damaging of all, if she says no, or doesn’t say yes, but orgasm during sex, that does not mean that it wasn’t still rape.
Sorry everyone for playing my part on feeding the troll. There’s no way to “win” a flame war, I should keep that in mind.
I also agree with Glaivesters point. There also seems to be certain norms that societies set as the so-called “stupid, but legal behaviour”. For example, in the town I live in, walking home drunk from a bar and getting mugged (or raped) is rare (aqcuintance and date rape is more common, and domestic abuse isn’t exactly non-existent either), and there is hardly any victim-blame there. It is very common thing for men and women of all ages to do (to walk drunk home, drinking alcohol is almost a sacrament for many finns of both sexes), and IF people were getting mugged and raped by doing just that I suspect there would be public outrage, and people would outright DEMAND safer streets from politicians (and would be willing to pay for it in form of taxes). I think that definitely plays a role in this, how much rights do we demand (and of course, no one is demanding stuff like “pay for my brand new Mercedes”, simply rights to have their personal integrity and property protected). Point in this rambling is: It is just and fair to demand safety in public areas. I think these instructions to follow are fine in itself, but I fear they DO deprioritize the need for public safety, and are, in a sense, falsely empowering. (If I am strong,if I am “good boy/girl”, if I don’t drink, etc. it won’t happen to me [and statistics show otherwise]…). Mind you, I am not saying that some of this advice isn’t indeed very sensible, and that it shouldn’t be either or, but knowing politics, if some issue isn’t strongly demanded there’s little incentive to work on it. There is also much that inviduals, civilians can do without putting themselves in risk, like calling for help, “not looking the other way” etc.
It seems to me, that these “that’s just stupid” calls on women who dress in a particular way, or drink, or flirt, or be trusting, are quite clear indication that there indeed is a sort of rape culture that puts all women in a disadvantegeous position. And I agree with Jeff and AndiF on the point that it isn’t exactly a good thing for men, just adding this: If you don’t have ideas about the “proper place of a woman” as a fearful thing to be protected, as some indeed do. (And the next animal analogy may suck, but I have a small town/rural background so bear with me ;). If the rapist are “wolves” and women “sheep” then chivalrous, protective men set themseves up as “shepherd dogs”, and validate themselves as good, with the existence of evil. Those concepts cannot exist in absence of each other… As some have pointed out, not raping shouldn’t be worthy of praise, it should be the norm! And also, rapist as big, bad sort of “hardcore” types in some cool way is also wrong, but exists in some circles [think about Mike Tyson]…)
I feel there are two issues here: What’s sensible, and what’s right. Sure, I’m sensible. I’m not going to tank up the car at midnight. I’m not going to go alone to a 10:30pm movie. I’m not going to go placing myself in what I’m aware might be dangerous situations.
But dammit is it right? A guy doesn’t have these fears — or not to the same degree or in the same way. And I don’t always know what’s a dangerous situation. I was raped by my boyfriend. Do I deserve blame for that?
If a rape culture hung over men, I think we’d be having a different discussion. If we had a nation-wide rash of rape assaults on men, there would be outrage. There would be headlines. It would lead the evening news. Congress would have hearings. The President would declare his determination to stop this.
But it mostly happens to women. No outrage. No headlines. Often not even acknowledgement by the police or the courts.
Now that we’re back on target and troll-free
I agree with MediaGirl that the distinction MediaGirl is making is valid. However…there are some people who are simply unable to do what society deems prudent. People keep bringing up the ‘walking at night in a bad neighborhood” example. Well, what if you’re poor and that’s the only neighborhood you can afford? What if you have to work nights?
So, I think that rather than focusing on what women can do to reduce risk, there are two more productive things we could focus on.
1. What can we do to reduce/minimise/dismantle the rape culture? It would be particularly useful to focus on what men can do, because I truly believe that firstly, the men who are likely to be rapists are unlikely to care very much what women have to say on the subject, and secondly, men are more succeptible to peer pressure from other men. If men were faced scorn, criticism and even ostracism for other men for rape and for displaying attitudes that support rape, I think that might be the single most effective thing anyone could do.
2. What are the ways in which we can recognise men who are likely to committ acquaintence rape? What behaviours should be viewed as big red flags warning women to stay the hell away from these men? Laying some of this out would have multiple benifits. Firstly, it shifts the focus from women’s behaviour (which isn’t the cause of the problem anyway, and analyzing/ changing which doesn’t work anyway) to men’s behaviour (which is where the problem actually lies). Secondly, it highlights the idea of a rape culture – that there is a link between the fact that the culture condones men invading women’s personal space, speaking to them disrespectfully, harrasing them in the street etc., and the fact that rape is so common. It places rape on a continuum of behavior. It reminds people that women have a right to their bodily integrity, that they aren’t just bodies to be acted upon. It’s also a hell of a lot more useful as a way of teaching young women how to protect themselves from predators than telling them to lock their windows. It gets at the idea that male abuse of women is NORMALIZED, and that there’s a link between the idea that it’s OK to catcall a woman on the street and the idea that if a man rapes a woman he’s just “being a guy”.
Does this make sense to anyone else?
Also, I’m starting to get wierded out by all the women here saying things like “Sure, I’m sensible. I’m not going to tank up the car at midnight. I’m not going to go alone to a 10:30pm movie. “. I walk around alone after midnight all the time. I go to meet friends at bars way after 10:30 and I walk alone to get there. I sometimes take public transport home. Am I a freak? I just think it’s odd that we, who know very well that all the precautions in the world won’t help if someone is really determined to rape us, and who also know that we’re far more likely to be raped by a friend or co-worker than some random guy on the street, still go out of our way to detail how “careful” we are.
Honestly, I’m not that “careful”. I refuse to live like that. The way I see it, if I do agree to live like that then the people who want the rape culture to continue have already won. They’ve succeeded in sticking me in a box and forcing me to stay there. And stastically speaking, being “careful” in that way doesn’t really do much to protect me anyway.
Sorry to pick on MediaGirl, hers was just the first example I found. I’m just starting to wonder if I’m some bizzare freak of nature because I WILL NOT live my life afraid to leave my house after dark. Does everyone else on here really live their lives this way, constantly limiting their movements in order to stay safe? Or are we buying into the “but I’m a nice girl, I’m being careful, you can’t blame it one me if I get raped” mythology?
Again…no blaming, no accusations. I’m just wondering if I’m alone on this, or if we’re all unconsciously incorporating the rape culture’s messages into the way we talk, even when we talk to each other.
BritGirlSF – perhaps because we’re both British?
I too am not “careful”. I’ll go to a 10:30 pm movie all by myself, if I feel like it: I’ll walk home alone or take public transport, just as I like. I’ve always gone places by myself and while I’ve sometimes felt wary, I’ve seldom felt threatened.
I know women who are too scared to walk for five minutes down a quiet street after dark, or are afraid to cross a public park alone at night. These women make me angry – not they themselves, but the fear which has been instilled in them.
BritGirl,
I think there a lot of women who don’t restrict their activities. There was a thread over at BoomanTribune on just this subject it got a lot of positive response.
Besides, going out at night by yourself is something that a lot of women have to do — like 2nd and3rd shift workers. My job requires travel, a good deal of the time by myself. I not only go out at night, I’m going out in cities with which I’m not familiar. And I have no intention of stopping. I’m sensible about it but I’m not going to be hyper-cautious or fearful.
What’s more I’m not convinced by all the discussion of high-risk behaviors. At best, they only seem useful as a possible prevention of stranger rapes; I don’t see how they are going to do much about acquaintance rape.
Again…no blaming, no accusations. I’m just wondering if I’m alone on this, or if we’re all unconsciously incorporating the rape culture’s messages into the way we talk, even when we talk to each other.
Actually, I was thinking about this in terms of Susan’s “there was no date rape” 40 years ago. As I commented then, there definitely was but we wouldn’t have called it that and what’s worse (and this is something that I feel very ashamed of), when our friends were assaulted, we never thought of accusing the guy of anything. We really did just call it a “bad date”. And that’s something I think a lot of middle-aged women DO have to take the blame for — buying into “you can’t blame a guy for trying” and thus, making sure that the same attitude went blithely on into the next generation.
That’s why I don’t care how shrill some troll like Neal thinks we are or how unfair aegis thinks we are. Not accepting the norm and be willing to raise the issues over and over and over is the right way to keep that attitude from propagating through yet more generations.
Don’t you guys think having a locked thread so we can safely discuss rape is kind of a symptom of a rape culture in and of itself? When some guy absolutely won’t take no for an answer and has so much contempt and hatred for women that he has to vent it to their faces and expresses nostalgia for the days he could rape at will—why can’t we just ban these assholes immediately and have done with it? We’re just showing them how intimidating they are. A far better message would be how vile and pathetic they are.
Ginmar, I don’t think they can be banned immediately all the time, because P-A, Kim and I can’t be online all the time.
There are a lot of trolls who get banned based on their first post, which is never even visible. So some of them are, in effect, being banned immediately, but since you never see them you don’t know about it. :-)
Gin, I don’t think they’re intimidating at all. I suspect that the reason they don’t get banned more quickly is that a. the moderators are not here all the time. Sometimes they don’t notice trolls like Neal. and 2. I think a lot of feminists are hyper-aware of the “shrill” stereotype and go out of their way to try to counteract it and try to look “reasonable”. Thing is, there are some people who cannot be reasoned with.
Jesurgislac, I think it is partly a Brit thing. I have a couple of friends here who are Brits and they pretty much go wherever and do whatever too. I was running around all over London by myself at 18, and Glasgow at 15.
AndiF
That was pretty much what I was trying to say. If we know that restricting our own movements doesn’t work, why do it? I’m wondering if people feel the need to point out that they are following the “rules” of proper female behaviour because the rape culture has browbeaten them into doing so.
Any yes, all the supposedly helpful “safety tips” ignore the fact that some women HAVE to be out and about at night. What do these idiots think would happen to hospitals if all the women staff refused to work nights? And the “avoid bad neighborhoods” thing – what if that’s where you live, and you can’t afford to move?
And I do think that older women have a reponsiblity not to do the “things were so much better in my day” thing. This is part of what’s been bugging me ever since we started talking about this. I feel like we’re failing young women if they’re still getting the message they need to restrict their own behaviour, and that that will keep them safe. I want to figure out what I, personally can do to help counteract the effects of the rape culture, expecially the effects it has on young people, because that’s where it all starts.
Amp, if there are people you must ban from the first post….*shudder*—Sorry, but when a guy like Neal jokes about, “Trust me, if a woman doesn’t want her clothes taken off…” or whatever in public— …!
But I still think backing away is a bad idea. Sends the wrong message.
And I don’t give a shit what they call me. I can either ignore them or tell them to fuck off. But letting them back us into a corner out of the public is a bad, bad idea.
No BritGirl you’re not alone. I got too much of that paranoid use of ‘you could be raped’ as a way to limit my movements as a teenager, and the only (luckily) few instances of molestation and harassment I endured even as a child were in familiar places and by familiar people, including relatives, so I grew up not giving a fuck about any notion of danger or risk from strangers, real or imagined. I have always automatically avoided situations and people I didn’t feel comfortable with, but not because the first thought was rape, just my own mood. Walking alone at night, travelling on my own, hitchiking, getting smashed with near-strangers, ending up crashing at places of people I’d only just met etc. I did all that because that’s what I wanted to do at that time, period. Some were stupid things, maybe, but I had a lot of fun doing them! I’m glad my trust in people at least insofar as them not turning out to be psychos or total shits was not misplaced. It’s nothing to do with me though.
I guess the level of worrying depends on personal experiences really. Anything could happen anytime to anyone, personally I am a lot more fearful of car accidents since I lost more than a handful of friends and acquaintances that way and was in a couple of bad accidents myself so I hate and avoid cars like the plague. Rape is the last thing on my mind in terms of risks precisely because it is so random and because it depends entirely on the intentions of the attacker, not some precise ‘risk’ situation like travelling over the speed limit.
I do appreciate advice on self-defense as I think it can be useful in any number of situations, and the training is actually fun and it’s always a good thing to do something that gives you more confidence with your body and strength.
Anyting to that end – building confidence – is good, because it actually is good for you, regardless of the fact you may never ‘need’ it. Or that it may not be of any help at all in an actual attack.
BritGirl,
Yes, I think we are very much in agreement.
The only ting I would disagree with is this:
And I do think that older women have a responsibility not to do the “things were so much better in my day”? thing.
I actually don’t think that Susan’s attitude is typical of our generation (I’m guessing that she is a few years older than me). I think what is more typical and what we are responsible for is what I described — a generation of women who accepted that anything short of violent rape wasn’t sexual assault or rape. So what we did was to support a culture that has led yet another generation of women to, as you say, buy into the message that they need to restrict their own behaviour, and that will keep them safe.
To prevent rape and sexual assault, both men and women must recognize them as such. I think most men are sincere when they say they wouldn’t rape or sexually assault a woman. The problem is that some of these same men will in fact do just that but neither the man nor his victim will actually define the action for what it was.
Noodles
The thing is, those aren’t actually stupid things to do. If you were a man no-one would tell you that they were. Living your life as if you have the right to go where you want and participate in whatever activites you choose is not stupid. It’s called adulthood.
This is the most insiduous and offensive thing about women being advised to “be careful”. It’s the way we usually talk to children. No-one should be speaking to an adult that way. Accepting that frame means accepting being treated like a child. It’s infantilising. The natural response to being spoken to this way should be “how dare you speak to me like that?”.
I’ve actually tried that response on people offering unsolicited “advice” by the way. It’s an eye-opening experience. They quite literally don’t know what to say.
AndiF said
“I actually don’t think that Susan’s attitude is typical of our generation (I’m guessing that she is a few years older than me). I think what is more typical and what we are responsible for is what I described … a generation of women who accepted that anything short of violent rape wasn’t sexual assault or rape. So what we did was to support a culture that has led yet another generation of women to, as you say, buy into the message that they need to restrict their own behaviour, and that will keep them safe. ”
That’s actually what I was trying to say. I’ve heard variations of “well, once you get to a certain point men just can’t stop themselves” from female relatives all my life. I’ve also heard lots of blame the victim in cases of acquaintance rape. I actually once found myself talking to my Mom about getting into an argument with my boyfriend about something he wanted to do and I didn’t, and me just flat-out telling him it wasn’t going to happen. She looked at me like I had two heads and said “but he’s your boyfriend, don’t you want to make him happy?”. So yes, there’s a generation gap there.
Oh, hey, BritgirlSF, I know they’re not intimidating. But the idea of having to have a rape discussion thread be locked off to protect the participants—I mean, what next will we have to do?
I wanted to get back to something I said earlier. All this crap about reasonable precautions ignores some things;
1. The horror that overtakes you when you realize that someone you know is going to try and rape you;
2. The fact that no karate really works against t hat;
3. And the fact that women are already taking precaustions.
Why is it always about rape? I mean, a guy gets drunk—he gets mugged. A guy gets lost—he gets mugged, maybe beaten up. A guy gets a flat tire in a bad neighborhood–he gets mugged. A guy gets drunk on a date—who knows? But they just never consider rape as a fear. Meanwhile, in every one of those situations, people would tell a woman she was ‘lucky’ she didn’t get raped. Almost like they want her to get raped.
But you could avoid all those things, and still get raped, because there are so many ‘nice guys’ out there who have a definition of rape that goes like this:
Alley. Gun. Not me. Not white. Miniskirt. Ergo: party, drunk girl, blue jeans—not rape. Score! The central facet of their definition, though, is their self-centered ability to define rape as nothing they do. The definition of the crime has to revolve aroudn their conveniances.
And all the self-defense in the world won’t protect you when it’s someone you know and trust. How do you deal with the disillusionment? How do you deal with the idea that you are just a piece of sexual meat to most of the world? And how do you deal with it when one of the one or two people you thought viewed you as a person suddenly gets you alone and the air changes and you realize that you were wrong about them, too? What self defense tactic do you use? You can’t offend them, you can’t call what they’re trying to do to you rape because in their self-deluded world, it’s called scoring or whatever. Other people’s reality enages them because it’s not about them. Calling them rapists at that moment–the minute the door locks—-and calling it rape seems likely to get you killed. Their whole world would get changed.
That’s why self defense classes and karate and shit are useless and that’s why these guys have so many friends and relatives who fimly believe they’re innocent. They really believe it. Making them change their minds is what we’re trying to do here, and it’s not going to be accomplished by keeping the dialogue in still more locked rooms.
So what do you do?
Plus, lots of women, like lots of men, are simply too small or too out-of-shape or too uncoordinated to fight off a big drunk man or three. This is perfectly fine, and it’s ridiculous that the response to, “I’m being attacked,” is, “Have you heard of Krav Maga?” We have the police so that people don’t have to be warriors. I’m not a brown belt for the same reason I can’t extract my own teeth or raise my own cattle. No one’s telling me that I should take self-defense classes so as not to get mugged, or that I should hire a security guard to watch my home.
Not to mention what Rivka said about how the same social dicta that insist that women should be accomodating insists that women not start kicking ass when attacked. “Make nice and maybe he’ll leave you alone,” is reflexive. I still smile big and draw my voice up a few notes when someone threatens me or makes things difficult for me. That response is part and parcel of the idea that women have the greater responsibility: that they must manage and regulate male behavior without compromising male entitlement. It’s not going to be okay to take men down until we start thinking of rape as something men are obligated to police.
I think most men are sincere when they say they wouldn’t rape or sexually assault a woman. The problem is that some of these same men will in fact do just that but neither the man nor his victim will actually define the action for what it was.
The question is, if they did define the action for what it was, would they still sincerely say they wouldn’t rape or sexually assault a woman? I’d like to think that most would, but I think the vehemence with which many men defend the narrow conception of those crimes stems from the fact that they like to say they’re the “good guys” but don’t want to actually have to be good, because they’re afraid of “missing out” on sexual “opportunities.”
Susan says: “I’ve been around the block a bit, and one of my many friends was raped once, long ago. Mostly it doesn’t happen. And didn’t happen, when we were all a lot younger. It was quite rare, actually.”
Then she goes on to say “(Please for the love of God spare me the ‘you-all were RAPED RAPED and you didn’t even know it!!!’ line of argument.) ”
Uh, well, that’s way it wasn’t “so common” 40 years ago. Because rape was defined as some guy jumping you, beating you within an inch of your life, and forcing you to have sex. If it was someone you knew, or your husband, or if you were drunk or considered loose, it wasn’t “real rape.” And people didn’t come forward. And many still don’t because of the attitude you just demonstrated.
I’ve been around the block myself, and yes, rape is pretty common. Hanging out with six female friends, five of them disclosed they were raped. It wasn’t “stranger jumping out of the bushes” rape. It was all done by people they knew.
And as I got older, more women I knew were raped. By their husbands, their boyfriends, their friends. Problem is, they aren’t going to tell people about it when they get the self-righteous and smug BS of “What were you doing/wearing? How were you acting? Why did you drink/let him in/refuse him sex/lead him on/sleep in your own bed/leave your window open/get in the car/be alone with him/be out that late/” ad nauseum.
They aren’t going to talk about it to people who dismiss it as “not real” rape because they didn’t call it rape when it happened.
Katie Rophie once asked if rape was so common, why didn’t she hear more of her friends recounting their experiences? Well, gosh, her shitty attitude towards women who came forward might have a lot to do with it. The prospect of someone cross-examining you and giving you so much patronizing dribble about “real rape” doesn’t inspire much confidence.
And Neal (and any other rape apologists), take your own advice about presenting one’s self. If you don’t want to be treated like a snivelling misogynist ass monkey, stop posting like one.
Jeff raises an excellent question. I hear a lot of men insist that various date rape-type situations are in fact not rape. The drunk girl at a party for example, or the girl who was kind of pushing them away but didn’t actually tell them to stop, or the one who just didn’t seem at all into it and kept turning her face away from him and looked upset afterwards but never actually told him he was a rapist.
The questions is, do these men actually not understand that their actions in these instances are rape, or are they just CHOOSING not to understand? Are they lying to the people they’re talking about it to, or are they lying to themselves?
Wow, what a thread!!
I wanted to respond to AudioVisual’s post #151:
“Ah, fuck it. I still think a thread devoted to discussing the dynamics and causes of homosexual sexual assault would be useful. That’s all I have to say.”
Sure, it would be useful. No one is arguing it wouldn’t. But until we can have a successful thread about the impact of male on female rape (regardless of the woman’s sexuality), then I’m not going to burn up energy worrying about homosexual sexual assault. Gay men and lesbians don’t levy rape against my freedoms in the way that heterosexual men do (and my one experience with rape was with another woman). Gay men and lesbians are not trolling threads about rape and telling us that we are off our rockers, or need medication, or we’re just angry ball-breakers.
Katie Roiphe is a piece of work. Who would confide anything, never mind something as traumatic as rape, to a self-righteous little twit with all the compassion and self awareness of a deck chair?
Actually I think Roiphe was one of the first examples of the whole “we conservatives are so marginalized and oppressed” meme.
Robert writes:
“PA, it might be productive to create an invitation-only thread. Invite all the people who you think are non-trolls to participate, and just auto-delete anyone not on the list. ”
To be completely honest, Robert, I think your participation in rape threads is becoming creepy as hell. You rarely talk about rape; yet you insist on trying to delimit the discourse (re: civility). Now you’re suggesting that we talk about rape behind closed doors; that we gate-keep trollish behavior.
Why do you try so hard to control *how* this discussion takes shape? What’s in it for you? Why do you even care? You say inflammatory things all the time, so why do you deem others rude or uncivil? Why do *you* see an imperative to hide our discussions from the public? Why is that a better suggestion than banning trolls who just can’t seem to listen to polite requests to drop their trolling? Why do you assume we are either ignorant or naive enough that we can’t spot trollish behavior from the get-go?
In a thread about rape and how that socializes women, you suggest that we should hide rather than trust our gut instincts.
Fuck that.
Defining themselves as good guys only because they don’t commit horrendous crimes against women is the ultimate red flag. That way they need for there to be rapists so they always have that contrast. Plus they can use it to get laid. They don’t have to actually be good; all they have to be is not bad. Watch how offended some guys get when you don’t give them a cookie for not being rapists.
gin, have you ever seen the site http://www.heartlessbitches.com ? There’s a section there about “nice guys” that you might find very entertaining.
To answer again, I think a lot of it plays into our culture’s perception of sexuality – men as entitled, oversexed and needy, women as asexual gatekeepers, and the whole “nice guy” thing.
I think the common mindset for a lot of the men who justify their narrow definition of rape is the perception that the “bad boys” who don’t have any reservations about the sort of acts BritGirlSF described have sex more often than the “nice guys” who don’t do this sort of thing do – and by our society’s standards, less sex = less fulfilling sex life. Even if said sex is with someone so drunk that the act is one step away from necrophilia.
Jeff Wrote:
“The question is, if they did define the action for what it was, would they still sincerely say they wouldn’t rape or sexually assault a woman?”
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In my experience, the men that I chose to have contact with – were always very respectful and mutual about anything we did. (But yeah, I expect the perp was in total denial – as I expect they all are – that is part of how they maintain their ego).
So I don’t see all men as being clueless. But I consider myself to be pretty selective and any guys giving off vibes of entitlement or any kind of macho priviledge were avoided by me.
Media girl’s story of the men lined up frightens me – because that scenrio would tend to indicate that a much larger percentage of guys would participate in a rape if they were not doing the initiating. And think nothing of it. The party went on.
That is why it is up to everyone – to be willing to put your social reputation on the line and call rape what it is and call the police. I love hearing the stories of people challenging the would-be rapists who want to leave with the (more than likely) intoxicated would-be victim.
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As far as Susan’s assertion that she didn’t know anyone who was raped – there was less rape, etc. I think it’s mostly a matter of people not talking about it. I told my best friend, my husband and a psychologist (who was very flip about it – he might have been a perp, too).
PS The letters that they get from the whiny self-defined “nice guys” are truly priceless.
Watch how offended some guys get when you don’t give them a cookie for not being rapists.
Too true. It gets even worse if you suggest that they have an actual responsibility to do more than “not being rapists.”
(I get away with it a little more, I think, because I’m male too – they can’t say I’m putting all the burden on them or that I just don’t understand what it’s like or the other excuses.)
As part of the child abuse prevention training I took to be certified as a chaperone at my daughter’s school, this is the statistic that freaked me out:
1 out of every 6 girls will be sexually abused by the time she is 18
They used a fairly broad definition of sexual abuse, but still.
We have to start working to change the rape culture early. We’re already teaching kids about sex abuse, teaching them to speak up and report it, teaching them to respect their bodies and other people’s bodies. We should build on that as they get older. I really like the suggestion in post #43 for public service announcements.
Britgirl? I’ve actually written for that site.