What Causes Rape? Anatomy of a rape culture
| February 11th, 2004What 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.
February 11th, 2004 at 7:18 am
Great read!
Just a quick comment.
You mention gay men in reference to pornography, but you don’t account for the amount of rape that occurs in the gay community by men. I don’t think it discounts much of what you are saying. I’m just curious if you have an idea of how to account for it; especially since you downplay the ‘rape as violence’ assumption.
This comment was written by yvelle.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 7:45 am
I’d say that it fits reasonably well into the same paradigm, with some alterations. Gay men are still raised in our culture — while they are more likely to question masculinity, they have still been raised with the same expectation that masculinity is (a) an entitlement (b) fragile and (c) something that they maintain by getting sex from someone else. A gay man becomes more ‘masculine’ by getting laid, despite the fact that he is having sex with other men; the incentive to rape in order to maintain his masculinity is the same.
There are obvious differences between the hetero and homosexual situations with respect to rape; none of the arguments about sex as something possessed by women who are perceived as lesser beings are relevant. Still, the masculinity mechanism Ampersand describes works for both situations.
Excellent post.
This comment was written by LizardBreath.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 8:53 am
What do we do about women who think that abusive behavior toward them is a sign of love? I know women who seem to think this, and it kills me to try to convince them that they deserve better, because they don’t believe me. Hell, at one point I thought that violence in a relationship, toward me, was normal. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you how I realized that that attitude was sick, because I don’t know.
So, I guess I would say that eliminating all the problems you talk about above would only solve half the problem. Most of the women I know don’t really believe, deep down, that they deserve better than the assholes they get. How do we change that?
This comment was written by corwin.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 9:00 am
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.
Ah, a leftist who admits he hates America.
What a refreshing change of pace!
This comment was written by anon.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 9:05 am
Well done, Amp.
This comment was written by Cleis.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 9:59 am
we have one thing going for us, i guess. Our courts won’t throw out a rape case if two men didn’t witness it. How twisted of us. And sick, for that matter.
This comment was written by pril.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 10:01 am
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.
I don’t disagree with this, but I’d add that the act, specifically, of overpowering somebody to get this thing that they want (as opposed to having it genuinely offered) is part of what is desired, specifically because it feeds into part I of your argument. In other words, they take the sex that they want, but they also help prop up their fragile masculinity by the show of both virility and specifically of power/strength. It may not help with the boss/frat brother (although it may, in fact, with the latter), but it helps with the self-image of self as strong and manly…
(How can we undermine the idea that taking advantage of weakness is anything but manly, anything but admirable? Is it too simplistic to think that diffusion of bullies in the schoolyard is a place to start?)
This comment was written by acm.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 10:02 am
Anon inadvertently raises an interesting question: what does that “our . . . society” comprise? Can’t much of amp’s analysis can be applied to Japan, the UK, Mexico, &c.? Where can we go to see a non-rape culture?
This comment was written by Mr Ripley.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 10:02 am
Hey Anon,
What a useful and enlightening comment you made on a such a serious issue. Forget that Amp is talking about a real issue that affects real people…all you hear is that he hates America (and by the way, he didn’t even MENTION the US - and this applies just as well in Canada and in fact in most of the world.)
Did you even have a point??
This comment was written by Julia.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 10:10 am
Amp, you rock. That was brilliant. And you know, I agree with your contention that rape isn’t so much about violence and hatred as it is about entitlement and dehumanization–esp. WRT date rape/aquaintence rape. I want it, I will get it, and who gives a fuck what you want?
Anon–maybe he meant human society. Or maybe he was talking about American society because that’s what he knows best. No need to fly off the handle and have convulsions just because someone isn’t singing God Bless America.
Pril, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to criticize a society that shows the misogyny that ours does. We might not have the same type of draconian laws that other nations do; Amp wasn’t discussing that. He was discussing attitudes, which are still pretty backwards in regards to women. And yes, when it’s popular to use the word “bitch” as a synonym for a woman, and using woman as an insult, that’s sick and twisted.
(Somewhat OT, rape in Japan isn’t reported all that often because the plaintiffs get dragged through the mud worse than here before the rape shield laws.)
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 10:14 am
Amp-
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.
Do you have research on rapists’ attitudes toward women to support this? I have always been under the impression that most rapists actually enjoy the emotional pain and fear of their victims. And since such emotions can be experienced by both male and female victims, it would seem to be a better explanation of why both men and women get raped than your “women are worthless” theory. Also, it shows the critical psychological difference between men who rape and men who don’t. In short, it’s not that rapists hate women, it’s that they hate people.
This comment was written by Mithras.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 10:17 am
One other thing. Your theory seems to presuppose that only men whose masculinity is threatened rape. How to explain men who have willing sexual partners who then also rape? To use your analogy, how to explain the rich person who embezzles or commits tax fraud?
This comment was written by Mithras.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 10:32 am
Do you have research on rapists’ attitudes toward women to support this? I have always been under the impression that most rapists actually enjoy the emotional pain and fear of their victims.
I completely disagree. I have (unfortunately) met a number of people who have been on both sides of the rapist/rape-ee scenario. Hell, I’ve through it personally, and the “rapist” couldn’t understand why I was so upset. He didn’t hate me… he was convinced that he loved me, actually. He didn’t understand why his actions caused me pain, and could never really grasp that *his* actions *hurt* me. He simply didn’t seem to be capable of that cognitive leap.
As for the pain and fear comment… at the actual time of “the incedent” I don’t think I was in pain or in fear… I was in shock, confused, at war with myself over what to do, how to get out from under… it wasn’t until afterwards that it really sunk in, how it made me feel, and that waking up in the middle of it (literally, and I wasn’t drunk or drugged or in a strange hotel room with a man I didn’t know, thankyouverymuch) did NOT consitute consent.
That last part took months to realize, by which point things had disintigrated. Because after that first time, there was his sense of entitlement and the ever present “well I just couldn’t help myself!” excuse, despite my frequent, tearful pleas to not start again. I had been trained to be powerless, and it took a long time to shake those chains. And here we see how my socialization as a woman comes into play.
Not very many people HATE other people. They don’t understand how what they do can affect someone else. Maybe this is an emotional immaturity thing, like a 2 year old not understanding that “When I hit my friend in the head with a dump truck, it hurts them”, but at a much more insiduous level.
So yes, amp’s theory is something I’ve seen echoed in my own experience, and in others I have known since. However, I’m not a researcher, so my experience is limited and my opinion just as prone to error as anyone elses.
This comment was written by wookie.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 11:06 am
Great analysis.
This comment was written by glossomania.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 11:20 am
Well thought out, Amp.
This comment was written by Elayne Riggs.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 11:52 am
This is EXCELLENT.
This comment was written by Jennifer.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 11:54 am
Hey Barry,
Lots of food for thought here. One thing that always makes me a little anxious about this kind of analysis is that overemphasis on the culture might seem to diminish the reponsibility of the individual rapist. Clearly, you’re not trying to do that, so I was curious as to how you understand the individual’s agency in this context? Perhaps part of it would most obviously come from the fact that men do not receive one clear culture message. They also are told that rape is terribly wrong. Would you say that individual agency and responsibility come in deciding what message one is going to listen do?
Also, I think there are many myths of masculinity in our culture, not just on the one you describe. The one you describe is certainly very pervasive and pernicious, but there are others. Conservative Christians are big on gender roles, but they don’t see masculinity in the same way frat boys do. For example, conservative Christians aren’t so big on sex as a way of proving one’s masculinity, particularly when it takes place outside of marriage. So when you say “environments which tend to have the most rape…are also the environments which most emphasize masculinity” it seems to me that those are environments which emphasize one particular dangerous masculinity. Does this make sense/seem legitimate? If it does, do you have any thoughts about how different masculinities in our culture interact?
Thanks for the thoughtful and thought-provoking post.
This comment was written by Sara.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 12:09 pm
Mithras wrote:
“One other thing. Your theory seems to presuppose that only men whose masculinity is threatened rape. How to explain men who have willing sexual partners who then also rape? To use your analogy, how to explain the rich person who embezzles or commits tax fraud?”
That was the question in my mind, too.
This comment was written by Amy S..Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 12:09 pm
Once again, Amp, profound and thought-provoking. Bravo!
It seems to me that hate requires something of an emotional attachment, either to an idea (ie, “I hate people who are rich because they have money and I don’t” to use an example) or a person. I still think the reasons behind rape are multiple and somewhat individual. To me, from personal experience and the experience of my friends, there is DEFINITELY that sense of entitlement and a stunning inability to understand WHY it was hurtful. The fact that that seems so prevalent leads me to think that there is an underlying social component there- perhaps tied to the insiduous and “unspoken but practiced” idea that women are less than men.
But how to explain men with partners who rape, indeed? Is it an even more egotistical sense of entitlement? Or is it a desire for control beyond the control exerted in the every day?
Rape has existed for millenia. I do agree with Amp that attitudes should change, MUST change, if we are to reduce sexual assaults. But I also think there will remain a segment of society that no matter how much we enlighten and educate, will still rape. Somehow, it seems inextricably woven into the human fabric to cause pain to others.
This comment was written by Lachlan.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 12:27 pm
Men who rape do so out of a feeling of entitlement. Some serial rapists–the ones who commit stranger rape–may be total sociopaths, and they may feel like real men when they dominate women. These guys probably do get off on the pain and fear of their victims; others like the idea of being domineering. Some of these guys may also force their so-called willing partners into sex. Some men who have committed acquaintence rape may have done the same thing to their partners, who have willingly had sex with them before.
Wookie, you’re right on. I know plenty of women who were assaulted by their boyfriends/husbands, and said boyfriends/husbands didn’t understand what the big deal was. So *what* if you were passed out or asleep? So what if you said it hurt and told me to stop? So what if you were crying in pain? The reaction wasn’t joy at the woman’s fear (often, they didn’t feel fear, more helpless and angry). They were irritated if she said *anything* and/or bewildered that it was even an issue. What they wanted, they took, because they saw it as their “right”. It’s entitlement.
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 12:29 pm
Also, Mithras, a man with willing sexual partners can still feel as if his masculinity is threatened. Especially if the measure of masculinity is determined by how many sex partners a man has, or how often he has sex. And, I would wager that if he rapes, he may have raped some of those supposedly “willing sex partners.”
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 12:36 pm
I’m not Amp, but I’ll posit an explanation for why men with partners still rape. Actually, I have two explanations that I don’t think are contradictory…
My experience has been that the social pressure for men to have sex is geared toward not merely having sex but toward having sex with multiple partners. The man who has sex with the same woman every night for a week is, according to some, much less manly than the man who has sex with a new woman every night for a week. Men in monogamous relationships are considered “pussy-whipped,” or tied down to one woman and her genitals (that’s an odd image), thus unable to go out and “pick up chicks.” Popular cultural images bear this out. To take just one example, James Bond is not studly because he only has sex with one woman.
By this explanation, the rapist who has a willing partner could still feel his masculinity threatened by virtue of his being “tied down” to a single partner.
My other explanation is that Amp’s paradigm doesn’t explain, or, I believe, seek to explain, all rapists, just most rapists. As such, there are some rapists who get off on the fear/powerlessness of their victims, some who get off on the violent aspects of rape, and so some who rape for reasons other than their masculinity feeling threatened by not being able to have sex. I would posit that these people are most likely to commit stranger rape, while those persons who fall into Amp’s paradigm are most likely to commit acquaintance rape, which is the most common form of rape.
This comment was written by PinkDreamPoppies.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 12:36 pm
And neko beats me to it… Damn my slow fingers.
This comment was written by PinkDreamPoppies.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 12:45 pm
I agree with many of your points so I will only comment on a minor disagreement of your first point about the “myth of 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.”
I think you have it mostly backwards. I don’t think we are taught masculinity; I think it is mostly genetic predisposition. And I think it is perfectly natural in a primitive way: Rivals are beaten into submission, or driven out of the tribe. Brute force wins the day. The strongest leads, and gets the mate. That worked great for a long time and still works for lions, and many other mammals. The problem is that we are not the primitives without language scraping for survival and living in caves anymore and our genetic code hasn’t caught up.
But we are not slaves to our genetic dispositions of personality. The culture at large and especially parents that are supposed to civilize their children. So instead of teaching us masculinity, as you believe, I believe we are naturally predisposed to it and should be taught strict limits and productive ways to channel the natural aggression and competitiveness. Such as sports, work, or maybe even the chess club, and such. I think the reason we have so many problems these days is that we don’t civilize our children enough anymore.
Back when my dad was a kid, it was common for boys to take their guns to school so they could go hunting after. There were still plenty of fist fights, but other behavioral limits just were not crossed. Random school shootings were unthinkable. Small anecdote, I know. But I believe something has happened to our culture in the last 30-40 years that has made people less civilized in many ways than previous generations. I think our mass culture of permissiveness and hedonism wars directly against the positive influences, if any, of the family. “If it feels good do it” becomes “if I want it I will take it”. Maybe the breakup of the American family has something to do with it, or that may be a coincidence, or even a symptom of something larger.
Also regarding the “myth of masculinity”, I think many stereotypes of masculinity are reinforced by women. I believe many women are attracted to “the bad boy”, “the winner”, “the leader”, “the quarterback” (who is both the winner and the leader), etc. All of those archetypes are part of masculinity. As most guys will tell you, when it comes to getting dates, nice guys really do finish last. Maybe its another genetic disposition? Who knows?
This comment was written by Larry.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 12:49 pm
Amp,
I think your analysis has a large amount of validity and I hope it helps to open people’s minds.
I do have some points of discussion/disagreement for you:
1) blaming society may lead rapists to say that they are not at fault for raping women - they are “just” doing what we “program” them to do.
2) I understand what you are saying about the possiblity of rape being connected to sex. However, I think that the point of the theorists who say that it isn’t about sex but about violence and power fits into your theme - they have the power to take what they want and since sex is what they want they just take it without consequences.
3) Men need to be held more accountable for rape and its long-term psychological and psyco-social consequences.
4) My largest point of disagreement is when it come to the “specialized” form of rape which is incest. I do NOT believe that a man who moletests his two-year-old daughter (a common age for father-daughter incest to begin) is doing it for sexual pleasure. The sick bastard is doing it because he can.
I look forward to your response.
This comment was written by Leah.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 12:57 pm
Rape Culture
This comment was written by writingwomen.Peripherally related to the course, as we were talking about female sexual vulnerability in Aphra Behn’s “The Unfortunate Happy Lady”: An excellent post by Ampersand on Alas, A Blog about the elements that make up (our/everyone’s?) “rape culture.” Be s…
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February 11th, 2004 at 1:01 pm
Rape Culture
This comment was written by scribblingwoman.An excellent post by Ampersand on Alas, a blog about the elements that make up (our/everyone’s?) “rape culture.” Be sure…
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February 11th, 2004 at 1:02 pm
Also regarding the “myth of masculinity”, I think many stereotypes of masculinity are reinforced by women. I believe many women are attracted to “the bad boy”, “the winner”, “the leader”, “the quarterback” (who is both the winner and the leader), etc. All of those archetypes are part of masculinity. As most guys will tell you, when it comes to getting dates, nice guys really do finish last. Maybe its another genetic disposition? Who knows?
At this point I feel I must point you towards http://www.heartless-bitches.com and to their “nice guy” section.
Women don’t want “nice guys” (many nice guys are rapists). Women want a man who is kind. Big difference.
And Leah, it’s been said in a couple of spots that Amp doesn’t seem to be “going for all” rapists, but aquaintence rapists, which are the most common kind.
I believe incest falls under the sociopath box… although I’m sure if that specific subset of rape were to be dissected, you’d find the sense of entitlement and the disbelief that their actions (raping their 2 year od) could hurt that child. I don’t think being a sociopath excludes the last sentence from being true, but I think there is a word that is more accurate than sociopath.
This comment was written by wookie.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 1:14 pm
Great post, Amp. I sent a link to my husband, who likes to call himself a feminist, but he really isn’t. Are you aware of the 1996 book, _Transforming a Rape Culture_? It contains 34 essays on this topic by various writers. Here’s the blurb from Amazon:
“The contributors to this invaluable sourcebook share the conviction that rape is epidemic because our society encourages male aggression and tacitly or overtly supports violence against women. Cumulatively, these 34 essays by such figures as Gloria Steinem, Andrea Dworkin, Ntozake Shange, Michael Kimmel and Louise Erdrich situate rape on a continuum extending from sexist language to pornography, sexual harassment in schools and the workplace, wife battering and date and marital rape. Most of the selections were written for this volume. Highlights include a proposal to make rape a presidential election issue, an analysis of the churches’ ambivalent response to societal violence, guidelines for raising boys to view themselves as nurturing, nonviolent fathers and inspirational visions of personal or institutional change. Buchwald is publisher/editor of Milkweed, Fletcher an English professor at North Hennepin Community College in Minnesota and Roth edits the feminist quarterly, Hurricane Alice.”
I own the book, and it rocked my world when I read it. I am a rape/incest survivor, and he’s still denying he hurt me, 18 years later.
Your blog is on my daily must-read list. Keep up the good work!
This comment was written by Mychelline.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 1:15 pm
**”Women don’t want “nice guys” (many nice guys are rapists).”
Hmm, I think we are talking about two different things. I am using “nice guy” as the antithesis of the “the bad boy.” A rapist might use the cover of a “nice guy” to get close to someone. But by definition, a nice guy would never rape a women.
This comment was written by Larry.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 1:18 pm
Larry, I’m not going to argue the biological determinism of masculinity/femininity, however, even if we accept that masculine traits are determined by biology, then the concept of losing masculinity is such a logically absurd concept it can only be due to societal influence.
Leah, you mention that rapists should be held accountable, and you are absolutely right. But rapists are too often not held accountable, and it is for the same reasons that rape exists in the first place, so if we change the aspects of society that foster rape, then it would follow that those who still rape will be held more accountable for their crimes.
Amp, it seems to me that sections 2 and 3 are redundant in that they are sort of extensions of society’s view of masculinity. I’m saying this from a pragmatic angle. If we want to eliminate the rape culture, it seems sufficient to remove society’s myths regarding masculinity.
Anyway, this was a quickly written and to the point post. I’ll see if I can get a more elegant response after I’ve eaten something.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 2:12 pm
“Also regarding the “myth of masculinity”, I think many stereotypes of masculinity are reinforced by women. I believe many women are attracted to ‘the bad boy’, ‘the winner’, ‘the leader’, ‘the quarterback’ (who is both the winner and the leader), etc. All of those archetypes are part of masculinity. As most guys will tell you, when it comes to getting dates, nice guys really do finish last. Maybe its another genetic disposition? Who knows?”
Look, I’m probably going to go off here, but I’ve been hearing this a lot from the guys I know, and I’ve about had it.
A leader or a quarterback could be very considerate and kind. And I dated plenty of “bad boys” who treated me like a queen, and had no compunction about stopping anything sexual if I didn’t feel comfortable. They were bad boys to everyone else, they were great boyfriends to me. I dated someone who was known for being nice. I soon realized that he was only nice in public. He was anything but nice in private–the guy was a total closet misogynist. By the time we officially split, I was scared of him.
Thing is, a lot of these self-proclaimed “nice guys” are their own worst enemies. They won’t give anyone who’s not skinny with a supermodel’s looks a chance–the rather plain woman who’s really nice? Forget it! The woman who’s slightly over/underweight? No way. The woman who’s actually interested in them? Run for the hills! A woman who’s their age? Uh-uh.
They go for unattainable women (either way too young for them, seeing someone else, lesbian, or recently broken up and not into the dating scene). They will date women who routinely treat them like garbage, and then complain that women don’t appreciate nice guys (well, duh, not the ones they’re dating).
They will do something nice for a woman they are interested in, and then get huffy when she won’t go out with them–apparently, she’s obligated. (And that’s not nice.) A friend of mine complained that he couldn’t figure women out, since the woman he liked wasn’t interested in dating him. (She’d been involved with someone else when he started paying her some attention. She wasn’t eager to see anyone right away after the breakup. Go figure). But he wasn’t the only person to get rejected, I get exasperated when someone uses their disappointment in love as an excuse to blame an entire group of people.
Who the heck calls themselves nice, anyway? Isn’t that kind of a default? Shesh, there’s no challenge in being *nice*. I hope my boyfriend isn’t seeing me just because I’m *nice* since plenty of people out there are nice, and it would be easy for him to get attracted to someone else. I hope he’s seeing me because he thinks I’m smart, interesting, funny, inquisitive, and a whole bunch of other things. If niceness was was the only reason why I’d go out with him, *he’d* have an awful lot of competition. I like him because he’s smart, well-traveled, interesting, compassionate, interested in the world around him, and all that good stuff. He’s fun to be with. And yeah, he’s nice, but again, who isn’t?
I’ve never felt like I owed him for what he does for me (something many self-proclaimed “nice guys” have done–I got you a birthday present! You HAVE to date me! Or you don’t like nice guys!!!).
Look, I don’t mean to dismiss people’s angst, but rejection happens all the time. There is no magic combination to make someone want you. If I had a dime for every time someone didn’t return my feelings, I could retire in a Swiss chalet. That’s life–not everyone is going to be interested. It ain’t the end of the world.
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 2:18 pm
Larry, I’m not going to argue the biological determinism of masculinity/femininity, however, even if we accept that masculine traits are determined by biology, then the concept of losing masculinity is such a logically absurd concept it can only be due to societal influence.
If you are saying what I think you are saying, I agree. As I said, we are not slaves to our genetic dispositions of personality. If I have a predisposition of having a bad temper for instance, then through proper discipline and influences from the parents and culture I can learn to control it.
This comment was written by Larry.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 2:21 pm
A couple of notes on the comments thus far (which have been pretty darned good:
Larry wrote: “But I believe something has happened to our culture in the last 30-40 years that has made people less civilized in many ways than previous generations. I think our mass culture of permissiveness and hedonism….”
While I’m sorta with you on a lot of your comment, this quote could be lifted almost word for word from any time within the last 500 years (at least). You may want to check some of the other recent comment threads for this statement quoted from works over the last 2 centuries.
I’m w/ Raznor on the comments about biological determinism - although Larry was talking more about genetic predisposition than determinism (I think).
Larry is also correct, to a certain extent, about the attraction to “bad boys” (vs. “nice guys”). There is no doubt that there are women who are self-destructive. But that doesn’t really explain the causes of rape. I think a better example would be the encouragement of the “myths of masculinity” by women. Which I don’t think attraction to “bad boys” is.
I also think, like somebody before me said, that rape will always be around. We can certainly do things to reduce it to a minimum though. I also think that part of why there are so many more men than women who commit rape is the physical aspects of the act. It’s much easier to stick something into an unwilling place than to get something unwilling to be stuck into a place. (Sometimes I amaze myself w/ my eloquence ;))
And lastly, I agree w/ everybody who has said that sex w/ multiple women is regarded as more masculine than sex w/ one woman.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 2:49 pm
Who Owns Sex?
This comment was written by Pandagon.Ampersand has an incredibly thoughtful post on rape culture, why it exists and how we can change it. I’m not sure I agree with all of the points, but his argument on who “owns” sexuality is, I think, spot on:Why…
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February 11th, 2004 at 3:17 pm
“One other thing. Your theory seems to presuppose that only men whose masculinity is threatened rape. How to explain men who have willing sexual partners who then also rape? To use your analogy, how to explain the rich person who embezzles or commits tax fraud?”
That was the question in my mind, too.”
Well, it seems to me that there is more than one reason for committing rape. For some it may be a power thing, for some it may be sexual frustration, for some (date rapists come to mind) it may be an inability to recognize other’s pain. The reasons may very well all stem form culture, as Amp suggests, but that doesn’t mean that the individuals involved all have the same reasons for doing what they do.
Example form personal expirience:
I did drugs when I was young, and hung out with others who did drugs. Some of them did it for the kicks, some of them did it to escape the world. Same end result, unfortunately, but different paths getting there, starting form different places that were nonetheless at least partlly functions of our culture.
I don’t see why rape would have a radically different structure.
This comment was written by kevin.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 3:20 pm
Analysis of Rape
This comment was written by my so-called blog.Link to Amp’s Great Analysis of Societal Influences RE: Rape
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February 11th, 2004 at 3:53 pm
Mithras: “Your theory seems to presuppose that only men whose masculinity is threatened rape. How to explain men who have willing sexual partners who then also rape? To use your analogy, how to explain the rich person who embezzles or commits tax fraud?”
I would throw that under the entitlement issue - if you have privilege and like that privilege, one wants to be more priviliged. Just a guess.
This comment was written by Ms Lauren.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 3:56 pm
Also, while I disagree with some of Larry’s statement, I must say that I agree that hedonistic aspects of our culture add to and perpetuate entitlement to sex.
This comment was written by Ms Lauren.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 4:02 pm
And last post before I go, regarding the term “nice.”
In Old English, nice meant several interesting things:
Of a person: foolish, silly, simple; ignorant; Of an action, utterance, etc.: displaying foolishness or silliness; absurd, senseless; Of conduct, behaviour, etc.: characterized by or encouraging wantonness or lasciviousness; Of dress: extravagant, showy, ostentatious; Fastidious, fussy, difficult to please, esp. with regard to food or cleanliness; of refined or dainty tastes.
This probably explains why the word nice is also used in close proximity to the word but, as in “He’s really nice, but…”
I dated a lot of “nice” guys too. And in general, they suck.
This comment was written by Ms Lauren.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 4:32 pm
I think Kevin may have touched on something when he mentioned the inability to recognize others pain let me explain…
There may be two types of rape. intentional and unintentional
The first, I belive, is the result of culture, Violence and control.
the second is the result of an unfortunate mix of testerone and alcohol/drugs. Not all but, many Date Rapes fall into this category I believe.
I am not excusing the behavior of the rapist any more than I would excuse the drunk driver who killed some one.
But I think women should beware that the guy that seems so polite and caring when sober. may not recognize your pain at his actions when sufficiently drunk and arroused.
of cousre we are a “culture of drugs and alcohol” too.
This comment was written by mike.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 6:11 pm
Women “possess” sex! What a fascinating idea! Yes, I can see how men might feel that way.
Still, I think at least some of the women — is it 40%? some appalling number — who describe themselves as sexually dissatisfied would be interested to know where, exactly, it is.
This comment was written by Kyria.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 6:11 pm
Wow! A lot of comments. My apologies to everyone I can’t respond to individually. I read all the comments, and some of the ones I thought the most about I didn’t reply to at this time.
Yvelle, as LizardBreath wrote, I think that there are similar motivations for rape between gay rapists and straight rapists; gay men aren’t immune to receiving warped messages about masculinity. Obviously, the stuff about contempt for women doesn’t apply directly. (I wonder if gay rapists of men might have issues with internalized homophobia - but that’s just an idle speculation, and I might not be willing to stand behind it once I’ve thought through it more).
Corwin, I agree that there are women with self-esteem issues in the world. Nonetheless, I don’t think that’s a major cause of rape, much less “half the problem.” Rapists are male; to understand why rape happens, I think we need to concentrate on understanding men.
Anon, you’re reading the wrong post. Go read my post on patriotism, which is much more directly about my not feeling any special adoration for the USA.
The people who responded to Anon were all correct in saying that I’m a bit vauge as to where the bounderies of “our culture” are. I’m pretty sure things are pretty much the same in Austrailia and England and probably Canada; I’m not sure if things are really any different anywhere in the Western world. I’m too ignorant to suggest an opinion for beyond the Western World, however.
I know I live in this culture; I don’t know where its boundaries are. It’s like asking a fish to draw a map of the Atlantic Ocean.
Pril, I think we have a lot going for us. Obviously, things are a lot better here than they are in Saudi Arabia. Nonetheless, as Neko said, I still see a lot wrong that should be improved.
Mr. Ripley, I’m not sure if any non-rape cultures exist. However, 300 years ago no true democracies (i.e., ones with universal suffrage) existed; that something has never existed isn’t proof that they can never exist. (I’m not saying you necessarily disagree with me about this).
Mithras, I don’t have supporting research on that, just a lifetime of experience talking to men and being male in our culture, plus a lot of anecdotal evidence (such as wookie’s story).
However, I’m not the first to have suggested this view - at least one legal scholar of rape has made much the same argument in a journal article that influenced my thinking. Unfortunately, I don’t have my files handy now (they’re mostly in boxes - I still haven’t unpacked completely, sad to say), but if you want remind me and I’ll find you the citation info.
I’d also point out that research on rapists is usually on convicted rapists - a disproportionate number of whom are stranger rapists. I’m therefore not sure that the research is really representative of acquaintence and date rapists.
Mithras also wrote: One other thing. Your theory seems to presuppose that only men whose masculinity is threatened rape. How to explain men who have willing sexual partners who then also rape? To use your analogy, how to explain the rich person who embezzles or commits tax fraud?
Yet rich people embezzle and commit tax fraud pretty often. I’d say the drive to have more and more money - or to “prove” masculinity over and over again - isn’t a rational drive. Poor people aren’t necessarily more money-driven than Donald Trump, and the dateless geek isn’t necessarily more masculinity-driven than the captain of the football squad.
In fact, those who have the most outward markers of “masculinity” are sometimes the ones who are most driven to prove it, over and over. (To some degree, that may be why they have so many markers of masculinity).
A lot also has to do with one’s peer group, I think. Someone in a geeky peer group may be able to “show masculinity” to his wimpy peers just by collecting soft-porn images of women (Boris paintings, comic books featuring women with breasts larger than their heads, etc) and saying sexist things. In contrast, someone who is in a group that competes to see how many girls they can score with may feel that his masculinity is threatened if he has had sex with only one or two girls and his peers have five or six.
Neko and PinkDreamPoppies also addressed this question very well, I thought.
Wookie, thanks so much for sharing your story here.
Sara and also Leah (responding to her first question), I think it’s possible - even necessary - to have enough complexity of thought to simultaniously admit that our culture molds us and influences our actions, and a the same time to realize that we’re individually accountable for our actions.
(By the way, I think a lot of rapists resolve the “rape is wrong” problem by convincing themselves that what they did wasn’t rape).
The large majority of men go through life without ever committing rape. Yes, we’re all screwed up by society - but it’s up to us as individuals what we do with that. Someone who rapes is - well, I was going to say “an asshole,” but that’s not nearly strong enough. They’re goddamned rapist scum, and they chose that themselves at some level, and I think we all agree that they should be held responsible as individuals for their crime.
That said, I do think it’s probable that if we changed society, and in particular changed the way we raise boys into men, we’d have fewer men making the choice to rape.
As for different forms of masculinity, I’m not sure I agree with you or disagree with you. What you write makes sense, but then again, I’ve known women who have escaped conservative Christian communities with horror stories. Not having ever been a Christian Conservative myself, it’s hard for me to tell how much of the piousness is real and commonplace and how much is hypocripsy. (And don’t even get me started on the Mormons!)
I certainly do agree that there are multiple, competing visions of masculinity. Since there are multiple versions, probably some do less harm than others. I’m not sure that there are any that aren’t harmful at all, however. Look at the letters Margaret Cho got from self-described Christians - there’s a lot of woman-hating (and, I’d suspect, homophobia) lurking below the surface of Christian Conservative culture.
There are certainly visions of masculinity that I can see the value of - take Atticus Finch, for instance. But I think it’s more important to wipe out the entire notion that “being a man” is something that we have to aspire to, or fear losing.
Leah, I certainly wasn’t meaning to explain what’s going on with incest, and especially not with someone who molests a 2-year-old. As others wrote, I was trying to talk about the typical rapist, and I don’t think what I said applies to the sick bastard you describe.
Obviously, I agree that men need to be held more accountable for their actions.
Mychelline, I haven’t read that book and I should. I’ve done a lot of reading, and have read a few of the authors you mention discussing rape in other publications. My own views on rape probably come closer to Michael Kimmels’ than Andrea Dworkin’s, although I like both writers. (I’m particularly a fan of Dworkin’s “I Want a 24-Hour Truce During Which There is No Rape.”)
Thanks to everyone for responding.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 6:49 pm
“They will date women who routinely treat them like garbage, and then complain that women don’t appreciate nice guys (well, duh, not the ones they’re dating). ”
The same argument used to blame the women for being in abusive relationships.
Congratulations.
This comment was written by mister.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 7:10 pm
Very interesting, both the post and the comments to it. I think that you’ve got something here, Ampersand, but my own thoughts are in a bit of confusion about the issue. Have to think some more:).
The concept of masculinity as something fragile strikes very true, though, and explains quite a few other things as well, not just possibly rape. I’m thinking of the anger of many male blue-collar workers when the first woman joins the team. Where does this anger come from? If they think she’s no good, well, haven’t they had other not-so-great coworkers before?
Ineptness may well be the quoted reason, but I think the real reason is this fragile masculinity concept: If this job, which defines me as a man (provider and strong) can be done by women, or even one woman, am I still a man? Nobody likes to have such self-doubts, so I understand why this might be the reason for sexual harassment on the job, especially as such harassment itself might score one some male points. It’s still wrong, of course. Speaking as a one-time victim of such acts.
I still think (despite many good comments suggesting other reasons for this on an earlier thread here)that femininity is nowhere near as fragile, on the whole, because femininity is already at the bottom of the hierarchy hill. What seems to be fragile is the way to salvation for women, i.e., how to act to get out of the ghetto. Is it by getting bigger breasts or a face-lift? More revealing clothes? Appreciation of porn? Is it by being ‘one of the guys’ or ‘daddy’s girl’?
None of these work, though all of them are earnestly tried by many.
Sorry for getting off the path so much.
This comment was written by Echidne.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 7:37 pm
Sorry to join the Greek chorus on this one, but excellent work. Was particularly salient for me, as I go to an all guys’ high school, where the machoismo culture is omnipresent. I’ll also join the chorus on the innate/societal argument: it doesn’t particularly matter to what extent masculinity is biologically or socially derived, just what social changes we need to make to put an end to it.
The obvious question this begs is, though: how on earth _do_ we change this? Americans, by and large, would scream “social engineering!” or some similarly vacuous battle cry if there was a major effort by the government to do battle with Rape Culture rather than simply individual cases of rape. It’s the same paradigm that precludes us from winning the War On Drugs: our only solution to a problem is to boost penalties and talk about being “tough on crime”.
Or am I just so blind a liberal that I’m not looking at nongovernmental solutions to this?
This comment was written by theogon.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 7:38 pm
I’ve been looking around the internet for more resources on rape and this struck my attention:
CHARACTERISTICS OF ACQUAINTANCE RAPISTS
1. Acts immaturely, shows little empathy or feeling for others and displays little social conscience.
2. Displays anger or aggression either verbally or physically. May be displayed during conversations by general negative references to women, vulgarity, curtness toward others, and the like. Often views women as adversaries.
3. Acts “macho” and discusses acts of physical prowess excessively.
4. Displays short temper, physically abusive (slapping, grabbing arms, etc.)
5. Acts excessively jealous and/or possessive of you. Be especially suspicious of this behavior if you have recently met or are on a first or second date.
6. Ignores your space boundaries by being too close or by placing his hand on your thigh, etc. Especially when you are in public.
7. Ignores your wishes.
8. Attempts to make you feel guilty or accuses you of being “upright.”
9. Becomes hostile and/or increasingly more aggressive when you say no about anything.
10. Acts particularly friendly at a party/bar and tries to separate you from your friends.
11. Insists on being alone with you on a first date.
12. Demands your attention or compliance at inappropriate times such as during a class.
13. Asks personal questions and is interested in knowing more than you want to tell him.
14. Subscribes excessively to traditional male and female stereotypes.
[end]
All of these characteristics fit your analysis well, Amp, the entitlement, the adherence to gender roles, but not the position of women possessing sex.
While I agree that society generally believes that women possess sex, I tend to get the feeling that it is also assumed that men have the right to take sex.
I’m particularly troubled by the language of sex. I frequently hear my male peers refer to sex as hitting it, getting it, slamming it, fucking (which isn’t alogether bad, I suppose), women as pussy, men as pimps, shall I go on?
And as I see it, all of this adds to the culture of rape.
The other night, someone called me a pimp. A good thing. I said, “Well, I guess it’s good that you didn’t call me a bitch.” The guy was floored. “I never call women bitches.”
He gets half the point. He understands that calling a woman a bitch is disrespectful, but has never really thought out what it insinuates when one is called a pimp.
Hey, Echidne got off the mark. My right, too.
This comment was written by Ms Lauren.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 8:20 pm
I’d like to suggest that rape is just an extreme form of the conventional asymmetry between aggressive men and passive women. Men desire, women are desired. Men ask for dates and pay the bills.
If we want to change the culture, we need to improve the status of women, which we are doing, however slowly. This is something we can achieve in the social and political arena.
In the cultural realm, we need to consider women equal partners in sexuality, and perhaps we could teach them not to consider masculinity fragile.
(Personally, I think Amp is overestimating the fragility and underestimating violence, but that is probably just my upbringing.)
This comment was written by bad Jim.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 9:58 pm
theogon: I cling to the belief we can change society for the better, through government controls and general activism. It’s not easy, nor is it clear exactly how this would be done, but as an example I consider lynchings in the south. Until recently, lynchings were commonplace, and now they’re not. There’s more to it than that, but that’s a distinct improvement that allows me to believe that the Herculean task of ending our rape culture will be accomplished.
But then that’s the optimistic humanist in me talking.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 11:34 pm
This whole theory is hard to reconcile when you find that rape is prevalent among animals.
This comment was written by Eric.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2004 at 11:52 pm
Eric, so is incest. And baby-killing. Doesn’t mean that it should or does influence human behavior.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 12:40 am
Is anything chimpanzee entirely alien?
This comment was written by bad Jim.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 1:54 am
The Culture of Rape
This comment was written by The Poor Man.Excellent post by Ampersand called “What Causes Rape? Anatomy of a Rape Culture”, where he proposes - quite convincingly, I…
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February 12th, 2004 at 4:45 am
Reasons #1 and #2 are hard to argue with, but #3 is just plain silly. Only an extreme social constructionist could possibly believe that women’s power over men to decide if and when sex happens is just a “myth” with no basis in the objective reality. Eggs are expensive and sperm is cheap, and everything logically follows from this.
It would be just as silly to claim that “power is something possessed by rich people, in our society’s warped view”, even though I bet rich people would love it if they could persuade the others to think that they don’t really have any power over them. After all, what difference does it really make to anything if in the bank’s computer, person A’s account has a few bits on that are off in person B’s account? Nothing! It is just a myth!
Is it also just “a myth” that employers have more power than employees? Is a job something that an employer has and can choose to give or decline to an applicant? Why, of course this is just a myth! Employers and employees are perfectly symmetrical partners in a job relationship! Therefore there is no need whatsoever for unions, workplace safety legislation or anti-discrimination laws.
(I can’t help but add: “That’s also why employees are taught to wait to be asked for a job interview, while employers are taught to do the choosing. Employers have it; employees ask for it.”)
This comment was written by Ilkka Kokkarinen.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 5:58 am
Rape does not exist amongst animals. Forced copulation does. There is a world of difference between the two; why for example, is there stigma associated with being a rape victim in human society? Clearly, there are characteristics and consequences associated with forced copulation in human societies that transform it into rape. For a more detailed explanation of the distinction, Anne Fausto-Sterling has a really good discussion of forced copulation in mallards in Myths of Gender.
To the biological determinists generally; please can you explain the cultural differences in the treatment of rape and female sexuality in genetic or biological terms, between say, Saudi Arabia and the US? Or feel free to address how it is that there has been such a huge shift in how sex and female sexuality functions in only three generations in the West.
I thought it was a great piece, although I have some qualms about shifting the focus so dramatically away from violence. The cultural sanction for men to externalise their anger and violence, versus the tendency for women to internalise theirs, seems pertinent for example.
This comment was written by Tcharn.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 6:28 am
“This whole theory is hard to reconcile when you find that rape is prevalent among animals.”
So is stealing. So is infanticide. So is killing.
So?
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 10:23 am
Reasons #1 and #2 are hard to argue with, but #3 is just plain silly. Only an extreme social constructionist could possibly believe that women’s power over men to decide if and when sex happens is just a “myth” with no basis in the objective reality. Eggs are expensive and sperm is cheap, and everything logically follows from this.
Well, I must be an extreme social constructionist then, because it seems pretty clear to me that women do in fact have sexual desire of their own, and that men are, at times, not in the mood or are otherwise unattracted to women who are readily available to them. An act of sex takes two (or more) willing and equal partners. Neither of the parties involved posseses something that the other doesn’t possess in kind, nor can either of the parties grant something that the other doesn’t grant in kind. That the idea that women “possess” sex runs so deep in our culture that some see it as a biological certainty doesn’t bode well for the eradication of rape culture.
This comment was written by Dan J.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 10:42 am
Rape Culture
This comment was written by Lying Media Bastards.What Causes Rape? Anatomy of a rape culture is a very good post over at Alas, A Blog. It looks
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February 12th, 2004 at 11:36 am
Dan J: “Well, I must be an extreme social constructionist then, because it seems pretty clear to me that women do in fact have sexual desire of their own, and that men are, at times, not in the mood or are otherwise unattracted to women who are readily available to them. An act of sex takes two (or more) willing and equal partners.”
We can apply your logic to the workplace. For example, employers have desire to hire workers (note: I use “worker” simply as a generic term here for simplicity), and some workers are, at times, not in the mood to do certain work that is readily available to them. A job takes two willing and equal partners: the employer who pays for the work and the worker who does it.
Based on this, do we conclude that employers and workers “possess” a job exactly the same way? Or, using your words, “Neither of the parties involved posseses something that the other doesn’t possess in kind, nor can either of the parties grant something that the other doesn’t grant in kind.”
No. Since the employer needs the worker far less than the worker needs the employer (exactly the same way women want men far less than men want women), the party who is needed less by the other one has to make concessions for the transaction to go through. For example, it is the worker who has to send hundreds of resume to the employers to get a job, and the employers just sit back and select the few that they like for a job interview. (Analogy to men and women is hopefully obvious.)
Is it this way simply because our society has somehow decided so, with no basis on supply and demand? Could the society decide that from now on, it shall be the employers who send their resumes and work offers directly to workers, who just sit back, sift through the hundreds of job offers and select the best employers for whom they’ll grant an interview?
The society recognizes that an employer and a worker do not have symmetrical power over each other, and therefore grants more legal protection to the party who is needed less by the other one. For example, when employers are hiring, they cannot legally discriminate based on race. The job applicants have no such legal duty: they can freely not apply if they don’t like the race of the employer.
This comment was written by Ilkka Kokkarinen.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 12:08 pm
Ilkka, I don’t think your analogy really works. The reason for the asymmetric power of employers and employees is twofold: 1. The society has allocated the property rights to jobs to the owners of the firms, not the workers. This is a cultural thing, and possible to change. 2. The number of employers is much smaller vis-a-vis workers. These are what create the extra power of the employers. They can always hire someone else, and they can also pretty much fire people at will in many countries (though not in all, of course).
Men and women are roughly equal in numbers, so the supply and demand analogy based on few numbers on one side doesn’t work. The property rights to women’s bodies have traditionally not been given to the women themselves, but rather first to their father and then their husband. This certainly still affects the cultural perception that men have some rights to control the sexuality of women.
You also argue that men need women more than women need men. This seems to be based on the argument that sperm is cheap and plentiful and eggs are few and expensive. First, neither sperm nor eggs are human beings. Second, whether eggs are less plentiful than sperm doesn’t really matter as even with eggs a girl starts with many more than she can ever use. Third, I don’t really see where the expensiveness or cheapness comes in. Sperm seems to be produced as a matter of fact, and eggs are there from the beginning.
I think you mean that you believe that in theory one man could inseminate thousands of women, is somehow very aware of this, and furiously tries to do just so, whereas women can only have at most, say, thirty births per life, are assumed to be aware of this, and try to be selective in whom they choose to have these children with. This is one of the Rudyard Kipling-like stories that sometimes are called sociobiology. For men and women to be this way, the argument goes, the mass-inseminator guys beat out all the other guys, so now men have these desires, too. Why women don’t get them passed on from their fathers is not explained, as there is actually absolutely no genetic evidence for this theory to begin with.
It suffers from a lot of problems, and I’m not going to write a book here, but one example might be useful: There is an assumption here that genes are passed on by the simple act of intercourse. But not all intercourse leads to pregnancy, and especially in prehistoric times it must have been incredibly hard for a woman to bring up baby to adulthood. Only adult children can pass the genes on in the next round, after all. So a man who flitted around like a butterfly from one flower to another might not have left behind many babies, after all. Maybe the man who stuck around, shared his food with the woman and protected and helped care for the child got at least as many of his genes passed on?
I might also point out that sperm is not as plentiful as has been assumed by the (predominantly male) evolutionary psychologists. Recent research shows that men’s sperm count declines quite rapidly with age, so that the biological clock is no longer seen as just a woman’s problem. It has also been found that Down Syndrome babies born to older mothers might not be because her eggs have grown old, but because older mothers tend to have older partners whose sperm appears to have many more anomalies than that of younger men.
IOW, to base rape on the men’s biological desire to spread their seed widely is not necessarily an established sort of scientific theory.
This comment was written by Echidne.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 12:12 pm
This workplace analogy is completely fallacious. Neither men nor women, employers or employees, experience pleasure from their jobs in the same way that they experience pleasure during sex. Sexual desire and the desire for a job are two seperate types of desire, and because women desire sexual pleasure, too, they don’t “possess sex,” or have control over the whole of sexuality.
And don’t try to tell me that women don’t like sex. I know plenty of women who lust after men, and other women, more than I do.
This comment was written by Corwin.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 12:41 pm
Great post, Amp; just excellent.
I will say that I think in some respects, Ilkka may have a point. Just potentially not the point he thinks he does. It is accepted, in Western societies and some others that women “own” sex. But this is a learned behaivior, not - I believe - genetically determined.
Men are taught that sex is something they seek from women and womon are - generally - taught that they are the ones to be asked and who can give permission. They are taught to protect their “virtue,” while waiting for just the right person to come along. This is a broad-brush statement, and behaviors and mores are changing, albeit slowly.
The answer, however, is one that Amp and some others have advocated, but which, like Ilkka doesn’t quite address the problem in the way they think it does. Teaching the equality of men and women (in this case, most especially in sexuallity). Equality of sexuality would not only have the goal of changing the perceived role of men, but of women as well.
What I’m trying to get to is that this change would result in both men and women learning that neither of them “owns” sexuality, but that it is something that can really only exist between two people. The Omega Man (or Woman) could not rightly be said to posses sexuality: that means something only in relation to another person.
Again, Amp, I think you’re on the right track here…
This comment was written by Charles2.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 1:51 pm
Admittedly, “Eggs are expensive and sperm is cheap” is somewhat of an oversimplification. (I really didn’t expect anyone to take this as literally as Echidne!) It is better to simply say that for women, the consequences of sex are a much higher burden than they are to a man. Especially so in the prehistorical times with none of the help and welfare that the modern society offers, without which pregnancy is super-expensive.
Therefore, women have evolved to be more choosy on who they have sex with. Women who were less choosy had their children mostly with loser men, and their genetic lines disappeared countless millenia ago.
This strange idea that women want sex with men as much as men want sex with women… it simply goes so much against the common sense and all everyday observations of how the world really works that I really have to wonder what planet the people who claim such a thing actually live in. I guess Tom Cruise or Matt Damon could honestly believe it based on their personal experiences, but the real-life experiences of about, say, 99.999% of men have taught them very differently.
If women really want sex as much an men, they admittedly do quite an impressive job in hiding it. When we think of phenomena that occur in the sexual pairing process in the real world, they tend to be highly consistent with the hypothesis “women want sex less than men” and more or less inconsistent with the opposite hypothesis. I challenge anyone to come up with an example real-world phenomenon for which this does not hold in the level of the general population.
For starters, please explain the complete lack of heterosexual bathhouses. After that, you could explain why practically all thirtysomething involuntary virgins are men.
The original analogy of workplace and sex was simply meant to illustrate that the argument “because sex takes two, both men and women have equal power” is invalid. Now Corwin, since it was an analogy, of course it will fail at other points. But I now cannot stop myself from extending that analogy and noting that employers typically distribute their paychecks far more equitably compared to how women distribute their sexual favours. The women “who lust after men, and other women, more than I do” are probably highly choosy of what men they so highly lust after.
This comment was written by Ilkka Kokkarinen.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 2:11 pm
You know, Ilkka, not once, but multiple times in my life I’ve turned down offers for sex with women. And I’m not a physically attractive guy (not by standard measures, anyhow). I say that not to show off (I’ve also been turned down, natch), but to make the point that even anecdotally, what you describe doesn’t match my life’s experiences.
There isn’t a complete lack of heterosexual bathhouses (assuming by “bathhouse,” you mean “private club where people go to have sex”). Nor is there a complete lack of lesbian bathhouses, for that matter. It’s true that gay male bathhouses are far more common. However, that’s as easily explained culturally as it is biologically.
I have no idea where your data on 30-year-old virgins comes from. Can you provide a source?
One interesting thing is that virtually every society comes up with severe restrictions to limit women’s sexuality. From clitorectomies, to the daughters-as-property measures used in Saudi Arabia (and also in Western society until fairly recently), going all the way back to biblical times (remember the bit in the Old Testiment about how a woman who merely brushes her hand against a man’s clothed crotch should be executed?), there’s a long tradition of restraining women from expressing sexuality with horrible punishments and dire restrictions.
Why was all of that invented, if women are biologically programmed to be relatively indifferent to sex?
There are several species of animals and birds where the females sleep around - bonobo chimps are the most famous example - despite the fact that there are more sperm than eggs, and the cost to the female of preganancy is higher than the cost to the male. If sperm and egg counts are as biologically deterministic as you claim, then how do you explain the behavior of these species?
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 2:25 pm
To add to what Ampersand said, it’s really difficult to differentiate how women feel about sex per se, and how they feel about the prospect of going away for a quickie with a stranger. I’d suspect that almost all women’s sexual desires are mixed up with things like fear of possible male violence from a stranger and fear of unplanned pregnancy. The consequences of sex for women may be more serious than for men, but I don’t think that these consequences need to affect the women’s sexual desire; they are just an additional consideration. What they do affect is how women act, and the way women act is also severely affected by societal and cultural considerations, as Ampersand pointed out. It is indeed true that it is the women’s sexuality that is usually severely controlled, not the men’s. I’ve even read that in some cultures the belief is that women are utterly insatiable sexually, and that that’s why they must be controlled.
Btw., Ilkka, I have serious reservations with the idea that women who mated with the losers didn’t get to pass their genes on. There is no way to get evidence about this theory: we have not sociological artefacts from prehistory; in fact, we barely have some bone fragments. And what ‘a loser’ might have been in those days is another difficult question to answer. We don’t even know what the climate was like, precisely, or how the early hominids or whatever lived. Where they even in large enough groups to afford the men the chance to mate with many women? This seems pretty unlikely, based on studies of primates. And also, btw., chimpanzee females also practise what might be called marital infidelity. They are so good at it, that researchers only found out when the DNA tested the babies that were being born. About a third of them had a father not in the group. So the females had slipped away to meet strangers.
This comment was written by Echidne.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 2:31 pm
I don’t usually advertize my blog on other blog’s comment threads, but my last post actually is about some of my criticisms concerning the weird world of evolutionary psychology or sociobiology.
If it’s not ok to post the link here (for Ilkka ;)), go ahead and remove the post.
On Buttocks
This comment was written by Echidne.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 4:22 pm
What I’ve been reading while I haven’t been writing
This comment was written by Sappho's Breathing.So much interesting writing, so little time: (1) I’m riding Atrios’ coattails’ by providing this link, but Gail Sheedhy’s New York Observer article about the questions not being asked in the 9/11 commission makes me ill. I’m warning you: it’s…
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February 12th, 2004 at 4:56 pm
I’m not a big fan of evolutionary psychology. It serves as an excuse for horrible human behavior. For the most part, it ignores that human beings have free will and are not subject only to their “innate” desires, if you happen to believe in innate social behavior, which I, obviously, do not.
This comment was written by Ms Lauren.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 5:53 pm
I concur in the suspicion toward evolutionary psychology. Amp, correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t there been studies showing that most sex offenders (indeed, most violent criminals) were themselves victims of sexual or physical abuse during childhood? This suggests that they are acting out learned behavior, not something innate.
This comment was written by Tom T..Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 6:05 pm
Very interesting article and I believe it has some interesting perspective, but…
The primary reason people engage in sex of any kind boils down to biological drive, but moreover, it feels good. The only forces stronger in our psyche than sex would be breathing and eating.
Without the ability to breathe we cease to exist quite quickly. Lack of food and water will have the same result over a longer period of time.
Oddly enough eating and sex both bring higher levels of sensual enjoyment than the higher priority of breathing.
So why do people rape? While it’s also possible to find psychological reasons for rape, it boils down to two major points.
1)It feels damn good, which leads us to
2)Not caring about others enough to not do that which we feel strong desire to do.
All other differences withstanding, one constant you will find with all rapists is their self-centeredness and ability to justify whatever they want to do.
This comment was written by Akami.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2004 at 6:56 pm
Akami: pleasure + lack of morals is an inadequate explanation. All that requires for me to reach orgasm is to masturbate. Copulation _with_ someone else probably involves one or a mix of either love, social accomplishment (affirmation that one is a “real man” as per the article), or desire to control - with rapists, we’re talking about the third and possibly the second. Hence, social/psychological factors have to be involved, not just pleasure-seeking; otherwise, all we’d have to do to stop rape in this country is hand out free buckets of rocky road.
Raznor: I don’t disagree that a large enough, well-thought-out government campaign could put an end to this within, say, a generation; I’m just not so optimistic about our ability to get it through the legislature. Even if we mobilize every feminist group in the country there will be a counterreaction - we’d be dealing not only with a population that slanders any government project to change culture for the better as “social engineering” but also with the famed white male paranoia of emasculation. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, though.
The best bet in my opinion, considering the difficulty in large-scale governmental action, would be to go after the three socializing pillars: school, media, parenting. The best penetration (pardon the loaded term, in this context) into the latter that’s really possible to get is in those dumb parenting manuals, but whatever. In the media (films, etc.) I suppose a concerted ideological effort towards the demythologization of the manly would be the path, but as in the last one, going for the lowbrow is the key. As for school, copy the Religious Right: take over PTAs, bowlderize books of objectionable material, and influence teaching philosophy. The main problem with this course of action is that it’s horribly long-term, and its resources are limited to the network of feminist/liberal activists (Gee, it’s not like _those_ resources are stretched to the limit). The main advantage is that I have absolutely no qualifications to talk about this kind of thing whatsoever, so there’s probably a much better one out there. Any takers?
This comment was written by theogon.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 4:38 am
Ampersansd’s post was excellent and reinforced many of the views I have about rape and masculinity. I have been reading the comments with interest.
The idea that women = sex = women is so pervasive in our culture. To take a brief example, whenever people defend ads which are offensive to feminists they always excuse it by saying that that “sex sells”. What they are actually referring to, 90% of the time, is women’s bodies, not actually sex. This is just one example of the way in which women’s bodies = sex in our culture. Women’s bodies have come to represent sex.
I hate these biological arguments, too. In many ways they are a red herring. So what if rape exists in the “natural world”? So what if there is more sperm around than eggs? It’s irrelevant - sex without consent is WRONG. FULL STOP (sorry - period for your U.S. people!). END OF STORY. We are human, we can control our actions and we have morals and - in theory - empathy with other people. There is NO excuse for rape. I’m not accusing anyone of trying to condone rape here, just trying to get back to the basic facts in a way.
The idea that “men want sex more than women” is a cultural construction which changes from culture to culture and throughout history. I studied the European medieaval witchcrazes as part of my History degree and the belief current at the time, for *centuries* in fact, was that women were infinitely more carnal and more desiring for sex then men. Women were more *earthly*, more “of the body” and men were “higher”, more mental and more spiritual. Women were blamed for leading men astray, and this is also why peple thought they would be more susceptible to becoming witches. This was the *undisputed* belief at the time, as sure as it is the undisputed belief today that men “just want it more” than women.
Things change.
We once belived the earth was flat, but that didn’t make it true.
We have to - we *must* - always question the way things are. One of the things that I love about feminism is that it *questions* - it doesn’t accept the way things currently are as “this is the way it is, this is the way it has always been and always will be” which some people seem to. It’s also optimistic - it has vision and hope that society can change. All of this men are from mars crap that the media comes out with is totally depressing, imho.
I love the postcard which says:
Men are from earth.
This comment was written by Catherine Redfern.Women are from earth.
Deal with it.
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February 13th, 2004 at 5:44 am
Ampersand: “There isn’t a complete lack of heterosexual bathhouses”
Yes, there is. A total and complete lack. I can easily demonstrate this: I bet nobody here is able to name even one. To specify: (1) Within reasonable requirements of hygiene, age, looks and sobriety, any man or woman can enter by paying a modest entrance fee and (2) at least 1/3 of the patrons are women and (3) casual sex is the main activity. (Places like this for gay men are easy enough to find: heck, even my university newspaper contains big ads for one.) So, anyone?
Women simply do not want sex with men as much as men want sex. This is simply so obvious that I again note how surreal it is even to read some people claim otherwise. It is like as if somebody claimed that poor people really have just as much political power than rich people. (Of course, it is not hard to see the political goal of making such claims.)
Since women do not constrain the sexual market for gays, by looking at how gay men behave we can get an idea how dramatic this difference really is. For a gay man, it is not uncommon to have hundreds, even thousands of sexual partners during his lifetime, despite the relative rarity of potential partners.
This comment was written by Ilkka Kokkarinen.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 5:53 am
Echidne: “I have serious reservations with the idea that women who mated with the losers didn’t get to pass their genes on. There is no way to get evidence about this theory:”
It follows simply by definition of the evolutionary process. The evolutionary process requires selection to work, so that not everyone produces viable offspring at the same rate. Humans are a product of darwinian evolution, so there has necessarily been some kind of selection. Evolutionary losers do not produce viable offspring as well as the evolutionary winners.
Of course, our modern concept of “loser” probably is very similar to that of evolutionary losers: physical and social weakness, stupidity, inability to plan for the future etc. This is because it is difficult to imagine an environment where these properties would be assets to anybody.
This comment was written by Ilkka Kokkarinen.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 6:09 am
Catherine Redfern: “I hate these biological arguments, too. In many ways they are a red herring. So what if rape exists in the “natural world”? So what if there is more sperm around than eggs?”
I love it how quickly my notion that there is a evolutionary explanation for why women want sex less than men turned into an implication that rape has an evolutionary explanation.
“The idea that “men want sex more than women” is a cultural construction which changes from culture to culture and throughout history.”
Very well. People, here is another challenge. There are thousands of cultures around the world. Name one real culture where women are visibly significantly more eager to have sex than men. For example, a culture where the average man can simply walk into the bar or other such common meeting place and wait for dozens of women to try to approach him for sex.
If anybody seriously believes that primitive cultures (medieval Europe, modern Middle East) severely restrict women’s sexuality for any other reason than that each woman is property of some man, I have a bridge to sell you. This phenomenon is no different to a modern car owner using locks, alarms and other anti-theft devices to restrict his car’s freedom to let other people drive it. It’s not that the car has this burning desire to let other people drive it, it’s simply that there are lots of people who would do it if given a chance.
“We once belived the earth was flat, but that didn’t make it true.”
That is such an overused cliche that I hope this wasn’t taught in your history class as an actual medieval belief.
“We have to - we *must* - always question the way things are. One of the things that I love about feminism is that it *questions*”
Another cliche so overused that it is now only silly. It doesn’t seem to me that feminism ever questions the idea that absolutely everything is socially constructed. If anyone has a counterexample for this, please let’s hear it.
This comment was written by Ilkka Kokkarinen.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 7:12 am
Ilkka, although you’re very fond of issuing “challenges,” I notice that you ignored my question to you. Here it is again:
Other folks brought up similar examples, which you didn’t address.
You wrote: “Yes, there is. A total and complete lack [of hetero sex clubs]. I can easily demonstrate this: I bet nobody here is able to name even one.”
First of all, as has already been pointed out, this is a ridiculous measure of biological tendencies, because sex clubs happen in a social context. There are many more social restraints on women’s sexuality (plus worries about safety and the like) - and, just as importantly, many men are raised to believe that they need to have frequent sex. To claim that this is proof of biological disposition is just silly; it’s not proof of anything either way.
In other words, I think this is a stupid argument, and I resent being dragged into it.
Second of all, there are indeed heterosexual sex clubs. Here’s a few I found with a brief search of newspapers (there were dozens more, I’m not bothering to list them all):
In and around San Diego, there’s Thad’s, Club Exchange, La Villa and Club CB, among others. (San Diego Union-Tribune, 5/5/2002)
The Fantasy Barn and Couples Playhouse in Illinois (Chicago Sun-Times 1/16/03)
From an article in The Guardian (8/29/03) about La Chambre, Britain’s largest swingers club:
Mingles in Connecticut was busted by the cops, but according to the newspaper article there are at least seven other such clubs in the state. (Hartford-Courant, 9/16/03)
The San Diego Union-Tribune article estimated that there are about 400 such clubs in the US. That’s not much compared to gay clubs, but it’s still a lot more than the none you claim exist.
I can’t believe I’m wasting my time discussing this.
* * *
A couple of comments.
First of all, what you’re saying is just as true (or just as lacking truth) of men who breed with “losers” as women who breed with “losers.” So why did you single out just one sex?
Second of all, people who are socially or physically weak or who aren’t good future-planners still exist, so it’s clear that these traits have not been bred out of humanity. Either these traits do not breed true, or perhaps they aren’t big impediments to breeding after all. (After all, if a “loser” manages to mate, why shouldn’t their “loser” kids manage the same?)
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 7:13 am
Ilkka, it seems that sociobiologists never ever question the idea that all behavior is due to genes.
Women who fuck around are branded sluts, whores, and other lovely things. *Society* (male-dominated society) devalues women who are openly sexual. So it’s rather disingenious to say that women don’t want sex because you see no evidence of it, when women who act like they want sex are pilloried.
If it’s so natural for women to not want sex as much as men, why all the societal effort to keep our legs closed?
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 7:17 am
Ilkka, you are completely divorced from my reality; and in my reality *women want sex.*
You can look at the Good Vibrations website, for instance; that’s a sex shop founded and run by women. Pay close attention to the workshops they run.
You could also look at Tristan Taormino’s website; she’s made a career ouot of teaching people how to have anal sex. She is also, last time I checked, a woman.
You could visit One Leg Up NYC; a recurring sex party run by a woman.
You could find the books written by Dossie Eastman and Catherine Lizst, on polyamory and BDSM. They mention over and over in those books how much they like sex.
Now, Echidne is completely correct that social considerations will modify behavior. However, when (not if) you find safe social spaces, women’s and men’s sexuality equals out.
This comment was written by Corwin.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 7:53 am
I’d also like to make the flip-side of Amp’s argument from personal experience, and comment that as a reasonably attractive heterosexual woman (within 50 pounds of a medically approved body-weight; no major facial scars) I have in my more promiscuous younger days frequently offered to have sex with particular men and been refused.
One way that the “women have sex, men seek it” idea is socially self-reinforcing is that it raises the possible level of humilation for a woman who seeks sex. When a man seeks sex from a woman, and is refused, something perfectly normal in our society has happened — he may be annoyed and moderately humiliated, but it is on some level an expected result. When a woman seeks sex from a man and is refused, something truly strange has happened — we ‘know’ that the vast majority of men are willing to have sex with any woman on a moment’s notice, so a refusal must indicate that the woman is not only ’slutty’ (which is oddly a sexually unattractive quality in our culture) but somehow truly outside the pale as a possible sex partner. Given the asymmetry in the possible social penalties for failure, is it surprising that fewer women actively seek sex from men than the reverse?
This comment was written by LizardBreath.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 8:42 am
To add to Amp & LizardBreath’s comments:
Yeah, I’ve been offered sex by women. And I’ve turned down offers of sex from women. I also (although it’s anecdotal) have not seen that men solicit sex more often than women. It’s true that, for the most part, methods of propositioning differ between the sexes. For cultural/societal/learned reasons I would guess.
I think Ilkka is off his rocker if he really believes that men want sex more often than women. I’ve never seen any sort of credible study that supports that position. In fact, the studies that I have seen support the idea that libido is more or less equal between the sexes.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 8:48 am
Ampersand: for your question about animals, of course in many animal species, the females are known to eagerly mate with highest-quality males and let their lower-quality mate help take care of the offspring. This is a successful strategy for female in producing best offspring so it is no wonder it evolves. Of course, it is not totally unknown among the human females either. One should also note that the females do not go for the weakest and lowest-status males to copulate with.
According to a short Google search I just did (but of course I knew it would be so even before the search), the sex clubs that you listed are swingers clubs, which are a completely different thing from what I asked! These clubs carefully screen the members that they allow in, and they do not allow single men to enter at all.
So no dice. I ask again: does there exist even one bathhouse / sex club that an average single man can walk in, pay a modest entrance fee and have sex with several eager females? If the security is an issue, one might think that these places could hire bodyguards to take care of that. And why isn’t the security such an issue for gay bathhouses?
Furthermore, for the swingers clubs, you consider the enthusiasm of the women there as evidence that women want sex as much as men. It might be that, but it also could be evidence for the exact opposite! Consider the possibility that these women are statistical outliers among women for how choosy they are of the men that they have sex with. Typical women do not find the idea of swinging at all appealing, and since woman’s willingness is the constraint that determines whether a couple will swing. Therefore all couples that you can find in a swingers club have such an outlier female who is unusually less choosy.
To answer your question about “losers”, of course the situation is symmetric between men and women and dogs and elephants, but the original topic was about women, so I wrote about women instead of men or dogs or elephants.
Lastly, your reasoning of why weakness (and other properties we usually associate to “loser”) is not a big impediment to breeding could directly be used to prove that lethal diseases are not really a big impediment to breeding, since they also exist today. (In fact, the logic here reminds me of a conservative column I once read. It claimed that homosexuality cannot possibly be genetic, since if it was, it would have already been bred out of existence.)
Corwin: “Ilkka, you are completely divorced from my reality; and in my reality *women want sex.*”
Add “…with alpha males” to the end of that sentence and I agree 100%.
Of course, fully celibate women do did not want sex at all have been selected against in evolution, and their genetic lines have disappeared long ago. So women do want sex sometimes. Just not nearly as much as men, and they are quite a bit choosier of who they have it with. Just like the evolutionary biology correctly predicts.
This comment was written by Ilkka Kokkarinen.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 8:53 am
I love it how quickly my notion that there is a evolutionary explanation for why women want sex less than men turned into an implication that rape has an evolutionary explanation.
Well, evolutionary psychologists do loudly declare the notion that because rape exists in nature, so it exists in “civilized” society. Their further response is that rapists shouldn’t be stigmatized as horrible creatures, because, after all, they are just responding to their “natural instincts.”
I’m paraphrasing, of course.
Of course it follows that we would implicate that this is what you’re suggesting as well, since you so fervently argue on behalf of their psychological scaffolds, Ilkka.
There’s a reason they’re called evo-psychos. This is the number one reason why I agree.
This comment was written by Ms Lauren.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 8:57 am
Sorry if someone has already addressed this, but: What’s your definition of rape? I ask because you say that the majority of rapes are committed by men, and then later ask why women don’t commit more rapes. My response when I read that is to say, “Of course women don’t commit rapes. They don’t have the necessary equipment.” I.e., I thought rape was something that by definition had to be committed by a man. On the other hand, maybe you’re using “rape” to mean “sexual assault of any kind.”
This comment was written by Joe M..Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 8:57 am
does there exist even one bathhouse / sex club that an average single man can walk in, pay a modest entrance fee and have sex with several eager females?
I think those are known as brothels.
This comment was written by Ms Lauren.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 9:04 am
Name one real culture where women are visibly significantly more eager to have sex than men. For example, a culture where the average man can simply walk into the bar or other such common meeting place and wait for dozens of women to try to approach him for sex.
Well, America, if you’re interested in visible evidence. Why would women wear bikinis and push-up bras if not to attract men? If men wanted more sex, wouldn’t they be the ones trying to attract women? And if an average (read: not supermodel) woman walked into a bar, I sincerely doubt there would be “dozens” of men suddenly hanging all over her. And read Dan Savage’s Skipping Towards Gomorrah for an example of a man walking into a place where all the women want to have sex with him. For that matter, watch any movie where the guy’s divorced and goes to PTA meetings and school soccer games. (I’m not serious about these answers; I’m not taking the question that seriously, either.)
I don’t see any evidence at all, really, that men are more eager to have sex with women than vice versa, except for the prevalence of female prostitutes, and there’s a huge difference between “wanting sex” and “willing to pay for sex.” I mean, of course there’s a stereotype that’s reflected in fiction, TV, and movies, but stereotypes aren’t necessarily true. And even if it were, like several people have said, there are enormous societal influences on who wants and who gets sex.
I ask again: does there exist even one bathhouse / sex club that an average single man can walk in, pay a modest entrance fee and have sex with several eager females?
Oh, I don’t know: brothels?
I’m also sticking with swingers’ clubs. There are thousands in the United States, they cater to heterosexuals, women play a very significant and powerful role in them, and they aren’t terribly hard to find. If you’re trying to prove that more men want sex than women, then you have to accept swingers clubs as a valid argument against it. Just because one isn’t quite as easy to get into as another (and I haven’t been to either, so I don’t know the requirements) doesn’t change the fact that they exist, swingers’ clubs probably in a greater number than bathhouses.
Of course, our modern concept of “loser” probably is very similar to that of evolutionary losers: physical and social weakness, stupidity, inability to plan for the future etc.
But these kinds of people exist all over the place in contemporary society. We’re not all well-organized, beautiful, strong geniuses. So evolution couldn’t have possibly cancelled the “losers” out.
If anybody seriously believes that primitive cultures (medieval Europe, modern Middle East) severely restrict women’s sexuality for any other reason than that each woman is property of some man, I have a bridge to sell you.
Why would they restrict the women’s sexuality, then? Why wouldn’t they make laws that punished men?
You haven’t really provided any evidence whatsoever supporting your assertatins, except “That’s just the way it is,” which I doubt would win over any jury. (Why has this kind of argument popped up so much more often recently?)
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 9:07 am
Ampersand: “…if women are biologically programmed to be relatively indifferent to sex?”
I know that at least I certainly haven’t claimed that. Women are anything but “relatively indifferent” to sex! Sex, and especially avoiding it with most men, is a pretty huge deal for them.
Jake Squid: “I think Ilkka is off his rocker if he really believes that men want sex more often than women. I’ve never seen any sort of credible study that supports that position.”
Have you seen credible studies for the opposite, then? Or do you know of any phenomenon that occurs widely in the general population and is highly consistent with “women want sex as much or even more as men” and highly inconsistent with “women want sex much less than men” ?
I am not just trolling or nitpicking here. I am ready to change my opinion if someone points out such phenomena to me, because I really can’t think of any. (Maybe the society decided that too.)
LizardBreath: “…comment that as a reasonably attractive heterosexual woman (within 50 pounds of a medically approved body-weight; no major facial scars) I have in my more promiscuous younger days frequently offered to have sex with particular men and been refused.”
Most people have a far tighter standard of “reasonably attractive” than being less than 50 pounds overweight and having no major facial scars. You also don’t say anything about how high these men were in the male hiearchy of desirability to women, so it is hard to say anything based on that information.
I am sure that men like Tom Cruise or Matt Damon have often turned down offers to have sex with women, especially women who are 50 pounds overweight.
Neko: “Ilkka, it seems that sociobiologists never ever question the idea that all behavior is due to genes.”
Sociobiologists also don’t go around saying “la de da, it is important to always question everything” and use that pretend that they are somehow morally higher creatures.
This comment was written by Ilkka Kokkarinen.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 9:19 am
Ilkka:
Sociobiologists also don’t go around saying “la de da, it is important to always question everything” and use that pretend that they are somehow morally higher creatures.
Nor do feminists go around saying “la di da, it’s important to swallow social ’science’” and use that to pretend that they are somehow on higher moral ground than people who believe otherwise.
As much proof as you have demanded, you have provided little proof of your own. As much as I respect your commitment to defend your beliefs, you must agree that what you are arguing is just opposite rhetoric, and hardly proof by any means.
This comment was written by Lauren.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 9:19 am
Ms. Lauren and Hestia, so the brothels are the heterosexual equivalent of bathhouses that I earlier asked for? I thought I blocked this escape hatch by using “a modest entrance fee” as a requirement, but we can let that slide for now.
Until now, I believed that the official feminist line was that the prostitutes don’t really enjoy their work, but they just do it for the money. I still believe it, because just as with any other transactions, simply by looking at who has to pay who for sex to happen, we can see which party likes the symmetric sex act less and can therefore ask additional incentives, which in this case is money.
This comment was written by Ilkka Kokkarinen.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 10:00 am
Ilkka, I think that you are misusing evolutionary theory. There are two different things under that label: general evolutionary theory which is a valid enterprise in my mind, and which actually uses evidence from findings of skeletal remains, geological changes etc. Then there is social Darwinism, later called sociobiology and now evolutionary psychology (NOT evolutionary biology as you say).
I have read extensively in this latter field, and the theories are largely pseudoscience, defined as science which you cannot falsify by any kind of conceivable experiment or test. Freudianism is another pseudoscience.
Your argument that losers must have been bred out of the human gene pool is also an example of how evo-psychos do their stuff: They are JustSo -stories, i.e. observe something that you think exists widely today, then explain its absence by noting that at some prehistoric point it was the optimal strategy to follow and was sexually selected, however unsuitable it might be today.
The problems with doing this are obvious to me: anything that I might observe today, from some people committing serial murders to my biting my nails can be explained using this device. What’s more, nobody can come back with evidence that disproves the theory, as there is no such evidence, and it can’t be obtained.
Then the evo-psychos make an appeal to something that sounds very scientific and empirical: genes. But actually they don’t have any of the needed information on genes. It just doesn’t exist yet.
My earlier points were that what a winning strategy for a prehistoric man might have been is not necessarily the one you hold true. If we view ‘passing ones genes on’ from a wider perspective than simple mating fights, it becomes evident that men who assumed other strategies than the wide-inseminator might have had equally good, if not better winning strategies. If that is the case, then today’s men are not, or at least not all, of the wide-inseminator type (if this characteristic is somehow passed on genetically which we don’t know). Other types that have been shown (in theory) to be possibly successful strategies are : friend (one who hangs around the women, helps out and gets permanent access to sex that way)and lover (one who woos a woman intensively for some period of time, then may or may not leave). Thus, your argument that men want more sex with multiple women (which is essentially what you are implying with the bathhouse argument) isn’t the only one that could be derived from evolutionary psychology. It’s incorrect to imply that you somehow have a fact without thinking about where your assertion comes from.
Besides, since the societal norms are so different for women and men as regards sex, I find it very odd that so many evo psychos totally ignore this and just assume that culture has no effect. I’d say that culture has an enormous effect in this field.
My own experiences sometimes make me think that it’s not possible for women to even know themselves how they’d act sexually if the rules were different. The rules have been there since we were little girls, and everything we hear goes one way.
Finally, I’d like to mention the Japanese geisha houses for women. They are a new development, but are doing extremely well. Alcohol can cost $1000 per bottle, but women go in in droves. The workers are young men who are trained in the acts of pleasing their female customers. For example, they are told to call them once and a while during the day etc.
This comment was written by Echidne.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 10:05 am
Ms Lauren: “Of course it follows that we would implicate that this is what you’re suggesting as well, since you so fervently argue on behalf of their psychological scaffolds, Ilkka.”
Guilt by association. Lovely.
I wrote earlier that I agreed with reason #2 in the Ampersand’s original blog posting. He wrote: “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.” Hard to argue with. This is no different from home invaders or bank robbers.
As as side note, I find it extremely amusing that the anti-evolutionary sentiment of the (obviously very leftist) people in here rivals the same sentiment of the Christian right-wingers. Even though evolution does not explain absolutely everything about current human behaviour, some would apparently like it to be that the human species is not a product of a long process of Darwinian selection, since that would imply several unpleasant things. For example, the existence of evolutionary losers.
(As for myself, I am obviously an evolutionary loser, since I have no intention to have children or help the children of my close genetic relatives. But there are many different types of being a loser. One such type are those who deny reality and believe that everything could be socially constructed to be the way they would like just by deciding so.)
This comment was written by Ilkka Kokkarinen.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 10:17 am
empathy
This comment was written by Strangechord.Oh wow wow wow…. Ampersand (a man) has written a terribly insightful entry exploring what causes rape in our culture. Loads of good stuff here that I entirely agree with: Masculinity is defined by what…
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February 13th, 2004 at 10:35 am
Hestia:
Most swingers clubs allow men only if they are accompanied by a woman. Without this rule, there soon would be many more men than women. Sad, but true.
Regarding Amp’s original post:
The third reason (or the perception of that reason) is the part of the source of rapists. The other part of the problem is this: “simply because you need or want something, you should get it”. My political bent is Libertarian/Objectivist, so I see this entitled-to-sex idea to be similar to the entitled-to-housing (or food, health insurance, safety from myself, etc).
When our government (read: the biggest or most influential citizen mob) tries to solve problems, it uses the same idea–take what you want/need from someone else.
I eagerly await the day when the majority of the population doesn’t consider other people as cows to be milked. Individuals are the sole rightful authority over their money, time, body, energy. Our government–if it ever gets its hands and eyes out of our wallets and our bedrooms–needs lots of reforming in this area.
Terry.
The essential notion of a capitalist society is voluntary cooperation, voluntary exchange. The essential notion of a socialist society is force. Milton Friedman
This comment was written by Terry31415.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 10:38 am
LizardBreath: “…comment that as a reasonably attractive heterosexual woman (within 50 pounds of a medically approved body-weight; no major facial scars) I have in my more promiscuous younger days frequently offered to have sex with particular men and been refused.”
Most people have a far tighter standard of “reasonably attractive” than being less than 50 pounds overweight and having no major facial scars. You also don’t say anything about how high these men were in the male hiearchy of desirability to women, so it is hard to say anything based on that information.
I am sure that men like Tom Cruise or Matt Damon have often turned down offers to have sex with women, especially women who are 50 pounds overweight.
Ilkka — look what you’re doing here. You’ve redefined the class of people who have no need to seek sex from “women” to “attractive women” and conceded that women do actively seek sex from attractive men (Matt Damon, Tom Cruise, and apparently Jake, Amp, and any man who’s ever turned down an offer of sex from me or any other woman). Once you’ve made those concessions, your argument is reduced to: Men seek sex from attractive women; women seek sex from attractive men. What, exactly, are you arguing about?
This comment was written by LizardBreath.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 10:42 am
Drat: the first three paragraphs of the above should all be italicized, as a quote from Ilkka’s post. The unquoted part of the post begins with “Ilkka –”.
Should’ve previewed.
This comment was written by LizardBreath.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 10:55 am
Actually, Ilkka, I never pretended to be a morally higher creature. You, however, seem to have no problem casting aspersions on the intellect of anyone who has the gall to refute your arguments. Instead of calling the arguments weak, you’re going after the people who make them. I find your indignation at “guilt by association” to be rather rich, all things considered.
Your smarmy comments about feminists, leftists, and anyone who disagrees with you says a lot about your mind set.
When you lay off the hissy fits, we can resume the discussion.
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 11:12 am
Ilkka, I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make.
First you said, When we think of phenomena that occur in the sexual pairing process in the real world, they tend to be highly consistent with the hypothesis “women want sex less than men” and more or less inconsistent with the opposite hypothesis. I challenge anyone to come up with an example real-world phenomenon for which this does not hold in the level of the general population.
Swingers’ clubs absolutely meet this challenge.
Then you go on to say, (1) Within reasonable requirements of hygiene, age, looks and sobriety, any man or woman can enter by paying a modest entrance fee and (2) at least 1/3 of the patrons are women and (3) casual sex is the main activity.
Swingers’ clubs also absolutely fit this definition. Just because they have more stringent standards doesn’t mean they don’t exist, and in a greater number than bathhouses.
Your leap from “Gay bathhouses exist” to “Men want sex more than women” doesn’t make any sense at all (unless, of course, you’re trying to show that gay men want sex much more than all women and heterosexual men combined). Please clarify what you mean.
Also, some proof that any of your conjectures are true would be nice. Why should I bother trying to disprove something that you yourself have no evidence is true? In fact, until you come up with some real facts supporting your position (beyond “This is the way it is because it’s the way it is”), from now on my response can only be, “Nope. You’re wrong. Prove otherwise.”
Also, please stop saying, “Your argument is just like this other conservative/Christian/etc. argument.” (I believe it’s called an ad hominem.) That doesn’t make the original argument wrong in any stretch of the imagination, and I really don’t care who you think I’m “like;” I prefer my claims stand on their own.
Most swingers clubs allow men only if they are accompanied by a woman. Without this rule, there soon would be many more men than women. Sad, but true.
But if the stigma of “women liking sex” were removed from society, then I posit that women would flock to swingers’ clubs and heterosexual bathhouses in droves–many, many more than men, since women haven’t been encouraged to publicly pursue sexual relationships.
So why does the “if they were allowed, more men would join swingers’ clubs” argument support the claim that “men want sex more than women,” but the “if it were acceptable, more women would joing swingers’ clubs” argument doesn’t support the claim that “women want sex more than men”?
Look, I’m just trying to show that “one gender as a whole wants sex more than the other gender as a whole” is impossible to prove, as Ilkka is trying to do. And I’ve forgotten what exactly it has to do with Amp’s original post, so perhaps I should back out of the discussion.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 11:20 am
Ilkka,
All the studies & reviews of existing studies that I can find online indicate that the results are mixed - there is no clear answer at this time. That is to say that some studies show that men do want sex more often than women, some studies show no difference in sexual desire between men & women, and a few show a higher desire for sex in women than in men. One thing that does come up several times is the difference in cycles of sexual desire - men are steady, women are cyclical. So I apologize. There are in fact credible studies to support your position. But there are also opposing studies that are credible, so to reach a conclusion at this point seems premature.
So I’m giving up on debating your theories on human sexuality on a factual level. If we want to just describe our own experiences & conclusions based on anecdotal data…..well, I’m more than happy to add my share. Because that’s all that we can do at this point in time.
I’ll leave it with: I think you’re wrong. I don’t believe that your experience is wide enough or that you come into it with enough of an open mind to see what is in front of you. I’m sure you feel the same about me.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 11:29 am
Neko, you did not, but in my real-life experience, anyone who writes something like “We have to - we *must* - always question the way things are. One of the things that I love about feminism is that it *questions* - it doesn’t accept the way things currently are as “this is the way it is, this is the way it has always been and always will be” which some people seem to. It’s also optimistic - it has vision and hope that society can change.” really does consider herself to live on a morally higher plane.
But perhaps this argument is indeed pointless. I shall therefore apologize and leave you all with one final thought. Let us for a moment assume that I am indeed completely wrong. Women do want sex as much as men, even though most people believe the harmful and rape-inducing myth that the very opposite is true.
Now, perhaps such a myth is as a whole actually beneficial to most women, and therefore they have no incentive to try to change it, so the myth persists. But if the majority of women really suffer from this myth, wouldn’t they want to do their best to make people stop believing in this myth? Where is the spark that strikes the flame?
Well, how have such injustices (”blacks are worth less than whites and therefore whites have a right to enslave them”, “gays should go back in the closet and stay there”) been fought and overturned in the past? By civil disobedience. When a large enough number of people stubbornly refuse to obey an unfair custom, they meet initial resistance but eventually their way becomes accepted, and after that, the old unfair custom changes and eventually falls to obscurity.
Therefore, if women want to get rid of the myth that they want sex less than men, my suggestion is to start a civil disobedience campaign where a large number of women announce that from now on, they are going to demonstrate in practice that they like to have sex as eagerly as men. “Come on, big boys!”
Even if such a group of women emerged, it is easy to imagine how other women would react to this especially, if these trailblazers were typically young, thin and beautiful. (Analogy: how do small stores typically react to Wal-Mart coming to town?) Such women would be hated and shunned… by other women, especially the older and less attractive ones!
In fact, we have a precedent for this. Consider the “sexual liberation” of the sixties. Of course the conservatives and the religious people hate it for obvious reasons. But surprise, so do the older feminists, who complain that the sexual revolution just codified the men’s right for casual sex, and that a woman who does not “put out” is an evil prude.
But also men would socially shun and punish these courageous and selfless women, you say? Oh please. Modern western men tend to like porn, which works by selling men the very fantasy discussed in this whole thread, that women like sex and want men as much as men want women! Men would like nothing as much as women to have sex drive similar to men! (Truly it is no wonder why most women hate porn and sexual liberation almost as much as mom & pop stores hate Wal-Mart. And this hatred tells a lot!)
This comment was written by Ilkka Kokkarinen.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 11:32 am
Iikka wrote: …But there are many different types of being a loser. One such type are those who deny reality and believe that everything could be socially constructed to be the way they would like just by deciding so.)
If you won’t make your case without insults like this, you’ll be banned from posting to this site. (On the other hand, refrain from insults and I won’t ban you, no matter how much I disagree with your views). This is your only warning.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 11:40 am
Hestia: “(1) Within reasonable requirements of hygiene, age, looks and sobriety, any man or woman can enter by paying a modest entrance fee and (2) at least 1/3 of the patrons are women and (3) casual sex is the main activity. Swingers’ clubs also absolutely fit this definition.”
Swinger’s clubs most definitely do not fit (1) to any extent. For obvious reasons, these clubs let in single women but not single men. Even the couples who are let in are heavily pre-screened for the club to maintain its most desirable members, which is necessary for staying in existence.
In the swinger lingo, I believe they use a word “ticket”. Do you know what that word refers to?
“But if the stigma of “women liking sex” were removed from society, then I posit that women would flock to swingers’ clubs and heterosexual bathhouses in droves–many, many more than men, since women haven’t been encouraged to publicly pursue sexual relationships.”
Oh, wouldn’t men just love that to be true?
This comment was written by Ilkka Kokkarinen.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 11:45 am
No, actually, men in this society have the whole Madonna and whore thing going on. It’s okay for them to fuck around, but they won’t take a woman who fucks around seriously.
And the radical feminists didn’t oppose sexual liberation because they didn’t want sex–they opposed the reinforcement of double standards and the commodification of women (”Girls say yes to boys who say no” to the draft and other such tripe.)
I don’t know that all women *hate* porn (quite a few like it). I do know that porn is geared for men–and not because it features sex. I’m not interested in naked women, or one woman giving blowjobs to multiple men, or scenes with women dressed as schoolgirls, or whatever. That’s not sex, that’s a power play, and it’s not appealing to a lot of women. That hardly means we don’t like sex.
Also, there *has* been a movement to overturn the sexual double-standard. It’s the movement you’ve routinely dismissed and derided–the feminist movement.
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 11:53 am
“‘”But if the stigma of “women liking sex” were removed from society, then I posit that women would flock to swingers’ clubs and heterosexual bathhouses in droves–many, many more than men, since women haven’t been encouraged to publicly pursue sexual relationships.’
Oh, wouldn’t men just love that to be true?”
First, can you prove this–that men would love for that to be true? I’ve seen zero evidence for this. Second, if it’s true that men would love for this double-standard to be eradicated, they’d let go of the Maddona-whore hang up. The words slut, whore, ho, etc. would be out of use. There would be no paranoia about the sexual past of women. There wouldn’t be this push for female abstinence/virginity.
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 12:01 pm
Illka- Why do single women go to swingers clubs, if not for sex? What logic do you use to draw the opposite conclusion?
This comment was written by Corwin.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 12:06 pm
Therefore, if women want to get rid of the myth that they want sex less than men, my suggestion is to start a civil disobedience campaign where a large number of women announce that from now on, they are going to demonstrate in practice that they like to have sex as eagerly as men. “Come on, big boys!”
Yes, I’m sure it’s that easy.
You can’t honestly be saying, “In a society that represses female sexuality, all women have to do is express their sexuality just like men!” Can’t you understand that there are systems in place–beyond individuals’ reactions–that might prevent most women from doing so? And how do we make it acceptable for women to pursue sexual desire the way they want to, which just possibly isn’t “Come on, big boys”? Or does only one kind of sex count?
The rest of your post is mere conjecture, so I don’t think I need to address it.
Oh, wouldn’t men just love that to be true?
Apparently you’re not serious about discussion. You only considered one small detail of my post without commenting on the bigger issues I raised, and you responded to another point I made with sarcasm. That’s not a very good way to support your beliefs, or change mine.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 2:01 pm
Monoculture
This comment was written by Crescat Sententia.Ampersand has an interesting post on what he sees as the three factors contributing to “our” rape culture. He writes: If we want to discover how to reduce rape, we have to be willing to figure out what the hell…
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February 13th, 2004 at 2:14 pm
I’m interested by how much of this discussion of sexual desire is using a single definition/measure (as Hestia was alluding to). What if, instead of the bath-house/bar model (willingness to have heaps of partners), the measure were enthusiasm for the act itself? Let’s say we only look at people within relationships, the balance of their interest, how often one or the other partner wishes that there were more activity (or regularly gets turned down on sexual overtures). Wouldn’t this be some sort of measure of who “possesses” sex? (the original basis for this topic)
It seems to me that there are probably about equal numbers of “complainers” on both sides, even if you control for general relationship duration and satisfaction. By stereotype, you would expect that young men would be more driven and older women more driven in their respective relationships, but there are counterexamples aplenty for those presumptions. I myself have been in relationships where I was constantly pestered for sex and in others where I constantly felt I was having to beg for sex. And I can think of both men and women who have had to have relationship negotiations on this matter because of mismatches in (non-gender-correlated) this department.
This seems an important measure in the acquaintance rape issue — if, in fact, men and women have similar sex drives, then there is a real societal misconception (that men are always hungry and need to persuade women to accomodate them). Then that (Amp’s #3) is something that could be worked on . . .
More grist for the mill.
This comment was written by acm.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 3:30 pm
Ilkka said: I love it how quickly my notion that there is a evolutionary explanation for why women want sex less than men turned into an implication that rape has an evolutionary explanation.
Er… I wasn’t responding to you directly, I was talking generally about my views on the idea that there is a biological “explanation” (read: excuse) for rape.
Ilkka said: “That is such an overused cliche that I hope this wasn’t taught in your history class as an actual medieval belief.”
My point was that in history the majority of people have believed things about the nature of the world, about people’s behaviour, and men and women - that have radically changed and been overturned. Yet the whole culture unquestioningly believed them; and I can see echos of this in modern culture about the things the mainstream culture tells us to believe about men and women. I’m not saying feminists are immune to this, just that feminism appeals to me precisely because it allows a vision of the future that is different from what we have now or what we had then.
Blimey. That’ll teach me to quickly type a couple of off-the-hoof thoughts and comments during my lunch hour.
Yours
This comment was written by Catherine Redfern.Catherine “overused, chiched and silly”
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February 13th, 2004 at 4:18 pm
Well, scientific determinism was a popular and in fact close to universal philisophical doctrine among the scientific community in the 19th century but is pretty much no longer accepted these days, what with the advent of quantum mechanics as well as math logical discoveries like the halting problem and Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem. Applying scientific determinism to biology, the least deterministic of the natural sciences, is really, to put it bluntly, bullshit. I’m sick of people alluding to biological determinism in determining human behavior pretending that this is at all scientific.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2004 at 7:42 pm
Shorter Ilkka:
Every comment that has attempted to prove me wrong fails to take into account the fact that I am right.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
February 14th, 2004 at 2:27 am
This argument went awry.
This comment was written by bad Jim.It’s my fault.
Blame it on me.
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February 14th, 2004 at 11:46 am
It’s interesing given this discussion to consider lesbians, whom no one has really even mentioned, and who would seem to be the perfect population to study for information on women’s sexual desire in a context in which men are irrelevant. I don’t say that male sexuality is irrelevant, because I think lesbian sexuality is often very much influenced by what is considered “sexy” in the wider culture…but unquestionably, with lesbians, the folks having, wanting, or not wanting all the sex are ALL WOMEN. And I can tell you that rape/forced sex exists between lesbians, though it is rare, and I can tell you also that differences in level of sexual desire are an issue in almost every lesbian relationship I know of. So if desire varies AMONG women, why shouldn’t it also vary BETWEEN women and men? I’ve had men turn down offers of sex and known women who’ve complained about lack of interest on the part of their male partners. I don’t think willingness to go to a strange place and have sex with someone you don’t know is a positive attribute for women OR men, or is any indicator of gender-based desire for sexual activity.
But to get back to the original post (gasp! why would we want to do that?) I think it is very well thought out and insightful; however, I disagree with Amp about rape being about sex. I think rape, and other sex crimes like incest (which one commentor mentioned) are about power and control. I don’t think men who abuse children are sick; I think they’ve carried the messages of this culture about power, entitlement, and sexuality to their logical conclusion. Suggesting that those who rape children are sick while those who rape women are not seems to suggest that rape of adult women is on some level “normal.” I personally can’t imagine wanting to be sexual with someone who didn’t want to be sexual with me, or who wasn’t of an age or mental capacity to make that decision with full knowledge and understanding of the implications. If we want a society in which this doesn’t happen, we need to make equality and mutuality sexy, not power-over and force. Think about how often in this culture sex and violence are THE SAME–slasher movies spring rapidly to mind. Think how often a little force is a turn-on. How it’s cool and kind of edgy to like it rough, to tie each other up, to spank or hold wrists. Every time we do this, we strengthen our physiological response to the pairing of sex and violence. We need to create men who aren’t threatened by strong, competent women, who don’t see women and children as property, and who are willing to give up the privilege of being male in the current society. That’s one word I haven’t heard anybody mention: Privilege. Eradicating inequality, rape and other violence against women would require giving up male privilege. Are you men willing to do that?
This comment was written by Amy.Report this comment to the moderators
February 14th, 2004 at 9:01 pm
male privilege
I am what you might describe as a classic liberal. I firmly and passionately believe in the equality between the races and the sexes. I am for affirmative action (even when it uses quotas), and I constantly watch my speech and writing to make sure that it won’t offend or oppress anyone.
So when I say what I’m about to say, I hope you don’t think I’m being sarcastic. While I believe that “male privlege” exsists, I have a problem: I don’t know how to give it up. (The same goes with white privlege.)
What specific actions do I have to undertake to give up these privleges? I’ve never knowingly taken a job from a minority or a women — more often than not, I’ve never met the other applicants, and though some comedians would have it otherwise, I’ve never been told by the person who hired me, “Boy, I’m glad we hired you instead of that woman!”
The only jobs I’ve had are menial labor. I don’t have a college education. I’ve never been in a position to influence hiring choices. So the only way I could guarentee that I’m not stealing jobs away from women/minorities would be to never work again. Should I do that?
Men often get better deals when shopping for used cars, insurance, etc, etc… should I demand to pay a higher price?
But seriously, I don’t think male privilege is something that individual men can choose to give up, because it’s bound up so intimately with our lives. It’s not about individually chosen actions, it’s about who we are.
My very existance causes women to be oppressed regardless of how hard I try to temper my actions. The fact that I’m alive here and now is responsible for injustice all by itself.
The only way for true equality to happen would be for every white male to slit his throat en masse. But I assure you that my commitment to social justice is so great that I’d be happy to march into the mine-field along with all my kind, the end of the oppressors in one great “whoomph”! However, the majority of my male counterparts would never include themselves in this effort. So . . . maybe someone else should do it?
This comment was written by ellick.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2004 at 10:38 am
The adult club in my town allows single men on Friday nights (no limit) for the same price as couples. It also has a monthly event on Saturday nights which is advertised as a “gang bang” which is, I think, as close to the baths as anything I’ve read about. Then there’s a monthly “young bi’s” event for bisexual men and women.
Recently there was an article in the New York Times about the “new” phenomenon of upscale sex parties for young singles. They rent huge venues, provide music, food and drinks; you have to submit a photo and an essay to get approved in order to have the privilege of paying for entrance.
The trouble with observing behavior of women to judge their libido is the strong cultural pressure to hide it. “Bad girls” aren’t marriage material and deserve everything that happens to them; “bad girls,” that is, girls who want sex and have it, must suffer the consequences of their choice (i.e., not be allowed birth control or abortion, because that lets them hide their shameful behavior from society). Add to this the intentional impression given to teens that if she admits she wants sex, every man present is entitled to have sex with her, and there’s even stronger pressure for hiding it.
This comment was written by Kris Hasson-Jones.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2004 at 1:20 pm
It seems to me that the problem isn’t that our society views women as possessing sex, but that our society holds the view that makes sex into a commodity. Even throughout all the comments in this posting, with talk of eggs and sperm, this assumption was never questioned.
We use sex to sell toothpaste, hamburgers, sodas, houses, and stocks. It’s not treated even remotely like an activity, it’s treated like something you possess. Something that people want. Something in short supply. But it isn’t a doughnut. You can’t pass one to your neighbor. I think we all need to start trying to subvert this commodification.
You can’t really buy sex, all you can buy is participation in sexual activity. Prostitutes don’t sell “sex”, they can’t. They sell participation in sexual activities. The same way that day care providers don’t sell “care”, they sell their participation in supervising a child.
One step towards that is changing sex from a noun to a verb. From a thing to an activity that requires participation. Think of the difference beween “I want (sex with) her” (which even goes so far to blur the line between possessing “sex” and personifying “sex”) and “I want to have sex with her” (which emphasizes the need for consentual participation in an activity). I would even go so far as to eliminate the general term, and progress towards specific descriptions of the desired activity: “I want us to rub our naked bodies together until we reach orgasms.”
Central to this is destroying the prudishness in our society that obscures what really goes on in sexual relationships to children at the phase when they are developing their impressions of what happens.
If more boys (and girls) understood that their mothers were sexual creatures, that it was about a varied set of activities, not about male aquisition, perhaps we could begin to change the culture that allows someone to think it is possible to “steal sex”.
Rape revolves around the illusion that sex is a noun, an object, something that women are/possess. Destroying this conception of sex is key to destroying the ability to rape.
PS - Anybody who wants more information on evolutionary biology and its effects on gender relations should read “The Red Queen” I think it helps to clarify the “who wants sex more” and “eggs are expensive, sperm is cheap” arguements, mostly by pointing out that they are much more complicated than represented in the preceeding comments.
This comment was written by Xatharine.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2004 at 8:45 pm
Coming into this a little late -
I agree with all the rest of you that Ilkka’s premise (that women don’t like sex anywhere near as much as men do) is wrong, but except for a few allusions to cultural pressure, which surely can’t be the whole story, NOT ONE of the responses has attempted to address the reasons for the very real presumptions and generalizations which Ilkka has referred to, that women APPEAR TO be less interested in sex. This has driven Ilkka to more and more desperate attempts to point out these presumptions and generalizations, which in turn led Raznor to postulate a Shorter Ilkka: “Every comment that has attempted to prove me wrong fails to take into account the fact that I am right.”
Which isn’t fair, because Ilkka is right that there is this appearance, and if it’s incorrect its persistence needs to be explained, not just denied.
I think I can attempt to do so. I presume that it is true that single men are a surplus in swinger’s clubs; that the fact that johns pay hookers and not the other way arouned is an indiciation that (purely sexually, not economically) johns desire hookers more than hookers desire johns; and so on.
Does this indicate that women desire sex less than men? Ilkka says yes. But that need not be so. What it suggests to me is another well-known difference between male and female sexuality in general: that women desire sex WITH STRANGERS less than men do. If Ilkka will kindly consult his database of stereotypes, he will find the married middle-aged woman who wants more sex than she’s getting from her (tired or straying or both) husband, and who remains unsatisfied because she’s not inclined to stray.
A woman may be hot to hump like a bunny, but if she only wants to do this with a steady lover, you won’t find her in a bathhouse or a swinger’s club or a male brothel. OK, Ilkka, does that help to explain it?
This comment was written by Simon.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2004 at 8:49 pm
Rape of Woman and other Spoils of War
This comment was written by Burningbird.Sometimes when you’re going through Bloglines looking at the excerpts, it seems like so many variations on a common theme. But then you click to another and you’re faced with What Causes Rape? Anatomy of a Rape Culture and the shock is staggering. Amp…
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February 16th, 2004 at 12:03 am
Simon, I still disagree. I think the cultural mores that implicate the “badness” of a woman’s character are what keep her from pursuing anonymous sex. In addition, the ramifications of pursuing anonymous sex are much greater (from a cultural perspective) for a woman due to the risk of an unplanned pregnancy.
Women are taught from day one to protect their bodies from unplanned pregnancies while men’s sexual impulses are pandered to for the sell of this product or another. Related to this little issue is the knowledge that many women are imparted with, the very real issue that they, too, will be reduced to sexual objects in an intimate relationship, probably the reason that women desire intimacy more than anonymity when it comes to sexual relationships. A speculation and observation on my part.
And contrary to what you’ve said, this has been brought up several times. Just sayin’.
This comment was written by Lauren.Report this comment to the moderators
February 16th, 2004 at 9:14 am
I’m a student doing research on what constitutes a rape culture. I was hoping visitors to this ‘blog could suggest articles,books, and websites to aid me in my research?
I would like to congratulate the creator(s) of this blog in their effort to place the issue of violence against women, in all its forms, on the public agenda. The internet is a great vehicle to reach people, create dialogue and hopefully strategies for change.
This comment was written by Nancy.Report this comment to the moderators
February 16th, 2004 at 9:50 am
Lauren, I wish you’d read my post before attempting to correct me. I SAID there’d been “a few allusions to cultural pressure,” and there had been.
I also said it “surely can’t be the whole story,” and if you’re saying that cultural mores about “badness” and the ramifications of pregnancy are the only things that keep women from pursuing anonymous sex, you are entirely incorrect.
Certainly there are some individual women of whom this is true. There are also plenty of individual women who do pursue it and who don’t let mores stop them. Perhaps you yourself (I’m guessing from your name that you’re female) are one or have been one of those two types of women. But if so, to generalize from your psyche and claim it applies to all women is a huge mistake. I know plenty of women who find the whole idea repulsive, and to claim that they’re all just bamboozled by cultural mores is a deliberate insult.
It would be a huge mistake to claim it applies to all men, too. We’re all agreed that anonymous sex is a common male preoccupation. But it’s emphatically not true of all men, in the same way that, as Amp said in the original post, not all men are rapists. I am an example here: whatever may be said of men in general, I am a functional straight male who is only interested in sex in a loving pair-bonded relationship. (I’ve got one, thanks.) Anonymous sex or even with an acquaintance is repulsive to me: I’d have to fall in love with her first, and that’s not going to happen as long as I have someone else. I know this from long experience of observing my own heart.
This comment was written by Simon.Report this comment to the moderators
February 16th, 2004 at 11:47 am
Illka wrote:
If anybody seriously believes that primitive cultures (medieval Europe, modern Middle East) severely restrict women’s sexuality for any other reason than that each woman is property of some man, I have a bridge to sell you. This phenomenon is no different to a modern car owner using locks, alarms and other anti-theft devices to restrict his car’s freedom to let other people drive it. It’s not that the car has this burning desire to let other people drive it, it’s simply that there are lots of people who would do it if given a chance.
i have a serious argument with this statement. are you really saying that there are NO WOMEN ON THE MIDDLE EAST WHO HAVE SEXUAL DESIRE? because that’s sure what it sounds like to me. in your analogy to the car, you state that the car has no burning desire to let other people drive it… that seems to say that no women have any desire to have sexual partners other than the one they’re “stuck with”. is there no adultery in the middle east? only rape? what makes middle eastern women less likely to have sexual desire than american women?
This comment was written by emilie.you use only anecdotal “proof” so i am sure you will accept my own anecdote in the same way: i, a woman, have had sexual desire. (*gasp*!) in fact, i’ve been in several relationships with men who have had less sexual desire than i have. furthermore, i have had sexual desire for more than the one person i was in a relationship with, and i have had sexual intercourse with people outside my significant other because of my desire being that great.
i also understand that i am not alone in this. not only have numerous female friends told me that they’ve had more desire than their current partners, but as a senior in college, i did research and wrote a thesis about sexual satisfaction. specifically, i focused on womens’ desire and satisfaction, and from my sample of over 500 people, discovered that there are large numbers of women who have greater sexual desire than their male (or female) partners.
does this shock you?
i would LOVE to see some sort of proof that you have that women with significant sexual desire are the vast minority.
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February 17th, 2004 at 8:03 am
Life is Pain, Princess>
This comment was written by Tales from a Yeti Suit.Ampersand has a post on the rape culture that makes huge suppositions about men and misogyny. Let me say here I think the post is drivel. I don’t know enough about Ampersand to qualify the post as typical - but…
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February 17th, 2004 at 8:08 am
Ampersand misses the point.
Men are the vast majority of rapists simply because they have the strength to do so against someone weaker.
The solution is nor misandry. It’s raising and supporting masculine boys who understand that the protection of the weak is the true basis of manhood.
The solutions we currently seek in suppressing typical male behavior in young boys is a recipe for violent young male adults.
I could prove my point by smacking around any one of you who disagreed.
That is, unless another person or group of people stronger than I chose to stop me to protect you.
Which is of course, the point.
This comment was written by TheYeti.Report this comment to the moderators
February 17th, 2004 at 8:17 am
Life is Pain, Princess
This comment was written by Tales from a Yeti Suit.Ampersand has a post on the rape culture that makes huge suppositions about men and misogyny. Let me say here I think the post is drivel. I don’t know enough about Ampersand to qualify the post as typical - but…
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February 17th, 2004 at 8:41 am
If the only factor that mattered was physical strength, then female-female rape would be as common in women’s prisons as male-male rape is in men’s prisons. Yet that’s not the case. Furthermore, environment wouldn’t make a difference - a frat house party wouldn’t be a more likely place for rape than, say, a PTA meeting. In both cases, the men present are (on average) probably physically stronger.
I think any decent theory of why rape happens needs to explain why rpae is more common in some societies than others; why it’s more common among young men than older men; why some environments (such as prison) are more “rape-prone” than others; why rape is uncommon in female prisons but common in male prisons; and why states in which women are more “equal” have less rape.
With all due respect, I don’t think your theory of rape can explain much of that.
As far as I can tell, typical male behavior in boys - the behavior you don’t want suppressed - consists to a large extent in the bullying of the weak. How encouraging this sort of behavior will turn boys into men that “protect the weak” is a mystery to me.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 17th, 2004 at 12:35 pm
Bullying the weak only happens when no man is brave enough to stand up for others. Violence is a clear cut way to quickly determine status.
Research into young women, however, shows they are much more damaging to the weak than men.
Odd Girl Out: The Culture of Hidden Aggression in Girls.”
Men fight, and win or lose, they often win each other’s respect.
When women fight, often with ineffectual or no violence at all, and you have the makings of an interpersonal feud that can last their entire lives and lead to depression, anxiety, ulcers, drug-use, and massive personality changes.
The population of prisons is also a major factor. Compare white-collar minimum security prisons with similar inmate populations for types of crime and I doubt you’ll see much if any discrepancy. And the use of common? I’ve read that 10% is considered average rape statistics in overcrowded maximum security facilities with violent offenders. These are places where rape is also a means of control and punishment, which while violent, is hardly a fair description of the society outside those walls.
PTA and Frat Houses? One - you’re unfairly labeling fraternities by grouping them together in the modern day with no adult supervision, illegal drug and alcohol abuse, and a permissive culture of consequence free sex on college campuses.
Compare frat houses to restaurant personnel, dorms at colleges that don’t allow fraternities, mall employees, or any other group of young adults who binge drink and have access to private spaces for more accurate statistics.
Two - the PTA proves my point. PTA males have children and wives, and have grown past the violent behaviors. The very existence of PTA suggests civilization. It would be foolish to assume that the men in PTA had never drunkenly pressured a woman.
But those men who can not conform to the rules of society have already been locked away or beaten down. Or not yet caught.
Add this to the relatively new idea that rape is the absolute worst thing that can happen to a woman. This was hardly the case in poor families even 100-150 years ago. Rape was truly common.
Check out what the Native Americans did to rival tribes. Or the Vandals, or the Visigoths, or the Huns, or the Kossacks in WWII.
Read the Painted Bird, or Germinal. Or Roman or Greek texts like Sallust and Tacitus. Or the Bible, or the Hindu texts or Indonesian stories.
The tragedy of rape extends far past Western culture. It is endemic to man. How then can we say that only our culture is a “rape culture?” How does this compare to the gangs of Muslims that wander the enlightened countries of Europe raping non-Muslim women for violating sharia?
You’ve surely heard of the problems win Denmark, Belgium, and France? Are those rape cultures?
The best method would seem to be identifying societies that have the least rape and emulating them.
This comment was written by TheYeti.Report this comment to the moderators
February 17th, 2004 at 2:06 pm
How does this compare to the gangs of Muslims that wander the enlightened countries of Europe raping non-Muslim women for violating sharia?
You are too shy, “Yeti”. Why don’t you just stick to the USA and replace “Muslims” with “Blacks” and “non-Muslim” by White”? Do you think this very old racist rhetoric is more acceptable when applied to Europe? But I should be grateful to you for now I know that the Western soldiers who made (still make) rape a part of their manly lifestyle in Vietnam, Chechnya, Japan, Greece, etc., really are “gangs of Muslims”. I feel relieved that my oh-so-enlightened culture has nothing to do with it.
By the way, I suggest you stop gathering your information about Europe from “The Free Republic” and “Little Green Footballs”. Those are the people who keep devotedly repeating Le Pen’s speech about “those Barbarians who are invading our nation to steal our women and cause our lifestyle’s decay through misgenation” are not afraid to accuse the French of antisemitism because 15% of them voted for same Le Pen in the first round of the last presidential election.
By the way, I happen to live in France and I know pretty well what crimes you are refering to (i.e. collective rapes in immigrant suburbs). Wanna hear some facts? Many victims are Muslim women, while a good part (about the half) of the perpetrators were of the “Civilized” persuasion. “Ni Putes Ni Soumises” (Not Whores Nor Submissive), the collective that fights this phenomenon, has been created mostly by what you would call “Muslim” women.
This comment was written by Jimmy Ho.Report this comment to the moderators
February 17th, 2004 at 2:13 pm
…are not afraid to accuse the French of antisemitism because 15% of them voted for same Le Pen in the first round of the last presidential election.
Please complete as follows:
but are not afraid to accuse the French of antisemitism because 15% of them voted for same Le Pen in the first round of the last presidential election (always failing to admit that they massively voted for the adverse candidate, Jacques Chirac, in the second round).
This comment was written by Jimmy Ho.Report this comment to the moderators
February 17th, 2004 at 2:52 pm
This isn’t really a thread for discussions of French elections or antisemitism.
Or accounts of Western soldiers raping a populace. Of course, when that happens, those soldiers are court-martialed and sent to prison, not congratulated on spreading their religion.
This comment was written by TheYeti.Report this comment to the moderators
February 17th, 2004 at 3:06 pm
When women fight, often with ineffectual or no violence at all, and you have the makings of an interpersonal feud that can last their entire lives and lead to depression, anxiety, ulcers, drug-use, and massive personality changes.
Where in God’s name did you get that idea? Women have enough stupid stereotypes to deal with without somebody coming along and inventing new ones. Should we just go out and beat up everybody we disagree with? Is that how we should solve rape?
Sheesh.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
February 17th, 2004 at 3:15 pm
By the way, Yeti, I’d like you to please explain the military rape scandals. I mean, I thought the military is where men go to learn how to be, you know, “real” men with “traditional” values.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
February 17th, 2004 at 3:18 pm
No military scandals are off topic. But racist anti-muslim bullshit is totally on topic. As is mysogynistic bullshit where stereotyping takes the place of thought.
Get with the program Hestia.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
February 17th, 2004 at 3:20 pm
Hold on a second. Yeti, did you just say that rape is a part of the Muslim religion? I must be misinterpreting, because I can’t imagine anyone would make such a racist comment…
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
February 17th, 2004 at 7:05 pm
I was struck by this comment: “Sexuality equals women in our culture; it is something possessed by women, not by men.”
You might be interested to know that Samuel Delany, a black gay SF writer, wrote a novel in which anyone interested in or involved in a sexual encounter was a “she” who then reverted back into a “he” as soon as the sexual interest was over — in other words, “she” referred only to someone who was or who was considered to be a sexual partner. Everyone in any context outside of the sexual was “he.”
Beyond this, gang rape may well be a chimpanzee characteristic. One of the differences between chimpanzees and humans is that in chimpanzee groups a female who openly has sex with all other males in the group is less molested thereafter (together with her offspring) by males, presumably because they remember they had sex with her and therefore may think her baby is theirs.
In American ghetto gangs, a woman who is a hanger-on who gets gangraped by the gang is then allowed to hang out freely with the entire gang — asked about it, the gang members say “she’s now a member.” Very, very chimpanzee-like.
Otherwise, brilliant post. congrats on the Koufax award.
This comment was written by Diana.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 7:50 am
Ok, I’m very late in the thread, but I”ll toss my two cents into the mix- the Yeti makes his arguments in obnoxious ways- I think it improves traffic to his blog. What I get out of his argument, though, is that along with recognizing mens’ problems and attempting to deal with them, we can look at womens’ problems as well. I don’t care much for the argument that women can’t disagree with each other without mental illness and personality change, but it’s true that a fight between two girls is often alot nastier and more underhanded than one between two guys. But that’s completely off-thread, and I’m not sure where the heck it came from. In any event, here’s the question I get out of it- why is it that a guy who is well-known for beating his wife (OJ Simpson, maybe?) can divorce or even kill her and easily marry another woman who knows he did it? (Please dont’ tell me if you think he’s innocent- it was just an example.) Why do murderers and rapists in prison for it get groupies? What I’m getting at is if men don’t value women, women value women even less. If I were to count all the people I’ve heard denegrate stay-at-home moms, I’d say a good percentage would be women. We don’t value each other, and we don’t stick together. Society’s condemnation is a big weapon to use against offensive behavior. And it could start with women. What if society- and that would be men AND women- ostracised known (sp?)rapists? You’ve seen what that’s done for child sex offenders- they can’t get away from people who know what they did. What if women wouldn’t have anything to do with guys known for violence against women? What if we all stopped buying tickets to Colorado State’s games when we hear they have sex parties to recruit players? But we don’t. We make excuses, we say the woman must have deserved it, we say the guy was young and ruled by hormones. Then we turn around and say the problem lies with men alone, and that makes us feel better, but the effective solution calls on all of us.
This comment was written by Allison.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 8:53 am
Jimmy Ho: Hou are too shy, “Yeti”. Why don’t you just stick to the USA and replace “Muslims” with “Blacks” and “non-Muslim” by White”? Do you think this very old racist rhetoric is more acceptable when applied to Europe? But I should be grateful to you for now I know that the Western soldiers who made (still make) rape a part of their manly lifestyle in Vietnam, Chechnya, Japan, Greece, etc., really are “gangs of Muslims”. I feel relieved that my oh-so-enlightened culture has nothing to do with it.
Raznor: No military scandals are off topic. But racist anti-muslim bullshit is totally on topic. As is mysogynistic bullshit where stereotyping takes the place of thought.
Hestia: Hold on a second. Yeti, did you just say that rape is a part of the Muslim religion? I must be misinterpreting, because I can’t imagine anyone would make such a racist comment…
Wow, talk about over-the-top, knee jerk, reactionary, racist behind every tree and its your life’s mission to find them, PC to the extreme BS. How you got what you got from what he said would be an interesting study in blind zealotry.
I guess we could never even talk about the Japanese “rape of Nanking”, for instance, without being called a racist, anti-Asian. I believe all he was saying that the “Rape Culture”, if that is what you want to call it, extends far beyond the US, or even Western civ.
This comment was written by Larry.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 9:36 am
Larry, this is what everyone was reacting to:
“How does this compare to the gangs of Muslims that wander the enlightened countries of Europe raping non-Muslim women for violating sharia?”
That’s untrue, and that’s what made it so much knee-jerk racist BS. He said that Muslim males raped non-Muslim women for violating Sharia. Of course that statement comes off as racist. I certainly don’t blame Hestia for thinking that he asserted rape was part of Islam.
Jimmy pointed out in the rest of his reply to Yeti that this assertion wasn’t true. In his reply, he had go on to state:
“By the way, I happen to live in France and I know pretty well what crimes you are refering to (i.e. collective rapes in immigrant suburbs). Wanna hear some facts? Many victims are Muslim women, while a good part (about the half) of the perpetrators were of the “Civilized” persuasion. ‘Ni Putes Ni Soumises’ (Not Whores Nor Submissive), the collective that fights this phenomenon, has been created mostly by what you would call ‘Muslim’ women.”
The stereotyping that takes the place of thought comment was in regards to the inaccurate assertions of Muslim crimes, and the ridiculous statement that “When women fight, often with ineffectual or no violence at all, and you have the makings of an interpersonal feud that can last their entire lives and lead to depression, anxiety, ulcers, drug-use, and massive personality changes.” Not only is this a stereotype (women are petty and hold grudges) but he offers no evidence to prove this claim. Where does he get his stats for these feuds and their ensuing health risks? Studies? Or is this just a theory that he pulled out of his ass?
Instead of foaming at the mouth about supposedly reactionary PC to the extreme BS, you’d do well to actually read all of the replies and understand their points. Of course, that would mean you’d have to lose your own reactionary, over-the-top, PC police behind every tree paranoia.
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 9:39 am
Wittgenstein once observed that there was more truth in your average detective story than in most philosophical treatises. The following quote, is from “Simisola” by Ruth Rendell (c)1994. The conversation is between Inspector Wexford, her detective hero, and his daughter, a social worker.
“Why do they do it?” said Wexford…
This comment was written by Bob Howard.“Do what?”
“Men beat up their wives, peolpe mistreat their kids.”
“Are you really asking me? Do you really want to know?”
…”I’d like to know”
…”Have you ever heard of Benjamin Rush?”
“I don’t think so”
“He was the Dean of the Medical School at the University of Pennsylvania. Oh, nearly 200 years ago. He’s known as the father of American psychiatry. Of course there was slavery then in the United States. One of the things Rush maintained was that all crimes are diseases and he thought not believing in God was a mental disease.”
“So what’s he got to do with physical abuse?”
“Well, I bet you’ve never heard this before, Dad. Rush made up something called a Theory of Negritude. He believed being black was a disease. Black people suffered from congenital leprosy but in such a mild form that pigmentation was its only symptom. Do you see what holding a theory like that means? It justifies sexual segregation and social maltreatment. It means you’ve got a reason for ill-treating people.”
“Wait a minute… What you’re saying is that if someone is an object of pity you’re going to want to use physical violence against them? That seems cock-eyed. It’s contrary to everything social morals teaches us.”
“No lsten. You make someone into an object of- not so much of pity as of weakness, sickness, stupidity, ineffectiveness, do you see what I mean? You hit them for their stupidity and their inability to respond, and when you’ve hurt them , marked them, they’re even more sick and ugly aren’t they? And they’re afraid and cringing too. Oh, I know this isn’t very pleasant, but you did ask.”
“Go on”, he said.
“So you’ve got a frightened, stupid, even disabled person, silenced, made ugly, and what can you do with someone like that, someone who’s unworthy of being treated well? You treat them badly because that’s what they deserve. One thinks of poor little kids that no one can love because they’re dirty, covered in snot and shit, and always screaming. So you beat them because they’re hateful, they’re low, they’re sub-human. That’s all they’re good for, being hit, being reduced even further.”
He was silent. She mistook his silence for shock, not at the content of what she had said but because she had said it, and quick to make amends, said, “Dad, it’s horrible, I know, but I do have to know about these things. I have to try and understand the doer as well as the done-to.”
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February 18th, 2004 at 9:56 am
Well, yes, Larry, implying that “Muslim” or “Japanese” men in general are inherently rapists, that rape is, by essence, a part of their respective religion or ethnicity, is racist. Banally racist, yes, but racist.
If I ever were to say that, say, the massive presence of Western pedophile tourists and residents in East Asian countries is explained by the fact that they are White Christians, and that their crimes prove that Christianism per se justifies rape, then you could feel free to call me a racist as well.
“The Yeti” was explicitely drawing a comparison between cultures that are more less tolerant toward rape, in an attempt to “defend” Western culture (which was pointless, since nobody attacked it). The best argument he could find was a typical slur against Muslims, based on the myths that feed the European neo-fascist propaganda (remember those stories about Jews commiting human sacrifices? That’s on the same level).
And Ampersand certainly didn’t write that rape culture is only a characteristic of Western culture. Unfortunately, rape, like slavery, torture, etc., exists in every existing human society (or the huge majority). I can’t see how the fact that there are non-Western rapists out there diminishes the importance of rape in the US of A or in Finland.
Finally, you do know that what is metaphorically called “the rape of Nanking” was, in fact a mass massacre, don’t you?
This comment was written by Jimmy Ho.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 10:01 am
I should note that I hadn’t read Neko’s response to Larry when I posted mine, but I fully agree with it, and, once again, I wish I coud be that clear and articulated.
This comment was written by Jimmy Ho.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 10:08 am
Neko: “That’s untrue, and that’s what made it so much knee-jerk racist BS. He said that Muslim males raped non-Muslim women for violating Sharia. Of course that statement comes off as racist. I certainly don’t blame Hestia for thinking that he asserted rape was part of Islam.”
Hmm, I am curious, what race is a Muslim exactly? Ok, Ok, lets for the moment ignore the obvious fact that Muslim is a religion NOT a race. I still fail to see how Yeti’s description of the actions of groups of Muslims meant that he defined all Muslims by those actions. Maybe he does think that, maybe he doesn’t, but you certainly can’t read that into what he wrote. Hopefully he will respond directly, but I read that he gave an example that he thought would show that the problem exists outside of western culture.
This comment was written by Larry.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 10:39 am
“Hmm, I am curious, what race is a Muslim exactly? Ok, Ok, lets for the moment ignore the obvious fact that Muslim is a religion NOT a race.”
Larry, Jimmy explained why it’s racist to stereotype any group, religious, racial, or ethnic. But if you enjoy spending your time splitting hairs, and avoiding the crux of the argument (that he asserted that Muslim men raped non Muslim women for violating Sharia) feel free.
Everyone also explained–at length–why and how the Yeti came off the way he did. Considering that you took quotes out of context and didn’t consider what people were saying, I’d say you are just as guilty of reading into what people write.
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 10:39 am
But the example that he gave, as has been repeatedly stated, was a lie, on par with the blood libel, certainly. And is anyone going to try to put forth that the blood libel isn’t racist?
This comment was written by Dan J.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 10:49 am
Larry, you’ve made a mistake here. Racism does not imply that its victims have to be members of a minority, only that *the racists have to see them as members of a racial group.*
Such as “Arabs.” Or don’t you know about the American government’s roundup of Arabic-looking people, even though domestic (i.e. white super-fundamentalist Christian) terrorists pose a much, much larger threat to the US that any brown person.
This comment was written by Corwin.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 11:00 am
jimmy ho said:
Finally, you do know that what is metaphorically called “the rape of Nanking” was, in fact a mass massacre, don’t you?
but we cannot forget that there was rape, and a lot of it, involved as well (and torture). from http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/12.12.96/cover/china1-9650.html:
This comment was written by emilie.Women were raped, forced to perform bizarre sexual acts, then killed. Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons, their mothers. Chinese men were forced to rape corpses.
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February 18th, 2004 at 11:02 am
Hmm, I am curious, what race is a Muslim exactly?
Ask “The Yeti”, not Neko and me. He is the one talking about “Muslim gangs” in Europe. He is the one talking about Islam as a race.
Hey, I am curious, too. What race is a Jew exactly? Obviously, it is a religion, NOT a race. Some people, though, ignore that and consider Judaism as a race with defined, usually malign characteristics. That kind of talk is called antisemitism and is a particular form of racism.
“The Yeti” expressed another form of racism called Islamophobia. It is usually mixed with anti-Arab racism, since most Islamophobists conveniently neglect the fact that the majority of Muslims in the world are the non-Arab inhabitants of Asian countries such as Indonesia.
Personally, I always point out what nonsense it is to talk about “Muslims” as an ethnic group in the particular case of France, so I won’t repeat myself here, I can only suggest you read my February 6, 2004 02:21 PM comment on this other thread.
What are “the actions of groups of Muslims” “The Yeti” vaguely refers to (how can you seriously call that a “description”?)? There is no date, no name, not the slightest hint about this threat to the “enlightened” civilisation (a cowardly way to avoid characterizing non-Western civilisations as, a contrario, “barbarian”, “primitive”, whatever you call it).
Once again, I live in Paris, France, and am particularly sensitive to both ethnic and rape issues here. And I am far from being convinced that you or “The Yeti” know better than me what is going on where I live. In fact, I am tired of reading on American blogs word for word what I can hear anytime when I tune in my local far-rightist radio station. Only the language is different.
This comment was written by Jimmy Ho.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 12:16 pm
Neko: “Larry, Jimmy explained why it’s racist to stereotype any group, religious, racial, or ethnic.”
Regardless of what Jimmy explained he is simply wrong. The word “racist” has a specific meaning:
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
Bastardizing the word to label other things is wrong, and over time it will lose its edge. Its like right-wingers calling all the libs “commies”, or libs calling right-wingers “nazis” all the time. Keep flinging those labels around willy-nilly and over time they will no longer be a serious accusation. Being labeled as a racist, nazi, or commie should be a serious charge, but they are becoming less so everyday.
Jimmy: “Ask “The Yeti”, not Neko and me. He is the one talking about “Muslim gangs” in Europe. He is the one talking about Islam as a race.”
How did you come the that conclusion? I see no mention of race in that paragraph. How does one equate “Muslim gangs in Europe” to “Islam is a race”. I don’t understand how you can make that leap based on what he wrote. He is using Muslim gangs as a distinction of culture, not of race.
Jimmy: “Finally, you do know that what is metaphorically called “the rape of Nanking” was, in fact a mass massacre, don’t you?”
If you think all that happened was a massacre then you might want to read up on it a little. Thousands were also raped, and taken as sex slaves for the Japanese army.
This comment was written by Larry.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 12:26 pm
Yeti said:
Or accounts of Western soldiers raping a populace. Of course, when that happens, those soldiers are court-martialed and sent to prison, not congratulated on spreading their religion.
I read, “We Westerners are so much better than those Muslims, who take pride and delight in raping women in the name of evangelism.” I don’t jump to accusations of racism quickly–and I did try to find a way to read this statement in a different way. I couldn’t. He’s accusing all Muslims, or at least Muslim leaders, of supporting this kind of behavior, in the same way that he’s suggesting that American administrators punish any soldier caught in the same act (which I question, but whatever). I find his statement appalling.
I don’t run around yelling, “Catholicism requires sex with little boys!” and I think it would be pretty disgusting to do so. And frankly, I didn’t think “religiousist” sounded right, so I went with racist. Perhaps you know a more appropriate word, Larry. Ignorant, maybe? Stupid? Mean and hateful? I could go with any of those, too.
I’m proud of the men and women who choose to defend our country (why do I always need to add disclaimers?), but I’m more than a little horrified by reports of sexual harrassment and rape in the military. Based on what they’re being taught, soldiers should be the opposite of criminals, shouldn’t they? So what’s going on? If they don’t buy Ampersand’s explanation, how do Yeti and Larry explain this phenomenon (without resorting to “But other people do it, too!”)? Aren’t we supposed to be the “civilized” ones?
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 12:36 pm
Larry, if you don’t like the term racist, then try bigoted.
It’s rather telling that you’re sticking to the hair splitting rather than answering the points Jimmy, Hestia, and John raised.
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 12:45 pm
“The word “racist” has a specific meaning:
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.”
Larry, I explained this already, but will try again:
Your definition of racism is incorrect. Before every instance of the word “race,” should be the word “perceived.” Many, many people think Muslims are all Arabic, and that all Muslims (read, Arabs) want to take over white civilization, rape white women, etc., ad nauseum. Their anti-Muslim prejudice can therefore accurately be called racism, even though there is no “Arabic race.”
Standard disclaimer: There is, in fact, no scientific validity to “race;” the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our facial features has nothing to do with anything real, as opposed to in the minds of racists.
This comment was written by Corwin.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 1:03 pm
Larry,
When one talks about Muslim gangs roving “civilised countries”, it’s referring to the difference in western countries and Islamic nations, of North Africa, Central Asia and the Arab Penninsula. But these countries geographically center around the Arab Penninsula which leads to the ignorant switching around of the words “Arab” and “Muslim” which really is the sort of view that the Yeti was implying.
So I repeat, it is racist. No amount of word-parsing can change that fact.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 1:05 pm
I hadn’t read Corwin’s response when I posted that. But he said what I was trying to say a bit more elegantly and clearly. So feel free to refer to Corwin as opposed to me.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 1:31 pm
Neko: “It’s rather telling that you’re sticking to the hair splitting rather than answering the points Jimmy, Hestia, and John raised.”
I saw some guy give an honest opinion and get jumped on, unfairly, by a lot of people. His opinion, assumptions, or conclusions may be wrong. But “wrong” does not equate to racist, bigoted, and the like. Maybe a “Muslim gang” has never raped a non-Muslim in Europe, but I doubt it. I have no idea whether its rare or common, but those facts can be debated without unfairly labeling someone.
OK, I will try to go back on topic. I gave my opinion on this topic way, way up there ^. But to summarize I generally agreed with most of Ampersand’s points.
Hestia: “I’m proud of the men and women who choose to defend our country (why do I always need to add disclaimers?), but I’m more than a little horrified by reports of sexual harrassment and rape in the military. Based on what they’re being taught, soldiers should be the opposite of criminals, shouldn’t they? So what’s going on? If they don’t buy Ampersand’s explanation, how do Yeti and Larry explain this phenomenon (without resorting to “But other people do it, too!”)? Aren’t we supposed to be the “civilized” ones?”
Prisons: Take a bunch of violent, partially civilized men who don’t play by societies rules and throw them all together and people are surprised by the violence and rape?
Soldiers: Soldiers are not born in isolation, they are from the population at large. At 18 you are not exactly a clean slate on which to build. However, there is no doubt that the military can change people for the better. I am living proof of that. If I hadn’t joined the Marine Corps as a young man, I don’t think I would be the man I am today (for the better). I maybe wrong, but I doubt rape among US soldiers 18-24 is much greater than that of 18-24 US college students, for instance.
This comment was written by Larry.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 1:56 pm
I wonder if the quotation marks were meant to denigrate my opinions?
Regardless. This thread was about Ampersand’s thoughts on a rape culture, and it was not my intention to push it off-topic.
I never equated Muslims with Arabs. I was speaking specifically about the Mulsim slums in France, Belgium and Denmark where Sharia law is gaining traction over western law. This is information you can find at the Daniel Pipes website - but after reading some of the responses, I can only assume that reading Daniel Pipes must make me a neo-fascist western colonialist.
Ampersand had no problem understanding what I said and disagreeing with it. Jimmy had to take my points and turn me into one of the hated right-wingers he rails about on his blog. Forgive me for ignoring him.
Do a search for: Odd Girl Out: The Culture of Hidden Aggression in Girls.
Follow up with the studies that have been big this year on female bullying.
My efforts are directed towards preventing the navel-gazing so common in Western thought by extending the discussion to humanity as a whole.
If America is a “rape culture,” then I want to know what the criteria are and if it is reasonable to apply them to other cultures. If Muslim teenagers can rape women not of their culture in Denmark to intimidate them (a common practice for thuggish men throughout history), would that qualify as a rape culture?
If brothels in France have a high incidence of rape and violence by the patrons, is that considered a rape culture?
Would Iraq, who under Saddam actually had a man payed to rape political opponents on Saddam’s staff be considered a rape culture?
If the point is to fix the problem, then we have to understand rape in a historical context to solve the problem. Focusing on data that only addresses prisoners and college boys without adult supervision is unhelpful.
But if your purpose is simply to bash men, bash western culture, and deny any culpability on the part of non-white, non-Western societies, please feel free to continue misusing my words to paint me to be a monster.
But you might want to start your own blog.
This comment was written by TheYeti.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 1:56 pm
Corwin, I understand your point and it has one glaring fault: You presume to know that Yeti views Muslims as a race. On what do you base that presumption?
“Many, many people think Muslims are all Arabic, and that all Muslims (read, Arabs) want to take over white civilization, rape white women, etc., ad nauseum. Their anti-Muslim prejudice can therefore accurately be called racism, even though there is no “Arabic race.”"
Ahh I see, because “Many, many” people believe that, and “Many. many” is greater than Yeti (one), then obviously Yeti is one of those. It all makes sense now.
This comment was written by Larry.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 2:04 pm
“I saw some guy give an honest opinion and get jumped on, unfairly, by a lot of people.”
Well at least now you’ve dropped the semantic hair-splitting. How refreshing.
As far as people telling Yeti how he came off–that’s what happens in discussions and debates. People disagreeing with you or calling you on something you said is par the course, and it’s perfectly fair to say that someone is coming off as bigoted. You are free to disagree. Yeti’s free to rebut. But don’t give me this garbage that it’s a terrible thing for me or anyone else here to call something as we see it.
“His opinion, assumptions, or conclusions may be wrong. But ‘wrong’ does not equate to racist, bigoted, and the like.”
When he said (”How does this compare to the gangs of Muslims that wander the enlightened countries of Europe raping non-Muslim women for violating sharia?”) coupled with his comment about Western soldiers not getting congratulated on spreading their religion through rape, came off as racist to me and several other posters here. You might not agree with other posters’ assessments of his comments, but you’d better get used to the fact that they will interpret comments differently from you, and that they will say what they think. I’m not going sugar coat my words to spare someone’s freaking fee-fees, and if you can’t handle it, you should frequent a knitting blog.
“Maybe a ‘Muslim gang’ has never raped a non-Muslim in Europe, but I doubt it.”
Actually, Jimmy Ho–the poster who *lives* in Paris and actually *knows* about the issue–discussed the Yeti’s claim, way up there^. No one ever said that a Muslim gang *never* raped a non-Muslim woman. What Jimmy said (again, sheesh, read the posts, willya) was this:
“By the way, I happen to live in France and I know pretty well what crimes you are refering to (i.e. collective rapes in immigrant suburbs). Wanna hear some facts? Many victims are Muslim women, while a good part (about the half) of the perpetrators were of the “Civilized” persuasion. ‘Ni Putes Ni Soumises’ (Not Whores Nor Submissive), the collective that fights this phenomenon, has been created mostly by what you would call ‘Muslim’ women.”
“I have no idea whether its rare or common, but those facts can be debated without unfairly labeling someone.”
That’s pretty rich, since *you* were quite happy to label people as knee-jerk, PC (I assume in the detrimental sense) and a whole host of other things; it would behoove you to stop the finger-wagging and take your own advice.
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 2:18 pm
“That’s pretty rich, since *you* were quite happy to label people as knee-jerk, PC (I assume in the detrimental sense) and a whole host of other things; it would behoove you to stop the finger-wagging and take your own advice.”
The difference being called a knee-jerk-PC-etc. and racist is the difference between calling someone a jerk verses calling them a child molester. If you don’t understand that difference in degree then we can just agree to disagree.
This comment was written by Larry.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 2:20 pm
“I never equated Muslims with Arabs.”
No one said you did. People had a problem with your comments about Muslim gangs roaming enlightened European countries raping non-Muslim women for violating sharia law, and western soldiers not getting congratulated for spreading their religion through rape. That came off as racist.
“I was speaking specifically about the Mulsim slums in France, Belgium and Denmark where Sharia law is gaining traction over western law. This is information you can find at the Daniel Pipes website - but after reading some of the responses, I can only assume that reading Daniel Pipes must make me a neo-fascist western colonialist.”
No, but according to someone who *lives* in France, and is well-versed in the issues there, your assumption was inaccurate. Is it too much to expect that you could actually listen to someone who *lives* there, or is it more comfortable for you to get defensive during a debate?
“Ampersand had no problem understanding what I said and disagreeing with it. Jimmy had to take my points and turn me into one of the hated right-wingers he rails about on his blog. Forgive me for ignoring him.”
Actually, Jimmy had no problem with understanding what you said and disagreeing with it. I see you haven’t acutally provided any hard evidence or stats about these gangs that supposedly terrorize non-Muslim women.
“If America is a “rape culture,” then I want to know what the criteria are and if it is reasonable to apply them to other cultures. If Muslim teenagers can rape women not of their culture in Denmark to intimidate them (a common practice for thuggish men throughout history), would that qualify as a rape culture?”
Amp and several others have already discussed this at the beginning of the thread. But FWIW, he never specifically said that this was only about America. He does seem to concentrate on (North American) Western culture, because he knows it best.
“If the point is to fix the problem, then we have to understand rape in a historical context to solve the problem. Focusing on data that only addresses prisoners and college boys without adult supervision is unhelpful.”
Did you even read Amp’s post? Good lord, he was talking about cultural mores and expectations. (And BTW, the vast majority of college students are legal adults, not boys and girls.)
“But if your purpose is simply to bash men, bash western culture, and deny any culpability on the part of non-white, non-Western societies, please feel free to continue misusing my words to paint me to be a monster.”
And if your purpose is to read things into what Amp said, instead of what he *actually* said, feel free to cast yourself as a martyr when we call you on your misinterpretation.
“But you might want to start your own blog.”
And you might want to actually *read* what people have written about the subject (in this thread and others) instead of whining about how we are bashing men and the west and giving other cultures a free pass. Of course, that would require you reading what people wrote, something you don’t appear willing to do.
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 2:28 pm
Larry, there is a world of difference between telling someone thier comments came off as racist, and falsely accusing someone of being a child molester. Note that I’m not freaking out over Yeti’s comments that we are bashing men and the west–and I don’t liken his comments to accusing someone of being a child molester.
Sheesh, talk about being over the top. Go to a knitting blog, take a few deep breaths, and come back when you’re calm and rational.
This comment was written by neko.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 3:11 pm
Neither Larry nor Yeti addressed the questions I raised.
Let me see if I can make it clearer: Yeti said, “The solution is nor [sic] misandry. It’s raising and supporting masculine boys who understand that the protection of the weak is the true basis of manhood.” That’s what the military does, or is supposed to do. In fact, it may be the only institution that consciously tries to instill these particular values. Soliders should behave better than non-soldiers because that is the way they’re being trained. So they should have a much smaller rate of sexual harrassment than any other organization, company, or group of people anywhere. Why is that not the case?
As far as prisons are concerned, why, if inmates are all “violent, partially civilized [people] who don’t play by societies [sic] rules,” is rape is much more prevalent among men in prisons than among women? I mean, they’re all criminals. They’ve all done bad things. In each case, some are more powerful than the others. So why aren’t the stronger women going after the weaker ones? (Oh, I forgot: Women do that thing with the “interpersonal feud that can last their entire lives and lead to depression, anxiety, ulcers, drug-use, and massive personality changes.”)
Here’s the part where I go even more off-topic and irritate Larry:
Ahh I see, because “Many, many” people believe that, and “Many. many” is greater than Yeti (one), then obviously Yeti is one of those.
You think is a coherent argument? “Person X says something contrary to what ‘many, many’ other people believe, so Person X is completely right”? Or is it, “If Person X believes one thing, anyone who accuses him of anything else is completely wrong”? Intentions matter, but only if they’re clear.
The difference being called a knee-jerk-PC-etc. and racist is the difference between calling someone a jerk verses calling them a child molester.
…What? How? I don’t see the connection at all. “Racist,” in this instance, describes a sentence. It’s based on a reading of that sentence. “Knee-jerk etc.,” and “jerk” and, for that matter, “blind zealotry” describe people. They’re insults and also ad hominems. (I’m so glad I learned that phrase.) “Child molester” describes a behavior. It’s either a fact or libel. “Child molester” is not even a little bit like “racist,” and I have absolutely no idea how you connected them. (Have you come up with an alternative word for “racist” yet? Because I’d be glad to change it.)
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 3:57 pm
The military is huge. Millions of vets have passed through the ranks. Of both sexes. And it instills martial virtues, not masculine ones. They are related, but there is a difference.
The military teaches discipline and camaraderie. That’s not necessarily manly values.
If you think the military has more rape and more harassment than other institutions, than you’ve never been a member of the military.
In groups that large, you will always have enough evidence to paint a picture. But it’s not the truth. In fact, the military takes many of the same young boys that are violent and anti-societal and teaches them.
Bringing up military rape is an attempt to defame American culture by pointing out weaknesses. It’s not truly an argument about military culture. It’s a strawman.
“The military is supposed to be the paragon of manliness. So American soldiers raping proves the culture is debased.”
Sheesh.
So if I can provide proof of Muslim youths raping non-Muslim women in Europe to intimidate them in preparation for an Islamic revolution in Europe, would that still be racist? Or does that validate my argument? Is all I’m missing here a link?
Because that’s the only argument anyone made outside of Jimmy’s wildly anecdotal comment that he lives in France and thus knows more than anyone else about France.
Not that it stops him from discussing his view on Americans in his blog. No bias there. He’s a reputable source.
Now - is the attack on Larry another attack of intimidation because the arguments are all personal? Can we get back on the thread topic?
This comment was written by TheYeti.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 4:23 pm
I lack the time to respond in detail, so for the moment I will only adress the remarks about the Rape of Nanking:
As Emilie rightly pointed out many comments ago, using the word “metaphorically” was misleading and partly wrong, because it seems to imply that “rape” is not meant literally in this expression.
Of course, systematic raping was a part of the tragedy, and it is in itself horrendous enough, but what makes this historical event even more dreadful is that this was “only” one of the many tortures imagined by the Japanese military to humiliate and destroy the people of Nanjing. While rape was all-too commonly used as a way to mark the absolute power of the occupation force in every territory conquered by the Japanese army, the goal in Nanjing was a high-scale slaughter. In fact, I’m not even sure if the “rape” in “Rape of Nanking” refers directly to this practice, or to the violation/destruction of a whole city.
As a matter of fact, it is traditionally called “the Big Massacre of Nanjing (Nanjing da tusha 南京大屠殺)” in Chinese.
As for the issue about racism, I’m glad Neko, Corwin, and the others responded a lot better than I would have.
The Yeti, the reason I put your name in quotations marks is simple: whenever I write the Yeti, I have this image in mind. I needed to distinguish it somehow from “the commenter who signs The Yeti”. I see no objection in calling you The if you tell me that this is really your first name.
This comment was written by Jimmy Ho.So Daniel Pipes is your authority on French Muslims? Why am I not surprised (remember I did guess LGF)? Whatever happened to Bernard Lewis.
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February 18th, 2004 at 4:28 pm
For the record, I saw The Yeti’s post right after I posted mine. I’m off anyway.
This comment was written by Jimmy Ho.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 5:04 pm
I guess I just can’t help but being pulled back into the off topic discussion.
Hestia: “Ahh I see, because “Many, many” people believe that, and “Many. many” is greater than Yeti (one), then obviously Yeti is one of those. You think is a coherent argument?”
OMG! The argument was incoherent to the point of lunacy, thus I was being sarcastic.
Hestia: “…What? How? I don’t see the connection at all. “Racist,” in this instance, describes a sentence. It’s based on a reading of that sentence. “Knee-jerk etc.,” and “jerk” and, for that matter, “blind zealotry” describe people. They’re insults and also ad hominems. (I’m so glad I learned that phrase.) “Child molester” describes a behavior. It’s either a fact or libel. “Child molester” is not even a little bit like “racist,” and I have absolutely no idea how you connected them. (Have you come up with an alternative word for “racist” yet? Because I’d be glad to change it.)”
I probably wasn’t very clear on this point. Even though “child molester” does work, it probably wasnt the best term to use in my explanation. In the way that it works: being called a jerk is fairly harmless, being called a child molester has a heavy stigma attached to it.
So Let me try again without the analogy. The way I see things is that there are harmless names that can be thrown around, and then there are labels which should be given and taken seriously.
Group A- Harmless: Jerk, asshole, idiot, loony, reactionary, geek, sh*thead, hippy, etc.
Group B- Serious labels that carry a heavy negative stigma: Nazi, fascist, racist, anti-Semitic, Bigot, etc.
This comment was written by Larry.Report this comment to the moderators
February 18th, 2004 at 6:00 pm
So Larry, how are we supposed to classify statements like, “Muslim culture is all about the rape” (okay I’m oversimplifying) if not bigoted. This isn’t being a geek, this is a statement laden with anti-Islamic bigotry. It doesn’t mean person who said it is a bigot, merely that the person made a bigoted statement. And the fact that neither you nor the yeti can see what’s wrong with saying off-the-cuff statements that seem to say to be Muslim is to be intrinsically pro-rape means I get to ignore any of your gripes about fairness.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
February 19th, 2004 at 8:10 am
I don’t know (to my knowledge) any man that has stranger raped a woman, or used force to have sex with a woman any longer than she wanted to. Part of the problem may be that I don’t hang out with people who don’t respect the autonomy of other people (which I think is a trait all rapists have).
So what should I be doing to diminish the occurence of rape in Minneapolis, Minnesota?
Terry31415
This comment was written by Terry31415.Report this comment to the moderators
February 19th, 2004 at 9:43 pm
Yes, I’m entering the convo very late, but I was out of town. So, I’ll be backtracking a bit:
Amp: 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.
I wouldn’t disagree with this — but I also wouldn’t say this is always true. I think, more often than not, it is true in cases of acquaintance rape (which, yes, make up about 86% of rapes), but not always in cases of stranger rapes. In cases of stranger rapes, there often is various levels of hatred of women, a desire not only for sex (and sometimes not for sex — as most of us know it — at all) but for degredation, humiliation, and torture.
To expand on this, Mithras asked: Do you have research on rapists’ attitudes toward women to support this? I have always been under the impression that most rapists actually enjoy the emotional pain and fear of their victims. And since such emotions can be experienced by both male and female victims, it would seem to be a better explanation of why both men and women get raped than your “women are worthless” theory. Also, it shows the critical psychological difference between men who rape and men who don’t. In short, it’s not that rapists hate women, it’s that they hate people.
Most studies who have shown these types of responses have been done with those men convicted of stranger rape. Talk to the man convicted (or accused) of acquaintance rape, you’ll get a very different answer.
we have one thing going for us, i guess. Our courts won’t throw out a rape case if two men didn’t witness it. How twisted of us. And sick, for that matter.
Well, not openly, anyway. Our courts find other ways to throw cases out, or get acquittals based on lies and falsehoods. We have defense attorneys who will end run around rape shield laws in every effort to show that the victim was a “slut” and therefore “couldn’t have been raped” (”sluts” are even lower than “women” don’t ya know, can’t rape a slut — and if you do, she probably deserved it — yes, that is sarcasm). Hell we have “liberal” TV shows making claims that rape shield laws are “constitutional violations” and harming the poor men (see: The Practice).
Mithras wrote: One other thing. Your theory seems to presuppose that only men whose masculinity is threatened rape. How to explain men who have willing sexual partners who then also rape? To use your analogy, how to explain the rich person who embezzles or commits tax fraud?
Entitlement, entitlement, entitlement. That and the fact that masculinity is so fragile that it can be lost at a moment’s notice. And there is an element of power in over-powering someone; taking from them something they didn’t want to give (so to speak). Having a willing sexual partner (or partners) doesn’t guarantee continued ensurance of masculinity, that needs to be constantly proven. It’s the same reason that men who have willing sexual partners (and, in particular, those big name stars who not only have willing sexual partners, but could get 90% of the women in the room to willingly have sex with them) go to prostitutes.
Larry said: I don’t think we are taught masculinity; I think it is mostly genetic predisposition. And I think it is perfectly natural in a primitive way.
To paraphrase John Stuart Mill, if these things are so inherent and ingrained, why then does society spend so much time and energy teaching, demanding, and controlling it? Mill was speaking of femininity, but the same applies to masculinity. The very fact that we have to teach it and mold it and demand shows that it’s not inate. And believe me, watch any child growing up, and you can see how much these things are taught to children.
Raznor said: I cling to the belief we can change society for the better, through government controls and general activism.
Maybe it’s the radical feminist in me, but I just can’t get behind the idea that government controls will ever do anything to change society for the better. That’s not to say that I don’t think laws and such are necessary, I just don’t think they do enough to actually change society. Rape laws won’t stop rape, sexual harrassment laws won’t stop sexual harrassment, Affirmative Action won’t stop racist and sexist hiring standards. We need to go beyond laws if we want to actually change society, we need to get to a point where men realize that rape is WRONG, not just because they might go to jail, but because it is inhuman (and inhumane) and just plain WRONG.
Joe M. said: Of course women don’t commit rapes. They don’t have the necessary equipment.
Not true. First, rape (by men or women, of men or women) can consist of penetration with an object (not necessarily a penis). Second, it is physically possible for a woman to rape a man by forcing him to have sex with her. People cannot always control physiological responses, so while the man may not want to have sex, may actively be fighting against it, he can still have an erection, which the woman can insert in her vagina against his will. Yeah, it’s rare. But not just because of physical reasons.
Amp said: why rape is uncommon in female prisons but common in male prisons
OK, I know I’m being nit-picky (and really, I do get what you’re actually saying, and agree with it), but rape is not uncommon at all in female prisons. It’s just that the rapists are the male guards, not other prisoners.
Yeti said: Or accounts of Western soldiers raping a populace. Of course, when that happens, those soldiers are court-martialed and sent to prison, not congratulated on spreading their religion.
Oh, really? I’d suggest taking a look at military history — real military history, not what’s taught in high school social studies classes. Read about the massive rapes in Viet Nam, Bosnia, and all the places we aren’t “technically” “at war” but simply have soldiers stationed there. Rapes are ever present among US soldiers, both in war time and “peace” time, and 99% of them are never court-martialed or discharged from service. Read Bananas, Beaches, and Bases. Read Against Our Will. There’s enough history of Amerian soldiers proudly raping and being cheered on for doing so, it would turn a humane person’s stomach on edge.
Yeti: You’ve surely heard of the problems win Denmark, Belgium, and France? Are those rape cultures?
Uhhhh, I do believe it’s already been stated that all of Western culture is a rape culture, and unless there’s been a drastic overturn in power last night, those are Western countries.
This comment was written by bean.Report this comment to the moderators
February 20th, 2004 at 12:52 am
Bean, a few immediate responses:
Man I cringed when you reminded me of guard on inmate rape in women’s prisons. That sort of thing has always caused me to have a particularly visceral response. I guess that I probably should have a visceral response but . ..
As to what you said directly to me, I agree, but that’s why I said government control and general activism. Of course I’m being a bit ambiguous, but to use a bad and overly explained analogy, if you want to fix a leak, you plug it (government control) then stop it’s source (general activism). I don’t think either part should be de-emphasized, and government action is the first step to changing society for the better. And to all, please don’t waste your time tearing apart my analogy, it sucks I know, and it would be shooting fish in a barrel, but let’s move on.
As far as soldiers raping innocent victims - I file that sort of behavior in general war atrocities. The kind that’s bad, but not big enough to be strongly noticed, and the kind that are almost impossible to prosecute, since Officers don’t see everything that’s happening in the field, soldiers will protect their own from discipline, and officers don’t want to stop their soldiers from dehumanizing the enemy, nor suffer the loss of blood lust that would cause. It’s a different phenomenon than shooting civilians on a whim or beating surrendering POWs to death, but I fear it is still one of the ugly realities of war, and there’s not much we can do except to avoid going to war when unnecessary, but then that brings up all sorts of tangent arguments. And besides this is all off-the-cuff speculation by a guy whose taken a Vietnam history class and read James Jones, so never ignore the possibility that I’m just pulling this all out of my ass.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
February 20th, 2004 at 7:21 am
I can’t help myself I’ve gotta respond to some of these comments
Bean: I think, more often than not, it is true in cases of acquaintance rape (which, yes, make up about 86% of rapes), but not always in cases of stranger rapes. In cases of stranger rapes, there often is various levels of hatred of women, a desire not only for sex (and sometimes not for sex — as most of us know it — at all) but for degredation, humiliation, and torture.
I don’t think the distinction is that clearcut - somewhere in the midst of the flame war I posted a quote from Ruth Rendell about how the perception of worthlessness affects peoples actions. What she is careful to point out is that it doesn’t require hate but only a belief that someone is a second class citizen and that hate can evolve from the consequences of this belief. I would bet that all “stranger rapists” start out as “acquaintance rapists”.
What this implies is that mysogyny evolves from Amp’s second point “The low regard of women in society” rather than from “the fragility of maculinity”.
I do think however that these two points are related. I’d refer you to Wilhelm Reich back in the 1930’s (before he started inventing orgone boxes etc.)Reich was interested in how society persuaded men to go to war - he reasoned that it was through the process of humiliation and degradation to the point where men will obey any orders given to them. Why don’t men rebel, he asked? Because they are given women to possess, he answered. It’s that old Judaic scripture thing about not being born a woman.
So, as Bean rightly points out rape is an integral part of war, and an integral reward of war in whatever society you are in. The processes of humiliation and degradation become generalised outside of the military to become the source of concepts such as ‘fragile masculinity’ which creates a war like culture.
It’s worth asking who wins out of all this, because it is not all men that win but only privileged men that win. Most men learn to bite their tongue when their bosses humiliate them and go home and take it out on the wife (I know this is a cliche but it is also true).
The consequence of the rise of feminism is that a lot of men feel highly emotionally distressed because the female safety net has pulled from under them and yet they are not ready or able to take on the big guys with the power and money.
IMHO it all a function of economics - which is a function of the kind of government you’ve got, the kind of taxes you collect and the kind of laws you make.
In post-industrial societies the cost of having children has risen dramatically against the benefits from having them. This, along with the control of reproduction has given women unprecedented economic power.
IN the last 10 or 15 years there has been an ideological backlash against this but as the saying goes “My karma ran over my dogma”
The question really is whether men can become pacifists or whether they want to keep fighting wars and humiliating each other and … raping women…
Bean wrote we need to get to a point where men realize that rape is WRONG I couldn’t agree more - what that implies though is that men don’t just feel guilty about rape but feel ashamed about it.
This comment was written by Bob H.Report this comment to the moderators
February 20th, 2004 at 9:35 am
Bringing up military rape is an attempt to defame American culture by pointing out weaknesses.
Uh, no, it’s an attempt to disprove your assertation that we need to teach boys traditional masculinity. I’m not saying the military is evil; I am saying that your argument doesn’t stand up in light of the rate of sexual harassment and rape in the military, where boys are taught traditional masculinity. I thought I was pretty clear about that.
Group A- Harmless: Jerk, asshole, idiot, loony, reactionary, geek, sh*thead, hippy, etc. Group B- Serious labels that carry a heavy negative stigma: Nazi, fascist, racist, anti-Semitic, Bigot, etc.
Oh, whatever. This is an entirely subjective opinion that doesn’t take into account the fact that Group B can factually describe a comment while Group A is an opinion of a person. (You never offered a better word, by the way, nor did you respond to my suggestion of “stupid,” “ignorant,” and “hateful” as possible alternatives.) I have better things to do than get into a stupid semantic “Your insult is worse than my insult!” argument. (Ooh, does a string of Group A insults trump a single Group B one??) I stand by what I said and my reasons for saying it.
Not that anybody cares, but I think I’m done in this thread. I feel like I’m talking to a couple brick walls, and I’m not interested in wasting any more of my time on that. And I never really had anything brilliant to say about Amp’s original post anyway. Sorry for any derailment my posts caused.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
February 20th, 2004 at 11:30 am
Another Colorado rape claim
This comment was written by Sweetie-Pie's Sweet Blog.Natl Organization for Women has come out strongly against the University of Colorado due to the recent rape scandal there. After one female football player came forward with rape allegations against another teammate, the coach had this to say about…
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November 25th, 2004 at 9:06 am
I’m a man but I honestly can’t think of any other crime that is worse than rape. Murder, even brutal murder is better because you never wake up the next morning to face the world… and yourself.
Come on guys, don’t you have wives and sisters and (God forbid) daughters?
Chris, strongwallafrica@yahoo.com
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November 25th, 2004 at 8:52 pm
Id like a moment to quote on this from the top of the page by ‘ampersand’ “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.”
May I ask what the hell made you write this and all above below? I have never had men (ie parents friends) force a manly side apon me, I have turned out fine, Never been beeten up, I can talk out a fight, If needed I can be in control of a situation and I am very much intouch with my feminine side, my best friends are women. I can see that you are relating to some people but to call every man wrong and say that we all are made like machines to be against anything which makes us look queer or feminine is just plain stupid and you must be incased in the smallest wall ever. There is no such thing as wrong or right, so how every man is wrong i would love to know… our human exsistance is based on where we live who we know and what we do. sorry I had to say that but as you put it i will piss alot of people off as we all have views.
I would also like to mention that I was forced by a man at a young age (I knew this guy for more than 4 years) to have sex with my younger brother (I am male for the record), I luckly escaped before anything happened and I told an adult next door, I would love to get my hands on this guy if i ever saw him again, I was lucky I only got some emotional pain from it, but it is still horrid to tell some 1 they tryed to make u have sex with your own brother and to keep remembering it every day.
Rape has been among us for years, I would even say that animals to a certain extent push sex upon the females. animals fight with other males. this sounds like a descripton on men that I hear so many women say (that we fight, are wrong, are not needed, fight all the time, have to prove something, all are bastards - this is the most common.)
Man and woman has been sexualy active for the whole generation and rape with or without physical force is everywhere, I bet lots of men get girlfriends and have sex with them whilest they are sleeping as do women to their boyfriends, maybe rape is a nateral way of life for humans (yes males in general do have high sexual urges). If, like I said above, there is no right or wrong then if a person believes he is not doing something bad or wrong then he wont feel guilty and will do it. Now we all have our right and wrong sides, I dont believe in religion as i think its control and is wrong, Then I think that the reason I think like this is because I have been brought up in a non religious way and have other people other than family saying how they hate it. I became acustomed to this, I can look back and see how everything I know as right and wrong comes from other people’s ideas and control, the same thing goes for sex… In some religions you cannot have sex until you are married, If those people didn’t grow up in the environment that made them think this way they would proberbly have sex at the first opertunity, or even rape.
Now the only thing that I can leave to being the reason more men rape than women is that we have an urge to shag as much as possible, its fun, enjoyable and not many men on this planet stay virgins all their life.
Now we have been talking about RAPE, is it really wrong or is it just wrong to some of us because we have all grown up listening to a powerfull set of people and or family and or government say that sex with out both sides wanting it is rape… they set a rule and like sheep people with no power over the people telling them this (ie government) follow. A few people dont cause they dont like people being higher than them, they may believe we are all equal or may not like the fact that they have rules set for them, so they break them because they believe it is the right thing to do, the parents, friend or family proberbly believe the same.
I will leave you with that, some of us will realise ‘hey it makes sence! why are we disscusing something we will have to live with almost all of our human existance? can it be stoped?’ My only answer is not even definate but I am sure something will be tried and some device that is issued to every child born will be implanted or sumthing to try and control the man/woman it is implanted in, then some how nature will take over and 1 man or woman will get out (proberbly hundreds will escape the control or not get caught in the first place). That will be when once again all hell will break out and rape, theft, attacks, and so forth will reign down on this planet once more and the cycle will continue.
DMA
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November 25th, 2004 at 10:49 pm
Ho hum. Conjecture and speculation, that’s nice.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
November 26th, 2004 at 8:27 am
“Rape has been among us for years, I would even say that animals to a certain extent push sex upon the females. ”
This is one of my all-time favorites!!! Do you realize that human men are sooooooo convinced the female sexuality is BAD ™ that they refuse to see the very obvious participation of femles of any species in the act of sex. Why do you think the term “bitch” is so popular with men and so derogatory in nature? Have you ever watched a bitch dog in heat trying to get what she wants??? Females like sex. Females enjoy sex. Females actively and even aggressively pursue sex. But because *men* have stigmatized this in females and women (based their conceptions of female spirituality and intelligence on the unnatural and untamed sexual apetites of women) it *appears* that men are more prone to “shagging” and wanting to “shag”. Utter garbage. But even if men want to “shag” more than women, how does that create a rape society? If anything, it would create a homosexual society. :p
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
November 26th, 2004 at 11:43 am
I have yet to see, ever, an ounce of proof that men like sex more than women. However, there is proof that women probably like it more than men–we’re the insatiable sex, after all.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
November 26th, 2004 at 2:53 pm
Upon some of the accounts that have been brought up in this discussion, I would say that my own personal veiwpoint is that Rape is not due to men wanting to “get their end away” is it because men love the sense of power that they are given when they can hold down someone basicly do what they want to it. Its that destructive urge that men have, to wreck something pure, scar it, leave your mark on it.
This comment was written by P.J.Atkins.Also I am unfortunate enough to know many people who have been raped, sometimes on more than one occasion in their short lives, and in every single case, it was a fully grown attached man with a healthy sex life. Two thirds of the time, it was the father who did the raping.
I would say that its not so much because its denied, its the fact that men do, physically, have the “power” to rape women and because its a complete taboo, they get all the more pleasure from it. They love the control. Doing what is forbidden, wrong.
Now that we have the “date rape” drugs, more men have this power, and will exercise this, even if they have a good sex life.
I am not saying that men who are denied sex are not going to rape because they cannot “get any”, because anger is also a cause in my opinion, the frustration of being turned down over and over and having their sexuality questioned is a big thing, because masculinity is indeed a fragile thing. So is pride.
But back to my point, if its because men are denied, why is there gang rape? Because power and control is a big turn on, for women as well as men, and this could be why there is not much female rape. Because women hold the power, they decide if any sex is given out, they pull all the strings in a relationship, sexual or otherwise. Rape could be caused by the dislike in their lack of power, showing again that they are not in charge, and not “being a man”. So they could rape their spouse or a girl they meet in a bar if denied, by simply dropping a pill in the womans drink and having that exilerating little bit more power over a woman.
I hope that I have interested some of you, or pissed at least one person off, and i would be honoured if it makes some of you think.
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November 26th, 2004 at 4:18 pm
Man will dominate due to nateral anger and the fact he likes to be in control, he has to prove it!
Due to anger, this world, the fact women are in control and men want it, and many other aspects… some men will rape.
I can quite happily say women are in control, I have nothing against women and sorry I seamed to focus on men in general because we were mostly on about male rape. I have said before women are my best friends and I prefer hanging out and chatting to them than men.
I wish men and women could all get on but both sexes make it hard for the other and the cycle gets worse. If this world ever manages to put its differnces aside on a world wide scale then we may see some progress. Till then ladies do what you do because no measure will stop rape and mens victems vary so much you could dress 1 day to look unatractive and get raped cause some guy thought u were being too clever, atempting to avoid rape may be the type of victem that guy goes for cause it may threaten the control he wants. This is just a thought I had, who knows how every man on this plannet thinks we have some weird people in the world and the best thing you can do is get on with life and not worrie.
I will never agree with rape and I will never do it. I will help in anyway I can to minimise risk but it is stupid to try and stop it as it will exist for all humanity. I found this thing online about a flyer a guy saw saying “Every man rapes or watches”, I am trying to help sort it out I am not just letting it happen I have stoped a rape happening by removing a bottle from a girls hand before she drank it, then I got her another drink. I plan to stop as many as I can possibly encounter before its too late (it requires helping women and men near the time of rape as you cannot stop it by spreading words).
Thats all I have for you and I will prob forget about this site unless I produce a solution or have sumthing to add… Take care people and Enjoy life, I have had shit and I have had fun but I try to think about the goodtimes not the bad.
This comment was written by DMA - Drunk and serious, Seriously Drunk.Report this comment to the moderators
November 26th, 2004 at 7:19 pm
I can quite happily say women are in control, I have nothing against women and sorry I seamed to focus on men in general because we were mostly on about male rape. I have said before women are my best friends and I prefer hanging out and chatting to them than men.
Are you drunk? Oh wait . . .
Your comment sounds surprisingly like “I have black friends! I’m not racist!”
Anyway, this guy (accidentally) raised a pretty good point when he claims that women are in control. As a student of very old literature, I have noticed such a claim in texts about courtly love and all that jazz. The woman is above the man and greater than him, etc. This view does not give the woman any agency, however; she may HAVE something, but is she able to EXERCISE anything? The idea of man as actor and woman as receiver still exists everywhere, especially in sexuality.
This comment was written by batgirl.Report this comment to the moderators
November 27th, 2004 at 8:38 am
Well, yes. Since we have of late begun to consider women free adults, they get to decide whether or not they have sex. They also get to decide what kind of work they do and where they live. And they get to make decisions about religious belief, medical care, having children, and getting married. And all kinds of other choices, too! That’s because they’re, you know, citizens. They have rights and freedoms.
I can understand why all of that is so galling, since their “right” to not have sex conflicts with your desire to have sex with whatever woman you want. But don’t despair, guys: all of that power is deeply resented both by the law and by society. It’s denied at every opportunity, particularly after a sexual assault. And all of these freedoms are being leeched away. In a few years, it will probably be legal to force a woman to bear your child. Then, it’s only a matter of time before that nasty conflict of entitlements disappears.
Why is the sense of entitlement that results in rape inevitable? Why does the same segment of society that thinks it’s possible to impose abstinence on teenagers, heterosexuality on San Francisco, and Western-style secular democracy on Iraq throw up its hands when confronted with men who rape?
Resentment is not natural. A sense of entitlement is conferred by society; that’s evidenced by all of the men who _don’t_ feel any compulsion to rape. (Hi, Amp! Appreciate it!) The guy sitting next to you on the bus has control over his wallet. The guy sitting in front of you on the expressway has control over his car. In fact, we all interact daily with people who have stuff we want–stuff we need. And yet, most men who rape and apologize for rape manage to get through the day without mugging or assaulting anyone. And we have laws that insist they do so.
So why the exception, guys? Why can’t men learn as individuals and be taught as a class not to hurt women? We’ve decided upon and largely created a society in which people are expected not to act like animals. Why is viciousness towards women exempt?
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
November 27th, 2004 at 8:39 am
Well, yes. Since we have of late begun to consider women free adults, they get to decide whether or not they have sex. They also get to decide what kind of work they do and where they live. And they get to make decisions about religious belief, medical care, having children, and getting married. And all kinds of other choices, too! That’s because they’re, you know, citizens. They have rights and freedoms.
I can understand why all of that is so galling, since their “right” to not have sex conflicts with your desire to have sex with whatever woman you want. But don’t despair, guys: all of that power is deeply resented both by the law and by society. It’s denied at every opportunity, particularly after a sexual assault. And all of these freedoms are being leeched away. In a few years, it will probably be legal to force a woman to bear your child. Then, it’s only a matter of time before that nasty conflict of entitlements disappears.
Why is the sense of entitlement that results in rape inevitable? Why does the same segment of society that thinks it’s possible to impose abstinence on teenagers, heterosexuality on San Francisco, and Western-style secular democracy on Iraq throw up its hands when confronted with men who rape?
Resentment is not natural. A sense of entitlement is conferred by society; that’s evidenced by all of the men who _don’t_ feel any compulsion to rape. (Hi, Amp! Appreciate it!) The guy sitting next to you on the bus has control over his wallet. The guy sitting in front of you on the expressway has control over his car. In fact, we all interact daily with people who have stuff we want–stuff we need. And yet, most men who rape and apologize for rape manage to get through the day without mugging or assaulting anyone. And we have laws that insist they do so.
So why the exception, guys? Why can’t men learn as individuals and be taught as a class not to hurt women? We’ve decided upon and largely created a society in which people are expected not to act like animals. Why is viciousness towards women exempt?
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
November 27th, 2004 at 8:41 am
Well, yes. Since we have of late begun to consider women free adults, they get to decide whether or not they have sex. They also get to decide what kind of work they do and where they live. And they get to make decisions about religious belief, medical care, having children, and getting married. And all kinds of other choices, too! That’s because they’re, you know, citizens. They have rights and freedoms.
I can understand why all of that is so galling, since their “right” to not have sex conflicts with your desire to have sex with whatever woman you want. But don’t despair, guys: all of that power is deeply resented both by the law and by society. It’s denied at every opportunity, particularly after a sexual assault. And all of these freedoms are being leeched away. In a few years, it will probably be legal to force a woman to bear your child. Then, it’s only a matter of time before that nasty conflict of entitlements disappears.
Why is the sense of entitlement that results in rape inevitable? Why does the same segment of society that thinks it’s possible to impose abstinence on teenagers, heterosexuality on San Francisco, and Western-style secular democracy on Iraq throw up its hands when confronted with men who rape?
Resentment is not natural. A sense of entitlement is conferred by society; that’s evidenced by all of the men who _don’t_ feel any compulsion to rape. (Hi, Amp! Appreciate it!) The guy sitting next to you on the bus has control over his wallet. The guy sitting in front of you on the expressway has control over his car. In fact, we all interact daily with people who have stuff we want–stuff we need. And yet, most men who rape and apologize for rape manage to get through the day without mugging or assaulting anyone. And we have laws that insist they do so.
So why the exception, guys? Why can’t men learn as individuals and be taught as a class not to hurt women? We’ve decided upon and largely created a society in which people are expected not to act like animals. Why is viciousness towards women exempt?
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
November 27th, 2004 at 10:14 am
Because women hold the power
The power to deny something they, too, would like–sex and intimacy–because they have no other bargaining chip. Wow, how powerful. Wouldn’t you like to live in a world where your only power over other men was whether or not you agreed to give them a blowjob?
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November 27th, 2004 at 11:33 am
Do women that men find unattractive also have this power? If I wanted to have sex with, say, Brad Pitt, would he be helpless to refuse me? How much power do I have, exactly? All of it? How interesting.
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November 29th, 2004 at 8:47 am
If I wanted to have sex with, say, Brad Pitt, would he be helpless to refuse me?
Now I’m contemplating a trip to California. . . LOL.
Or wait, I’m sure I could just call him. “Hey, babe, wanna get busy? Come on over!” I’m sure he’d do the nookie run, since his penis makes him so helpless and stupid.
I wonder Bean–are these folks are serious about this idea we’re taking the piss out of? If so, maybe men should be denied positions of power. Look how easy it is to mess with them. They obviously can’t be trusted.
/sarcasm
This comment was written by Sheelzebub.Report this comment to the moderators
November 29th, 2004 at 11:09 am
“So why the exception, guys? Why can’t men learn as individuals and be taught as a class not to hurt women? We’ve decided upon and largely created a society in which people are expected not to act like animals. Why is viciousness towards women exempt?”
Is there anything to the argument (brought at the beginning of piny’s triple post) that we have only recently begun to treat women like free adults?
I’d like to throw in a thanks to P.J Atkin’s as well, although I think a lot of his/her arguments are more along the lines of incest-rape and/or stranger rape than aquaintence rape (which is what I feel Amp was originally writing about). I don’t believe that the hunger for power and destruction is on the mind of a date-rapist, although I do think entitelement is. These guys aren’t thinking that they want to hurt a woman, they’re not thinking about the woman at all, really.
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November 30th, 2004 at 5:50 am
I love it I just have to for once agree with women and look at the responce, you lash it up like angry pack of wolves, Sexist or what, I love how you can say you are the powerful sex, and its not at all sexist! I am in hysterics with the comment “Your comment sounds surprisingly like “I have black friends! I’m not racist!”" posted by batgirl. it really supports me saying this, no wait it does exactly the opposite of this “I wish men and women could all get on but both sexes make it hard for the other” It seams that I cannot admit to the truth here without someone jumping down my back and calling me a lier.
This world is becoming sexist more and more, I would love to throw examples from both sexes and I could do the same with rasism… but alas I wont because I will get jumped on for being male, P.J.Atkins is male by the way wookie as I know him well.
This comment was written by DMA.Report this comment to the moderators
November 30th, 2004 at 6:40 am
DMA, this blog is about politics. Things get debated in the comments. If you can’t handle disagreement, then you should frequent blogs that discuss other, less volatile topics. People disagreeing with you does not mean they are calling you a liar. It also does not mean that you are being oppressed for being male. It means they disagree with you. That’s all.
Put your opinion out there, and you will hear disagreement. It’s happened to me, to wookie, to Amanda, to alsis, to Amp. . .to everyone. You are no exception. Cope.
This comment was written by Sheelzebub.Report this comment to the moderators
December 7th, 2004 at 8:01 am
I except the disagreement fact, but comments not disagreements directed at me do not fall under that, and In here I have been told that I fail to include in the way I think the females species equally to the male, anyway I cannot really be bothered to try and argue anymore with the minds doing the personal attacks, so I will take your advice as i dont mind a good debate, I will stay (if this room isnt forgoton) and cope, thanks.
anyway people I am currently feeling unwell so i may not be online as I think I have tonsilitus (excuse my spelling) so I will speak soon when I am well.
This comment was written by DMA.Report this comment to the moderators
December 19th, 2005 at 6:23 pm
first a plug : [IMG [info]]liberal_bias. If not serious, abstain. I don’t want to be responsible for sicking idiots on that community ;) Courtesy of [IMG [info]]mintogrubb :Anatomy of a Rape Culture It might be long for some short attention spans, and it is not all-inclusive imo, but it certainly gives a good few reasons of why rape sexual violence is so widespread in our society ( and probably even more in Arab cultures )
This comment was written by in a mindset, far far away....Report this comment to the moderators
March 20th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
Rape is not about sex to the rapist; it has to do with control and power.” Not just sometimes, but every time. Hogwash. Utter hogwash. Despite my problems with Alas, a Blog, on this particular pointwhich Ampersand is correct: Men who rape women don’t do it because they hate women, but because they don’t give a **** 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
This comment was written by Glaivester.Report this comment to the moderators
May 8th, 2006 at 10:29 am
of the jungle? Is this why sex is so frightening? Do the fundamentalists see sex as rape by hordes of men? Some do, or at least pretend to do so. But note that the solution is never to lock the men away. It is always the women who are locked away. AsAmpersand pointed out in his excellent post, one view of sex is as something that women possess, a piece of property that they dangle in front of the needy men, men who want it very much but can’t just take it. A trading system is needed. What happens when women
This comment was written by feminist blogs.Report this comment to the moderators
May 9th, 2006 at 12:13 am
of the jungle? Is this why sex is so frightening? Do the fundamentalists see sex as rape by hordes of men? Some do, or at least pretend to do so. But note that the solution is never to lock the men away. It is always the women who are locked away. AsAmpersand pointed out in his excellent post, one view of sex is as something that women possess, a piece of property that they dangle in front of the needy men, men who want it very much but can’t just take it. A trading system is needed. What happens when women
This comment was written by feminist blogs.Report this comment to the moderators
September 12th, 2006 at 11:46 pm
on your own. And it pisses me off if I don’t do these things, it will be my fault it happened. Right? Like some guy couldn’t control his dick so it’s my fault because I was doing X and that just put him out of control. So this is the rape post. Anatomy of a Rape Culture.
This comment was written by Pictures taken from a speeding car.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2006 at 2:52 am
“Sexuality is something possessed by women”
*blink* I’d never seen this aspect but I think you are spot on with it as a major issue. A sense of entitlement was clear to me but not the concept ownership (accepted by both genders) and where that comes from. Thanks.
This comment was written by sylvia.Report this comment to the moderators
November 8th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
What about when we start to catch on to the fact that you telling us we’re not “ruined” by some other man is still you, as a man, dictating what the bounds of our sexual or physical sovereignty are? What about when we want to start to look at WHY this has happened to us, why it could happen again, why it could happen to our sisters, and some of our brothers, why we have to live in fear of this at all? What about when we’re ready to lay the blame on WHO has done this to us: who individually, who culturally, who as a
This comment was written by heather corinna: pure as the driven slush.Report this comment to the moderators
December 1st, 2006 at 5:41 pm
I’ve gotta say that I disagree with just about everything you say here… I can’t, and don’t know any other men for that matter, who would identify with your ideas oon fragile masculinity, low regard for woman, and sexuality. I personally feel no need to uphold masculinity, and hold many woman in high regard.
This comment was written by Smorg.Report this comment to the moderators
December 3rd, 2006 at 9:42 am
maybe this was a typo?
if not let me just say:
the right to vote
the (universal) right to own property
ability to divorce
ability to establish credit
have custody of your children
right to not be automatically excluded from study and work in law, medicine, engineering, finance, higher on the basis of sex
right to refuse sex with your husband
legal right to use birth control of any variety
right to marry without permission of your father
are just some examples of things i think fall into the category of rights of “free adults” that have been denied women in US in the 20th century, some rather late, and some perhaps remain not fully realized
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
December 31st, 2006 at 3:09 pm
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!
This comment was written by georgia tech rape victim.Report this comment to the moderators
January 5th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
Ampersand of Alas, a Blog turns his lens on the men, and specifically the attitudes that might lead them to be part of that rape culture. meanwhile, feministe, via blogger/commenter Tyra, resurrects an oldie but goodie: an imagined scenario if all crime victims were
This comment was written by Fetch me my axe.Report this comment to the moderators
January 6th, 2007 at 9:25 am
rape right now on a couple of brilliant blogs. My own thoughts don’t really seem to fit into those discussions, which are rightly centered around the issues of perptrators and survivors. The discussion at
This comment was written by Dream of the Lower Beings.Report this comment to the moderators
January 15th, 2007 at 11:26 am
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?
This comment was written by j.Report this comment to the moderators
February 23rd, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Charged for filing ‘false’ report Julie Bindel explains why she wouldn’t report a rape The need to improve management of rape investigations A rape culture By a mother: What young boys think about rape How many men are rapists? Anatomy of a rape culture Effects of rape Metaphorical death ‘Getting over it’ PAAR: surviving Rape crisis - effects of rape Medicineau reports effects of rape That’s it. Most rapists are men. The majority of those assaulted are female. That is why rape is a gender issue, as
This comment was written by 2 B Sophora.Report this comment to the moderators
September 11th, 2007 at 9:54 am
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.
This comment was written by cris.Report this comment to the moderators
March 25th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
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.
This comment was written by Jason.Report this comment to the moderators
March 26th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Jason, what are those 4 common profiles of rapists?
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March 26th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
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.
This comment was written by Jason.Report this comment to the moderators
March 27th, 2008 at 6:56 am
Isn’t the definition of mentally ill suffering from psychological disorders?
This comment was written by Whit.Report this comment to the moderators
March 27th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Thanks Jason.
This comment was written by Stefan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 19th, 2009 at 4:11 am
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.
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