{"id":1555,"date":"2005-05-17T13:06:47","date_gmt":"2005-05-17T20:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/05\/17\/rape-culture-and-the-myth-of-%e2%80%9cfemale-sexual-advantage%e2%80%9d\/"},"modified":"2005-05-17T13:06:47","modified_gmt":"2005-05-17T20:06:47","slug":"rape-culture-and-the-myth-of-%e2%80%9cfemale-sexual-advantage%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1555","title":{"rendered":"Rape Culture and the Myth of "Female Sexual Advantage""},"content":{"rendered":"

[This is a comment left by Shiloh<\/a> on a previous thread. I’ve edited it a bit to make it “stand-alone,” rather than quoting other posts. The post title was suggested by Kim (basement variety). –Amp<\/em>]<\/p>\n

I will agree that sexual power is about one’s “value” in the world of dating and relationship. What [some people] seem to be missing, however, is that the higher a woman’s sexual power, the lower her value as a person<\/strong>. Female sexual power, by definition, is dehumanizing. Female sexual power silences women.<\/p>\n

First example – when I was fourteen, I took a summer class in typing at the local high school, because it wasn’t offered at my jr. high. One day, as I’m halfway to school, crossing this big field, a guy I’d met precisely twice before grabbed me and started kissing me and feeling me up. He informed me that he was a star wrestler, and that I was going to be his girlfriend. I informed him that my tastes ran to skinny bespectacled geeks who read a lot, and I had no interest what-so-ever in being his girlfriend, thank you very much. He insisted that I only said this because of a “poor self-image,” that he was going to make me popular and happy, etc. etc., ad nauseum.<\/p>\n

No matter what I said, this guy “translated” it to fit his preconceived notions. “No” meant “yes.” “Not interested” became “interested but won’t admit it.” “You’re not my type” becaome “she’s just shy.” Many feminists argue that pornography “silences women.” This is what they mean. The woman is only allowed to say what the man wants to hear – even if what she actually says is completely different. Pornography that plays with the rape myth tells the story of a woman who says no, but ultimately means yes. That is what this guy was doing to me. He was insisting that whatever I said meant what he wanted it to mean.<\/p>\n

Another real life example of how a woman’s sexual power silences her. I was not one of the “popular kids,” partly because I had little interest in being one, but one of my good friends was exactly what you describe when you are discussing a woman with a lot of sexual power. She was a cute, feminine blonde, popular, intelligent, cheerleader, upper middle class, dressed conservatively but was perceived as sexy. The guys I hung out with – who, like me, were NOT socially powerful – said she was the most beautiful girl in the school. What did all this sexual power get her?<\/p>\n

Well, in 10th grade it got her raped by most of the guys on the football team. She was dating one of them, he slipped her something stronger than she was used to, then passed her around to his buddies. When she told people about it, most of her friends basically said she got what she deserved – if you’re going to be beautiful, them’s the hazards. Mind you, she did not disagree – she accepted that this is just the way the world is. When I pointed out that being pretty is no excuse for rape, she said I was probably right, but what can you do about it?<\/p>\n

Nothing. There is nothing a beautiful woman can do about it. From her perspective, and in her experience, woman’s “sexual power” means<\/em> that she does NOT get to choose her mate. If she was not interested in the most “alpha” guy around – tough. If said alpha guy laid claim to her, she was stuck, because he viewed her as his property<\/em>, and any guy hanging around too close would be chased off. In high school, at any rate, if said alpha male was on a sports team, not only would he monitor her activities – his buddies would monitor her activities. If she was interested in another guy, she had no chance of talking to him or getting to know him.<\/p>\n

Of course, once you get past high school (and college, in some cases, but she deliberately went to a college that did NOT have any sports teams), this male control is less blatantly obvious. But it’s often still there. Look at Kathleen Parker’s story (on the web). J*** R*****’s harrassment of his ex-wife’s family. Paul Corey. Eric Bleicken. A dear friend’s husband, who called everyone on her<\/strong> side of the family (including me, a non-relative) to tell them what a whore she was when she left him – this despite the fact that his <\/strong>adultery had so destroyed her reproductive system she had to have a hysterectomy and ovariectomy at 27.<\/p>\n

Another friend, whose husband used to rape her when she was unconscious from the drugs they were using to help her sleep – this despite the fact that she was undergoing radiation treatments for her cancer and despite the fact that she was in constant pain and his rapes only exacerbated it. Yes, she’s blonde, long-legged, charming, and popular. What did all this “sexual power” get her? Abuse, plain and simple.<\/p>\n

Most of the kids at my second high school were upper middle class. I used to hang out with actors, artists, engineers in the aerospace industry, millionaires who owned their own company. I’ve talked to the “beautiful people” of both sexes. Men who are beautiful complain that “she dumped me because I shaved my head” or “I never know whether she likes me for my self or for my looks or for my cash.” Women who are beautiful worry about being raped, about being abused, about ending up in a marriage to someone who will try to completely control them.<\/p>\n

Again, men have access to sexual power, too – more access, through more channels, than women do. And the risk of sexual power for men is minimal. For women, sexual power is often outright dangerous. For women, sexual power is as disempowering as it is empowering. A woman weilding sexual power is easily silenced.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Rape exists primarily because a man decides that his version of reality is more important than the woman’s – he decides he gets to tell her what reality is. Whatever his motives (sex, power, anger), a rapist’s reality is that the woman’s sexiness somehow justifies his treatment of her. Everytime a male non-rapist treats a woman as a sex object, rather than a person, he is supporting the rapist perspective.<\/p>\n

Arguing that a woman’s sexual power in any way “evens things out” between the sexes is to miss the point entirely. A woman’s sexual power is used to justify rape; a woman’s sexual power is used to silence her; a woman’s sexual power is used to dehumanize her. The fact that some<\/strong> women manage to use their sexual power in some <\/strong>instances to their benefit doesn’t change any of this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This is a comment left by Shiloh on a previous thread. I’ve edited it a bit to make it “stand-alone,” rather than quoting other posts. The post title was suggested by Kim (basement variety). –Amp] I will agree that sexual … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rape-intimate-violence-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}