Ohio Principal Tries to Cover Up Gang Rape in School Auditorium
| April 15th, 2005From the New York Times (via Michele):
A high school principal in Columbus, Ohio, has been fired and three assistant principals suspended without pay because they failed to notify the police last month about accusations that a 16-year-old special-education student had been sexually assaulted in the school auditorium by a group of boys, one of whom videotaped the incident, school officials said yesterday.
The principal and her assistants not only failed to report the incident but also urged the girl’s father to avoid calling the police out of concerns that reporters would become aware of the assault, according to statements given to school investigators.
The police are investigating four teenagers in connection with the incident, a spokeswoman for the Columbus police, Sherry Mercurio, said yesterday, but no charges have been filed. [...]
One of the three assistant principals, Richard Watson, said he had found the videotape and then viewed it with other administrators. Their conclusion, they told investigators, was that there had been no coercion.
From what the NBC story says, it appears that the boys may have been caught because they were showing off by playing the video for friends in math class. While the school administration may not have found any signs of coercion, the police investigators found quite a lot. From the Times:
One witness’s statement said a boy pulled the girl onto the auditorium stage, ordered her to be quiet, pushed her to her knees and forced her to perform oral sex on him.
“If you scream, I’ll have all my boys punch you,” the boy told her and then hit her in the face, causing her mouth to bleed, a student told the investigators.
The girl told a special-education teacher minutes after the incident that she had been forced to have oral sex with two boys behind a curtain on the stage while at least two others watched. She said the boys stopped only after someone arrived in the auditorium and scared them off.
The girl, who has a speech defect, “just kept saying she was scared,” the special-education teacher told the investigators.
Maybe there’s less to this story than it seems; maybe the witnesses are lying, for example. But if the witness statements are accurate, then the boys should be arrested and tried as rapists.
MaxedOutMama , aka MOM, has an interesting post regarding this story. She doesn’t think the boys will ever be punished:
I’m outraged too, but not at all surprised. For one thing, multiple boy on one girl blowjob orgies aren’t that rare any more, even in school. There is a fine line between manipulation, intimidation and outright force. Stories such as these aren’t that rare - developmentally disabled girls are often manipulated and abused in this way in school. So are emotionally vulnerable girls. Once you have kids blowing each other in the school johns in junior high, things get pretty much out of control.
I’ll give you my guess. This boys will not be convicted of any criminal charges. There will not be enough evidence; the testimony (said quietly behind closed doors) will be that the word was that this girl was known for giving blowjobs to boys. Those involved will say they thought she was consenting. Those witnessing it will agree. Not one of all the boys involved said anything to school authorities. Not one. They don’t know the difference between right and wrong, consenting and enforced acts. If they haven’t participated themselves they have all heard about such acts before.
(Link to MOM via My Whim is Law).
MOM is already mistaken about what at least one of the witnesses is saying (if the New York Times‘ account is accurate). I’m also more than a little skeptical about how common “multiple boy on one girl blowjob orgies” are - as far as I can tell, adults have always vastly exaggerated how much sex kids are having. But I worry that she’ll be proved right about the odds of any of these boys being convicted of rape.
MOM goes on to suggest that “instinct” may be responsible for this disgusting act: “Instinct in a young, roving band of teenage boys dictates imposing sexually upon a vulnerable girl…” In MOM’s view, young boys have an instinct towards gang-rape, which they need to be guided away from. I don’t think there’s much evidence to support MOM’s view, however. Have any anthropologists found that hunter-gatherer societies have a high incidence of gang rape, or if they don’t, that they spend a lot of time teaching their boys that gang-rape is wrong?
I don’t think boys have a natural instinct for gang-rape. However, I do think boys have a natural instinct to rely their peer group for validation and for their self-identity (that’s something I think MOM and I agree on). In a culture which teaches boys that masculinity is measured by “getting some,” that if they’re not a man they’re nothing, that having sex is not only normal but an entitlement, and that women don’t have much worth, it’s unsurprising that gang rapes happen. It’s even less surprising that the victim is (it seems) disabled, since the disabled are also not seen as being worth much by our society.
I doubt these boys were acting out of a desire for sexual release. I think they were acting out of a desire to show each other that they’re not scared, that they’re brave, that they’re men. From the point of view of the boys, their victim was just an object, which they used for demonstrating their masculinity to each other.
MOM then makes what seems to me to be a surprising, and out-of-place, digression:
Here’s reality. Girls can be imposed upon sexually, but once they learn the sexual game they can often whipsaw adolescent boys with it. Boys often find one-on-one sex really frightening until they’ve proved to themselves that they can do it, but no such inhibitions exist in a group. Adolescent boys are often just as emotionally vulnerable as girls. Girls have an instinct to use their own powers of sexual attraction. Nature made it so. An attractive, intelligent girl can become a superstar by her junior year in high school if she plays her cards well, especially if she is carefully and selectively sexually active. In the process she may cut an old boyfriend into emotional pieces.
No doubt some girls act just as MOM describes. But what does any of this have to do with a “developmentally disabled” girl who is dragged onto an auditorium stage, hit, and told “if you scream, I’ll have all my boys punch you”? The girl in this case wasn’t using her “powers of sexual attraction” to make herself a “superstar”; she was raped by a bunch of assholes using the power of threats and fists. To use a discussion of a girl being gang-raped as a springboard for discussing how girls are victimizers, too, is bizarre and disturbing.
There’s a lot more to MOM’s post, some of which I agree with, some of which I don’t; take a look.
UPDATE: Due to having nearly 500 responses, this thread is now closed. If you want to continue the discussion, please do so on this new thread.
April 15th, 2005 at 5:15 am
This is such a difficult topic–it’s hard to talk about ways to prevent gang rape without drifting into a pity party for boys who do it. Inarguably, though, one extremely effective way is swift and severe punishment for perps.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 5:40 am
Unfortunately, I’m not stunned by the incident itself. Several of my high school friends were gang raped, and that was the early eighties. This has been going on for a long time. This is not a “new” thing, and has nothing to do with media displays of sex and violence, or video games. It has everything to do with a sense of entitlement to women’s bodies, and the knowledge that society as a whole pretty much condones rape of the vulnerable. None of the girls I knew who were raped felt comfortable going to the police or even to their parents, because they knew they would be ostracized, shamed, vilified as whores, and set up for further victimization. Once you’ve been raped, you are considered to be “sexually experienced”, thus it’s open season on you; you are a slut and your word is no good.
I am incensed at the level of bullshit misogyny implicit in “MOM”’s post. WTF??!!! A girl can be a superstar if she selectively dishes out pussy and shakes her ass for the “right” boys?! And this is “instinct”? BULLSHIT. I still haven’t learned that “instinct”; guess that’s why I’m not a superstar, huh? All that knockin’ the books when I should’ve been knockin’ the boots, hey? ‘Cuz funny, the young women I knew who were all focused on getting the “right guy” and being sexually manipulative, trying to play a “game” where the rules (which they didn’t understand) weren’t written for them and they were already behind the eight ball even if they didn’t know it—-they ended up burned up, used up, angry, and broke as hell by the time they were in their early twenties. This is where some of our best militant feminists come from.
Just some more tired old blaming-the-victim bullshit. Good fucking morning. I haven’t had enough coffee yet for this shit. It’s a damn good thing this girl has a father who is an advocate for her, instead of blaming her for her own rape.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 6:45 am
I refuse to believe that girls are routinely gang raped in high school. I just don’t buy it. I do buy that mentally challenged women are at a high risk of being sexually abused, and I do buy that when things like this happen, the authorities might feel more inclined to protect the boys instead of being horrified over what they did, which, even if it was consensual ( big if, since mental capacity has to be examined as well as implicit threats, etc. ) was unbelievably disgusting.
There is a lot of hysteria about kid’s sexuality and oral sex these days. Personally, I heard a lot of wild stories about orgies and group girl on boys oral sex in high school in the eighties and it was all b.s. Notice how the stories are always about someone you don’t know very well, or someone from another school. I learned an important lesson on how willing some boys are to lie through their teeth when four boys who passed my sister in a bedroom on their way to the bathroom at a party all said she went down on them. Not only did they lie, they all agreed to a conspiracy to lie.
The hysteria and exagerations are important because if these administrators really believe, like Rush Limbaugh, that high schoolers are all out getting blow jobs constantly, they might not have been as disturbed as they should have been by the incident. They should have known how unusual it is for a girl to service a group of boys like this and been appropiately alarmed.
This comment was written by Elena.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 6:54 am
I’d like to take the question of adolescent girs, sex, and manipulation outside of this context. I don’t think it’s possible or apropriate to talk about them in the context of this gang rape. I especialy agree that it’s blaming the victim in a really disgusting way. In some other context, the topic warrants a fair discussion, but here, the real focus is rape, and specificaly the gang rape of a child by other children, and the coverup by the school.
What amazes me about the coverup is that the principal and the other administrators seem to have decided that there was no coercion after only viewing the video tape. What training do they have in making such a judgement? for that matter, what right do they have to tell the girl’s parent not to file harged for fear of reporters?
I see a huge lawsuit against the school, and I hope to hell those administrators are never put in charge of a child’s saftey again.
As for the boys, lock ‘em up. They’re known sex predators now, and I see no current reason to think they won’t do it again if they have the chance.
And for god’s sakes, have some people teach the kids at the school how to react to situations like this. The teachers are obviously useless.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 6:55 am
I agree with Amp that boys do not have an instinct to gang rape. I also agree with La Lubu that girls do not have an instinct to be sexually manipulative. Both of those generalizations are bullshit and I’ve never read anything that backs them up.
This comment was written by Redneck Feminist (drumgurl).Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 7:57 am
This incident is beyond unacceptable and appalling. How come we’re not teaching boys and young men in school that it’s not okay to penetrate a woman or girl against her will, or force/coerce sexual activities, more thoroughly than we do now? Schools seem to be “aloof” when it comes to this. I may have been out of high school for about year, but I can remember the “rape is just sex–forcing a girl to do something sexual in nature against her will is no big deal” attitude that some boys and young men had. Forcing your dick down an unwilling girl’s throat is considered to be cool to some guys, even manly. Certainly not all (not even a 1/4) boys and young men of course have this attitude, but one is more than enough and every bit as dangerous. I strongly believe that this goes back to how our culture treats rape especially the victim (ie: denial of the victim). The principal practically condoned this by trying to cover it up. Unbelievable!
This comment was written by Pseudo-Adrienne.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 8:05 am
This was a forcible rape (or pick the criminal sexual assault term of your choice). The mentally handicapped victim was more vulnerable, more easily lured to a secluded place, more easily intimidated and less credible. I think she was chosen simply for her vulnerability. I don’t buy that it has something to do with not valuing the mentally handicapped — these boys could not possibly have valued any woman if they were willing to beat one into performing sex acts.
What really gets me angry is the administration’s willingness to cover this up, for fear that they would be held accountable. I’ve dealt with school administrators before, and seen the absolute determination to minimize any incident that happens on their watch. The administrators ought to be charged with obstruction of justice, IMO, depending on what the Ohio statute says. Criminal charges are the only way of showing them that the consequences of a cover-up are worse than the consequences of dealing with this like adults.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 8:52 am
I live in the discrist in which this incident occurred (Columbus Public Schools), and the cover-up of this incident was not at all surprising to me. Of course it’s revolting and inexcusable. That almost goes without saying. However, the school where this took place has been in the news on an almost-weekly basis (this school, one school of about 18 high schools in the district) for the past several months for violent fights, riots at basketball games, racially-based near-riots at lunch periods, guns in school, and assault in the halls between classes (a girl stabbed another girl in the eye). They have what one might lightly term an “image problem”. It’s not surprsing that they would want to keep this out of the news. Dsicpicable and sickening, but not surprising. From my perspective as a teacher and a resident in the district, I’m more confounded about why this particular school is in such a mess. In light of this cover-up, though, it seems that poor administration might have something to do with it…
This comment was written by Grace.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 8:52 am
FTR, this girl is not “mentally handicapped”. She has a speech impairment.
Interesting that the boys chose oral sex.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 8:56 am
Apologies for my rampant misspellings.
This comment was written by Grace.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 9:09 am
When I was 12 I went through a shoplifting phase. When I got caught nabbing a bottle of perfume from Sears I, of course, lied and said it was the first time I had ever done anything like that.
This is what comes to my mind here, because I wonder how these boys raped their first victim, probably off school property maybe videotaped, maybe too spur of the moment to have video preparation ready. When the Glen Ridge boys gang-raped a mentally handicapped girl they regretted not having made porn out of the rape and had concrete plans to gang rape her again, this time with more boys and videotaping it, when they were arrested.
How many times must these boys have gotten away with gang raping other girls to get to the audacious point of making gang rape pornography at school thinking they wouldn’t get caught? For each one of these incidents we hear about there are many more we don’t.
There’s a Canadian feminist musician I like a lot, Andrea Florian, who has a line in her song “Feminist”, Statistics will say that a certain number of women are raped by men and I want to know about the ones who don’t announce it to the government.
My heart goes to this victim and all the silent, and silenced, victims of rape.
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 9:43 am
Good point Samantha. My friends who were raped were not raped at school, but all of them went to school with their rapists. I agree that these boys probably had done this before. It’s pretty bold to rape on school grounds; they must have felt reasonably assured that they would not get caught—that the school grounds were a safe place for rapists to conduct their business.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 9:54 am
The principal and her assistants not only failed to report the incident but also urged the girl’s father to avoid calling the police out of concerns that reporters would become aware of the assault,
Well, that plan worked out well, did it not? At least these administrators seem to be as competent at cover-ups as they are at protecting their students.
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 10:46 am
I am amused by the idea that girls have access to special status to be gotten through sex. How valuable can such status be if it can only be gotten through the boys? Doesn’t that mean that the boys are always of higher status?
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 10:54 am
“Doesn’t that mean that the boys are always of higher status?”
Yes. When it comes to quid pro quo sex, usually a guy has the “higher status.”
This comment was written by Pseudo-Adrienne.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 10:58 am
Or if there’s such a clear and present threat of it being taken by force anyway?
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 11:25 am
Q Grrl, I assumed she is mentally handicapped because she is “developmentally disabled” (according to NBC) and a special ed student(NYT). I may have been incorrect. We are told that she has a speech impediment (NYT), but it is not clear to me whether that is the sum of her disabilities, or merely one of them. If you’ve got a source with a better explanation, let me know.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 11:34 am
while i agree with many here that certain elements of the media are currently in high panic overdrive at the thought of teenage sex & that this creates an ideal condition for the growth of many rumors & legends i also wanted to put out there that just because the media’s freaking doesn’t mean that it (or something similar to it) isn’t happening
while there might not be massive Caligulating orgies going on i have little problem believing there are boys out there raping girls on a regular basis. the basis for my belief is the amount of friends i have who have confided in me that this happened to them & their friends in high school. that & my memory of the boys in my school, and how often they would talk about raping the girls they were interested in (often quite openly & in front of others not part of their group - e.g. in the lockerroom after gym). it deeply disgusted & frightened me then… i remember trying to tell myself they were full of shit, that it was all banter, but the feelings of fear & horror never left - & i hated them, hated them all, deeply & violently.
i know, i know - anecdotes do not a structural analysis make. but after years of listening to painful stories & grieving for the suffering it caused for folks i hold dear i have been left with a sorrowful & bitter cast in my mind towards teenage boys & their sexuality. sorrowful b/c so many of them are so clearly fucked up & desperately ignorant when it comes to understanding sex & intimacy (not to mention how susceptible to peer pressure)… & how clearly this is the result (at least in part) of little if any support in schools for dealing with sex in a straightforward manner. bitter b/c i just want to lock ‘em up. actually i want to stomp the shit out them (including the administrators) - make them feel what it’s like to live in fear, what it’s like to be tortured - then lock ‘em up.
but how does sending them to rape camp (which is what prison is) going to help? believe me - i am not trying to start a pity party here (see “stomp the shit out of them,” above). but, given that we know that the prison system is a colossal failure, what other possibilities exist for dealing with this situation? for not only stopping these kids from doing it again, but stopping other kids from ever even wanting to do it?
this is one of those subjects that usually leaves me in complete despair when i try to think of ways to positively change it for the better….
This comment was written by jam.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 11:49 am
Amanda, that’s what radical feminists say about prostitution and pornography, and yes, it does mean boys are always of higher status because they continue to set the terms of girls status.
One of my favorite Dworkin quotes goes something like (sorry I can’t quote it in her own elegant words), “How is it boys who once gave lives to rocks and names to trees in their youthful playing grow up to become men unable to see the humanity in women?”
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 1:43 pm
In that case, I don’t see why there’s any cause to admire the “status” of Best Object.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 1:49 pm
Does anyone remember the scene in “Sixteen Candles” when the love interest dreamy guy gives his drunk girlfriend to Michael Anthony Hall and says “Enjoy”. Just wondering.
Once, on Oprah she said that people tend to want to protect sex perps from prosecution because they tend to think that the girl had sex, she would have anyway, what’s done is done, now let’s be reasonable and not ruin these boys lives. I remember Glen Ridge and how people actually defended those boys. But even if this is blown out of proportion, that it, if it wasn’t rape ( and whether mentally handicapped persons can be sexual without it being rape is a whole other ball of wax), it was at the very best very unethical sex on the part of the boys. People will defend these boys, watch and see. It’s as if they don’t want to see how mean it is to treat a woman this way, let alone how criminal. They fired the principal, who, interestingly but sadly not significantly, is a woman.
This comment was written by Elena.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
I am shocked by how little time this conversation has spent on the female administrator (the adult in the matter) who attempted to keep the father from calling the police. Would she have behaved differently had this girl not been a special education student? It’s adults like this who tell boys like those they can behave any way they want.
As I grew up, the boys in my family got away with sexual abuse because the women in my family covered things up for them. My brother is now in prison for the rest of his life because he was a serial rapist. If my mother had not told him he was allowed to do that — as a young boy — he may not have behaved that way as a man. Both women and men contribute to that atrocious mindset. We see that in the female administrator who wanted to just brush the incident under the rug.
This comment was written by Genia.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 2:37 pm
Hmmm, I shouldn’t admit it, but occassionally I troll a board that is made up primarily of sexist males (it’s a board that I got in the habit of frequenting because it’s initial purpose was as a community board for an Everquest Server - somehow along the lines it became a good ole’ boys club). They generally give me the view of ‘Joe Backwards’ - going to post the article there and see what responses occur and to see if as you say, the defense rallies around the young men instead of the girl.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
Jam: but how does sending them to rape camp (which is what prison is) going to help?
Well, it helps in that they’re removed from the presence of non lawbreakers, because if we leave them to run around in freedom, they’ll quite likley rape someone else. I’d like it if there were some method of removing the thoughts or ideas in the heads of those kids that tells them that this is OK, but absent magic, this is the best solution I’ve got from a harm reduction model where the people I’m trying to protect are no longer those boys, By raping that girl, they removed themselves from the category of innocent citizenz. This means they get some, but less rights than the rest of us.
I think we ought to be focusing on making sure that a new generation of these
kids does not crop up. I think it’s possible to do this, but it’ll take some work, political power, and money, none of which other than the willingness to work are something I’ve got.
After we do that, we can work on fixing prisons to remove the chance of recidivism from parolees.
This is triage in a war zone. We have limited resources, and lifeboat ethics are all we’ve got.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
On the issue ” young boys have an instinct towards gang-rape”
That seems to be a somewhat flippant and definitely erroneous conclusion. It would be like saying that because humans are prone to aggression, they have an ‘instinct to kill their sibling with rocks’. It takes a truism and then extends it to a specific (and usually ridiculous) conclusion.
Young boys (and young men), in groups, do definitely seem to have a heightened since of aggression, power and bravado that individually they do not have. Lots of studies on that (this article is a place to start)
It fits with my experiences anecdotally too. I was always afraid of groups of boys or young men, not because they were larger, but because they seemed to act more aggressively toward me than any of the boys individually (they’ve got backup to put it bluntly).
But you could as easily say that groups of boys instinctually build buildings as to say instinctually gang rape based on changes in behavior when in groups.
It’s letting these boys off way too easy to say it is ‘instinct’. They could have channeled that group power, aggression, energy, whatever into a basketball game, digging a swimming pool or cutting down weeds or pulling off an elaborate but harmless prank (crop circles?).. but instead (if the evidence and testimony holds), they channeled it to gang rape of a single defenseless girl.
NO excuses. Not in biology, not in instinct.
This comment was written by trey.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 3:17 pm
Ampersand,
I linked to your post. I hadn’t read the NY Times story yet, and it was far more detailed. Not that it clears anything up. If they have a witness testifying to force why haven’t the police charged already? This flabbergasts me.
You wrote:
“But what does any of this have to do with a “developmentally disabled”? girl who is dragged onto an auditorium stage, hit, and told “if you scream, I’ll have all my boys punch “you”??”
In my own defense, you are missing the fact that I wasn’t talking about the specific incident at all by the time I “digressed”. And it is not a digression to me at all - we need to prevent such incidents as well as prosecute them. A girl was assaulted on school property. There were multiple witnesses - and the school administration didn’t feel the need to do anything but confiscate the videotape? I was thinking that whole school must be out of control, so I was very interested to read Grace’s comments.
You are focusing on prosecution (understandably). I am caught and horrified by what the girl experienced. How could that happen in a school? Why did none of the boys realize that what was happening was wrong? They don’t appear to have had any sense of shame or fear of being caught! How could the administrators not call the police? I read about police being called for 8 year olds thwapping teachers with rubber bands, for heaven’s sake!
Sigmund, Carl & Alfred have been conducting an interesting series of discussions on kids, raising kids, sex and schooling. During the course of it a public school teacher wrote about rampant sex in schools and the lack of support for stopping it from the parents and the administration. My contention is that a no-sex-in-school line has to be drawn - otherwise this sort of thing will continue to happen.
The entire point of all my ramblings that you find offensive is changing the environment so that such an incident won’t happen again! And in a very sexualized environment, where kids are often giving each other blowjobs in the school johns, I think you are facilitating such incidents and lack of response to them by the school administration - because the presumption will be that it was consensual. Not that I am excusing the administrators, because there is no excuse for their behavior IMO.
Back when I was going to school I knew of cases of girls (especially girls with developmental lags) being raped outside of school, but never in school. Are there no safe places left?
A blog with the name of “Alas” is very suitable to the subject.
You say that you don’t think teenage boys have an instinct to rape or force sex on a girl. I think you don’t know very much about the behavior of teenage boys in a group. I think many teenage boys do instinctively regard women as sexual objects. Recently I read about a very similar incident occurring in French housing projects where Muslim teenage boys were gangbanging the girls. This is one of the default human states if we have been taught no better. Many of us are not born with empathy and compassion - we have to learn it. If our society no longer understands this, then we are in deep, deep trouble. Clearly those boys had not been taught those lessons.
After reading the NY Times article my bet is that this isn’t the first such incident many of these boys were involved in. If they aren’t prosecuted I’d bet it won’t be the last.
And yes, I have known quite a few teenage girls who are very comfortable with their sexuality and do use it to control men and get where they want to go. I knew several in my day, and I have met several recently. Facts are not misogyny, and both sexes are capable of extremely disrespectful sexual behavior. Both sexes. Sorry, but that’s the way it is.
This girl was nothing but a victim, but all the girls who are sexually active in high school are not. If there is rampant sexual activity on school grounds, it’s a sure bet that many of those incidents are consensual, although I can’t see any way that any person could interpret this incident as consensual sex. Somehow, though, that’s the suspicion that seemed to have emerged in the school administration’s collective consciousness, if you can call it that.
Oh, and btw - I was shocked to find a comment on my blog from a woman who said that some people liked to be hit. She thought we shouldn’t presume it was not consensual. I don’t know whether she would still write that if she had read the NY Times article.
This comment was written by MaxedOutMama.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 3:30 pm
I’d like to contribute some anecdotal evidence here confirming some of the previous author’s statements. FYI, I graduated from high school only six years ago.
1) After having been raped, as Lubu said, it was “open season” on me now that I was “sexually experienced.”
2) I learned that I could either shrivel or take hold of my sexual power. This made me “promiscuous” even though the relationships were quid pro quo.
3) Yes, there are high school orgies. I’ve been to a few. I don’t know how often this kind of thing actually occurs, but each involved older people well into their twenties (we were all too young to drive), and I would suspect their presence made all the difference between a rumored orgy and an actual one.
For a long time my sexual behavior or lack thereof defined me among my peers, even though I sought to have it otherwise. Even today, I have a hard time not playing that card in certain situations. Sometimes it is easier to shake the ass and show some cleavage than it is to make legitimate gains. Luckily I’ve nearly outgrown that urge.
And RE: the sexual superstar statement. This is probably going to make me very unpopular, but I believe that girls learn very early that their sexuality is what defines them among their male peers. As all these kids are seeking to develop their identities, they rely on archetypes and stereotypes to confirm and deny their burgeoning subjectivities. Again, I did it. I also wisened up relatively quickly. Where I disagree is that this is an intrinsic trait — but anyone with a strong enough desire to belong will exploit what they can to become a member of the favored crowd, even if that means sacrificing good judgement.
This comment was written by Lauren.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 4:46 pm
Thank you for sharing that Lauren. My experiences in school were similar to yours, though I was lucky to have gotten out with only one attempted rape.
Still, I was sexually mistreated and sexually abused in more ways than I will relate here, but is was cruel - intentionally cruel. In the worst situation that wasn’t the attempted rape, I believe the boys who set me up did it mainly so they could brag about it to the whole school the next day.
As a pretty, gregarious teenaged girl I thought it was better to the Best Object than the Ignored Object or the Uninvited Object, since not being an object at all wasn’t in the equation. I think about girls like this one, about girls like that one in Orange Co. who had a lit cigarette put to her delicate vagina and the boys saying she consented to it because she was a slut, and I know intrinsically the meaning of the phrase, “There but for the grace of God go I”.
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 4:58 pm
“Clearly those boys had not been taught those lessons.”
Well, clearly that’s what the law is* for, when all the beautiful ideals of education and progress have failed. Stick them in jail for twenty years, or more, you bet they are going to learn a lesson.
*should be
This comment was written by monica.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 5:45 pm
OK, I’m going to make a big honest admission here and say that I have helped organize “play parties” held by adults. If you read my LJ, you could find that out anyhow.
I would never ever invite anyone under the age of consent, anyone who’s underaged, or even 18 and still in high school. and I’ve had underaged kids ask me about that. It just isn’t going to happen. Flat out never, as long as I’m in charge. The legal risks are *huge*, as well as the potential ethical problems. I’d never attend one if I even suspected that the people running it were violating statutory rape laws, or getting close to that.
Monica: I’m not as interested in teacching them anything as I am in getting them away from potential victims.
MOM As someonw who does, in fact, like to be thwapped form time to time (sure is a day for startling admissions), I still assume this was non consensual.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
The problem I’m seeing with all of the above (and don’t even think for a minute that I can’t relate or am not in the know) is that these issues are NOT instinct. They are societal gender roles that we as ADULTS are responsible for instilling and perpetuating in our children. I think it’s really irresponsible of some of the prior commentors to perpetuate the instinct myths over the reality that we are teaching our children to be predators and victims.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 7:41 pm
Jiminy Cricket. And anti-feminists complain that feminists are “anti-male?”
That something like “I don’t think boys have a natural instinct for gang-rape” still needs to be said in our culture is embarassing. Look, we are talking about rational human beings here, not beasts. If they have come up to their late teens with a more-or-less unreflective desire to sexually assault young women then that’s deeply disturbing, but it’s not something that they are compelled by an inborn drive to do. It’s something that they have chosen and have been taught by other men in the culture at large to think is O.K. An appeal to mythical “instincts” to explain why they don’t think or care enough about a young woman’s humanity not to assault her amounts to nothing more than a cheap way to let young men off the hook when it comes to their own humanity.
This comment was written by Rad Geek.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 7:47 pm
I think many teenage boys do instinctively regard women as sexual objects.
If it were “instinctive,” it wouldn’t be many teenage boys, it would be all of them. That’s sort of the definition of “instinct.”
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 8:10 pm
It’d certainly make for a good argument in front of a jury.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 8:51 pm
It’d certainly make for a good argument in front of a jury.
That’s what always gives me pause with these claims that boys or men have an “instinct for rape”. It’s a method of ducking responsibility for moral action. If it is only natural to rape, then how can we be blaming these kids? There’s nothing instinctual about gang-raping, as others have noted above, its cultural. Saying otherwise is cultural code for “the poor boys, they just can’t help themselves”.
A while back, I found myself aimlessly watching an episode of Dr. Phil (blech) on the issue of “those sex-crazed teens!”. The terms in which they discussed the behavior of teenage boys were these exact terms of natural behaviors. The good doctor cautioned a young girl’s mother to be sure and teach her daughter that men are pigs that will do anything to get what they want. When these boys grow up hearing from every direction that it is only “natural” to use the bodies of women for their own sexual purposes, it’s no wonder they wind up becoming rapists.
Maybe if we spent our time talking about how these boys are criminals who chose to commit a wicked, violant crime instead of plain old folks caving in to “instinct”, we could gain some ground here.
This comment was written by Zenmaster.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 9:06 pm
in a sense i think the media getting a hold of this story becomes part of the problem. all your concerns about how bad this even is will get washed away. only the idea of the event as a sexual fantasy will remain. the new york times all the way to the enquirer love stories like these because they play to male sexual fantasies and they sell.
the other thing that is more frightening is the deep sexual repressions this whole thing reveals. first of all that so many are viscerally interested in this topic, nationally. we relish the opportunity to revisit the landscape of sexual taboos in our mind. the violent attitudes toward the “perps” and “administrators” expressed here is also an element in this sexual power-play of the national mind. we would be better off pursuing our own healthy experimental (to the extent we’re interested) sexual relationships than indulging our sexual desires cerebrally and mixing them with our ideas of justice and power. that is to say i’d rather not be writing this.
it does nothing for you or me or “our children” to model behavior whereby we wish to act out revenge on sexual deviants. “our children” will then confuse sex, power, and revenge themselves and end up raping someone to get revenge on someone they read about in a news paper.
i hope this makes sense even though it’s a bit convoluted.
This comment was written by pornstorm.Report this comment to the moderators
April 15th, 2005 at 10:35 pm
There are actually two statements there - yes, many teenage boys regards women as sexual objects - this has much to do with hormones. However, there is nothing instinctively about regarding them solely as sexual objects.
I can regard Angelina Jolie as a object of my desires (and hence a sexual object), and still hold her in high regard for her wonderful work for UNICEF and her good work as an actress.
Regarding the behaviour of boys in groups. Well, being male, and having been in what could be considered a borderline all-male gang, I can say for sure that if anyone had even remotely suggested rape, it would have ended badly for them.
This comment was written by Kristjan Wager.Some groups of boys behave that way, but it is not common!
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April 16th, 2005 at 12:03 am
Pornstorm;
Who in this thread has talked revenge? Are you implying that people noticing this is only out of some lascivious or vicarious sexual thrill instead of genuine horror and frustration that our society has cultivated such mindsets? How have you gone from reading people desiring justice to people desiring revenge? Surely you aren’t suggesting we all just go back to getting ourselves layed in lew of paying attention to crimes such as these that call attention to the very core of many gender/sex based problems that affect SO many people. Or are you?
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 2:50 am
Josh Jasper, I see prison rape as rapists getting away with it. It’s more of the same problem. Also, it’s a level of torture which isn’t an appropriate part of a sentence in a civilized society–and the justice system isn’t careful about making sure that only guilty people end up in prison.
This comment was written by Nancy Lebovitz.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 8:39 am
I don’t know if people realize this, because it’s so deeply blacked out of public consciousness, but rape committed by adolescent males is routinely dismissed as nothing by the courts, and was twenty years ago.
I can’t say, in detail, how I know this, because it isn’t my story. I was involved in it, because it was in my neighborhood, but more than that I cannot tell. If it *were* me, I would be doing the no shame, no silence thing now, but it’s not.
Here is the best I can do - when it came out that a junior high school boy had been molesting young girls in the neighborhood, the cops said, flat out, that there was no point in prosecuting it, because the system took the view that a) boys would be boys, this was part of the normal sexual experimentation, and b) no harm was done, after all, the kids were too young to know what was done to them - but c) harm *would* be done if they were publically revealed as rape victims, which is what any (doomed, futile) efforts at prosecution would do.
The molestor’s family moved, shortly thereafter. The girls *were* psychologically harmed, but how much didn’t fully come out until years later. But I was, and remained, in shock that this was known to law enforcement as a common occurrence and nobody who knew and had power in society had any intention of doing anything about it.
–Another reason I was less surprised to find out that the DA in the archdioceses of Boston and New York had been abetting the coverrups, when they found out about molestation in past decades, until the dam finally broke.
This comment was written by bellatrys.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 8:45 am
Zenmaster, when anyone brings that up - and I agree with you 100% and also that it is insulting in less ugly things, like “guys can’t multitask/speak/think” bs - my answer is this.
What do we do with sexually-uncontrollable male domestic animals, or with uncontrollably-vicious animals of either gender who attack people? Hint: we *don’t* just tolerate it and never have.
Is this the direction you want to go in? It wouldn’t have to be literal gelding, it ight be possible to do a little less. Chemically-neutering all males until and iff they get married, from puberty on, for the sake of the safety of women *and* yes, other males, from that “majority” [sic] who are “naturally” predators…
Alternately, we could just require all women to be armed in public, concealed carry, trained to use and also in some form of unarmed combat. I’ve found that telling someone who’s being impertinent “I have a knife, you know,” tends to make the smirk and the hands go away very quickly - followed by a skittish look as they try to figure out *where* the knife is, without giving offense by ogling.
This comment was written by bellatrys.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 10:12 am
Nancy Lebovitz: sure, prison rape is, in fact, a horrible thing. But as I said, I don’t see much of a vaild alternative in the immediate sense. If there was a safe, rape free place for those kids to be sent to, I’d be for sending them there. I don’t want them to suffer, I want them to stop being a threat to people. I don’t accept that it’s neccesary to put them in a painful environment to get that goal met, but I don’t see any alternative.
If you’ve got one that could work imemdiatley, I’m all for it. If you’ve got a plan to fix things in the future, I’m all for that too. But right here and now, that girl, and other girls like her needs to be safe from those boys. they are my immediate primary concern, and I think they should be everyone’s primary concern in a case like this.
After we remove the immediate threat, I’d like to see the schools get serious about rape prevention. I think there are several good, inexpensive ways to do that. A friend of mine helps run a “model mugging” group that teaches people self defense, situational awareness, and prevention techniques. They’re struggling financialy, but they do good, effective work in teaching people how to react to a variety of dangerous situations with a harm reduction model in mind.
If this girl had known those techniques, and if others in the room had been trained in them, this situation naver would have gotten furhter than threat from those boys.
Belatrys: Your point about just saying “I have a knife” is similar to whaat I’m talking about. I don’t know if we could make it mandatory, but seeing an after school rape awareness training class for jr highschool and highschool age students would, IMO, be a start.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 11:14 am
I don’t want a “No-sex” area at school. One of my old high school’s had a strict no-pda rule. Hand holding was even forbidden.
The only thing was, is it didn’t do a goddamned thing and became a joke. I think it would have been far more effective to offer self-defense class, but oh no, can’t do that because of the strict no-tolerance policy, so even if someone sexually assaulted you, and you knew how to defend yourself, automatic ISS (I’ve seen it, firsthand).
Sexuality is not something should be suppressed. And girls shouldn’t have to be little sluts. The problem is not with the girls, in my oppinion, it’s about a lack of cohesion in policy.
This comment was written by Antigone.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 11:15 am
Has there been talk of a “no sex” policy? I might have mised that in other people’s comments.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 2:15 pm
Maxed out mama
This comment was written by Antigone.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
I hope those boys are punished.
La Luba said:
t has everything to do with a sense of entitlement to women’s bodies, and the knowledge that society as a whole pretty much condones rape of the vulnerable.
I don’t know if I buy the claim that society as a whole pretty much condones rape of the vulnerable. Please explain.
I knew of one incident at my high school where a guy was rumored to have coerced a girl into giving him a blowjob. I don’t know if it was true. But I do know that all the guys I heard talking about it vigorously condemned it. I knew many guys at my school who had chauvinistic attitudes, but I don’t think they were extreme enough to condone rape or coercion. If behavior like that was going on, it must have been at parties (which I never went to).
Amanda said:
I am amused by the idea that girls have access to special status to be gotten through sex. How valuable can such status be if it can only be gotten through the boys? Doesn’t that mean that the boys are always of higher status?
Women can gain special status through their sexuality (not just sex). I don’t understand how this idea would be revolutionary. Even if flaunting sexuality makes a woman “Best Object,” she can still derive a lot of power from that role in some contexts. I think feminists are correct in pointing out that beauty standards are a source of powerlessness for women, but I think they are leaving out the other side of the picture: that beauty can also be a massive source of power for women.
I went to highschool in a very affluent area, and one of the consequences was that the girls would have access to expensive clothes and beauty care. Quite a few of them looked liked models. These girls would get a ton of attention from males. Guys would be fawning after them. With some of the most beautiful girls, guys would sometimes act like groupies, and help the girls with their homework, do favors for them, or provide a listening ear in the event that a girl wanted to complain about her problems to him. Some of these girls obviously had low self-esteem, some did not.
I remember one girl in particular that just about every guy in the school had a crush on. She was talked about as if she was a minor celebrity. Object? Maybe. Powerless? Definitely not. Female beauty can make males feel very powerless, especially during youth, when the females are the most beautiful and the males are the least able to master their emotions. Being faced with someone who you can’t help but want very badly, but who doesn’t really want you back creates feelings of powerlessness and insecurity. Actually, I suspect that chauvinistic attitudes in males are often a reaction to feeling helpless in the face of greater female sexual power. What can a young man do to have the dynamite sexual effect on women that an attractive young woman can have on him through cute clothes and beauty care?
jam said:
i have been left with a sorrowful & bitter cast in my mind towards teenage boys & their sexuality. sorrowful b/c so many of them are so clearly fucked up & desperately ignorant when it comes to understanding sex & intimacy (not to mention how susceptible to peer pressure)… & how clearly this is the result (at least in part) of little if any support in schools for dealing with sex in a straightforward manner.
Yes, and it is worse than that. And it is more than just sexual repression (which pornstorm mentioned), though sexual repression is definitely part of the problem. Young males are expected to play a very difficult role: that of the initiator, which requires confidence, social skills, and assertiveness. Yet men are given no practical training on how to initiate things (let alone in a way that women are actually comfortable with!), but rather expected to figure out how to do it “naturally.” But not all men are confident, socially skilled, or assertive (especially not during youth), so not all men can play their role “naturally.”
Hence, we have an obvious recipe for disaster. During highschool, males have a high desire for sex, but only a limited ability to interact with girls. Because mainstream culture provides no practical help with girls, young males are left to their own devices to figure things out: their peer group, or the internet. It should be no surprise that some of the “solutions” they come up with are extremely unhealthy both to them and to the young women they interact with (though that is simply an explanation, not an excuse).
Another problem is that young females, just like young males, tend to internalize the current construction of masculinity to some extent. In my highschool, the males who were most popular with girls in general were actually the most “patriarchal” and “chauvinistic”! They would tease girls all the time, and often treat them in a patronizing manner. Although there were definitely girls who found this behavior to be condescending (several of the more “artsy”/intellectual girls told me so), the majority of girls seemed to enjoy it. It wasn’t just that the girls would tolerate the patronizing to gain status from attention from the popular guys. It seemed that one of the reasons those guys were popular was because the majority of girls would respond well to their behavior.
I believe that this system of gender roles is based on unhealthy power dynamics (which is part of the reason why I feel that I have common ground with some feminists), yet it is NOT only males who uphold this system.
I suspect that dynamics like this are common in highschool, and to some extent college also. It feeds the myth that girls want “jerks,” or to be mistreated by males. I have encountered many guys who have this perception, and such a belief is not likely to foster healthy relationships and intimacy with women; actually, it is likely to foster misogynistic attitudes.
Josh Jasper said:
Your point about just saying “I have a knife”? is similar to whaat I’m talking about. I don’t know if we could make it mandatory, but seeing an after school rape awareness training class for jr highschool and highschool age students would, IMO, be a start.
Perhaps you are correct, but we must be careful or else the solution could become almost as bad as the disease. I am talking of date rape seminars, such as the one at my school when I was a sophomore. Date rape speaker Katie Koestner told us all about her rape in graphic detail. Total overkill, and there were people younger than me in the audience. I grew up being very ashamed of my sexuality and being male in general, and this seminar definitely contributed to that shame (partly because I was too young to think critically about it). Surely date rape can be addressed in a way that doesn’t have adverse effects on the males who are already in no danger of committing it, and are lacking in a sexual aggressiveness and confidence with women in the first place.
Lauren said:
And RE: the sexual superstar statement. This is probably going to make me very unpopular, but I believe that girls learn very early that their sexuality is what defines them among their male peers. As all these kids are seeking to develop their identities, they rely on archetypes and stereotypes to confirm and deny their burgeoning subjectivities.
Exactly. Now that I am in college (freshman), I see young women using their sexuality to have men do them unreciprocated favors. Some of these women seem to have a mentality of entitlement, where they assume that the guy will do what they ask. This suggests that they are used to having guys ask “how high?” when they say “jump.” They are taking advantage of the chivalrous messages that are foisted on many young men. I don’t think a majority of girls, even of attractive girls, behave this way, but it is definitely going on… and it shows that the current gender roles don’t always advantage males.
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 4:31 pm
Aegis, I would be more than happy to explain how society as a whole condones rape.
1. If a young woman goes to a party, gets drunk (or is “slipped a mickey”) and passes out, and men attending the party take her into a back room and rape her while she is unconscious, it’s pretty much considered her fault. After all—she attended the party, and she had a drink. Anything goes.
2. If a woman is raped after dark in a parking lot, either on her way home from work or while running errands, it’s pretty much considered to be her fault. After all—what was she doing out after dark?
3. If a woman is raped while she is wearing what could be considered to be “sexy” clothing, it’s pretty much considered to be her fault. After all—she’s wearing that clothing to attract male attention, right? Attracting the attention of rapists is something she chose to take a chance on, right?
4. If a woman is raped while out jogging alone, it’s pretty much considered to be her fault. After all—what was she doing out there by herself?
5. If a woman who lives alone is raped in her own home, in the middle of the night, by a rapist who came in her window, it’s pretty much considered to be her fault. After all—why did she have her window open? Even if the window wasn’t open, but closed and locked, it’s still her fault. She should have had a roommate, or a dog.
In my city, a real estate agent was raped in broad daylight, while she was showing a home to a man she thought to be a potential client. This woman was well-known in the community, with an impeccable professional reputation. The rapist had stalked her (unbeknownst to her; this came out during the trial) and had planned his location. Her held a gun to her head and threatened to kill her if she fought back. When he left the house, she immediately slammed the door, locked it, and started screaming to the neighbors to call the police. Lucky for her, they did.
She not only reported the rape, but went to the emergency room and had a rape kit done. She cooperated with the police fully. She did all the things a woman is supposed to do after a rape.
The rapist used a false name when he made the appointment, but the police were able to track him through the rental car he used. When the police interviewed him, they noted that he had no bruises or scratches on him. He told the police it was all a misunderstanding; that the sex was consensual. The woman had lacerations and bleeding in her vagina and rectum. The man told the police that she was really wild and wanted it rough. He acted sheepish about it. The police chose to believe him, and told the real estate agent there wasn’t enough evidence. They believed the man when he said he didn’t have a gun. The police had found out his real name by this time, yet seemed mysteriously unconcerned that he was using an alias. His alias was a man relocating from out of state on business. His real identity was a local construction worker.
Not long after, another woman was raped. Her body was found dumped in a cornfield. She was shot. The DNA on the dead woman’s body matched the DNA sample taken from the real estate agent. Finally, the police decided to bring charges against the rapist.
In between these rapes, the real estate agent found it hard to do her job. Because of the trauma of the rape? The stress and fear of it happening again? Sure. But also because she was losing business. This rape had gotten a lot of media attention, and although her name was not revealed in the press, this is a small town (only around 120,000), so folks figured out who it was. The real estate agency she worked for was named in the press, and she was one of the full-time agents—not hard to narrow down. She lost business because this rapist was believed by the police. He was released. So, instead of sympathizing with this poor woman, the public thought of her as that nasty slut who brings strange men into your house to sleep with them, on your bed, while you’re trying to sell your house! Yuck! This traumatized her more than the rape itself—the idea that she could go from a pillar of the community to cheap slut in one rape.
Wanna real kick in the ass? Women are even more likely to blame a woman for her own rape than men are. It’s a form of denial. Women want to believe that this is something that isn’t going to happen to them; that in fact can’t happen to them. Rape is something that happens to “loose” women, or “not careful enough” women, or “weak” women, or…..whatever. Don’t believe me? Talk to some criminal lawyers, especially the prosecution. Rape is a difficult crime to prosecute. Not because the evidence is any weaker than any other crime, but because of the psychological baggage the jury brings with them. Female jurors tend to be especially hard to convince, because they want to believe that had the shoes been on their feet, that they would have escaped, or successfully fought back, and wouldn’t have been raped.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 5:43 pm
La Luba, thank you for your extensive explanation. I am still a bit skeptical: your arguments would have made sense if they were intended to describe the world 20-30 years ago, but I don’t know to what extent they apply to the world today.
. If a young woman goes to a party, gets drunk (or is “slipped a mickey”?) and passes out, and men attending the party take her into a back room and rape her while she is unconscious, it’s pretty much considered her fault. After all…she attended the party, and she had a drink. Anything goes.
Who, exactly, considers it her fault? The men raping her, or people in general? I think that is an important distinction. At my university, it has been made pretty clear that the kind of situation you describe is date rape. There is a fraternity on campus who is rumored to be an unsafe environment for females to go. I have seen quite a few upper classmen (males) warning freshman females to avoid that frat. If our culture condones rape, then why does that frat have such a bad reputation, especially among males? I do believe that some males may hold the attitudes you describe, but those males seem to be a vast minority. Hence, I really don’t believe that our culture condones the rape of women while drunk.
2. If a woman is raped after dark in a parking lot, either on her way home from work or while running errands, it’s pretty much considered to be her fault. After all…what was she doing out after dark?
I’m sorry, but I don’t buy this at all. I don’t believe that there is any significant amount of people, even chauvinistic men, who think that woman shouldn’t be out after dark nowadays (or that they are inviting rape if they are). This argument seems like an anachronism that would have applied decades ago, but doesn’t today. Same with your example #4 about a woman out jogging alone.
3. If a woman is raped while she is wearing what could be considered to be “sexy”? clothing, it’s pretty much considered to be her fault. After all…she’s wearing that clothing to attract male attention, right? Attracting the attention of rapists is something she chose to take a chance on, right?
Ok, I find this more believable than #2 and #4, but it still strikes me as anachronistic. Again, I will grant that there are people today who who hold this belief, but I am not convinced that they are anything more than a minority. Can you provide any evidence to show that such beliefs are widespread, or culturally condoned?
5. If a woman who lives alone is raped in her own home, in the middle of the night, by a rapist who came in her window, it’s pretty much considered to be her fault. After all…why did she have her window open? Even if the window wasn’t open, but closed and locked, it’s still her fault. She should have had a roommate, or a dog.
I don’t buy this either. Honestly, it sounds like you are drifting into the realm of hyperbole here.
In my city, a real estate agent was raped in broad daylight, while she was showing a home to a man she thought to be a potential client.
Ok, this story does cause me concern. Now I’m wondering (a) when it was, and (b) how typical it is. I would need a lot more evidence to believe that cases like this are typical, or that society as a whole condones rape.
Rape is something that happens to “loose”? women, or “not careful enough”? women, or “weak”? women, or…..whatever. Don’t believe me?
I believe you on this point.
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 7:12 pm
Aegis, you might want to check out the info on the recent Haidl and OC cases that Sheelzebub posted on under this category.
This comment was written by Anne.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 8:38 pm
Thanks for the link… those stories were shocking.
Still, they don’t seem to demonstrate that our culture condones rape. Actually, they might demonstrate that attacks on the victim’s moral virtue don’t fly any more. The defense lawyer was chastised for his despicable tactics, and the boys were found guilty.
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 9:05 pm
I’m not sure condone would be the right word, but it’s naive to think that rape and sexual assault get even close to the amount of investigative energy and time that they should. Given time, I’m sure you’ll start to come across more stories and anecdotes that back this up, Aegis, but right now your perspective is still pretty fresh. While I’m not pointing a finger and stating that you’re naive, but just the same, from reading your posts I don’t think you’ve yet had it sink in just how prevalent (despite I’m sure your awareness of the statistics) rape and sexual assault are, and how very trivial certain types (the more common types) are written off as insignificant in our culture. As for attacking the victim’s moral virtue, while this might be starting to become frowned upon in the courtroom, it’s definitely not as quick to catch up in the many, many, many cases that do not get reported. Hell, look at the Kobe Bryant case as a perfect example of even the courtroom still taking part in such scandelous antics. It’s victimization after being victimized and it’s one of the primary reasons women don’t step forward more frequently upon being raped or sexually assaulted.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 9:53 pm
Kim said:
Actually, it does sound like you are pointing a finger and stating that I am naive. I don’t particularly mind this: I know that I am younger than probably everyone on this blog, so it wouldn’t surpise me if there is many areas where I am naive. Yet even if I am naive, I am not sure that I am wrong.
By the way, can you cite some evidence that rape and sexual assault don’t get the amount of investigative energy and time that they should (and is this different from any other crime)?
On the other hand, I can see how some trivial types of sexual assault might not get reported. The other day, I overheard a girl describe an experience with a guy she had been “hooking up” with that sounded like borderline date rape. The guy had shut the door, turned off the lights, thrown her on the bed, and jumped on top of her in the space of about two seconds without any positive response from her. He had also insisted repeatedly on her giving him a blowjob.
[blockquote]Hell, look at the Kobe Bryant case as a perfect example of even the courtroom still taking part in such scandelous antics. It’s victimization after being victimized and it’s one of the primary reasons women don’t step forward more frequently upon being raped or sexually assaulted.[/blockquote]
Wait, as I recall, there was evidence that Kobe Bryant’s accuser had sex with another man very shortly after she was supposedly raped, then tried to explain this as having put on dirty underwear. If she was so traumatized by the rape, why have sex with another man before being examined, then lie about it? From what I have read about the case, my suspicion is that her accusations are false. False accusations create skepticism towards women who have actually been raped. Are you suggesting that the courts behavior was scandalous regardless of whether Farber was probably lying or not (such as by leaking her name)?
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 11:24 pm
You misunderstand me Aegis, I wasn’t calling any sexual assault trivial, I was saying investigations often treat them as trivial; oddly enough, just like you did when discussing what a friend of yours spoke about. As for evidence, well, if I have time sure, but in the meantime, please feel free to google, as I’m sure you’ll find plenty of evidence and statistics on how under-reported rape and sexual assaults are.
And on to Kobe Bryant - I watched a special on Dateline the other evening and the thing that kept striking me was the fact that the girl was afraid of going forward because she feared her prior sexual activity coupled with Kobe’s celebrity status would make people not believe her. By the way, as far as I’ve heard, the sex act that occurred earlier that day was with a friend of hers, and another sample was from Kobe Bryant.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 11:33 pm
Pardon, the sex act was afterwards, yes. My mistake. This is the situation as it stands now, and unlike you I’m not nearly as convinced that a sexual assault didn’t occur:
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 11:41 pm
*sigh*
Okay, I actually did a google just so you’d have some facts at your fingertips - you’re responsible for the rest of your search beyond this:
and…
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
April 16th, 2005 at 11:46 pm
Aegis, you are probably right that society as a whole doesn’t condole rape, and that the “blame the victim” mentality is becoming less and less prominent among younger generations, however the people in charge of enforcing the laws and procecuting alleged rapists are still belonging to those older generations.
There is no dispute that the US have horrorfying rape statistics, and that’s only the reported cases. It is commonly acknowledged that for every rape case reported, there is probably at least one not being reported.
This comment was written by Kristjan Wager.In other words, there are real problems that needs to be addressed. How they should be addressed is not clear, but saying that there is no problem (or alternatively that it’s nature/instincts) is not the solution.
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April 16th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
Thank you for locating those numbers for us Kim - as I said they are horrorfying.
One thing that confuses me is the use of “forcible rape” - isn’t rape forcible per definition? Anyone know?
This comment was written by Kristjan Wager.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 12:47 am
Aegis said:
I misunderstood you, but not in the way you think. For some reason, I thought that by “trivial” you meant “minor” (and that’s what I used it to mean), rather than “insignificant” or “unimportant.” I was actually agreeing with your claim that minor types of sexual assault are often ignored. I think what happened to my friend is very serious, yet I know that she won’t do anything about it. As far as I know, she is still seeing the guy.
Thanks for the links, I will get to them tomorrow.
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 6:41 am
Kristjan:
Perhaps it is using “forcible rape” to distinguish from statuatory rape?
Aegis :
I can see a lot of reasons for this. 1) to regain control of her body - having been forced to have sex, being able to consent and control a sexual experience with another person could make her feel better 2) to remind herself of how a positive experience of sex feels 3) to make herself clean - after feeling dirtied by the rape, an act of consenual sex could make her purified 4) to prove to herself that she is still wanted, that men won’t be revolted by the rape.
Yes, pretty silly to do for the point of view of collecting evidence, but very understandable from a tramatised woman point of veiw. She could have lied about it because she thought people wouldn’t believe she could have ben raped and then still been able to have sex afterwards, and hence not believe she was raped.
I agree with the statement by La Lupa that society condones rape (not as often in words, but in the actions/lack of actions it takes). A few links from British Goverment reports (I can’t comment on the American side really, since I’m in the UK, but our nice shiny government has done lots of reports on rapes and is slowly trying to inprove laws and police/jury attitudes to rape)
On how rape is treated from reporting to the police to trial with explainations about why cases get dropped and why such low conviction rates.
And A Gap or a Chasm which is more contrated on the victims of rape, and why they drop their cases/don’t want to go to court.
From it you get accounts like
“Well actually, I didn’t report, I thought I was to blame. It’s quite simple. I’d gone out and stayed out longer than expected, I’d had enough to drink to know that I needed a little help to get home. I needed somebody to get me a taxi, put me in it, and then I could have got home. So I was tipsy, but not drunk. And this gentleman said he would look after me, and I asked him could I trust him? And he said yes. He brought me home, on the tram, which I’d never been on before … We got to my house, and … at the door, I stretched my arm and said, “I’ll get you a taxi.”? I didn’t invite him in.
But the next thing, as I’m phoning for the taxi, I realised he was sat on the settee. Then I was raped, and then he went. I felt a stupid old woman, because I’m fifty-odd … But I felt as though I could trust him”
Okay, how many twisted is that? The woman is raped, and she thinks it is her fault. Society condones rape when it reinforces their veiws that rape is the victims fault, and hence not a punishable crime.
Or even better are the ones from the police themselves
” I think I’d have more belief in the victim, that was saying it was by a stranger, that …it was a proper rape, rather than perhaps someone who said “It’s my ex-boyfriend, he came round”?, ’cause then you start to think things like “Oh, she’s just getting back at him now.”? (St Mary’s, Police Officer DC, F2, July 2002)”
“Well, honestly, it’s because most of them are not telling the truth … I think what happens to a lot of adults is they may have consensual sex with somebody, they get found out by their husband, partner, whoever, they then say “Oh but I didn’t consent”? as a way of getting themselves out of that trouble … I mean I have dealt with hundreds and hundreds of rapes in the last few years, and I can honestly probably count on both hands the ones that I believe are truly genuine.
(Comparison 1, Police Officer DC, M2, June 2002)”
Unless you are underage, or are violently attecked by someone you have never met, then pretty much forget about your rapist getting taken to court, let alone convicted. And if you do report, you will be consider a liar, a slut and fair game for other rapists….
“The data on multiple attendees at St Mary’s suggest that there is a group of women who are subjected to repeat sexual victimisation by different assailants. Currently, this vulnerability appears to function as a cue to practitioners to dismiss their allegations rather swiftly. Indeed, it could be argued that the entire attrition process results in thousands of people each year entering a group that, should they have the misfortune to be assaulted in the future, will mean their complaint will be treated with even greater scepticism.”
(All the quotes are from the second link)
One last point, from personal experinece rather than from research. I’m not convinced it’s just the older generations. I am an undergraduate at Oxford University. Theorectically I should be surrounded by the brightest and highest educated men of my generation. And i have heard time and time agsin “you can’t rape a woman because she enjoys it really”, “most woman who report rapes are just doing it because they changed their minds after as don’t want people to think they are sluts” (said to re-assure me when I was getting upset over the low conviction rates vs. increasing rape stats) and “It’s the girl’s fault for [dressing/acting that way/getting drunk and going home with them]- they know men can’t control their reactions”. I hate to think what less educated men think.
This comment was written by VK.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 7:00 am
Aegis, I’m not talking about attitudes of 20-30 years ago. I’m talking about attitudes that are fully realized and fully verbalized right here where I live. Here is a link to a case in my city from a couple of years ago. I chose this example because it illustrates the problem in my area and provides hard statistics as to its extent. Pay attention, and you will see that for 210 complaints of rape, the States Attorney chose to file charges in only 27 of those cases. In this woman’s case, when she pressed the States Attorney as to why he wasn’t going to file charges, his response was, “You have to consider the little old Baptist lady in the corner of the jury box and what she’s going to think about this.”
Another local case I immediately thought of when reading through this thread was that of a fourteen year old girl who was raped by a hockey player from the local junior team. It’s common practice for “host families” to provide room and board for the young men who play hockey for the team, who often come from other areas of the country. Host families volunteer to house these players, in much the same way host families provide for international students.
Anyway, this girl was raped in her own bedroom, in her own house, by this player. He was much larger than she (he stood over half-a-foot taller and outweighed her by some 80-100 pounds), and he held her down and covered her mouth while her raped her. Her parents were not home.
This was another case that was dismissed by the States Attorney. The player was dismissed from the team, amidst a huge public outcry in support of the player and against this girl. This girl was excoriated in local talk radio shows as a slut. Not only was she not believed to have been raped, but instead was painted as a predatory, scheming seducer who forced herself on the young man. She was said to have been jealous of the media attention this young man received as a hockey player, and wanted to latch on to his fame. What was the girl’s reputation prior to her rape? A semi-popular, friendly, well-liked good student. Sorta quiet, fairly active but rather bookish. And a virgin, not that it should matter. That all changed with one rape. Sure, her name wasn’t mentioned in the media either, but there’s only so many players on the hockey team, so it was easy for the public to figure it out.
You should have been here to hear some of those conversations, Aegis. At my jobsite, there were only two people who believed the girl. Me, and a man whose teenage daughter had been recently raped by a neighborhood boy, after school. Another case that was not pursued by the States Attorney.
You might say we’ve got a States Attorney problem around here, and you’d be right. But it’s a problem that extends far beyond that here. The consciousness raising that you seem to think occurred throughout the U.S. hasn’t reached my area. Yet I’m a woman, and I still live here. This isn’t really Podunk, or Bumfuck, although those of us frustrated with backwards attitudes will call it that, at times. This is a city of 120,000 people. The State Capital. With a major university in town. Hell, you think it’s hard to be believed as a rape survivor here, you oughta head out to the real sticks, where your rapist may be related to the local police chief.
I’ve lived my entire life in the midwest, in various cities. In all of them, this attitude was prevalent. Not in the liberal/lefty circles I run around in, but in the community at large. I try not to think about it too much. But when cases like these are brought to my attention, either through the media or hearing about it firsthand from another woman, it makes me feel like I am under siege. Feminists here have not been able to change the attitudes; conservativism and conservative religion are too strong here. What we have been able to do, is create a phenomenal Rape Crisis Center, staffed by die-hard volunteers ready to answer the phone at a moment’s notice and help rape victims both manuever the system and survive its aftermath.
Being female and living here, I know in my bones that I am not likely to receive much help from the authorities (that my taxes pay for!) in the event of a rape. I am not likely to even be believed. I’m even less likely to be believed by the community at large. The statistics prove it.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 7:32 am
I don’t believe that there is any significant amount of people, even chauvinistic men, who think that woman shouldn’t be out after dark nowadays (or that they are inviting rape if they are).
To be accurate, it’s not “why was she out after dark?” but “Why was she out alone after dark, she should have known that wasn’t safe?” (Especially if it’s in an unsafe area.) The idea being that she was really stupid and should have expected something like this to happen.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 7:51 am
Yes, Aegis, there was a guilty verdict in the OC case, but the fact that the defense chose to go with the “she was a slut so she deserved it” line — even when they raped “unconsious Doe with a pool cue, aluminum can, Snapple bottle, and lit cigarette, as well as doing it the old fashioned way. Oh, and videotaping the whole thing” — is telling, even if the strategy was roundly vilified and ultimately unsuccessful. Yes, it’s hard to defend clients who videotape actions like that, but there was a special tone of maliciousness in their case, and I can only assume they though the “she’s had sex before, so it’s okay to rape her when she’s unconscious” idea would set with some people. (If I recall, they also threw in some “We wouldn’t want to ruin these boys’ lives, now would we?”)
This comment was written by Anne.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 7:53 am
“Verdicts,” rather, and sorry about the pronoun trouble; also, apparently alcohol had passed her lips on occassion, so that made it okay too, because what would she expect anyway?
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April 17th, 2005 at 8:30 am
What would she expect is synonymous with ’she got what she deserved’. There’s a vengeful tone to the judgements passed on rape victims in cases like this: ‘look what happened to her. she asked for it and she got it!’
It’s important to note a few things about the OC case, too: it took two trials. The chief defendant was the son of a sheriff. Gee, I’m sure that guy is really serious about rape. There have been more videotape cases since then, including this one. IN all of them the victim was underage, so it should be a slam dunk, but it hasn’t proved to be so.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 9:35 am
The usual distinction is between “forcible rape,” where overt violence or threats of violence were used to coerce sex and “statutory rape,” where meaningful consent could not be given because of the age of the victim.
This comment was written by Rad Geek.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 10:46 am
Aegis:
Well, there’s lots of data collected on rape-myth acceptance over the past three decades. For example, here are some results published in 1995. Among high school students in the Midwest:
Among American eighth graders:
That’s a lot of people, and a lot of young men specifically, who buy into the idea that forced sex is OK under certain conditions. They learn these things from somewhere, and there’s plenty of research on where they get the idea from, too. The answer tends to be: from male peers, from older men, from popular culture, and from pornography. (It’s worth noting that radical feminists and pro-feminist men identified these realities and wrote a lot of books and articles about them a good 10-20 years before professionalized social science caught on. The best work on what is sometimes called “rape culture” remains the work done by authors such as Susan Brownmiller, Andrea Dworkin, Robin Morgan, Timothy Beneke, and others.)
Expected by whom?
I hear that during high school, females have a high desire for sex, too, but may have only a limited ability to get what they want from young men. Yet the rate of young women raping young men in high school is very low.
Generally speaking, people desire lots of things. A lot of males, for example, desire political power, but only a limited ability to interact with voters and lobby officials. Yet the rate of men forming gangs to enact violent coups d’etat is pretty low. What do you suppose makes the difference?
This comment was written by Rad Geek.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 11:32 am
>>I don’t believe that there is any significant amount [sic] of people, even chauvinistic men, who think that women shouldn’t be out after dark nowadays (or that they are inviting rape if they are).>>
Huh. That’s funny, because that doesn’t jibe with my experience at all. My family never wanted me or my sister walking around our home neighborhood alone after dark, even though we live in one of the safest, most over-policed suburbs in the country. My aunt was aghast that my parents didn’t outright prohibit me from doing so, even as an adult. When I was in college, it was considered horribly reckless to go jogging alone after dark, even in my relatively safe, suburban college town. In the city I live in now, it’s certainly not considered safe to walk around alone at night; women pair up, preferably with men, or take taxis. Perhaps a woman who goes out alone at night isn’t seen by most people to be _inviting_ rape–that is, actively _courting_ it–but she’s definitely failing to perform due diligence in preventing rape. And if you do get assaulted, or attacked, or threatened, the response is, “Geez, what did you expect?” That was exactly what the cop who came to pick me up said, after some asshole followed me partway home.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 11:40 am
Is this uncommon? I assumed that all women have heard don’t accept drinks from anyone but the bartender, don’t leave your drink unattended, tell your friends who you’re going home with, call them to check in, meet up in a well-lit public place, never accept help offered from a stranger, don’t get into his car, don’t wait anywhere alone, don’t go anywhere alone, have someone walk you to your car, don’t be afraid of getting real loud real fast, go for the groin and the eyes and so on.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
As long as you don’t mind being treated as a paranoid bitch because you failed to trust that “nice guy” who’s a friend of your roommate, or you’ve dated twice, or who is in your English class. Admonitions about strangers are fine, but expecting people to be suspicious of friendly acquaintances, or people who others have vouched for, may be expecting a little much.
don’t wait anywhere alone, don’t go anywhere alone
And make sure you wear your burqa!
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
I’m not saying the double standard is fair, or even that admonitions like this are workable, or even that they’re sane (”Don’t have long hair,” etc.), just that I was under the impression that they were ubiquitous. For women, anyway–I’m not surprised that Aegis hasn’t been inundated with them.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 1:58 pm
I am amused that anyone even dare suggest that rape isn’t blown off and therefore tacitly condoned, especially acquaintance rape. When I was assaulted, people told me over and over again that they really wished I hadn’t called the police and made a fuss, but instead that they wished that I had pretended it didn’t happen. And I would have followed this suggestion, rather than go through the stress of filing charges, if I didn’t fear having to run across my assailant in future social situations. Filing charges was the only way to convince people that indeed it was was a bad idea to have him around me again.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 8:41 pm
Kim asked, “Who in this thread has talked revenge? How have you gone from reading people desiring justice to people desiring revenge?”
there is a sense in which justice is the masquerade of revenge. justice is revenge taken from an individual’s vigilante’s hands and, supposedly, put in the relatively objective & impartial hands of society. i’m not saying revenge is necessarily bad, only that the impulse to change the past will be rebuffed.
Kim asked, “Are you implying that people noticing this is only out of some lascivious or vicarious sexual thrill instead of genuine horror and frustration that our society has cultivated such mindsets?”
yes. not everyone. not always consciously. the thrill is a complex of pain, impotence, revenge, and sex. though the conscious mind may be able to separate these things, in our feelings these things get mixed together.
Kim asked, “Surely you aren’t suggesting we all just go back to getting ourselves layed in lew of paying attention to crimes such as these that call attention to the very core of many gender/sex based problems that affect SO many people?”
no, i’m not suggesting that. i thoroughly believe in the right of the father and of the community to redress the wrongs, however impossible it may be to undo the rape itself. i’m saying the NATIONAL OUTRAGE will lead to what appears to be a rational dialogue. but as the rational structure blows away like so many playing cards, a fresh mixture of revenge, power, and sex hand in hand is left in the newspapers and on television.
what i’d like to see is sex, love, beauty, experimentation & trust, all hand in hand. and calling for the heads and the rape of the administrators and the boys (respectively) does not achieve that. there is no doubt we all love watching a public hanging to know that order has been restored. there is no doubt, because seeing such a spectacle satisfies some dark desire. and rape satisfies another dark desire.
This comment was written by pornstorm.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 9:10 pm
I find myself nodding along to a lot of these comments. To throw in my 2 cents, here’s my experience:
I’m 20 years old and going to the University of North Dakota (That’s Grand Forks, ND people, not exactly a pinnacle of crime). My mom tried to make me promise I wouldn’t walk alone after night, and to always call the campus cops (not that I trust them). My dad backed up her paranoia by telling me that even though I’m trained in self-defense, I’ll always be overpowered by a guy (way to encourage me there, dad).
I like walking alone at night in the summer here. It’s cool, it’s the only time I’m really awake, and it’s peaceful when everyone’s barricaded in their homes. Every time I’ve walked at night by myself, the cops have come and hassled me (Are you okay? Where do you live? Where’s your id?), and then rolled there eyes after I complied and drove off. I can almost see them thinking “She is so going to get raped”. I really don’t expect them to be over-much helpful.
I eat lunch with a bunch of chauvnistic guys (not really much of a feminist presence here) and when we’ve talked about this, they say the equivalent of “Yeah, it would be your fault if you ever got raped.” Even though in the next breathe they’re all “And we would take a cheese grater to his nuts” which is kinda sweet in a really fucked-up fashion.
Idea that women are supposed to be paranoid or it’s there fault? Oh yeah, it’s definately out there. I just refuse to let that dictate my life. And, if I were ever raped, I would report it in two seconds flat and taking the public metaphorical lynching. Because it is NOT my fault, and I am making that statement as hard as I can by doing so.
This comment was written by Antigone.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 9:16 pm
and when we’ve talked about this, they say the equivalent of “Yeah, it would be your fault if you ever got raped.”?
Maybe you should explain to them that you’re most likely to be raped by an acquaintance, and since they’re inclined to blame women for rape, you no longer feel safe eating lunch with them. :P
piny, I know you didn’t agree with all those statements, just noting how ludicrous and limiting they are. Things like “don’t go anywhere alone,” for example. I know that as a young woman, I recognized how ridiculous this stuff was–and as a result, I tuned out any useful advice about avoiding sexual assault I might have gotten, because it was all just part of the “evil rapists are behind every bush and you must be paranoid at all times” stream-of-paranoia stuff.
(Granted, I was a young woman in the days before date-rape drugs were common, but y’know.)
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2005 at 10:41 pm
When I was a student at UC Berkeley in the 90s, and living in the dorms, the campus police would give seminars on “safety,” which I found incredibly paranoid at the time, and in retrospect, seemed more about indoctrinating young women in believing themselves weak, threatened, and dependent on male authority figures. It was all about sticking to well-lit areas, staying in large groups, etc. The campus was ridiculously heavily policed, and there was always a demand for yet more lights, yet more police.
At one of these indoctrination sessions, one woman talked about her problem with a roommate. They had a class together that got out relatively late, 7 PM, and her roommate would stick around a few minutes extra to talk to the professor after class. This meant they’d miss the shuttle bus to the dorm that arrived just when their class ended — so they’d have to wait outside the lecture hall, in a brightly lit area with dozens of people around, for FIFTEEN MINUTES before the next shuttle arrived.
The cops suggested going back inside the building to wait.
Shortly after this, the university launched an “escort service,” in which students were issued military uniforms, canisters of pepper spray, and walkie-talkies; and when the escort service was called through an 800 number, they were dispatched to escort students back to their dorms after dark. The escorts were nearly all men, but there were a few women; all the escortees I ever saw were women.
At the time, I was thinking mostly that it was perverse, if one was worried about being attacked by strangers, to call for an armed stranger for protection. Now, I’m inclined to see it as an unbelievably blatant assertion of male dominance and female helplessness and dependency, that did nothing to address the real dangers young women would have to contend with.
This comment was written by Brian.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 12:29 am
I guess I was also noting how much of a division there was. I grew up with them, and continue to note them every day. Now, of course, I really am much safer from street harassment of that type, but I still feel like the target demographic for all those Cosmo articles about listening to your fear. I guess there are men who didn’t notice them at all.
Also–I had a stalker. He was a relatively minor problem, but for a few weeks, I was followed around my community college and partway home by this extremely creepy guy. I had my professors and (male) classmates walk me to the bus a few times, and after he followed me a little further than usual one evening, I called the police.
This kind of thing is normal; it’s expected that it’ll happen at some point–some guy harassing you at work, some guy bothering you at a party, some guys harassing you on the street, some guy following you after dark–and you had better learn to be ever-vigilant. You don’t take certain risks, like leaving your drink at the bar while you go to the bathroom.
Brian–and pornstorm–I get that these measures, both security and deterrence, arguably don’t address the underlying problems of violence and power disparities in our society, but I don’t give a fuck.
I would have given my right arm for an escort service like the one you described, Brian. The stalker would have left me alone a lot sooner, and he would have had a lot less power; as it was, after sunset, there was no one around for miles to appeal to. And I see nothing shameful about appealing for help to deter an attacker. That’s what police officers and their deputies are for.
And gee, it sucks that prison’s so harsh, and it sucks that the public tends to be unfeeling towards criminals (if not so much towards rapists), but if they don’t want to get locked up, they should stop shoving pool cues into teenage girls’ vaginas. Outrage over rape, including the visceral fury that women feel about the ever-present threat of rape, is not the same thing as the violent misogyny that causes rape. It’s just not. They can’t be equated. I can’t believe I even have to say so.
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April 18th, 2005 at 4:27 am
Piny: there seems to be a serious preference in pornstorm’s writing for the saftey of the rapists over the saftey of the people who’re rapes. He or she is condemning our outrage with some strawman about how we really want the perpetrators to be raped, while most people here have gone out of thier way to mention that the saftey of the girl is the foremost concern, and that the prison system sucks, but this is the real world, and our primary concern is the girl, and others in the school system.
Reguardless, I effing HATE armchair psychoanalysis of people’s ’subconscious’ motives. Especialy when it’s coupled with some half baked idea about a utopian future with no real world suggestion on how to fix things.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 4:30 am
Thank you Rad Geek, I had forgotten that aspect of US law. In Denmark underage sex is dealth with in other paragraphs, and it wouldn’t be called rape, unless there was force involved. People don’t get off light, especially not if they are in a position of authority compared to the underage person, but it means that if a couple has sex before one of them have turned 15 (the age of concensus), none of them are charged with rape.
This comment was written by Kristjan Wager.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 5:47 am
Kristjan -
In the US, it’s called “the age of consent.” And as I understand it, it’s not statutory rape here if two people who are both under the age of consent have sex; it’s only statuatory rape when one of them is at or above the age of consent.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 5:58 am
I favor putting rapists in prison, because what the hell else are we going to do with them? Realistically, no matter how bad prisons get, that’s where I want rapists to go. Better prison than high school.
Nonetheless, I do think that prison rape is a real concern. It’s not just a matter of rapists getting raped (which is brutal and wrong, but at least has a sort of ironic justice); it’s also a matter of potheads and embezzlers and other non-violent criminals, stuck inside prison with the rapists, getting raped.
What’s frustrating to me about prison rape is that it’s a much easier thing to solve than rape outside of prison. All we’d have to do is agree as a society that stopping prison rape is so important that it’s worth spending more money on building better-designed prisons (eliminating rape-associated features like barricks housing and blind corners) and hiring independent monitors to make sure guards do their jobs. Compared to the huge changes in society that would be required to really reduce rape outside of prison, massively reducing prison rape would be straightforward.
But we won’t do it, because it would require spending precious tax dollars, and too many Americans would rather see some poor pothead or shoplifter raped than pay higher taxes.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 6:05 am
In Denmark underage sex is dealth with in other paragraphs, and it wouldn’t be called rape
In the US it varies from state to state. In many states there are degrees of ‘criminal sexual conduct,’ where the age of the victim is a factor.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 6:18 am
Amp, it depends on the state you’re standing in. Some have “Romeo and Juliet” clauses, some don’t. Some exempt same-age partners, some don’t.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 7:37 am
Agreed, Amp. I should have said, “In the context of this particular discussion, I don’t give a fuck.”
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 7:42 am
When I was in middle school , there was a boy who can only be described as an oversexed pervert. We girls were all afraid of him. He’d always say disgusting things to us and there was this air of menace whenever he was around. My friend Carrie was grabbed by him and her mother complained. Nothing was done. He was a pathetic person, learning disabled, and very vulnerable in a way so I’m sure the authorities felt sorry for him. I even felt sorry for him. Long story short- as an adult he was convicted for 1rst degree criminal sexual conduct. No one who knew him was surprised.
I have a shameful vice of listening to Dr Laura, whom I heard ask a father of a 13 year old who was groped by a neighbor if she was dressed like a skank like most girls are these days. Yes, many of us are more enlightened these days, but those ugly assumptions about rape and are still there, lurking around on a.m. radio.
By the way, there is no doubt in my mind that Kobe raped that poor young woman. All of the “info” about her having sex shortly after was never proven or even presented at a trial, only whispered to the press is shameful tactic of intimidation. Read the police report at the Smokinggun.com and come to your own conclusions.
This comment was written by Elena.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 7:58 am
Elena, in my view, Kobe admitted that he raped that woman in his post- dismissal “apology.” His defense was a deliberate set-up motivated by a potential civil claim. If that were true, then the encounter itself would have proceeded as unambiguously consensual. By admitting that he understood how she could have seen it as otherwise, he was admitting that a reasonable person in her position could have been physically intimidated. No room left for his original story, where she pursued him and then lied. It is clear, instead, that he used force or the threat of force, but he still doesn’t really see what’s wrong with that.
As for her other sexual encounters, whether it is true or not, I don’t care. She wouldn’t be the first woman to try to bury a rape with consensual sex. I’m not going to criticize a woman who has just been raped for any sexual choice she makes in the aftermath. It may make the physical evidence tougher to sort out, but I don’t attach any normative significance to it (and I wish everyone saw it the way I do …).
Also, La Lubu, you’re absolutely right about conventional wisdom among criminal defense attorneys (I used to do criminal defense). Women as jurors judge women as rape complainants much more harshly. If I remember my anthro courses correctly, this is the phenomenon Malinowski pointed out — people are superstitious about those things that are both important and beyond their control. Baseball and hitting streaks, sailors and storms, farmers and rain. I think you’re exactly right that many women in the jury box have to tell themselves that they could’ve done something different, in order to shield themselves from a much more frightening reality.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 8:22 am
I think the oral-sex-media-obsession comes in waves . It was the cover story in this month’s Philadelphia Magazine. It’s all about the news cycle.
http://www.phillymag.com/ArticleDisplay.php?id=534
This comment was written by Richard Bellamy.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 9:05 am
Piny, I have no problem with a woman asking for someone to walk with her. I have a big problem with an organization that hands out uniforms, weapons, and the badge of authority to men who want to dominate women, and I have a big problem with the idea that women *must* accept that “protection.”
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 12:54 pm
I like that phrase “bury a rape”, Thomas. I think that’s exactly how it feels.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 3:02 pm
Amanda, I’m sad to say I’ve known women who have been raped or molested, and many more who have been the target of attempted rape. As you know, some women try to bury it with good sexual experiences, some become temporarily celibate. Some curl up into themselves, some want all the support they can get. Some put on weight, others stop eating. The impression I’m left with is that it’s an awful, traumatic and life-changing experience that I can’t fully understand and I hope I never do. Hell if I’m going to tell a woman who’s been through it how she should feel or should act. When I did sexual assault awareness classes in college, we used to tell women not to judge how they got through the rape, because if they survived, whatever they did worked. I think the same is true for any woman who survives the aftermath.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 4:42 pm
piny says, “Brian”“and pornstorm”“I get that these measures, both security and deterrence, arguably don’t address the underlying problems of violence and power disparities in our society, but I don’t give a fuck.”
it’s understandable to feel that way, but don’t forget it’s the feeling of vengance you’re expressing.
piny says, “And I see nothing shameful about appealing for help to deter an attacker. That’s what police officers and their deputies are for.”
no there’s nothing shameful at all about that. it is terrifying though when one of those deputies becomes the attacker.
piny remarks, “Outrage over rape, including the visceral fury that women feel about the ever-present threat of rape, is not the same thing as the violent misogyny that causes rape. It’s just not. They can’t be equated. I can’t believe I even have to say so.”
piny, didn’t mean to equate them. i’m saying fury, fear, and violence are all dark human impulses and each one can beget the other two.
Josh Jasper remarks, “there seems to be a serious preference in pornstorm’s writing for the saftey of the rapists over the saftey of the people who’re raped.”
i mean to express a preference for rationality, spiritual healing, and a positive mental attitude, for all involved and most especially for the victim of the crime.
Josh Jasper notes, “but this is the real world, and our primary concern is the girl, and others in the school system.”
your use of the words “our concern” reveal my issue. do you know the girl? do you live in that school district? if not, what good is your “concern”? what do you achieve within your own spirit by expressing this “concern”? do you scare away potential rapists? do you build a bigger police force? do you teach others rape is “bad” with your concern? chances are the potential rapist already knows what he’s thinking of doing is “bad”. do you think you become a watchful eye there to be sure justice is done? do you think you become an honest person who, like many others, is satisfied to see a criminal hang from a noose?
Josh Jasper says, “Regardless, I effing HATE armchair psychoanalysis of people’s ’subconscious’ motives. Especialy when it’s coupled with some half baked idea about a utopian future with no real world suggestion on how to fix things.”
i’m glad you’re concerned with the real world, too. some practical people believe it’s a good idea to have in mind where you’re aiming when you set about solving a problem. i prefer to present a positive vision.
This comment was written by pornstorm.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 5:09 pm
Not to divert the topic, but in some cases, “burying” a rape may not be a bad idea, mental health-wise. If a woman has healthy, supportive relationships with a sexual partner who is cognizant of the experience, then I think it can be constructive to have sex that makes you feel comforted, wanted, not used. Burying can be a good thing or a bad thing.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 5:17 pm
No, it fucking well is not a desire for vengeance. Christ. Well and truly written like someone who doesn’t have any personal stake in this whatsoever. I’d be happy–overjoyed–to see these young men rehabilitated. I would have been perfectly happy to see my stalker get counselling and medication. I don’t want to see anyone, even rapists, get raped. And I do not support the death penalty, corporal punishment of any kind, prison rape, or violent and inhuman prison conditions.
The desire to see violent misogynists locked up where they can’t hurt women–especially if you happen to be a woman–is a desire for safety. Security. It’s a desire to be able to do reckless things like actually taste a drink someone buys for you, or take a night class at your deserted campus, or go jogging after dark. It’s the desire to know that at least the man who raped you, or your friend, or your neighbor, or your daughter, or your daughter’s classmates, or the women in the next town over is going to be put where he can’t hurt any woman anymore.
And is there a retributive impulse at play for most people, particularly the victims? Of course there fucking well is. Is there fury involved? Of course there fucking well is. But don’t you dare act as though a desire for the protection of the law is the same as a desire for vengeance, especially given the utterly irrational, utterly emotional, entirely vindictive inability of so many juries to convict so many assailants.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
April 18th, 2005 at 5:32 pm
Aegis, the first trial of the OC rape ended with a hung jury–only one juror wanted to convict, the rest bought the “she’s a skank and deserved it” bullshit. The second case got some convictions, but they did buy some of the defense’s story that she was a skank. And the defense had no problems with releasing her private medical information to the press, spreading rumors about her, and posting leaflets about her. I have yet to see such tactics in a robbery case.
Also, there was a similar case in Chicago where a girl was raped on video, and the rapists were not convicted. About ten years ago, a mentally retarded girl was raped by her high schools popular jocks, and she was pilloried. You read the comments on any thread about a rape case, and you find the tired old “women lie all the time,” “she was a whore,” “she wanted money,” “she wanted media attention,” “she’s not a real rape victim because he didn’t beat her to a pulp.”
This comment was written by Sheelzebub.Report this comment to the moderators
April 19th, 2005 at 6:12 am
Sheelzebub, I’m not disagreeing with your point - I totally agree - but I just want to interject that there is one area of villification of the victim similar to rape. In some homicides, either a “plan b” defense proposing an alternate killer, of a self-defense story, require a scorched-earth attack on the dead person. Remember the plan b defense in O.J.?
I recall an early ’90s killing of a chinese businessman in Chinatown in NYC. The body was found full of bullets, some fires by a man standing over him while he lay on the ground. Money was found by his body in a neat fan. It looked like a gang hit. The defense argued the the deceased was a gangster and a real bad dude, with a full-court press to drag him through the mud. I have no special knowledge about the truth of that account. The defense argued that the deceased had intended to kill the defendant, who shot him in self-defense, and then, with his heart hammering in his chest, continued shooting on autopilot even as the body lay still (reloading a revolver twice, IIRC). And the fan of bills? A neat stock, brought as a bribe or appeasement, that the victim dropped in haste, which fanned neatly by conincidence. The defense attorney dropped a stack of bills into a perfect fan in the courtroom to demonstrate that it could happen.
Acquitted.
Now, did the jury acquit because they believed the self-defense story? Or because, if the dead guy was a bad guy, who cares who killed him? We’ll never know.
I’m not, of course, arguing that this is the same thing, just saying the categorical statement that the victim isn’t attacked in non-rape cases isn’t entirely accurate.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
April 19th, 2005 at 6:38 am
In some homicides, either a “plan b”? defense proposing an alternate killer, of a self-defense story, require a scorched-earth attack on the dead person.
As one famous defense attorney has said, you can get away with it if you convince the jury that the dead guy needed killin’ and your client was the man for the job.
Richard, isn’t it interesting how eagerly the grown-ups swallow (sorry) all those stories about What Our Kids Are Doing? You almost never read an account from a teen who is actually engaging in all this sex. It’s always “I know this girl who…” or “I heard about this party where…”
On prison rape - there’s a big assumption here that sexual predators in prison are going to be the victims, not the perpetrators. To a lot of sexual predators, going to jail must be like being told “Have some victims. We’ll even lock the doors so they can’t run away from you. Oh, and the police don’t give a shit what you do to them.”
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 19th, 2005 at 7:37 am
I’ve been thinking along these lines for a long time now. From the time I was in junior high school, back in the mid-70s ferchrissakes, I’ve been hearing moral panic after moral panic about teenagers and their sexual behaviour. And every time, it’s like adults have just discovered that 14 year olds are doing it. And every time, the numbers of teens who are sexually active has reached epidemic proportions.
Now this has happened, to my recollection, about every 4 or 5 years since about 1975. So, if teen sex was at “epidemic” levels in ‘75, and has had these truly dramatic increases every 5 or so since, I’m figuring we must be at about, what?, at least 180% of all teenagers having non-stop rampant sex?
It’s ridiculous, and just like the equally predictable moral panics that roll around every few years about teen drug use.
Back 30 years ago, a number of teenagers were fucking and getting high. A number of teenagers are fucking and getting high now. Wow, big news.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
April 19th, 2005 at 8:34 am
Mythago, that sounds like Spence. Was it Spence?
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
April 19th, 2005 at 8:55 am
Did anyone else really, really hate the movie Kids from a few years back?
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 19th, 2005 at 10:05 am
Brian—Oh. My. God. I saw that movie and despised it passionately. The director has done worse since then, though. I know it seems difficult to believe but yes. I felt like I had to take a year-long shower after that flick.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
April 19th, 2005 at 12:29 pm
Aegis said:
Nice clothes, a nice car, and being good at sports seemed to work in my day.
Also, you assume that those same high school girls with all that “sexual power” didn’t also get raped.
This comment was written by Mary Ellen.Report this comment to the moderators
April 19th, 2005 at 11:52 pm
Amp:
Well. There’s a lot of reasons to condemn popular attitudes towards prison rape (a lot of people continue to think that it’s absolutely hilarious when made into a broad joke). But I don’t think that the issue has anything in particular to do with tax rates. Legislators routinely raise taxes or issue bonds, with no particular political consequence, for building more and larger prisons and have been doing so for years. (Sometimes they even manage to Mau Mau 51+% of ordinary people into signing on to it in a local referendum on, e.g., building a new county jail.)
Voters ought to take rape in prisons seriously enough to ensure that something is done about it, and it’s a sad commentary that they don’t. But the primary source of the problem isn’t voters at all; it’s corrections officers and the prison bureaucracy, who have repeatedly shown their willingness to encourage a climate of sexual violence and terror as a means of internal control–either directly or by turning a strategic blind eye–and to protect each other behind a Blue Wall when guards are negligent or are committing the assaults themselves. Power corrupts, and unaccountable power corrupts without limit.
There’s plenty of money to solve these problems already. The problem is that the legislators don’t care and the corrections officers’ unions block serious reform efforts at every step.
This comment was written by Rad Geek.Report this comment to the moderators
April 20th, 2005 at 6:23 am
No, Thomas, it wasn’t Spence as far as I recall (he tends to be more high-handed about protecting the innocent from the grinding, uncaring machinery of the State).
And what Crys T said. It’s as though every generation of adults suddenly realizes “Oh my god, teenagers might want to screw around just like we did!” and completely lose their marbles.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 20th, 2005 at 8:37 pm
Thanks for your responses, everyone. I can see why some of you claim that society turns a blind eye towards rape, yet this seems like an example of ignorance and stupidity rather than evidence that rape is condoned by society as a whole. To be fair, neither would I claim that wives screwing their husbands over in divorce is condoned by society as a whole.
VK said:
You see, I have never heard any statements remotely close to those, even in jest, and even from the most chauvinistic males around. I would think that if these attitudes really were so widespread, that I would have heard them voiced at least once.
Anne said:
I would say the failure of the defense’s tactics shows that such attitudes don’t fly so well anymore. On the other hand, Sheezlebub did point out that the first jury hung, so those attitudes do sometimes still work in some areas.
Sheezlebub said:
Which threads, where?
I am getting to the other comments in my next post…
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
April 20th, 2005 at 8:54 pm
I would say the failure of the defense’s tactics shows that such attitudes don’t fly so well anymore.
It flew just fine for the first tries.
Of course the vast majority of people believe rape is wrong; the problem is when you get people defining “rape”.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 20th, 2005 at 10:51 pm
Aegis, earlier today I came across a particularly interesting thread on the Everquest board that I occassionally go to and thought of you and your skepticism. This thread was posted by a young man asking for ‘advice on women’ with regards to his prom date and the choices he was going to make. I was the first one to react in horror and outrage at the post; prior to me it was what only could be considered a festival of atta’boys. Anyways, I’m going to post it here for you to look at, to hopefully provide a solid example of the implicit condoning of extremely questionable mentalities and behaviors with regards to sexual assault and rape:
And here are some of the responses he got (all males), including from people I know to be school teachers, parents, college students etc.:
So anyways, this is just some of the quotes, believe me their are plenty more.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
April 21st, 2005 at 12:33 am
RadGeek said:
Some of those examples were very scary. Others were a bit fishy. For instance, the ideas that “A woman who goes to the home or apartment of a man on their first date implies that she is willing to have sex”? and “A woman who is stuck-up and thinks she is too good to talk to guys on the street deserves to be taught a lesson,” don’t seem to fit with the other rape myths like believing that rape is a woman’s fault if she dresses sexy. It’s possible to believe that a woman going to the home of a man on a first date implies willingness for sex, without believing that forced sex is justified in such a situation. Also, it’s possible to believe that a woman who is stuck-up deserves a lesson, without thinking that such a lesson should be rape. The belief is still misogynistic, but it isn’t evidence that rape is societally condoned.
RadGeek said:
(I had claimed that men are expected to be initiator in sexual relationships.) Cultural norms, and most (but of course not all) women. Are you trying to suggest otherwise?
Ah, but you are quoting me out of context. Remember, I originally made that statement in response to jam:
jam said:
Hence, I am not claiming that a high desire for sex, and limited ability to find any directly cause males to rape. But it isn’t farfetched that a high desire for sex, inability to find any, pressure to initiate (and confusion over doing so), and romantic rejection could cause some men to become insecure, resentful towards women, and alienated from them. This alienation stems from the dysfunctional nature of the current system of gender roles, and can cause such men to adopt misogynistic attitudes. This system inadequately prepares many men for romantic interaction with females (though this post is too short to properly explain why).
Also, as I mentioned, there is a tendency for the most confident, assertive, dominant, and perhaps even “patriarchal” males to be (or at least seem to be) the most successful with the majority of young women. Whether this tendency is real or an illusion, it lends to the idea that women are masochistic and that empathy is unattractive to them. This kind of perception, in combination with the alienation I described earlier, could make some males more likely to believe certain rape myths.
Mary Ellen said:
Yet nice clothes, a nice car, and sports ability are not what make males successful with females. That is the stereotype of what females are supposed to find attractive. What actually seems to attract females in high school (based on my observations) is confidence, charisma, ability to flirt, assertiveness, dominance, and high social skills/status. Many of those males also happened to be good looking or athletic.
And why would I think that those girls got raped?
Next up: Kim’s reply…
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
April 21st, 2005 at 6:33 am
Ageis:
I have heard the same comments VK had–I have also heard the old “rape is terrible, BUT–” (a lot of women lie so she’s probably lying, what was she doing there, why didn’t she just leave, she probably wants money, she’s slept around before, she’s a skank, ad nauseum). I also know a lot of rape survivors who didn’t feel comfortable coming forward because of these attitudes. (And this revelation made me roll my eyes Katie Roiphe’s illogical argument–if rape is so prevalent, why don’t I know anyone who was raped? My answer to that is she probably does, but her attitude probably isn’t going to inspire any confidences from her female friends and/or she wouldn’t acknowledge a lot of it as rape.)
If you want to see examples of some of those comments and attitudes, check out Talk Left. Check out some of the comments on rape threads here on Alas. Many posters use the “well I heard she was a slut/crazy/acted ‘wrong’” as “proof” that a woman wasn’t raped. They throw up half-baked theories about a plotting golddigger, a slut, a crazy woman, an attention-hound, etc. Though I suspect you’ll dismiss example after example.
My question to you is, where is your proof besides what you believe? Few women report their rapes, fewer rape cases are brought to court, and even fewer result in a conviction. Rapes and/or alleged rapes, such as the one mentioned in the original post, are often referred to as “sex scandals” as if two consenting adults were caught having sex in the office.
Kim–my God, what a pack of snivelling losers. That kid was 17 years old and he wants to nail fourteen year olds? He’s concerned about the slut factor when he’s a big old curb-crawling piece of slutmeat himself? And what is up with those inbred seething fuckwits who are posting replies to him? One of them claims to be a high school teacher. I truly hope that’s not the case. If it is, he sure as hell shouldn’t be working with kids.
It’s interesting how these guys think it’s okay for a seventeen-year-old to fuck a fourteen-year-old. A lot of abusers like being with people who are much younger than they are (and in those years, 14 and 17 are worlds apart); such parters are easier to control.
This comment was written by Sheelzebub.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 3:06 am
Kim said:
Kim, I think I should clarify what my skepticism is and isn’t.
- I don’t deny that misogynistic attitudes exist
- I don’t deny that some individuals or groups of individuals may condone rape
- I don’t deny that rape is prevalent. Though some people in this thread seem to be assuming that I do, and trying to convince me otherwise (which isn’t necessary).
Where I am skeptical is towards the claim that society, as a whole, condones rape.
Kim said:
That thread definitely demonstrate questionable and down-right misogynistic attitudes, but I am not certain that they are necessarily condoning of rape. Except the idea of a 17 year-old having sex with a 14 year-old would be statutory rape, yet you said that one poster talked about stat. rape. Perhaps you could explain exactly which comments you think could be condoning of rape, and why?
I am no stranger to discussions of “picking up chicks” on internet forums. I have seen many massive internet forums that are entirely devoted to “pick-up” and “seduction.” The misogynistic attitudes and Machiavellian tactics advocated on these forums would blow your mind! These forums assume that women are masochistic, that most women are not worth having relationships with, and that men must always be dominant alpha males. I’ve seen some posters on these forums advocate looking at women as pets. The refer to “chick logic” to describe the way women supposedly think. Yet the fact that these forums are underground shows how far their ideas are from mainstream acceptance. And I have never seen rape or date rape advocated or excused. Nor have I seen borderline cruelty advocated, such as “doing fucked up shit” to girls and bragging about it, or making a girl walk 10 miles home after taking her virginity. If anything like that was posted on any of the “pick-up” forums I’ve seen, the guy would probably get censured.
If anyone wants me to post links to some of these forums to see what I mean, then let me know.
Sheezlebub said:
Perhaps you could link to a particular thread so I see precisely what you are talking about. And again, I am not denying that these attitudes exist. I am denying that they are widespread enough to justify the claim that society, as a whole, condones rape. Also, a bunch of people excusing rape doesn’t show that rape is condoned by society. When Clara Harris murdered her husband, she was given a lot of sympathy and her actions were excused. Does that show that society condones wives murdering their husbands in revenge, Sheezlebub?
Proof of what? As far as the claim that “society as a whole condones rape” goes, it is the job of others to prove it, not my job to disprove it (although I actually have given some reasons that I am skeptical towards it). The burden of proof is not on me.
I don’t think a claim like that should be accepted lightly on the basis of highly selective evidence; in fact, I think it would be irresponsible to do so. Yes, I am setting a high standard for proof here, but I think that this is exactly the kind of claim that should have to meet a high standard! (and I do believe that some claims of extreme MRAs should be held to this standard also.) I have no problem with people suggesting ideas like this to see where they lead, because I believe speculation is very important to understanding anything. What I have a problem with is people saying “society condones rape” as if it was empirically demonstrated, when it isn’t.
I see no reason to believe that claim without seeing a lot more evidence, because I have never heard attitudes like that voiced in real life, nor have I seen them on the most misogynistic internet forums I’ve lurked on. I understand that many people here have encountered these attitudes, but even if they are more prevalent than I’ve observed, I don’t see how one makes the massive leap from “some people condone rape” to “society as a whole condones rape.” Nor have I seen any empirical evidence that conclusively demonstrates that society condones rape. When something has not been validated by my personal experience or by empirical evidence, I have a lot of trouble believing it, and why shouldn’t I? I understand that some people might think I’m being naive or difficult, but I don’t see at all how my skepticism is unjustified.
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 6:18 am
Aegis, all I can say to you is that apparently you lead a very sheltered life. Rad Geek has provided you with some empirical studies, which you’ve chosen to ignore. For myself, the prevalance of these attitudes is as prima facie evident to me as the sky being blue and grass being green. Then again, I’m female. The brunt of these attitudes falls squarely on my shoulders. I can’t blissfully walk through life assuming that I will (a) never be raped, or (b) be believed to have actually been raped, in the event that I am, or (c) have the assumption be that I did not want to be raped, and that I did not deserve it, in the event of a rape.
Perhaps there are some small, ultra-liberal bastions of the United States where women who are raped aren’t deemed to have been at least half-responsible for their own rape. Perhaps in these oases women who have been raped aren’t vilified as cheap whores and sluts. But I don’t live there. Go read the studies that Rad Geek posted again.
You say you’re skeptical. I say you’re privileged. You can joyfully walk away, saying “not my problem!” without any repercussions. You can read through the odious examples of misogyny that Kim brought up, and say, “yeah, that’s too bad….but these attitudes have absolutely nothing to do with rape.” You have the privilege of assuming that hatred of women will not translate into either rape, or the ignoring of rape. I don’t. The smart inference for me is that a man who would engage in commentary of this nature would, at the very least, refuse to help me if I were raped, and/or blame me for my own rape by calling me a “slut”. The men making comments on that board and other boards like that one will likely serve on a jury someday….maybe during a rape trial. They are more likely to see the rape victim as the criminal, rather than the rapist. There’s a reason that after all this time of feminists doing our damndedest to raise consciousness about rape, many, if not most, women still do not report rape to the authorities.
Oh, and Aegis? You wanted to know where the line was that signalled condoning of rape? It’s right there at the beginning…..”I will be sleeping with whichever one I pick, so sluttiness is not a factor….”
Let me translate that for you: “sluttiness (i.e. in this moron’s mind, willingness to have sex) is not a factor…” He automatically assumes he’s going to be having sex. Why? Why would he assume that? Could it be because it doesn’t matter is she agrees or not, hm?
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 8:05 am
What La Lubu said.
I get the feeling we could pile up example after example, study after study after study, all showing that society in general has attitudes towards rape which condone it at worst or simply encourage looking the other way at best, and still Aegis would be rationalising them away.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 8:41 am
Any society that teaches girls and young women the “Virgin/Whore” dichotomy of sexuality while simultaneously teaching boys and young men the “Stud/Loser” dichotomy is condoning rape. I can’t think of a much more obvious example.
I also think that taking any given week and examining what is on TV (including the news) and what is playing in the cinemas will show exactly what entertainment value rape has in this society. That pleads a pretty heavy case for condoning rape. Fodder for the grist mill and all that.
… or you could compare the US supporting the oil war in Iraq to the US ignoring the rape of 40,000 women in the Republic of Congo and come up with a open public-policy of condoning rape.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 8:45 am
A society that calls a sexual woman a whore and a sexual man, well, just a man condones rape.
And Aegis, if you are going to posit that society doesn’t condone rape, I suggest you show some proof to back it up, instead of telling me that I must prove you wrong.
This comment was written by Sheelzebub.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 9:06 am
Sheelzebub and Q Grrl have it right in my view. Demonizing female sexual assertiveness is not entirely separable from condoning rape, since in doing either, one must deny that women have a right to choose their own sexual partners. Since the latter in indisputable the prevailing attitude, the former is at least tacitly common.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 9:07 am
OOps. I meant, since the former is indisputably the prevailing attitude, the latter must be tacitly common.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 10:55 am
Ugh, the quality of debate in this thread just dropped a notch. I’m in a rush now, but I wanted to respond to one comment.
La Luba said:
Are you seriously suggesting that Rad Geek’s study demonstrates that society as a whole condones rape? Come on. As I’ve said, it’s very disturbing how the study shows that a significant minority of kids have these attitudes (if I’m reading it right). Yet to claim that society as a whole condones rape, those statistics are just not sufficient, and it’s just silly to pretend that they are.
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 12:12 pm
Aegis, what would constitute society “as a whole” for you? 100 percent in the empirical studies Rad Geek posted? It doesn’t work that way for anything. It didn’t work that way for Jim Crow and lynching, but to say that doesn’t prove there was societal approval for such attitudes would be simplistic.
Rape, as defined as a stranger jumping out of the bushes and beating a woman to a pulp before forcing her to have sex, is widely condemned, especially if she is a “good” (i.e., nonsexual) woman. That’s not the case when she knows the perp, when she’s been drinking or doing drugs, when she’s promiscuous, if she’s married to him, or if he’s wealthy and she isn’t.
This comment was written by Sheelzebub.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 1:05 pm
It seems to me that it’s often sexist men who make the most of their condemnation of rape by strangers.
I think this is because most men are aware that there are tremendous pressures on women to consent to sex even when they’d rather not — which makes the issue of consent more difficult than it looks at first. Some worry that they’ve abused women, some know they have.
And some, I believe, prefer to pretend it’s all crystal clear, when they know it isn’t. Thus, the long speeches on their wish for bloody revenge against those strangers in the bushes, together with their denials that date rape is really rape, and their insistence that rape isn’t really that common.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 2:36 pm
La Lubu said:
How do you get from “these attitudes are prevalent” to “these attitudes are held by society as a whole”? I am not denying that these attitudes may be prevalent in some areas, communities, or subcultures. I am denying that they are held by society as a whole.
La Luba said:
That’s not what I said. I said that I wasn’t certain these examples necessarily had anything to do with rape. In other words, maybe they do, maybe they don’t. I am unwilling to jump to the conclusion that they do because I don’t presume myself to be omniscient.
You may be right that I am privileged in some ways, but that is an ad hominem as far as this argument goes. Whether I am privileged or not, nobody in this thread has demonstrated that society as a whole condones rape. In answer to Sheezlebub: no, I do not require studies showing that 100% of people have that attitude. I would at least require some majority of people, and not just 8th graders and highschool students in the midwest. I don’t think that’s unreasonable at all.
La Luba said:
I’ve seen enough to misogyny to know that there is a wide range of negative attitudes towards women. Maybe some of them will translate into rape, but probably most of them won’t. This is true regardless of whether I am privileged or not. (Likewise, not every misandric comment from a woman demonstrates that she would be willing to screw a man over in divorce, or file a false rape accusation.)
La Luba said:
Could it be because he is full of empty bravado, hmm? Note: he talks about having a certain “touch,” so I think he has an exaggerated opinion of his attractiveness to women, and his ability to “game” them. Of course, I can’t rule out that he might coerce a girl into sex, but I am not as willing to jump to that conclusion as you seem to be, because I don’t presume to be able to read his mind.
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 2:53 pm
You know, Aegis, after a certain point, when you just keep going, not good enough, not good enough, not perfect enough, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that you just don’t have an open mind.
You don’t want to believe in this stuff, therefore you reject everything from people who’ve actually lived through this. There will never be perfect proof for you, because you just don’t want to deal with it. What’s kind of disturbing is this attitude that we have to somehow adopt your standards and that nothing short of meeting your standards is good enough. You twist and turn to give that revolting kid an excuse; you make excuse after excuse. Yet there’s a noticeable trend in the direction of those excuses: to deny what people are telling you. It only goes one way.
Enough.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 3:00 pm
Crys T said:
Since nobody has succeeded in providing a study that conclusively shows that society in general has attitudes towards rape, I really don’t know.
Q Grrl said:
How? Those dichotomies are definitely a big problem, but I don’t see how they are necessarily condoning of rape.
Sheezlebub said:
Yet another sweeping statement with no support. I see no reason that someone couldn’t hold that double standard, and still not condone rape.
Thomas said:
Wow, that makes three examples of sloppy reasoning in a row.
Demonizing female sexual assertiveness is a big problem, but it doesn’t necessarily imply that women don’t have the right to choose their own sexual partners. Even though women are expected to be passive, they are also expected to reject men they don’t want (which shows that they do have choice over their sexual partners).
On the other hand, the expectation on men to initiate and women to be passive is an indirect cause of rape, because obviously if men weren’t initiating at all, male-on-female rape could never happen. Does this mean that society condones rape by expecting males to be sexually aggressive and female sexually passive? I don’t know, and I would have to think about that more.
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 3:31 pm
You could spend an hour or two in the library looking this stuff up for yourself. Google, “I never called it rape.”
The old legal definition of rape was based on the Virgin/Whore dichotomy: a woman’s chastity was what made her valuable. To render a woman unchaste was to render her ruined. A whore–which means any woman who is not a virgin–cannot be raped by that definition, because her chastity has already been given up. So it doesn’t precisely condone rape of whores–it just turns it into a contradiction in terms. The Virgin/Whore dichotomy may not condone rape of virgins, but very few women fit into the former category. Preserving this dichotomy means that women who aren’t perfectly chaste–women who go out after dark, women who wear short skirts, women who (shock horror) get drunk at parties–have a much, much harder time prosecuting their rapists. And believing that there are women who “want it,” and that those women don’t have an equal right to say no, condones the rape of those women.
The Virgin/Whore dichotomy also places the burden of consent on the woman, not the man. The idea of women who want it means that for certain women–most women–consent is presumed to be granted until it is explicitly withdrawn.
On to Stud/Loser: Under this standard, a man who has sex is a Stud, and a man who doesn’t is a Loser. Not a caring partner. Not a respectful pro-feminist. Not a standup guy. Just a Loser. So what happens if the Stud/Loser gets rejected by a woman he’s on a date with?
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 3:46 pm
Aegis, I’m beginning to think the only thing suitable to establish validity to the idea of society condoning rape is to have a bunch of people blatantly stating that they condone it. Tons of information has been given that show direct and conclusive links of at the very least, the notion that women are objects of sex, not participants in it. I don’t know what more could be offered that would help you make the logical leap that this sort of mentality that is sweeping and large in society is tacit approval of sexual abuse all the way up to rape.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 3:50 pm
ginmar said:
Yeah, my disagreement with you must be because I am privileged and close-minded. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that nobody has provided any conclusive evidence, or with the egregious jumping to conclusions in this thread.
ginmar said:
You are right, I don’t want to believe in this stuff. But again, pointing to whether I want to believe it or not is simply an ad hominem.
I am not rejecting the experiences of others; I am rejecting the inferences they are making from their experiences. Just because someone has a terrible experience, it doesn’t suddenly make them omniscient. Imagine an MRA who has gone through a terrible divorce, and thinks that his experience suddenly gives him the authority to claim that all women are manipulative goldiggers. Should I believe him too, ginmar? If I took your advice, I would have to.
ginmar said:
Actually, since some of you seem to be insisting that I agree with you, and villifying me when I don’t, then it is perfectly fair for me to say “your arguments aren’t convincing me, so deal with it.” Anyway, you have got to be kidding if you think that Rad Geek’s studies are sufficient for empirically demonstrating that society as a whole condones rape. Such an extrapolation would not fly in a field like sociology. I am not adopting high standards just for the fun of it; any claim about what society as a whole believes should be subject to high standards. Otherwise, anyone could use their personal experience to “prove” anything they liked.
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 5:27 pm
Aegis,
You asked a question and were given answers from several different people which all pointed to the same conclusion. And yet you continue to reply to each post with the same: “I don’t see how this necessarily shows that society condones rape.”
Society condones rape. Whenever a rape victim is asked questions of this ilk: “why were you out alone at night”, “why were you with a known womanizer”, “why did you drink”, etc., or told “you should have known better than to be out alone at night”, “you shouldn’t have been wearing something so risque”, or similar, it is an example of society condoning rape. These questions are asked of the victim because of the unspoken assumption that men rape because it’s what men do, and that women should know this and therefore protect themselves; women who don’t were bringing it upon themselves. Or, it’s assumed that women who are promiscuous or enjoy wearing provocative clothing, deserved what happened to them because they weren’t behaving as good girls should.
These attitudes exist in the minds of individuals. Lots of them. Men and women alike. When you’ve got thousands, indeed millions, of individuals making these assumptions about the nature of rape and the nature of rape victims, you’ve got a society that condones rape. By making excuses. Any time a man is said to have raped a woman because he couldn’t control himself because of her clothing or her behavior, rape is condoned. Any time a woman is told that she shouldn’t have done x, she is basically being told that it wouldn’t have happened otherwise–ergo, she brought it upon herself, and the rape is being condoned.
Example after example has been presented before you to answer your question and yet your answer, time and again, is unchanging: “I don’t see how this necessarily proves that society condones rape”.
The fact that you say the same thing, verbatim, every time, indicates that you are damned and determined to believe that society does not condone rape, no matter what is placed before you that proves otherwise.
And I must agree that your attitude is indicative of a very sheltered person. That’s not an ad hominem. “You’re a stupid idiot” is an ad hominem; concluding from your words that you have been highly sheltered is reasonable logic.
This comment was written by Nimbrethil.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 5:53 pm
Aegis, I’m confused about what the phrase “on the whole” means to you. If you’re interpreting it to mean, literally, that everyone in society says “rape is okay with me,” then you’re right, society on the whole doesn’t endorse rape.
Even most rapists don’t endorse rape, in fact. Mary Koss’ seminal study of rape prevalence found that men who admitted to making a women have sex when she didn’t want to, with force or threat of force, nonetheless didn’t consider what they did to be “rape.” People have an amazing capacity to rationalize what they do; I’m sure that many rapists sincerely say that rape is evil, and would grow angry if it was put to them that the time they just allowed themselves to not hear their girlfriend say “no” was rape.
I can’t speak for anyone but myself. But when I talk about “rape-endorsing attitudes and beliefs,” I’m not talking about people literally saying “I think rape is just great,” because practically nobody ever says that - and yet rape happens a lot.
What I am talking about is the endorsement of belief systems that I’m convinced - from a mix of both social science research and my own thoughts on the matter - contribute to making rape more likely and prevalent.
As I see it, a strong belief in gender roles and that masculinity is fragile and must be earned or protected (i.e., “don’t be a pussy”); a belief that women, and what women want, doesn’t matter as much as men and what men want; and the view that men are entitled to get sex from women (which I think practically screamed out of that post that Kim quoted); are the social attitudes that make rape more prevalent. (I describe this line of thinking in more detail in this post.)
Do I think that every single person in our society endorses all of the above? No, of course not; just look at the posters on this blog.
Do I think that attitudes and ideas like that are frequently endorsed in our society - in the boardrooms, in the schoolyards, and in media? Hell, yes.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 6:07 pm
In this case, the implication seems to be that what Aegis is saying is wrong because he’s (allegedly) led a sheltered life. If so, then that definitely is an ad hominem.
I’d prefer that people try to address arguments, not people. Making “is Aegis sheltered” is making Aegis the subject of conversation; I’d rather you stick to “are Aegis’ arguments correct, and if not, why not?”
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 6:27 pm
Aegis,
A number of people have provided you with plenty of evidence to demonstrate that society condones rape. You seem damned and determined not to believe them, whatever your reasons may be.
When a woman is asked any of the following or similar questions: “why were you in such a place?”, “why were you wearing that?”, “didn’t you know better than to be out alone at night?”, or is told “you should have known better than to go out with a known womanizer”, “you should have stayed away from alcohol”, “you shouldn’t have been in that part of town”, she is being blamed. Perhaps intentionally, perhaps not. When she is being blamed for the rape, the actions of the man are being presented as expected, as normal, as typical. When it is assumed that a man rapes because that’s what men do, rape is being condoned. When women are told that if they don’t want to be raped, they have to modify their behavior, rape is being condoned. When the answer to the existence of rape is to avoid putting oneself in the position of being raped, because it is assumed that rape happens and is “just the way it is”, rape is being condoned.
I can accept that it doesn’t appear at face value that rape is being condoned, but if you look more closely at what’s going on, you’ll see it. When it is assumed that it is natural for men to rape and that if women want to avoid being raped they have to take certain precautions, the actions of the men are being condoned as something that they do. When a man’s actions are assumed to be natural male behavior, rape is being condoned.
Society is made up of individuals. When millions of individuals fall back on these assumptions about rape they have internalized, they are condoning rape. Society is condoning rape.
Any time the woman’s actions are considered, weighed, measured, and analyzed to see what she did to bring the rape on herself, rape is being condoned.
I’m sure you’re going to ask why to that last one. The answer, again is that, even though rape is done by men to women, it’s women’s actions that are considered, which illustrates that rape is considered natural male behavior.
Consider that a lot of rapes are not believed to be rape at all, because of the actions of the woman. When people ask what the woman was doing, what she was wearing, who she was with, or where she was, they are often looking for clues to determine whether or not it was really rape because they have fallen prey to the notion that it’s only rape if certain criteria are met. Sometimes this is just the reaction of people looking to see if there was anything the woman could’ve done to prevent it, or to possibly see if they can pick out where she went wrong so that they don’t make the same mistake. Other times, people honestly believe that rape only happens under precise circumstances and want to be sure that the woman has it right; still other people hate women and don’t believe there’s such a thing as rape because they feel that sex is an entitlement–for them, there’s no such thing as rape at all, there’s just a man taking what he wants irrespective of what the woman wants. But in all cases, they are condoning rape. They’re explaining it away, saying it wasn’t, it couldn’t, have been rape, but rape it remains, and they’re condoning it by saying that’s not what it was.
When society says that it’s only rape when a woman is viciously attacked in a dark alley by a stranger, they’re explicitly condoning all other forms of rape by saying that it’s just sex. When that dark alley rape is the only legitimate form of rape, men are being told that it’s okay to have sex with their date even though she doesn’t want it, because that’s not rape. It’s okay to grab that hot college freshman who turned you down last week, and have sex with her in the janitor closet, because that’s not rape. If she’s your girlfriend, it’s okay to have sex with her even though she said she’s not in the mood, because that’s not rape. It’s okay to have sex with that drunk woman who didn’t decline or consent before passing out, because that’s not rape. At the same time, strangely, the dark alley rape is being implicitly condoned because when such a rape occurs, the first thing that’s going to be questioned is the woman’s motive–why was she out there when she knew what could happen?
Society condones rape.
Oh, and saying that you must have led a sheltered life is not an ad hominem. It’s not even an attack, period. You’re using a strawman to avoid responsibility for your refusal to accept the answers you’ve been given. “You’re a stupid fuck!” is an ad hominem. Stating that you must’ve been sheltered is a reasonable conclusion based on your unyielding refusal to believe that society condones rape.
Of course, since you’ve responded to everything with the same verbatim phrase, “I don’t see how this necessarily shows that society condones rape”, I don’t have much faith that anything I’ve said will make a difference and I’ve probably just wasted my time. Oh well.
This comment was written by Nimbrethil.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 6:32 pm
Bah.
For the record, I didn’t mean to post the same thing twice. The first time I posted, it looked like Internet Explorer ate it, and I refreshed and refreshed and it still didn’t show, so I took the time to type it out again.
Sorry.
This comment was written by Nimbrethil./embarrassed.
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April 22nd, 2005 at 7:11 pm
Aegis, how many wonen have to tell their stories before you would consider it more than mere anecdotes, to actually being representative of the lives of women? I’m not kidding when I say I consider U.S. society at large to be condoning rape. Why? I’ve not only heard a lot of conversations that were disparaging of rape victims (as opposed to the rapists); I’ve also heard a lot of survivor stories. Most of the women I know (well) have been raped. You could say “that’s hearsay”, because I’m certainly not going to print their names…..but if you don’t mind published accounts, you could go here, to the Voices and Faces Project.
Now, if you’re looking for a die-hard overview of the problem of societal attitudes toward rape victims, you’re in luck—someone wrote a book on the subject. Actually, you can find a lot of good information at the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
RAINN is another great site to go to for statistics; they offer the stat that one out of every six women in the U.S. has been sexually assaulted. (The one-in-six stat is also offered at the UCLA Santa Monica Rape Treatment Center, which also has survivor stories on their site). Keep reading, and you will find that out of all reported rapes, there is only a 50.8% chance of an arrest. Keep on going, and you can see that of the 39% of rapes that are reported to police (hey! that’s up from 30% in the early nineties!), there is only a 16.3% chance the rapist will end up in prison.
Now head on over to the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, and you can find out that half of convicted rapists serve less than one year in prison!
To recap: fifty percent chance of seeing your rapist arrested. Sixteen percent chance of your rapist going to prison. And fifty percent chance that if your rapist *gasp!* does go to prison, he will serve less than a year.
Tell me again how society at large doesn’t condone rape.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
April 22nd, 2005 at 9:46 pm
You are right, I don’t want to believe in this stuff. But again, pointing to whether I want to believe it or not is simply an ad hominem.
Nope. If you don’t want to believe something, you are likely to be less willing to accept evidence and consider arguments that the ’something’ is, in fact, the case. (”Bias” is another word for this.)
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 23rd, 2005 at 9:35 am
People need to stop jumping all over poor Aegis. He/she (i’m afraid I’m not familiar with the term, so I don’t know gender) is making the point that rape is not condoned by society. And, on the face, it is not.
Going by my group of mysgynistic male friends again, I actually asked them what they would do if they discovered I got raped. The reiterated the oh-so-sweet cheese-grater-to-the-nuts. I asked them what they would say if I was walking alone at night. One said “Well, did you have a weapon? Was this Grand Forks or New York? Were you wearing slutty clothes? Because if you were unarmed and in New York, there better be some good exteniuating circumstances, or I would be chewing your ass out”. *nods around the table* I asked, “But would you still want the guy to be prosicuted?” “OH, hell yeah. What he did was so wrong and he deserves to be gang raped in prison”. We went on the same line with me going up to a guys apartment, and getting drunk at a Frat party. Same thing; they would chew me out, but the guy should still be prosecuted.
To them, they would claim that they are NOT condoning rape. To me (and many other people) they would say that they are condoning it by blaming me at all.
I think this is where the misunderstanding is coming from.
This comment was written by Antigone.Report this comment to the moderators
April 23rd, 2005 at 10:03 am
But recall that your friends are talking about you. What if the rape victim were a stranger? Or a woman they thought was a tramp? Would they, if they were on a jury, vote to convict?
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 23rd, 2005 at 2:15 pm
He didn’t make the case that society does not condone rape, he denied that it condones rape, and refuted every argument that suggest society does, not with sound arguments to make his case, but with unfounded comments to the effect of “I don’t see how that necessarily shows that society condones rape”.
It’s already been pointed out that few people are going to come right out and state “I condone rape” or condone rape by stating “this is not rape, this is acceptable sex”. That doesn’t change the fact that society actually does condone rape, however, and I think it very much condones rape “on the face of it”. People may not be willing to state that they condone rape, but most people don’t hesitate to insist on knowing what the woman was doing prior to the rape; most people don’t hesitate to justify rape based on what the woman was wearing, whether she was drinking, where she happened to be, or what her reputation was, or any number of supposedly related factors. If that’s not condoning rape on the face of it, I don’t know what is.
This comment was written by Nimbrethil.Report this comment to the moderators
May 1st, 2005 at 4:48 pm
I’ve been busy recently, but I wanted to reply to this thread again…
Nimbrethil said:
No, a bunch of individuals in society are condoning rape. Unless you can show that those individuals are a significant majority of society, then there is no justification for leaping from “many individuals condone rape” to “society condones rape.”
Maybe. But I think it’s perfectly possible to examine the actions of a victim of any crime without condoning what happened to them. Perhaps in the case of rape, such analysis may mask tacit endorsement of the rape sometimes, but I don’t know if that is the only motive of those who analyze how a woman’s actions may have placed her in a position where she was raped (for example, people who advise women on safety must take that into account).
If a man gets mugged in a dark alley, is it “condoning mugging” to wonder what the hell he was doing there? I honestly don’t think so. I think it’s possible to ask that question, and even to call him a careless idiot (assume he could have known better), without condoning what happened to him.
La Luba said:
You know as well as I do that anecdotes do not make empirical proof. Honestly, your argument here comes off rather as an attempt to guilt-trip me into agreeing with you.
These figures are very disturbing, but aren’t you taking them out of context? Couldn’t these figures stem at least partly from the nature of the crime, rather than from society endorsing it? Perhaps rape is simply a difficult crime to prosecute and convict, and not only for reasons of possible societal bias, because it often has to satisfy a difficult burden of proof (especially in “he said, she said” date rape cases). Furthermore, we would have to compare these conviction rates and sentence lengths to those of other violent crimes.
Ampersand said:
Good question. Basically, no. Some people might not consider some situations to be rape (i.e. date rape), so the real question is whether society condones actions that are rape (regardless of whether some people think of them as rape or not). To show that society as a whole condones rape, I think one would have to demonstrate that a significant majority of people believed the type of “rape myths” that Rad Geek described (although I take exception with some on them, as I have mentioned). So far, nobody has been able to provide any kind of evidence that demonstrates this.
I am not usually a stodgy empiricist, but sweeping generalizations like “society condones rape” should really have to satisfy empirical proof before being accepted as facts.
Yes, I will agree with you that certain belief systems probably make rape more prevalent.
mythago said:
Only if you assume that I only believe things that I want to believe. On the contrary, there are plenty of things I believe even though I don’t want to, when they are properly supported by evidence. I’m biased? Sure. So are you. So is everyone. Yet whether someone is biased has nothing to do with whether their arguments are correct or not. I could say that you people are rabid, biased, “feminazis” who only believe that rape is condoned by society because you want to see how women are victims. But would be an ad hominem (attacking the person instead of their argument), which I do not engage in. I hope that you all will extend the same intellectual courtesy to me.
Nimbrethil said:
Basically, yes. The burden of proof is on YOU to show that society condones rape, not on me to show that it doesn’t. This is how burden of proof works. Sorry, but by the standards of proof that you would find in a field like sociology, the evidence presented in this thread doesn’t come anywhere near empirically demonstrating as fact that society as a whole condones rape, and I think it would be intellectually dishonest to pretend that it does. Even if we can’t demonstrate that society condones rape, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t widespread biases that need to be changed.
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
May 2nd, 2005 at 5:40 am
Aegis, you’re just wasting everyone’s time. You do not have an open mind; you do not want to be disturbed, and no proof will satisfy me. You’re like one of those OJ jurors who went in determined to believe he was innocent.
“Taking things out of context”? That context was a USDOJ study that found that rape had a two percent conviction rate.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:46 am
What is he saying, here? That a simple majority of society would have to be quoted as saying, “Yeah, rape is fine with me!” in order for it to be true that society as a whole condones rape? That wasn’t true of lynching, even while thousands of people were being lynched, and even as Southern senators were arguing that an anti-lynching law would be an insult to Southern tradition. Ginmar’s right: this standard is ridiculous.
I’m just curious, Aegis: what do you feel would be an accurate, non-inflammatory statement about how society as a whole views rape? Is it out of order to talk about complacency? Insensitivity? How widespread does sexism have to be before it is considered characteristic?
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:59 am
Aegis: the question that runs through my mind is — what do you stand to lose by entertaining the notion that society condones rape?
How is that sentiment WORSE than the physical rape of women? Why is it threatening to you? If you were to embrace it, what personal characteristics and habits of your own might need changing?
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 2nd, 2005 at 11:43 am
For all the times I’ve seen a community stand beside a rapist instead of his victim, I find it amazing that some people can’t think of that as “condoning” the rape. Hell, in the town I grew up in, two guys made a girl walk home naked and everyone said she was lying and needed to quit crying about it.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
May 2nd, 2005 at 4:12 pm
ginmar said:
1. As I explained, to view that figure in context, it would have to be compared to the sentencing and conviction rates of other violent crimes.
2. Even if I was to agree with you that society as a whole condones rape, it wouldn’t make the claim an empirically demonstrated fact. You need to deal with that, and stop hurling ad hominems and personal attacks at me. Ampersand has already asked that you address my ideas, rather than me as a person; if you won’t listen to me, then listen to him (because he at least understands how intellectual honesty works). This is my last reply to you in this thread until you desist with ad hominems and personal attacks.
piny said:
In my last post, I think I made pretty clear that this is NOT what I am saying.
Those are actually excellent questions. I think more accurate statements would be something like, “views condoning rape may be held by a significant minority of people,” (supported by Rad Geek’s statistics) or even “some communities may condone rape” (supported by Amanda’s anecdote). I think that if someone could show that a significant majority of people believed in the type of “rape myths” Rad Geek described (with the exception of a few, as I already explained), or if someone could show that virtually every community was like Amanda’s hometown and defended rapists, then it might be accurate to say that society as a whole condones rape.
Q Grrl said:
The question that runs through my mind is… when will you people learn to address my actual arguments instead of the person behind them? If I was to throw it away my standards for proof, I would have to believe all sorts of other unjustified claims about society, such as the extreme MRA notion that society views men as the “disposable sex.” Is that what you want?
Amanda said:
Ok, this story would show that your community condoned rape. If all communities in society were like this, then it would probably be accurate to say that society condoned rape.
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
May 2nd, 2005 at 5:49 pm
Welcome to the world, AE. My community (then) was not unique, but Smalltown, USA. The one I live in now is very liberal, very feminist and even still there is hostility towards rape victims quite a bit of the time, pressure towards us not to get justice but suck up our abuse rather than disturb the apple cart.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:25 pm
You know, I don’t think that comment is likely to help either one of us.
The purpose of civility is not a weapon you can use to attack people who have attacked you. If you feel that Ginmar is attacking the person, not the argument, then your best response isn’t to attack her back personally (as you did above, by implying that she doesn’t understand how intellectual honesty works). That’s being part of the problem, not part of the solution. If you’re genuinely against personal attacks, then don’t make them.
On the other hand, just not replying to people who you think are making personal attacks is a good idea, and one that I’d encourage.
Meanwhile, I’d just like to remind Aegis and everyone else to please attack arguments, not people.
* * *
I think your insistence that “society condones rape” is an empirical proposition that should be debated on an empirical basis is dubious. I’m not asking you to respond to this on-line, but maybe you should consider whether or not your reaction to the statement is over-the-top, or is really the appropriate response to a statement that is more polemical than empiric. (Note that I’m not saying that polemical is a bad thing. If you read the great political activist writings of the past century, most of them made use of both polemical and factual statements. An expectation that activists make no statements that are not empirical propositions is unreasonable.)
I do think our society condones rape, in the sense that our society endorses attitudes and beliefs about gender and sexuality that have the effect of making rape more acceptable and common than it might be otherwise. But that’s just my opinion. In the end, I don’t think that “society condones rape” is an empirical question.
* * *
On the other hand, folks, I don’t think that it’s unfair of Aegis to express skepticism about evidence offered. It’s quite true, for example,that the low conviction rate for rape doesn’t necessarily prove that our society condones rape; it might indicate instead that one reason date rape is attractive to rapists is that it’s possible to rape someone without leaving empirical evidence of their crime behind.
As for being “close-minded,” it’s very rare that anyone changes their mind in the course of a single internet argument. My observation is that when people change their minds, they generally do it over a great deal of time, and as the result of either the accumulated impact of many arguments or of new life experiences.
* * *
First of all, please don’t refer to people you disagree with as “you people.” It’s not as if everyone who disagrees with you speaks as one from a collective group-mind.
Second, she didn’t ask you to change your standards of evidence. She asked you a hypothetical question - “if you were to accept it” - which is not the same as asking you to actually accept it.
Third of all, there’s a real difference between personal attacks and legitimate questions intended to make you examine yourself and, perhaps, raise your consciousness (although sometimes the line is blurry). This is a discussion, not a formal debate, and Q Grrl is under no obligation not to digress from the topic (whatever the heck the topic is!).
If the questions are unfair or make assumptions about you that are unjustified, you can just say so (i.e., you might answer, “I’m not threatened, honest” or “I don’t think it’s worse than physical rape”). But the questions were, I believe, serious, and deserved a serious response from you.
Suppose that you came to accept that in many ways, our society does endorse attitudes than encourage rape. (Leave aside for now the fruitless debate about if that’s “the whole society” or “part of society” or “a significant minority” or whatever). Is there anything in your own life that would need changing? Is there anything around you you’d view differently?
These are not illegitimate questions. Of course, you’re not obliged to address these questions. But since you chose to address them, I think it would have been better if you had addressed them seriously, rather than dismissing them with a misplaced “when will you people” comment.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:30 pm
Sorry, Amp, but after 200+ comments, it’s impossible not to compare and contrast Aegis’ precise and demanding standards for feminsts with those that he holds for MRAs and Glenn Sacks in the other thread. It’s instructive. It’s also indicative of the pattern that was observable during the other debate, the one about civility. When someone protests that they are open-minded, it behooves to actually be open-minded. It’s also typical of lots of discussions about feminism.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
May 3rd, 2005 at 3:11 am
Well, this is going to open a can of worms, but you know sometimes you have to point out to people how their backgrounds are affecting their perceptions. For example, you took La Lubu to task for suggesting that Aegis had to have led a sheltered life. OK, going by the rules set up to define ad homs, no doubt she was wrong. In the world of reality, however, the fact that Aegis is incapable of seeing what so many of us see is actually a pretty good indicator that s/he *has* led a pretty damn sheltered life. And the type of life may be what is blinding her/him to the reality that the rest of us have to live.
To give another example, if a middle-class person living in a wealthy community in North America who gets all their news from mainstream sources says, “Capitalism is great and good for everyone, because *I* don’t see any downside to it,” I think it is perfectly valid to point out that the reason they are not seeing a downside is because they are a middle-class North American living in a wealthy community who gets all their news from mainstream sources. They way they personally live is going to colour their perceptions on this topic. And if they casually wave away any and all examples you provide to refute this, I think it’s fair to say to them, point blank, that they are doing so due to their privileged and/or sheltered personal life.
And if I have to argue about abortion with men, one may call my pointing out that they can make the arguments they do because they are men and therefore will never be affected ad hominen attacks. Again, I really don’t think that it’s unfair for me to do so. And btw, I am well aware that women can often hold the same opinions, but they do so for other reasons and I also think that must be taken into account.
Actually, though I do agree in a general way that in debate we should focus on arguments rather than the people making them, to hold that up as an absolute rule for 100% of occasions also serves to deny a lot of reality. It can sometimes strip a debate of important context and meaning. It also forces classes who are not hegemonic, who do not have a lot of power, to work endlessly supplying “proof” while the privileged classes sit back and comfortably say, “I don’t see it that way” without really having to justify their position.
The endless refuting of “proof” or “opinion” coming from sources that are outright ignorant or distorted to show a bias in favour of the powerful is what I find most exhausting and frustrating about debate. Which I think is exactly the point: hobble the less powerful by not allowing them to legitimately use personal context in debate and you are then free to throw out as much rubbish disguised as honest dialogue as you please, exhausting debators and listeners alike, diverting the main question, and ultimately blocking any progress.
Sometimes in a debate, one party’s opinions ought to have more weight, simply because they are the one who has first-hand knowledge of the situation, they’ve done more research, they are the one who is personally affected, and so on. Sometimes, it’s the other way around, and you get someone in a debate who not only isn’t personally affected, but also has no idea what they’re talking about in the first place. I see absolutely nothing wrong in pointing this out, whether it’s technically “ad hominem” or not.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
May 3rd, 2005 at 6:55 am
Aegis: it was indeed a hypothetical question; not geared towards you in particular. I see you as part of a larger class of males who hold the same ideas about rape.
Furthermore, I dont’ embrace ideas such as “intellectual honesty” or “empirical evidence”. I think there is enough common evidence and common honesty to dispute both of these concepts. “Honesty” and “empirical” , as you use them, are neither — the are merely signs pointing to a hierarchical structuring of knowledge (i.e those who have the power to claim truth). Beside my own belief about this, your use of these terms seems more like a bludgeoning tactic, rather than a means to dispute our own forms of knowledge. IOW, you’re hiding behind it.
We live in a global rape culture and most everything we do is evidence of this, from the physical rape of women to the rape of the earth and to the rape of the psyches of those who neither look like us, nor think like us. We use the physical rape of women to create a class of citizens who are compliant, submissive, and terrorized. During the formative years in which sex education is taught to girls and boys, boys receive a singular message about sex (its functions and end results); girls, on the other hand, are taught a dual/simultaneous message, one about sex, the other about rape. Often enough, the message about rape comes slightly before puberty and slightly before the discussion about sex, creating a confusing and horrific image for young girls. This is a terrorist tactic, shrouded in protectionism, but with the same end result.
If we were to take two eight year old boys and teach them about airplanes and flight, it is easy to see the damage/terror we could create if we showed one boy a film of “To Fly”, complete with a Vangelis soundtrack, and we showed the other boy the complete footage of September 11th, 2001. We could follow up the film screenings with comments about the safety and ease of flight (and it’s cultural status), all the while whispering to the traumatized boy that 9/11 was an anomalie and unlikely to happen to him if he avoids working in high rises or for the WTO/IMF or World Bank.
That’s why I find your dismissal of personal narrative problematic. You don’t know how the majority of girls are raised vis-a-vis lessons about rape. You seem to think that the impact of rape is only occuring during the rape and solely in the act of rape. Yet women have stated, time after time, that society (and men particulalry) benefit from the cultural and class wide terror/submissiveness that the knowledge of rape (and how it is taught) induces. The cultural “strength” and “aggressiveness” and “leadership” that men, as a class, express is predicated on another class (read: women, or read: 52% of the population) being “weak” and “submissive” and “malleable”. Surely you are not under the belief that those traits are essential or intrinsic to male or female bodies. And if you aren’t, have you not asked how a culture arrives at such a neat division of power structres that falls so conveniently down gendered lines?
Have you never asked yourself why boys aren’t taught about rape during sex ed? Not the rape of their own bodies, but about rape and their responsibility not to rape.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 3rd, 2005 at 7:11 am
I want to repeat what I wrote in post #111 (?):
To which you responded that the “quality of debate in this thread just dropped a notch”.
Do you deny that we teach these dichotomies? Do you think they are harmless? Inconsequential? Cute? Stupid?
I don’t see how you can miss the increadible power dynamics in teaching boys to be studs and girls to be virgins and not see how rape IS GOING TO HAPPEN BECAUSE OF THIS CULTURAL MESSAGE. The message sets the grounds for rape. Pure and simple.
In other words, for a boy to be appropriately masculine he must have sex. For a girl to be appropriately feminine she must NOT have sex. Couple this with other appropriately masculine and feminine traits such as strength, meekness, aggressiveness and submission and there are going to be raped girls/women. The cultural formula/imperative is right there, staring you in the face.
I use “appropriately” not as my own term, but as a cultural marker.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 3rd, 2005 at 9:49 am
You know, it may be a little late to be mentioning this now, but when I called Aegis out on privilege, my intention was not “nyaa, nyaa, you’re privileged and I’m not; therefore I have more moral authority than you”, but rather “walk a mile in my shoes.” As a female, and especially as one who has chosen a “masculine” profession, I am constantly in the position of putting myself in the shoes of men, and seeing the world from the male perspective. I don’t think it’s asking too much that a man attempt to see things from the female perspective….particularly on the subject of rape.
To give another example of how society condones rape, think about in years past, before anti-discrimination laws, women were prevented from holding third-shift jobs. Part of the rationale for that was to prevent women from being raped. As a woman, I can’t help but think that “solution” is rather accepting and accommodating of rape. Think about it….instead of having more aggressive policing, and harsher sentencing of rapists be an effective deterrent, limiting the opportunities and freedom of women was seen to be the better solution.
Also, the thread on the veto of the rape victims rights bill, where Robert seemed to think that the solution for women is to order our own Plan B over the internet, and have it on our nightstands, just in case of rape. That also seems to me to be rather accomodating of rapists; that we as women should prepare ourselves some “rape insurance”, the same way we save for retirement. I think it’s indicative of a certain amount of expectation of rape.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
May 3rd, 2005 at 11:43 am
[...] t formulated I’ll come back to this; I have lots to say. For now, further reading at Alas, A Blog is recomm [...]
This comment was written by volsunga » society condones rape.Report this comment to the moderators
May 4th, 2005 at 7:47 am
Ewwww, I hope in my post it didn’t sound like I was interpreting La Lubu’s words that way, either! I was referring really to questions of experience and knowledge, not “moral authority” in and of itself.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
May 4th, 2005 at 11:32 am
I didn’t interpret your words that way, Crys T! ;-) And I thank you for your thoughtful response. Salud!
Personally, I find the “prove it! show me the independent, published, peer-reviewed studies” tactic maddening. Societal attitudes about rape are prima facie evident to women—all of us. Asking us to come up with the “studies”, knowing full well the history of the academy and what is considered important enough to study, not to mention where the money comes from to fund studies, can be quite the effective silencing technique. Requiring formal statistics and studies before any assertion means tacitly accepting the power imbalance of the status quo.
That’s what I was trying to get at when I said, “how many women have to tell our stories before it’s not just mere anecdote?” How many individuals does a trend make? And if a tree falls in the forest, but an anti-feminist man isn’t around to hear the “thump!”, did it really happen, since only us squirrels were there to hear it? Maybe someday, after enough of us keep asserting and exerting ourselves, someone will come up with the money and the plan for a study that will conclusively prove what we’ve been saying—and living—all along.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
May 4th, 2005 at 11:42 am
La Luba:
I totally get that “accomdating for rape” thing. It’s like in the Military schools where people argue that women shouldn’t be in them because of the high rate of rape in them.
(Do not go off on a military rant).
This comment was written by Antigone.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 9:40 am
THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!!!
Yes, that is so EXACTLY it! And of course, when it isn’t something that the academy/government/think tanks in general find “important”, of course there will not be enough “independent” studies to convince.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
May 5th, 2005 at 4:17 pm
Such a model of sexuality doesn’t mean that a society condones rape. It means that it is a society where males have the job of “getting” females.
In order for this not to exist, you would need males and females to be equally active in searching for someone to date or have sex with.
But this is not how things are now, now we have women acting as the “passive” sex, and men acting as the “active” sex.
And I personally doubt that it is ever going to change… due to obvious differences in attraction to the opposite sex.
It is also not true to say that being “active” in searching for a mate is always an advantage.
This comment was written by someone.Consider this:
A guy asks a girl for a movie. Now she has the option of saying “yes” or “no”.
This means that he is the one that has to face a possible rejection, and he is dependent on her confirmation.
This gives her a certain amount of power in the relationship…
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May 5th, 2005 at 4:28 pm
This is a contradiction.
You can’t at the same time say that women are only considered “good” by society if they are nonsexual (and if they are sexual they are stigmatized as “whores”), and that they have a tremendous pressure to consent to sex.
You need to demonstrate how this tremendous pressure is created, by what social forces, what attitudes are behind it, etc.
I wouldn’t say that in an average relationship there is such a tremendous pressure. If a girl doesn’t want to have sex, then she can just not have sex.
This comment was written by someone.It’s that simple.
If her boyfriend doesn’t like it, then she can leave him…
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May 5th, 2005 at 11:52 pm
My brain hurts. I think one person on this board said something about the college escort program being some messed up way to strong arm women. I’ve almost used that program myself. There are barely any lights around my campus and a lot of guys travel in packs around here, drunk off their asses most of the time. So, whatever. If you see trying to protect yourself as bowing to male dominance than you have some seriously flawed logic there. I think knowledge is empowering. Knowing that I have a safety net to fall back on when I’m in an unsafe area is awesome.
This comment was written by morgan.Report this comment to the moderators
May 6th, 2005 at 1:24 am
Rubbish: women are supposed to consent to having sex done to them while simultaneously not actively wanting it. And when they *do* submit to having sex done to them, they are immediately “bad” and “dirty”. I know it makes absolutely no sense, but that is how it works. Every woman on this board knows that when a single woman goes out with a man, she’s likely to get caught in that double bind: if she doesn’t put out, she’s a prick-teasing bitch, but if she does, she’s a cheap whore. The whole point is that women are NEVER supposed to win in this situation. Whatever you do is the “wrong” thing.
There are library shelves full of material demonstrating exactly that. I suggest that if you are sceptical you get off your backside, get down to one and look some of this material up, rather than sitting comfortably back and saying, “I don’t believe you, prove it to me while I do nothing.” I know how I have had to live my life. I don’t owe any explanations or justifications to you. In fact, when you tell me that I’m mistaken or lying about my own life, and that you as an outsider know better, I rather think the onus is on YOU to supply the stats and studies to back up YOUR position.
Of course, how stupid I’ve been! Of COURSE if she just doesnt’ have sex she doesn’t want, no one will publicly humiliate her, no one will threaten and terrorise her, no one will beat her up, no one will forcibly rape her, no one will mutliate and torture her, no one will kill her. It’s all just so damned simple.
You really have a lot to learn about the way the world works.
Even in so-called “normal” relationships, not putting out on demand will entail a lot of guilt-tripping….and of course every woman has learned from friends, family and the world at large that if she doesn’t do her duty to satisfy her man’s every little need, he’ll be stepping out on her in no time flat. And of course, when he does so, hey, who can blame him? A guy’s got NEEDS, ya know? If he cheats on her cos he can’t get enough at home, it’s HER fault.
And of course, that boyfriend will NEVER, EVER retaliate in ANY of the ways I mentioned above. No……we don’t want to believe that happens, so HEY PRESTO!, it never does happen.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
May 6th, 2005 at 3:26 am
Hmmm… I wonder what makes you have such a pessimistic view? This is just not true.
You make it seem like the whole world hates women, including women themselves.
Every girl has sex and relationships, no one would say that a girl having a boyfriend is wrong. What the hell??
… I don’t know what to say.
Have you ever been in a relationship? Did the relationship end? Were you threatened or terrorised?
Thousands of women leave their boyfriends every day, with no harm caused to them.
You make it seem as if every guy is a crazed maniac that will immediately stab his girlfriend if she attempted to break up with him.
Break-ups happen all the time every day, and most people somehow manage to stay alive…
Such a thing is called crime. Obviously it does happen. And still, it isn’t such a problem for the average girl with a mentally healthy boyfriend to leave him.
Like I said, thousands of break-ups and divorces happen every day…
And of course angry ex’s sometimes can do nasty things… but that happens to males too, believe me… there is plenty of vindictive ex-girlfriends. I am sure there is at least one to match every vindictive ex-boyfriend. And it doesn’t matter, you are just fixated on negative scenarios.
Overall, women are free to do whatever they want. They can not have sex if they do not want to, they can get out of a relationship when they want to, etc.
This comment was written by someone.Report this comment to the moderators
May 6th, 2005 at 7:00 am
“Every girl has sex and relationships, no one would say that a girl having a boyfriend is wrong. What the hell??”
Do you not watch the news, read newspapers?
Just recently in Canada a father killed his 17 year-old-daughter for dating outside of their religion. You’ll probably say that was an anomalie.
Look if men are responsible for “getting” women, then rape is going to ensue. If we teach boys that a certain amount of coercion and force is acceptable in a “normal” relationship, then women and girls are going to be raped. It’s just that men won’t believe the girls/women b/c some man along the way told him that force (i.e. rape) is natural and that the females are just confused and really “No means Yes.”
What about that doesn’t condone rape
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 6th, 2005 at 7:19 am
Someone, are you using the term “girl” to refer to females under the age of sixteen? The usual term when referring to females sixteen and over is “woman” or even “young woman”.
In case you haven’t noticed, this is a thread about rape. The young woman in the story that started this thread was not the “girlfriend” of any of the young men who beat and raped her. Earlier in the thread, I mentioned a real estate agent who was raped at gunpoint while showing a house; her rapist was not her boyfriend. I also mentioned a woman raped by her former employer, who was not her boyfriend. I also mentioned a fourteen-year-old who was raped by a hockey player; he was not her boyfriend. And the teenage daughter of a plumber I know, who was assaulted and raped by a boy in her school, also, not a boyfriend.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
Yes, boyfriends can and do rape. But when women are raped, it’s a common scenario for others to assume that the woman must have been dating or otherwise having a sexual relationship with that man—otherwise, he wouldn’t have raped her, or at the very least, she never would have been in the position to be raped. Even if she has never seen her rapist before, she must have “known” what was on his mind beforehand.
Someone, go back to the top of the thread, and follow the links about the original story that started it. Read some of the commentary out there in the blogosphere. In the anonymity of the ’sphere, people tend to be a little more bold about how they really feel. Many people commenting on this story felt that the young woman was wrong to go with those young men; that she “should have known” that they were planning to rape her. That she should have had some level of expectation of assault and rape in school. Some commenters even went as far as to question the young woman’s motives; that perhaps she had led them on, that she exploited her sexual powers so as to cause these young men to beat and rape her. That the power dynamic consisted of her flirting or sashaying, and thus forcing these poor, helpless young men into raping her. Her sexual powers were so formidable, that she was even able to force these young men into videotaping her rape.
And then think on that, before coming back with an ignorant comment to the effect that all a woman has to do to avoid being raped is to just say no to her rapist.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
May 6th, 2005 at 9:25 am
I wonder why you have such a blinkered, unrealistically optimistic view? Yes, it IS true.
God, where do you live that girls who screw their boyfriends aren’t at risk of being labelled “sluts”? It certainly isn’t anywhere that I’ve ever been to or even heard about. Where do you live where girls who want sex & actively pursue it aren’t then labelled “easy lays” and then considered fair game for any guy who wants to have a go? Again, nowhere near anywhere I’ve been.
I have been in not one but a number of relationships. And yes, in more than one of them I had to deal with guilt-tripping. And as far as being terrorised, the answer is yes. It happened. It’s also happened to most of my female friends. And other women that I know well enough to have these sorts of conversations with. Maybe you should stop being so sceptical of & hostile to women’s experiences so they’d feel they could tell you honestly about their lives. You just might hear some things from them that would tear that safe little cocoon you live in wide open.
And an unacceptably large number, most of them women, DON’T manage to stay alive. And an even larger number do stay alive but have to put up with all sorts of guilt-tripping and assorted other bits of harrassment and head games. Just because you don’t want to believe it doesn’t magically make the reality go away.
I suggest you look up some stats to find out how often. And also consider that a lot of cases don’t even make it into the stats. Also, check with the experts and see what their opinions are about the numbers of times these crimes happen and the percentage of the perpetrators who are arrested, tried and convicted for them.
Oh, because you say so, things are equal, right? No, sorry, doesn’t work that way. Also, the damage vindictive girlfriends wreak is usually neither as severe nor as socially accepted as the damage vindictive boyfriends wreak. If I have to choose between having my clothes cut up and tossed out the window as opposed to being beaten and raped, I know which I’m going to pick.
Again, because you say so, right? No. You are wrong. Flat-out wrong. Until you do some reading and can demonstrate that you have an opinion based on something more substantial than “that’s what I think so it must be the truth” forget it, I am no longer responding to you. I’m sick of men who rarely if ever have to worry about rape coming here and lecturing me, a woman who’s had to deal with it all her life–even before she was old enough to understand what it was she was being taught to fear–about my life. As far as this subject goes, you are ignorant. Completely ignorant. And until you have done the work and can satisfactorily demonstrate that, you don’t deserve any more of my attention.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
May 6th, 2005 at 2:25 pm
Great post, Crys T. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
May 6th, 2005 at 3:34 pm
La Lubu: Read what post I was replying to, that should clear your questions… I was replying to a specific post by Brian Vaughan, and then I replied to Crys T’s post. Just follow the conversation instead of attacking me.
Q Grrl: Rape is a crime that is done by rapists, not by the entire society.
From your post it seems that you have these premises:
1) If both sexes engaged in searching for sexual partners equally, rape wouldn’t happen.
2) It is possible to change this aspect of society somehow, so that men aren’t the “getters” and women aren’t the “target” anymore, but rather both sexes pursue each other equally.
I doubt that these premises is true…
Crys T: Your post is too hostile, this is not the way I have written my posts to you.
This comment was written by someone.You are attempting to draw some sort of a gloomy picture of a misogynistic world where women suffer from all kinds of humiliation every day and can decide nothing for themselves under a threat of violence.
This doesn’t correspond to observable reality.
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May 6th, 2005 at 7:00 pm
Hmm… there are also some women that get mad when a guy doesn’t respond to their hints. Then they might say that he is gay and start spreading rumours about him.
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May 6th, 2005 at 7:02 pm
…Which is waaaaaay worse than rape.
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May 6th, 2005 at 8:28 pm
Well, just when you need evidence that society condones rape, here comes a troll to prove it. Way to go, someone!
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May 6th, 2005 at 9:54 pm
Why am I a troll… ?
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May 6th, 2005 at 9:56 pm
piny: It isn’t way worse than rape, if you read my post I wasn’t actually comparing it with rape.
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May 6th, 2005 at 10:10 pm
Someone,
Where do you live? As a feminist raising a daughter, I am very motivated to relocate to your hometown where ” women are overall free to do whatever they want….a girl [sic] can choose not to have sex if she wants…” and women can have sex without being maligned for it. I have lived in several communities where this (sadly) was not the case; where women are often penalized for the exact same choices that men make, where women can NOT always choose not to have sex, and where women that do have sex have sometimes been villified for it.
The good news is that Aegis tells us that this misogynist attitude of several communities does NOT equal the attitude of “society”, and you confirm this with reports of your extremely woman-friendly locale. How wonderful to know that I can move to where you live and allow my daughter to grow in such a place of equality! Please tell me your location right away so I can start packing! I am thrilled that Aegis was right all along.
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May 6th, 2005 at 11:41 pm
And your post is too dismissive as well as lacking in objectivity and knowledge of the subject matter. It’s all about your opinion and your observations. From nearly the first post I found you hard to take seriously because you come off as really ill-informed and content with that.
Because it’s blatantly evident that you are posting to educate all the ‘men hating pessimistic women’ about your reality, and what I can personally only construe as unwilling to really do some research. If you’re not, the best exercise I could recommend to you would be to start some research based on specific questions, for instance statistics of unconvicted rape cases, or statistics of anonymously interviewed women that admit to having experienced at least some degree of sexual intimidation or rape. Are you seriously contending you’re unfamiliar with the whole ’she’s a slut’ portrayal that is placed upon young women with a frequency that is alarmingly high?
Why? Comparisons like these come off as attempts at justification. People here aren’t unfamiliar with the notion that women as well as men can be abusive or behave badly in relationships; the point that you seem to be missing is that due to the lack of value society places on women that are considered at best careless, or worst whorish, rape becomes a crime that is looked at on a scale of acceptibility that goes up and down not in consideration of the actions of the rapist, but instead the actions of the victim. The Kobe Bryant case is a classic example of this - ‘She had sex with others around the time of Kobe’ - I’m sorry, what exactly does that mean? It means that society is okay, or at least grudgingly willing to condone his actions based not on the case, which Bryant actually admits the victim truly believed she was raped, but instead on whether it matters if she was raped because she was a little slut anyways, just look at her panties, right?
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
May 6th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
Aegis is right, you are not. Easily observable.
Perhaps you are just extremely sensitive and perceive as misogyny things that aren’t? Or perhaps you are consciously constructing your posts to sound so pessimistic. I doubt that you are a person that is completely disconnected from reality.
The reality is that women quite literally indeed can refuse sex, and such occurences happen in every city thousands of times every day.
And another aspect of reality is that modern western society isn’t in fact some sort of a fundamentalist muslim society where women are controlled by the family father and stoned for having sex outside of marriage.
Women are free to choose their partner for a relationship, free to leave a relationship, free to marry, free to divorce, free to engage in sex, free to refuse sex.
All of these actions are legal and socially acceptable since almost every woman does them in her life, without any significantly negative consequences for most of them.
A woman that breaks off a relationship with her boyfriend still retains her male and female friends, and she is still a part of her community, whatever that might be. Then after a while she can find someone else and date him. After a break-up, she doesn’t become a social outcast that is condemned by everyone. She just resumes her normal life.
Not only that, but she might actually tell her friends the reasons for why she broke up with her boyfriend, and they will probably support her.
Rape:
In the real world rape is actually not condoned, even among males. If a girl or woman admits to being raped, then I assume most of her friends and family members will respond with compassion and sympathy, rather than murdering her for dishonouring the family.
A rapist is a social outcast, even in prison rapists are the lowest caste. They are beaten and raped themselves.
What I have written above is called “describing the objective reality”. You should try it…
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May 7th, 2005 at 12:10 am
-Sigh-….No, the reality is this statistic:
FACT: UN: In the US, a woman reports a rape to the police every 5 to 6 minutes. Researchers estimate that only 1/3 of strangers rapes and 13% of all acquaintance rapes are reported to the police.
and this statistic:
FACT: UN: 683,000 women are raped each year in the US according to the National Women’s Study. This translates to 1 every 3 minutes, 78 per hour, 1,871 per day.
and this statistic:
FACT: UN: In the US, 9 out of 10 women murdered are killed by men; most are at the hands of a male partner.
and this statistic:
FACT: According to the former Surgeon General Koop, 3-4 million women in the US are beaten by their partners each year. Studies on prevalence suggest that from 1/5 to 1/3 of all women will be physically assaulted by a partner or ex-partner during their lifetime.
and this statistic:
FACT: UN: Battering is the single greatest cause of injury among women in the US, accounting for more emergency room visits than auto accidents, muggings, and rapes combined.
and this statistic:
FACT: Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes (1 reported every 5 to 6 minutes), according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
and this statistic:
FACT: Approximately 28% of victims are raped by husbands or boyfriends, 35% by acquaintances, and 5% by other relatives. (Violence against Women, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Justice, 1994)
and this statistic:
FACT: The FBI estimates that only 37% of all rapes are reported to the police. U.S. Justice Department statistics are even lower, with only 26% of all rapes or attempted rapes being reported to law enforcement officials.
and this statistic:
FACT: In a national survey 27.7% of college women reported a sexual experience since the age of fourteen that met the legal definition of rape or attempted rape, and 7.7% of college men reported perpetrating aggressive behavior which met the legal definition of rape.
(Lets consider that last fact for a minute - if 7.7% of college men reported perpetrating aggressive sexual behavior that met the legal definition of rape, a CLASS A school has 300+ students in it. So a small town school with 200 students if we assume the split is 50/50 has around 7 or 8 young men likely committing acts of sexual behavior that meet the definition of rape.)
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
May 7th, 2005 at 12:18 am
I forgot to add to my post:
While many women can and do successfully refuse sex, the statistics of women that can’t successfully refuse sex and become victimized is appallingly high. I didn’t pull these stats outta my arse - I only WISH they were blown out of proportion, but studies indicate that it’s in fact just the opposite.
BTW, as recently as last week, I was called a whore and a slut on another board for being a feminist and pro-choice. I was told that I just needed a good fuck to chill me out. This coming from men who state they are ‘Pro-Life’, and ‘anti-rape’, one even claimed to have worked in women’s domestic violence shelters (hahahaha yah, right). They all know two personal facts about me: One, I’m happily married, and two I’m happily pregnant. If these aren’t blatant uses of sexual aggression in the form of degradation to silence the ‘uppity feminist woman’ I don’t know what the hell is.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
May 7th, 2005 at 12:59 am
Kim says:
Yes, this is called crime. Those are very disturbing statistics, but you achieve nothing by saying that society condones rape, or that women are under a tremendous pressure to consent to sex.
High statistics of rape doesn’t mean that society condones rape… victims of rape receive sympathy, the crime of rape is considered a very disgusting one by most people, and rapists are hated. You can hear very hostile statements towards rapists very often. Like “he deserves to have his balls cut off”, etc. This isn’t the same as condoning rape…
So…
This comment was written by someone.Do you expect to go through life without ever being insulted?
Or are you saying that males never get insulted? Or they get insulted significantly more rarely?
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May 7th, 2005 at 5:42 am
I think your view is overly simplistic.
Consider the case that started off this discussion. What caused the case to become a news item is that the rapists were so incredibly stupid that they made a videotape and played it in public. If this same case had happened without the video - but with all the other elements in place - I doubt it would have made the news, or that the boys would have gotten in trouble. Without the incredibly damning evidence of the tape, the principal would have gotten away with covering this up, and most of the boys’ schoolmates would have given them a pass. After all, the boys were popular, whereas the girl was in special-ed (or whatever they call it nowadays).
Is explicit, acknowleged rape condoned? Not widely. In that I agree with you.
However, there’s another way of condoning rape, and that’s refusing to acknowlege it as rape when it happens. Kim mentioned the study of college men; one interesting finding from that same study is that even men who reported having used physical force to make a woman have sex when she didn’t want to, generally don’t consider what they did “rape.” So that same man who - genuinely and with passion - talks about how rapists are scum and should be castrated, may also be a rapist.
What happens when Mary says that when she and Jack went out on a date, Jack raped her? A lot depends on who Jack and Mary are. If Jack is well-off, popular, and white, while Mary is poor and non-white, then pretty much the entire community will side with Jack. “There are so many girls who’d love to go out with Jack - obviously he doesn’t need to rape to get some.” “Everyone knows Mary is a bit slutty.” “Mary is getting back at him because she slept with him but then regretted it when he didn’t want to go out with her again.”
Even if the rapist and victim are similar when it comes to popularity, class status, and race, that still won’t mean she’ll be believed. A lot of people will still dismiss her as a slut (although research has shown that being considered a “slut” has as much to do with class as with behavior). A lot of people will say “it’s unfair to hold these accusations against Jack without absolute proof.” “We can’t be sure it’s rape.” “I think what happened was probably a communication problem - in Jack’s mind he wasn’t raping her, he thought she was into it.” “Mary didn’t say no clearly enough, so that Jack understood.”
Almost no one condones rape or a rapist, in the sense of saying “Jack is a rapist, and that’s okay with me.” But people make excuses. People explain why a rape isn’t really a rape after all. If the rapists weren’t stupid enough to make a videotape, people will find reasons to favor his version of events over hers.
Jack tells himself that she was into it, that if she had really struggled he would have stopped, and that she can’t lead him on and then just expect him to stop; but Jack never tells himself that rape is okay. In fact, Jack hates rapists - just ask Jack.
Even when a videotape is made, as we recently saw in California, it may take two trials to find a jury willing to reject the “she was a slut, so it wasn’t rape” defense. At the point where a videotape isn’t a clear-cut, virtually automatic conviction, I think we have to admit that the “she’s a slut, so it wasn’t rape” defense still has a lot of credibility among ordinary Americans.
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May 7th, 2005 at 5:49 am
Why do you think this is a reasonable question to ask?
First of all, nothing Kim said logically implied that she thinks she’ll get through life without ever being insulted. So your question is illogical.
Secondly, just because something is expected doesn’t mean it’s justifiable. I don’t expect to get through life without ever being physically assaulted; that doesn’t justify the assaults, or make it unreasonable of me to find assualts objectionable.
Men and boys are rarely (if ever) insulted by being told that all they need is a good fuck. That’s a misogynistic insult generally reserved for women.
If a black person objects to a racist insult, the fact that white people sometimes get insulted too doesn’t make the racist insult okay.
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May 7th, 2005 at 6:02 am
someone says :
But when they say this the image of rape they have in their heads is “rape of a young, virgin, sober girl by a complete stranger, who jumps out from behind the bushes and physically batters her, before raping her”
They do not have “my son forcing himself on a drunk woman who was willing to sleep with him yesterday, but not today”
You do get very hostile statements towards victims - the police will often push victims to drop cases that don’t fit the 1st stereotype, (phrases like “your bruises aren’t good enough, you might just like rough sex” being said by cops to victims reporting the crime), local communities will push victims to drop their cases (1st assumption when someone is accused “she’s lying, she’s a slut, she probably wanted it and changed her mind, or her parents/husband found out and she’s lying to cover it up” etc. Think of muggings - how often does anyone tell the victim “had you given him your wallet before? have you given anyone money before? were you dressed in a way that implied you were willing to give money to anyone who asked? well, then it’s your own fault he got confused and thought you wanted him to take it”
Think of the Footballer rape case in Britain last year. Someone accused 7?8? premier league footballers of gang-raping her, after she had consented to sex with another memeber of the team.
Reaction of public : she’s lying. They are rich, and famous - they could have any girl they want, why would they need to rape. She said she would sleep with one, who she barely knew, clearly she was a slut and so would have consented to a gang-bang. She just wants to get in the papers (despite not releasing her name/the name of any of the footballers involved).
No-one said they deserse to have their balls cut off in my hearing, although i heard the above quite frequently (usually from men,, occasionally from women, reassuring me that this wasn’t actually a terrible thing to happen to a girl -i got rather over emotional about it - since she was almost certainly lying and didn’t deserve my sympathy)
How about “what society believes is rape is not condoned, but society has a narrower defination of rape than the legal system, and so there are cases of rape society condones, because it sees them as sex not rape” Even that’s not quite right, because like the footballer case above, people say that “if this were true it would be a terrible thing and I would condemn the people who did it, but the supposed victim is clearly lying” The action is seen as wrong, but it also seen as not happening in particualar types of situations - irrespective of whether or not it actually happens (eg. drunk girl gets raped by her date to a party - she went to the party, she drank the alcohol, she flirted with him - what else could she have thought was going to happen, hence by doing these things she consented, without consideration of whether or not she did consent)
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May 7th, 2005 at 8:10 pm
Part 1
Ampersand says:
I am sorry Ampersand, but I think you are wrong here.
When you say things like “everyone”, “a lot of people”, etc, you really mean males.
I bet that if we took the responses of males and females to the case, most males would be inclined to believe Jack, and most females would be inclined to believe Mary.
Furthermore, If both Jack and Mary are people that are liked more or less equally in the community, there is another reason that many people (mostly males) would rather side with Jack. Why? Because they aren’t very willing to acknowledge that the Jack they knew and loved is an evil rapist, and they don’t want him to be in prison. On the other hand, saying that it was a misunderstanding and he didn’t intend to rape her resolves the case (in their mind) without anyone being evil and having to be punished.
From your post it seems that you believe that when a girl (or woman, but most rape victims are teenage girls) says that she was raped, everyone should believe her without question. Such a situation would actually be unjust and afford the accused person no credibility at all.
Right now it will be more or less 50% on either side, mostly divided by gender.
What you are doing is looking only at the responses and opinions of the men in a community and ignoring the women. Please don’t do it next time…
Part 2
Ampersand says:
Ampersand, as many posters here have also been able to acknowledge, there are different sexual associations for males and females.
These associations exist in the minds of people of both sexes. That means they are the same for men and women.
Males are considered to be looking for some sex most of the time.
Females are considered to be occupied with rejecting it, and choosing only the males that they like.
(And this is how it actually is for most people…)
So telling a man that he needs a “good fuck” to chill him out wouldn’t actually be an insult.
But a man can be insulted differently - “I bet you don’t get laid often”, “you are a sore loser”, “you will never get any”, etc.
For a woman “losing” is when she gives herself up for sex easily. Another way of “losing” is being so unattractive that no one actually approaches her.
For a man “losing” is when he is unable to get sex. Another way of “losing” is being unskilled in satisfying his partner, this is often used by bitter ex-girlfriends…
Sometimes this can be applied to women that are considered ugly, but most of the time insulting one’s ability to get sex is directed at males.
There is also a common stereotype about women that if they don’t get enough sex, they will be frustrated and irritatible and take their anger out on other people. (This is probably influenced by the associations that most people have about PMS.)
This might look sexist, but the existence of sexist stereotypes about women doesn’t exclude the existence of sexist stereotypes about men…
For example men are considered always to be ready for sex, and they are considered to be more likely to cheat. If a boy doesn’t respond to a girl’s attempts to get closer, he might be labelled as gay. This is common in teenage subculture…
It’s just different ways to insult someone. A girl might be called a “whore” or a “slut”, a guy might be called a “loser” or a “fag”.
(And words like “whore” and “slut” can also often be used as a general insult without its direct meaning… just a way to insult a female.
A girl that has sex very rarely, or even is a virgin probably has the same chance to be called a “whore” when someone wishes to insult her as one that has sex very often with different partners…)
Conclusion: While sexist stereotypes exist for both sexes, it isn’t so bad that it makes dating and relationships impossible.
Lots of women switch their boyfriends often, have one night stands, etc.
Lots of girls spend their time in bars and clubs looking for someone to have sex with for the night.
Modern culture is actually very lax on sexuality and it doesn’t enforce monogamy very strongly. (Whether this is good or bad… you decide)
Despite the fact that these stereotypes exist, they have little effect on most people.
Part 3
VK says:
This is more like it…
Much more realistic.
You still have to take gender into account though… (Look at part 1)
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May 7th, 2005 at 8:29 pm
No, I don’t “really mean males.” Since you pat yourself on the back so much for being sensible, you can start by not making assumptions and putting words I didn’t say into my mouth.
Look at jury studies - women aren’t more likely to believe the claims of an (alleged) rape victim than men are. Sometimes women are especially eager to find a fault in the girl or woman’s behavior to blame (perhaps to reassure themselves that it won’t happen to them).
This I agree with.
Nope, didn’t say that, don’t believe that. I think too much depends on the individual situation to make a single rule for every situation.
I think we need to realize that there’s a difference between what one can reasonably believe to be true, and what can be proven in a court of law. If one friend tells me she’s been raped, and I believe it, then I don’t need a court’s verdict to act appropriately (including cutting the rapist out of my life).
But there are cases - say, a case where I don’t know a thing about either the alleged victim or the alleged rapists - where I can’t know, or where a community can’t know. In real life, too often, a large part of the community reacts by quietly, subtly shunning the girl for making an accusation she couldn’t “prove.” Often, communities don’t just take a “well, we can’t know, so let’s treat them evenly” attitude; they look at how nice a boy the accused rapist is and worry that this could ruin his life, and they implicitly accept his version of events.
The courts have a very high standard of proof for criminal convictions (and they should, in my opinion). But one consequence of that is that, by accepting that criminal courts should have high standards of proof, I’m also implicitly accepting that many rapists will never be legally punished. (Of course, it’s easy for me to accept that - maybe too easy - since I’m male).
Regarding insults, of course there are sexist ways men can be insulted too (and homophobic as well, such as your “fag” example). (Although most of the sexist insults of men and boys involve calling them girlish or feminine, which is a weird combination of insulting men and at the same time being misogynistic). I’m not sure why you think I’d disagree with that.
But I still think it’s the case that women and girls face a more difficult balancing act than men. Men feel pressure to get laid, but so do women (and boys and girls, as well). But at the same time girls feel pressure to be able to find willing sex partners (to prove they’re not losers), they also feel pressure to not “give it up” too easily, or else they’re sluts. Men and boys don’t have things perfect, but that particular balancing act - too much sex and you’re a slut, too little and you’re a loser - is faced by girls but not boys.
Of course, we’re generalizing way too much - a lot depends on the social group people hang out in, their class, their cultural background, their region, etc..
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May 7th, 2005 at 9:42 pm
Part 1
Ampersand says:
Okay, I am sorry. I should have worded it differently like… “it seems that you might be unconsciously only looking at the responses and opinions of men and ignoring women”.
Link…
Thanks
Yes, of course… personal relationship to the individuals involved affects with whom you will side. This is why I mentioned in my example that Jack and Mary are both well liked in the community.
Now imagine, if both your female friend and the guy she says raped here were your good friends, who would you believe then?
Would you be quick to make a decision? If the guy is your old friend since high school or something… And she is too…
Wouldn’t you be in trouble?
I don’t know about this… I have no personal experience since I don’t know anyone that was raped.
I suspect that responses of people will generally vary according to these variables:
1) They are in a good relationship with the alleged rapist - they will tend to take his side (a larger portion of these might be males, since males mostly have male friends)
2) They are in a good relationship with the alleged victim - they will take her side (these will be mostly females, see above)
3) They are in a good relationship with both of them - they will not express an opinion
4) They know both of them personally but aren’t in a close relationship with either - they will tend to take his side cautiously, due to what I described above about settling the conflict without anyone being guilty. They might say that she was “confused”, etc.
5) They don’t know either of them personally (seeing them a few times on the street doesn’t count) - these will just go by how the newspaper presents, or what their friends that do have an opinion say. In other words this is quite random… Most of those probably won’t care anyway, they will just read the newspaper and go about doing whatever they were doing…
Part 2
I have to disagree here…
This balance for a girl can be solved by simply having a long-term boyfriend.
This way she isn’t a loser because she does have a boyfriend, and she isn’t a slut, because she is in a long-term monogamous relationship.
(This is how things usually settle down in societies that aren’t totally lax with free uncommited sex. Most people get in long-term relationships.)
Then it might happen that the boyfriend dumps her… if this happens she might be viewed as a “loser”… or the ex-boyfriend might be viewed as an “asshole”… this is random, it depends on the situation and the individuals involved.
I don’t think that it’s correct to say that either sex is in a significant disadvantage compared to the other…
Males certainly have their problems…
And on the other hand, most people still are able to find someone, get in long-term relationships, get married, etc.
I was going to write a long explanation here about ranking of males and females according to alpha/beta/gamma, but then I decided that it is unnecessary since there is too many variables involved, and besides one’s chances to get a mate, there is also things like personality compatibility, your partner’s attitude, etc.
This would be getting into a whole huge new discussion.
But in short words, the problem for “beta” males is that they are in a competition with “alpha males” for “beta” females (even though in the end the “alpha” male will most likely settle for an “alpha” female, he will be blocking lots of “beta” females for a long time), and they don’t have access to “alpha” females.
(”Beta” males and females are the large majority, “alpha” and “gamma” are minorities… although with the recent epidemic of obesity, the “gamma” category might become significantly larger…)
The thing that I believe is correct to say is that the more “lax” a society is with free uncommited sex, the more it actually ends up disadvantaging the majority of both males and females.
This comment was written by someone.It makes the competetion between both males and females much more fierce, it undermines stable relationships, it exacerbates insecurity in insecure teenagers, teen suicide (due to a feeling of being unloved/unwanted or feeling ugly), and more…
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May 8th, 2005 at 6:40 am
someone says:
I don’t agree. In a long term relationship the pressure on a guy to be having sex with her increases. Often after a certain period of time, the length of which depends on the peer group, the assumption that they must be having sex arises. This happened with my last boyfriend - after about three/four weeks we were sleeping regularly in each other’s rooms (I’m in college accomadation), and increasing people assumed since he was sleeping there, we must be having lots of sex. He would correct this, and increasingly he got a confused “but why are you still sleeping there then?” response.
But the pressure on a girl not to have sex, doesn’t nessicarily decrease - particularly girls who “give it up” too soon are seen as slutty. I’ve seen guys question their relationships with girls, after sleeping with her several months into a relationships - often an issue that comes up is they realise they don’t actually like her that much, and don’t see it lasting long term and then blame her for allowing it to become sexual when she must have been capable of seeing the relationship was not going to last. (The logic goes , I believe, as a man I am not capable of controlling my sexual feelings, or objecting looking at a relationship while sex is a possibility. women can. therefore how far a relationship goes is completely in her control. if looking back at a relationship, i went further than i think i should have, it’s her fault for not being as chaste as i would have been , had i been able to control myself. hence she is a slut).
I had particular trouble in high school, with a rather nasty long term ex who did the obvious “she wouldn’t have sex with me, i cannot admit this, hence i will claim she is a slut and asked for it and I teurned her down”. And people believed him - and it stuck. Nice guys wouldn’t date me, because i had a bad rep. Less nice guys a) expected sex straight off b) got angry when the rumours weren’t true c) didn’t admit the rumours weren’t true, but instead added to them. On the otherhand, the guy who did this to me, sleep (supposedly) with about 50+ girls in high school - no-one made any judgement calls on him, he certainly wasn’t called a slut and was rather admired for being so attractive to women.
Long term boyfriends are not the answer. Changing the societal veiw that men want sex, women don’t but should have sex to please men is the answer. (note: Not just for the sake of the girls, but for the boys too - I know several who got very cut up over the assumption they wanted sex/were sexual predators. They also have problems with women taking “i don’t want to have sex” as “i don’t want to have sex with you because you’re ugly /I’m gay” when they actually really like the girl, just don’t want sex as the goal of the relationship. The idea that there is a way boys work, and a way girls work and that men have to chase women with the goal of sleeping with them harms both sexes and needs to be corrected)
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May 8th, 2005 at 7:36 am
Someone, why are you still referring to women as girls?
That, and you are tacitly accepting the idea that single women are, by virtue of being single, sluts. If they were “good women”, they would be in a long-term, monogamous relationship. Why should judgement calls on a particular woman be based on whether or not she has a man in her life?
Let’s go back to that “lots of girls spend time in bars and clubs looking for someone to have sex with for the night.” No, actually “lots of girls” don’t, because here in the United States, one must be eighteen or twenty-one to enter bars and clubs, which would make them women, not girls. It is true that some women are in the bar or club looking for a sexual partner. But there are more women in the bar or club who are there to: (a) meet friends, (b) have a drink and unwind from the work week, (c) scarf the happy hour treats before going out for the real evening’s activities, (d) hear some good music, (e) dance, etc.
Except for one problem. Every woman entering the place without a male partner is going to be assumed to be looking for sex. And if a woman who goes to a bar or club is raped later that evening, she will be assumed by a significant number of people (males and females), as having done something wrong—even if she left alone, even if she conducted herself with impeccable, Miss Manners-type poise, even if she didn’t drink any alcohol, just soda! Because only “slutty” women go out in public without male companionship, dont’cha know.
Oh, and BTW, you do know women who have been raped. They just haven’t told you. The statistical probability of you not knowing any rape survivors is astronomical.
Do you have a definition of “alpha”, “beta”, and “gamma”? I’ve never heard of “gamma”, and I’ve only heard of “alpha” and “beta” in the most shallow, pseudo-psych, pop-culture reference. Anyone….are those terms for real? Do social scientists actually use those terms, or are those terms simply a media trope to sound more official than using high-school terms like “jock”, “stoner”, etc.?
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
May 8th, 2005 at 6:11 pm
Doesn’t the whole “alpha male” stuff come from zoology? You know, studies of wolf packs and all that? I think pop pseudo-psychologists latched onto it to use in discussions of human behaviour because that image of the male as Lone Wolf or dominant gorilla are just so damned kewl.
THANK YOU!! When I used to go out, it really got up my nose the way guys would assume that the “real” reason I was on the dance floor was to woo them with the suggestive motions of my body (yeah, that’s why I really liked to dance to Einstürzende Neubauten & Killing Joke–so sensual), or that the fact that I was sitting at a table on my own meant that they had the right to plop themselves down with me and tell me their entire life stories from birth to that exact moment, in excruciating detail. Because of course, listening to someone rabbiting on about how great they are is sooooooooooooo sexually intoxicating.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
May 8th, 2005 at 6:47 pm
heh heh. Well, you probably figured out I was writing from my own experience! I was telling a friend of mine (a poet) about some of the more interesting incidents of self-appointed Mr. Wonderfuls who figured I walked into the place to make their night; she laughed, took notes, and said, “there’s a poem in here somewhere!” There sure was. I don’t know if she reads it at open mike nights anymore (this was several years ago), but it always brought the house down!
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
May 8th, 2005 at 8:37 pm
Btw, I am planning on replying to this thread (and to Ampersand’s post in another thread), when my midterms are over…
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
May 9th, 2005 at 12:26 am
I am not sure why you are being hostile to me once again… this isn’t how I write my posts.
“Alpha” and “beta” are indeed terms from zoology. I figured them to be appropriate to use in this context, since I don’t see a better alternative…
Your comment about gorillas and lone wolves wasn’t amusing. Please suggest better terminology?
Crys T says…
I don’t see anything amazing about this…
If you aren’t there to pick up someone, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t.
So… what is the terrible crime of trying to chat up a girl?
You seem like a perfect example of a woman that believes that a guy talking to her in an attempt to “get to know her closer” (whether for sex or dating) is already commiting an offence, unless she finds him attractive and she is in the mood.
Try to look at it from his point of view…
And now… you see… because you are female you don’t have to go through all this. Trying to talk to people, being rejected in a rude way, etc.
You just have them walk up to you and offer themselves. You are the one with the choice. You aren’t appreciating your own power.
What you wrote is a perfect proof of my theory.
It’s also hilarious how you were able to reject so many males trying to have sex with you/or to meet you and didn’t get murdered or harmed in some way by any of them. You are contradicting yourself.
This comment was written by someone.You actually can reject them. You are actually free to have sex when you want, and you are free to choose whoever you want to be your partner in a relationship.
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May 9th, 2005 at 12:31 am
The more I think about it, the more asinine your comment seems.
These guys that talked to you came there in hopes to find some girl. So they saw you and tried their luck.
But you actually make some ridiculous assumptions about what they think your motives for coming to the place or dancing are. And then you decide that they must be amazingly self-centered and misogynistic because they assume that you are there to woo them.
It isn’t about that, it’s about them trying to find someone. They can’t read your damn mind.
This comment was written by someone.I don’t understand what makes you so angry about this.
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May 9th, 2005 at 12:37 am
La Lubu says…
This just doesn’t make any sense…
This comment was written by someone.You can’t expect to go to such a place and not to have anyone trying to pick you up… What is your problem…
They aren’t “Mr. Wonderfuls”, they were just trying to find someone. Holy Jesus.
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May 9th, 2005 at 2:49 am
Someone says:
Nothing, but there is a big difference between trying to chat up, leaving an obvious and easy way for the other to get out of the conversation if they wish, and forcing your company on another person. Also a big difference between “trying, hoping to succeed” and “trying, gonna succeed because women alone in a bar = sex to first man to say hi”.
I’m thinking of, in particular, the difference between someone asking you to dance, and someone just coming up behind you and starting to grind against your arse.
or
is different from asking their permission to sit down and chat to them (which would be kinda a basic level of courtesy to someone you don’t know in a bar). The crime is not chatting up a girl - the crime is chatting up a girl, when she is not intested, but assuming she is.
Not sure if that is what Crys T meant, but that was what I read into it.
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May 9th, 2005 at 4:19 am
Hmmm…. okay. I guess this was a (bad) misunderstanding on my part. Sorry.
This comment was written by someone.I thought that she was angered by the mere fact that people assume she might be available and tried to talk to her.
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May 9th, 2005 at 9:24 am
(Apologia: I realize that this is a weak analogy in a lot of ways, not least that negligence is not the same as violent assault, and consensual sex (duh) is not the same as rape.)
Most people are not HIV-positive. Most people who are HIV-positive take steps to prevent transmitting it to others, up to and including serosorting and celibacy. Most people, HIV-positive or not, would be aghast at the idea of someone wilfully transmitting the disease, and believe in an abstract way that everyone should get tested regularly and use protection, yadda yadda yadda. Does that mean that I should start barebacking, since society as a whole does not condone jeopardizing others through unsafe sex? Should I not be worried at all? To the extent that I am worried, does that fear affect my sex life? And if society as a whole is not complacent in this type of negligence, why do some people feel perfectly fine about not getting tested, not using protection, and not informing their partners of their HIV-status?
Many people in this country believe that rape is evil only insofar as rape is very narrowly defined: brutally violent stranger rape. Toss in variables like the amount she had to drink or the number of dates she had with him beforehand, and suddenly moral condemnation turns to water. Have you listened to the rape survivors on this thread? They clearly have first-hand experience of the tenor of other people’s sympathy, and it doesn’t jibe with what you’re speculating.
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May 9th, 2005 at 10:16 am
“But in short words, the problem for “beta”? males is that they are in a competition with “alpha males”? for “beta”? females (even though in the end the “alpha”? male will most likely settle for an “alpha”? female, he will be blocking lots of “beta”? females for a long time), and they don’t have access to “alpha”? females.
(”?Beta”? males and females are the large majority, “alpha”? and “gamma”? are minorities… although with the recent epidemic of obesity, the “gamma”? category might become significantly larger…)”
**SNERK**
whoooooo-buddy, I’m damn sure glad I’m a dyke. So, so, so much easier. We have secret handshakes that determine who we’re allowed to shag. And we gave up on the pissing contests ’cause we kept peeing down our own legs.
Someone… have you ever hung out with anyone above the age of 21? 22? 23? Have you even had sex yet? If you have, have you had sex with someone you liked, rather than just fucking their body? Please don’t tell me that in a world in which we can put humans into outer space and have discovered a vaccine for polio, you don’t still believe that our basic human interactions are nothing but biologic alphabet games? Is that why so many young people have to get hammered before they sleep together?
But you did miss the loophole in your own logic. You claim that girls [sic](which ones? Alpha? Beta? Gamma?) can and do refuse sex. But if this is true, you can’t have an alpha male, can you? Not if his advances can be rejected. That would automatically make him something other than alpha, no?
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 10th, 2005 at 12:14 am
piny: I don’t really get your analogy… society as a whole is not to blame for the actions of a minority of individuals which aren’t even connected to each other.
This might be true or not… read again what I wrote about the relationship of the “commenter” to the alleged victim and the alleged rapist.
Read the 5 cases that I described.
And yes, in a case where they don’t know both of them, or aren’t too close to them, they might tend to disbelieve her.
The people that are completely uninvolved will just form their opinion according to what the newspaper says, or the person that tells it to them.
… Read my previous posts, I already explained this.
It wouldn’t make sense if everyone always firmly believed the alleged victim when such an allegation is made. People will always have different opinions.
I didn’t yet, since there is too many posts.
Q Grrl:
Where did I say that in lesbian/bisexual communities there is no rankings like this? I am sure that lesbians are also attracted to different individuals differently. Doesn’t necessarily have to be physical attraction only, but there will still be some that are more successful with finding someone, and some that are less.
Not really… does this matter?
I had two girlfriends…
I am simplifying and generalizing things to make it easier. The ranking isn’t based on physical attractiveness only. It also depends a lot on one’s social connections, social skills, “personal charm”, and more…
Do you disagree that such a ranking exists? If you do then does that mean that you say that all individuals in a community are equally successful with everyone of the opposite sex?
Almost all animals have sexual selection in some form. This is a consequence of sexual reproduction.
And sexual selection automatically causes sexual rankings to be created, since in order for a selection to be made, there must be some criteria for making a selection.
Humans aren’t an exception.
You are trying to define an “alpha” male as someone that never ever gets rejected.
But that is not what an “alpha” male is. He does get rejected, especially by “alpha” females, which are on the same “level” as him.
And by “beta” females, if they happen not to like him…
He can even be rejected by “gamma” ones, but an “alpha” male usually won’t try to woo a “gamma” female, since that would bring down his status as an “alpha” male in most communities. (An alpha male is supposed to get the “hot” girls.)
And girls/women of all sexual rankings can refuse sex.
You are trying to point out loopholes where they don’t exist.
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May 10th, 2005 at 6:20 am
Someone says: “…what is the crime in trying to chat up a girl?”
Well, someone, assuming the chat is for the purpose of eventually having sex (or even having a relationship that includes sex) the crime is called statutory rape.
Oh, wait. Did you mean “…what is the crime in trying to chat up a WOMAN?” Oh! Well, then, nothing, I guess.
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May 10th, 2005 at 6:35 am
I am 18, so I refer to them as girls.
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May 10th, 2005 at 7:03 am
Someone, do you refer to yourself and other young men as ‘boys’?
Please define the terms ‘alpha’, ‘beta’, and ‘gamma’. Pardon my ignorance, but I have no idea what you are talking about.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
May 10th, 2005 at 8:04 am
hrrrm.
I was pondering this thread last night. Ya’ know Someone, the fact that you feel not the slightest hesitation in turning a thread about rape (forcible rape per the original story) into your beliefs about dating trends is enough, ON ITS OWN, to highlight how our culture CONDONES rape. You can’t even stay on topic.
If you don’t want to believe women or feminists, there are many male writers/philosophers who also acknowledge our rape culture (specifically men involved in the environmental movement or sustainable living).
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 10th, 2005 at 10:16 am
… Just follow the conversation and see how it developed into this. Why are you blaming me? And why are you all constantly attacking me?
The discussion about dating trends developed from Ampersand making a comment about how women must maintain a balance between “slut” and “loser” etc.
Read the posts and stop attacking me.
And I already explained what “alpha”, “beta” and “gamma” are, read the posts.
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May 10th, 2005 at 10:16 am
Why is it impossible to simply have a normal discussion without all these personal attacks?
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May 10th, 2005 at 10:23 am
La Lubu: I may use the word boys as a term of endearment, like “hey boys I am back” to my friends.
This comment was written by someone.But I don’t use it to refer to young men/male teenagers in general, because this isn’t how the word is used. It is used to refer to children.
But girls is used to refer to teenage girls and young women.
This is how the words are used in the contemporary English language, I didn’t make it so.
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May 10th, 2005 at 10:37 am
someone, the term “girls” as used to refer to women is a sexist use of the English language, one that fell out of common usage many years ago. Because you haven’t stated that English is your first language, I’ll give you a break. If English is your first language, knock it off already. You already know that women see the term “girls” used to refer to female adults as infantilizing and insulting. Knock. It. Off.
And no, you haven’t defined alpha, beta, or gamma. You brought the terms into the discussion, so please bother to define them. I kind of get the idea that alpha is supposed to refer to “top dog”, but I have no idea of what the traits are that supposedly make someone an alpha or not. I get the idea that “beta” is supposed to be bottom dog, but I have no idea what the traits are that supposedly make someone a beta or not. Gamma, I’m at a total loss for. Someone who isn’t a dog at all? A dog from another planet? What? My only contact with the term “alpha male” was from the Al Gore fiasco, and to tell the truth, I really didn’t understand it then, either. I figured it was a media-generated bullshit sexist sideshow, designed to insult women by inferring that unless a man fit some bogus “big daddy” stereotype, we wouldn’t vote for him.
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May 10th, 2005 at 10:41 am
>>But girls is used to refer to teenage girls and young women.
This is how the words are used in the contemporary English language, I didn’t make it so.>>
So are a few other words, which I won’t repeat here. What’s your point?
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May 10th, 2005 at 11:18 am
Actually, I introduced “slut” and “loser” as an example of how society condones and actively socializes for rape.
If you think this is attacking, then you shouldn’t be all balls out about this not being a rape culture. … and I mean balls out in a rugby kinda way.
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May 10th, 2005 at 11:41 am
Well it isn’t a damn rape culture…
There is a lot of rape, but that doesn’t mean that “society” thinks that it is cool.
And I doubt that there is some sort of a community of rapists which interact and learn from each other. It’s individuals acting on their own.
There is a lot of rape, so something must be done to reduce it, but saying false and/or overexaggerated things doesn’t help anyone.
What do you achieve by saying that there is a rape culture?
La Lubu:
alpha - most successful with the opposite sex
beta - average (most people)
gamma - very unsuccessful
I am not speaking about 30+ year old women though, but young women around my age.
I wouldn’t refer to a married mother as a “girl”. And I don’t refer to myself or males my age as “men” either… That would sound weird. How old are you?
But whatever, have it your way.
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May 10th, 2005 at 11:46 am
I just saw post #46 by Aegis… what a nice post. I agree with everything.
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May 10th, 2005 at 12:21 pm
Someone: grow up. Live a little. Don’t get pissy with us because you don’t see what’s right in front of your eyes. Damn, son. I don’t think you even begin to understand the world you live in, with your computer games, your irradiated food, your toxic water, your wars on brown-skinned people. Your back’s up against the wall because some women (and men) are trying their best to translate their experiences into meaning and all you’re spouting is the same old tired McWTO “who me?” kind of “reasoning”.
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May 10th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
It was a ridiculous post. And it could only have been written by someone without an iota of empathy or common sense.
For example:
Um…exist? Although it helps if you’re on the track team. Has Aegis spoken to women about their high school experiences? We frequently felt–and continue to feel–attracted, powerless and unrequited as well, but we never assaulted anyone.
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May 10th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
Someone, I am thirty-seven years old, and I have been getting pissed off at men not having the decency to call me a woman since I was sixteen. Now frankly, I give a break to the elderly on this. You don’t qualify. The proper term is “woman”, or “young woman” if you feel the need to get age in there. Not girl. Even if you are a boy. If you were ten years old, I would still be telling you to refer to women as women, not as girls.
Thank you for defining alpha, beta and gamma. I’m still not quite clear on the concept though, since it leaves gay folks out entirely (or do gays and lesbians have “delta, iota, lambda” designation?). That, and it seems to benefit those who choose to play the field more than stay with one partner, regardless of other factors. Otherwise, how would you determine who is “most successful” other than by number of partners? Unless you change your definition to “most sexually attractive”, but then that presents its own problem, as there are quite homely people who are still determined to be sexually attractive, and quite handsome ones who inspire all the passion of stale white bread.
Ah, well. When I googled it, the definition of “gamma” man turned up to be a combination of the “alpha” (aggressive) and “beta” (laid-back) man, and was said to be the heighth of sexual attractiveness….the best of both worlds.
Then again, maybe I’m easily confused. I’m still trying to figure out how a thread on rape turned into a discussion on the sexual power of females, and how powerless non-alpha males supposedly are in the face of it. I gotta give an “amen!” to piny’s last statement.
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May 10th, 2005 at 5:18 pm
I am writing up my response to Ampersand, but I just had to reply to piny’s last post…
I am not claiming that feeling powerless/unrequited can lead to assault. Read my quote again:
Note: I am NOT saying that male powerlessness leads to sexual assault, I am saying that it can lead to chauvinistic or negative attitudes towards women. And when did I say that girls didn’t feel powerless? Please don’t put words into my mouth, it is very alienating.
I am interested in your suggestion that a young man simply by existing (and possibly being on the track team?) can have as much sex appeal as a young woman who has access to cute clothes and beauty care. That isn’t a satisfactory answer to my perfectly reasonable question, so please explain where you are coming from. It seems to me that girls simply have more sexual power than young males do, regardless of whether they are aware of that power or not. This is for various reasons, such as the nature of attraction itself and the social rules for heterosexual interaction. One of the reasons is simply because female sexuality is more commodified than male sexuality. I realize that these are provocative claims, but since they are somewhat tangential to the this thread, I will only explain them if people are interested.
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May 10th, 2005 at 5:22 pm
After reading La Lubu’s last post, I would like to clarify that when I said girls, I meant “young women.” I will also take a stab at explaining the alpha/beta/gamma definitions later on.
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May 10th, 2005 at 5:37 pm
You argued that women have a greater effect on men than vice versa, and are more capable of driving men wild with desire than vice versa: “What can a young man do to have the dynamite sexual effect on women that an attractive young woman can have on him through cute clothes and beauty care?” This isn’t true, as any woman could tell you. Women desire just as much as men; they simply aren’t allowed to admit to desire on the same terms.
Of course female sexuality is more commodified than male sexuality. Women are forced to trade on sexuality–under a punishing set of social dicta on when and how women are allowed to be sexual–in order to get any power at all. This is not to say that men have less sexual power, only that women are not allowed to participate with as much freedom and control on the buyer end of the transaction–they’re not supposed to admit to the existence of demand at all.
Men are not rendered powerless by this disparity; quite the contrary. Because their power does not depend on their sexuality, they have greater sexual autonomy. They don’t need sexual “power” to be powerful. Men’s bodies are not favors to be bestowed or objects to be purchased. Their sexuality is not worthless, but free.
Plus, women have to live with the idea that anything they have can be taken by force or extortion; being sexual or attractive is as much a liability as a source of power. Possessing something isn’t always the same as controlling it, and it doesn’t always amount to power over the people who want it.
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May 10th, 2005 at 5:49 pm
God knows I never feel more powerful than when someone decides to force unwanted sexual interaction on me.
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May 10th, 2005 at 6:31 pm
Preach, piny!
I’d also like to add that for a young man who sees himself as not getting enough attention from the opposite sex, there are more avenues for him to follow in that regard. He can try a sport, as piny observed. He can play a musical instrument, or learn how to sing. He can develop his verbal skills, whether through debating, rapping, poetry, foreign language, or just being a general quick-witted smartass. He can be a class clown.
What about the young women? Generally, it’s just about the looks, as Aegis observed. Young men can morph into Adonis on the basis of some skill they have developed or acquired; young women, only on their beauty (as perceived by others). Young men can find their sexual power from within themselves, young women, only from the eye of the beholder. Now tell me who has more power.
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May 10th, 2005 at 9:57 pm
Aegis, don’t bother.
They won’t even acknowledge that women have a much stronger sexual effect on men than the reverse.
This is so something so painfully obvious that even if you stab your eyes out you can still see it.
They just will continue ignoring objective reality so that it seems like they are “oppressed” while actually applying this said sexual power in real life every day. (If it is possible for them.)
Look at La Lubu now saying that males have “more power” because they can be considered attractive because of a skill… While women don’t have to do anything, just to be female.
And no they don’t have to be beautiful as a goddess.
Just not being pig-ugly is sufficient, she will have guys approaching her.
La Lubu says that she is 37 years old, but she is apparently so clueless about how simple things like this work? Haha… I doubt it.
She won’t even admit that a “beta” male and a “beta” female have about an equal chance to find someone, and can somewhat balance a relationship out, no, she wants women to be the victims single-handedly, despite the fact that women have tons of influence in a relationship, and the “passive” role of being the sex that is pursued after gives them a certain amount of power.
Let’s just end this argument, since these people aren’t going to be honest.
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May 10th, 2005 at 9:58 pm
Typo fix: *They will just
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May 10th, 2005 at 10:01 pm
Or look at Amanda suddenly switching the topic to sexual harrassment,
Yes, since this is only way interaction between males and females happens, and obviously Aegis was saying that a woman is powerful when she is being sexually harrassed.
Not when she is being flirted with normally, no.
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May 10th, 2005 at 10:18 pm
piny says:
No they bloody don’t. Women display all signs of having less sexual desire than men. And certainly they are much less visually attracted to men than men are to women.
They could want sex, but they don’t want men! Women are much more inclined towards bisexuality, women look much less at porn, women masturbate less, women pursue sex less (preferring to be the ones pursued), etc.
And even when a woman is interested in some particular man, she will give him “hints” instead of being direct, so that he is the one that talks to her and acts like he is the one that wants her and she is the one being pursued, so that she can still have this man without losing her sexual power.
And I bet just about every man out there would be very very happy if he would suddenly have all kinds of women asking him out, coming up to him wanting to have sex, etc.
This is every teenage boy’s dream, really.
Instead of him trying to get the girl to have sex with him, she wants it on her own. It is the most common male fantasy!!
The way it is set up now isn’t limitting women, it is giving them more power, this is why it isn’t likely to change in any near future, and this is why the different sexual associations, like “slut” and “stud” will continue existing, and this is why the more boorish among men will continue treating women as sexual objects, ie “Yeah I fucked that bitch”.
It is two sides of the same coin.
Look at the whole picture, instead of just the parts you want to prove your point about women being powerless.
What the hell is this punishing “social dicta” supposed to be? The slut thing? It barely affects anyone.
Look around, about eighty percents of modern young women are indeed fitting the definition of a “slut”. They may even call themselves that and laugh about it with a bottle of beer in their hand. They don’t care.
The slut thing has no force anymore, this is self-explanatory due to the fact that so many women actually are pretty content being “sluts”.
Remember this sentence and quit repeating this stuff about “sluts” over and over.
I am not saying that men are powerless, just that women aren’t.
What the hell??
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May 10th, 2005 at 10:54 pm
Um… Someone? You dont think that “women much more inclined towards bisexuality” thing has anything to do with the fact that most straight males (like me) have “a thing” for seeing two women kiss etc. and straight females (usually) dont seem have a similar thing for two men kissing? The “ick factor” about (male) gays in general? And btw, I dont believe women are more bisexual, mainly because its not supported by any serious studies. And of course lesbians still face a lot of discrimination, but have you ever (even for a second) wondered why it seems that all those hot girls in playboy etc. seem to have a thing for other women too? Could it be (Gasp!) that its a pretty common male fantasy? And about society condoning rape: Well, its all been said in previous posts so im going to be brief. Ill admit that of course its about inviduals choosing to rape but societal factors have a lot to do with WHY rapists feel a need to rape. Men suffering terribly from “not getting any” is bullshit as long as we`ll just talking about physical sex and not emotional (being close or feeling appreciated) or societal (oh cool, you have a cute girlfriend, or oh cool, you got laid laid last night with that blonde from the nightclub) because theres always masturbation. Did I make any sense yet?
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May 10th, 2005 at 11:07 pm
And women who choose to be sluts, well a common attitude is “once a slut always a slut”. These women are in a serious trouble if and when they want to commit in a serious relationship because most men consider them more like fuck-buddies than girlfriends and actually wouldnt want a girlfriend like that. Too much “whore” and too little “madonna” I suppose? And trust me, those girls may be cool in high school and in college, but once they get a little older the slut reputation is going to hurt A LOT. For men, being a stud or a player is doing nil or positive to reputation.
This comment was written by armchair.Report this comment to the moderators
May 11th, 2005 at 1:38 am
This just proves my point doesn’t it…?
Males find females kissing sexy.
Females find males kissing disgusting or don’t care.
Why? Because women are the “sexy” gender.
Yes… But this is not what I am referring to.
I am talking about average women in real life.
They are certainly less disgusted by the possibility of kissing or touching another female than it is for males.
They don’t have the same fear of being seen as “gay”, and they don’t have the same revulsion for homosexual contact.
Female friends interact with each other in more physically intimate ways than male friends with each other. They do things like kissing each other on the cheek, brushing each other’s hair, hugging, telling their emotions, etc.
For males this would be crossing the “gay” border.
There is much more bisexual females than bisexual males too, I know this by observing people.
Yes… I am not saying that rapists rape because they don’t get enough sex.
They rape because they are fucked up.
You are misunderstanding my posts, try to read more closely, I am talking about a completely different thing.
For both males and females there are their own advantages and their own disadvantages. It is not true to say that males have all the power in the “dating game”. Not even close to it.
This comment was written by someone.(And as a consequence, it follows that men don’t actually dictate all of society’s rules to women, and they don’t have the upper hand in every relationship, or even in the majority of them.)
But I still believe that the more free uncommited sex there is, the more difficult it becomes for the average males and females to get in a good stable relationship.
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May 11th, 2005 at 1:40 am
(Imagine that the typos are fixed.)
This comment was written by someone.Report this comment to the moderators
May 11th, 2005 at 2:41 am
Females find males kissing disgusting or don’t care.
Right, because you say so? Try speaking for yourself, instead of making this kind of laughable generalisations.
I could tell you a few things about that from personal and anecdotical experience, but let’s just look at what’s out there. One instance. Just last week I caught a bit of this programme on tv that spoke of the success of Queer as Folk and how many female fans the series had, even interviewed groups of young women who gathered to watch the series religiously. They were asked, what they liked so much about it, after all, it’s about gay men having sex. Their replies: because the guys in the series are so sexy and it’s sexy to watch them having sex - one said, where else do you see a man’s naked butt on tv!
Also, some may remember some scenes My OwnPrivate Idaho between Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix. Totally non-explicit, as far as I recall, it was all a lot more romantic than Queer as Folk for sure, but I remember was a moment when River declares his love for Keanu near the campfire, that the female audience in the cinema went awwww….; then later you see them in bed, Keanu kissing River’s nipple. Find me a woman who found that disgusting, I’ll send you $1,000.
It’s men who can be grossed out by those things, if they have some issues with the concept of homoeroticism, because it affects them and their idea of who they are as males. For women, as long as the two males involved are sexy (and I doubt men would fantasise about Margaret Thatcher having sex with Madeleine Albright either), believe me, there is no such disgust reaction. In fact, you often have the opposite.
Why? Because women are the “sexy”? gender.
Women display all signs of having less sexual desire than men. And certainly they are much less visually attracted to men than men are to women.
You must have missed a few thousand years of art and about a hundred of pop culture. Hello? Did you just land on earth from Mars? Ever heard of Elvis? the Beatles? Leonardo di Caprio? boybands? teen magazines packed with posters of male celebrities or models? I mean, you have an embarrassingly huge choice of instances of famous men who have drawn hordes of swooning women, for decades, from early Hollywood to today’s pop scene. In case you need that kind of instance, which would mean you’ve never come across real women in real life who do find non-famous men they know sexy. Come on, you must be taking the piss.
Not suprising, since you’ve talked such crap all throughout this thread, but really, this idea that women don’t find men sexy has to be the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. Even if you never left your room and only watched tv and browsed the internet, you’d know it’s crazy.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
May 11th, 2005 at 2:46 am
Plus, you know what’s really wrong at the root of all your reasoning here? That you see uncommitted free sex as a problem, but not the idea of sex as competition - you talking of getting any, beta-gamma-alpha, successful or not successful, like for you that’s taken for granted, that sex has to be about a kind of market competition for real estate property.
This comment was written by noodles.That’s what’s really screwed up, and that’s why you’re talking of rape as if it was a part of all that, and that’s why you’re not understanding a thing others have said to you on this thread.
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May 11th, 2005 at 2:48 am
Ampersand said:
You are right. My comment had no place in this thread.
I honestly don’t think my response was over the top. On the contrary, I think the way I got jumped on in this thread for daring to disagree was over the top. I have done my best to see other people’s sides in this discussion. Some posters may be disappointed that I did not see their side, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t try!
As for polemical claims, I will grant that they are a valuable heuristic, and they can make people see things in new ways. The problem comes when people forget that they are polemical, and treat them as if they were empirical. This tendency leads only to extremism, which further polarizes discussion. I am certain that is what will happen with claims like “society condones rape.” We have the same problem with MRA claims like “men are seen as the disposable sex in our society.”
As for whether “society condones rape” is an empirical claim or not, that depends. Specifically, it depends on exactly what you mean by “society.”
If you mean society as the collection of individuals that compose it, then you would have to show that virtually all its individual constituents believed that forced/coerced sex was ok. (I am using the term “forced sex” here instead of rape, to answer the criticism that society only condemns obvious violent or stranger rape.) This would either require empirical demonstration, or you would have to give other very convincing reasons why the vast majority of society would have those beliefs (such as showing that the endorsement of forced sex can necessarily be inferred from their other beliefs). The problem here is that it is very difficult to make blanket statements about what the vast majority of people believe, without using some kind of empirical methods. I think there are only a few kind of very general claims that can be made about what the vast majority of individuals believe, and these are on un-controversial subjects (e.g. “the sky is blue”).
On the other hand, if you mean “society” as a certain set of institutions, norms, and values, then “society condones forced sex” would not be an empirical claim. Yet it is not clear that current social norms lead to an endorsement of forced sex. There are clearly norms that do lead to an endorsement of forced sex. There are also norms that condemn forced sex. These norms are in conflict. I am not claiming that they balance each other out, or that the second set of norms always triumph (that really depends on the context, the subculture, the individuals involved, etc…). Yet I think there is enough ambivalence towards forced sex that I could not claim that “social norms endorse forced sex” without committing a fallacy of composition (conflating some social norms with all social norms).
Even if it was true that “current social norms lead to an endorsement of forced sex,” it would still be problematic to claim that “society condones forced sex.” Why? Because it would invite equivocation on the word “society.” People would extrapolate that if society (as in the social norms) endorses forced sex, then the vast majority of individuals in society (as in the collective of individuals) must condone forced sex. Yet as I have explained, there is no support for that conclusion. There is a gap between social norms and what individuals actually believe and act on (thank goodness).
I agree that “some social norms encourage attitudes and beliefs about gender and sexuality that have the effect of making rape more acceptable and common than it might be otherwise.” I am not sure that saying that society condones rape is best way to summarize that statement. Society endorses attitudes and beliefs about politics that led to the election of Bush. But does it follow that society endorses Bush? Obviously not. In short, just because there are forces in society that contribute to a phenomenon, it doesn’t follow that society condones that phenomenon.
Actually, most of the posters in this thread in this thread seemed united in their attempt to shout me down. I was going to address them as “you guys,” but that term seemed innappropriate considering that most of them were female. I will admit that perhaps my alternative wasn’t any more appropriate.
If I was to accept it, I would have to change my standards of evidence.
I saw Q Grrl’s comment as a thinly-veiled attempt to dismiss my argument and psychoanalyze me. I disagree with her? It must be because I stand to lose something from agreeing. After all, I must protect my “class interests,” don’tcha know? She did clarify that she didn’t intend her question towards me personally, but simply saw me as part of a larger class of males who held the same ideas about rape. That really warms my heart: now I know that instead of trying to be insulting, she is simply making baseless assumptions about me (and it’s also interesting that she can mind-read my beliefs about rape when I haven’t really explained them yet). Perhaps questions about my motives and attitudes could have been appropriate in another context if phrased more respectfully.
I will think about this. At the very least it would further convince me of the irrationality of humankind. It would also make me think that misogynistic attitudes were more prevalent than I had thought.
Of course, I must ask similar questions to you and anyone else in this thread to whom they apply: If you let go of the belief that society condones rape, would there be anything in your own life that would need changing? Is there anything you would view differently?
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
May 11th, 2005 at 3:16 am
No, it proves your point of view, that was what I was highlighting. Males finding males kissing is SO disgusting to some MALES that they actually get violent. That is sad and pathetic and causes a lot of grief.
Im confused. So are you equating these things that females do as a proof of their bisexuality? Get this: women may not think themselves as the “sexy gender” and therefore dont consider these things sexual. Try to change your point of view. And telling emotions… Pfft. Both genders do that, but in different manners.
Okay, when did I say males have all the power? So lets bury that straw-man right away. You erroneously claimed that “sluttiness” isnt a disadvantage and Im telling you it is. Men have their disadvantages too.
So does this mean I should just dismiss female disadvantages? Two wrongs dont make right. And btw, it isnt only males dictating rules for females and vice versa. Males dictate the “dont be a pussy or a fag” rule to other males (some females buy this too), and females partly dictate rules for females (newsflash: many women dislike sluts).
I agree.
Yes I know what you are saying, and my comment was pretty much unrelated to your comments. But is it really so hard to see some societal pressure towards males causing that “fucked-upness”? And the fucked-up theory might actually make it difficult to convict rapists. (Look, he´s not fucked up therefore she is lying). Or by your alphabetical ranking if “alpha” male rapes a “gamma” female then chances are that people will find it very, very hard to believe there actually was a rape.
This comment was written by armchair.Report this comment to the moderators
May 11th, 2005 at 3:25 am
Oops, double quote.
This comment was written by armchair.Report this comment to the moderators
May 11th, 2005 at 3:35 am
Actually, seeing this i cant agree anymore that uncommitted free sex is a problem. That is more to the root of the issue.
This comment was written by armchair.Report this comment to the moderators
May 11th, 2005 at 4:42 am
someone says:
Absolute rubbish. Women want sex. Many many many women want lots and lots of sex. Some want it every single second of the day. Some want it without commitment (I have a large circle of female friends who get severely moody without regular sex, and frequently get pissed off with men wanting them to commit, or trying to take relationships to another level when they just want sex - I’m not saying this is every women’s attitude, but the men are often shocked by their refusal to commit, out of some bizarre idea that women can’t want uncommitted sex).
And yes, some don’t want sex. Some men don’t want sex either. Both sides get disadvantaged by the continued stereotyping of men/women desires and wants.
But men are more inclined to homosexuality (according to most surveys I’ve seen it comes out about 30% of men are gay, about 10% of women - although this could be cultural pressure on men to be gay instead of bi, women to be bi not gay).
Yes women look at less porn. But women write more porn (type “slash fanfiction” into google - go on I dare you). Women do not mateurbate less - they just admit to it less. Do you really think Ann Summers is a multi-million pound industry because women like looking at vibrators?
I remember hearing a radio survey on BBC Radio 1 - it was asking women to call it and tell them how often they masteurbated. the catagories were a) never b) once a month c) once a week d) one a day. Nearly all the women who called got quite confused by which one to choose - they usually masterbated mulitple times a day.
How does one tell who is pursuing sex and who isn’t?
When i like a guy, I walk up to him and tell him. When I think guys looks sexy, I tell them. When I want to dance with them, I ask. When I want to sleep with them, I ask. When I want to date tham I ask. My date to my high school prom? I asked him. My last boyfriends? I asked him. I do hint, usually when I’m unsure as to whether I’ll get a favourable response (more often an apporach I use with women than with men), but when I’m sure how I feel about someone I tell them.
I don’t like feeling pursued, I don’t like pursuing. I would prefer to meet someone on a equal footing, up front about our feelings and our desires from a relationship. Unfortunately, direct approaches often confuse or intimidate men, as they have been told that they *should* be the ones making the first move.
Females find males kissing disgusting or don’t care
This comment was written by VK.Ask any female Joss Whedon fan. (Or again, slash fanfiction into google - the majority of slash tends to be male on male fantasies written by women) Male/male is the ultimate sexy for me - it’s slightly rebellious, it’s multiple pretty boys. hmm…Mal/Jayne….
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May 11th, 2005 at 7:34 am
ROFLMAO
Best. Line. Ever.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 11th, 2005 at 7:36 am
*sigh* How would I know how I feel if there wasn’t a man to tell me? Here I was thinking I had a strong sexual appetite! Thank god someone to correct me?
Seriously, you’d think women never, ever go without. I wish.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
May 11th, 2005 at 7:56 am
Someone, do you not acknowledge the “madonna/whore” complex? Do you not recognize that the woman viewed as “sexy” at night will be “nasty” in the morning?! Hell, Dave Chapelle had a comedy routine centered around that; that the woman performed so many sexually incredible exploits that night he couldn’t even look at her in the morning!
And don’t run away from the topic I brought up: the active vs. passive way of being sexually attractive. Do you have any clue of the number of drop-dead gorgeous young women who think of themselves as being plain or ugly? Fact is, confidence (sexual or otherwise) doesn’t come from other people. It comes from within. Young men have the option of taking themselves from “beta” status to “alpha” status by developing personal traits other than looks—after all, “looks” are something you either have or not, you can’t really “work” on that. And by developing a talent, these young men gain a certain confidence that translates sexually. They learn to find themselves attractive, so they carry themselves in a way that others find attractive.
Also, you have a very Anglo-Saxon assumption about physical intimacy between men. Not everyone is hung up on the idea of physical touch as being primarily sexual. Have you never seen Italian, French, Spanish, Latin American, or Middle-Eastern men interact? Get out of the house sometime, someone!
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
May 11th, 2005 at 8:18 am
Actually, all men need is money and the instantly transition to “alpha.” Look at Donald Trump. *shudder*
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 11th, 2005 at 8:30 am
Q Grrl, I also *shudder* at that thought! But what I was really trying to get at is, there isn’t any comparable way for young women to increase their ‘alphabetical’ status; it is limited by physical appearance. An ugly guy can learn how to sing and become Casanova. A homely girl can learn how to sing, or be a sports star, or play the saxophone, or whatever….and she’s still gonna be the “she’s so talented! too bad she’s ugly!” girl.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
May 11th, 2005 at 9:17 am
Those are for sex? All the women I know use them as paperweights. And they’re great for getting rid of that underarm flab. And such pretty colors! I’ve used mine to make a centerpiece for the dining-room table, along with some snapdragons and ‘mums. I call it, “Summer (Self-)Lovin’.”
Who says that women shift for themselves less frequently than men? Was I a tweener freak? I always figured the tendonitis was from typing.
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May 11th, 2005 at 9:21 am
Also, what?
Are you saying that women (a) enjoy intercourse less? (b) are less sexually aggressive? (c) are less open about sexual desire? (d) any or all of the above?
Because those things are all true, in general terms. But they have nothing to do with an innate lack of libido.
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May 11th, 2005 at 11:04 am
I was making a huge post, but then I managed to fuck up with saving it, and now it is lost. What a shame… I will make a new one after sleep.
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May 11th, 2005 at 11:19 am
I seriously doubt that someone will bother answering any of this anymore. But this caught my eye:
Almost everyone else claims that this isnt true, therefore everyone else is in denial or simply dishonest. Flawless logic here?
This comment was written by armchair.Report this comment to the moderators
May 11th, 2005 at 11:22 am
Someone: my apologies… I managed to submit exactly at the time i couldnt yet see your post. By all means, keep posting. Discussion is healthy.
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May 11th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
I’m almost the exact opposite of the woman that someone has in mind. For some reason this strikes me as very funny.
Out of curiosity, does anyone who posts here mostly fit someone’s generalizations of either men or women? Do you know anyone who does? I’d like to know how weird I am, comparatively speaking.
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May 11th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
What if you happen to fit generalizations about both? Does that count?
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May 12th, 2005 at 3:00 am
Hello there. Here is my new huge post. I think this will (hopefully) be my last post here, since this thread is becoming huge and pointless. I agree with what Aegis says, so you can discuss this with Aegis if you want and have an opponent with better verbal skills.
noodles
Some women might find some men sexy, but this isn’t comparable to the nearly obsession with sexy women that almost every heterosexual man has. There is much more magazines packed with female celebrities and models.
And of course let’s not forget the world of porn… The majority of porn is targetted at heterosexual males and it features sexy female models. Porn which features male models as the “main attraction” is called gay porn. Gay porn is mainly targetted at gay men, not women. Out of the few girls (I call them girls because they are girls my age…) I know that admitted to looking at porn, none of them look at gay porn. One looks at lesbian porn, but she is heterosexual.
I can’t find any polls now, but I bet if a study was conducted it would find out that most women actually prefer looking at couples having sex rather than at men having sex (with no women), or a single naked man.
There is a magazine called Playgirl which originally started as a “counter” to Playboy, and it features male models. At this point 25% of the readership are gay men, and its sales are much lower than Playboy.
There are however some young women that enjoy looking at yaoi (gay hentai), but for every girl that looks at yaoi, there is 10 guys looking at regular straight porn. (The number 10 is a random one.)
Let’s look at the world of advertising. Without a doubt, you have noticed that many ads feature sexy female models. Why?
Because the advertising industry has done research and apparently such ads are more effective. Why are they more effective? Because these images of sexy women have a magnetic effect on male viewers and make the advertisement settle down better in their brain.
Is there a comparable amount of attractive male models featured in advertisements? No, there is not. Is this because advertisiments don’t target women? This is very untrue, lots and lots of advertisements target women (just look at the airtime that female hygiene products alone get).
So why do these advertisements rely much less on attractive male models? My guess is that advertising companies have been doing research, and they have found out that this wouldn’t be as effective.
Summary:
There is tons of cultural evidence that suggests that women as a group are less sexually interested in looking at attractive men than the reverse, and in general they focus less on the visual aspect.
It doesn’t matter whether this is due to genetics or upbrining, it is how it is, and this is what matters.
There might be some women whose levels of visual interest in the opposite sex are comparable or even higher than the average man, but those are not the norm.
In western culture the position of the “sexy” and “beautiful” sex is held by women without a doubt. (And is there a culture where it isn’t?)
Outside of this blog this is acknowledged by pretty much anyone. I had several girls tell me “women are the sexy ones”. I bet even gay males will agree that women are nicer to look at, although they don’t have sexual feelings about them.
It is easy to see that women have evolved to rely on looks as their primary means of attracting the opposite sex.
For thousands of generations, women have been primarily selected by appearance, while men have been primarily selected by status. High status men usually ended up with beautiful women. (Although it’s different in some cultures, like patriarchal cultures that practice arranged marriage, where the family’s social status (mostly determined by wealth and lineage) plays the most important part for both.)
I don’t know what you are trying to say here… I didn’t invent sexual competition. Blame mother nature?
I am not talking about rape as if it is a “part of all that”, this is now a separate discussion. It split off from the discussion about sluttiness, remember?
—-
Aegis
Yes…
Very true.
—-
armchair
No…. I am equating these things to a proof of more tolerance to intimate activity with the same sex.
Isn’t it obvious from what I said?
See, I said “For males this would be crossing the “gay” border”. This means that for females it isn’t crossing the gay border. It is socially acceptable for them.
It doesn’t mean that all females that do these things are bisexual, it means that they have a much higher “gay border”.
“Gay border” is a term made up by me on the spot. One is crossing the gay border when others begin doubting their heterosexuality seriously
(not as a joke).
I didn’t call these things sexual, I called them “intimate”. They are things that would cause males that did them to other males to cross the “gay border”.
Yes, exactly.
Females often do it in such manners that for males would be crossing the border.
So it still shows that there is a higher “gay border” for women in the intimacy direction.
Perhaps women can be crossing the gay border by acting “too masculine”, but that means moving away from intimate interaction.
For women a much higher level of intimate interaction with the same sex is acceptable.
Female norms of heterosexuality are less strict than male ones.
(This is an observation, not a complaint.)
You didn’t, that was intented to all the people that seemed to imply that women are at a significant disadvantage, such as Ampersand and piny.
It might be, but the statement
by piny is exaggerated.
I was trying to explain that many many women, perhaps the majority of young women, fit under the definition of a “slut”, and it doesn’t seem to bother them that much. And certainly they still retain their sexual power. What is sexual power? Sexual power is the ability to make your own conditions for selecting a partner and for how this partner should act in a relationship via using one’s sexual attractiveness.
“If you want to be with me, you have to fit these criteria, and you have to act towards me like this and this.”
I don’t see how being “slutty” significantly impairs this ability.
You can try to explain to me the logic behind your point of view if you want…
This is very true, and it might be part of the reason why most posters here have a view that there is a bias against rape victims.
—-
VK
Saying “women are less interested in sex than men” is not the same as saying “women are asexual”.
And, “women are interested in sex as much as men” is not the same as “women experience the same visual interest in men as the reverse”.
Being interested in sex is not exactly the same as being visually interested in men.
piny says:
Yes, exactly.
piny is disagreeing with it later, but it is very true in my opinion.
I doubt that anyone can honestly say that it isn’t true. Just observe the people around you…