What causes rape? How can we change our culture so that it happens less often, or not at all? I’d like to give my opinions on this – at, perhaps, some risk of pissing some folks off.
Alas readers who know me know that I’m a font of statistical evidence about rape; there was a year or so in which I didn’t read about much other than quantitative research about rape. But of the hundreds of stats about rape I’ve read, the most essential one is the most obvious: the overwhelming majority of rapists are male. If we want to discover how to reduce rape, we have to be willing to figure out what the hell is wrong with men, and how to change it.
(Okay, ass-covering time: when I say “what the hell is wrong with men,” I do mean all men in our culture – even men as “enlightened” as the more feminist men on this board. But I don’t mean that all men rape, or even that all men are potential rapists. Rather, I’d say the things in our culture which screw up men so much that rape becomes a widespread problem affect all men to some degree – even those who never rape.)
Unfortunately, I think feminism – and especially radical feminism – has been limited in increasing our understanding of rape, because feminism is (generally) focused on women, whereas rape is mostly about men. You will never find the cause or cure for rape by examining women, because rapists are overwhelmingly male.
So what does cause rape? Or, put another way, if we can agree that we live in a “rape culture” (defined as “a culture in which rape is prevalent and is maintained through fundamental attitudes and beliefs about gender, sexuality, and violence”), then what are those fundamental attitudes about gender, sexuality, and violence?
I’d identify three interrelated candidates: the myth of masculinity, cultural disdain for women, and our society’s conception of sexuality as something possessed exclusively by women. If we want “24 hours in which there is no rape,” then we have to destroy these three warped cultural ideas.
1) The Myth of Fragile Masculinity.
From early boyhood, men are taught that their masculinity must be protected above all else, or else it will be lost. Men who have lost their masculinity are objects of contempt, derision and violent abuse, and have lost the right to be loved or respected by their fellow men and by their fathers.
Boys are also taught that masculinity is fragile and high-maintenance; you work to get it and to retain it, and the slightest slip can cause it to be altogether lost. You can slip instantly, with no transition, from the most popular boy in the room to the butt of everyone’s jokes: all it takes is a moment’s lapse in which you say or do anything that can be interpreted as feminine.
This is essential: Masculinity is fragile. The man who has lost his masculinity is, in the eyes of male culture, less than nothing, worse than dead. Therefore, force in defense of masculinity – like beating up a boy who accuses you of being a faggot – can feel to boys and men like a form of self-defense.
Masculinity is defined by what it is not. Being masculine means avoiding the feminine. Being feminine, even for an instant, means risking loss of masculinity. Empathy, in our culture’s warped conception, is feminine; thinking about other people’s emotions is feminine. Boys are taught to avoid empathy.
Masculinity is also defined by power-over. The man who is overpowered by others is less then a man; the man who has power over others is a man among men. Remember, masculinity is fragile: if you don’t have power-over, you’re in danger of losing your manhood.
Once boys become teens, masculinity is additionally defined by the absolutely crucial task of getting laid. Once again, masculinity is fragile: he who isn’t getting any ain’t a man.
So there are a myriad of ways in which boys and men can lose the status of “being a man.” But at the same time, boys and men feel absolutely entitled to becoming men.
Masculinity comes wrapped around a sense of entitlement. Men don’t feel grateful when the women in their life (mothers, wives, maids) prepare meals, make beds, or whatever: in our society’s warped view, the women are just doing what they’re supposed to, and men are just getting what they’re entitled to. (Statistically, it’s interesting that virtually everyone in our culture who decides to blow up a building or machine-gun a crowd is white and male. The main reason for this, I believe, is that white men feel so entitled to high status in society, some of them take revenge if they don’t their rightful entitlement.)
There is one bit of good news – for most men, issues about masculinity are more extreme in the first thirty years of men’s lives then thereafter. For someone still in school – be it the 6th grade or a college frat house – the social enforcement mechanisms for not maintaining masculinity can be extreme. Those who can’t “be men” are social pariahs, are taught to be ashamed, and are not-uncommonly the subjects of beatings. But that’s not as true in most adult environments (although it’s true in some adult environments, like prison). Perhaps once we’ve been away from those sorts of environments for five or ten years, most of us begin to feel that our masculinity isn’t so threatened, after all.
Statistically, environments which tend to have the most rape – middle and high school, frat houses, prisons – are also the environments which most emphasize masculinity, and where boys and men have the most reason to fear losing masculinity. If we could change the culture of such environments, we’d go a long way towards reducing rape.
2) Low regard for women.
The fact is, women aren’t respected as equals, by and large. To some degree this is a self-perpetuating cycle: why aren’t women in more of public life’s highest-respected positions (Presidents, CEOs, Senators, movie stars, cartoonists :) , etc)? Because women aren’t seen as capable of holding society’s highest positions. Why aren’t women seen as being as capable? Well, just look around: there are almost no women are doing those things.
Women’s lower pay – and lower status generally in most of the overtly powerful and materially rewarding aspects of our culture – is both a cause of and a result of the low regard in which our culture holds women. That the huge amount of unpaid caretaking work our society requires to get by is overwhelmingly done by women, and accorded almost no respect (“stay at home moms just sit around watching TV all day, right?”), is both a cause of and a result of the low regard in which our culture holds women.
Women get paid less. Women get promoted less. Women get out of the house less. The work women do is worth less. In our society, women are less. This must change if rape is to be eliminated.
Remember how masculinity encourages lack of empathy? Well, low regard for women also encourages lack of empathy. Social scientists have shown that people (regardless of sex) are less empathic towards those who are below them in the social hierarchy. Bosses are less empathic towards secretaries than vice-versa; owners less empathic towards slaves than vice-versa; men less empathic towards women than vice-versa.
Why do men rape women? It’s not because they hate women, by and large. Do hunters hunt because they hate animals? No, they hunt because hunting is fun, because they like the meat, and maybe because hunting is a way of male-bonding, They don’t hate the animal; they just consider empathy for the animal’s feelings irrelevant, less important than their desire for meat or fun. (I’m ignoring the ecological arguments for hunting for the sake of the analogy).
Men who rape women don’t do it because they hate women, but because they don’t give a fuck about women (at least, not the women they rape). They want something, they take it, and they’re by-and-large indifferent to how the person they “take” it from feels.
This is why the “rape isn’t about sex, rape is about violence” analysis falls short. It’s not true – not from the point of view of many rapists – and it denies the true horror of the situation. Many rapists don’t rape because they hate and want to hurt women; it’s not that personal. Rapists rape because they want sex; they don’t consider the woman’s feelings at all, because a woman’s feelings aren’t worth considering. They’re just women, after all.
Which brings me to my third point….
3) Sexuality is something possessed by women, which is given to (or taken by) men.
That’s our society’s view of it. Look at the magazines on the racks – it’s pretty obvious why men’s magazines, wanting to sell copies with a sexy cover, usually use photos of mostly-undressed women. But why do women’s magazines do the exact same thing? Because to do a sexy magazine cover, you generally have to show a photo of a woman. Sexuality equals women in our culture; it is something possessed by women, not by men.
That’s also why women are taught to wait to be asked for a dance (or for a date), while men are taught to do the asking. Women have it; men ask for it. That’s why porn-like images of women are so common they’re impossible to avoid, while porn-like images of men are (outside gay male culture) relatively infrequent. Women have sex; to show a picture of sex, show a porn-like image of a woman.
Why do men rape, while women virtually never rape? Because sexuality is something possessed by women, in our society’s warped view. In our society, women don’t rape for the same reason rich people don’t mug.
This connects to the first point, too – the fragility of masculinity. Men who have lost their masculinity are, in our culture’s view, less than men, less even than women. They are the lowest of the low. One way to lose your masculinity is to be unable to “get” sex from a woman. This also breeds resentment of women (in much the same way that poverty can sometimes breed resentment of rich people): “how dare women not give something to me that I need so desperately? How dare women withhold from me the masculinity that I’m entitled to?”
If there’s nothing worse to a man than losing that fragile masculinity, and if one way of retaining masculinity is to use masculinity’s power-over to take sex from the owners, and if the owners are only women, anyway, rather than being anything important – then rape is frequently the result.
Hell, looking at how twisted and sick our culture is, sometimes I’m surprised rape doesn’t happen even more often.
* * *
Obviously, I’m not saying that this is right. It’s sick, warped, and twisted. But that is the truth about our sick, warped, and twisted society, in my opinion. People talk about a “rape culture.” I’d argue that these three things – Masculinity, Low Regard for Women, and Sex is Owned by Women – are the three main ingredients of that rape culture. And if we want to create a world without rape, finding ways to change those three things is where we should start..
I’d like permission to use your post in a book I’m writing. My book has to do with my own personal story of drug-rape …. your analysis of a rapist and why men rape is the BEST I’ve seen ….. Thank you!
I (a man) agree with most of your observations, but I think for a lot of rapists, it’s not about camaraderie or even always about sex, but a combination of sexual gratification and the power to force one’s will upon another. Not only is the rapist having sex, he is controlling the woman. It’s easy enough, and often pretty cheap, to pay for sex in this culture, but to have total domination (which, recall, is very masculine) is the rare thrill the rapist seeks. I have nothing but anecdotal evidence to back this up, and I have not read the latest statistics, so this is mostly what I think I have observed. Are there anonymous surveys among rapists asking why they do it?
awesome!
point of thought. if you change the focus from masculinity to power, and look at entitlement from the perspective of misuse of power begettting entitlement, you encompass a greater number of rapists.
unfortunately, rape is not simple by its definition, scope, cause or effect. one of my most horrendous awarenesses is that women rape, and worse, women rape women.
all children are taught about power from birth, we need to begin to focus on teaching power dynamics. too many are powerless, feel powerless, or feel that power is a commodity they can take from others.
You make some valid points, none of which support the truth behind rape. Rape is always about power; never sex. It transcends the need for sex and becomes an act to express anger, sometimes it’s control, sometimes a reassurance of dominance, but the rapists I have studied never cited sex as a motive nor have any of them stated sex-as-an-entitledment, as deep analysis revealed a hidden contempt for womankind, in all 4 common profiles of rapists.
You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
Jason, what are those 4 common profiles of rapists?
Hello, Stefan.
I mean to say THREE. Text book answer: “Anger Rape” express anger (sometimes revenge) through sexuality. In these cases I’ve handled, most don’t “climax.”
Power Rape — the objective is to possess and control the victim. Rape becomes a way to compensate for his/her feelings of inadequacy. They construct elaborate fantasy worlds where, through rape, they’ll win the victim’s love. Often, they’ll rape several women to find “the right one.” The rapist lacks self-confidence and are socially maladjusted. This is the most common form of rape.
And Sadistic Rape. This rapist is commonly seen or read in books and movies. They are fascinated by torture and bondage and fear. They often mutilate and/or pierce the genitals. Sometimes, the goal is murder.
It becomes infinitely more complex from there, with some idiosyncrasies with certain rapists.
Rapists are not mentally ill, but suffer from social/psychological/personality disorders.
Isn’t the definition of mentally ill suffering from psychological disorders?
Thanks Jason.
I think this article is good, overall, and I pretty much agree with it. I would disagree that it’s not that people THINK masculinity is fragile, it’s that masculinity has tangible rewards, and certain things disqualify you from being masculine. Masculinity is of course culturally-defined. But the truth is that if you’re not masculine, you get less respect from both men and women. Men are more likely to push you around and laugh at you, and women are more likely to ridicule you and ignore you. Saying that successful sexuality is not one of the most important things in life is ignoring how life itself works.
You do point out that masculinity is defined by a strict set of things you can do, or rather a large set of things you CAN’T do. There’s a whole bunch of cultural agreement about what these things are, and although you don’t make the connection in the article, the next argument is often that men are the sole reason for this problem.
Which is great, but that leaves women entirely subject to men’s will. And if they’re entirely subject to my will, I’ve got a couple ideas about what they could be doing while I fix the world (which I acknowledge I am entirely unqualified to do). <–it’s a joke
I would also point out that the 3rd bullet is silly. If you look at birds, sexuality is possessed by women. If you look at monkeys, sexuality is possessed by women. If you look at horses, sexuality is possessed by women. It was either God or nature, take your pick. There are, of course, exceptions.
In any case, I still think that the way to protect a subset of the population is to teach them to protect themselves. Instead, people who are trying to empower women teach little girls that femininity in any form needs to be respected, without explaining that it’s not. Without explaining that if women don’t respect the power of their vagina, then they are in for a world of shit. I’m not saying that a girl dressed like a slut should be raped. I’m saying that girls should learn practical knowledge that helps them avoid sticky situations. One of those things has to do with why many less-progressive societies cover women up.
I mean, compare the clothes that you see men and women wearing in every day life. Women’s dress suggests sex far more. A well-dressed man is one that is showing affluence. A well-dressed women is demonstrating sex appeal, albeit sometimes demurely. And I don’t pick out anyone’s clothes but my own.
No, females don’t own sex. Females don’t even own sex in nature. What you’re gaining is access to my body, not sex. The very definition of sexual reproduction is that it requires two participants to accomplish (the owner of the sperm and the owner of the egg–note I didn’t say the male and the female, since some organisms that sexually reproduce are hermaphrodites, possessing both ovaries and testes) and, therefore, two individuals must participate in the related act. And of course, by extension, anything that behaves like the related act–such as oh, I dunno, gay or lesbian sex!–requires at least two participants as well.
If you require my permission in order to get laid it is because two factors are in play. One, I haven’t yet explicitly invited you to have sex with me while in a position to legally consent. Two, any sex-related act requiring your penis to go into one of my orifices (sorry for the graphic language) requires you to enter my body. Excuse me, but this is MY body. YES, you need permission to go into it. You’re only carrying all manner of germs with which I am unfamiliar, not to mention a payload of little visitors that I might not want hanging around in my body right now. And why would I want just any random person to be in my body, anyway, even temporarily? That’d get a bit awkward after a while. I have other things to do with my life besides be someone’s receptacle.
That’d be true, by the way, even if I laid seven different guys a week, every week, for the rest of my useful life.
Besides, look at this from a woman’s point of view. (Where the hell are all the women’s comments here???) From MY point of view, YOU are the one who “owns the sex.” ‘Cause I’m heterosexual, and without the involvement of a straight guy, I ain’t getting laid. I know everyone wants to be hip and modern and claim that masturbation is getting laid… guess what… it’s NOT.
So. From my perspective, if anyone owns the sex, you guys do. I must obtain it from YOU. So what all the fuss is about women owning this thing, I just do not know.
Here’s another thought for ya. What about those gay and lesbian (and single-sex-bi and transgender and…) relationships? Who owns the sex there? It was like when The Rules came out. The authors had to write extra material for gay couples because said couples didn’t fit the template of woman-as-target, man-as-pursuer.
Sex is an act, not a thing. Even when you participate in it, you can’t participate in it all the time. You’d get pretty sore! And you know, when I set out to own a thing? I prefer it to be more tangible–like a house, or a car, or my awesome little laptop here. I can’t own an act. It happens and then it’s over.
And that right there is what’s wrong with basing the mores of an entire culture someplace other than reality. I’m just saying.
I would also point out that the 3rd bullet is silly. If you look at birds, sexuality is possessed by women. If you look at monkeys, sexuality is possessed by women. If you look at horses, sexuality is possessed by women. It was either God or nature, take your pick.
Perhaps that’s also why rape is prevalent across all animal species? Perhaps that’s why rape is impossible to completely eliminate, no matter how you may try. It’s absolutely fool to think otherwise, and we are certainly far from the worst species, morally speaking. I know many think we are, but those who do don’t know much about animals or nature in general.
No, females don’t own sex. Females don’t even own sex in nature. What you’re gaining is access to my body, not sex.
What you own individually is sex over your own body. What women own collectively is sex. And by own, I mean are the objects of desire, no matter how much they may also be feeling humans too, or whatever their personalities are like. They may be seen either as both an object and this other being, or else just an object, but that object is absolutely more commanding over the general public than in the reverse roles.
Men don’t own sex, generally. What they own is entitlement. Sad but true. What is also true, however, is the fact that women don’t give up whole ownership after rape. Rape invariably makes women more cautious, and though she’s been forced to give it up to one person, that doesn’t mean she has to give it up to all men unless she chooses to wholly let go of it.
So, women own sex. Not only in desire, but also control (to a point). Desire is the main point of course, but control isn’t at all as void as it may appear in culture.
Besides, not all culture disregards that fact, seeing as some men see rapists with that certain contempt, as being ‘lowest of the low’ as it was so eloquently put in the article. Rapists are in fact what makes masculinity look bad, what gives it a bad name. At the same time, they are utterly lacking in it, as frail as masculinity is. They are denied it because they were not successful attaining sex themselves. They are the ‘anyone’ who can take it by force.
Brilliant article. I think the first point particularly hit the spot. Our societies attitudes towards masculinity are in deed a cause of lots of suffering if you think about it, not only for women but for men themselves.
It is abhorrent to think that even today men with such attitudes can find such acceptance by society at large, when really they are detrimental to the well being of all. Having been a nerdy adolescent, I tend to think that I have fallen victim to this thought paradigm.
Something that should be pointed out perhaps is that, as far as school goes, it’s not like ‘masculine’ males just have a higher standing amongst other males, but it seems that they generally have better chances with girls too. So this celebration of misconstrued masculinity is a universal delusion and everyone should be educated about how misguided it is and how we should not use it to determine social hierarchies. I think many ‘non-masculine’ men actually get burned by the system quite badly and actually develop antifeminist attitudes as a result, which is a shame as they aspire the exact same goals I think.
Getting a bit side tracked here, but yeah, great article.
Great article. I agree with most of it. I do think there are different motives for rape though, and the “rape isn’t about sex, rape is about violence” type of rape is very common too, it certainly exists.
I think a more positive attitude towards gay culture is a way to change the need for being masculine (I’m not gay myself though). Furthermore, and this may seem a bit weird to many, porn should not be frowned upon (except the type with violence or degrading women, etc. or when it’s interfering in a relationship). The kind of man who might rape, can use porn and masturbation as a substitute for rape. See:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2006/10/how_the_web_prevents_rape.html
and
http://www.toddkendall.net/internetcrime.pdf
The best way to prevent rape is to change the masculine culture as you described. Thank you Ampersand!
Thought you should know, I’ve cited this blog post in this blog post of mine, which is Part 2 of an essay on “What is patriarchy?” As you’ll see, I argue that there’s a biological grain of truth in the idea that women “own” sex — but also a largish dollop of falsehood.