1. When a woman goes with a man, she trusts him.
2. It’s not a crime to trust someone.
3. Most men don’t abuse that trust. Men know the code. We women know that they do better than some men do, because we are the ones who go with men.
4. If you are a man, and you don’t know the code, you have the problem.
5. It’s insulting to tell women that they are fools to consider men their friends. We know who our friends are.
6. We consider men sexually ourselves. Even our friends.
7. You can be friends and respect someone you have “considered sexually”.
The root of the problem here is that we barely or don’t at all take steps to educate young men about sexual violence prevention. While girls and young women are lectured on what not to do in certain scenarios in social settings, what do we do with the guys? Why are we so afraid to lecture them on “why they shouldn’t rape or sexually assault?”?
Not sure who “we” is. I was raised with lectures on what not to do in certain scenarios, and I was inculcated with sexual ethics, personal responsibility, no-means-no, and all that good stuff.
Maybe some representatives of the morality-is-just-code-for-controlling-women crowd dropped a car off the parenting train somewhere.
Men need to teach each other not to rape. This is laughably obvious but even suggesting it is treated like setting a fucking house on fire. I’ve done more to teach men not to rape than any man I know simply by challenging these bullshit beliefs that women are always responsible when shit goes wrong. It’s tiresome.
It does beg the question as to whether or not the same kind of warnings would be seen as necessary if it were three young women and one young man. I’m inclined to believe that he’d be high-fived, and not chastised for putting himself in danger.
So Steve and his ilk are saying that men are evil and cannot be trusted.
And we’re the manhaters. . .yah. ‘Kay.
Someone being naieve does not mean she deserved it. And for fuck’s sake, most sexual assaults are committed by people the victims’ know.
Sheeit. I’ve gone out with three of my guy friends. Who knew that the basic assumption was that I was planning on pulling a train? Here I was thinking it was dinner. I’d better tell them next time that they are dangerous and vile beings who only want me around to ogle me sexually. You know, fit the feminist stereotype Steve and Kos and their merry band of misogynists cling to with such tenancity. And then they can whine about how we hate men.
You know, it’s not hard to think of scenarios where even “careful” women would “go off with three guys” she has no intention of having sex with, and I’ve been in that situation. For example:
1. She knows or works with one or more of the guys and
2. They “go off” to go smoke a joint/go to another club/get a cup or coffee or something to eat.
Like I said, it’s not hard to imagine very innocent scenarios where a woman who has a normal amount of common sense and trust in people might be in that situation. I don’t know the particular situation with the missing woman in Aruba, but to infer that any woman who “goes off with three guys” is, if not “asking for it”, being “stupid” is expecting and unreasonable amount of clairvoyance on that woman’s part.
Not sure who “we”? is. I was raised with lectures on what not to do in certain scenarios, and I was inculcated with sexual ethics, personal responsibility, no-means-no, and all that good stuff.
Same here, but I think they did (at least in my case) a really half-assed job. “No means no” got pounded into my head through sex ed and after-school specials, but it was the late 80s/early 90s form of “abstinence only”; no certainly did mean no, but there was never any example of what an honest, consensual “yes” would be. Which I’d think would be a rather important part of teaching men what constitutes consent.
I think the reason for the emphasis on the behavior of the woman is this:
Most people, upon hearing this story, think: How do I make certain that this does not happen to me?
or alternately: how do I make certain that this does not happen to my wife/daughter/sister, etc.?
Most people are not thinking: How do I make certain that I don’t victimize someone?
So most people want to be able to focus on things that the victim did wrong, so that they can reassure themelves it won’t happen to them.
Steve has made it quite clear how he feels when it’s race instead of sex. He did a post today about lynching where he pointed out, rightly, that whites share collective guilt over lynching. He did not examine whether or not the young men who might have flirted with or whistled at white women somehow set themselves up when they knew that white people cannot be trusted not to go a-lynching. That’s insane. Rape should be treated the same way.
Men know damn well what it’s like for women to be afraid to move about freely. Every time my boyfriend leaves me alone he yells, “Make sure all the doors are locked!” We all know why. Men know.
You know what really puzzles me about this? What do you want to bet that Steve, Kos etc have in fact hung out with women without planning to get laid? I mean, they presumably went to college. Did they never have female classmates who they studied with? Female co-workers who they went out for post-work drinks with? I just can’t imagine a scenario in which any man who grew up in America hasn’t found himself in a non-sexual social situation with women. Watch TV and you’ll see male and female friends hanging out without and assumption of sex to follow (I’m not a big fan of Friends but a lot of people did seem to watch it). Unless these men grew up in Iran or Saudi Arabia, I guarantee that they’ve hung out with women platonically at some point.
So, how can they ignore their own life experience? How does the “script” end up overriding reality?
One question I’ve always wanted to ask, which might work better in an anonymous forum like this than in person. Why do perfectly decent men, men who have never raped or assaulted a woman in their life and never will, still have such a knee-jerk reaction to this topic? Why do they react as if any discussion of rape is an accusation aimed at them personally? Any of the guys on the board want to take a shot at explaining this?
Another question for the guys while I’m at it. Why are they so unwilling to talk to other guys about this, and so very willing to excuse friends when they display this kind of behaviour towards women? Why don’t the guys who know damn well that this behaviour is wrong educate their less-enlightened brethren? I’m not trying to attack the guys who post on this board, I really genuinly want to know why the decent ones don’t speak up about this. Because honestly, women can talk about this till the cows come home, but the only way it’s ever going to change is if men start imposing real social sanctions on EACH OTHER for behaving badly towards women.
Yes, Amanda. That’s exactly why I find him tiresome. I don’t even read his posts on gender anymore. He just doesn’t get it. In his world certain things are “just the way it is” but other things should be changed. Depending on which side of the fence he happens to find himself.
Brit, you are so right. Steve writes all the fucking time about women without getting sexual, but he, like so many men, is so damn afraid to drop the “gotta have it” mentality lest he actually be held accountable that he plays like he feels that way. Whatever. The most frustrating thing is he writes about his girlfriend constantly and he clearly admires and respects her, but it doesn’t quite carry over to changing his mind. I like it when he writes about Jen–they seem happy, reminds me of me and my boyfriend, a genuine respectful partnership. But it just doesn’t translate. I guarantee that if someone fucked with Jen, he’d get fluff up his nose, but still, no larger understanding. Like I said in the comments, it’s a wonder to watch a guy who claims men can’t help it determine real fucking quick that men can help it if they “can’t help it” in the direction of a beloved wife or girlfriend or daughter.
I’m frustrated because I feel a sort of kinship with him and it just tees me off. He had the fucking nerve to ask if a guy has ever been “inappropriate” with me–uh, like at least twice a week, duh. I go out alot, I know a lot of men, I’m into a counter-culture scene. A guy who gets in your space and gets wandering hands is out of line, but it is not the same thing as someone who chooses to rape a crying, screaming woman. I think the reality of rape just isn’t real enough for some men. I don’t know how to make it real to them.
Oh, and as for “why”, Brit. Steve linked a man who has wandering hands to one who rapes and strangles a woman and throws her in a harbor, though I doubt that was his intention. They get defensive because on a certain level they know that the one and only way to stop rape is to give up male privilege. And once that is gone, they will either have to stop objectifying women or be objectifyed openly themselves. Either choice makes them squirm.
Also, here’s another thought. Why do we use “consent” as the baseline for when it’s appropriate for sex to happen? From a framing point of view I think that furthers the sexist idea of women as passive objects who aren’t really interested in sex and are only doing it to please their man. From a semantic point of view it reinforces the idea that sex is something that is being done to us rather than something that we’re equal partners in. Wouldn’t “enthusiastic participation” be a better benchmark? To me “consent” doesn’t really imply that the woman is at all happy to be having sex, just that she isn’t screaming and trying to run away. Surely we can set the bar higher than that.
Amanda, I’m actually a big proponent of the idea that maybe we should objectify men a bit more openly, so that maybe they will start to get a clue about how it feels to be on the receiving end. I’m actually in the process of trying to write a novel (slow and painful process) dealing with attraction, dating etc from a woman’s point of view. One of the reasons I want to write it is because there’s so little out there in the culture describing the way that women look at men sexually, how lust works from our point of view etc (although there’s plenty of the love and romance variety). Funny thing is, several guys that I’ve shown some of the intial drafts to have been deeply freaked out. I’ve heard a lot of “but women just don’t look at men that way! They’re so much more emotional…”. I think the issue is that if men accept that they are being evaluated in a sexual way just like women are, they also have to accept the idea that they might be found lacking or undesireable, and that’s pretty scary if you’ve never had to think about it before.
“You know what really puzzles me about this? What do you want to bet that Steve, Kos etc have in fact hung out with women without planning to get laid? I mean, they presumably went to college. Did they never have female classmates who they studied with? Female co-workers who they went out for post-work drinks with? I just can’t imagine a scenario in which any man who grew up in America hasn’t found himself in a non-sexual social situation with women. Watch TV and you’ll see male and female friends hanging out without and assumption of sex to follow (I’m not a big fan of Friends but a lot of people did seem to watch it). Unless these men grew up in Iran or Saudi Arabia, I guarantee that they’ve hung out with women platonically at some point…”
You and me both, Brit. I thought along those lines while reading Steve’s spiel about young men as brainless, unstoppable fuck machines. Uhhh… I guess by that criteria, no man gets past eighteen years of age with his virginity still intact. I guess he either loses it by that time or falls over dead in the attempt. :/
Of course, I notice that at least a few overgrown frat-boys in Kos-land like to insult young Right-wing guys by using “virgin” as an epithet. [snort] Yeah, it’s really of primary importance in a political discussion –even one totally unconnected to sexual issues– whether you’ve dipped your wick yet or not, Junior. I guess by that standard, we should all be ritually deflowered before being allowed to vote. You know, just to make sure that we’re qualified. Shit.
And, yeah, I too had the thought that it’s weird guys can eat Steve’s schtick up and then call feminists “man-haters.”
Alsis
Yep, whenever I hear men like Steve trot out the “man as nothing more than ambulatory gonads” tripe I start to wonder if maybe I actually like men a whole lot more than they do. I certainly seem to have a higher opinion of their intelligence.
“I really wonder if Steve realizes what he’s saying is that he would rape if he thought he could get away with it. ”
I wonder what he’d say if you e-mailed him and pointed that out.
BritGirl, I think the contrast is you’re talking about human beings who are “men,” and they’re talking about “men” as the gender construction, less than fully human. Only, they’re not thinking of it as a construction.
I really wonder if Steve realizes what he’s saying is that he would rape if he thought he could get away with it
No, he’s saying that men are evil. In fairness - I’ve never heard of the guy, let alone read him, and nothing I’ve seen here inclines me to change that status. But using my Jedi Inter-male Telepathy power, I fathom that what means by that is that he is aware that his own nature inclines toward evil “by default”. The easiest path isn’t always evil, but the evil path is often easy. He sounds like he doesn’t know much about women - and so he’s not saying that they are similarly inclined, because he doesn’t know for sure.
I am inclined to evil. The option is always there. Perhaps it is different for you. I won’t presume to speak for half the species; just this 1/6 billionth of it. The fact that my actions are not universally evil is due first and foremost to grace (grace = God cutting us some slack), and secondarily to my own conscious decisions to act in a good manner. I regretfully report that that last factor is not impressive in its magnitude, and delightedly report that the first is something to be thankful for.
Would I rape if I thought I could get away with it? Well, I believe that I can’t get away with it where it counts, so the hypothetical is moot. But my answer would have to be “I don’t know.” The only way to know is to find out; I pray never to undergo such a temptation. But even if I did undergo such a temptation, I would be aware that “getting away with it” was not on the table.
“Would I rape if I thought I could get away with it? Well, I believe that I can’t get away with it where it counts, so the hypothetical is moot. But my answer would have to be “I don’t know.”? The only way to know is to find out; I pray never to undergo such a temptation. But even if I did undergo such a temptation, I would be aware that “getting away with it”? was not on the table. ”
Robert, I’ve disagreed with you before but always thought that you were a decent person. This is the first time that I’ve ever genuinely disliked you. Are you actually saying that you might consider raping someone if you didn’t know that God would judge you for it? Because that’s what it sounds like.
I came to the conclusion long ago that I think that men are much smarter and more capable than most people give them credit for being. If I were male, I’d find all the excuses for stereotypical male behaviour positively insulting.
And BritGirl, I’m all for objectifying men more ;)
Porn, as it exists now, bothers me not because it’s sexual, but because it’s pretty much only men’s fantasies. So our own sexuality, not just our physical appearance, is idealised in terms of male desires, and to top it all off, this ideal is often accepted as fact. It’s understood that not all women look like porn stars (although there is the assumption that we probably ought to) but too few people think of women’s sexuality in ways that don’t fit into the images found in most porn - or the majority of mass media.
Thus, you get 18/19 year old guys lecturing women on female desire and guys of all ages screaming prude! when anyone dares to call a particular ad objectifying. Not to mention the blaming of rape victims instead of rapists. After all, if she didn’t want it she shouldn’t have blah blah blah - ’cause apparently, not only are all guys untrustworthy sex fiends, but it’s just not possible for women to “want it” but not want it from every guy in existence, or only want it at certain times, or in certain ways, or…..well, pretty much “want it” in any way that contradicts male fantasies.
I’m beginning to think that certain aspects of the feminist fight are ripe for a refight. Especially after I went and read some other, less feminist threads on this topic. There is an enormous amount of victim-blaming going on, for example. Nary one poster notes that a victim is not the criminal here.
BritGirlSF: “This is the first time that I’ve ever genuinely disliked you.”
I just want to point out that you asked the question and got the answer. It may not have been the answer that you wanted, but it was the answer. If women want to understand men, they cannot berate them when they expose their minds.
Men don’t excuse guys for acting on their desire to have unconsensual sex. We all know it is wrong. For men it is a matter of self-control. There are few of the “hide in the alley” men out there. I think what Robert was talking about was the “my friend is on my bed and I am pretty drunk guy”. Date rape convictions have given men more pause in these situations, but many are still overcome by their Id — which come out in full force after three or four funnels.
Talking to young men will not help them supress their Id. We think differently than that. We need physical punishment perhaps death or castration as an adequate deterrent. That way, when the little guy is saying “she is so hot” and the other guy above our necks is saying, she is your friend he can add to the little guy — “and if we touch her you will be cut off at the hilt”. Men will listen then. Guaranteed.
BritGirlSF:
Funny how things work. I’ve actually disagreed with Robert a lot, and I’ll admit that I’ve disliked him occasionally. However, his comment now seemed very sincere and even brave. What I’m finding very common is the curious double standard about rape, as in saying “boys will be boys” when dismissing cases of rape, but same people have (in my experience) in other occasions completely dismissed it as something done by “others” (as in privileged frat boys,sicko bush rapists, foreigners, etc. usually people have some pet scapegoat groap), and have been very quick to announce themselves as people who would never rape (never is a strong word, decent people have, in wars for example, turned into amoral murderers and rapists, and It’s far too easy to either blame in ot the situation or say that those people just were doing what they would have done before if given the change[I'm certain that most such people would have never thought of doing such things, but I can't really know their minds so I'm not sure]).
My personal take on the issue (as a straight male with slight liberal and libertarian beliefs) is quite similar: I know I have occasionally wanted to commit horrible acts. I can’t truly know whether I would do those acts in different circumstances, both fear of punishment, my personal moral values (respecting the rights and integrity of other people), and my slight idealism (I think honesty and respect does have it’s benefits) refrain me from doing bad stuff (also I don’t simply want to, sometimes). I have passed up opportunities to lie, cheat, steal and in other ways fo harming other people in the past because of my morals (though I have also slipped from my morals, especially if I thought I could gain something by doing so too often that I would like). I don’t know if I would wan’t to rape subconsiously. I know only that I think it is wrong, against the basic rights of a sexual self-determination, and that I would consciously resist such an urge (and I think and hope I’d be succesful in resisting it). Whether It’s not wanting to rape, God, belief in human rights, or all of them that guides a person in doing the right thing and not raping is no big difference to me, if the end is same (not raping).
On the issue of Steve Gillard: I think his position appalling and hypocritical. He’s saying It’s not about blame and then immediately finds things he can use to blame the victim with. Do these folks realize how much the possibility of rape must affect the life of an average woman, and how much must a woman self-regulate behaviour that men take for granted (going out alone after dark, inviting co-workers and friends of opposite sex in the apartment, getting drunk) because men generally don’t have worry about the risk of rape?
“so that maybe they will start to get a clue about how it feels to be on the receiving end.”
Most “average guys” would love to be objectified like your “average gal”. When is that parade starting?
I used to live in DuPont Circle and found out what it was like to be objectified by men. When you say objectified — do you mean in the way men do it or will women have their own way? I was walking in the safeway in DuPont and this guy picked up a cucumber and made licking motions and a pretty impressive tongue flutter on it. He was dissappointed when he saw my wife — “make sure you keep him close honey — we are watching him” he said to her. I was pretty uncomfortable with that situation. Not the conversation, but the tongue flutter on the cucumber. If that is the kind of objectifying you are talking about, I am not really on board with that. But if it is having Chippendales sell Venus razors I am all for it.
I applaud Robert for his honest response; a response I was expecting to hear. IMHO rape as a crime can be likened to stealing - EVERYONE has the impulse or idea to steal, but for a number of reasons which vary considerably from person to person, most of us don’t end up being thieves. Would you chastise someone who DIDN’T commit a crime, but simply because the crime occurred to them? Asking someone to transform their psyche somehow through criticism, self-analysis, insult and degredation is UNREALISTIC. Not going to happen - so just be happy that whatever prevents so many men from acting on the impulse to rape WORKS.
We need to deal with how this self-intervention FAILS in rapists, and not divert our attention to express our disappointment in those for which it is working to prevent rape.
(Before you go off at me about gender and the oppression of women, let me assure you I understand rape is a more complex crime with more complex motivations than stealing, but I was simply using theft because of its illustrative value)
jstevenson, tuomas
Please note that I was asking Robert to clarify his statement - just because I read it the way I did does not automatically mean that’s what he meant.
However, just because I asked for a response does not mean that I am obliged to like the response I get. Note that I did not tell him “you can’t say that”. Robert is free to express whatever opinion he wants, and I am free to say that I find his opinion unpleasant or even appalling if that’s what I feel. As long as we’re both being polite and not resporting to name calling (and given that both of us are typically polite and reasonable people I’m pretty sure that can be managed) I’m not seeing why we can’t disagree.
Tuomas
“Men don’t excuse guys for acting on their desire to have unconsensual sex. We all know it is wrong. “. I’m not sure that this is true. I’m fairly sure that it’s true of MOST men, but I’ve also heard men state pretty clearly that they think that rape is justified in certain circumstances.Have you never heard someone say “she was asking for it”? Or read the transcripts of a rape trial? I wish I hadn’t, but I have.
Also, I see your point about everyone occasionally wanting to do terrible things. I’m sure that anyone who’s ever had a job has thought about killing their boss at least once (I know I have). But the thing it, there’s a big difference between thinking about something and saying that you would do it if you thought you could get away with it and/or if you didn’t think that God would punish you for it. The reason I’ve never actually killed my boss isn’t because I’m afraid of going to jail, it’s because I think it’s wrong and, once I actually simmer down a bit, I don’t actually want to kill him at all. There’s a big difference between having a moment of pure rage/having you id predominate and actually acting on that rage/id. I think the difference is actually realising the impact your actions are going to have on other people.
jstevenson
By “objectify” I meant openly lust over/comment on men’s desireability the way men do with women. I didn’t mean perform obscene gestures with produce. That’s not objectifying, it’s harrasment. You should have told him to F@#$ off.
Also, “date rape” is exactly what I want to talk about. Stranger in an alleyway type cases account for only a tiny percentage of rapes, and frankly I’m not sure that any ammount of talking to those guys would get them to modify their behaviour.
What I do want to know is what the hell is going through someone’s mind in the “drunk and lying in bed with friend” scenario. If you call someone a friend, doesn’t that imply that you care about her feelings? Or is it that men don’t consider this to be rape?
Actually this is the crux of what I’m trying to get at in opening this discussion in the first place. I suspect that men may have an entirely different idea of what rape IS than women do. I think that a real discussion of this is of huge value. However, for any kind of worthwhile discussion to happen the guys have to accept that the women have a right to be upset, confused and even angry about some of the things the guys might say. Otherwise everyone will just end up either censoring themselves or screaming insults at each other, and neither of those would be particularly productive.
Aside from the rest of the post this seems to me the most striking bit: The same applies to all your coworkers and opposite sex friends. If they’re straight, they have either thought about having sex with you or reasons why they shouldn’t.
And that never happens to women? Not to the same degree?
What about individual differences? Are all men thinking about sex the same way, and on the other side, all women think of sex in their own different way?
That’s what seems to be implied in that statement.
The way I see, that kind of passing thought or fantasy about people you’re not really even attracted to is there, or can be there, for anyone, women or men, unless they’re just not interested in sex at that particular time, or in general, as a personality.
Not everyone is aware of their unconscious thoughts in the same way, but they’re there all the same. A passing thought or minimal degree of sexual friction is there even among platonic, same-sex heterosexual friendships. We can’t help it. We’re all sexual beings even if we all don’t think of sex in the same way, thankfully, or we’d all be robots. I do think those involuntary thoughts and fantasies are the way our brain processes who we are attracted to and who we aren’t; it’s a sort of mechanism of asking the question regardless, to refine the answer, so to speak.
But what the fuck does having even ‘automatic’ sexual thoughts and responses have to do with rape?
It’s not even on the same level. It’s like comparing normal sexual desire with necrophiliac tendencies. I just cannot understand how heterosexual men can connect the two things - sexual attraction and rape - and not realise how pathetic and degrading it is for them in the first place, nevermind for women. Men who think like this must think of themselves as incapable of normally attracting sexual desire from women. How else could they relate sexual drive with rape?
The link between forcing sex on women and sexual attraction should be as evidently bizarre and sick as that between forcing sex on corpses and sexual attraction. That necrophilia is abhorred by everyone but the necrophiliacs, while rape is so often explained in terms of simple sexual exuberance or “the occasion was too tempting” is what’s wrong about the whole mentality. It’s an idea of male sexuality as sick to the core. It confuses rape with the desire to pursue and conquer the sexual interest of another, which in itself is normal. It also confuses fantasies of domination, which any man or woman can have, with actual rape. Embracing that kind of confusion is just so pathetic.
Also, for Tuomas, in the interests of keeping this discussion open and honest (can’t ask that of other people if I’m not willing to live by it myself)
The reason I responded to Robert the way I did is because hearing or even thinking that a man (one who I generally find to be reasonable and sane even if I disagree with him on most political issues) might consider raping someone if he wasn’t worried about being judged by someone (even if that someone is God) scares the crap out of me. I think it scares the crap out of most women, because it implies that the man/men in question don’t really care about how we feel or whether they’re harming us, that all we are to them is a body. And that’s pretty damn disturbing.
Robert - just to be clear, I’m not accusing you of anything. If I’m misreading your comment please feel free to jump in and correct me. I’m not a Christian so God talk tends to confuse me.
Tuomas
“Men don’t excuse guys for acting on their desire to have unconsensual sex. We all know it is wrong “. I’m not sure that this is true. I’m fairly sure that it’s true of MOST men,
I’m not sure where that came from? The thing in between ” -marks wasnt written by me (and isn’t endorsed by me, because “we all” don’t certainly know It’s wrong, surprisingly many people excuse rape, in not thinking it’s really rape, if it’s done by a buddy, is after a date, is done to a girlfriend etc. but I do think it’s a rape, btw) …
The rest of your post I agree with (I’m also more concerned about date/acquintance rape than stranger rape, because the first kind is much more common, and many men indeed do not recognize all nonconsensual sex as a rape with comments like “It’s not like he was holding a knife on her throat, or beating her” in a case of a very nonconsensual-sounding situation I heard from, but not from the people involved, whom I don’t really know), though I’m probably a bit more pragmatic on the fear of punisment/recognizing the consequences -angle, as some people just don’t care about the consequences to other people, and need selfish incentives. I’m even pretty sure most very unselfish-seeming intentions have a degree of selfishness in them.
We can of course disagree, but I didn’t really read Robert’s comment as “God will punish me if I rape, therefore I will not rape”, more like “I have these morals coming from my belief in God, and I try to act on them by not raping for example, and I don’t know whether I would rape without this faith but I hope not”. That’s all.
Tuomas
Oops, the comment came from jstevenson. Sorry, my brain’s starting to shut down for the night.
One question - can you see why the pragmatic “whatever works” argument as opposed to men not raping because they know that it’s wrong might be scary and disturbing for women? Ie, why the idea that there are a potentially a bunch of guys out there who would rape if they thought they would get away with it is alarming? I’m not trying to pick on you, just trying to get a sense of how you’re thinking about this.
I have passed up opportunities to lie, cheat, steal and in other ways fo harming other people in the past because of my morals
Tuomas, that is different though. I have lied, I have cheated and I have also stolen, sometimes. Morals didn’t stop me when I had something to gain. I didn’t pass the opportunities, as long as I could get away with them and as long as the harm being done was not superior to what I wouldn’t really mind having done to me. So I never really went beyond a basically harmless limit of lying, cheating and stealing, because I didn’t even feel the need or wish to do any of that to a serious degree, not because something I’d learned stopped me. (Well, I’d love to rob a bank or a casino, without anyone even getting hurt, like in that film with Cate Blanchett and Bruce Willis whose title I don’t recall now, but that’s such a remote, childish, romantic fantasy I don’t even bother to think about it. It only happens like that in the movies anyway).
If I have never murdered or tortured anyone, it’s not because of the thought of not getting away with it, or because of learned morals, but because I really cannot even entertain the thought.
Sure, I’ve had the occasional murder instinct when getting angry; I’ve fantasised about painful retribution for people I was mad at; in the realm of hypotheticals, I could probably kill someone, in a rage, in the heat of absolute mad fury, if I got in a fight and I lost complete control of my senses (and even then, I’ve never ever got the point where fury takes over so completely, and the most I did in the grips of blind fury was smash inanimate objects…), but I couldn’t seriously say I’d ever be able to even think of it in cold blood. It would be like thinking of having sex with a corpse, again, and sorry to bring up that image. Just the thought disgusts me. If I picture myself torturing or murdering someone, I picture a version of me that is so disgusting to me I’d rather kill myself than do any of that. Even if I could get away with it, I couldn’t get away from my mind and my memory.
So I don’t think the question here has anything to do with the difference between fantasies and actual enactment of them.
I think it has to do with the very source and nature of those fantasies, and how come some people can even picture themselves raping anyone, and picture a version of themselves that they could live with (and please note I’m not even talking of remorse strictly speaking). That, aside from considerations on the victims, of course; even assuming total disregard and lack of empathy for the victims, the question is still, wouldn’t that kind of act kill your very sense of self? Unless your sense of self is constructed, personally and socially, to allow for that kind of act.
Gangsters who kill people don’t care about victims and live very happily with their crimes unless caught, because killing people is an added bonus for both their personal sense of self and social status within their gang environment. They’re tough and respected the more people they intimidated and killed. They do have morals; they’ll even genuinely care for their own children and family; it’s just a separate set of morals based on prevarication and belonging to one gang vs. another.
Men who put rape and sexual drive on the same level are saying that because in the typical frat-boy mentality men are tough and respected the more women they fuck, rape becomes another means by which that fucking comes about. Sex is in the fucking itself, fucking is a one-directional action, and so it happens that rape is directly or indirectly justified even as it is apparently condemned. Rapists must think of themselves in the same way gangsters do. They have their own mentality of what sex is and their own set of morals, based on their being part of a gang, not of humanity as a whole.
Divisions of human beings into gangs is where group violence and/or group condoning of that violence starts. (Not a coincidence that rape is so often part and parcel of ethnic conflicts).
Oops, the comment came from jstevenson. Sorry, my brain’s starting to shut down for the night.
No harm done. :-)
And to answer your question: I suppose it’s scary thought for women. Hell, I think it’s scary thought for anyone as there are women involved in my (and probably every man’s) life, and to think that there is a bunch of guys just waiting for the right time to rape them is disgusting and scary. And even when discussing women not involved in my life. However, I’m all for making sure that time is never by advocating for better education about rape to men (as in telling what really is rape [this probably would be closer to "women's idea"] and why it is always wrong, thus making the “bunch” smaller, perhaps), and making sure the rest don’t get away with it by advocating for better prosecution and more resources allocated on bringing rapists to justice (reducing the opportunities to get away with it).
“We need physical punishment perhaps death or castration as an adequate deterrent. That way, when the little guy is saying “she is so hot”? and the other guy above our necks is saying, she is your friend he can add to the little guy … “and if we touch her you will be cut off at the hilt”?. Men will listen then. Guaranteed. ”
Dude, are you seriously suggesting that feminists should advocate castrating rapists? Because I’m sure that that would do WONDERS to improve our public profile.
I wonder how many men blame the victim in cases where men are the rape victims?
Lynne, if the victims are gay, then it’s more or less the same. Because gays, like women, are not part of the gang of the heterosexual men for which rape is a kind of extreme-sport version of sex.
OK, I really need to get some sleep before I completely forget how to type but one more thing I’d like to throw out there first.
What do men actually think is and is not rape? What do women think is and is not rape? Do both sets of ideas about what the word rape actually means match up, and if not, what can all of us (both men and women) do about it?
And this wider cultural effort that seeks to dismantle unhealthy notions of sex and relations between the genders already exists. It’s called feminism. No need to reinvent the wheel. If someone hasn’t noticed the wheel has already been invented, it’s their problem.
” If someone hasn’t noticed the wheel has already been invented, it’s their problem.”
Unfortunately, that isn’t really true. It’s our problem. And I don’t think we can educate boys and young men enough that rape is wrong. It’s like all of the drug-war propaganda says - talking about it once isn’t going to stick.
OK, I lied
Lynn, in my experience I only know one man who was raped (by a group of 5 guys). The guys who attacked him saw it as gay bashing (ie they thought he was gay) even though he is actually straight. How this works is mind-boggling to me (if these were supposedly straight men why did they want to fuck another man? This would seem to support the traditional view that rape is about violence, not about sex). The guy (my ex) who was raped didn’t tell any other men for several years because he was afraid of how they would react, and it turns out he was right to be afraid. Most of the guys he told flat out blamed him for the attack by saying that he shouldn’t have been dressed the way he was (in classic eighties glam rock style) in such a bad neighborhood late at night, or if he was he shouldn’t have gone alone, and if he did he should have “tried harder” to fight the guys off. Now this guy is about 6ft 3, but to expect him to fight off 5 guys? That doesn’t seem realistic to me. So, to answer your question, the blame the victim reflex seems to operate just the same when the victim is a man. The only difference I can see is that it made other men question his sexual identity ie some of them reacted as if they thought that the reason he didn’t “try harder to fight them off” was because maybe he actually wanted it because he was gay.
noodles:
Maybe I was a bit unclear, because I couldn’t agree more. Seeing sex as competition, and men’s values determined by how many or how beautiful women they are fucking, (while simultaneously devaluing women for number of men they are fucked by) is a huge problem. The sick ideas about sex as man as the fucker, woman as the fuckee should be dismantled, the sooner, the better. And put more equal system in place that doesn’t value people on their sexual activity or lack of it.
Oh, and to add to the example addressed to Lynne RE male rape victims, in the case I’m talking about rapists repeatedly said to the victim “so, you think you’re a woman huh? well then let’s see how you like being treated like one” or something to that effect. I’m paraphrasing here - this all happened about 15 years ago. So, it seems to me that he was being “punished” for steeping outside his “proper” gender role.
Noodles
I’m totally in agreement with the fact that dividing people into “my gang” and “everyone else” is one of the root causes of this. However, I don’t think that we can just write off anyone who isn’t already onboard with feminism. The reason being, their beliefs and attitudes have an impact on everyone else around them. Men who hold these beliefs will continue to rape women. They may also spread their beliefs to other men, pass them on to their sons etc. I’m not sure what we can do about that, but I don’t think throwing up our hands in despair is the answer, no matter how tempting it might be.
Tuomas, I should have understood that’s what you meant too, sorry!
It’s just, I don’t believe there’s any men who don’t know the difference between sex and rape; the problem is that there’s men, and groups of men, who don’t care. So that’s what I was responding to basically, the idea that there has to be a specific education in that sense, that assumes that rape is down to some kind of ignorance or incapacity.
noodles:
Again, no harm done.
But I do think there are men who don’t know the difference between rape and sex, or maybe consider rape okay in some situations (they don’t call it rape, of course, and those guys might not do it personally but still think it’s okay sometimes), and writing of rape as insane (only sick men do it, the accused isn’t sick, therefore he isn’t a rapist) is bit troubling too (as in comments about how shocking it is that a sane man might actually consider that there is tiny, subconscious change that he might have an urge to rape in some conditions).
the problem is that there’s men, and groups of men, who don’t care.
Definitely. That is the second part of my cunning plan, allocating more resources on apprehending them. (And if there is a cultural change that trashes the “boys will be boys” - attitudes along with other sexist crap, rape trials will probably be much easier, and rapes much less frequent, IMHO)
BritGirl: I agree, and don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t suggesting writing off anyone who isn’t onboard with feminism! People who don’t overtly identify themselves as feminists or pro-feminist aren’t going to be all overtly anti-feminists either.
I simplified, what I meant is, the challenge to the mentality that sex and rape are in the same category of behaviour is already there (besides, it’s not just feminism alone that has made that challenge); it’s in turn challenged by stereotypes that are hard to die, but it’s there already.
When people like Steve say a lecture won’t do, well he’s right, strictly speaking, but the thing is, it’s not a lecture that’s going to change that mentality that encourages or condones rape; that mentality is not just something that some isolated individuals have and others don’t. What’s interesting in his comment is, of course, he ends up following the reasoning at the root of that very mentality that condones rape, and yet, he’s telling us rape is all a matter of some men do it, many others don’t. He’s ignoring or dismissing any social or cultural approach as if was a matter of giving ‘lectures’, and not seeing how his own view is influenced by cultural and social stereotypes that he takes for granted and instead, need some questioning.
I think that Gillard’s ideas — which also showed up in many of the comments in the various pie fight discussions — are really much more insidious than the reprehensible blaming of rape victims.
The belief that it is inevitable and immutable that men will view women not as human beings but as things with a specific utility (fuckable or non-fuckable) is just another way of saying that women are not and can never be equal to men because the power to decide and to dismiss rests with the male.
People who have this attitude will find it reasonable and right to relagate women’s concerns to the ‘unimportant shit’ that doesn’t require attention until men’s needs have been taken care of. And they definitely are not going to react well if women step out of their natural role, demanding not only to speak but to be heard.
Noodles
I think you’ve got a good point there. Why is it that Steve and his ilk can take the argument so far along, almost up to the point where it reaches it’s logical conclusion, and then somehow they just seem to hit a mental brick wall? That was part of why I was soliciting opinions from the guys - I’m hoping they can help me (and other women) to understand why that happens. Why does someone like Steve, who is perfectly capable of making logical inferences up to a point, suddenly default back to the “blame the victim” script?
Those with privilege are not inclined to self-accept blame and they are even less inclined to accept it from others. The lynching resolution is an excellent example of this — the resolution couldn’t get through until everyone in authority who were actually at fault were no longer around to have to acknowledge what they had done and still there were 19 senators who couldn’t bring themselves to accept even that minimal effort.
Tuomas, I understand what you mean but I disagree on the knowledge thing.
But I do think there are men who don’t know the difference between rape and sex, or maybe consider rape okay in some situations (they don’t call it rape, of course, and those guys might not do it personally but still think it’s okay sometimes)
See, that’s not lack of knowledge. It’s condoning, or minimising, or being used to see it as a particular extension of sex.
and writing of rape as insane (only sick men do it, the accused isn’t sick, therefore he isn’t a rapist) is bit troubling too (as in comments about how shocking it is that a sane man might actually consider that there is tiny, subconscious change that he might have an urge to rape in some conditions).
Well I’m not writing off rape as insane, the comparison with necrophilia is in the nature of the act as seen by the perpetrator, in how sex is reduced to a narcissistic act of abuse, where the other person is reduced to an object that may as well be inanimate or dead. But it is obviously different in all other respects, and I didn’t mean a rapist has to be insane, as in, not know what they’re doing, or have some completely sick compulsion like a necrophiliac has.
That said, I guess we are talking of a different notion of subconscious urge and/or fantasy.
My idea of subconscious urges/fantasies is of things I’d actually enjoy doing. Yeah, I have involuntary thoughts about scary things too, but that’s another thing, it’s fears, not fantasies.
So I’m wondering, how can anyone have a subconscious urge to rape someone, how does he picture it? How can he entertain the thought of it being satisfactory and of being satisfied with himself at the end?
Or do you mean, subconscious thought instead of urge? Because in that sense, it’s completely different. We can have subconscious thoughts about things we really find disgusting as well as wrong. I can think of myself drinking a gallon of dirty water from the sewers, but that thought doesn’t exactly make me question the fact I’d never feel the urge to do it. It’s not my idea of pleasure. That knowledge of one’s sense of pleasure/disgust is at the level before morals, before knowledge of right and wrong. In my mind, forcing someone to have sex, absuing them, (ie. not consensual bondage or S&M scenarios or anything like that) is similarly disgusting; it’s just not something I could even conceive enjoying. I can picture myself doing it, but I just don’t see the appeal.
So I’m wondering, are we talking pure speculations, or fantasies or hypothetical urges?
Most “average guys”? would love to be objectified like your “average gal”?. When is that parade starting?
Yeah, most people say this. I don’t buy it. I think the “average guy” assumes that (i) she’ll lust specifically after him; (ii) he’ll still be in control of when/where/how, and will be able to turn off the objectification if it’s unwanted; (iii) the “average gal” who’s doing the objectifying will be someone he finds attractive; and (iv) there will be no repercussions - that is, he will still be treated exactly the same otherwise.
Amanda, you seem to imply that all that is needed to stop rape is merely some character education initiatives. But men have been teaching each other not to steal since the dawn of civilization, and we still steal; men have been teaching each other not to kill since then as well, and we still kill. And we still covet our neighbor’s wife, and we still dishonor our mother and father, and the meek still have not inherited the earth, and you may insert a thousand teachings of Hammurabi, Moses, Christ, or the Egyptians or Greeks here. If human nature is in these ways imperfectible by mere instruction and teaching, why do you believe it to be perfectible in the case of rape? I sincerely hope you will reply.
See, that’s not lack of knowledge. It’s condoning, or minimising, or being used to see it as a particular extension of sex.
…That is true. It isn’t exactly knowledge. Point taken. (Also, my insanity point wasn’t exactly directed at you, it was a random thought I had following the discussion with BritGirl about Robert’s comment, and something I’ve heard often, my apologies)
Also the distinction between thoughts and urges is to the point, and it is quite sad (but true) that rape fantasies and one-way sexuality are probably linked. Also, could be that some rapists believe, or fool themselves into believing that the rape is what the woman wants, too. Lack of empathy follows from objectifying for personal satisfaction, or is it the other way around (can’t answer this myself)?
AndiF:
And good point about the welcomeness of being objectified as a man, I have similar thoughts about the issue. I’ve observed (straight)men getting totally freaked out by women who objectify blatantly (goes against social norms, I suppose).
Yeah, most people say this. I don’t buy it. I think the “average guy”? assumes that (i) she’ll lust specifically after him; (ii) he’ll still be in control of when/where/how, and will be able to turn off the objectification if it’s unwanted; (iii) the “average gal”? who’s doing the objectifying will be someone he finds attractive; and (iv) there will be no repercussions - that is, he will still be treated exactly the same otherwise.
What Jeff said. My office is near the red-light district in the city, and many of my male coworkers admit they don’t like walking near the GLBT section because of the unwanted attention they get from “customers” - they are actually offended that just being out in public in that part of town gets them treated as sex objects.
That’s okay — I’m not above accepting undeserved praise :)
Yeah, if men like being objectified, explain the issue of gays in the military to me again. Shit, the barest likelihood of being treated ‘like a woman’ is such a matter of terror for men that they can’t even deal with sharing a barracks with gays.
And that fear kind of amounts to acknowledging just what they do to women, doesn’t it? I don’t think a guy who didn’t do it to women would fear it so much himself.
Yeah, I don’t buy that men are okay with being objectified. I think there’s a significant difference between how men react to gay men and lesbians, and I think most of the greater hostility to gay men is the fear that straight men will be viewed as sex objects: viewed, pursued, categorized, depersonalized and made a canvas for someone else’s fantasies.
Now, I’ve been cruised by gay men in lots of situations — including marches and other activist stuff where my presence contributed to the assumption that I was gay. I’ve found I’m not bothered by any approach that isn’t outright harrassment. But then, I have the privilege of being a guy, and a certain physical confidence about my ability to defend my boundaries comes with that. I simply cannot imagine the combination of being aggressively cruised, the lack of physical confidence that comes with a smaller and weaker body, and the absolute lack of understanding or assistance that society offers to women in defending their own physical boundaries. I cannot imagine it, but I know women experience that as a matter of course.
The only similar situation I think most men can imagine is being surrounded by physically imposing gay men in an environment where they were isolated, and where they would be assumed to be looking for sex with men by their very presence. Most straight guys would concede that the thought of such a situation scares them witless.
On the whole, I don’t think that women being forthright in how they view and judge men is a mirror image of male objectification of women, because of the other factors I have discussed. However, I think it might do a lot of good anyway. It might help some men see women as sexual subjects, real people with desire and agency, instead of objects. It might change the active-passive dynamic that Noodles discussed, if very slowly. It might also be just uncomfortable enough to get men thinking about what women have to deal with.
Finally, I agree with Noodles and others that men who rape don’t lack understanding of the difference between sex and rape but rather don’t care. However, I’m not sure that lecturing doesn’t work. What I expect these guys to learn by being lectured is not that rape is wrong, and it’s not what rape is. I expect them to learn something they really don’t know, and which is too often not their experience: that lots of men will not support them and make excuses for them when they rape. That not every guy will be quick to draw distinctions between their acquaintance rapes and “real rape.” That their targets might get some support. I don’t think I can change whether they think rape is wrong. I do think I can change whether they think I’ll be on their side if they do it.
I can’t even deal with that thread anymore, guys talking down to me–”Amanda, we know rape is a crime. Do you?” type stuff. They think women are stupid and then also think that we should know what’s going on in every man’s head and determine if he’s going to rape us or not.
Yeah, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If men really felt that objectification would give them power, they’d all be quitting business school to become strippers. They know better than that, despite the customary disingenuousness on the subject. “Women wouldn’t like to see naked men straddling an oiled pole in a dingy bar” blah blah blah. Well, some women wouldn’t, and others would fear societal disaproval if they did express a liking for it. But in our market-driven society, that’s hardly the point. Marketing can get large numbers of people to consume and covet any object it feels like hawking– so long as the pitch is done right.
And you don’t even need such a crude and dopey example as oiled naked jocks in a strip bar. If the fashion industry wanted to persuade businessmen, for instance, to wear see-through mesh shirts and nipple-rouge under their blazers by telling them that they’d get “power” from it, you can be damn sure a lot of men would try it. That is, they’d try it if it were marketed the way that light beer was: With an unrelenting parade of manly-male icons talking about how much more of a man you’d be if you tried it.
Next season, the fashion industry would say that mesh shirts and nipple-rouge were out;Now the big thing is shiny-knee length trousers with slits over each ass cheek. And so on, and so on. It would happen IF men really believed that being one of the women relegated to the status of animatronic mudflaps (ie– the pie-fight ad) was some kind of desireable, permanent power with no meaningful drawbacks. But (with a few exceptions in the gay community) the admen don’t, the businessmen don’t, the male jocks don’t, the male bloggers don’t. They’re smarter than that, but they think that women are too stupid to notice the bogus and transitory nature of this “power” ourselves.
Yeah, most people say this. I don’t buy it. I think the “average guy”? assumes that (i) she’ll lust specifically after him; (ii) he’ll still be in control of when/where/how, and will be able to turn off the objectification if it’s unwanted; (iii) the “average gal”? who’s doing the objectifying will be someone he finds attractive; and (iv) there will be no repercussions - that is, he will still be treated exactly the same otherwise.
I know that a lot men squawk at this–for instance, in the earlier Kos thread at Gilliard’s I made a completely off-the-cuff remark about my smoking hot boyfriend to an ally in the thread and 100 comments later, those guys were still gnawing on it and telling me under no uncertain terms that it was unacceptable to say things like that. And these were guys defending the pie fight ad. And, if I weren’t a good feminist, this is the point where I would say, “Didn’t their mommas raise them better?”
Still, I think it’s for this reason alone that turning the tables is an extremely effective strategy, far better than simply telling them to quit objectifying women. Teach men that they too are objects of desire, that they too have to consent to sex with a woman. Treat them as the Keepers of the Cock like women are treated as the Pussy Oversoul (thanks, zuzu!) and maybe they’ll learn that it’s not fun to be treated like you have something that has to be gotten out of you by trickery, rape, cajoling, whatever.
Sex is consensual on the part of both parties, or else it’s rape. It’s pathetic that we have another generation of young men that don’t get this basic fact.
Why do Gilliard, jstevenson, etc. say that men think about sex all the time, that all men think of all women in sexual ways, etc.? Because they have been taught to do so since early childhood. Dad shows Junior “Playboy” when Junior is 5. Dad tells Junior how women are different than men (on the rag, a slave to cock, etc.). In school, Junior’s playmates (who have been taught the same things) reinforce not only these beliefs, but the need to act as if women are a different species. In highschool & college if you don’t talk about how you’d like to fuck this girl or that, you are suspect. When you enter the workforce, on your breaks the guys will ogle women and say things like, “I’d do her.”
In real estate the saying is, “Location, location, location.” In stereotypical views of men and women it is, “Gender roles, gender roles, gender roles.”
I am sickened by statements like, “We think differently than that. We need physical punishment ….” Maybe you think differently than that, but don’t lump me in with you, you twisted soul. Women & men don’t think differently. They, as a class, don’t think differently than one another because they’ve got different genitals. Keep pushing the “differences” and you keep pushing fear & hate & superiority/inferiority.
“We think differently,” indeed. You know you can substitute race in there and it’s something you hear all the time from racists, right?
Here are some things that boys (where I grew up) hear a lot:
Men and women can’t just be friends.
Women are different.
I’d fuck her.
I wouldn’t toss her out of my bed.
Women aren’t rational.
Are you gay?
Yeah, men just want sex all the time. Welcome to the world of the Mentors — “Find ‘em, feel ‘em, fuck ‘em, forget ‘em.”
Maybe I’m just unimaginably far from the norm, but you guys seriously creep me out.
“…Date rape convictions have given men more pause in these situations, but many are still overcome by their Id … which come out in full force after three or four funnels…”
[slaps forehead]
Oh, bullshit. Just above this you decry excuse-making. Then with this quote you turn around and say that alcohol, a fucking DEPRESSANT, is a crucial factor in turning nice guys into sex-crazed monsters. Please. Would you also argue that “three or four funnels” would make a man’s Id lead him to rob a bank or commit some other non-sexual crime ? WTF ?
I’ve gone drinking with male friends intermittently throughout my adult life. What “three or four funnels” of beer or whisky usually does is make us all groggy and inclined to make a lot of trips to the bathroom. Yeesh.
I know that a lot men squawk at this”“for instance, in the earlier Kos thread at Gilliard’s I made a completely off-the-cuff remark about my smoking hot boyfriend to an ally in the thread and 100 comments later, those guys were still gnawing on it and telling me under no uncertain terms that it was unacceptable to say things like that.
Amanda: I got the impression that was just ideologicalal judo - they were trying to deflect complaints about their own offensiveness by wilfully missing the irony, calling you a sexist and acting offended.
Amanda - “Keepers of the Cock” - I love it! Too bad it won’t be used in a national advertising campaign. I can see it now - billboards! bus stops! magazines! TV! radio! newspapers! Superbowl! bobbleheads! (OK, now I’m getting a little giddy.)
Yeah, Amanda, lots of guys are full of shit, even with themselves, about sex and power and being on the receiving end. It’s easy to talk a good game about taking any offer, but lots of men get freaked out when pursued aggressively.
When I was a teen, I remember one young woman, a few years my junior, with whom I had had one pretty nice encounter. Now, I was a senior in high school, and because of the age difference I might have expected to be accused of corrupting her. We went somewhere to be alone — we were both, in fact, looking for sex — and she reached down my pants with no preliminaries and no warning and grabbed my cock and balls rather roughly. It hurt a little, but as many readers here know, that’s no downside for me. But it really shocked me because it was invasive, and it blew the mood, and we never hooked up again. Now, I did in fact want to fuck. With her. Right then. If she had asked me to pull my cock out, I would have. If she had just moved slowly enough that I knew where she was going, it would have been fine. But as soon as I felt that I had lost the ability to defend my own boundaries, it freaked me out. I’m not sure I understood why at the time, but I realize now that, as a guy (and at the time a serious martial artist), I really took for granted my ability to control access to my body. When that assumption was challenged, it killed the hard-on, and the encounter.
Now, I’m different enough when it some to sexuality that I don’t always assume my experience can be generalized to other straight men. However, I really question this self-aggrandizing bullshit story some men tell about their own responses to objectification.
Also, could be that some rapists believe, or fool themselves into believing that the rape is what the woman wants, too.
Tuomas, that’s a very good point, for a rapist to get a kick out of it it he has to entertain the notion that women like to be subjugated and passive and that no actually means yes and all those ideas that basically women are a different species (and a slightly subhuman one too) so you can just use them for your own pleasure. It’s more than objectification, it’s scorn, hatred, and a boundless sense of ego.
In the end it goes back to what is the nature of that pleasure, of seeing rape as something that you can get a kick out of. The kick has to be in that subjugation, in the nature of abuse and coercion. That, I don’t think it’s something one can normally fantasise about but refrains from only for moral reasons. It essentially has nothing to do with sexual pleasure. How can there be sexual pleasure without the other person actively and gladly participating in it?
For any man to even see rape as an extension of sexual pleasure, without seeing themselves in the process as a sick freak, a stalker, a psycho, they need to believe in a series of things about themselves (and the male gender) and the other person (and the female gender) that allows them to rape and get away with it in their own mind and that of their ‘gang’ who will condone or excuse or even boast about that act. So it’s impossible to look at rape without looking at the social and cultural mentalities that influence it. Even if the responsibility of each rape is ultimately individual, it’s impossible to reduce it entirely to individual inclinations. Yes, if it was only a handful of rapists a year, then we could consider it literally like necrophilia, something that is so removed from any common social mentality, something that is so universally taboo, that it would be literally a case of ‘most men don’t do it, only a very few sick men do it, so no social or cultural approach is going to have any effect’. But it’s a lot more widespread than that. That’s why the ‘we know it’s a crime already’ responses are so pathetically missing the point.
Why do perfectly decent men, men who have never raped or assaulted a woman in their life and never will, still have such a knee-jerk reaction to this topic? Why do they react as if any discussion of rape is an accusation aimed at them personally?
Because, with the article and so many of the replies, I feel like perfectly decent men are being lumped in with the rapists, scumbags, and murderers of the world. I don’t know if it is a concious thing on the author’s part, but I’m just saying what I feel.
Am I responsibile for the actions of murderers? Kidnappers? Why am I being held responsible for rapists? Why is it my duty to educate them? I don’t even know who they are!
Why are they so unwilling to talk to other guys about this, and so very willing to excuse friends when they display this kind of behaviour towards women?
First of all, none of my friends display this kind of behaviour toward women. If they did, they wouldn’t be my friends. I don’t want to hang out with people like that.
The only example I can think of that’s remotely applicable is something I didn’t even see, but heard about (because we do talk about this kind of stuff, thanks for the stereotype). My friend was with his boss at a bar, and his boss was really drunk. He was grabbing the behinds of almost every woman in the bar. Totally over the line, asshole behavior. Well, he’s my friend’s boss — what’s he going to do? The best he could do was get the guy out of there, apologize profusely, because he can’t lose his job. And now he avoids hanging out with his boss at all costs, and everyone in our circle knows his boss is an asshole.
Any attempt he would have made to educate the guy a) probably wouldn’t have worked, since obviously someone much earlier down the line screwed that part up and b) could have very possibly gotten him fired or in a fistfight or both.
Why don’t the guys who know damn well that this behaviour is wrong educate their less-enlightened brethren?
Again, other than educating my kids about how to respect others (men and women), what exactly am I supposed to do? I can’t be held responsible for the behavior of other grown adults that I don’t know, or barely know, male or female.
But as soon as I felt that I had lost the ability to defend my own boundaries, it freaked me out.
That is so exactly the point.
Thanks for that detailed illustration, Tuomas! :)
Imagine if you had been made unable to re-establish boundaries at all, and she (maybe easier to imagine it with a HE) hadn’t stopped there.
If a woman does overstep boundaries, it’s rightly seen as an uncomfortable thing that freaks you out. If a man does it, or even more than that, we start to ask if maybe the woman had given him ambiguous clues and perhaps he thought she was really into it and misunderstood so he thought it was ok to ovestep those boundaries, like uncertain situations are enough of a justification for unwanted moves (chanelling Aegis!). Then we even deny there’s a mentality behind it!
I was taking a long walk and thinking these issues over this morning and realized how it really is critical for men to address our rape culture by thinking about how they model sex. And Thomas, your use of “with her” is a great example of how to chip away slowly at this. I said on Steve’s blog that sex is fucking a girl who likes it. But I think a better phrasing is that sex if fucking a girl who’s fucking you back. And that’s gonna make a lot of men squirm.
noodles:
I think your analysis on the (non)validity of rape fantasies is quite true, but I’m also clinging to the perhaps hypothetical idea that there are men who do consciously refrain from raping, even though they would want to rape (okay, maybe they aren’t exactly “normal”). But I do think that most rape is in some way “cultural”, and is linked to beliefs about gender differences.
And about the alcohol thing by jstevenson… Alcohol does indeed remove inhibitions and lessens perception, rational thinking and sexual capability . But I, as a man, am a bit insulted by the suggestion that after a couple of drinks I might date-rape, and by the claim “it’s just that a thing that we men do”. If there indeed is person who knows that he might very likely (if given the opportunity) rape (or commit a crime of similar magnitude, and this goes for women too) after a couple of shots then it would truly be the height of irresponsibility to drink alcohol at all (and such people after committing crimes when drunk, probably will vehemently use the “but I was drunk” -defense). I’m guessing such people might get drunk for the purpose of doing things they couldn’t live with if they did them sober.
It’s easy to talk a good game about taking any offer, but lots of men get freaked out when pursued aggressively.
Or even when you take their “men want it all the time” seriously. I’ve occasionally responded to that braggadocio with “Really? Okay, let’s go fuck now” and have always been met with stammering excuses.
Myth, as usual, you completely rule. It’s so true–the flipside of the women got it, men want it belief is that when you, as a woman, make a pass at a man, and get shut down it’s completely devastating. If he doesn’t want sex with you and men will take all comers, you figure that you must stink or something. I’ve talked about this before, but I think it’s a little remarked upon result of these stereotypes.
I think your analysis on the (non)validity of rape fantasies is quite true, but I’m also clinging to the perhaps hypothetical idea that there are men who do consciously refrain from raping, even though they would want to rape (okay, maybe they aren’t exactly “normal”?).
Tuomas, then I would also agree, with that added clause. There has to be something slighly warped to be able entertain that fantasy as a pleasant scenario (as opposed to having a passing thought about it).
Would I rape if I thought I could get away with it? Well, I believe that I can’t get away with it where it counts, so the hypothetical is moot. But my answer would have to be “I don’t know.”
This admission seriously upsets me.
If I ever had the opportunity, no, I would never rape or maim or kill an innocent person. Even if a little corner of me wouldn’t be opposed to it, even if we were at war, I wouldn’t do it. I tend to believe–as many conservatives, including Robert (or so I thought), tend to believe–in a little thing called “personal responsibility.” If you can’t know how you’ll act when it comes to as terrible and as violent a crime as rape, I posit that you can’t know anything about yourself at all, and you might as well abandon all pretensions of morality.
And I have this weird opinion that men will not stop raping as long as they believe that they might. Robert didn’t say that a part of him might want to rape a woman, but his conscience would stop him. No, he said, “I pray never to undergo such a temptation.” How can we ever make the point that RAPE IS BAD as long as people continue to believe that it’s no more than a temptation?
I have to agree with Brit’s original comment: Until this point, I could take Robert or leave him, but now he’ll always be “that guy who might rape me if he could get away with it.” Anybody else want to jump in and make the world a little darker?
If women want to understand men, they cannot berate them when they expose their minds.
Yeah, we should all just go around praising someone who says that he might rape a woman for his courage and honesty in speaking up. We should award medals to every man who says something that horrible, because, hey, he’s just a stupid man, he can’t be expected to actually think before he speaks.
I thought you weren’t supposed to post on rape threads, jstevenson.
Thanks Hestia, for bringing Robert’s comments up again. My question is where did Robert go? He basically said, “I don’t know if I would rape if I could get a way with it. I hope I’m never tempted.”
I think that’s seriously and totally fucked up. I think it comes across as “brave” because so many men don’t admit to this. I don’t care if you admit to it or not, recognize it as a seriously fucked up thing to think then.
And to all the other men on this thread, how would you answer that question? Do you feel the same as Robert? Do you not know what you would do if you could get away with it?
And be sure to apologize like hell for the answer if it is yes. Just because someone says something nobody is willing to say doesn’t make it noble. It’s disgusting.
I’m on a national coordinating committee with a man who does anti-rape education in schools and he said when he gets requests to do a one-day workshop he turns them down. In his 20 years of experience, he has found that a one-day workshop actually makes boys attitudes worse than no workshop at all because it is not enough time to build a relationship and get to the place where real progress is made.
A one-day workshop leaves the education incomplete but their minds are charged on the topic of gender so what do they do? Talk about it with their adolescent friends in peer-group situations where constructing masculinity is the goal and rejecting what ’suits’ say and repeating an Eminem lyric reaffirms their masculinity in opposition to girls (the above-mentioned ‘gang/group’ theory).
Two years ago I started something I call “$5 Dicks.” I was at Oregon Country Fair (quasi-hippie festival) and even though nudity is acceptable I didn’t see any penises, real or artistically representated. However, I was quite literally surrounded by almost invariably pretty topless girls and portraits of breasts, breasts and more breasts. One man in a loincloth dancing near a stage was mercilessly ridiculed by a mixed group of teenagers sitting near me who were disgusted at his near-nudity.
This was bugging me, and then I saw it. A booth of fairy figurines was 99% female fairies but there was one male fairy- and he had a little clay penis! I rushed up to the booth and thanked them for showing me the first and only penis in a sea of breasts, but I think they were disappointed I didn’t buy anything.
A few weeks later I was handing out condoms at the Alberta Street Artwalk and there were no topless women but painting after picture after portrait of naked women and not a penis in sight. This was bugging me, and then I saw it. A man who drew comic book fantasy art had drawings of dragons and other creatures displayed and, of course, his mermaids, she-unicorns, and she-yetis had enormously huge breasts with finely detailed nipples. He had one picture on display of two yetis, one male and one woman, but where the male yeti penis should’ve been was a tuft of blue hair.
me: “Where’s his dick?”
him: “Under the tuft of hair.”
me: “Is your dick hidden behind a tuft of hair?”
him: “It’s just a picture.”
me: “I’ll give you $5 right now if you can show me a drawing of a penis in your art collection. I only ask because I can tell from the naked women you drew that you’re a man who’s comfortable with naked human bodies.”
him: “Come back next time.”
I’m still willing to give $5 to an artist I come across with a penis in their art, but so far I haven’t seen another since the fairy.
Robert: are you really saying that you can reduce a woman down to something that you get to rub your penis in, if you can get away with it? That the only thing standing between your utter dehumanization of a woman is your prayers? Are you also saying “getting away with it” is *not* contingent on a woman stating “no?”
I’m pretty sure you got your knickers in a wad during the “all men benefit from rape” threads. You didn’t want to be classed with men who raped. You thought it unfair, manhating, and begged for proof. But just months later you write that you would rape, given certain circumstances. When you have the discussion about sex-ed with your daughter, are you going to include this informaton? If not, why? Shouldn’t she know that “even men like daddy” are capable of only seeing her as a cunt? Shouldn’t she have this bit of ammunition in her arsenal? Shouldn’t she know that despite what *she* might want out of life or human interaction is meaningless when compared to a man’s intimate relationship with “god” and “temptation”?
Up until this point I’ve disagreed with your politics.
Now, you sicken me. You have read countless threads about how women feel about rape and how it socializes women. Yet you can still be “honest” and “admit” that you would rape, if only…
Of all the “hypotheticals” for you to equivocate on, this is the most telling about your moral fibre and the value you place on women’s humanity.
I had a guy on my blog who said that men had uncontrollable sex drives, women had no sex drive, and that men should be commended for not doing more damage or something. The gist was that men deserved to be praised for, you know, not hurting more women with those uncontrollable sex drives.
Amanda, “[w]ith her” served two functions. Mostly, I meant to point out that the fact that I was horny and wanted sex was not the same as wanting sex with just anyone. While this may seem self-evident coming from men, our culture refuses to make this distinction with women because it refuses to respect them as subjects. It also served to make the point of mutual interaction, which is just so obvious to me and just so not obvious in our culture. That’s one area where I think my experience really is different: doing S/M, the mutuality of the experience is no subtext. It’s the text.
HC: “And to all the other men on this thread, how would you answer that question? Do you feel the same as Robert? Do you not know what you would do if you could get away with it?”
My answer is a solid, “NO!” No, I would never rape anybody. There are no circumstances under which I would rape anybody. I do know what I would do if I could get away with it, and rape is not one of those things. If Robert were my friend and admitted to such a thing, I would advise him to get some counseling because there is something seriously wrong if you think you might rape somebody if you could get away with it.
Perhaps it’s because I knew from a very young age what it is like to be physically overwhelmed and powerless? I can’t say for sure.
HC, Robert’s comment made me angry. I don’t fantasize about rape. Not that I’m a pacifist or even uncomfortable with violence. I just don’t find sexual interaction with someone who rejects me at all enticing.
Again, maybe having an outlet to deal with power dynamics in consensual sex makes me different from some other men. But it also gives me lots of personal insight into vulnerability and fear. Not that I know what women have to deal with, but I know enough to know that I’m glad I don’t know.
I forsee another round of people complaining about how it’s unfair for them to be sandbagged when they answered a question honestly. The answer was honestly revolting.
OK, thanks to Jeff and Amanda, and to the tune of “Riders on the Storm”:
Keepers of the Cock
Keepers of the Cock
Into this bod we’re born
Into this skin we’re thrown
Like a key without a lock
Or New Kids on the Block
Keepers of the Cock
There’s a rapist on the street
He’s scopin’ everyone he meets
He makes a power play
Where his dick holds sway
If ya let his bad deed ride
Sweet innocence will die
Rapist on the street, yeah
Guys ya gotta keep it zipped
Guys ya gotta keep it zipped
When the gal says NO
Let your respect show
If she’s really eager
You’ll know you can believe her
Ya gotta keep it zipped, yeah
Wow!
Keepers of the Cock
Keepers of the Cock
Into this bod we’re born
Into this skin we’re thrown
Like a key without a lock
Or New Kids on the Block
Keepers of the Cock
The only way to know is to find out; I pray never to undergo such a temptation. But even if I did undergo such a temptation, I would be aware that “getting away with it”? was not on the table.
and jstevenson wrote:
I think what Robert was talking about was the “my friend is on my bed and I am pretty drunk guy”?.
Of course anyone can see that the stuff jstevenson wrote is pure speculation. I fear the distinction between what Robert wrote and jstevenson’s “analysis” might have been lost somewhere along the way. So to prevent people from figuratively shooting themselves in the leg I’m (and I hope I don’t sound overtly patronizing) posting this reminder in case anyone missed it. Of course some might find Robert’s comment disgusting too (and have every right to do so), but I’m getting much more disgusted by jstevenson’s claims about men (I never gave him the right to represent me, for example).
Or could be that jstevenson’s speculation was correct. Can’t know for sure. I only know that if Robert gets to point out this stuff after taking lot of attacks he will have a field day, and I really only want him to be miserable ;).
I was once a member of a primarily male board. Every day, just about, there were threads of over a hundred posts of hot women in few clothes.
I got sick of it and made my own thread of hot guys with as offensively objectifying comments as I could think of. On and on I ground with that thread, trying to rub the guys’ noses in their behavior. After three hundred posts (mostly my own) someone (a man) stepped in and began mocking the men’s appearance as the models not being ‘real men’. Other men jumped in and talked about how hurtful it was when I said that some of the models needed to lose weight because the models were much thinner than they were. Guys got angry because I was dehumanising men. And yet they did it every day to women and didn’t appear to notice.
Men do not want to be objectified any more than women do.
I don’t even think that Robert was being all that honest. I’ve heard guys from deeply religious backgrounds say stuff like that before, and it’s only a rotten layer of an onion whose deeper layers are yet more rotten. What sexists who base their morality first and foremost on a “personal relationship with God” usually mean is that “I can ask God for forgiveness anytime” is pretty much the same as “I can get away with it.” :(
Thomas, it gave me a lot to chew over, though. I think that many men’s unwillingness to embrace female subjectivity is probably one of the biggest underlying causes of the rape-permissive culture. Like BritGirl pointed out, men desire, women consent. Well, men also consent and women also desire and unless all four elements are in place, you should walk away from the encounter.
I don’t believe that I could ever rape, under any circumstances. But…
How many of the mobs who contributed to or directly committed mass-murder and mass-rape in Rwanda would have said, “If I could get away with it, I would rape and murder” if someone had asked them that in 1990? I bet lots of them would have said “I could never do something like that. I could never rape. I could never kill if it wasn’t self-defense.”
I assume everyone here has heard of the famous experiment in which test subjects were given a button to press, which they were told would give a painful electric shock to someone in the next room. A person in a white lab coat ordered them to press the button, and if they did an actor in the next room screamed as if in horrible agony. What the experimenters found is that the vast majority of people tested kept on pressing the button when ordered to - despite the screams of pain.
I’m sure that we’d all like to imagine that, if we had been a subject of that experiment, we would have been among the tiny percentage of people who refused to press the button. But if nearly everyone says that they wouldn’t have pressed the button, but we know that in fact most people did, then what can we conclude?
I conclude that people’s self-assessments of what they’d do are probably not always accurate. As Robert said, you can’t know for sure until you’re tested.
In a world gone mad - if I had been in the midst of the Rwandan genocide - what would I have done? I think I would not have raped, not in that circumstance, not in any circumstance.
But then again, I think I would not have pressed the button.
But I think a better phrasing is that sex if fucking a girl who’s fucking you back. And that’s gonna make a lot of men squirm.
Interesting thing to say, it reminded me of a ‘discussion’ I had on another board last year. I had replied to a thread discussing sex, most of it a bunch of men od’ing in bravado, and I said something along the lines of ‘well when I fuck my husband blah blah’. It was met with a kind of uncomfortable shock. I got chastised, as well as a few choice words being tossed my way. Only a few reacted positively. At the time I had thought nothing of it, until realised just how threatened these men seemed at the idea of being ‘fucked’ back by a woman. Thinking about it now, it really fits in to this statement.
Most “average guys”? would love to be objectified like your “average gal”?. When is that parade starting?
I sincerely doubt this is true. “Most guys” just probably think objectifying means finding them sexy, just as they are, rather than holding them up to unachievable standards. Something my brother loves to complain about the few times it does happen to men.
Or, you know, what Jeff and ginmar said.
“I think it scares the crap out of most women, because it implies that the man/men in question don’t really care about how we feel or whether they’re harming us, that all we are to them is a body. And that’s pretty damn disturbing. ”
Yeah, that’s what bugged me about that too. To go with the stealing analogy (despite it’s faults) one of the big reasons why I don’t steal is because it’s harmful, even if only a little bit. So the idea that rape being harmful to others doesn’t play a part in the average guy’s morals scares the crap out of me.
I second the comment that this is a great thread.
Amanda, are you talking about your own post - ’cause I seriously want to go kick some ass (or, well, um, at least try to) but I’ve been having issues with typekey. :(
I do know what I would do if I could get away with it, and rape is not one of those things. If Robert were my friend and admitted to such a thing, I would advise him to get some counseling because there is something seriously wrong if you think you might rape somebody if you could get away with it.
Part of the difference between you and Robert is the difference between someone who thinks “I do know what I would do if I could get away with it” and someone who thinks that such things are inherantly unknowable. I tend more towards Robert’s view than towards yours, as far as that question goes.
I don’t think there’s much limit to the evil people will do, if circumstances are right. Faced with Nazism, some people refused to cooperate, and some people hid Jews; but the vast majority went along with the flow, regardless of how evil that flow was.
Perhaps it’s because I knew from a very young age what it is like to be physically overwhelmed and powerless? I can’t say for sure.
I’ve met plenty of guys who were picked-on wimps in childhood and who grew up into classic misogynists, resentful of women because of a sense of wounded entitlement. (Go to a comic book con, you’ll meet dozens of guys like that - as well as dozens who are not, of course.) Would some of those guys rape if they were sure they could get away with it? I suspect so.
Q Grrl wrote:
Robert: are you really saying that you can reduce a woman down to something that you get to rub your penis in, if you can get away with it? That the only thing standing between your utter dehumanization of a woman is your prayers?
Rereading Robert’s comments, I don’t think he can fairly be said to have said either of those things.
I sincerely doubt this is true. “Most guys”? just probably think objectifying means finding them sexy, just as they are, rather than holding them up to unachievable standards.
Well, that and they think it means someone who they find sexy finding them sexy. Because there’s a tendency, when men start talking about this sort of thing, to forget that women they don’t find attractive exist.
I said it initially to Steve, because he was deliberately blurring the lines between sex and rape. It really makes me sad–I love sex and hate to hear other people even claim they can’t tell the difference between sex with someone who is mentally checked in with you, having fun and someone who is resisting you.
Rereading Robert’s comments, I don’t think he can fairly be said to have said either of those things.
That doesn’t really make a difference. ;) But thanks for reading.
When I studied the Nazis in college, the main lesson I came away with was a sobering and rather glum one; there isn’t really any difference between a Nazi and a human being. I would like to believe that I would have been among the tiny minority of heroes, and that my friends would have been, as well.
But the things I’d like to believe, and the things that I observe, don’t cohere nicely together.
Ampersand, I think the much-cited experiment has a fundamental difference with real-life scenarios of violence and rape: a) you know you’re in an experiment; b) you only see a button you’re pressing, what you hear of its effects, paradoxically, goes in the background of your mind; and most of all c) there is some authority figure ordering you to press that button.
I can’t think of a realistic rape scenario which has analogies to all three conditions.
The experiment has a relevance to analysing the behaviour of people who were ‘only following orders’ in a military dictatorship, but I don’t see how it relates to a rape situation in any other context.
As for mass-murder and mass-rape in Rwanda, or the Balkans, or Chechenya etc etc. or any other violent ethnic conflict, I don’t think it’s the first instance of hypothetical rape that someone replying ‘I can’t know for sure’ would think of. Not that it would change things much, because a man who doesn’t fantasise about rape as a kick and as an act of power that they could do in their ordinary life in their ordinary peaceful country, wouldn’t feel any inclination to do it even in a war. I don’t think the people who committed mass murder and mass rape EVER asked themselves any questions even before they did it.
It’s true that you can never know with 100% certainty what you’d do in a hypothetical situation. I don’t believe that I would be physically or emotionally capable of rape no matter the circumstances. A big part of that has to do with my viewing women as people and not a different group of people. I wonder what Robert’s answer would be if he was asked if he would/could rape a man if he thought he could get away with it.
Amp says, “I’ve met plenty of guys who were picked-on wimps in childhood…”
That’s not what I was referring to when I said that I was physically overwhelmed and powerless. I’m talking about being 3 (or possibly younger) and having an adult hold me in the air - one hand holding my wrists and the other hand holding my ankles - naked and unable to get away or even move really for what seemed an eternity to a 3 year old. I’m talking about being beaten on a regular basis by adults who were 4 to 5 times my weight and infinitely stronger than me. Being picked on & beaten up by classmates was a cakewalk compared to that shit.
It really makes me sad”“I love sex and hate to hear other people even claim they can’t tell the difference between sex with someone who is mentally checked in with you, having fun and someone who is resisting you.
I think most people can tell the difference between the two; it’s just that we’re in a culture where it’s still not acknowledged that women actively enjoy sex, so they think they’re being asked to tell the difference between resistance and acquiescence.
It’s that whole “‘no’ means ‘no,’ but we’re not going to teach you what a ‘yes’ is for fear that you’ll actually have sex” issue. It encourages men to treat anything but an unequivocal rejection as an invitation, and means that a lot of people who don’t think of themselves as rapists are doing an awful lot of harm.
I agree with Amp on this one. (Egomaniacal advert: in my comment 28, I made a similar, but more theoretical point than the more striking one Amp did in case of Rwanda). It really is one of those questions to which plenty of people will answer: ABSOLUTELY NO! But is there really a way of knowing? I don’t think so. One can make an estimation, though.
It tends to turn at some point into: “But I wouldn’t do it, and neither would any of the men I know, that I can say for sure”. But in reality plenty of women do get raped, and too many men rape. And I’m betting that potential rapists are quite vehement in denying their “needs” to general public and friends, so I’m not concerned about the “I sincerely hope that I don’t have an urge to rape” -group. I’m far more concerned with “But it’s a natural instinct that men have!” -group, and tend to view “Only thoroughly fucked-up, sick and irredeemable men rape, certainly not me or my any of my buddies, like never” -group as naive and living in denial.
Maybe I should say, “… because I know what it’s like to be physically overwhelmed and powerless and I can empathize when others are in that situation and I never, ever want to make another person experience that feeling.”
My reading of Robert’s statement didn’t lead me to think he was referring to a situation like Rwanda.
Not picking on comic con men because I was a D&D playing, comic-reading nerd in my youth, but Amp’s comment reminded me of an LA Times article about child pornography a few weeks ago.
Their work is a daily sojourn to the underworld. Gillespie has a team of 10 men and six women who spend hours in front of their computers, extracting leads, writing warrants and sifting photos for clues. The payoff is the day they get to kick down a door and take the “bad guy” away. The mood is light and the humor often off-color to ease the horror.
On one wall is a “Star Trek” poster with investigators’ faces substituted for the Starship Enterprise crew. But even that alludes to a dark fact of their work: All but one of the offenders they have arrested in the last four years was a hard-core Trekkie.
Det. Constable Warren Bulmer slips on a Klingon sash and shield they confiscated in a recent raid. “It has something to do with a fantasy world where mutants and monsters have power and where the usual rules don’t apply,” Bulmer reflects. “But beyond that, I can’t really explain it.”
I don’t get it why rape as it happens ordinarily every day in even the most peaceful, advanced, civilised countries (yes, including the US), has to be compared to living in nazi Germany.
You don’t live in a dictatorship. No one is forcing you or intimidating you to harm anyone. You’re not going to risk your life if you abstain from collaborating with evil. You’re not being asked to stand up and resist against a whole regime.
I’m not particularly interested in what Robert meant with his statement, I read it as ‘I can’t know for sure because it’s hypothetical’ rather than ‘wow I just can’t wait to rape someone, if only there was an amnesty’. I still wonder how can anyone not know for sure what they’d want or like to do if they could get away with it (like Jake I also have a very long list, none of it including actual violence of any kind, but I guess I’m just a boring peace-loving deluded naive wussy…). But in any case I just want to point out that the answer to that “would I do it? could I do it?” had none of those nazi or rwanda scenarios in it.
Rape is not being compared to living in Nazi Germany. Complicity in evil is being compared to complicity in evil. The active choice of doing evil is being compared to the active choice of doing evil.
Actually, I think that Robert’s answer - in which he pretty much had to postulate a world in which God didn’t exist - was very similar to the Rwanda or Nazi Germany examples, as I understand it. From the relgious perspective Robert is speaking from, if I understand it correctly, “imagine that you could get away with it” is saying “imagine a situation which is utterly unlike any situation you’ve ever experienced, in which the world has gone mad.”
If you accept that Robert is sincere in his religious beliefs, then the change from a world in which God exists to a world in which it’s possible to get away with it is just as extreme as the difference between our society and Nazi Germany, if not much more so. From Robert’s perspective, the “if you could get away with it” hypothetical is just as extreme as the Rwanda or Nazi Germany hypothetical.
Maybe I should say, “… because I know what it’s like to be physically overwhelmed and powerless and I can empathize when others are in that situation and I never, ever want to make another person experience that feeling.”?
Thanks for correcting me.
I’m sure what you’re saying is true of you, but I suspect that it’s not true for everyone. Isn’t it statistically the case that many abusers were abused themselves as children? Some abused children learn to be repulsed by abuse; others learn that it’s how people should be treated.
To me it’s really clear. Rape is thrusting your penis into a woman’s body without her consent. Robert seems to imply that god’s overview not-withstanding he would rape. He doesn’t mention the woman involved. From this it is obvious that he doesn’t consider her human. All he is considering is that act of thrusting his penis into an unwilling female body. And he would do this given the right circumstances (i.e., no condemnation from a god which might or might now exist, entirely ignoring the real female body upon which his hypothetical morality will be played out.)
You might be looking at Robert’s comments in a vaccuum, but I’m not. Robert openly insists that when his wife is pregnant, he is pregnant with her (i.e, “We’re pregnant). He openly insists that women do not have a right to abort a fetus. And now he “honestly” admits that he would rape. There is a sum total here that can’t be ignored, not even for blogosphere politics.
How can you, Robert or Amp, suggest that you raping a woman is some “unknowable” factor in your life. I mean, WTF? It’s unkowable to you whether you would forcibly take something that you have know friggin right to? You would use a woman’s body without her consent? I bet there are five things you could name off the top of your head that you would never do in your life… why isn’t rape so easily qualifiable for you? For any of you men?
I’m really having a hard time imagining that this is an unknown.
I’m gonna have to agree with Q Grrl here. I understand saying that “well one never knows what may happen” only to a certain line. I hate saying never too. But there are some things I know I can’t do. Raping another individual is one of them. By not saying that you know that you will NEVER rape a women, aren’t you allowing really allowing yourself an out, even if its a purley subconsious out?
Robert, your answer made a lot more sense before you brought in the nazi comparison. Not least because nazi comparisons tend to be out of place 99% of the time.
Sorry, I genuinely can’t see how the difference between complicity vs. actual evil doing has anything to do with the “I can’t be sure if I personally wouldn’t rape” answer. The hypothesis there was about active choice of doing evil, right?
Not that it would change things much, because a man who doesn’t fantasise about rape as a kick and as an act of power that they could do in their ordinary life in their ordinary peaceful country, wouldn’t feel any inclination to do it even in a war. I don’t think the people who committed mass murder and mass rape EVER asked themselves any questions even before they did it.
I really don’t understand where your certainty comes from, but I don’t share it.
I also think that ordinary rape - even date rape - is in fact comparable to more overt large-scale instances of societies going mad and evil. The most basic evil, in my view, is a combination of entitlement and selfishness - the belief that we’re entitled to ignore the horrible effects of our actions on others, because they make us feel good or benefit us in some way.
In the case of American slavery, the widespread cultural belief that blacks were lesser humans enabled whites to believe that slavery was justified, and even a good thing. In the case of same sex marriage, the widespread cultural belief that same-sex couples are worth less than cross-sex couples enables people to believe that “protecting” heterosexual families justifies any amount of harm to non-heterosexual families.
In the case of rape, the widespread cultural belief that women are worth less than men enables rapists to feel entitled to take what they want from women. Most rapists aren’t deeply individualistic thinkers; they’re aligning themselves with the messages the culture sends them, about sexuality as something possessed by women and pursued by men, about male entitlement, and about the relative worth of men and women.
Is there a difference between Rwandan gang-rapes and the date-rapes in the USA? Yes, of course. But there are also significant overlaps. Apart from sociopaths, rapists are doing what their culture has given them permission to do; and that’s true in both the “date rape” example and in the Rwandan example.
Awhile back Amanda said I love sex and hate to hear other people even claim they can’t tell the difference between sex with someone who is mentally checked in with you, having fun and someone who is resisting you.
and though the “Would I rape” discussion has drifted off into extreme circumstances, back in the real world the more likely question probably is “Would I call what I did rape?”
Could I rape someone if I knew I’d get away with ti?
No only no, but HELL NO. Few things get me as visceraly upset as the idea of whomever I’m having sex with wanting it to stop, and me not stopping. The idea that any partner I’m with feels anything but safe with me is repulsive.
And I do have ‘rough’ sex, and have played with BDSM. Consent, and the knowledge that afterwards, my partner really wanted all of those things to happen, is vital.
People who’d commit rape are like aliens to me. I understand that they exist, and even have good theories that explain how they exist, but I can’t figure out wanting to do that to someone. I have wanted beat the crap out of someone, but never rape them.
jstevenson Writes: Most “average guys”? would love to be objectified like your “average gal”?. When is that parade starting?
Really? Then how come most straight men I know are deeply uncomfortable with the idea that gay men may find them attractive? Most straight men I know are really unhappy with the idea of being “objectified” - unless it’s by someone whom they find attractive.
Did you get a little thrill out of the guy with the cucumber making it clear he found you attractive? Did you love it? Somehow, belying your claim that you would love to be objectified, I got the strong impression that it made you as uncomfortable as being objectified makes “your average gal”.
Tuomas, there’s another possible answer to that question, and it’s: I cannot answer for anybody else but me, because I cannot read their minds; however, as far as I’m concerned, I can’t really picture myself raping anyone as a pleasant form of sadism I may want to entertain when and if possible. Not because I’m particularly moral or have a high notion of myself or think myself above any act of evil, but because, long before any sense of morals or considerations about the other person even had time to kick in, my sense of disgust at the act of rape and at myself doing it would simply make it impossible for me to even entertain the idea of getting a sexual kick out of it.
I don’t think that’s a form of denial. I think that’s simply liking sex for what it is.
Actually, he didn’t say that; he said he didn’t know. Here’s what he said:
Would I rape if I thought I could get away with it? Well, I believe that I can’t get away with it where it counts, so the hypothetical is moot. But my answer would have to be “I don’t know.”?
To characterize “I don’t know” as being the same as “I would,” as you’ve been doing, is inaccurate.
As I wrote before, I don’t think I’d rape under any circumstances. But I can’t say I know for sure, because I think it’s impossible to know for sure.
I bet there are five things you could name off the top of your head that you would never do in your life…
You’d lose that bet.
Putting aside physically impossible things, no, there are not five things I can think of that I could say “it is unimaginable that I’d do that in any circumstance.” Historically, all sorts of evil things have been done by people who (before they did the evil things) did not appear to be monsters before they were put to the test. I suspect that some of them, at one time or another, imagined that they were incapable of doing real evil, too.
(Edited to change “most of them” to “some of them.”)
Nothing enrages certain groups of men more than the idea that women have more right to define what they do to us than they do. Language gives them a cozy, deceptive cushion. They call it ‘a mistake,’ they call it ‘things got out of control,’ they call it all kinds of things—-including sex. But they hate it when their gender gets mentioned, and they hate it that women now have the power to say, “Rape, not sex.” That’s the real reason for the hatred of the term PC; it’s language. It’s the real civility unlike the stuff the trolls complain about.
But they slip up when we try and have a discussion about rape and all they talk about is what women should or shouldn’t do. It’s funny, the way men want to disappear themselves from the language just when they’re the whole topic of the discussion.
That is a reasonable answer, noodles. I’m quite disgusted at the thought of using someone purely for my pleasure too, when that person is clearly suffering from what I do and wanting me to stop. But I lack the certainty to say that for sure, not because of low notion of self (I like myself at least) but simply because people have done bad shit in extreme situations before. So maybe I should answer: No, I would never rape anyone as I am now , but were I to change fundamentally I might. However, I’m past the age where my views and especially my ethics fluctuate, so I think such a situation would be very unlikely, and hypothetical at best.
Ampersand - If you accept that Robert is sincere in his religious beliefs, then the change from a world in which God exists to a world in which it’s possible to get away with it is just as extreme as the difference between our society and Nazi Germany, if not much more so.
But that sounds like mind-reading, no? I didn’t read any of that in Robert’s first reply. If that’s what he had in mind - ie. ‘I could perhaps have done it if I had been a Nazi or a Janjaweed’ - he should have written that. But then, that’d be adding conditions - being a nazi or a Janjaweed - that already define you as evil. So wether you rape or torture or murder or boil people doesnt make a difference.
My idea of “getting away with it” was “not getting caught”, in the ordinary reality of the thousands of rapists who do get away with it because of lack of forensic evidence, or lack of reporting, or the police not believing the woman, etc.
Besides, I don’t see the relation between ‘a world where God doesn’t exist’ and total lawlessness. Laws exist even without the need for religious beliefs, surely?
I’m sorry I don’t mean to be dense on purpose, I honestly am not getting it. I didn’t even pay attention to Robert’s comment, I don’t care, but I don’t think these explanations make it sound like it makes more sense, quite the opposite.
The common theme I’m seeing among all of these examples is that people are capable of doing horrible things to other people if they are successful in being able to characterize them as inferior others. Which is the whole point feminists have been trying to get across for years - that when women are seen as inferior others by men, then men will be capable of raping women and not seeing it as a bad thing. Those of us on this thread agree that rape is not about sex; it’s just called sex because that’s the way the perps can justify it to themselves afterwards.
Amp: “Isn’t it statistically the case that many abusers were abused themselves as children?”
Yes that is so. But that is also why I wrote, “…I can empathize when others are in that situation…” I believe that makes a big difference in people’s attitudes and actions. I believe that not understanding that other people have feelings & emotions & physical sensations just like you is what allows people to rape & kill & oppress & torture and all the other billions of horrible things that people do to each other.
So, you don’t see women as being the same as you? Then, sure, “No means yes,” and you need to care for & shelter & protect your women. Because they’re not fully human. They have only the attributes that you ascribe to them. It’s today’s version of the old belief that animals are just little machines - no thought, all instinct. Women are not men, therefore women are inferior & only capable of what men decide they are capable of.
“Would I rape if I thought I could get away with it? Well, I believe that I can’t get away with it where it counts, so the hypothetical is moot. But my answer would have to be “I don’t know.”? The only way to know is to find out; I pray never to undergo such a temptation. But even if I did undergo such a temptation, I would be aware that “getting away with it”? was not on the table. ”
These are Robert’s words Amp. He says that because he “can’t get away with it where it counts” the hypothetical is moot. But it isn’t is it? In fact, he’s just compounding the hypothetical in such a way so as not to have to make a decision. Later he says, “The only way to know is to find out ” To me this means he won’t know if he would rape until he is actually raping a woman. Nice. Real nice.
But, given the right set of circumstance (i.e., he could get away with it where it counts) he *would* rape. No, he doesn’t state that in black and white, but he certainly makes it clear that getting away with it is the deal maker. Rape is plausible to Robert if he doesn’t have to suffer for it. Again, nice.
While I do think Robert was, perhaps, misunderstood, as I think the vital point was the apparent understanding that you can never “get away with it” as even escaping punishment still leaves one with a victim. I took that reference to mean that he valued the horrific impact this would have on someone’s life as equally important to suffering legal consequences, which I would take to mean that he genuinely couldn’t ever do it.
Nevertheless, I have to quite emphatically say that this is something I could never do and I have a tough time appreciating the personal skeptism of some that they don’t think they can say that. That is not to say that I think any of them are capable of rape. I don’t. I just wish they could see that in themselves.
Look, I’ll admit that I can’t know a lot of things in an absolute sense. I don’t think I could murder someone, but I can’t say for certain that a hypothetical circumstance couldn’t arise where I might. I don’t think I’ll ever steal, but I know I can’t say it for certain. Rape is different. And I think that’s why a lot of the people here are taken aback by the lack of an absolute answer. I am, too. I functionally understand what motivates the reluctance, but from my personal experience I simply can’t understand how someone could feel that way.
Rape is a sadistic crime. It is not something one does in a passion or out of fear. It is either done with creulty and malice or it is committed by someone with such self-importance that they are incapable of seeing their actions for what they are. I know myself enough to know that I am incapable of rape. Rape is something I am extremely aware of. If I am with a woman and I hear anything even hinting of resistance I will pull back immediately and address the situation. Not that I can recall having even had to do so. In general, though, I know that I’m, if anything, over sensative to the issue. Which is certainly the side I want to err on. I’m reluctant to initiate sexual contact because I don’t want a woman to feel that I am at all pushing her into anything. I would never have sex with someone I thought was intoxicated. I’d hope that belief is strong enough to survive my own intoxication, though here I’ll admit I can’t know if it would because I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten drunk enough in the first place, much less gotten drunk and had a sexual opportunity with someone who is drunk. But I darn well want to be careful because I don’t know how I could live with myself if I did that to a woman.
(switching gears now) All men aren’t to blame for rapists. No one is making that suggestion. But all men need to play a part in stopping it. We can make a difference. Moreso, it makes utterly no sense to only focus on victimin intervention. There are a lot of things men can do and it starts young but that doesn’t mean there is every a time not to do something. I saw the origins of these attitudes growing up and I wish there was something I could have done, but it was always expressed by people who had no use for me to begin with. It bothers me to this day, though. The ease with which these proto-rapists would banter about this. And nobody says anything. I hope I would have had the guts to say something if it was a friend of mine express these kinds of attitudes, but I don’t know. I do know that many men who probably don’t feel that way smile and nod. They don’t challenge it. They probably don’t even think much about it.
But men, as a gender, do have to take some responsibility for the way we, as a gender, treat women. That doesn’t mean taking personal responsibility. It means realizing that we need to be a part of the solution. We can’t possibily do that if we want to argue that rape is inevitable and the only thing to do is get women to try to stop it. That’s not a productive solution at all, and it seems to just make excuses for rapists.
So why is it that now the men are only thinking about “extreme” circumstance regarding their ability to rape.
This really chaps my ass. This isn’t about hypothetical ethics. This is about the reality of women, like me, who daily have to make choices to avoid rape… any rape. Not the extreme ethical dilemna type of rape, but your goddamn garden variety it-happens-every-fucking-day to women rape.
Why, why, why are you men so capable of extracting women’s lived realities into hypotheticals? It just seems like a sick twist of the objectification game to me. And it seems immature, to be honest. Rape is not an anomalie. It is not an extreme occurrence, only because it happens so frequently and only because so many men refuse to see the role they play in perpetuating rape.
Look, I concur with Amp and Robert. They’re talking about the heart of darkness that lurks in every man. It is likelier easier not to fall victim to it if you acknowledge, in fact. Those who think they are always acting righteously are the ones who end up SS guards, I’d think.
It’s why there’s torture at Gitmo–the prison guards there are in the raptures of their righteousness post-9/11.
Amp, re: comment 127, I didn’t mean to enter into the sociology of gang rape and mass rape in ethnic conflict and how it differs from date-rapes in the USA and how it can compare. My “certainty”, when I wrote that “I don’t think the people who committed mass murder and mass rape EVER asked themselves any questions even before they did it”, was simply that they obviously never questioned what they were going to do. The other certainty is: if someone is repulsed by the idea of committing rape, out of a genuine disgust for picturing themselves in the action of harming another person, even aside from morals, then they would not do it, even in the worst of circumstances. I mean, what would change? What benefit would they get? Why should their desire to rape suddenly manifest itself? Because it’s no longer repressed? But that means it must have always been there.
The only situation I could think of where the worst of circumstances can turn you into a rapist is like that experiment, someone literally ordering you to do it even if you you really wouldn’t want to in normal circumstances. And again, that’s a pretty strict condition for an hypothetical question about rape as it manifests itself in ordinary, peaceful, lawful, democratic countries.
I disagree w/ the “heart of darkness” hypothesis. I believe that it is people who are unable to really look at themselves and their actions who are guards at Gitmo. I don’t acknowledge any “heart of darkness” in myself, yet I would never be a guard at Gitmo. I don’t acknowledge any “heart of darkness” in myself, yet I would never rape.
There is torture at Gitmo because the victims, “…don’t value human life the way that we do.” They are other and different and inferior. It is not because the guards (and their superiors and the folks in charge of the US government) don’t acknowledge their own “heart of darkness”.
Whew. I am a feminist guy who has just read this whole thread. I agree with Amanda who says
“Sex is fucking a girl who’s fucking you back. And that’s gonna make a lot of men squirm.”
I get this, and I think it’s exactly right. (Well, if you were going to embroider it on a pillow it’s be a “person.”) It just doesn’t make me squirm. Not only does it not make me squirm, but in fact, I can’t really get into the heads of those it would make squirm. This is the source of the defensiveness that comes up with many men. Those of us who get this cannot reach out to the ones it does make squirm. We don’t know who they are. They wouldn’t hang out with us. I certainly don’t know how to reach them, on this, or really any other topic.
Some of the “honest” postings above have been rightfully condemned. Other than adding my voice to the chorus, what can I do?
[shrug] If by “heart of darkness” you mean “fantasy world,” then yeah. I’ve got one. I also can state with absolute certainty that there’s an iron wall between my fantasy world and my daily life at least three or four feet thick. Whether that would break down under a neo-Nazi regime or in a Portland that looked like a bombed-out Iraqi urban center ? I can’t say, but I don’t find it particularly relevant to the original point of the thread. Gilliard went to great lengths to talk about sexual mores in the context of world tourism: A state of leisure and luxury, not a bombed-out near-Armageddon full of traumatized and terrified people desperate for a crust of bread. Going off on what state of mind I’d have to be in to forget or ignore the moral code I believe in is completely besides the point.
Though I will restate my utter creeped-out feeling at jstevenson, and submit that for me, there wouldn’t be enough booze in the world to make me assault anyone while he or she was passed out. :(
Perhaps we need a clear definition of this “heart of darkness.”?
A Christian would characterize it as original sin. Some orthodox Jews would put in terms of a fallen and fractured world, whose brokenness is shared by humanity.
To put it in rationalist and empirical terms, it is the innate selfishness of the biological organism: overridable, but ineradicable. You’ll have to override it again tomorrow; practice may make it easier.
I’m a Christian, albeit not a very good one, so I put it in the Christian terms; I incline to evil, and have to resist that evil with God’s assistance if that isn’t the direction I want my life to go in. I believe that this is true for others, but can speak definitively only of myself. YMMV.
The condemnatory posts appear to be a lot of soup from a little bone. But everyone is entitled to their own point of view.
The Heart of Darkness is what Conrad called a “hidden evil” in his novel Heart of Darkness. The Heart of Darkness is a universal part of the human condition that was first notably used in Conrad’s literature. To be put simply, the Heart of Darkness is a human’s struggle with their own morals, and their own battle with their inner evil. Although first chiefly used in the novel, this device is now used in countless pieces of literature and media, it is an unwritten conventions for almost any piece of art. For example, one of the most notable uses is the Star Wars franchise, with characters always struggling over falling to the Dark Side of the Force. Although slightly exaggerated perhaps in literature, Conrad questioned humanity and proposed the idea that we all, by nature, have a Heart of Darkness, and that idea has existed from the dawn of man.
tuomas - But I lack the certainty to say that for sure, not because of low notion of self (I like myself at least) but simply because people have done bad shit in extreme situations before. So maybe I should answer: No, I would never rape anyone as I am now , but were I to change fundamentally I might.
Yes, but see, you’ve added another qualification there - if you were a different person. Which means, you can’t picture your actual self doing it.
You’ve just described the reason for this surreal drift from the hypothetical “would I ever do it?”, to the hypothetical “would I do it in extreme situations? of course I can’t know because I’ve never been in extreme situations”. People are assuming external circumstances alone can fundamentally change them from ordinary boring fucker into the next Hitler. A bit egomaniac, perhaps?
Of course in theory anyone could be the next Hitler.
It becomes absurd though. If we all in theory could be Hitler, what makes us ourselves, as individuals?
Plus, again, no one was talking of extreme situations of fundamentally altered personalities a la Dr Jekyll vs. Mr Hyde when they answered the “would I personally do it” question.
I agree with noddles that as someone who finds rape very personally repugnant, the only time I could imagine myself doing it is if someone had a gun to my head and order me to under threat of death to myself and to the women. Now, I’m pretty sure if someone puts a gun to your head and orders you to have sex or be killed, that’s rape itself. And I still don’t know that I’d do it. Just that this is a scenario where I can admit that I’m not sure how I’d act.
Still, I do want to stress that while I don’t get why some people can’t see this as unthinkable for themselves, I do feel myself that the people in this thread, at least, are incapable of rape. I just have more faith in that then they do because I’m not as moved by the notion of an unavoidable evil lurking within us. I don’t think acknowledging it makes it easier to hold at bay. I think ignoring the issue entirely isn’t going to do any good, but I feel I’ve considered the issue and I am deeply repulsed at the notion of raping anyone. I find it incomprehensible and I further find men who do rape to be incomprehensible. I think that’s the concern that’s playing out in this thread is that some cannot understand how someone can’t see this issue as being able to have an absolute. I get what you’re saying and I’m not going to condemn you for it, but I also don’t understand it and can see why others are responding as they are.
This thread is really hitting home for me, after having just told the third person in five years about a date rape that happened to me in college.
I was drunk, he was drunk, and we were fighting. We’d had casual sex many a night before that, but this time was very different. This time I didn’t want to, but he won. He won because he was bigger. He won because I couldn’t face the aftermath of telling people what happened, of being blamed for “asking for it,” for leading him on. He won because he was “a good man” and I would be “lying” or “misguided.” He won because I eventually forced myself to forgive him just to give myself some piece of mind.
He tells a very different story. He does not see himself as a rapist, or a bad man. He “does not hit women.”
I don’t know what it means that even though he hurt me I do not identify him as a rapist or a bad man either, but I have an idea.
I think that it is easier for men to say “I could never hit a woman,” or “I could never rape a woman” than it is to admit that yes, they actually could. This is different from saying that you would, or you’re inclined to do so. Admitting that you have the potential to rape is a first step towards erradicating rape - it does not condone it, or make it a “boys will be boys” issue. We all have the potential to harm each other. Some of us have greater potential than others. Pretending that this is not so - DENYING it, claiming that intentionality or fear of punishment is all that matters, that it is somebody else’s issue, somebody else’s crime, somebody else’s theoretical victimhood will not solve our problem.
This thing of darkness we must acknowledge ours - condemning those who are able to do so serves only to keep it deeper buried.
Could I rape? I don’t know. I don’t have the equipment to do it, the conditioning to understand my sexuality as a physical power. Could I assult a child? Yes. I have the conditioning to understand my physical superiority over a more vulnerable creature and the ability to exert it. But I believe that I would not. I like to think that in the future I will not. But I am surrounded by opportunities to do so. It does me no good to pat myself on the back for drawing a line in the sand in the belief that this somehow makes me more moral - because if I do not I force myself to continually acknowlege that there is a power imbalance at work in which I have the advantage.
When a man admits that he could rape or hurt a woman, he is acknowleging his physical and socio-cultural power - with a full understanding of what that entails. He cannot hide behind the fact that rape or violence against women is the work of “other” men, or something unique to individuals in specific situations. It is in him too. He is now a potential rapist who must actively fight against rape. He can not sit idly by and muse about “those others” - they are a part of his gang. Rape is no longer theory. It is a part of his life in a way that it wasn’t before.
I’m sorry, Q Grrl, are you saying that, in the real world, people don’t struggle internally with “stop it” and “go ahead”? Haven’t you ever had a situation where you had to stop yourself from following through on an urge to do something that another part of you knew was wrong?
What a few of the guys here have posted is an acknowledgement that they can’t say for sure that they would always win that inner struggle. It creeps me out that they are saying this, but they are not ignoring reality.
Heart of darkness. How come nobody ever wants to talk about the brain of consciousness that makes these decisions? Actually, screw that. How come we’re not talking about the ‘temptation’ of rape? Let’s stop talking in metaphors and internal organs and talk about the real life men they’re in. Blaming it on heart of darkness is just one more way of compartmentalzing it and taking it away from the real live guy who decides to rape the girl from the next dorm room over, secure in the knowledege that as long as he doesn’t use a gun, attack her in an alley, makes sure she’s had a drink or two, nobody will think of blaming him for his own damned actions.
Heart and brains are still just organs. Let’s talk about the man who has control over both of them and uses that control to shove his dick inside another person.
There’s nothing poetic about rape. Poetry, in fact, is about as cruel as you can get in this situation.
Amanda - They’re talking about the heart of darkness that lurks in every man. It is likelier easier not to fall victim to it if you acknowledge, in fact. Those who think they are always acting righteously are the ones who end up SS guards, I’d think.
It’s why there’s torture at Gitmo”“the prison guards there are in the raptures of their righteousness post-9/11.
Oh well that’s a special kind of righteousness, then, isn’t it? And I thought that the prison guards were in the raptures of their government’s complete disregard of all international laws, of an imperialistic mindset that led to two unjustified wars that killed thousands of people, and scapegoating 9/11 on any poor Arab/Muslim fucker who happened to be in the vicinity when they raided Afghanistan, instead of actually pursuing the investigation into which rich Saudi banker financed the operation. But maybe that’s just my flawed impression.
Also, incidentally, they’ve been instructed to do all they do. They didn’t wake up one morning and single-handedly decide to create Guantanamo.
I’m not sure the idea of a heart of darkness lurking in every man quite accounts for all that.
No one’s saying that we are all happy fluffy bunnies with no sadistic desires, Amanda. But it’s quite a stretch to go from saying every human has the capacity to do harm and even more or less occasionally also the desire to do so, to say we all could one day rape or torture, and that we can actually picture ourselves doing it and deriving pleasure from it. Which I thought was the idea of wondering, “would I do it”?
Besides, again, what does Guantanamo have to do with that question? It wasn’t “if I was in Guantanamo I guess I could rape a woman”. It was “if I could get away with it, I don’t know, I can’t tell, but maybe I could do it”.
By the way, I also read Robert’s statement as “I cannot know” and I really couldn’t care less about second-guessing what he might or might not have implied. But it had nothing to do with extreme situations, or government-enforced torture. That was only thrown in later.
So why is it that now the men are only thinking about “extreme”? circumstance regarding their ability to rape.
In my case, I’m absolutely certain that I’d never rape in ordinary circumstances. So, the way my mind works, if I’m asked if I could ever rape, and I know I’d never rape under ordinary circumstances, I’m not really answering the question if I don’t also address what I’d do under extraordinary circumstances.
I was also trying to make a point that what rapists do is dependent on what their culture says to do. Why do I think that matters? Because, in Rwanda or in the ordinary USA, we have to change the messages we send men and boys if we want to make rape something that’s rare, instead of something that’s common. Individual rapists are to blame for what they did; but at the same time, we have to understand how the society enables them to rape.
It’s not about hypothetical ethics. It’s about trying to understand why men rape and what could make men rape less.
And it’s close-minded at best to imply that the only reason to believe that a “heart of darkness” might exist is a desire to create excuses for patriarchy.
Hell, another way of putting it - and a way I believe - is that the Heart of Darkness is patriarchy. And I don’t think any of us raised in patriarchy ever completely unroots it, although we can do a lot to lessen it.
Actually, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was about British colonialism in Africa, and the marriage of militarism with tribal violence and a one man’s descent into the maddest bits of both. Which was even clearer in Coppola’s adaptation. It’s more political than about an individual battle with morals in any pseudo-christian terms and it’s definitely got nothing to do with Star Wars.
I’m not excusing it. Just acknowledging it. To my mind, knowing that even you have evil in your heart makes it easier to control. If you don’t think you have a scrap of evil in you, then when an evil impulse comes into your head, you tend to think that it’s right to do it. In fact, that’s exactly what happens with rapes–the guy who does it denies that he acted out of evil and claims the woman provoked him, since women are the evil ones.
“Now, I’ve always been confused as to why a girl would go off with three guys. Was she going to pull a train? Or did she have two spare sex organs for them to use? Because otherwise, that sounds like a really bad decision.”
That quote really bugs me. For many years now I’ve found it easier for me to make new male friends than female friends. (I’m sure there’s some sort of subconcious issue here, but that’s not the point.) Anyhow, when I’m thrust into a new environment, the truth of the matter is, I find it easier to talk to strange guys than strange gals. If I were to show up at a club/party/gathering in another city or country, I might well end befriending males before females. That’s just my nature. Of course, this quote implies that the only reason I’d want to befriend them is so we can have a mad orgy, and that if I’m not interested in such play then I’m some sort of ignorant cock-tease. The original post addressed the absurd fact that statements such as this place the responsibility of stopping rape square in the hands of the woman, and I wholeheartedly agree with it. Obviously, everyone is responsible for his/her own personal safety to a great extent, but this fellow apparently thinks that if I want to make friends but don’t want to screw, I need to stay away from the opposite sex. Bah!
Problem is, I don’t for one minute think it’s the unconscous process that the phrase makes it seem like. Too many guys get too defensive for it to be lurking somewhere in their hearts. They know. They know what they’re doing.
Sorry, handing out passes isn’t going to help anybody.
Robert: perhaps my emphasis should have been more on “excuse” than “convenient”. In this case it’s convenient because some other man has done the thinking for you and coined the phrase.
“Haven’t you ever had a situation where you had to stop yourself from following through on an urge to do something that another part of you knew was wrong?”
No, Lee. I have never had the “urge” to violate the bodily integrity of another human being. Ever. It is beyond my comprehension. Maybe that’s because I know all to well how that violation feels and how it shapes and socializes women.
Rape is not a hypothetical urge and I resist placing it on the slippery slope of historical horrors and how one *might* react.
Hmm. Asking the question: “Would I ever rape?” to me, is asking the question about all circumstances, and therefore the question in itself is almost absurd. The question is all-encompassing, and does, to me at least, include ordinary and extreme circumstances. But maybe this is splitting hairs about the issue.
People are assuming external circumstances alone can fundamentally change them from ordinary boring fucker into the next Hitler. A bit egomaniac, perhaps?
Maybe. But I will do everything in my power to preserve my current self, because I happen to like my current self, and respect my current self (especially on theoretical ethics level) even if I’m seen as a “boring fucker” instead of a cool super-villain. Maybe I am egomaniacal in that respect, but really, egomaniac is not the term I want to be paired with, except as a joke (I try only speaking from my own experience/viewpoint, seldom on absolutes, there is no egomania involved there. There are many, many good comments by other people that I have enjoyed reading, that have IMHO, surpassed my comments, but this is not a competition). I don’t know whether it’s egomania manifesting on Robert or Amp. I would quess not.
Certainly I’m not assuming that extreme circumstances turn me into the next Hitler, or a rapist (btw. can we stop the nazi stuff?), or making an excuse in advance. But I cannot say with absolute certainty what I will be like after 20 years, for example. Hopefully older, happier and wiser mostly. :|
Fair enough, ginmar, but I think acknowledging it is the first step towards prevention. Otherwise you have the excuse-making going on at Gilliard’s place.
Gisele, I’m really sorry you had to deal with that shit. I hope the people you’ve told your story to have at least been receptive, and not anxious to play the kind of games that Kos and Gilliard and too many other men did in their comments elsewhere.
That being said, I don’t think that acknowleding some inner darkness is the same as saying, “I could do that.” I know very well that I *could* beat up small child, burn down my neighbors’ house, what have you. I know that these things are physically plausible. That’s not by any means the same as saying “I *would* do those things if I could be assured that no one could ever catch me and punish me.” Not even close. There is no child or neighbor I can imagine hating enough to ever do something like that, under any circumstances.
Jake, Q, ginmar, noodles, thanks. Sometimes when these tangents really get rolling, I worry that I’m losing my mind. :/
Q Grrl, actually I have been in a situation where I seriously contemplated violating the bodily integrity of another human being. And I really really had to hold myself back from laying a finger on him. I was shaking and trembling with the urge to castrate him with my bare hands. But I didn’t.
That situation isn’t comparable to rape. We have to change the message men, boys, and the rest of society believe concerning unconsentual sexual contact, and it has to become as ingrained as deeply as not killing or maiming other people. Acknowledging the heart of darkness is one way of approaching this goal, because then we can take it into account.
I don’t believe in giving them any outs. It just draws the process out. It’s conscious, and the most dark thing about it is their denial about what it is and how it benefits them. If we let them keep doing it, we just keep going nowhere. At least we can back them into a corner and hold up a mirror.
I’m so sick of denial and excuses. I had some guy talk about how ‘rape happens’ and he got snitty with me when I pointed out it wasn’t like the weather. I’ve been seeing the same discussion for twenty years; same tactics, same thread drift, and same words. Only time is changes is when you do take a chance and stop letting them deny their actions.
I suppose that what it really comes down to for me now, is that I do not believe anyone who says “Oh, I could never hurt/rape a woman.”
It seems too easy to say. I feel much more comfortable with someone who can say, “Yeah, I think I could. I know that it’s possible, however unlikely, no matter how much I don’t want it to be possible - and so I have to actively try not to make it happen, by not drinking or by not letting myself see women as objects or by not doing any of the things that contribute to rape or violence against women. I have to act. Rape is now MY problem, just as it is a woman’s problem.”
“Oh I could never ____” is a carte blanche to do nothing. This statement makes rape/violence a thing outside oneself, somebody else’s problem. When you talk about rape in such a context, you become either patronizing (”oh, poor victim!”) or condemning (”rapists are evil”) or both. But you will not learn much from such a manner of discourse, because you have no vested interest in the matter. It is not a personal issue for you, as it would be if you viewed yourself as a potential participant.
I think that it is easier for men to say “I could never hit a woman,”? or “I could never rape a woman”? than it is to admit that yes, they actually could. This is different from saying that you would, or you’re inclined to do so. Admitting that you have the potential to rape is a first step towards erradicating rape - it does not condone it, or make it a “boys will be boys”? issue. We all have the potential to harm each other. Some of us have greater potential than others. Pretending that this is not so - DENYING it, claiming that intentionality or fear of punishment is all that matters, that it is somebody else’s issue, somebody else’s crime, somebody else’s theoretical victimhood will not solve our problem.
I’m sorry. I just can’t agree here. The ‘potential’ I have to rape is not something I feel I’ll ever actualize outside of alien mind control, or some other such implausible conditions.
Tuomas, that “boring fucker” and “egomaniac” was a joke and a little sarcastic and it wasn’t even directed at you. It was a dig at that shift in the discussion, that desire to entertain extreme scenarios in which one would suddenly turn into Colonel Kurtz!
There is a bit of fascination with that idea, I think. Hmm.
Oh, and the “boring fucker” was a self-reference! I do feel like a boring fucker after all this talk of how all ordinary men and women have a bottomless heart of darkness they need to keep under control or else they’d all run around opening Guantanamos in their gardens. I have a terrible fear at the bottom of my heart there’s nothing but a desire to watch Eastenders with a good cup of tea and a smoke. I must find myself some truly evil desires and acknowledge them, possibly by paying $400 a month to a Freudian analyst, or I may end up raiding my neighbour’s house and raping his daughters before I even realise it! Yikes!
noodles:
*bit off topic*
I suspected that, but wasn’t sure, and decided to play the game anyway :)
I gave you too little credit, it seems. I was bit worried earlier whether some of my comments that had subtle sarcasm would be taken completely literally, because I try not to get too “jokey” on a rape thread, but I can’t be dead serious all the time either (not that I’m accusing you of any of those either). And considering I’ve spent the whole God damn day on this thread I too feel a bit of a boring fucker. :|
Yeah, what Josh said. I have the PHYSICAL EQUIPMENT to potentially wring someone’s neck, but that’s still thousands of miles away from thinking “I’d strangle so-and-so if I could get away with it, you know for kicks or just ‘cuz I really really hate them.”
If you want a “heart of darkness” revelation, than yeah. Some people I do really hate. But not that much. Nowhere near that much.
Just in case it wasn’t clear, Tuomas, I really genuinely enjoyed all your contributions along with those of most other commenters and please don’t even think I was calling you an egomaniac or boring or whatever. Sorry if it came across that way!
I think there is whole lot of confusion in this thread between thoughts and desires, theoretical possibilities and actual likely situations from one’s daily life, and good/evil and simple pleasure/harm distinctions.
That being said, I don’t think that acknowleding some inner darkness is the same as saying, “I could do that.”? I know very well that I *could* beat up small child, burn down my neighbors’ house, what have you. I know that these things are physically plausible. That’s not by any means the same as saying “I *would* do those things if I could be assured that no one could ever catch me and punish me.”? Not even close. There is no child or neighbor I can imagine hating enough to ever do something like that, under any circumstances.
Alsis, you took the words out of my mouth. Aside from morals, I don’t think everybody is mentally and emotionally capable of cruelty (or any other emotion, good or bad) in the same exact terms. Some people don’t even want dead animals on their conscience, I don’t think we can say they’re only being righteous or not acknowledging their darkest desires to slaughter pigs and cows and drink their blood, they genuinely dislike the idea.
Tuomas, I hadn’t seen your reply when I posted that…
I gave you too little credit, it seems. I was bit worried earlier whether some of my comments that had subtle sarcasm would be taken completely literally, because I try not to get too “jokey”? on a rape thread, but I can’t be dead serious all the time either (not that I’m accusing you of any of those either).
I didn’t get that impression at all from your posts, in fact, I thought some of my comments may have come off as too long and preachy. Or too snarky. Or both.
And considering I’ve spent the whole God damn day on this thread I too feel a bit of a boring fucker. :|
Heh, I so know what you mean! I just looked at the time…
It’s just the irresistible magnetic force of this blog. It’s all its fault.
noodles:
Thanks, my fragile ego is saved and I don’t have to turn into a MRA. Oh, I think I got the correct impression and to tell the truth this I’ve enjoyed this a lot too.
Gisele:
I appreciete your honesty about your horrible experience, (and I can only hope that stuff didn’t happen in this world we live in, but reality sucks, and work needs to be done to make it suck less, by men us mostly on this issue) and I agree that acknowledging the possibility of being a rapist would probably be a reassuring thing. It does show a certain degree of introspection, while “I would NEVER rape” comes across as a knee-jerk reaction sometimes. Not so when backed with truly credible reasons going beyond “rapists are just sick”, or “I don’t need to rape”.
I am a bit sexist on this issue though (or something), I don’t go very hard on women who say they would never rape, because men are the ones who are taught to be the ones who ought to “get sex”, while women are the ones “possessing sex”, so rapist mentality is generally instilled on boys and men only. And these views, these mentalities, might be quite deep-rooted. It could be also that some men have natural inclination to rape (that’s no excuse, of course), even if that sounds a bit oxymoron.
There is no child or neighbor I can imagine hating enough to ever do something like that, under any circumstances.
But the limitations of your imagination do not prevent your future action.
Some people don’t even want dead animals on their conscience, I don’t think we can say they’re only being righteous or not acknowledging their darkest desires to slaughter pigs and cows and drink their blood, they genuinely dislike the idea.
And I would venture that most of those people would slaughter animals and drink their blood if they were starving, regardless of how abhorent the idea of it is from their comfortable positions of entertaining hypothetical situations. And they would do it because they’d be in a position where they could rationalize that behaviour as being necessary, integral to their survival. The movement from integral to survival to integral to self-identity (gender, cultural), I’d argue, is one of degree, not kind.
Rape is not so simple that one can say “HE would do it, and I wouldn’t”. Men rape. Women rape too, even though we don’t like to talk about it. Women-on-women sexual violence also happens, and so long as we admit that “WE could do no such thing,” I don’t believe we’ll get anywhere. There is a culture of silence in sexual assult around shame and guilt - but we’ve been led to believe that that shame and guilt is the victim’s alone. The perpetrators feel it too - and so long as we create us/them divides around ideas of “evil” and exclusivity, there will not be a dialogue on what leads perpetrators to rationalize rape.
I’m surprised it took as long as it did for someone to point out that Robert’s early statement was just his personal account of his belief in Original Sin. And it was Robert pointing it out.
You want to know what sustains rape culture? Christianity’s a big reason. Why did Eve get kicked out of Eden? She wanted to be powerful in her own right. Why did Adam get kicked out of Eden? He chose Eve over God.
Look through the Bible some time, and notice how often rape is treated as if it were the natural form of sexuality. How many rapes are described? How many times are women portrayed as intrinsically evil? And compare that to the number of times there are descriptions of loving relationships.
What I hate most about religion is that it treats figments of the imagination, the big phallus in the sky, as more important than any actual living, breathing, thinking, feeling human being. And in Christianity, the worst thing you can possibly do is care about another person more than you care about God — because humans are evil and only God is good.
No, Robert wasn’t giving an honest admission of the secret heart of darkness in every man. That attitude is, in fact, precisely the problem: treating other human beings as completely alien to each other, treating all human interaction as battles between enemies.
REgarding the original post, I am very suspicious of men who say men and women can’t really be friends and any woman who thinks so is a fool. When I really think about it, this is about a sexist an attitude as there is. Friendship is a relationship of equality and respect, and these men say that even if I am deluded that some men regard me this way, really there is no way this could be true, and I’m foolish and naive to boot.
“But hey, you’re pro-choice, so you can always murder unborn babies and laugh maniacally.”
Yarrgh. That’s only funny if you live in a country where radical pro-lifers are as rare as hen’s teeth, Tuomas. Maybe they are in Finland. More than once, I’ve been treated on this very blog to graphic, one might almost say lovingly detailed, descriptions of cuddly pre-born babies getting their brains sucked out, faces gouged with scissors, etc. The language would be right at home on one of those websites where slasher/splatter movie fans gather. At least a few radical pro-lifers seem to enjoy reeling that sort of thing out. They seem to enjoy it an awful lot for people who claim to love babies.
noodles, thanks. May I join you in the sad confession that most of my long-playing fantasies also involve kicking back with cool videos and cool beer ? In my case, it’d probably be MST3k and a nice microbrew. Hold the smokes.
Sorry to have drifted the thread, All.
“But the limitations of your imagination do not prevent your future action.”
How so, Gisele ? As I said earlier, it’s entirely possible that in a bombed-out post-apocolyptic wreckage, I’d behave like a different person. But that STILL strikes me as pointless speculation, having little to do with the piece that kicked off this thread. Certainly the assholes that targeted you, or Amanda, were not operating in some post-Apocalyptic mode. The man, or men, who went after that poor girl on her tropical getaway weren’t, either. The hypothetical drunken man who rapes a hypothetical passed-out drunk woman a la’ jstevenson’s earlier post ? Also, I’ll wager, not acting in that mode, since few –if any of us– are posting from such an environment or have experienced it directly.
Yarrgh. That’s only funny if you live in a country where radical pro-lifers are as rare as hen’s teeth, Tuomas.
Yes, I had that revelation myself a bit after a clicked submit (and pro-lifers are quite rare here, but they are vicious too, though not to the point of killing doctors). And knowing the kind of shit american women and abortion providers have to put up with your “pro-lifers” does make the comment quite unfunny. My apologies. The comment was tacky.
>>And I would venture that most of those people would slaughter animals and drink their blood if they were starving, regardless of how abhorent the idea of it is from their comfortable positions of entertaining hypothetical situations. And they would do it because they’d be in a position where they could rationalize that behaviour as being necessary, integral to their survival. The movement from integral to survival to integral to self-identity (gender, cultural), I’d argue, is one of degree, not kind.
Rape is not so simple that one can say “HE would do it, and I wouldn’t”?. Men rape. Women rape too, even though we don’t like to talk about it. Women-on-women sexual violence also happens, and so long as we admit that “WE could do no such thing,”? I don’t believe we’ll get anywhere. There is a culture of silence in sexual assult around shame and guilt - but we’ve been led to believe that that shame and guilt is the victim’s alone. The perpetrators feel it too - and so long as we create us/them divides around ideas of “evil”? and exclusivity, there will not be a dialogue on what leads perpetrators to rationalize rape. >>
I think it’s equally important to recognize how strained some of these scenarios are. It’s like the “Well, what if you knew that this particular suspect wasn’t only a suspect but a confirmed terrorist operative–no, um, wait, wait, actually, he’s Osama bin Laden himself!–and he knows the locations of several nuclear devices planted by his followers in major metropolitan areas all over the country! Some under orphanages and petting zoos! And there was no other way to find the bombs in time! And he’s a total wuss, really, just turn on the Christina Aguilera and he’ll fold! Then would you use torture?” argument.
At some point, the “Yes, that could be me,” is utterly meaningless. And at some point, it becomes clear that the arguer is not seeking reasons, but excuses.
Sure, the darkest depths of the human heart &c., but the rapes we are confronted with here and now do not take place in extremis. They don’t involve the snowball effect. They aren’t a result of anarchy or fear. They sure as hell aren’t necessary to the survival of the rapist. They involve perpetrators who live mundane lives. These men are not normal people driven to acts of inhumanity by desperate circumstances, like lifeboat cannibals. They themselves are in entirely comfortable positions.
It isn’t naive to say, “That’s not me,” given that we are actually comparing two people in normal circumstances. It doesn’t really matter whether Robert would commit one sexual assault in order to save Manhattan’s water supply from a drug resistant supervirus. The question is whether, upon encountering a clearly drunk and out-of-it woman by herself at a party, he would help her or hurt her.
Since someone brought up the “but men have uncontrollable sex drives and can’t help themselves!” cliche, I have an answer that’s always worked for me.
Sweetie, that’s why God gave you hands!
Of course you can substitute the deity or belief system of your choice.
See that’s what I don’t get about the uncontrollable desire/temptation theory. Men come equipped with these wonderful appendages that have opposable thumbs and everything. Why not use them?
Amanda, I’m going to “borrow” both Keeper of the Cock and Pussy Oversoul from you (and zuzu). Is it just me or do both of those sounds like characters in an RPG? To recieve the knowledge you need to complete your quest and recieve the secret of life from the Pussy Oversoul, first you must battle the Keeper of the Cock!
You may believe what you want, piny, but I think that we want to believe ourselves incapable of violence because it helps us sleep at night. There comes a point where methinks some just protest too much.
If we return to the race issue, acknowledging capacity for rape is the same as acknowledging receiving the benefits of white privilege - claiming that you’re not a racist becasuse you don’t burn crosses doesn’t help anyone. Ditto claiming that you can’t imagine a scenario where you could rape someone, so therefore you’re not a potential rapist.
As a woman, I can’t afford to believe you. I’ve heard it before.
Umm… not to split hairs, but aren’t “capacity” to commit a violent act and the society one lives in two different things ?
I’d be the first to agree that I benefit from having White skin, that I’ve done stupid, thoughtless things as a result of racism, etc. But, no, I would never burn a cross on somebody’s lawn, even if I am racist by dint of racist acts. All racist acts, from confusing one Black person for another because “they all look alike” to cross-burnings, are part of one continuum. They all take place in a racist society. But they are not identical acts. They do not have identical results, and the latter would indicate a great deal more malice than the former.
Thomas
Thank you for the great example. You saved me the trouble of having to come up with one of my own!
Slightly off the main topic but still relevant - I used to be very much involved in the S&M scene in London, and that’s the one and only place in which I’ve never felt even the slightest fear of rape. The whole idea of mutuality and knowing EXACTLY what your partner does and doesn’t want is so ingrained into the culture that the idea that someone might try to do something against my will just never occurred to me. Another thing I noticed is that in that scene men as well as women stringently police the whole idea of consent ie the idea that it’s the job of women to be the gatekeepers and that men just can’t be expected to exercise any self-discipline just isn’t prevalant. Which to me proves that anyone who claims that gender roles are inherant, men are unable to learn not to rape etc is talking crap. I’ve seen the proof.
The mainstream has some wierd ideas about S&M though. One anecdote that shows how deep the whole gender roles brainwashing goes. I was once sitting in a bar having drinks with a few male co-workers who I was pretty friendly with. Somehow we got onto the subject of S&M. One of the guys was spouting off about how dangerous it all was and how I as a tiny little woman was crazy to even think about getting involved. It wasn’t until we were well into this conversation that one of the guys said something about how I would be so vulnerable when I was all tied up that I realised that they were all assuming that I must be a sub. When my answer was “but I’m a dom, I would never be in that position anyway” they all looked at me like I had two heads until finally one broke the silence and said “but you’re a girl…”
Which is funny because most of the subs I know are men.
And Alsis - I don’t get the “I was drunk” thing either. Smoking pot makes me horny, booze just makes me chatty and inclined to spill a lot of info that I should probably keep to myself (see above co-worker example).
Ginmar, you said
“I forsee another round of people complaining about how it’s unfair for them to be sandbagged when they answered a question honestly. The answer was honestly revolting. ”
I’m curious if you were referring to my intial freaked-out response to Robert’s posting. I got several “how can you say that!” responses in a row and genuinely didn’t understand why, as I thought my response was a lot less harshly worded than it could have been.
Tuomas - this isn’t directed at you since I think you and I have already figured out what both of us were actually trying to say.
Actually, that analogy is as flawed as the analogy between “Calls self vegan but would eat flesh if starving to death,” and, “Calls self not a rapist.”
Saying you’d never burn crosses on someone’s lawn is not the same kind of pr0testation as saying that you do never and would never benefit from white privilege or engage in racism. The former is a specific act; the latter two are broad categories that the speaker and hearer might not agree on. One benefits from white privilege merely by being white; one is not a rapist merely by virtue of being male, although men do benefit from rape culture.
When a man says that he would never rape a woman, and you know that you both define “rape” the same way, it’s irrelevant that things might be different under circumstances so extreme as to be virtually impossible. What he would do is nowhere near as important as what he will do. It would be valid to dispute a man who says that he has never benefited from male privilege, engaged in sexism, or been complicit in rape culture, but that’s still not the same as saying that he would commit rape under extreme circumstances.
If you are saying–as you now seem to be–that you _don’t believe_ men when they say that they would not commit rape under normal circumstances, then that’s different. If that’s your position, then concentrating on the potential for human abuse and violence in situations that none of the men here have to deal with–partly because they are men in a culture which privileges and protects men–makes no sense. Like I said, rape is not something that happens in extremis.
Kim
“Interesting thing to say, it reminded me of a ‘discussion’ I had on another board last year. I had replied to a thread discussing sex, most of it a bunch of men od’ing in bravado, and I said something along the lines of ‘well when I fuck my husband blah blah’. It was met with a kind of uncomfortable shock. I got chastised, as well as a few choice words being tossed my way”
What do you mean by “chastised”? I ask because whenever I talk about sex (in person rather than online- I don’t talk about sex online much at all) I always use the active voice, ie I fucked person A, rather than person A fucked me.
The only time I ever use passive terms is if I’m referring to receiving oral. And I’ve heard a few uncomfortable silences, but I don’t think anyone has ever actually scolded me. Maybe it’s because they know me and they know that I would mock them without mercy if they did. What exactly did they say to you?
Regarding the Nazi example that Amp raised, I actually do believe that some people know what they would and wouldn’t want to do in terms of abusing power. For example - I lived in Libya as a child, and also in Saudi Arabia. In both of those places most men could have gotten away with doing pretty much anything they wanted to the women in their lives. Rape definately, even murder. And yet there were many men who I knew well who didn’t do these things and who treated their wives and daughters (and their sons, who are also relatively powerless in that environment while they’re children) even though they knew beyond a doubt that they could get away with it. Most of the people I knew there(women as well as men, even kids) also had servants who, again, they had almost absolute power over and could have easily gotten away with mistreating. And yet, very few of them did. So, I suppose that I have more faith the basic decency of most people because I’ve seen people who have the opportunity to abuse power and choose not to do it. Not because they’re afraid of being punished, but because they don’t want to.
Britgirl, that was in refernce to Robert’s remark. Also the original sin thing from somewhere squicked me out. But that’s a whole other issue—-Eve, temptation, anybody see some probelms with this?
I don’t understand what the deal is with theory, frankly. Rape isn’t like stealing food or medicine. Is rape higher or lower on Maslow’s pyramid? Rape isn’t a survival need. It won’t kill you to not rape. That’s what’s squicking me out.
<inexcusable thread drift> Never apologize for bringing up MST3k. Just the MST3k Mole People episode alone is clearly relevant to any possible subject on this or any other blog, pilgrim</inexcusable thread drift>
“It’s that whole “‘no’ means ‘no,’ but we’re not going to teach you what a ‘yes’ is for fear that you’ll actually have sex”? issue. It encourages men to treat anything but an unequivocal rejection as an invitation, and means that a lot of people who don’t think of themselves as rapists are doing an awful lot of harm. ”
Bingo. I think that it would be a very productive feminist project to try to teach people what a real “yes” looks like, and to try to shift the consent standard to that instead of “well she’s not threatening to call the cops so it must be fine to proceed”. This would also mean teaching women that they have a RIGHT to say yes as well as teaching men what that looks like.
>>I don’t understand what the deal is with theory, frankly. Rape isn’t like stealing food or medicine. Is rape higher or lower on Maslow’s pyramid? Rape isn’t a survival need. It won’t kill you to not rape. That’s what’s squicking me out.>>
Yes, exactly. Nor does it usually occur in situations where the rapist’s otherwise-active moral center is overriden by some kind of aberrant circumstance. It’s usual, commonplace, mundane: women are normally vulnerable and men are normally in a position to take advantage. Your average rapist is a guy at a party or on a date. He doesn’t have to concern himself with the violence he’s capable of any more than a vegan has to concern himself with the eat-flesh-or-starve question during a trip to the grocery store. That’s why all of these Philosophy and Human Ethics 101 scenarios are so…weird. And a wee bit unsettling.
And why all these potentialities where the rapist’s autonomy is compromised, or where the rapist is threatened with injury or death? I don’t really care what a man would do if the gun were pointed at his head. That’s not how it works.
AndiF
“and though the “Would I rape”? discussion has drifted off into extreme circumstances, back in the real world the more likely question probably is “Would I call what I did rape?”?
Excellent idea. I know I keep repeating this, but I still think it’s the crux of the matter. I think that the majority of men who rape define what they did as “Not rape”, and that’s the real issue.
Jake
“I believe that not understanding that other people have feelings & emotions & physical sensations just like you is what allows people to rape & kill & oppress & torture and all the other billions of horrible things that people do to each other.’.
Precisely. A long way back at the beginning of this discussion someone (I think it was Tuomas) thought that I was saying all rapists are crazy. I don’t think that they’re crazy in the “need to be in an institution because they are liable to jump off a building because they think they can fly” sense, but crazy in the sense that whatever part of the brain it is that allows us to empathise with other people and react to their pain and fear does not appear to be working properly.
I think the reason all these bad things happen so often in war, or in cases like the Janjaweed, is because the victims have been quite explicitely defined as “not people”. Which also partly explains why in our culture rape happens to women (and children) more often than it happens to men.
Naturally I agree. While there are certainly men who intend to rape and hurt women but more of them are ones who accept this idea that fucking is something that men do to the women they decide are fuckable. These men aren’t likely to believe that they’ve committed rape. Instead, I think they see it as just ‘bad sex’ as if it was just one of those instances where the woman didn’t climax.
And why all these potentialities where the rapist’s autonomy is compromised, or where the rapist is threatened with injury or death? I don’t really care what a man would do if the gun were pointed at his head. That’s not how it works.
Gee, because it lets them off the hook, maybe? Keeps the idea of rape away from the norm, away from them, lets them not think about it as part of the day to day lives of people? Of women?
I notice nobody here has come up with real-life hypotheticals that would strike too close to home.
My son was accused of rape. My daughter was raped. My best buddy who, okay, tells sexist jokes, was accused of rape. My best buddy was accused of rape by this total slut! My brother, my uncle, myself—we were all accused of rape, and we didn’t use guns or anything, but, hey, she didn’t say no, really, c’mon, she was into it for a while there—
Yeah, it’s all Rwanda and Nazis, and nobody here lives in Africa or has a time machine.
Interesting fact–Steve’s girlfriend came into the thread at his place and said that no matter how hard she followed instructions to prevent her colds, she still got them. She likened people’s tut-tutting of her for not “taking care” of herself when she takes scrupulous care of herself to the way people treat rape victims. Despite this, one commenter who blamed the girl and her parents for the rape seemed to think Jen was siding with him. I don’t see it myself, but it’s worth checking out. Towards the bottom.
Can I make a sugestion to get this thread back onto a more potentially productive thread? How about if we’re going to talk about whether men would or would not rape we stick to whether they would do so in the circumstances in which most rapes actaully happen (meet drunken stranger at the bar or party, someone you’re already involved with decides on a specific occasion that she doesn’t want to fuck right now, girl you’ve been flirting with for months at work and you are alone together and you make a move and she pushes you away)? Because I don’t think there’s much point to talking about extreme circumstances, since we all now that’s not how most rapes happen.
Also, about the survival analogies…this is bullshit. Killing in order to eat, in order to save your own life etc is in no was similar to rape. Food, not allowing yourself to be shot etc are matters of life or death. Going without sex isn’t fatal. Like I said before, men have hands too.The survival analogy isn’t really relevant.
Sorry if that last post sounded preachy. by the way. Everyone is of course entitled to express their opinions, I just thing it would be more useful to talk about rape in the context where it typically occurs. Also I think we’ve been arguing apples and oranges - the “what I might hypothetically do if I were a Janjaweed” group versus the “what I would actually do in real life group.
Good point, BritGirl. I started a thread at Pandagon so that men could express their frustrations with other men for acting like assholes and moving onto the next step–how to turn those frustrations into action. Rape thrives in large part because men casually condone the attitudes to perpetuate it, like Steve did when he said that a girl who is alone with three guys should be able to play train or whatever. A lot of men are appalled by statements like that but are afraid to speak up. I think that’s a useful vein to mine for productive action.
I would not rape someone in ordinary circumstances. Rape is morally wrong, for a variety of reasons; most immediately, because it contravenes another person’s will over something which their will ought ordinarily to control.
However, I would not characterize my belief that I would not rape in absolute terms. If other men say they know their own potentialities so well that they can speak in absolute terms, then civility requires me to take them at their word; though, if I had something on the line other than politeness, that belief would be entirely superficial and I would be very open to contradictory evidence.
Here’s a radical plan of action for (sexually active straight) men to try that would take care of the “consent” issue and strike a blow against the cultural view of women as passive “receivers” to boot: next time you find yourself in an intimate situation with a woman that seems as though it’s about to progress into sex, instead of plastering yourself all over her like an overeager puppy, make her come and get it. Sit back, smile seductively and invite her to take you as she will. Take your own clothes off, not hers. Better yet, invite her to take your clothes off. Don’t make the first move — hell, even try putting your hands over your head and not touching her at all until she asks you to.
This foreplay strategy certainly flies against all social conditioning men receive to be the instigators and “doers” during sex, and the conditioning women receive to sit back and not actively express their desire/pleasure. It also forces the woman to make a clear decision and send a clear message.
Sure, she might get turned off. She might say no. She might not be able to get over her own inhibitions and preconceived notions of how men and women should behave. And the answer might have been no all along, regardless. But if she says yes, you know it’s a yes, because she’s the one reaching for you.
Not necessarily applicable in all situations, but it could be interesting and informative for men to experiment with taking a more “passive” role and allowing themselves to be “taken” and enjoyed, instead of being the “doer” all the time. I know lots of men already engage with women this way as part of their normal repertoire of sexual behaviors/styles without even giving it much thought, but many more would be stepping far over their comfort zones to act the way women more often do.
Amanda
Good idea, will check out the thread on Pandagon later, and I hope it doesn’t get hijacked by trolls. Do you have any way to bounce trolls if they do start to overwhelm the discussion?
Robert
This time I agree with you. In fact it would probably have been better to be more specific about what I meant in my original question.
I don’t like absolutes either because I can usually think of an exception. For example, in general I am not inclined towards murder. I find it morally repugnant. However, if I had a child and someone hurt or killed that child I admit that the thought might cross my mind, even though I like to hope I wouldn’t act on it.
Giselle, I’m sorry but I don’t see how your line of thinking differs significantly from that of the people at Gilliard’s site. You’re treating rape like its the natural product of being a man. Like I need to be in a 12-step program just so I won’t run around raping women. I’m really personally offended at the suggestion that saying I cannot rape a woman makes me MORE suspect or is in any way an easy way out.
SOME men may just use it as a knee-jerk response, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be a fair response. I don’t say I can’t rape a woman because I just don’t want to think about it. I say it because I have seen what rape does to a woman. I have seen the impact of it up close and personal and I have seen it far too often. I don’t make excuses for men. But I do believe that on sobering self-reflection that I can say that I would never rape anyone. I believe that I can say that it disgusts and horrifies on me on such a base level that it simply will never happen. And I feel that is a point that men can come to honestly.
The whole arguement here was not about giving rapists an excuse. What better excuse than to treat rape as the inevitable product of gender. Something every man must live with every day of his life. This is only going to discourage men from participating in the discussion and being engaged to take proactive steps in their own lives and in the lives of those around them to stop rape. The situation you present sounds hopeless. If I were to believe it, I don’t know how I could function. Under constant fear that I would commit such an act. We may all have a darkness in our hearts, but I don’t think its fair to say we are all capable of horrible evil. What we must realize is that there is nothing innate about us which prevents evil. It is our will and mind which prevents it. It is knowing rape. Knowing evil. This is what can allow us to say, no. That is not who I am. I don’t see how we can have a conversation on how some men self-justify rape if we conclude its something we all can do. If we are all the same, what hope is there? If we cannot make ourselves into something different, what can hope to achieve? The first step is not admitting you have a problem. I think its wrong to create a culture of presumed evil and I think this only sends people away from the discussion. It makes it easier for them to dismiss the matter out of hand. We need to get men to confront rape, not on the premise that they must be constantly aware of their rapist tendancies, but because knowing rape can prevent rape. Knowing the horror of it, knowing the consequences, this is what can undo rationalizations of rape. This is what will weaken the attempts at self-justification. And I think it is perfectly fair for a man to conclude through such introspection and understanding that he cannot do this. I think its what he must conclude.
Branding all men as potential rapists just strikes me as non-productive. I don’t think its going to spark reflection. I think its going to spark the kind of easy denial you say is so wrong. If that’s the framework of a discussion of rape, I know I wouldn’t participate because it strikes me as fundamentally wrong. Men can rape. Men have this power. No. Saying “no, not I” should not be the first step for a man confronting this issue. But I absolutely think it can be the last step. And I think the men who have expressed that in this thread have come to this place through thoughful deliberation of the issue of rape and from experiences with people in our lives who have been victims of rape. I do think the end of that journey can be a self-awareness that one is incapable of rape. Not through their natural state, but through their understanding and awareness of it. At a basic level, are men capable of rape? Obviously. But that’s no reason to call it a cop out should any man who concludes that the cannot, must not, commit rape.
I don’t think its fair to say we are all capable of horrible evil…
What we must realize is that there is nothing innate about us which prevents evil.
I have to admit, this formulation confuses me. It’s not fair to say that we can all commit horrible evil, but it’s nonetheless true?
If we are all the same, what hope is there? If we cannot make ourselves into something different, what can [we] hope to achieve?
This is a standard crisis point for the non-theist. Your conclusion follows with inexorable logic from your premises. However, your conclusion is intolerable to you. You’re left with three possibilities:
1) decide that logic is invalid, load a bowl, and stop thinking about it
2) embrace the (nihilistic and evil) conclusion and give up on humanity, or
3) abandon one or more of the premises.
Good luck with it.
(I am assuming you are a non-theist because of the philosophical predicament you lay out. It’s easily resolved by theists, very hard for non-theists. Apologies if I’m misreading you.)
“If we return to the race issue, acknowledging capacity for rape is the same as acknowledging receiving the benefits of white privilege - claiming that you’re not a racist becasuse you don’t burn crosses doesn’t help anyone.”
It’s not quite the same thing. Receiving the benefits of white privilege is probably more analogous to receiving the benefits of male privilege. And I don’t quite see “capacity for rape” as a male *privilege* (I suppose “capacity to live one’s life without fearing being raped” might be, but even then I’m not quiet comfortable with defining a right as a privilege).
No superiority involved. Theistic philosophies are going to be better at handling some kinds of problems than non-theistic philosophies; this is one of them. Non-theistic philosophies have their own unique advantages.
Of course, if your commitment to non-theism is shaky enough that you view any articulation of a different worldview as an attempt to assert superiority, or vice versa, then you’re probably not going to see it that way. They don’t read a lot of Nietschze at Oral Roberts University. It was not my intention to claim the higher ground; I simply see someone struggling with a problem that a lot of people end up struggling with.
P-A, do you believe that all-slash-most men are potential rapists? And if you do believe that, then your attempted slam at me for acknowledging that I am indeed prone to the sins and crimes that beset our species is based on what, exactly?
If you don’t believe that, then I’d be genuinely interested to see how you integrate the belief with your other espoused philosophies.
“And if you do believe that, then your attempted slam at me for acknowledging that I am indeed prone to the sins and crimes that beset our species is based on what, exactly?”
Your past comments on this thread. Apparently, some are more prone then others, as you demonstrated with your comments and personal sentiments within them. Potentiality is one thing. But your willingness (or how strong or weak is your proneness) to act on it and fulfill that, is quite another thing. I should have focused on the issue of the strength or weakness of ‘proneness’ rather than the pontentiality. My_bad.
However your comments leads me (and has led others) to believe that since you seem to have such a low opinion of humanity in general, acknowledge humanity’s capability to commit such horrors (which is true, it happens) but seem to believe that we’re far too barbaric and “sinful” at heart to exercise restraint (and hope your deity will forgive you for it and if that happens then all is well and no skin off your back because you were forgiven by your deity), or exercising restraint is futile due to the strong “sinful” urges of human nature (and why bother when your deity will forgive you anyway), then you in particular are very prone to commit violence–such as rape. Which is why not only are you a “potential rapist” but are pretty damn prone to it as well, given your own sentiments of the nature of humanity–males in this case. Because you know, you just can’t help yourself.
Robert, it ain’t your articulation of a different world view that’s a problem. The problem is your snide and condescending method of articulating that view. The combination of your giving only 3 options for resolution of a view that isn’t yours while ignoring what BStu had to say after the snippet you quoted with, “Good Luck with it,” is both disingenuous and dismissive. I honestly don’t care if you pray to the Easter Bunny. I do care about your dismissiveness and false representation of the possible conclusions of what BStu had to say.
BStu wrote the following. All I can say is, Amen. THIS is how we start addressing the problem.
“The whole arguement here was not about giving rapists an excuse. What better excuse than to treat rape as the inevitable product of gender. Something every man must live with every day of his life. This is only going to discourage men from participating in the discussion and being engaged to take proactive steps in their own lives and in the lives of those around them to stop rape. The situation you present sounds hopeless. If I were to believe it, I don’t know how I could function. Under constant fear that I would commit such an act. We may all have a darkness in our hearts, but I don’t think its fair to say we are all capable of horrible evil. What we must realize is that there is nothing innate about us which prevents evil. It is our will and mind which prevents it. It is knowing rape. Knowing evil. This is what can allow us to say, no. That is not who I am. I don’t see how we can have a conversation on how some men self-justify rape if we conclude its something we all can do. If we are all the same, what hope is there? If we cannot make ourselves into something different, what can hope to achieve? The first step is not admitting you have a problem. I think its wrong to create a culture of presumed evil and I think this only sends people away from the discussion. It makes it easier for them to dismiss the matter out of hand. We need to get men to confront rape, not on the premise that they must be constantly aware of their rapist tendancies, but because knowing rape can prevent rape. Knowing the horror of it, knowing the consequences, this is what can undo rationalizations of rape. This is what will weaken the attempts at self-justification. And I think it is perfectly fair for a man to conclude through such introspection and understanding that he cannot do this. I think its what he must conclude.”
Oh, and Robert, on BStu’s comment, I’m an atheist and his thinking makes perfect sense to me. One need not believe in God in order to have a clear sense of morality.
A point I made earlier but no one has picked up on.
We blame people who are the victims of horrible acts (rapes, murders) or occurrences (floods, fires) partly because it reassures us that it won’t happen to us.
“Oh, that girl got raped. But she was slutty anyway, so it was bound to happen. Lucky for me, I/my daughter/my sister am not slutty, so I don’t need to worry that it will happen to me/my daughter/my sister. “
I have to admit, this formulation confuses me. It’s not fair to say that we can all commit horrible evil, but it’s nonetheless true?
You mistake me. I acknowledge that humanity has shown the capability of evil. Therefore I reject the notion that we can simply assume ourselves to be incapable of acts of extreme depravity. That doesn’t mean it is wrong for an individual to confront the issue and come to the conclusion that they are not capable of such acts. Human potential is a very different thing than an individual’s potential. We shouldn’t make the mistake of dismissing the notion of doing evil, but we should also not feel bound to such potential. We have the freedom of will to compel us to act differently.
This is a standard crisis point for the non-theist. Your conclusion follows with inexorable logic from your premises. However, your conclusion is intolerable to you.
Pardon me, but I believe if you read above you will see that I do reach my own conclusion. I do believe we can make ourselves into something more through self-reflection. If I was a theist, I might refer to this action as prayer or meditation. I can see that humans of committed great acts of evil and those acts disgust and horrify me at a basic level. I do not shy away from confronting those acts. I feel it is vital to understand them and to understand the horror that lies in their wake. I do not dismiss the human potential for rape. I confront it so that I can reject it. Humans are also clearly capable of great acts of kindness and good. You have concluded that evil is our natural state, while good is not. I can see that neither is a natural state. We are shaped partly by genetics, yes, but also by the world around us and our understanding of that world. We are not slaves to biology. We have our minds and our wills to shape who we are and what actions we will take. And it is perfectly appropriate to conclude that there are some actions we simply will not take.
Now, maybe my Catholic education deceived me, by I seem to recall my theology professors touching on the subject of free will. The idea that God has endowed humanity with the ability to think and act for oneself. How is it not possible for a person of faith to conclude they are incapable of rape through their own thoughful contemplation and prayer on the matter?
You were right that I am not a theist. I am agnostic and have been for all of my life. However, your reasoning was nevertheless flawed. A person of faith could easily view these issues in much the same way as I do, although with different guiding principles. But not as different as you seem to imagine. I am thankful for my Christian friends who do not dismiss me in such a manner for my own acts of concience.
Though, I do admit I got quite a laugh from your “I’m not superior. I’m just better,” self-justification. Rather made it worth it, I would say. I’m glad you find faith valuable to your own life, but I will thank you not to presume to know what is best for me. That you have found morality through your chosen path is by no means an indication that it will be impossible or even more difficult to find it by my path. I’m not going to engage in a moral philosophy measuring contest, so I will simply say that I am quite satisfied with my beliefs.
What does having the ability to do something have to do with accountability and respect for others? Whether or not one is capable of evil has nothing to do with subjecting another person to something against their will. It is wrong to act in a way that causes harm or restricts someone’s freedom and integrity. It doesn’t make any difference if it is war and you have the bigger guns and a certain moral imperative (all war is evil in my mind), or if one is independent, weaker, stupid, trusting, honest, or showing poor judgment. There is no justification to forcing sex, (which is more about control, dominance and violence) theft, lying or any other deception that harms another, especially over the weaker ones.
It is obvious that many men are unclear, and see a role they seem to ascribe to, and believe that it is threatened and needs to be defended. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could come in off the margins and let it be OK, and in the process stop marginalizing women? What a relief that would be, so much wasted energy and happiness. We wouldn’t need 200+ blog entries trying to rationalize an indefensible position. Just think of the possibilities of another half of the population made available to be friends and coworkers in the fields, instead of someone to fear.
Well, obviously I didn’t make my intention or meaning clear. However, it’s also obvious that its a complete digression from the main line of discussion, so rather than keep yakkin’ about it, I’ll drop the matter with “sorry, Btsu, no offense was intended”.
Gisele (re: 191) - yes of course even the strictest vegetarian would eat meat if it was the last thing available and the only alternative to starving. It wouldn’t be a rationalisation, it would be a real necessity. I just don’t see how rape is in the category of necessity!
I thought of that example of people who are genuinely repelled by the idea of eating animals because of the nature of that repulsion, which is not just or even necessarily physical; it’s repulsion at the idea of harming a living being even if it’s not human. Maybe some people are vegetarian by fashion; maybe because of diet reasons; maybe because of a lot of other ’superficial’ reasons; but many do genuinely dislike the thought of harming animals, period.
Point was, there is such a thing as a genuine desire *not* to harm others. Sure I agree with being suspicious of people who say they could or would never do anything bad or cruel to anyone and only see themselves as good and generous and nice, but that’s not the question here, no one was saying such a thing; the question is specifically rape.
The question “would I do it?” doesn’t mean “would I be capable of doing it at all” but “would I want to do it”. Otherwise, why ask that question at all. Everyone is theoretically capable of anything; murderers are often the nicest neighbours (”oh I could have never guessed!”). Not everyone has to the same desires to do the same things, though.
Not everyone even has the same ‘heart of darkness’. Some people’s heart of darkness is more suicidal rather than homicidal; depressive rather than aggressive; masochist rather than sadist. They’d sooner hurt themselves than others. Anyone could ‘flip’ and do horrible things, to themselves and/or others, of course. No one comes with safety instructions and there is no neat divide between ‘normal’ and ’sick’ people, only between healthy and sick behaviour. But in every day life, which is where rapes do occur, and where rapists do get away with it, as you unfortunately know from personal experience, well there is no such extreme ‘flip’ switch. Rapes are the most ordinary crime sadly.
To translate “would I do it if I could get away with it” as “would I do it if I flipped/if I was in an extreme situation where my personality was fundamentally altered/if I was living in a completely lawless society and had no sense of empathy or humanity” is to turn the question into a silly game. Plus, no extreme scenario ever justifies the condition of “necessity” by which people can be forced to alter their desires, behaviour and moral codes (as in the vegetarian example).
I’m just wondering, again, out of sheer curiosity, how can anyone envisage a situation in which rape would suddenly become something they would do (would want to do), without meaning they do think it’s an extreme version of sex, so that it becomes an extreme form of necessity or desire, like a substitute for sex.
And I don’t have to be a man to wonder about that question too. It’s not like women are incapable of picturing themselves as doing something usually and predominantly done by men. It’s not like we can’t crack the mentality behind rape unless we’re man and/or rapists. We should all shut up if it was so and only let certified rapists speak to enlighten us.
And yes, women rape too, just like children kill their parents. It’s a bit rare for it to register in the debate about rape. Plus, we’re talking specifically of men raping women.
On the one hand, the attitude of saying “only some men do it, most don’t” in the way Steve Gilliard put it is a convenient excuse to avoid all social and cultural notions that allow rapists to get away with it, socially and legally, or their actions to be put in the background while we counter-examine the victim’s lifestyle. It’s a way to put it down entirely to individuals and to individual responsibility and avoid looking at the bigger picture. But it does not follow that we should equate “every man is capable of rape” or “there is a mentality that allows men to get away with rape” with “every man would rape if only they could get away with it”. That assumes that rape is an extension of sexual desire; that it’s a “temptation”, that it’s a desire as natural as wanting to fuck, and only a strict sense of morals or Christian notions of a punishing God would restrain you from doing it. That’s bullshit. That’s a puritan, hypocrite notion of morals. It’s also a reinforcement of the notion of rape as a natural, biological inclination or urge that’s part and parcel of male sexuality and needs to be tamed. That is what I personally call righteousness, the idea that refraining from harm is all about morals one has imposed on one’s unruly nature. Look at me, I’m a sinner, but I make a great effort at domesticating the wolf in me.
Well, I don’t believe in that concept of morals, I don’t believe in the good/evil dichotomy in Christian or Bushian terms, and I don’t believe refraining from harm is a simple matter of having an external restraint whose removal would turn us automatically into wolves. I don’t quite believe anyone is born automatically 100% good and saintly, or 100% evil bastard. There’s varying degrees of good and bastard in everyone. I do believe in both individual responsibility and social and cultural influences; I do believe, barring extreme cases and circumstances etc. etc., in the ordinary, we all, or most of us, have a capacity for empathy which is necessary for our own survival, not just for social life. What can silence, or kill, or manipulate that empathy is not a lack of restraint, but ideology, especially the us/them mentality. Which is, IMHO, the real “heart of darkness” that leads to violence, rape, wars, etc.
I don’t think saying “who me? oh no I’d never ever do that” is necessarily to be taken at face value; but denying it’s even possible to be truly repelled by doing harm to others (or calling it ‘righteousness’) is denying the existence of empathy, which is independent of a belief in the existence of a god. Actually, I think people who deny the existence of god can often have a lot more empathy with others because they don’t need an external validation for it.
(I’m not responding only to Gisele, of course, but to a series of points in the discussion.)
piny - I think it’s equally important to recognize how strained some of these scenarios are. It’s like the “Well, what if you knew that this particular suspect wasn’t only a suspect but a confirmed terrorist operative”“no, um, wait, wait, actually, he’s Osama bin Laden himself!”“and he knows the locations of several nuclear devices planted by his followers in major metropolitan areas all over the country! Some under orphanages and petting zoos! And there was no other way to find the bombs in time! And he’s a total wuss, really, just turn on the Christina Aguilera and he’ll fold! Then would you use torture?”? argument.
Exactly! And it’s an attempt to validate the use of torture.
(Piny, you’re only slightly exaggerating some of the hypotheticals used in pro-torture arguments. The famous ticking bomb scenario. )
BStu - Look, I’ll admit that I can’t know a lot of things in an absolute sense. I don’t think I could murder someone, but I can’t say for certain that a hypothetical circumstance couldn’t arise where I might. I don’t think I’ll ever steal, but I know I can’t say it for certain. Rape is different. And I think that’s why a lot of the people here are taken aback by the lack of an absolute answer. I am, too. I functionally understand what motivates the reluctance, but from my personal experience I simply can’t understand how someone could feel that way.
Rape is a sadistic crime. It is not something one does in a passion or out of fear.
Absolutely, that’s what I was thinking too, and thanks for putting it so clearly and perfectly, BStu (I’d missed that comment earlier on).
I know this is late — I have a job, family and sleep which require much of my time.
To clarify my statements about 200 posts ago — Amp came to my rescue:
“How many of the mobs who contributed to or directly committed mass-murder and mass-rape in Rwanda would have said, “If I could get away with it, I would rape and murder”? if someone had asked them that in 1990? I bet lots of them would have said “I could never do something like that. I could never rape. I could never kill if it wasn’t self-defense.”?”
I know he may not have wanted to come to my defense, but it is stupid to not acknowlege that people do stupid things when they are drunk. Yes, perhaps you live in the biodome and have never seen people do stupid things when they are drunk, however if you live in Austin I challenge you to say you have never seen people do stupid things when they are drunk.
Also, Jake, who hung me on a spike so I may die an aggravating Aztec conquered tribe death sentence, but managed to support me — of course he then went on to insult me personally:
“Dad shows Junior “Playboy”? when Junior is 5. Dad tells Junior how women are different than men (on the rag, a slave to cock, etc.). In school, Junior’s playmates (who have been taught the same things) reinforce not only these beliefs, but the need to act as if women are a different species. In highschool & college if you don’t talk about how you’d like to fuck this girl or that, you are suspect. When you enter the workforce, on your breaks the guys will ogle women and say things like, “I’d do her.”?
That was my point — we (as in men) cannot change the way men think unless we change the way we raise our men. I am not saying that men are born that way Jake (notice the lack of personal attack everyone — “tact” goes a long way) I am saying that MANY young men ARE that way. It is not because they are wired to think that way (does it really matter — it is just bad enough that enough young men during their early years will do the drunken creep if given the chance. Isn’t that enough?). Most of the problem is the definition of RAPE. If everyone was on the same page on that definition things would work out better. However, personal attacks, name calling does nothing in making it better for women. The best way to reduce sexual assault and other gender issue problems is communication and understanding. You cannot get your point across to the other side unless you understand what the other side is thinking and why. Robert pointed out the problem (not all men Jake, but the one’s who are a problem is what we are talking about)
I am currently prosecuting my 20th date rape case by the way. I have defended many others. So before you criticize me, I can tell you I know what THEY are thinking because I have been able to get both sides of the story. I actually asked my defendants — what the fuck were you thinking! I also tell my victims the problems that they will face, to prepare them for cross-examination. Isn’t it possible when you said on the videotape “I really want to be taped having sex” or the time on the videotape where you were on top and said “This is like a porno; I love pornos!” — isn’t it possible that he could have mistook those phrases for consent? That is how I have to prepare her — am I blaming the victim, no. However, I am trying to make it clear that her STUPID statements may derail the prosecution of this potential sexual predator.
Next time you rail on someone — do a better job of trying to see what they are saying instead of flying off the handle on the first possible negative analysis and calling that person a name.
The castration issue was probably because I have become jaded due to the stupid things I have seen young, immature men do.
I wholeheartedly concur with the suggestion that men need to be taught not only that “no means no” but what constitutes a “yes.”
In discussions about rape, pornography, and sexual harrassment (ie throughout the “pie fights” and the Gillard post that inspired this one), far too many people seems to be operating under not only the assumption that men have more sexual desire than women, but also that women’s sexuality is synonymous with what men find desirable in women. Sexuality is a combination of having sexual desires and being seen as sexually desirable, but the common perception is that male sexuality is defined only by male desires, and that female sexuality is also defined only by male desires.
As others have already pointed out, the false assumption that men need sex but women don’t really even like it all that much makes it easier for many people to argue that focusing only/mainly on victim initiated prevention is not blaming the victim, as if it is simply natural for women to always be on guard and working to abstain from sex. The perception that only male desires define sexuality makes this argument, and other arguements defending rape, easier too, because it ignores the idea that a woman could discover that the encounter being offered was not what she thought it would be, and instead focuses on the stereotypes of women constantly changing their mind or being submissive.
These assumptions also make it easierfor people to see sexual harrassment as merely a side effect of men liking sex, and women not liking it, rather than sexism.
They also allow people to assert that pornography that does objectify women (but not men) is either inevitable or automatically empowering for women, as if being seen as sexual is the same as expressing one’s own sexuality.
A couple of times, BritGirlSF has brought up the question of how men and women define rape, and I’ve been meaning to address that, but it’s difficult. When I was younger, before the first time I’d had sex, I read Andrea Dworkin’s Intercourse and grossly misunderstood it — I actually thought it proved that all sexuality was rape. On a recent rereading, I found it was quite clear that’s not what Dworkin was saying, and I had to wonder why I’d misunderstood it. I think that, having no experience at the time with the reality of sexual activity, I’d simply accepted the widely held belief that men were always active, women always passive, and agreed that that model amounted to an assumption that normal sexuality was rape, and completely failed to understand Dworkin’s suggestion that we could have sex that was an expression of mutual desire.
I had heard women friends describing their sexual desires for men, but I’d never heard anyone describe a sexual experience in which a woman was active. Until my first sexual experience, it had never occurred to me even as an abstract possibility. I was astonished, to say the least, when my first partner initiated sex. I was delighted, but totally surprised.
The notion that woman are always passive, men always active, is incredibly pervasive. There are a few places in Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex where she insists it’s impossible for a woman to enjoy sex unless she’s passive, for instance.
My second sexual partner, also a woman, didn’t have any idea that women could be active in sex. I never touched her without her consent — but I never knew if she really wanted to have sex, and I didn’t get the impression she enjoyed it at all. I tried to be as kind and gentle and giving as I could, but it didn’t seem to help. I gave up trying to have a sexually intimate relationship before long, and I was very upset by the entire experience — I think it’s a large part of the reason I’ve been single ever since.
If the “normal” view of sexuality is male active, female passive, then it’s all too easy to skip over that bit about consent. I think these attitudes are very common, and that often men initiate sex when it’s murky whether consent was actually given.
I think there’s a range of distorted sexual events — from miserable sex with pro forma consent, to sex in which it’s not clear whether consent was given, to sex without consent. Many men, talking about the violence they’d like to see done to rapists, think of rape only in the most extremely violent form — in order to distance themselves from the nagging feeling that they really shouldn’t have had sex with their girlfriend that one time when she was really drunk.
I do think part of the problem is that men and women don’t have a clear sense of what it means to say “yes,” or that women can initiate sex, because it leaves female sexual agency out of the picture. And rape is about denying a women’s agency and autonomy.
>>Gee, because it lets them off the hook, maybe? Keeps the idea of rape away from the norm, away from them, lets them not think about it as part of the day to day lives of people? Of women? >>
Now you’re just being paranoid.
>>piny - I think it’s equally important to recognize how strained some of these scenarios are. It’s like the “Well, what if you knew that this particular suspect wasn’t only a suspect but a confirmed terrorist operative”“no, um, wait, wait, actually, he’s Osama bin Laden himself!”“and he knows the locations of several nuclear devices planted by his followers in major metropolitan areas all over the country! Some under orphanages and petting zoos! And there was no other way to find the bombs in time! And he’s a total wuss, really, just turn on the Christina Aguilera and he’ll fold! Then would you use torture?”? argument.
Exactly! And it’s an attempt to validate the use of torture.
(Piny, you’re only slightly exaggerating some of the hypotheticals used in pro-torture arguments. The famous ticking bomb scenario. )>>
Yup. To be fair, I don’t often hear men objecting to the insistence that men not rape with, “Well, but, but, what if they were gonna murder my whole family? Then I’d have no choice!” This is the first time I’ve ever encountered the drift, and I understand that it’s not a straight-out excuse for rape in the situations we’re actually discussing. But why focus on it? Vegans usually discuss the justice of meat-eating without wondering what would happen if they were marooned on a barren desert island with a chicken.
“…it is stupid to not acknowlege that people do stupid things when they are drunk. Yes, perhaps you live in the biodome and have never seen people do stupid things when they are drunk, however if you live in Austin I challenge you to say you have never seen people do stupid things when they are drunk…”
Trouble is, jstevenson, that doesn’t account for those who manage to not rape anyone while they are drunk. Or do you think that on the occasion that I did go drinking with a male friend, or several male friends, I just got lucky. [shrug] I do regard myself as a lucky woman for never having had a man rape me, but I wouldn’t go so far as to think that the guys I was drinking with who didn’t rape me just happened, by strange coincidence, not to be in a raping mood that day. That would just be too damn strange, even for a natural-born cynic like me.
I tend to agree with others in this thread who said that alcohol might provide an excuse to someone who already intended to prey on someone else, but by itself, no– I don’t think it can do a Jekyll/Hyde number on the average adult man– IF he has a healthy view of sexuality and women.
To compound the confusion of any MRA who might be passing through with his pre-conceived notion of feminists as man-haters, I’d also like to comment on:
“…The castration issue was probably because I have become jaded due to the stupid things I have seen young, immature men do.”
Excpet that castration doesn’t necessarily destroy the urge to rape, if one considers that urge something other than just an amplified sexual urge. I certainly do. Furthermore, it’s tough to imagine how chopping off a rapist’s balls would lead overall to a less violence-oriented relationship between men and women. If anything, I fear it would give rapists one more excuse to indulge their hatred for women. Some clues as to why this might be the case were provided nicely by this thread on the Black Looks blog that talks about a supposed “anti-rape” device and its quite obvious drawbacks as a “training tool” to keep rapists at bay.
I’ll back up alsis on the subject of drinking and it’s role in rape. In my exprience drinking doesn’t make anyone do anything that they didn’t already want to do. It lowers inhibitions to be sure, but it doesn’t produce voices in people’s heads telling them to do bad things. In fact I think that many people who drink too much do so precisely because they want to use it as an excuse for doing things they wanted to do anyway. I’ve been around plenty of drunken men in my time, and many of them have indeed tried to make passes at me, but all of them have still been able to understand the meaning of the word “no”.
Brian, thinking of all my own misconceptions about female sexuality when I was younger, I’m not really surprised that young men have so many misconceptions about female sexuality.
you said:
“A couple of times, BritGirlSF has brought up the question of how men and women define rape, and I’ve been meaning to address that, but it’s difficult.”
And I agree, it’s difficult and important.
I grabbed a copy of Dworkin’s “Intercourse” and Susan Brownmiller’s “Against Our Will” to skim during my breaks today. (the joys of working in bookstore - and yes, I got some very odd looks from co-workers) Brownmiller talks about how men and women define rape differently. For women, rape is simply being made to have sex, in any form, when she doesn’t want to. (paraphrased)
I don’t think that men and women would disagree with the that definition of rape, I think that the confusion comes into play with words like “being made” and on what type of burden of proof there is that she doesn’t want to have sex. If she says no, but doesn’t fight, is it still rape? If she didn’t say yes, but didn’t say no either, it is rape? I would say yes, because both deny women agency and autonomy, but I have a feeeling that a lot of people would disagree.
Because, as you said:
“If the “normal”? view of sexuality is male active, female passive, then it’s all too easy to skip over that bit about consent. I think these attitudes are very common, and that often men initiate sex when it’s murky whether consent was actually given.”
When male sexuality is defined as inheirently aggressive and female sexuality is considered to be nothing more than capitulating to male desires, how can you define rape as a violation women’s autonomy? It seems to me that you can’t, and this is a big part of why our culture and legal systems fail so miserably in addressing the problem of rape.
I agree with Alsis on the castration issue…
Also, (I’m not an expert on legal systems but anyway) I think the castration penalty would make it more hard to convict rapists, if the jury thinks the rapist was just a nice guy who made a mistake and victim was a lying slut (or, maybe I should say it would create a certain pressure to see things this way, as I think most people wouldn’t be happy to castrate people unnecessarily). Such change in the law is, IMO, good for nothing without a cultural change to a culture that doesn’t minimize rape and blame the victim.
More rapists would get off the hook, even though those convicted would get a truly memorable punishment (and I fear this would become a matter of getting the best defense lawyer, racial prejudices[ a rapist of "scary" race would probably be convicted more easily] etc.)
And I’m not exactly happy about the idea of cruel physical punishments (though It would be a fitting punisment in some sense, if you ask me), because of pragmatic reasons like irreversibility etc. But that would be a variation of the death-penalty discussion, which is kinda off-topic, and I don’t have interest in it anyway right now.
The threat of severe punishment as a means of preventing rape isn’t likely to be effective. First of all, as the never-dwindling prison population shows, you can’t prevent crime with the threat of punishment. Secondly, the more severe the punishment, the more likely the resistance to prosecution (which is already fairly high). And finally, if a man doesn’t think that what he is doing is rape, then the potential punishment for the act isn’t going to deter him.
I’m all for teaching women not to do stupid things but that advice also isn’t going to do much prevent rape, unless one of the stupid things we are going to avoid is breathing. What’s more I’m not willing to curtail my freedom so men can behave in any way they choose. If I wanted to live like that, I’d move somewhere they had purdah.
The solution is, as has been stated here, better sex education for both men and women from both parents and schools (and the religious institution of your choice should you be so inclined). Any being with the capacity to learn calculus ought to be able to learn to respect each other’s needs, wants, and desires. The real problem is getting society to believe that we should do so.
Brian, thanks for the response. I think we’re starting to get at the heart of the matter here. Which, IMHO, is what we actually mean when we use words like rape and consent. We don’t all mean the same things, and it’s hard to have a conversation when you’re not actually sure what other people mean. Or maybe I just read too much linguistic philosophy!
Still, I think that everyone defining what the terms mean to them is a start. I think that talking about the frames we grew up with (ie the ones that we had before we ever even came close any kind of sexual contact with anyone other than oursleves) would also be a start. The more people’s responses I read on this thread, the more convinced I become that we all have an idea of what we think the words mean and what we think is considered “normal” within our culture, but that each of our ideas of what “normal” is is slightly different.
For the record I have a great deal of respect for Dworkin but I don’t think that anyone should be reading her books at a young age, and certainly not before they have had any real sexual experience. I first read them in college (I started with Men Possessing Women) and in my case I responded with a freak-out so monumental that I was terrified of men for months - even my nice feminist boyfriend, even the guys I’d know for years. Her books scared me, and it was a long time before I could take anything useful away from them rather than just fear. Before anyone jumps all over me please note the stuff I’ve already written about this - I’m not an apologist for rape, or for patriarchy, or for porn. But I do think that Dworkin is heavy stuff that most people just can’t really comprehend until they’re a bit older (and note that it was still too much for me at 18 and I was reading Orwell and A Clockwork Orange at 11). Brian, I’m not surprised that you reacted the way you did, but I’m glad that you went back to it later and were able to make sense of it at that point.
Something that really struck me reading Brian’s post was how different his frames are from mine. (Out of curiosity, how old are you, and where did you grow up?) I don’t recall ever having the idea that women were “supposed” to be passive or that men were in any way “entitled” to sex (which was probably why Dworkin was such a shock to the system). I do recall being taught that it was the man’s “job” to initiate in terms of making the intitial introduction, but the idea that men were supposed to make the first move each and every time in terms of initiating sex definately wasn’t part of my frame. I did get the message that women didn’t necessarily have orgasms and that for some women this was “normal”, but I also got the message that women were supposed to enjoy sex too or why bother doing it? I also always assumed that it was Ok for women to initiate, and it never occured to me that some men might not like it if you did (which interestingly enough I never experienced in the UK, but I’ve heard plenty of women complain about it in the States). But the whole idea that sex is something done by a man to a woman was never part of my frame at all, even as a kid. I think I know why but I’m going to stop babbling at this point as I don’t think anyone’s really interested in my childhood.
I also always assumed the Brownmiller idea of what rape means, ie any sexual act that a woman doesn’t want. The idea that a man could be raped by a woman never occured to me, and I still have trouble imagining how that would work (although sexual assault of the kind Thomas described is pretty easy to imagine and I always assumed that that could potentially be done by anyone to anyone). I still think that idea of rape still sounds right. However, the legal definition of rape is often very different, though, and frankly I think it needs to be brought more into line with the Brownmiller version.
I would be interested to find out what the average male definition of rape is. It’s kind of hard to do this in hypothetical terms though, unless it’s a definiton as simple as the Brownmiller one. If anyone wants to take a crack at it (Brian? Tuomas or Thomas?) please do.
I still think that framing the issue in the terms “sex may proceed as long as the woman consents” is inherently problematic. Firstly, because this frame implies active doer/passive person who is done to. Secondly because it also assumes lack of any real desire for sex on the part of the woman. It just kind of seems like it makes the woman’s body into a toll booth - her only role is to say yes you may pass or no you may not. The idea that she’s a participant is missing. It just doesn’t resemble my real-life experience of sex at all. Where’s the idea of pleasure, or of sharing, hell, even of interaction? Where’s the idea that sometimes the woman can be the dominant party, or that sometimes there actually isn’t really a dominant party? I think that we need to work on reframing this in a big way.
There’s so much discussion here about rape being a result of male sexual desire, which I find a bit hollow, to be honest. I think this is used as an excuse, as discussed, but I sincerely doubt it’s at the heart of the issue.
If you’re fucking someone who’s upset about it - and you get gratification from the experience - that’s a power issue. Like, a way to “Fuck you/Shut up/How could you do that to me?/Take that!” someone.
I do agree that the reason a lot of men get away with their behaviour (to themselves, and to their friends, not in the legal sense) is by pulling the gender get-out-of-jail-free card.
I think the power issue also helps to explain female-female rape, of which I’ve been a victim (but which NEVER FUCKING gets discussed, because many feminists want to sweep it under the rug and pretend it doesn’t exist because it doesn’t fit their 101 of why rape exists).
IMHO, the two questions: “Can you ever imgine yourself torturing someone?” and “Can you ever imagine yourself raping someone?” are very similar.
I worry most about the people that don’t see these questions as more or less equivalent (along with the ones that answer with an enthusiastic “yes!” of course…).
My son was accused of rape.
My daughter was raped.
My best buddy who, okay, tells sexist jokes, was accused of rape.
My best buddy was accused of rape by this total slut!
My brother, my uncle, myself…we were all accused of rape, and we didn’t use guns or anything, but, hey, she didn’t say no, really, c’mon, she was into it for a while there…
1) I don’t have children, so I’m taking the liberty of changing my son, into my brother. Very unlikely, I might say, but I would wait for the trial and evidence. Maybe I could hear her story as well?
2)Im changing this to a a friend (a woman), all support for her and I would encourage her to press charges. And support her when the inevitable: “she’s a slut” comes (and if I were to hear such stuff from, say, my other friends, they wouldn’t be friends anymore.)
3)Wait for evidence… Dismissing sexist defenses (like if he told me that okay, she said no but you know women really mean yes or shit like that, be suspicious of my best buddy…)
4)Wait for evidence… Not dismissing the case because her sexual promiscuity even if the police/jury does. Actually, that would probably make the rape more likely (easier to get away with, and attitude of “she’s having sex with everyone, so it’s not fair I’m not getting any” -> rape) be suspicious of my best buddy…
5) Now, this would mean I would have been doing stuff I find repulsive/wrong (if we used force/coercion), ditto for my uncle and brother (I would strongly suspect that for my brother and uncle)… That would mean that all of us were different persons than we are, so hypothetical at best… If I were a scumbag like that I’d probably loudly proclaim my innocence, but this is a far-out scenario, even more so than the extreme circumstances discussed earlier (wars etc.).
There… I can discuss situations like this just fine, however, since none of them have happened they too seem hypothetical. This is of course, how I would do things in ideal situations and I’m not sure just how far I would go if it’s against my interests. I would hope that I would do the right thing no matter what (for self-respect among other things).Anyone else care to give it a try, the questions were good…
I don’t want to put words in Gisele’s mouth, but I think I understand, in part, what she is saying.
She’s not saying that all men are inevitably rapists, she’s saying that a woman cannot afford to assume that the men with whom she interacts are not rapists. That’s a reasonable statement, at least in my opinion. If you assume that the men you know are all ‘nice guys’ it leaves you very vulnerable to the danger that they are not.
And I don’t think rape is a question of evil at all. I think it’s a question of power. Rapists aren’t evil, with all the dismissive end-of-story connotation that entails. They’re men who, for whatever reason, do not believe that a woman has the right to control. It doesn’t have to be some stalker in an alley- all a rapist has to be is a man who chooses to keep going when his partner doesn’t want to continue. The consequences of that action are terrible and life-altering for the victim, but that doesn’t make that man a mustache-twirling Snidley Whiplash. Somehow that makes it more horrifiying to me.
I really dislike the use of the word evil in most instances, simply because it is such a distancing, Other-signifying kind of word. Evil makes it simple. It’s not simple. A person can be a good friend, a good coworker, a good parent… and a rapist. And not see anything strange about that, unless it’s a guilty, back of the mind rationalisation about how ’she really wanted it’ or ’she was just a slut, anyway’ or ’she was too drunk to know what she was saying’. And calling it evil helps that man put his act even further into the background, after all, he’s not evil! Look, he gives to charity! He cares for his family! Evil makes a Manichean distinction that is unecessary and potentially harmful because every human being likes to think of themself as ‘good’.
Don’t mean to lecture or sound preachy, it’s just one of my pet peeves.
BritGirl:
I cannot say I’m qualified to answer the question: What is the average male definition of rape is, but I might have some insights (because many misogynists have the idea that you can’t really talk to a woman, that all talk with a woman is useless if it doesn’t lead to sex, and I am a man so they might confide things to me, especially in the past when I was considerably more misogynistic than now, few are open with very misogynist attitudes in Finland).
I’d say plenty of men define rape by the amount apparent suffering. If there is no clear woman screaming to the man to stop/fighting back, it seldom is seen as rape. Coercion/bribes/threats of non-physical variety (like I won’t pay for the taxi unless I get something in return, threatening to drop a woman out of taxi if she has second thoughts when paying), having sex with a drunken or even passed out woman are not thought as rape. They are considered slightly, or very distasteful, but sometimes “funny” in a rude way. Ultimatums are seen as rude (you came to my apartment, now you’d better have sex with me) but not rape. Please note that these are all real-life situations that I’ve encountered in the past, not hypotheticals, as are the responses/attitudes to those cases, and lately I’ve been feeling quite alienated from discussions of the “sexual exploits” of some of my second-hand acquintances, especially when friends discussing them feel it clear that they are completely different from rape.
Happily, many finnish women are quite strong-willed and willing to stand up in such situations, but plenty aren’t, and are probably raped in such situations (and drunk/passed situations…). There was quite a conroversy few years back with a reframing of rape law to include “forcing to an intercourse” (? different from rape?) as a distinct crime from rape (the excuse was that many rape cases were dismissed because of lack of violence), and also including aggravated rape in cases of much violence and/or threatening with a weapon. Critics claimed that this was giving in to attitudes that minimize rape (and I agree with them…).
Again, I don’t know about different cultures and I’m not qualified to speak for my entire gender, or my whole country.
BritGirlSF- But the whole idea that sex is something done by a man to a woman was never part of my frame at all, even as a kid. (…) It just kind of seems like it makes the woman’s body into a toll booth - her only role is to say yes you may pass or no you may not. The idea that she’s a participant is missing. It just doesn’t resemble my real-life experience of sex at all.
Same here. But when I hear the word ‘consent’ in this context, I do read it in that sense, of actual active participation, so to speak. It’s a cold, dry (frigid?) term because it comes from a legal context but I don’t it necessarily refers to something like that when used to talk about sex.
To add to Tuomas’s point, I think a lot of men dwell on the physical harm done, and to a lesser extent the use of physical force, because that’s more easily understood, and because we still privilege physical harm over psychological.
I don’t think acknowledging what a heinous act rape is really offers rapists an out. These people have already self-justified their behavior and condemning it in appropriate terms isn’t going to make that easier. But it might make it more difficult for another man to start down that path. It might make another man recognize their actions.
I think some rapists can be rehabilitated, but I see no good coming from minimizing their actions like some kind of natural consequence of maleness. By acting like is just like any other crime, we contribute to that attitude. Rape is different. Evil, if you will. I don’t think those who commit it require any assistance in ignoring the consequences of their actions. They are clearly perfectly adept at this to begin with. We coddle them if we refuse to condemn them in the strongest language simply because we feel it might put them off.
As to how we would define consent (what means yes), I must admit I am at a loss. Consent is so flipping obvious, that I don’t get why some men don’t understand it. Its often easier for me to simply assume all rapists knew what they were doing, but I can recognize that some did rationalize it as okay and we need to find out how that process took place. Its an important question, but I’m not sure I have an answer. How do some men manage to not understand consent. Obviously, anything except no is far too broad. I’m hampered by my fundamental lack of understanding of how a man can justify his behavior in that scenario that I don’t know where to begin in defining the process.
Experts in sexual assault say that the alcohol factor in so many acquaintance rapes has more to do with making the victim helpless, not lowering the inhibitions of the rapist. I sincerely believe that people don’t do things while drunk that they didn’t want to do anyway, or make people do things they are morally opposed to.
Like I told Steve, I’ve had male friends try to “steal a kiss” after drinks more times than I care to admit. But as soon as I resisted, they immediately stopped, every single time. And I don’t mean resist like I had to fight. Just the resistance of pulling away was enough to make most of them really, really ashamed. Because consent isn’t as hard to figure out as the sexists will have you believe.
>>As to how we would define consent (what means yes), I must admit I am at a loss. Consent is so flipping obvious, that I don’t get why some men don’t understand it. Its often easier for me to simply assume all rapists knew what they were doing, but I can recognize that some did rationalize it as okay and we need to find out how that process took place. Its an important question, but I’m not sure I have an answer. How do some men manage to not understand consent. Obviously, anything except no is far too broad. I’m hampered by my fundamental lack of understanding of how a man can justify his behavior in that scenario that I don’t know where to begin in defining the process.>>
Yeah, it requires the premise that sex is something that women put up with, not something they engage in.
Maybe this is part of the, “Would you…?” disconnect. (I’m trying to come up with a way of phrasing this that doesn’t sound cold-blooded or just plain self-ignorant.) For me, sex without mutuality is not…sexy. Even setting aside the morality of violating someone, stripping them of dignity and bodily integrity, and giving them emotional scars they will bear for the rest of their lives, none of that is attractive. It’s repulsive. And not to other or narrow rape, either–the put-up-with kind, the “nonviolent” kind, the Care and Feeding of Husbands kind is also not something I can sexualize. Maybe that’s because I’ve been on the receiving end of that kind of attention and pressure. Maybe it’s because I’ve been socialized to base my sexual gratification on the gratification of my partner.
Jstevenson #243, Thank you for sharing that personal data.
I think it helps to illustrate a larger point, and that is that as people we do some very crazy things that are often motivated out of difficult circumstances in our lives. I administrate a large Residential Rehab for men. One recurring theme is that many of our guys have been sexually and emotionally abused in childhood. The shame and debasing nature of these acts cause them to suffer from PTSD, Arrested Development, personality disorders like NPD and BPD and a host of other issues not limited to using drugs, cutting, overeating etc. One thing that is apparent, many women have suffered the same sort of abuse. One of the byproducts of the abuse is to seek out relationships where this abuse is all but assured to reoccur. We deliberately teach and model that respect for ones self and respect for others is essential to recovery and making a way through the world in serenity. There is however great difficulty in doing this because the world sends so many terribly slanted messages to our folks. The myths that women love domination, that men are to be the agressor in things of this nature, the distorted Biblical messages of penance and subservience make all of this very difficult. The popular medias reinforce this at every opportunity. There is an emphasizing of the competitiveness between men and women and less focus on the compatative aspect.
I believe we suffer from a societal PTSD, this is evidenced by the Gov. use of force when it is unwarranted to meet our needs; the justification being hung on moral rectitude. Our culture reinforces the entitlement mentality to such an extent that one that goes out and gets what they want or need by god or by gun is held up as a hero. The defining of human beings as “consumers”? does very much to minimalise our humanity. It is easy to treat people poorly when we teach they are less then human.
I am deeply saddened when my faith is minimalised as causing less compassion or empathy in my fellows because there is abuse of the Gospel that I know, that does not in the least way call for anyone’s freedom to be abridged but fulfilled. The call of my faith is to share in the suffering with others and share the first love I know, it is for me liberational. The messages preached from movies and television and sadly from feminists at times as well are ones of exploitation and not compassion.(Some men read the covers of women’s magazines that say, 25 ways to better sex and believe that is all women want… How about, 25 ways to serve each other and have a better relationship?) The omni presence of sex and violence in our society can be argued is causative or reflective, however it is symptomatic that many are deeply troubled in this area. The fact that men rape women and the tacit approval by marginalizing women who are raped is not difficult to understand, in a world where men and women receive the same broken messages. (Carl’s Jr. anyone?) Many of the messages that men get about women are from women. It is said, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. It is going to take a lot to change the messages that are being perpetrated to all of our suffering.
This is a good dialog; it has shown where I have need of checking some attitudes. It also shows how little progress we have made with the very best the world has to offer in our freedoms. Perhpas it is not about doing what we want as oposed to doing no harm.
I think that the ’stolen kiss’ and similar activities are just normal ‘when I’m drunk I’m not as worried about being embarrassed’. I’m not going to condemn anyone for that when I will have to carry the memory to my grave of getting up on a table at a bierstube and dancing the hora to accordion music (polka, of course). But what we are talking about is a lessening of the awareness of embarrassment and I don’t see any way that can translate into a willingness to harm another person.
My son was accused of rape.
My daughter was raped.
My best buddy who, okay, tells sexist jokes, was accused of rape.
My best buddy was accused of rape by this total slut!
My brother, my uncle, myself…we were all accused of rape, and we didn’t use guns or anything, but, hey, she didn’t say no, really, c’mon, she was into it for a while there…
1. If he did it, he’ll have to live with the consequences of that, including prison. And when he gets out, he doesn’t have a father. I’ve cut people out of my life for less, and if that’s the kind of monster I raise, knowing him will only rub my nose in the shame of my failure. I’d rather deal with a meth addict as a son than a rapist. The latter can, in my view, fully redeem themselves.
2. I’ll do whatever she needs. My desire for prosecution or revenge cannot be more important than her healing process.
3. My best buddy does not tell sexist jokes. He respects women. He’s engaged to a feminist. My other friend who does tell sexist jokes once had to flee prosecution after beating the hell out of two men in a foreign nation for groping a black-out drunk woman in a hot tub. He used force only after hotel security refused to intervene. He’s willing to endanger himself to protect a woman’s right to decide who has access to her body. I’m not worried about him.
4. I don’t doubt that he could prove that he was never alone with her, never had sex with her, and that the accusation was motivated by money (he’s a trust fund baby). If, on the other hand, for whatever reason I’m wrong about his fundamental character after twenty years, and I think he did it, I’ll never speak to him again, and I’ll change my will to remove him as executor.
5. Any of my piece of shit convicted felon relatives that get themselves in trouble are on their own. I don’t speak to most of them anyway.
I think that the ’stolen kiss’ and similar activities are just normal ‘when I’m drunk I’m not as worried about being embarrassed’
We’re not talking about merely embarassing behavior. If Amanda’s male friends had a couple of beers and asked her on a date, that might be alcohol-fueled “Who cares if she laughs at me?”
But doing something physical to another person that you wouldn’t do sober is completely different. I don’t get how you have such a problem grokking this. As we’ve been discussing, there are plenty of people who hide behind alcohol to do what they really want to do anyway, and there are plenty of men (and, of course, women) who think alcohol is a substitute for the other person’s consent.
So I don’t have issues with thinking the reason Amanda’s guy friends tried to “steal a kiss” is not just that they were drunk, but that they figured Amanda wouldn’t object as much as she would 100% sober. It’s the same mentality.
Something that really struck me reading Brian’s post was how different his frames are from mine. (Out of curiosity, how old are you, and where did you grow up?) I don’t recall ever having the idea that women were “supposed”? to be passive or that men were in any way “entitled”? to sex (which was probably why Dworkin was such a shock to the system).
I’m 34, and grew up in the California Central Valley, which is adjacent to the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s much more conservative, and at least at the time was sparsely populated — I had little social contact with peers outside the context of formal school functions until I left for college. I didn’t start dating until I was 20, and my first sexual experience I was 21. The second relationship I was describing was about ten years ago, when I was 24.
I never had the idea that men were “entitled” to sex, and I was surprised to learn later that some of my friends who were women had conflicts in relationships because of that attitude.
On the idea that women are supposed to be passive in sex: in high school, I’d hear stories from my friends who were women about sex, but they’d leave the details blurry. It was always implied that their male partners initiated sex. My first partner initiated sex occasionally, and would take an active role, but kept expressing shame at her desire to be assertive and resentment that I wasn’t dominant enough. A few times, she insisted I must be gay, because I wasn’t sufficiently dominant or aggressive in sex. My second partner just didn’t seem to have any idea that anything but passivity was an option for her. I think her background was significantly more conservative than mine, and I think part of the problem was the “Asian fetish” — her previous male partners apparently expected her to be completely passive.
My sense is that, at the time, there was something of a taboo to admit that women could be as sexually assertive, and I would occasionally hear women complaining that they’d had to initiate sex, that this was some sort of denial of their desirability.
I have the sense that things have shifted a great deal since then, and I hear my younger female friends describing themselves as sexually assertive as a point of pride. This is not universal, however: one of the recurring phrases I’ve seen in Internet personal ads is that the woman is looking for someone “pro-feminist but sexually dominant,” and a few weeks ago, I saw a string of rants on Craigslist from women complaining that men in the Bay Area would expect sex to be slow and gentle and mutual, and that men in the Bay Area weren’t really men.
One thing that strikes me as I write this is that most of what I’ve ever heard about the real sexual practices and desires of other men, I’ve heard from women, not from men directly.
Thank you, werefish, for being the one person who understood my point. FWIW, I did not bring up the point about vegans and flesh, but was responding to a direct question that had been posed - nor was I personally responsible for hypothetical extreme rape scenarios.
The notion that rape is “evil”, I will say again, is not helping. Nobody wants to believe themselves capable or willing to do evil, and the notion is so repellant that most men - and women - will say that they would not, could not rape because it is so utterly foreign to their understanding of themselves. How can you acknowledge your capacity for violence against another human being as a potential risk (no matter how small) if understanding that potential means you have to admit yourself “evil,” that term filled with so much brimstone and other socio-cultural baggage?
It is the notion that rape is evil that encourages many women to keep silent about rape, because the men (and women) we know and love could not do such a thing to us. They are not evil, they are our partners, friends and colleages. In many cases of date rape (like mine), feelings do not change overnight, simply because of a horrible encounter. You cannot press charges on someone you care(d) about when you know that that will villify them as evil, especially if you are a woman who has been conditioned to nurture and protect others. I am not a rape apologist. I am merely trying to point out that a villification of rape as “evil” serves to hinder many of the victims it ostensibly trys to help.
I’m glad that some people have the self-awareness to know in know uncertain terms that they could not rape - but this does women (and children, and other men with less power) no damn good. It serves no purpose except to inflate the speaker’s self-importance as a feminist or compasassionate human being or a Christian or Theist or whatever they want to call themselves - by itself it has no practicality. How can somebody who says “I could never rape” begin a dialogue with a man who has, as somebody said, a “guilty feeling in the back of their mind about that one time with their girlfriend when she was too drunk…”, or one who genuinely believes that women are of a lower order? You can start a grassroots campaign to erradicate rape by raising sons and daughters to challenge gender stereotypes, but that doesn’t do anything about those who can and do abuse their ability to oppress and harm right now.
Maybe I’m talking about something different than what other people are talking about - I’m wondering how you change men who have raped (even though they don’t think they have raped, such as my rapist) into ones who can consciously understand how to stop themselves from doing it again. Or how do you engage with men who may rape in the future, but just don’t know it yet because they think they are immune to taking the advantage they pretend not to have? Or is such a thing not even possible? Is the only answer to raise new generations of feminist men and watch rape die by attrition?
>>How can somebody who says “I could never rape”? begin a dialogue with a man who has, as somebody said, a “guilty feeling in the back of their mind about that one time with their girlfriend when she was too drunk…”?, or one who genuinely believes that women are of a lower order?>>
How does someone who can’t use “loaded” or emotionally-charged words get into a dialogue with _anyone_ about something emotionally charged? How do we confront those evil attitudes in the here and now, and describe the deep harm they do to others, and dismantle the idea that there’s any excuse for them whatsoever, without calling them evil, wrong, bad, terrible, horrible, damaging, and way the fuck out of bounds? I gotta say, I’m really freaked out by this idea of gentle diplomacy towards _men who rape_. Outrage is totally useful in communicating the idea that something is outrageous.
Probably, myth, though I would point out that the attempted stolen kiss usually goes like this–he leans in, hesistates to see your reaction, you pull away, he apologizes. No actual kisses in this way since I was like 18. So I still classify it in that hazy area of someone’s inhibitions down and trying to find out if it’s going to work without actually violating my space.
Gisele, I think the answer it to pressure men not to rape. Progressive and feminist men need to stay on-message — that consent is the presence of “yes”, not the absence of “no,” that there is nothing acceptable about sex with a woman who is not into it, that too drunk to make good decisions is too drunk to consent, and that their friends will not forgive or excuse unacceptable conduct. Just getting that said, a lot, can influence other men a lot.
There are differences in how people communicate. Not everyone is verbal. Some people are more visual or more kinesthetic. The non-verbal are unlikely to preface sexual initiation with conversation, and are unlikely to respond positively to someone else initiating with conversation.
The verbally strong seem to have a powerful cultural value that tells them that only verbal communication counts; if you can’t say it, then you can’t do it. Much of the species just doesn’t work that way, however, and they have to find other means of discerning intention and interest.
It behooves any initiator to know how their intended prefers to communicate such information. And of course there’s a burden of communication on all parties involved.
I’m glad that some people have the self-awareness to know in know uncertain terms that they could not rape - but this does women (and children, and other men with less power) no damn good. It serves no purpose except to inflate the speaker’s self-importance as a feminist or compasassionate human being or a Christian or Theist or whatever they want to call themselves - by itself it has no practicality.
I can understand why you think that, but it seeems to me you are projecting a sense of egocentrism and holier-than-thou attitudes into what might, at least for some, have been a genuine statement of genuine repulsion, of wishes vs. non-wishes, and maybe some of those who said so even know what abuse and rape is.
I don’t understand why one single answer should do for all. Most of all, I don’t understand why the “well I cannot know for sure” answer has to be the one and only sincere, brave, genuine reply, and the others are just deluding themselves.
I don’t know. Maybe we are indeed speaking of different things.
(Then again, maybe I really should not even try to wonder about that question myself because we’re talking men raping women and since I’m a woman I probably can’t think of the question in the same way a man would, I guess? But my problem with that is that it means I’d need to take for granted this idea that men are from mars, women from venus, blah blah. I can’t see how that doesn’t get close to saying, male brains are hardwired for rape. Because if we see the difference is cultural, then we have to take into account that culture doesn’t work in automatic fashion like biology does. So there are going to be variations within the same gender, no? Is that even a possibility?)
I really don’t think that’s a proper comparison, mythago. Given that the men themselves are drunk, it may simply be that their inhibition is lowered and they think it might be a good idea to try to kiss her. Unless they forced themselves upon her, I don’t think there is any relation to that behavior and to rape. The resistance to rape is more than inhibition. It must be something a man views as fundamentally wrong. Its an act of sadistic and arrogant violence. That’s simply different from leaning in to kiss someone. And this is coming from a man who won’t even kiss a woman without a confirmation that she wants to.
Concerning who gets to start a conversation with potential rapists, I’m not sure I understand how “you’re a potential rapist and always will be” is a better way to start the dialogue. That approach will cause a lot of men to shut down and fall onto a knee-jerk “well, I never” instead of one born out of introspection. I do not say I would never rape a woman out of some sense of pride. There is nothing to be proud of in simply not committing horrific acts. Nor do I understand how humanizing rape is going to work to anyone’s advantage. Normalizing rape just provides rapists with a comfortable justification. Far more comfortable than “well, I’m good in other ways so I guess this doesn’t count”. Its telling them directly that their behavior is the norm. To treat rape like a natural and unavoidable consequence of humanity is a breath way from excuse it. It may not be a step you approve of, but it’d be far liklier for a rapist to make it if the subject were handled in that manner.
We need to challenge men to think about these issues and to reflect on them. Someone who has thought about and reflected on them is hardly unqualified for the job. Someone who finds rape to be abhorant doesn’t suddenly become incapable of campaigning against it. This is a daunting task and there are no easy answers.
You say you cannot trust me when I say I will never rape someone. Well, if that’s what you need to do, then so be it. But to think that insisting men can never trust in themselves as some kind of answer to rape? I don’t get it. So, then everyone thinks everyone is a rapist in waiting, including themselves. How does that get to be productive? You may not be able to trust a man who has engaged in sobering reflection on these issues, and I’m not going to blame you for that. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value and that it can’t encourage people to change. Our conversation about rape can’t just be with the people who are going to rape any day now. It has to be with the people whose attitudes can be shaped and changed. Who can listen and empathize on this issue. We need to increase awareness of rape and why its wrong. We can’t confine ourselves to not explaining why its wrong. We can’t lay blame upon all men and think any man will listen. We need to find ways to communicate the impact of rape to these men. Yes, those who have raped, too. We have to try, but I’m afraid there may not be easy answers. I know my understanding came from seeing the aftermath of rape in people I care about. It shock me from, “well, I’d never” into a full understanding of why I would never. Giving them a why. That’s what we need to do. We don’t get there without acknowledging rape for what it is. It is an evil, but we can’t afford to just write these people off. And in the meantime, we use much the same means to engage younger generations to confront the issue for what it is. A horrible crime of violence and humiliation. We can’t coddle them. We can’t say they are like everyone else. The truth is, they aren’t. That’s their problem.
The issue is, though, that there is a lot of expectation from women for a man to be sexually aggressive so I’m not going to say that the answer is necessarily the sexual passivity that Brian and myself may exhibit. I’ve only had one partner who really found me to be timid, but she was also willing to be fairly aggressive herself. But still, there is surely a balance. Indeed, I think its a balance most men do find but often it comes back to how obvious consent seems to most people. What’s the disconnect between us and the far too sizable minority? Surely, popular culture deserves some of the blame for promoting the notion of the aggressive male and the “mysterious” female. But also I’ve witnessed a boys culture where these attitudes ferment. Is rape always a product of hatred of women? What of these men who genuinely believe they haven’t raped, yet who have? What fuels their self-deception? Telling everyone else that they are no different from rapists doesn’t seem likely to yield solutions, but I will grant you that I struggle with solutions as well, simply out of a fundamental lack of understanding for these rationales and thought-processes.
I think there’s not just a quantitative, but a qualitative difference between men insisting on sexual dominance and men raping women. But, there is a sense in which they are related, in terms of matter of degree, or quantity — and I think that’s part of why many men are inclined to condone all but the most brutal forms of rape.
Accepting male dominance and female passivity as norms makes it difficult to talk seriously about rape, and we need to overcome that problem.
I don’t think I said this clearly enough: I don’t really know, from my direct experience, how other men behave sexually. I haven’t had sex with them. My experience only revealed that some women expect men to be dominant and that they should be passive — and that this made them miserable. I don’t blame women for this — it doesn’t make sense that women, on their own, would choose that sex take a form they don’t enjoy. There’s some external pressure being placed on them to accept that sex take that form, and I think it’s transmitted by men.
I’m glad that some people have the self-awareness to know in know uncertain terms that they could not rape - but this does women (and children, and other men with less power) no damn good. It serves no purpose except to inflate the speaker’s self-importance as a feminist or compasassionate human being or a Christian or Theist or whatever they want to call themselves - by itself it has no practicality. How can somebody who says “I could never rape”? begin a dialogue with a man who has, as somebody said, a “guilty feeling in the back of their mind about that one time with their girlfriend when she was too drunk…”?, or one who genuinely believes that women are of a lower order? You can start a grassroots campaign to erradicate rape by raising sons and daughters to challenge gender stereotypes, but that doesn’t do anything about those who can and do abuse their ability to oppress and harm right now.
Maybe I’m talking about something different than what other people are talking about - I’m wondering how you change men who have raped (even though they don’t think they have raped, such as my rapist) into ones who can consciously understand how to stop themselves from doing it again. Or how do you engage with men who may rape in the future, but just don’t know it yet because they think they are immune to taking the advantage they pretend not to have? Or is such a thing not even possible? Is the only answer to raise new generations of feminist men and watch rape die by attrition?
I think the real question here is, how do we get these men to look at women and see someone who’s a human being, deserving of respect, and not to be treated like an inanimate object or an animal.
The best answer I have is to keep repeating these facts loudly, and with conviction, and to get other people in power, and in the public eye, to repeath these statements loudly and with conviction, and to condemn the ideas that are to the contrary.
If someone came to me with guilt or worry over consent issues, I’d give them the best advice I could: be cautious, ask multiple times, try and be sensitive to your potential partner’s desires, and allow yourself to be patient.
It serves no purpose except to inflate the speaker’s self-importance as a feminist or compasassionate human being or a Christian or Theist or whatever they want to call themselves - by itself it has no practicality.
I can’t see how admiting that I don’t have those feelings is proclaiming anything about myself personaly, because I’m not doing it reflexivley, I’m doing it in response to a discussion about the topic.
This sounds an awful lot like name-calling of people who politley disagreed with you.
““Why, why, why are you men so capable of extracting women’s lived realities into hypotheticals? “?”
It’s very easy for them. Kinda like an armchair psychologist or sociologist who makes all kinds of claims and postulations, without getting up off his smug ass and doing some real research with the subject group (ie: women) he’s making all kinds of claims about. Besides, I’m sure doing that reinforces their sense of, “by virtue of my dick, I know I have a far better grasp of the situation than the women it directly effects, because I’m more rational and civil due to my sex, unlike theirs’.” Crude, but whenever talking about women’s issues with certain guys with certain views about women and gender, I pick up on that attitude from them.
Brian
I’m in the Bay Area too, so I know what you mean about the Central Velley. I have a friend from Modesto who complains bitterly every time she has to go home and refuses to stay from more than a few days (she’s usually chased of by family asking why she doesn’t have a husband and kids yet).
I’m not sure about the age/time difference though. I’m not much younger than you (31) and I think that the women I grew up with and went to high school with were actually much more assertive than the younger women I know now. I also wonder how much of the assertivenes I do see is more about bravado than anything real. I think that some women are doing the same kind of faux-bravado thing that men have been doing for years.
You raise a good point - why don’t men talk to each other about sex? I mean in an honest way not just as a competative, prove you’re a stud way.
I’m also a bit puzzled about what’s going on with the people on craigslist. It seems as if both men and women in the Bay Area are miserable with the current dating culture, but nobody seems to know what to do about it.
Slightly off topic, but I think the Asian Fetish thing is really creepy. I have enough Asian girlfriends to have seen it in action, and one of my best friends in London was Japanese and she used to get the same thing there too so it’s not just an American phenomenon. Or actually when I think about it maybe it’s not entirely off topic at all - it seems to be a sort of extreme manifestation of gender stereotypes mixed up with some equally messed up racial stereotypes.
Tuomas Writes: (#259) “Please note that these are all real-life situations that I’ve encountered in the past, not hypotheticals, as are the responses/attitudes to those cases, and lately I’ve been feeling quite alienated from discussions of the “sexual exploits”? of some of my second-hand acquintances, especially when friends discussing them feel it clear that they are completely different from rape.”
—
I rather suspect that it’s not that unusual for men bragging about their “sexual exploits”? to be crossing over the line into rape.
I expect the guy who raped me was all about bragging to his brother, his friends about all the women he “did” or whatever he called it. I clearly said no, he clearly understood that I said no and he proceeded anyway. Later I heard from someone else how many he bragged about.
I think as far date rape goes - that this notion that some men have that the more women they fuck the more of a man they are or something CAN be influenced by acquintances. That if guys didn’t encourage each other in that regard - that the loose canons with antisocial tendencies would not be reinforced in their delusions of status.
I suspect that these “bragging rights” would be a difficult notion for many men to give up.
I am leaning towards Ampersand, Robert, Tuomas, and Amanda in this discussion.
Another way to describe the “heart of darkness” concept would be the more primitive regions of the brain, such as the limbic system. A basic concept in neuroscience is that the brain is a bunch of interconnected modules which monitor each other. For instance, your cerebral cortex (specifical the prefrontal lobes) regulates your limbic system. That is why one often has impulses that must be suppressed, and why people with damage to the prefrontal lobes have problems with impulse control.
Ampersand said:
In my case, I’m absolutely certain that I’d never rape in ordinary circumstances. So, the way my mind works, if I’m asked if I could ever rape, and I know I’d never rape under ordinary circumstances, I’m not really answering the question if I don’t also address what I’d do under extraordinary circumstances.
I agree on all counts.
I think what Ampersand has been getting at is a well-documented phenomenon in social psychology: that human behavior is massively influenced by the situation and social context. In the right (or the wrong?) social contexts, people can behave in ways that are shocking, and even at odds with values they held before they entered that context. Hence, psychologists like Dr. Phillip Zimbardo at Stanford claim that evil is not always dispositional, but situational. Examples: Abu Ghraib, the Stanley Milgram’s shock experiments that Amp alluded to, Nazi Germany, Rwanda, and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo studied one of the commanding officers who came back from Abu Ghraib, and the guy was completely normal. In The Trial of Eichmann: A report on the banality of evil, Hannah Arendt mentions that the psychologists who interviewed Eichmann found him to be more sane than they felt after interviewing him. Hence, I agree that I could never never rape in normal situations, but in extraordinary situations? I cannot even guess.
noodles said:
The other certainty is: if someone is repulsed by the idea of committing rape, out of a genuine disgust for picturing themselves in the action of harming another person, even aside from morals, then they would not do it, even in the worst of circumstances. I mean, what would change? What benefit would they get? Why should their desire to rape suddenly manifest itself? Because it’s no longer repressed? But that means it must have always been there.
These are good questions, and nobody has properly addressed them so far. I think the answer is that finding rape repugnant depends on having empathy and sympathy for the pain of others (note wikipedia’s interesting distinction between empathy and sympathy). Without these, then you would be like a sociopath and have no emotional deterrent to hurting someone. In the above examples of negative social contexts, clearly sympathy (and probably empathy also) can be suspended. So, I don’t think it’s as simple as saying that the desires were there all along, and they were just repressed. For people normally experiencing empathy and sympathy, the desire for rape would simply not emerge, because those feelings would make hurting someone unappealing and unarousing. Once hurting someone is no longer so repugnant, then desires for rape might emerge, but I don’t think that means there were there all along.
Gisele said:
I think that it is easier for men to say “I could never hit a woman,”? or “I could never rape a woman”? than it is to admit that yes, they actually could. This is different from saying that you would, or you’re inclined to do so. Admitting that you have the potential to rape is a first step towards erradicating rape - it does not condone it, or make it a “boys will be boys”? issue. We all have the potential to harm each other. Some of us have greater potential than others. Pretending that this is not so - DENYING it, claiming that intentionality or fear of punishment is all that matters, that it is somebody else’s issue, somebody else’s crime, somebody else’s theoretical victimhood will not solve our problem.
Well said.
Could I rape? I don’t know. I don’t have the equipment to do it, the conditioning to understand my sexuality as a physical power.
Wait a sec, women definitely have the equipment to rape (although this equipment is not as effective as male equipment). For example, a woman can envelop a man when he is passed out or sleeping but happens to be erect (and an erection does NOT necessarily mean consent, because it is simply a physiological response controlled by primitive areas of the brain). And women can use objects to rape.
“Oh, God, and here’s Aegis to save the day with talk of brain centers. What next?”
Do note, Aegis will not be allowed to usurp this thread and spam it with his usual smug and completely unfounded, false bullshit postulations about women, gender, and other subjects, as he usually does on other threads dealing with women, gender, sociology, etc. We’ve heard all of his ridiculous boasts of having vast wisdom in particular areas of sociology and psychology, and women and gender before anyway–all steming from the sadly deluded fanatasies of a egotistical, ignorant, sexually frustrated adolescent male of course. It’s embarrassing that I share the same age group with him.
Oh, but now he’s delving into neuropsychiatry and women raping men with foreign objects (which is possible and does happen–but rarely)! What_a_surprise. This should make for some good laughs. I can’t wait to see his other comments on this subject, that he’s brought to the discussion. ::rolls eyes::
I do have to wonder how common that idea of female passivity really is now, but my point was that it’s out there, still in circulation, still believed by at least some members of both genders.
There was a heated debate about the “Asian fetish” on http://www.pandagon.net a few weeks ago, but I can’t find the link. But yes, I think that’s a related issue — a racist and sexist stereotype at once. And I just got around to reading the thread on Gilliard’s blog — part of what was sickening was it quickly turned into a discussion of whether American or Scandinavian women tourists were “easier.”
Actually, that’s a discussion I’d like to have about whether the rise of the wingnuts is actually succeeding in pushing young women (and men) back into more old-fashioned gender roles.
I gave up on the thread at Gilliard’s blog a while ago, but the fact that they’re discussing Scandanavian women as “easy” is pretty funny. I knew a lot of Finns in London and did tend to find them to have less sexual hang-ups than most other people (ie to be less prone to the religiously motivated “sex is evil” idea), but anyone who decided that those girls were “easy” and tried to make an unwanted move on them would have gotten a nasty shock. I once saw a Finnish girl I knew hit a guy over the head with a bottle of vodka after he kept following her down the street trying to talk to her and then invaded her space (he eventually called her a “stuck up bitch” and grabbed her arm, which was the point at which she hit him). Isn’t it interested how people seem to view all other races/groups as inherantly more slutty?
Isn’t it interested how people seem to view all other races/groups as inherantly more slutty?
Many cultures implicitly or explicitly encourage exogamy, so the viewpoint is probably based on experience. IE, young Ruritanian comes to Urbopolis and does better with the people of the interesting sex (and vice versa) than back at home; heshe returns to Ruritania and reports that the Urbopolans are “easy”. And when other Ruritarians visit, they find the reports to be accurate - at least until the Urbopolans get used to those sexy Ruritanians in their tight overalls.
My contribution to the “Would I rape?” discussion.
If, at this moment, I had a chance to rape someone, and that rape would satisfy a desire of mine (i.e. I am not thinking about raping for rape’s sake, but rather let’s say I really wanted to have sex with someone but she didn’t want to have sex with me), and I knew I could get away with it, I know for a certainty (at least as certain as a person can be) that I would not do it.
But if I lived for a prolonged period in a situation where I could do things without facing any consequences; if I had for a prolonged period absolute power over another person or people; I don’t know if that would change me.
I don’t think anyone on this board is saying that the threat of punishment is the only thing keeping them from raping at this minute; but they are saying that the threat of punishment may be necessary over the long term in order to keep them from going down a path where they could become the type of person who would rape.
I think part of the reason for the disagreement on this is that one side is interpreting the question as “would you rape someone right now if you could get away with it?” and the other side is interpreting it as “if there were no sanctions on such behavior, could I ever become the type of person who would commit rape?”
Glaivster
That was a pretty good summation. I don’t think the two sides are nearly as far apart as they initially thought.
I’m just going to throw something out there since it’s been on my mind recently and Glaivster’s post made me thing of it again.
Kobe Bryant. I’d say that pro athletes are about the best example of the premist that Glaivster gave above that you could find.
“But if I lived for a prolonged period in a situation where I could do things without facing any consequences; if I had for a prolonged period absolute power over another person or people; I don’t know if that would change me.”
Not absolute power, but certainly a lot of power, especially in a small town where the local football team is the only thing that anyone has any real sense of pride in, or on a college campus. Could it be that pro athletes are actually a pretty good test case for the “what if I could realistically assume that I would get away with it” scenario.
I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this, but it’s been at the back on my mind this whole time. I do know that I’ve run across a few pro athletes in my time and almost every one of them has scared me - not in terms of anything they’ve actually done so much as in the kind of on-edge feeling you get walking through a bad neighborhood late at night. I instinctively didn’t trust them. What does that mean? And what does is mean about our culture that we do habitually let them get away with rape?
And just to clarify, this isn’t about being intimidated by big people, that part I’m sure of. I like big guys. But these men scare me, and I don’t think I’m the only one. I just wonder what it tells us about rape in general that the one group who CAN rape with impunity often DO.
BTW, I think that this also gets into the idea of how we define masculinity in general, I’m just trying not to complicate things by going there.
For example, a woman can envelop a man when he is passed out or sleeping but happens to be erect (and an erection does NOT necessarily mean consent, because it is simply a physiological response controlled by primitive areas of the brain).
Actually, the incident that Aegis hypothesized is how my husband lost his virginity. He’s very much a feminist, and yes, he was ‘acquaintance’ raped by a woman he had not given consent to. He woke up with her on top of him, and him inside of her. He was 17, she was 19 and he states that he only barely recollects the situation, other than horror as she ‘did her thing’. He didn’t talk about it as a ‘rape’ for a very long time, because often times people did not want to hear about how men can be victimized too. While he point blank will never attempt to pull it off as an ‘equal’ crisis in terms of the percentages of women being raped to men, he certainly would take offense at being snubbed as a victim.
Oh - also, he’d turned down his rapists offers to have sex earlier in the evening. They had ended up sleeping at the same place after a party, and despite his vocal lack of consent earlier, she went ahead and initiated unconsentual sex when he was sleeping.
Not a lot of time to read the rest of the responses ;) so I’ll just inject a little of my own so-called “wisdom” into the veins of this thread. A major problem here is that this is one of those issues that people like to look at in black and white. Also, blame is always thrown around like it’s going out of style. It is convenient to say that the victim is never at fault, yet it is also convenient to say that the victim is always at fault. This convenience principle applies to the rapist as well. (Note that I do not use “man” or “woman” in determining who is the victim and who is the rapist.) There have been a good number of cases where the “victim” has done something on purpose (but not necessarily for the effect that follows) to trigger the control aspect in the “rapist”…where do we point the finger here? Well, most people only seem to have one pointing finger, so they have to choose which side to point it at! It doesn’t work that way in real life, people…a rapist preys on those who are weak. Even if you get the best martial arts training in the world or you carry that pepper spray like you’re gonna douse everyone who looks at you cross-eyed…sorry, this just isn’t enough. If you are perceived as weak, those who would control you have the means to do so.
Sorry if this brings up points already referenced…like I said, I don’t have time to read the rest of the responses…wifey is waiting. :)
BritGirlSF said:
“It’s that whole “‘no’ means ‘no,’ but we’re not going to teach you what a ‘yes’ is for fear that you’ll actually have sex”? issue. It encourages men to treat anything but an unequivocal rejection as an invitation, and means that a lot of people who don’t think of themselves as rapists are doing an awful lot of harm. “?
Bingo. I think that it would be a very productive feminist project to try to teach people what a real “yes”? looks like, and to try to shift the consent standard to that instead of “well she’s not threatening to call the cops so it must be fine to proceed”?. This would also mean teaching women that they have a RIGHT to say yes as well as teaching men what that looks like.
I couldn’t agree more. If feminism had done this, I think there would be lot less guys complaining about the “ambiguity” of women.
When I was a sophomore in highschool, anti-date rape advocate Katie Koestner (who is a feminist, btw) came to give a seminar on date rape. During this seminar, she described her rape in graphic detail and broke down in tears. She talked about her injuries and chewing out the inside of her cheek. Now, I have no objection to anti-date rape education on principle, but I think this was the wrong way to handle it. It was overkill, it was inappropriate for the age group (freshmen were in the audience), and it was emotionally bludgeoning (kind of like reading Andrea Dworkin, now that I think about it, but in a different way). That seminar was presented in a way that made it impossible to think critically about it: so I think some people (like me) took its messages to a paranoid level, while others probably dismissed it completely. It contributed to me being afraid to even flirt with girls (because I though I would somehow be molesting them if I was to “hit on” them).
At one point, someone asked her how a guy should initiate sex in a way that wasn’t date rape. She said she didn’t know! But she said the only way to ensure consent was if the woman said “yes.”
How do you think that made me, and probably many other young men in the audience, feel? Here we had spent ages hearing about all the terrible things men could do wrong with women, but we were given absolutely no practical suggestions on how to actually do things right. Except for getting verbal consent.
I don’t think the speaker was being purposefully unhelpful. After all, what did I expect, that she would give me a step-by-step guide on what to do with women sexually? She wouldn’t know how to do that, and of course there is no way she could give a lecture on how to get going with sex to a highschool audience (because then they might go out and start having it!). What I find revealing about her comments is a general cultural problem: our culture expects males to initiate sex, but really has no idea how males should go about doing so in a way that is comfortable for women! This seems like a recipe for disaster.
You don’t go about teaching someone by telling them everything they can do wrong, but giving them no useful guidelines to doing things right. If you applied that approach to, say… teaching driving, it would be like giving someone a book of traffic violations, and telling them to figure out how to drive by themselves (or that they should know naturally). In a situation like that, someone would probably become extremely paranoid and never learn to drive at all, or they might throw away the rulebook out of frustration and try driving on their own, which would probably lead to disaster because nobody has bothered to show them how. Now, I am not claiming that getting into a car accident is analogous to rape, because rape is not just an “accident.” The point I am making is that approaches to teaching people that focus on all the horrible mistakes they can make, without showing them a better way to go about things (or expecting them to figure that out on their own), is not going to work very well. Since men don’t pop out of the womb knowing how to interact with women and initiate sex with them in a way that women are comfortable with, it is something they must learn, especially since some women are taught to be sexually passive. It may not be rocket science, but it’s still something that men need to learn; the big question: are men being taught how to do those things in a way that leads to positive experiences for them and for the females they interact with and have sex with?
Btw, that seminar is one reason I distrust feminist attempts at social engineering: I think they have uncovered very real problems with gender roles, but sometimes their cures are almost as bad as the disease. Though I do try not to judge all feminists based on that experience, and I have talked to feminists who agree with me that such an approach to educating males is problematic. Since then, I have been trying to find the answers to the question of how males should conduct interaction with (specifically sexually) in a practical and empathetic manner, because my socialization failed to teach me this. That is why I have so many wild theories. In my opinion, it’s better to think about gender and risk the possibility of sometimes being wrong, than to not think about it at all.
Robert said:
The verbally strong seem to have a powerful cultural value that tells them that only verbal communication counts; if you can’t say it, then you can’t do it. Much of the species just doesn’t work that way, however, and they have to find other means of discerning intention and interest.
Exactly. I think the way verbal communication is put on a pedestal as the only valid way of doing things, especially sexually, is both inaccurate and counterproductive. It isn’t good enough to focus on words, you have to see the person behind them and what they are feeling. There are at least a couple problems with the strange emphasis on verbal consent:
Verbal consent alone is not sufficient for creating a positive sexual/emotional experience for both people. As BritGirl put it:
June 15th, 2005 at 7:14 pm
Ay.
1. When a woman goes with a man, she trusts him.
This comment was written by Elena.2. It’s not a crime to trust someone.
3. Most men don’t abuse that trust. Men know the code. We women know that they do better than some men do, because we are the ones who go with men.
4. If you are a man, and you don’t know the code, you have the problem.
5. It’s insulting to tell women that they are fools to consider men their friends. We know who our friends are.
6. We consider men sexually ourselves. Even our friends.
7. You can be friends and respect someone you have “considered sexually”.
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June 15th, 2005 at 7:21 pm
The root of the problem here is that we barely or don’t at all take steps to educate young men about sexual violence prevention. While girls and young women are lectured on what not to do in certain scenarios in social settings, what do we do with the guys? Why are we so afraid to lecture them on “why they shouldn’t rape or sexually assault?”?
Not sure who “we” is. I was raised with lectures on what not to do in certain scenarios, and I was inculcated with sexual ethics, personal responsibility, no-means-no, and all that good stuff.
Maybe some representatives of the morality-is-just-code-for-controlling-women crowd dropped a car off the parenting train somewhere.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 7:35 pm
Men need to teach each other not to rape. This is laughably obvious but even suggesting it is treated like setting a fucking house on fire. I’ve done more to teach men not to rape than any man I know simply by challenging these bullshit beliefs that women are always responsible when shit goes wrong. It’s tiresome.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 7:37 pm
It does beg the question as to whether or not the same kind of warnings would be seen as necessary if it were three young women and one young man. I’m inclined to believe that he’d be high-fived, and not chastised for putting himself in danger.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 7:51 pm
So Steve and his ilk are saying that men are evil and cannot be trusted.
And we’re the manhaters. . .yah. ‘Kay.
Someone being naieve does not mean she deserved it. And for fuck’s sake, most sexual assaults are committed by people the victims’ know.
Sheeit. I’ve gone out with three of my guy friends. Who knew that the basic assumption was that I was planning on pulling a train? Here I was thinking it was dinner. I’d better tell them next time that they are dangerous and vile beings who only want me around to ogle me sexually. You know, fit the feminist stereotype Steve and Kos and their merry band of misogynists cling to with such tenancity. And then they can whine about how we hate men.
It’s irony week in the blogosphere.
This comment was written by Sheelzebub.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 7:51 pm
Steven Gilliard is tiresome on women’s issues. I wonder how he’d feel if I wrote up his ideas but replaced sex with race.
This comment was written by Echidne of the snakes.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 7:53 pm
You know, it’s not hard to think of scenarios where even “careful” women would “go off with three guys” she has no intention of having sex with, and I’ve been in that situation. For example:
1. She knows or works with one or more of the guys and
2. They “go off” to go smoke a joint/go to another club/get a cup or coffee or something to eat.
Like I said, it’s not hard to imagine very innocent scenarios where a woman who has a normal amount of common sense and trust in people might be in that situation. I don’t know the particular situation with the missing woman in Aruba, but to infer that any woman who “goes off with three guys” is, if not “asking for it”, being “stupid” is expecting and unreasonable amount of clairvoyance on that woman’s part.
This comment was written by pseu (deja pseu).Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 7:58 pm
Not sure who “we”? is. I was raised with lectures on what not to do in certain scenarios, and I was inculcated with sexual ethics, personal responsibility, no-means-no, and all that good stuff.
Same here, but I think they did (at least in my case) a really half-assed job. “No means no” got pounded into my head through sex ed and after-school specials, but it was the late 80s/early 90s form of “abstinence only”; no certainly did mean no, but there was never any example of what an honest, consensual “yes” would be. Which I’d think would be a rather important part of teaching men what constitutes consent.
This comment was written by Jeff.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 8:08 pm
I think the reason for the emphasis on the behavior of the woman is this:
Most people, upon hearing this story, think:
How do I make certain that this does not happen to me?
or alternately: how do I make certain that this does not happen to my wife/daughter/sister, etc.?
Most people are not thinking: How do I make certain that I don’t victimize someone?
So most people want to be able to focus on things that the victim did wrong, so that they can reassure themelves it won’t happen to them.
This comment was written by Glaivester.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 8:30 pm
Steve has made it quite clear how he feels when it’s race instead of sex. He did a post today about lynching where he pointed out, rightly, that whites share collective guilt over lynching. He did not examine whether or not the young men who might have flirted with or whistled at white women somehow set themselves up when they knew that white people cannot be trusted not to go a-lynching. That’s insane. Rape should be treated the same way.
Men know damn well what it’s like for women to be afraid to move about freely. Every time my boyfriend leaves me alone he yells, “Make sure all the doors are locked!” We all know why. Men know.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 8:40 pm
You know what really puzzles me about this? What do you want to bet that Steve, Kos etc have in fact hung out with women without planning to get laid? I mean, they presumably went to college. Did they never have female classmates who they studied with? Female co-workers who they went out for post-work drinks with? I just can’t imagine a scenario in which any man who grew up in America hasn’t found himself in a non-sexual social situation with women. Watch TV and you’ll see male and female friends hanging out without and assumption of sex to follow (I’m not a big fan of Friends but a lot of people did seem to watch it). Unless these men grew up in Iran or Saudi Arabia, I guarantee that they’ve hung out with women platonically at some point.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.So, how can they ignore their own life experience? How does the “script” end up overriding reality?
One question I’ve always wanted to ask, which might work better in an anonymous forum like this than in person. Why do perfectly decent men, men who have never raped or assaulted a woman in their life and never will, still have such a knee-jerk reaction to this topic? Why do they react as if any discussion of rape is an accusation aimed at them personally? Any of the guys on the board want to take a shot at explaining this?
Another question for the guys while I’m at it. Why are they so unwilling to talk to other guys about this, and so very willing to excuse friends when they display this kind of behaviour towards women? Why don’t the guys who know damn well that this behaviour is wrong educate their less-enlightened brethren? I’m not trying to attack the guys who post on this board, I really genuinly want to know why the decent ones don’t speak up about this. Because honestly, women can talk about this till the cows come home, but the only way it’s ever going to change is if men start imposing real social sanctions on EACH OTHER for behaving badly towards women.
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June 15th, 2005 at 8:40 pm
Yes, Amanda. That’s exactly why I find him tiresome. I don’t even read his posts on gender anymore. He just doesn’t get it. In his world certain things are “just the way it is” but other things should be changed. Depending on which side of the fence he happens to find himself.
It’s too bad. He’s a good writer on many issues.
This comment was written by Echidne of the snakes.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 8:51 pm
Brit, you are so right. Steve writes all the fucking time about women without getting sexual, but he, like so many men, is so damn afraid to drop the “gotta have it” mentality lest he actually be held accountable that he plays like he feels that way. Whatever. The most frustrating thing is he writes about his girlfriend constantly and he clearly admires and respects her, but it doesn’t quite carry over to changing his mind. I like it when he writes about Jen–they seem happy, reminds me of me and my boyfriend, a genuine respectful partnership. But it just doesn’t translate. I guarantee that if someone fucked with Jen, he’d get fluff up his nose, but still, no larger understanding. Like I said in the comments, it’s a wonder to watch a guy who claims men can’t help it determine real fucking quick that men can help it if they “can’t help it” in the direction of a beloved wife or girlfriend or daughter.
I’m frustrated because I feel a sort of kinship with him and it just tees me off. He had the fucking nerve to ask if a guy has ever been “inappropriate” with me–uh, like at least twice a week, duh. I go out alot, I know a lot of men, I’m into a counter-culture scene. A guy who gets in your space and gets wandering hands is out of line, but it is not the same thing as someone who chooses to rape a crying, screaming woman. I think the reality of rape just isn’t real enough for some men. I don’t know how to make it real to them.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 8:54 pm
Oh, and as for “why”, Brit. Steve linked a man who has wandering hands to one who rapes and strangles a woman and throws her in a harbor, though I doubt that was his intention. They get defensive because on a certain level they know that the one and only way to stop rape is to give up male privilege. And once that is gone, they will either have to stop objectifying women or be objectifyed openly themselves. Either choice makes them squirm.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 9:00 pm
Also, here’s another thought. Why do we use “consent” as the baseline for when it’s appropriate for sex to happen? From a framing point of view I think that furthers the sexist idea of women as passive objects who aren’t really interested in sex and are only doing it to please their man. From a semantic point of view it reinforces the idea that sex is something that is being done to us rather than something that we’re equal partners in. Wouldn’t “enthusiastic participation” be a better benchmark? To me “consent” doesn’t really imply that the woman is at all happy to be having sex, just that she isn’t screaming and trying to run away. Surely we can set the bar higher than that.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 9:12 pm
Amanda, I’m actually a big proponent of the idea that maybe we should objectify men a bit more openly, so that maybe they will start to get a clue about how it feels to be on the receiving end. I’m actually in the process of trying to write a novel (slow and painful process) dealing with attraction, dating etc from a woman’s point of view. One of the reasons I want to write it is because there’s so little out there in the culture describing the way that women look at men sexually, how lust works from our point of view etc (although there’s plenty of the love and romance variety). Funny thing is, several guys that I’ve shown some of the intial drafts to have been deeply freaked out. I’ve heard a lot of “but women just don’t look at men that way! They’re so much more emotional…”. I think the issue is that if men accept that they are being evaluated in a sexual way just like women are, they also have to accept the idea that they might be found lacking or undesireable, and that’s pretty scary if you’ve never had to think about it before.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 9:14 pm
“You know what really puzzles me about this? What do you want to bet that Steve, Kos etc have in fact hung out with women without planning to get laid? I mean, they presumably went to college. Did they never have female classmates who they studied with? Female co-workers who they went out for post-work drinks with? I just can’t imagine a scenario in which any man who grew up in America hasn’t found himself in a non-sexual social situation with women. Watch TV and you’ll see male and female friends hanging out without and assumption of sex to follow (I’m not a big fan of Friends but a lot of people did seem to watch it). Unless these men grew up in Iran or Saudi Arabia, I guarantee that they’ve hung out with women platonically at some point…”
You and me both, Brit. I thought along those lines while reading Steve’s spiel about young men as brainless, unstoppable fuck machines. Uhhh… I guess by that criteria, no man gets past eighteen years of age with his virginity still intact. I guess he either loses it by that time or falls over dead in the attempt. :/
Of course, I notice that at least a few overgrown frat-boys in Kos-land like to insult young Right-wing guys by using “virgin” as an epithet. [snort] Yeah, it’s really of primary importance in a political discussion –even one totally unconnected to sexual issues– whether you’ve dipped your wick yet or not, Junior. I guess by that standard, we should all be ritually deflowered before being allowed to vote. You know, just to make sure that we’re qualified. Shit.
And, yeah, I too had the thought that it’s weird guys can eat Steve’s schtick up and then call feminists “man-haters.”
This comment was written by alsis38.99.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 9:42 pm
Alsis
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Yep, whenever I hear men like Steve trot out the “man as nothing more than ambulatory gonads” tripe I start to wonder if maybe I actually like men a whole lot more than they do. I certainly seem to have a higher opinion of their intelligence.
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June 15th, 2005 at 11:03 pm
So Steve and his ilk are saying that men are evil and cannot be trusted.
I really wonder if Steve realizes what he’s saying is that he would rape if he thought he could get away with it.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 11:16 pm
And I add to the comment thread by directing you to:
http://www.laddertheory.com/
Enjoy, as you see fit.
This comment was written by Antigone.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 11:17 pm
“I really wonder if Steve realizes what he’s saying is that he would rape if he thought he could get away with it. ”
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.I wonder what he’d say if you e-mailed him and pointed that out.
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June 15th, 2005 at 11:21 pm
BritGirl, I think the contrast is you’re talking about human beings who are “men,” and they’re talking about “men” as the gender construction, less than fully human. Only, they’re not thinking of it as a construction.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 11:30 pm
I really wonder if Steve realizes what he’s saying is that he would rape if he thought he could get away with it
No, he’s saying that men are evil. In fairness - I’ve never heard of the guy, let alone read him, and nothing I’ve seen here inclines me to change that status. But using my Jedi Inter-male Telepathy power, I fathom that what means by that is that he is aware that his own nature inclines toward evil “by default”. The easiest path isn’t always evil, but the evil path is often easy. He sounds like he doesn’t know much about women - and so he’s not saying that they are similarly inclined, because he doesn’t know for sure.
I am inclined to evil. The option is always there. Perhaps it is different for you. I won’t presume to speak for half the species; just this 1/6 billionth of it. The fact that my actions are not universally evil is due first and foremost to grace (grace = God cutting us some slack), and secondarily to my own conscious decisions to act in a good manner. I regretfully report that that last factor is not impressive in its magnitude, and delightedly report that the first is something to be thankful for.
Would I rape if I thought I could get away with it? Well, I believe that I can’t get away with it where it counts, so the hypothetical is moot. But my answer would have to be “I don’t know.” The only way to know is to find out; I pray never to undergo such a temptation. But even if I did undergo such a temptation, I would be aware that “getting away with it” was not on the table.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 15th, 2005 at 11:42 pm
“Would I rape if I thought I could get away with it? Well, I believe that I can’t get away with it where it counts, so the hypothetical is moot. But my answer would have to be “I don’t know.”? The only way to know is to find out; I pray never to undergo such a temptation. But even if I did undergo such a temptation, I would be aware that “getting away with it”? was not on the table. ”
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Robert, I’ve disagreed with you before but always thought that you were a decent person. This is the first time that I’ve ever genuinely disliked you. Are you actually saying that you might consider raping someone if you didn’t know that God would judge you for it? Because that’s what it sounds like.
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June 16th, 2005 at 12:08 am
I came to the conclusion long ago that I think that men are much smarter and more capable than most people give them credit for being. If I were male, I’d find all the excuses for stereotypical male behaviour positively insulting.
And BritGirl, I’m all for objectifying men more ;)
Porn, as it exists now, bothers me not because it’s sexual, but because it’s pretty much only men’s fantasies. So our own sexuality, not just our physical appearance, is idealised in terms of male desires, and to top it all off, this ideal is often accepted as fact. It’s understood that not all women look like porn stars (although there is the assumption that we probably ought to) but too few people think of women’s sexuality in ways that don’t fit into the images found in most porn - or the majority of mass media.
Thus, you get 18/19 year old guys lecturing women on female desire and guys of all ages screaming prude! when anyone dares to call a particular ad objectifying. Not to mention the blaming of rape victims instead of rapists. After all, if she didn’t want it she shouldn’t have blah blah blah - ’cause apparently, not only are all guys untrustworthy sex fiends, but it’s just not possible for women to “want it” but not want it from every guy in existence, or only want it at certain times, or in certain ways, or…..well, pretty much “want it” in any way that contradicts male fantasies.
This comment was written by Jenny K.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:14 am
I’m beginning to think that certain aspects of the feminist fight are ripe for a refight. Especially after I went and read some other, less feminist threads on this topic. There is an enormous amount of victim-blaming going on, for example. Nary one poster notes that a victim is not the criminal here.
Makes me sad.
This comment was written by Echidne of the snakes.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:45 am
BritGirlSF: “This is the first time that I’ve ever genuinely disliked you.”
I just want to point out that you asked the question and got the answer. It may not have been the answer that you wanted, but it was the answer. If women want to understand men, they cannot berate them when they expose their minds.
Men don’t excuse guys for acting on their desire to have unconsensual sex. We all know it is wrong. For men it is a matter of self-control. There are few of the “hide in the alley” men out there. I think what Robert was talking about was the “my friend is on my bed and I am pretty drunk guy”. Date rape convictions have given men more pause in these situations, but many are still overcome by their Id — which come out in full force after three or four funnels.
Talking to young men will not help them supress their Id. We think differently than that. We need physical punishment perhaps death or castration as an adequate deterrent. That way, when the little guy is saying “she is so hot” and the other guy above our necks is saying, she is your friend he can add to the little guy — “and if we touch her you will be cut off at the hilt”. Men will listen then. Guaranteed.
This comment was written by jstevenson.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:50 am
BritGirlSF:
Funny how things work. I’ve actually disagreed with Robert a lot, and I’ll admit that I’ve disliked him occasionally. However, his comment now seemed very sincere and even brave. What I’m finding very common is the curious double standard about rape, as in saying “boys will be boys” when dismissing cases of rape, but same people have (in my experience) in other occasions completely dismissed it as something done by “others” (as in privileged frat boys,sicko bush rapists, foreigners, etc. usually people have some pet scapegoat groap), and have been very quick to announce themselves as people who would never rape (never is a strong word, decent people have, in wars for example, turned into amoral murderers and rapists, and It’s far too easy to either blame in ot the situation or say that those people just were doing what they would have done before if given the change[I'm certain that most such people would have never thought of doing such things, but I can't really know their minds so I'm not sure]).
My personal take on the issue (as a straight male with slight liberal and libertarian beliefs) is quite similar: I know I have occasionally wanted to commit horrible acts. I can’t truly know whether I would do those acts in different circumstances, both fear of punishment, my personal moral values (respecting the rights and integrity of other people), and my slight idealism (I think honesty and respect does have it’s benefits) refrain me from doing bad stuff (also I don’t simply want to, sometimes). I have passed up opportunities to lie, cheat, steal and in other ways fo harming other people in the past because of my morals (though I have also slipped from my morals, especially if I thought I could gain something by doing so too often that I would like). I don’t know if I would wan’t to rape subconsiously. I know only that I think it is wrong, against the basic rights of a sexual self-determination, and that I would consciously resist such an urge (and I think and hope I’d be succesful in resisting it). Whether It’s not wanting to rape, God, belief in human rights, or all of them that guides a person in doing the right thing and not raping is no big difference to me, if the end is same (not raping).
On the issue of Steve Gillard: I think his position appalling and hypocritical. He’s saying It’s not about blame and then immediately finds things he can use to blame the victim with. Do these folks realize how much the possibility of rape must affect the life of an average woman, and how much must a woman self-regulate behaviour that men take for granted (going out alone after dark, inviting co-workers and friends of opposite sex in the apartment, getting drunk) because men generally don’t have worry about the risk of rape?
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:56 am
“so that maybe they will start to get a clue about how it feels to be on the receiving end.”
Most “average guys” would love to be objectified like your “average gal”. When is that parade starting?
I used to live in DuPont Circle and found out what it was like to be objectified by men. When you say objectified — do you mean in the way men do it or will women have their own way? I was walking in the safeway in DuPont and this guy picked up a cucumber and made licking motions and a pretty impressive tongue flutter on it. He was dissappointed when he saw my wife — “make sure you keep him close honey — we are watching him” he said to her. I was pretty uncomfortable with that situation. Not the conversation, but the tongue flutter on the cucumber. If that is the kind of objectifying you are talking about, I am not really on board with that. But if it is having Chippendales sell Venus razors I am all for it.
This comment was written by jstevenson.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:58 am
scapegoat group, not scapegoat groap. Typo…
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:17 am
I applaud Robert for his honest response; a response I was expecting to hear. IMHO rape as a crime can be likened to stealing - EVERYONE has the impulse or idea to steal, but for a number of reasons which vary considerably from person to person, most of us don’t end up being thieves. Would you chastise someone who DIDN’T commit a crime, but simply because the crime occurred to them? Asking someone to transform their psyche somehow through criticism, self-analysis, insult and degredation is UNREALISTIC. Not going to happen - so just be happy that whatever prevents so many men from acting on the impulse to rape WORKS.
We need to deal with how this self-intervention FAILS in rapists, and not divert our attention to express our disappointment in those for which it is working to prevent rape.
(Before you go off at me about gender and the oppression of women, let me assure you I understand rape is a more complex crime with more complex motivations than stealing, but I was simply using theft because of its illustrative value)
This comment was written by Anna.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:41 am
jstevenson, tuomas
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Please note that I was asking Robert to clarify his statement - just because I read it the way I did does not automatically mean that’s what he meant.
However, just because I asked for a response does not mean that I am obliged to like the response I get. Note that I did not tell him “you can’t say that”. Robert is free to express whatever opinion he wants, and I am free to say that I find his opinion unpleasant or even appalling if that’s what I feel. As long as we’re both being polite and not resporting to name calling (and given that both of us are typically polite and reasonable people I’m pretty sure that can be managed) I’m not seeing why we can’t disagree.
Tuomas
“Men don’t excuse guys for acting on their desire to have unconsensual sex. We all know it is wrong. “. I’m not sure that this is true. I’m fairly sure that it’s true of MOST men, but I’ve also heard men state pretty clearly that they think that rape is justified in certain circumstances.Have you never heard someone say “she was asking for it”? Or read the transcripts of a rape trial? I wish I hadn’t, but I have.
Also, I see your point about everyone occasionally wanting to do terrible things. I’m sure that anyone who’s ever had a job has thought about killing their boss at least once (I know I have). But the thing it, there’s a big difference between thinking about something and saying that you would do it if you thought you could get away with it and/or if you didn’t think that God would punish you for it. The reason I’ve never actually killed my boss isn’t because I’m afraid of going to jail, it’s because I think it’s wrong and, once I actually simmer down a bit, I don’t actually want to kill him at all. There’s a big difference between having a moment of pure rage/having you id predominate and actually acting on that rage/id. I think the difference is actually realising the impact your actions are going to have on other people.
jstevenson
By “objectify” I meant openly lust over/comment on men’s desireability the way men do with women. I didn’t mean perform obscene gestures with produce. That’s not objectifying, it’s harrasment. You should have told him to F@#$ off.
Also, “date rape” is exactly what I want to talk about. Stranger in an alleyway type cases account for only a tiny percentage of rapes, and frankly I’m not sure that any ammount of talking to those guys would get them to modify their behaviour.
What I do want to know is what the hell is going through someone’s mind in the “drunk and lying in bed with friend” scenario. If you call someone a friend, doesn’t that imply that you care about her feelings? Or is it that men don’t consider this to be rape?
Actually this is the crux of what I’m trying to get at in opening this discussion in the first place. I suspect that men may have an entirely different idea of what rape IS than women do. I think that a real discussion of this is of huge value. However, for any kind of worthwhile discussion to happen the guys have to accept that the women have a right to be upset, confused and even angry about some of the things the guys might say. Otherwise everyone will just end up either censoring themselves or screaming insults at each other, and neither of those would be particularly productive.
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June 16th, 2005 at 1:45 am
I wonder how many men blame the victim in cases where men are the rape victims?
This comment was written by Lynne.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:50 am
Aside from the rest of the post this seems to me the most striking bit: The same applies to all your coworkers and opposite sex friends. If they’re straight, they have either thought about having sex with you or reasons why they shouldn’t.
And that never happens to women? Not to the same degree?
What about individual differences? Are all men thinking about sex the same way, and on the other side, all women think of sex in their own different way?
That’s what seems to be implied in that statement.
The way I see, that kind of passing thought or fantasy about people you’re not really even attracted to is there, or can be there, for anyone, women or men, unless they’re just not interested in sex at that particular time, or in general, as a personality.
Not everyone is aware of their unconscious thoughts in the same way, but they’re there all the same. A passing thought or minimal degree of sexual friction is there even among platonic, same-sex heterosexual friendships. We can’t help it. We’re all sexual beings even if we all don’t think of sex in the same way, thankfully, or we’d all be robots. I do think those involuntary thoughts and fantasies are the way our brain processes who we are attracted to and who we aren’t; it’s a sort of mechanism of asking the question regardless, to refine the answer, so to speak.
But what the fuck does having even ‘automatic’ sexual thoughts and responses have to do with rape?
It’s not even on the same level. It’s like comparing normal sexual desire with necrophiliac tendencies. I just cannot understand how heterosexual men can connect the two things - sexual attraction and rape - and not realise how pathetic and degrading it is for them in the first place, nevermind for women. Men who think like this must think of themselves as incapable of normally attracting sexual desire from women. How else could they relate sexual drive with rape?
The link between forcing sex on women and sexual attraction should be as evidently bizarre and sick as that between forcing sex on corpses and sexual attraction. That necrophilia is abhorred by everyone but the necrophiliacs, while rape is so often explained in terms of simple sexual exuberance or “the occasion was too tempting” is what’s wrong about the whole mentality. It’s an idea of male sexuality as sick to the core. It confuses rape with the desire to pursue and conquer the sexual interest of another, which in itself is normal. It also confuses fantasies of domination, which any man or woman can have, with actual rape. Embracing that kind of confusion is just so pathetic.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:09 am
Also, for Tuomas, in the interests of keeping this discussion open and honest (can’t ask that of other people if I’m not willing to live by it myself)
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.The reason I responded to Robert the way I did is because hearing or even thinking that a man (one who I generally find to be reasonable and sane even if I disagree with him on most political issues) might consider raping someone if he wasn’t worried about being judged by someone (even if that someone is God) scares the crap out of me. I think it scares the crap out of most women, because it implies that the man/men in question don’t really care about how we feel or whether they’re harming us, that all we are to them is a body. And that’s pretty damn disturbing.
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June 16th, 2005 at 2:11 am
Robert - just to be clear, I’m not accusing you of anything. If I’m misreading your comment please feel free to jump in and correct me. I’m not a Christian so God talk tends to confuse me.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:15 am
I’m not sure where that came from? The thing in between ” -marks wasnt written by me (and isn’t endorsed by me, because “we all” don’t certainly know It’s wrong, surprisingly many people excuse rape, in not thinking it’s really rape, if it’s done by a buddy, is after a date, is done to a girlfriend etc. but I do think it’s a rape, btw) …
The rest of your post I agree with (I’m also more concerned about date/acquintance rape than stranger rape, because the first kind is much more common, and many men indeed do not recognize all nonconsensual sex as a rape with comments like “It’s not like he was holding a knife on her throat, or beating her” in a case of a very nonconsensual-sounding situation I heard from, but not from the people involved, whom I don’t really know), though I’m probably a bit more pragmatic on the fear of punisment/recognizing the consequences -angle, as some people just don’t care about the consequences to other people, and need selfish incentives. I’m even pretty sure most very unselfish-seeming intentions have a degree of selfishness in them.
We can of course disagree, but I didn’t really read Robert’s comment as “God will punish me if I rape, therefore I will not rape”, more like “I have these morals coming from my belief in God, and I try to act on them by not raping for example, and I don’t know whether I would rape without this faith but I hope not”. That’s all.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:16 am
We cross-posted, BritGirlSF, and seeing your new comments I have few disagreements with what you said.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:22 am
Tuomas
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Oops, the comment came from jstevenson. Sorry, my brain’s starting to shut down for the night.
One question - can you see why the pragmatic “whatever works” argument as opposed to men not raping because they know that it’s wrong might be scary and disturbing for women? Ie, why the idea that there are a potentially a bunch of guys out there who would rape if they thought they would get away with it is alarming? I’m not trying to pick on you, just trying to get a sense of how you’re thinking about this.
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June 16th, 2005 at 2:31 am
I have passed up opportunities to lie, cheat, steal and in other ways fo harming other people in the past because of my morals
Tuomas, that is different though. I have lied, I have cheated and I have also stolen, sometimes. Morals didn’t stop me when I had something to gain. I didn’t pass the opportunities, as long as I could get away with them and as long as the harm being done was not superior to what I wouldn’t really mind having done to me. So I never really went beyond a basically harmless limit of lying, cheating and stealing, because I didn’t even feel the need or wish to do any of that to a serious degree, not because something I’d learned stopped me. (Well, I’d love to rob a bank or a casino, without anyone even getting hurt, like in that film with Cate Blanchett and Bruce Willis whose title I don’t recall now, but that’s such a remote, childish, romantic fantasy I don’t even bother to think about it. It only happens like that in the movies anyway).
If I have never murdered or tortured anyone, it’s not because of the thought of not getting away with it, or because of learned morals, but because I really cannot even entertain the thought.
Sure, I’ve had the occasional murder instinct when getting angry; I’ve fantasised about painful retribution for people I was mad at; in the realm of hypotheticals, I could probably kill someone, in a rage, in the heat of absolute mad fury, if I got in a fight and I lost complete control of my senses (and even then, I’ve never ever got the point where fury takes over so completely, and the most I did in the grips of blind fury was smash inanimate objects…), but I couldn’t seriously say I’d ever be able to even think of it in cold blood. It would be like thinking of having sex with a corpse, again, and sorry to bring up that image. Just the thought disgusts me. If I picture myself torturing or murdering someone, I picture a version of me that is so disgusting to me I’d rather kill myself than do any of that. Even if I could get away with it, I couldn’t get away from my mind and my memory.
So I don’t think the question here has anything to do with the difference between fantasies and actual enactment of them.
I think it has to do with the very source and nature of those fantasies, and how come some people can even picture themselves raping anyone, and picture a version of themselves that they could live with (and please note I’m not even talking of remorse strictly speaking). That, aside from considerations on the victims, of course; even assuming total disregard and lack of empathy for the victims, the question is still, wouldn’t that kind of act kill your very sense of self? Unless your sense of self is constructed, personally and socially, to allow for that kind of act.
Gangsters who kill people don’t care about victims and live very happily with their crimes unless caught, because killing people is an added bonus for both their personal sense of self and social status within their gang environment. They’re tough and respected the more people they intimidated and killed. They do have morals; they’ll even genuinely care for their own children and family; it’s just a separate set of morals based on prevarication and belonging to one gang vs. another.
Men who put rape and sexual drive on the same level are saying that because in the typical frat-boy mentality men are tough and respected the more women they fuck, rape becomes another means by which that fucking comes about. Sex is in the fucking itself, fucking is a one-directional action, and so it happens that rape is directly or indirectly justified even as it is apparently condemned. Rapists must think of themselves in the same way gangsters do. They have their own mentality of what sex is and their own set of morals, based on their being part of a gang, not of humanity as a whole.
Divisions of human beings into gangs is where group violence and/or group condoning of that violence starts. (Not a coincidence that rape is so often part and parcel of ethnic conflicts).
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:35 am
BritGirlSG:
No harm done. :-)
And to answer your question: I suppose it’s scary thought for women. Hell, I think it’s scary thought for anyone as there are women involved in my (and probably every man’s) life, and to think that there is a bunch of guys just waiting for the right time to rape them is disgusting and scary. And even when discussing women not involved in my life. However, I’m all for making sure that time is never by advocating for better education about rape to men (as in telling what really is rape [this probably would be closer to "women's idea"] and why it is always wrong, thus making the “bunch” smaller, perhaps), and making sure the rest don’t get away with it by advocating for better prosecution and more resources allocated on bringing rapists to justice (reducing the opportunities to get away with it).
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:35 am
“We need physical punishment perhaps death or castration as an adequate deterrent. That way, when the little guy is saying “she is so hot”? and the other guy above our necks is saying, she is your friend he can add to the little guy … “and if we touch her you will be cut off at the hilt”?. Men will listen then. Guaranteed. ”
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Dude, are you seriously suggesting that feminists should advocate castrating rapists? Because I’m sure that that would do WONDERS to improve our public profile.
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June 16th, 2005 at 2:35 am
I wonder how many men blame the victim in cases where men are the rape victims?
Lynne, if the victims are gay, then it’s more or less the same. Because gays, like women, are not part of the gang of the heterosexual men for which rape is a kind of extreme-sport version of sex.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:41 am
OK, I really need to get some sleep before I completely forget how to type but one more thing I’d like to throw out there first.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.What do men actually think is and is not rape? What do women think is and is not rape? Do both sets of ideas about what the word rape actually means match up, and if not, what can all of us (both men and women) do about it?
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June 16th, 2005 at 2:48 am
Last thing I wanted to add: when Tuomas writes about educating men not to rape, or teach them it’s wrong. Well, I do think Steve above was right in this particular statement: ‘Most guys know that. The ones that don’t aren’t going to listen to a lecture.’ The education and social, cultural, mentality effort against rape is not to take a bunch of men and telling them what rape is and that it is wrong. It’s about disconnecting the link between sexual drive and rape. It’s about dismantling the sick notion of sex as a one-directional active-on-passive action. Defusing all the clichés about the supposedly diametrically opposite sexual drive and behaviour of women and men. Defusing the notion of gender as a sort of gang one belongs to. Defusing the notion that all in life including sex is about competition and aggression and prevarication. And so on and so forth. It has to be a lot more pervasive. Otherwise it’s just a lot of paternalistic useless self-serving crap.
And this wider cultural effort that seeks to dismantle unhealthy notions of sex and relations between the genders already exists. It’s called feminism. No need to reinvent the wheel. If someone hasn’t noticed the wheel has already been invented, it’s their problem.
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June 16th, 2005 at 2:52 am
” If someone hasn’t noticed the wheel has already been invented, it’s their problem.”
Unfortunately, that isn’t really true. It’s our problem. And I don’t think we can educate boys and young men enough that rape is wrong. It’s like all of the drug-war propaganda says - talking about it once isn’t going to stick.
This comment was written by cclough.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:52 am
OK, I lied
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Lynn, in my experience I only know one man who was raped (by a group of 5 guys). The guys who attacked him saw it as gay bashing (ie they thought he was gay) even though he is actually straight. How this works is mind-boggling to me (if these were supposedly straight men why did they want to fuck another man? This would seem to support the traditional view that rape is about violence, not about sex). The guy (my ex) who was raped didn’t tell any other men for several years because he was afraid of how they would react, and it turns out he was right to be afraid. Most of the guys he told flat out blamed him for the attack by saying that he shouldn’t have been dressed the way he was (in classic eighties glam rock style) in such a bad neighborhood late at night, or if he was he shouldn’t have gone alone, and if he did he should have “tried harder” to fight the guys off. Now this guy is about 6ft 3, but to expect him to fight off 5 guys? That doesn’t seem realistic to me. So, to answer your question, the blame the victim reflex seems to operate just the same when the victim is a man. The only difference I can see is that it made other men question his sexual identity ie some of them reacted as if they thought that the reason he didn’t “try harder to fight them off” was because maybe he actually wanted it because he was gay.
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June 16th, 2005 at 3:01 am
noodles:
This comment was written by Tuomas.Maybe I was a bit unclear, because I couldn’t agree more. Seeing sex as competition, and men’s values determined by how many or how beautiful women they are fucking, (while simultaneously devaluing women for number of men they are fucked by) is a huge problem. The sick ideas about sex as man as the fucker, woman as the fuckee should be dismantled, the sooner, the better. And put more equal system in place that doesn’t value people on their sexual activity or lack of it.
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June 16th, 2005 at 3:02 am
That’s what I meant by education, not just “this is rape, and it’s wrong”, certainly it has to go deeper than that.
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June 16th, 2005 at 3:04 am
Oh, and to add to the example addressed to Lynne RE male rape victims, in the case I’m talking about rapists repeatedly said to the victim “so, you think you’re a woman huh? well then let’s see how you like being treated like one” or something to that effect. I’m paraphrasing here - this all happened about 15 years ago. So, it seems to me that he was being “punished” for steeping outside his “proper” gender role.
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June 16th, 2005 at 3:25 am
Noodles
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.I’m totally in agreement with the fact that dividing people into “my gang” and “everyone else” is one of the root causes of this. However, I don’t think that we can just write off anyone who isn’t already onboard with feminism. The reason being, their beliefs and attitudes have an impact on everyone else around them. Men who hold these beliefs will continue to rape women. They may also spread their beliefs to other men, pass them on to their sons etc. I’m not sure what we can do about that, but I don’t think throwing up our hands in despair is the answer, no matter how tempting it might be.
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June 16th, 2005 at 3:32 am
Tuomas, I should have understood that’s what you meant too, sorry!
It’s just, I don’t believe there’s any men who don’t know the difference between sex and rape; the problem is that there’s men, and groups of men, who don’t care. So that’s what I was responding to basically, the idea that there has to be a specific education in that sense, that assumes that rape is down to some kind of ignorance or incapacity.
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June 16th, 2005 at 3:54 am
noodles:
Again, no harm done.
But I do think there are men who don’t know the difference between rape and sex, or maybe consider rape okay in some situations (they don’t call it rape, of course, and those guys might not do it personally but still think it’s okay sometimes), and writing of rape as insane (only sick men do it, the accused isn’t sick, therefore he isn’t a rapist) is bit troubling too (as in comments about how shocking it is that a sane man might actually consider that there is tiny, subconscious change that he might have an urge to rape in some conditions).
Definitely. That is the second part of my cunning plan, allocating more resources on apprehending them. (And if there is a cultural change that trashes the “boys will be boys” - attitudes along with other sexist crap, rape trials will probably be much easier, and rapes much less frequent, IMHO)
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June 16th, 2005 at 4:05 am
BritGirl: I agree, and don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t suggesting writing off anyone who isn’t onboard with feminism! People who don’t overtly identify themselves as feminists or pro-feminist aren’t going to be all overtly anti-feminists either.
I simplified, what I meant is, the challenge to the mentality that sex and rape are in the same category of behaviour is already there (besides, it’s not just feminism alone that has made that challenge); it’s in turn challenged by stereotypes that are hard to die, but it’s there already.
When people like Steve say a lecture won’t do, well he’s right, strictly speaking, but the thing is, it’s not a lecture that’s going to change that mentality that encourages or condones rape; that mentality is not just something that some isolated individuals have and others don’t. What’s interesting in his comment is, of course, he ends up following the reasoning at the root of that very mentality that condones rape, and yet, he’s telling us rape is all a matter of some men do it, many others don’t. He’s ignoring or dismissing any social or cultural approach as if was a matter of giving ‘lectures’, and not seeing how his own view is influenced by cultural and social stereotypes that he takes for granted and instead, need some questioning.
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June 16th, 2005 at 4:06 am
I think that Gillard’s ideas — which also showed up in many of the comments in the various pie fight discussions — are really much more insidious than the reprehensible blaming of rape victims.
The belief that it is inevitable and immutable that men will view women not as human beings but as things with a specific utility (fuckable or non-fuckable) is just another way of saying that women are not and can never be equal to men because the power to decide and to dismiss rests with the male.
People who have this attitude will find it reasonable and right to relagate women’s concerns to the ‘unimportant shit’ that doesn’t require attention until men’s needs have been taken care of. And they definitely are not going to react well if women step out of their natural role, demanding not only to speak but to be heard.
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June 16th, 2005 at 4:14 am
Noodles
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.I think you’ve got a good point there. Why is it that Steve and his ilk can take the argument so far along, almost up to the point where it reaches it’s logical conclusion, and then somehow they just seem to hit a mental brick wall? That was part of why I was soliciting opinions from the guys - I’m hoping they can help me (and other women) to understand why that happens. Why does someone like Steve, who is perfectly capable of making logical inferences up to a point, suddenly default back to the “blame the victim” script?
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June 16th, 2005 at 4:27 am
BritGirl,
Those with privilege are not inclined to self-accept blame and they are even less inclined to accept it from others. The lynching resolution is an excellent example of this — the resolution couldn’t get through until everyone in authority who were actually at fault were no longer around to have to acknowledge what they had done and still there were 19 senators who couldn’t bring themselves to accept even that minimal effort.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 4:38 am
Tuomas, I understand what you mean but I disagree on the knowledge thing.
But I do think there are men who don’t know the difference between rape and sex, or maybe consider rape okay in some situations (they don’t call it rape, of course, and those guys might not do it personally but still think it’s okay sometimes)
See, that’s not lack of knowledge. It’s condoning, or minimising, or being used to see it as a particular extension of sex.
and writing of rape as insane (only sick men do it, the accused isn’t sick, therefore he isn’t a rapist) is bit troubling too (as in comments about how shocking it is that a sane man might actually consider that there is tiny, subconscious change that he might have an urge to rape in some conditions).
Well I’m not writing off rape as insane, the comparison with necrophilia is in the nature of the act as seen by the perpetrator, in how sex is reduced to a narcissistic act of abuse, where the other person is reduced to an object that may as well be inanimate or dead. But it is obviously different in all other respects, and I didn’t mean a rapist has to be insane, as in, not know what they’re doing, or have some completely sick compulsion like a necrophiliac has.
That said, I guess we are talking of a different notion of subconscious urge and/or fantasy.
My idea of subconscious urges/fantasies is of things I’d actually enjoy doing. Yeah, I have involuntary thoughts about scary things too, but that’s another thing, it’s fears, not fantasies.
So I’m wondering, how can anyone have a subconscious urge to rape someone, how does he picture it? How can he entertain the thought of it being satisfactory and of being satisfied with himself at the end?
Or do you mean, subconscious thought instead of urge? Because in that sense, it’s completely different. We can have subconscious thoughts about things we really find disgusting as well as wrong. I can think of myself drinking a gallon of dirty water from the sewers, but that thought doesn’t exactly make me question the fact I’d never feel the urge to do it. It’s not my idea of pleasure. That knowledge of one’s sense of pleasure/disgust is at the level before morals, before knowledge of right and wrong. In my mind, forcing someone to have sex, absuing them, (ie. not consensual bondage or S&M scenarios or anything like that) is similarly disgusting; it’s just not something I could even conceive enjoying. I can picture myself doing it, but I just don’t see the appeal.
So I’m wondering, are we talking pure speculations, or fantasies or hypothetical urges?
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 4:54 am
Most “average guys”? would love to be objectified like your “average gal”?. When is that parade starting?
Yeah, most people say this. I don’t buy it. I think the “average guy” assumes that (i) she’ll lust specifically after him; (ii) he’ll still be in control of when/where/how, and will be able to turn off the objectification if it’s unwanted; (iii) the “average gal” who’s doing the objectifying will be someone he finds attractive; and (iv) there will be no repercussions - that is, he will still be treated exactly the same otherwise.
This comment was written by Jeff.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 5:04 am
“Men need to teach each other not to rape.”
Amanda, you seem to imply that all that is needed to stop rape is merely some character education initiatives. But men have been teaching each other not to steal since the dawn of civilization, and we still steal; men have been teaching each other not to kill since then as well, and we still kill. And we still covet our neighbor’s wife, and we still dishonor our mother and father, and the meek still have not inherited the earth, and you may insert a thousand teachings of Hammurabi, Moses, Christ, or the Egyptians or Greeks here. If human nature is in these ways imperfectible by mere instruction and teaching, why do you believe it to be perfectible in the case of rape? I sincerely hope you will reply.
This comment was written by Robinson Porter.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 5:41 am
noodles:
…That is true. It isn’t exactly knowledge. Point taken. (Also, my insanity point wasn’t exactly directed at you, it was a random thought I had following the discussion with BritGirl about Robert’s comment, and something I’ve heard often, my apologies)
Also the distinction between thoughts and urges is to the point, and it is quite sad (but true) that rape fantasies and one-way sexuality are probably linked. Also, could be that some rapists believe, or fool themselves into believing that the rape is what the woman wants, too. Lack of empathy follows from objectifying for personal satisfaction, or is it the other way around (can’t answer this myself)?
AndiF:
This comment was written by Tuomas.And good point about the welcomeness of being objectified as a man, I have similar thoughts about the issue. I’ve observed (straight)men getting totally freaked out by women who objectify blatantly (goes against social norms, I suppose).
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June 16th, 2005 at 5:42 am
Sorry, AndiF and Jeff, it was directed at Jeff actually.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 5:47 am
Yeah, most people say this. I don’t buy it. I think the “average guy”? assumes that (i) she’ll lust specifically after him; (ii) he’ll still be in control of when/where/how, and will be able to turn off the objectification if it’s unwanted; (iii) the “average gal”? who’s doing the objectifying will be someone he finds attractive; and (iv) there will be no repercussions - that is, he will still be treated exactly the same otherwise.
Exactly, Jeff.
This comment was written by Anne.Very interesting thread, all.
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June 16th, 2005 at 5:51 am
What Jeff said. My office is near the red-light district in the city, and many of my male coworkers admit they don’t like walking near the GLBT section because of the unwanted attention they get from “customers” - they are actually offended that just being out in public in that part of town gets them treated as sex objects.
This comment was written by Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 6:01 am
Tuomas,
That’s okay — I’m not above accepting undeserved praise :)
Yeah, if men like being objectified, explain the issue of gays in the military to me again. Shit, the barest likelihood of being treated ‘like a woman’ is such a matter of terror for men that they can’t even deal with sharing a barracks with gays.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 6:11 am
And that fear kind of amounts to acknowledging just what they do to women, doesn’t it? I don’t think a guy who didn’t do it to women would fear it so much himself.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 6:36 am
Yeah, I don’t buy that men are okay with being objectified. I think there’s a significant difference between how men react to gay men and lesbians, and I think most of the greater hostility to gay men is the fear that straight men will be viewed as sex objects: viewed, pursued, categorized, depersonalized and made a canvas for someone else’s fantasies.
Now, I’ve been cruised by gay men in lots of situations — including marches and other activist stuff where my presence contributed to the assumption that I was gay. I’ve found I’m not bothered by any approach that isn’t outright harrassment. But then, I have the privilege of being a guy, and a certain physical confidence about my ability to defend my boundaries comes with that. I simply cannot imagine the combination of being aggressively cruised, the lack of physical confidence that comes with a smaller and weaker body, and the absolute lack of understanding or assistance that society offers to women in defending their own physical boundaries. I cannot imagine it, but I know women experience that as a matter of course.
The only similar situation I think most men can imagine is being surrounded by physically imposing gay men in an environment where they were isolated, and where they would be assumed to be looking for sex with men by their very presence. Most straight guys would concede that the thought of such a situation scares them witless.
On the whole, I don’t think that women being forthright in how they view and judge men is a mirror image of male objectification of women, because of the other factors I have discussed. However, I think it might do a lot of good anyway. It might help some men see women as sexual subjects, real people with desire and agency, instead of objects. It might change the active-passive dynamic that Noodles discussed, if very slowly. It might also be just uncomfortable enough to get men thinking about what women have to deal with.
Finally, I agree with Noodles and others that men who rape don’t lack understanding of the difference between sex and rape but rather don’t care. However, I’m not sure that lecturing doesn’t work. What I expect these guys to learn by being lectured is not that rape is wrong, and it’s not what rape is. I expect them to learn something they really don’t know, and which is too often not their experience: that lots of men will not support them and make excuses for them when they rape. That not every guy will be quick to draw distinctions between their acquaintance rapes and “real rape.” That their targets might get some support. I don’t think I can change whether they think rape is wrong. I do think I can change whether they think I’ll be on their side if they do it.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 6:37 am
I can’t even deal with that thread anymore, guys talking down to me–”Amanda, we know rape is a crime. Do you?” type stuff. They think women are stupid and then also think that we should know what’s going on in every man’s head and determine if he’s going to rape us or not.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 6:41 am
Yeah, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If men really felt that objectification would give them power, they’d all be quitting business school to become strippers. They know better than that, despite the customary disingenuousness on the subject. “Women wouldn’t like to see naked men straddling an oiled pole in a dingy bar” blah blah blah. Well, some women wouldn’t, and others would fear societal disaproval if they did express a liking for it. But in our market-driven society, that’s hardly the point. Marketing can get large numbers of people to consume and covet any object it feels like hawking– so long as the pitch is done right.
And you don’t even need such a crude and dopey example as oiled naked jocks in a strip bar. If the fashion industry wanted to persuade businessmen, for instance, to wear see-through mesh shirts and nipple-rouge under their blazers by telling them that they’d get “power” from it, you can be damn sure a lot of men would try it. That is, they’d try it if it were marketed the way that light beer was: With an unrelenting parade of manly-male icons talking about how much more of a man you’d be if you tried it.
Next season, the fashion industry would say that mesh shirts and nipple-rouge were out;Now the big thing is shiny-knee length trousers with slits over each ass cheek. And so on, and so on. It would happen IF men really believed that being one of the women relegated to the status of animatronic mudflaps (ie– the pie-fight ad) was some kind of desireable, permanent power with no meaningful drawbacks. But (with a few exceptions in the gay community) the admen don’t, the businessmen don’t, the male jocks don’t, the male bloggers don’t. They’re smarter than that, but they think that women are too stupid to notice the bogus and transitory nature of this “power” ourselves.
This comment was written by alsis38.99.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 6:48 am
Yeah, most people say this. I don’t buy it. I think the “average guy”? assumes that (i) she’ll lust specifically after him; (ii) he’ll still be in control of when/where/how, and will be able to turn off the objectification if it’s unwanted; (iii) the “average gal”? who’s doing the objectifying will be someone he finds attractive; and (iv) there will be no repercussions - that is, he will still be treated exactly the same otherwise.
I know that a lot men squawk at this–for instance, in the earlier Kos thread at Gilliard’s I made a completely off-the-cuff remark about my smoking hot boyfriend to an ally in the thread and 100 comments later, those guys were still gnawing on it and telling me under no uncertain terms that it was unacceptable to say things like that. And these were guys defending the pie fight ad. And, if I weren’t a good feminist, this is the point where I would say, “Didn’t their mommas raise them better?”
Still, I think it’s for this reason alone that turning the tables is an extremely effective strategy, far better than simply telling them to quit objectifying women. Teach men that they too are objects of desire, that they too have to consent to sex with a woman. Treat them as the Keepers of the Cock like women are treated as the Pussy Oversoul (thanks, zuzu!) and maybe they’ll learn that it’s not fun to be treated like you have something that has to be gotten out of you by trickery, rape, cajoling, whatever.
Sex is consensual on the part of both parties, or else it’s rape. It’s pathetic that we have another generation of young men that don’t get this basic fact.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 6:54 am
Why do Gilliard, jstevenson, etc. say that men think about sex all the time, that all men think of all women in sexual ways, etc.? Because they have been taught to do so since early childhood. Dad shows Junior “Playboy” when Junior is 5. Dad tells Junior how women are different than men (on the rag, a slave to cock, etc.). In school, Junior’s playmates (who have been taught the same things) reinforce not only these beliefs, but the need to act as if women are a different species. In highschool & college if you don’t talk about how you’d like to fuck this girl or that, you are suspect. When you enter the workforce, on your breaks the guys will ogle women and say things like, “I’d do her.”
In real estate the saying is, “Location, location, location.” In stereotypical views of men and women it is, “Gender roles, gender roles, gender roles.”
I am sickened by statements like, “We think differently than that. We need physical punishment ….” Maybe you think differently than that, but don’t lump me in with you, you twisted soul. Women & men don’t think differently. They, as a class, don’t think differently than one another because they’ve got different genitals. Keep pushing the “differences” and you keep pushing fear & hate & superiority/inferiority.
“We think differently,” indeed. You know you can substitute race in there and it’s something you hear all the time from racists, right?
Here are some things that boys (where I grew up) hear a lot:
Men and women can’t just be friends.
Women are different.
I’d fuck her.
I wouldn’t toss her out of my bed.
Women aren’t rational.
Are you gay?
Yeah, men just want sex all the time. Welcome to the world of the Mentors — “Find ‘em, feel ‘em, fuck ‘em, forget ‘em.”
Maybe I’m just unimaginably far from the norm, but you guys seriously creep me out.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:04 am
jstevenson wrote:
“…Date rape convictions have given men more pause in these situations, but many are still overcome by their Id … which come out in full force after three or four funnels…”
[slaps forehead]
Oh, bullshit. Just above this you decry excuse-making. Then with this quote you turn around and say that alcohol, a fucking DEPRESSANT, is a crucial factor in turning nice guys into sex-crazed monsters. Please. Would you also argue that “three or four funnels” would make a man’s Id lead him to rob a bank or commit some other non-sexual crime ? WTF ?
I’ve gone drinking with male friends intermittently throughout my adult life. What “three or four funnels” of beer or whisky usually does is make us all groggy and inclined to make a lot of trips to the bathroom. Yeesh.
This comment was written by alsis38.99.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:05 am
I know that a lot men squawk at this”“for instance, in the earlier Kos thread at Gilliard’s I made a completely off-the-cuff remark about my smoking hot boyfriend to an ally in the thread and 100 comments later, those guys were still gnawing on it and telling me under no uncertain terms that it was unacceptable to say things like that.
Amanda: I got the impression that was just ideologicalal judo - they were trying to deflect complaints about their own offensiveness by wilfully missing the irony, calling you a sexist and acting offended.
This comment was written by Jeff.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:16 am
Amanda - “Keepers of the Cock” - I love it! Too bad it won’t be used in a national advertising campaign. I can see it now - billboards! bus stops! magazines! TV! radio! newspapers! Superbowl! bobbleheads! (OK, now I’m getting a little giddy.)
This comment was written by Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:16 am
Yeah, Amanda, lots of guys are full of shit, even with themselves, about sex and power and being on the receiving end. It’s easy to talk a good game about taking any offer, but lots of men get freaked out when pursued aggressively.
When I was a teen, I remember one young woman, a few years my junior, with whom I had had one pretty nice encounter. Now, I was a senior in high school, and because of the age difference I might have expected to be accused of corrupting her. We went somewhere to be alone — we were both, in fact, looking for sex — and she reached down my pants with no preliminaries and no warning and grabbed my cock and balls rather roughly. It hurt a little, but as many readers here know, that’s no downside for me. But it really shocked me because it was invasive, and it blew the mood, and we never hooked up again. Now, I did in fact want to fuck. With her. Right then. If she had asked me to pull my cock out, I would have. If she had just moved slowly enough that I knew where she was going, it would have been fine. But as soon as I felt that I had lost the ability to defend my own boundaries, it freaked me out. I’m not sure I understood why at the time, but I realize now that, as a guy (and at the time a serious martial artist), I really took for granted my ability to control access to my body. When that assumption was challenged, it killed the hard-on, and the encounter.
Now, I’m different enough when it some to sexuality that I don’t always assume my experience can be generalized to other straight men. However, I really question this self-aggrandizing bullshit story some men tell about their own responses to objectification.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:20 am
Add “Riders of the Storm” soundtrack to above advertising.
This comment was written by Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:33 am
Also, could be that some rapists believe, or fool themselves into believing that the rape is what the woman wants, too.
Tuomas, that’s a very good point, for a rapist to get a kick out of it it he has to entertain the notion that women like to be subjugated and passive and that no actually means yes and all those ideas that basically women are a different species (and a slightly subhuman one too) so you can just use them for your own pleasure. It’s more than objectification, it’s scorn, hatred, and a boundless sense of ego.
In the end it goes back to what is the nature of that pleasure, of seeing rape as something that you can get a kick out of. The kick has to be in that subjugation, in the nature of abuse and coercion. That, I don’t think it’s something one can normally fantasise about but refrains from only for moral reasons. It essentially has nothing to do with sexual pleasure. How can there be sexual pleasure without the other person actively and gladly participating in it?
For any man to even see rape as an extension of sexual pleasure, without seeing themselves in the process as a sick freak, a stalker, a psycho, they need to believe in a series of things about themselves (and the male gender) and the other person (and the female gender) that allows them to rape and get away with it in their own mind and that of their ‘gang’ who will condone or excuse or even boast about that act. So it’s impossible to look at rape without looking at the social and cultural mentalities that influence it. Even if the responsibility of each rape is ultimately individual, it’s impossible to reduce it entirely to individual inclinations. Yes, if it was only a handful of rapists a year, then we could consider it literally like necrophilia, something that is so removed from any common social mentality, something that is so universally taboo, that it would be literally a case of ‘most men don’t do it, only a very few sick men do it, so no social or cultural approach is going to have any effect’. But it’s a lot more widespread than that. That’s why the ‘we know it’s a crime already’ responses are so pathetically missing the point.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:42 am
Lee: that’s going to be stuck in my head the rest of the day.
“Like a key without a lock, or New Kids on the Block…”
This comment was written by Jeff.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:48 am
Ask an honest question, get an honest answer.
Why do perfectly decent men, men who have never raped or assaulted a woman in their life and never will, still have such a knee-jerk reaction to this topic? Why do they react as if any discussion of rape is an accusation aimed at them personally?
Because, with the article and so many of the replies, I feel like perfectly decent men are being lumped in with the rapists, scumbags, and murderers of the world. I don’t know if it is a concious thing on the author’s part, but I’m just saying what I feel.
Am I responsibile for the actions of murderers? Kidnappers? Why am I being held responsible for rapists? Why is it my duty to educate them? I don’t even know who they are!
Why are they so unwilling to talk to other guys about this, and so very willing to excuse friends when they display this kind of behaviour towards women?
First of all, none of my friends display this kind of behaviour toward women. If they did, they wouldn’t be my friends. I don’t want to hang out with people like that.
The only example I can think of that’s remotely applicable is something I didn’t even see, but heard about (because we do talk about this kind of stuff, thanks for the stereotype). My friend was with his boss at a bar, and his boss was really drunk. He was grabbing the behinds of almost every woman in the bar. Totally over the line, asshole behavior. Well, he’s my friend’s boss — what’s he going to do? The best he could do was get the guy out of there, apologize profusely, because he can’t lose his job. And now he avoids hanging out with his boss at all costs, and everyone in our circle knows his boss is an asshole.
Any attempt he would have made to educate the guy a) probably wouldn’t have worked, since obviously someone much earlier down the line screwed that part up and b) could have very possibly gotten him fired or in a fistfight or both.
Why don’t the guys who know damn well that this behaviour is wrong educate their less-enlightened brethren?
Again, other than educating my kids about how to respect others (men and women), what exactly am I supposed to do? I can’t be held responsible for the behavior of other grown adults that I don’t know, or barely know, male or female.
Flame away.
This comment was written by vince.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:51 am
But as soon as I felt that I had lost the ability to defend my own boundaries, it freaked me out.
That is so exactly the point.
Thanks for that detailed illustration, Tuomas! :)
Imagine if you had been made unable to re-establish boundaries at all, and she (maybe easier to imagine it with a HE) hadn’t stopped there.
If a woman does overstep boundaries, it’s rightly seen as an uncomfortable thing that freaks you out. If a man does it, or even more than that, we start to ask if maybe the woman had given him ambiguous clues and perhaps he thought she was really into it and misunderstood so he thought it was ok to ovestep those boundaries, like uncertain situations are enough of a justification for unwanted moves (chanelling Aegis!). Then we even deny there’s a mentality behind it!
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:01 am
Jeff, that completely ruled. You are awesome.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:06 am
Now, I did in fact want to fuck. With her.
I was taking a long walk and thinking these issues over this morning and realized how it really is critical for men to address our rape culture by thinking about how they model sex. And Thomas, your use of “with her” is a great example of how to chip away slowly at this. I said on Steve’s blog that sex is fucking a girl who likes it. But I think a better phrasing is that sex if fucking a girl who’s fucking you back. And that’s gonna make a lot of men squirm.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:06 am
noodles:
I think your analysis on the (non)validity of rape fantasies is quite true, but I’m also clinging to the perhaps hypothetical idea that there are men who do consciously refrain from raping, even though they would want to rape (okay, maybe they aren’t exactly “normal”). But I do think that most rape is in some way “cultural”, and is linked to beliefs about gender differences.
And about the alcohol thing by jstevenson… Alcohol does indeed remove inhibitions and lessens perception, rational thinking and sexual capability . But I, as a man, am a bit insulted by the suggestion that after a couple of drinks I might date-rape, and by the claim “it’s just that a thing that we men do”. If there indeed is person who knows that he might very likely (if given the opportunity) rape (or commit a crime of similar magnitude, and this goes for women too) after a couple of shots then it would truly be the height of irresponsibility to drink alcohol at all (and such people after committing crimes when drunk, probably will vehemently use the “but I was drunk” -defense). I’m guessing such people might get drunk for the purpose of doing things they couldn’t live with if they did them sober.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:08 am
It’s easy to talk a good game about taking any offer, but lots of men get freaked out when pursued aggressively.
Or even when you take their “men want it all the time” seriously. I’ve occasionally responded to that braggadocio with “Really? Okay, let’s go fuck now” and have always been met with stammering excuses.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:11 am
noodles:
This comment was written by Tuomas.I’m sorry, but that was Thomas , my angloamerican (I suppose) namesake. I can’t take credit for that :(
But I agree it was to the point :)
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June 16th, 2005 at 8:13 am
Myth, as usual, you completely rule. It’s so true–the flipside of the women got it, men want it belief is that when you, as a woman, make a pass at a man, and get shut down it’s completely devastating. If he doesn’t want sex with you and men will take all comers, you figure that you must stink or something. I’ve talked about this before, but I think it’s a little remarked upon result of these stereotypes.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:15 am
I think your analysis on the (non)validity of rape fantasies is quite true, but I’m also clinging to the perhaps hypothetical idea that there are men who do consciously refrain from raping, even though they would want to rape (okay, maybe they aren’t exactly “normal”?).
Tuomas, then I would also agree, with that added clause. There has to be something slighly warped to be able entertain that fantasy as a pleasant scenario (as opposed to having a passing thought about it).
Thanks for the interesting back and forth!
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:17 am
Tuomas and Thomas - sorry for the confusion! :)
Is Tuomas the version of Thomas in which language?
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:23 am
Finnish version. Damn, now that we agree I can’t suddenly think of anything relevant to say… Oh well. I suppose I could use a little break anyway :).
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:24 am
Would I rape if I thought I could get away with it? Well, I believe that I can’t get away with it where it counts, so the hypothetical is moot. But my answer would have to be “I don’t know.”
This admission seriously upsets me.
If I ever had the opportunity, no, I would never rape or maim or kill an innocent person. Even if a little corner of me wouldn’t be opposed to it, even if we were at war, I wouldn’t do it. I tend to believe–as many conservatives, including Robert (or so I thought), tend to believe–in a little thing called “personal responsibility.” If you can’t know how you’ll act when it comes to as terrible and as violent a crime as rape, I posit that you can’t know anything about yourself at all, and you might as well abandon all pretensions of morality.
And I have this weird opinion that men will not stop raping as long as they believe that they might. Robert didn’t say that a part of him might want to rape a woman, but his conscience would stop him. No, he said, “I pray never to undergo such a temptation.” How can we ever make the point that RAPE IS BAD as long as people continue to believe that it’s no more than a temptation?
I have to agree with Brit’s original comment: Until this point, I could take Robert or leave him, but now he’ll always be “that guy who might rape me if he could get away with it.” Anybody else want to jump in and make the world a little darker?
If women want to understand men, they cannot berate them when they expose their minds.
Yeah, we should all just go around praising someone who says that he might rape a woman for his courage and honesty in speaking up. We should award medals to every man who says something that horrible, because, hey, he’s just a stupid man, he can’t be expected to actually think before he speaks.
I thought you weren’t supposed to post on rape threads, jstevenson.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:34 am
Thanks Hestia, for bringing Robert’s comments up again. My question is where did Robert go? He basically said, “I don’t know if I would rape if I could get a way with it. I hope I’m never tempted.”
I think that’s seriously and totally fucked up. I think it comes across as “brave” because so many men don’t admit to this. I don’t care if you admit to it or not, recognize it as a seriously fucked up thing to think then.
And to all the other men on this thread, how would you answer that question? Do you feel the same as Robert? Do you not know what you would do if you could get away with it?
And be sure to apologize like hell for the answer if it is yes. Just because someone says something nobody is willing to say doesn’t make it noble. It’s disgusting.
HC
This comment was written by HC.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:35 am
Great thread.
I’m on a national coordinating committee with a man who does anti-rape education in schools and he said when he gets requests to do a one-day workshop he turns them down. In his 20 years of experience, he has found that a one-day workshop actually makes boys attitudes worse than no workshop at all because it is not enough time to build a relationship and get to the place where real progress is made.
A one-day workshop leaves the education incomplete but their minds are charged on the topic of gender so what do they do? Talk about it with their adolescent friends in peer-group situations where constructing masculinity is the goal and rejecting what ’suits’ say and repeating an Eminem lyric reaffirms their masculinity in opposition to girls (the above-mentioned ‘gang/group’ theory).
Two years ago I started something I call “$5 Dicks.” I was at Oregon Country Fair (quasi-hippie festival) and even though nudity is acceptable I didn’t see any penises, real or artistically representated. However, I was quite literally surrounded by almost invariably pretty topless girls and portraits of breasts, breasts and more breasts. One man in a loincloth dancing near a stage was mercilessly ridiculed by a mixed group of teenagers sitting near me who were disgusted at his near-nudity.
This was bugging me, and then I saw it. A booth of fairy figurines was 99% female fairies but there was one male fairy- and he had a little clay penis! I rushed up to the booth and thanked them for showing me the first and only penis in a sea of breasts, but I think they were disappointed I didn’t buy anything.
A few weeks later I was handing out condoms at the Alberta Street Artwalk and there were no topless women but painting after picture after portrait of naked women and not a penis in sight. This was bugging me, and then I saw it. A man who drew comic book fantasy art had drawings of dragons and other creatures displayed and, of course, his mermaids, she-unicorns, and she-yetis had enormously huge breasts with finely detailed nipples. He had one picture on display of two yetis, one male and one woman, but where the male yeti penis should’ve been was a tuft of blue hair.
me: “Where’s his dick?”
him: “Under the tuft of hair.”
me: “Is your dick hidden behind a tuft of hair?”
him: “It’s just a picture.”
me: “I’ll give you $5 right now if you can show me a drawing of a penis in your art collection. I only ask because I can tell from the naked women you drew that you’re a man who’s comfortable with naked human bodies.”
him: “Come back next time.”
I’m still willing to give $5 to an artist I come across with a penis in their art, but so far I haven’t seen another since the fairy.
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:41 am
Robert: are you really saying that you can reduce a woman down to something that you get to rub your penis in, if you can get away with it? That the only thing standing between your utter dehumanization of a woman is your prayers? Are you also saying “getting away with it” is *not* contingent on a woman stating “no?”
I’m pretty sure you got your knickers in a wad during the “all men benefit from rape” threads. You didn’t want to be classed with men who raped. You thought it unfair, manhating, and begged for proof. But just months later you write that you would rape, given certain circumstances. When you have the discussion about sex-ed with your daughter, are you going to include this informaton? If not, why? Shouldn’t she know that “even men like daddy” are capable of only seeing her as a cunt? Shouldn’t she have this bit of ammunition in her arsenal? Shouldn’t she know that despite what *she* might want out of life or human interaction is meaningless when compared to a man’s intimate relationship with “god” and “temptation”?
Up until this point I’ve disagreed with your politics.
Now, you sicken me. You have read countless threads about how women feel about rape and how it socializes women. Yet you can still be “honest” and “admit” that you would rape, if only…
Of all the “hypotheticals” for you to equivocate on, this is the most telling about your moral fibre and the value you place on women’s humanity.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:45 am
I had a guy on my blog who said that men had uncontrollable sex drives, women had no sex drive, and that men should be commended for not doing more damage or something. The gist was that men deserved to be praised for, you know, not hurting more women with those uncontrollable sex drives.
He called himself a feminist.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:46 am
Samantha - Check out “In the Night Kitchen.” Admittedly kiddie lit, but since it’s not an educational book, it might fit your criterion.
This comment was written by Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:49 am
Amanda, “[w]ith her” served two functions. Mostly, I meant to point out that the fact that I was horny and wanted sex was not the same as wanting sex with just anyone. While this may seem self-evident coming from men, our culture refuses to make this distinction with women because it refuses to respect them as subjects. It also served to make the point of mutual interaction, which is just so obvious to me and just so not obvious in our culture. That’s one area where I think my experience really is different: doing S/M, the mutuality of the experience is no subtext. It’s the text.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:55 am
HC: “And to all the other men on this thread, how would you answer that question? Do you feel the same as Robert? Do you not know what you would do if you could get away with it?”
My answer is a solid, “NO!” No, I would never rape anybody. There are no circumstances under which I would rape anybody. I do know what I would do if I could get away with it, and rape is not one of those things. If Robert were my friend and admitted to such a thing, I would advise him to get some counseling because there is something seriously wrong if you think you might rape somebody if you could get away with it.
Perhaps it’s because I knew from a very young age what it is like to be physically overwhelmed and powerless? I can’t say for sure.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 9:03 am
HC, Robert’s comment made me angry. I don’t fantasize about rape. Not that I’m a pacifist or even uncomfortable with violence. I just don’t find sexual interaction with someone who rejects me at all enticing.
This comment was written by Thomas.Again, maybe having an outlet to deal with power dynamics in consensual sex makes me different from some other men. But it also gives me lots of personal insight into vulnerability and fear. Not that I know what women have to deal with, but I know enough to know that I’m glad I don’t know.
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June 16th, 2005 at 9:06 am
I’m pretty sure you got your knickers in a wad during the “all men benefit from rape”? threads.
Nope.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 9:14 am
I forsee another round of people complaining about how it’s unfair for them to be sandbagged when they answered a question honestly. The answer was honestly revolting.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 9:18 am
OK, thanks to Jeff and Amanda, and to the tune of “Riders on the Storm”:
Keepers of the Cock
Keepers of the Cock
Into this bod we’re born
Into this skin we’re thrown
Like a key without a lock
Or New Kids on the Block
Keepers of the Cock
There’s a rapist on the street
He’s scopin’ everyone he meets
He makes a power play
Where his dick holds sway
If ya let his bad deed ride
Sweet innocence will die
Rapist on the street, yeah
Guys ya gotta keep it zipped
Guys ya gotta keep it zipped
When the gal says NO
Let your respect show
If she’s really eager
You’ll know you can believe her
Ya gotta keep it zipped, yeah
Wow!
Keepers of the Cock
Keepers of the Cock
Into this bod we’re born
Into this skin we’re thrown
Like a key without a lock
Or New Kids on the Block
Keepers of the Cock
Keepers of the Cock …
This comment was written by Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 9:33 am
Robert wrote:
and jstevenson wrote:
Of course anyone can see that the stuff jstevenson wrote is pure speculation. I fear the distinction between what Robert wrote and jstevenson’s “analysis” might have been lost somewhere along the way. So to prevent people from figuratively shooting themselves in the leg I’m (and I hope I don’t sound overtly patronizing) posting this reminder in case anyone missed it. Of course some might find Robert’s comment disgusting too (and have every right to do so), but I’m getting much more disgusted by jstevenson’s claims about men (I never gave him the right to represent me, for example).
Or could be that jstevenson’s speculation was correct. Can’t know for sure. I only know that if Robert gets to point out this stuff after taking lot of attacks he will have a field day, and I really only want him to be miserable ;).
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 9:43 am
I was once a member of a primarily male board. Every day, just about, there were threads of over a hundred posts of hot women in few clothes.
I got sick of it and made my own thread of hot guys with as offensively objectifying comments as I could think of. On and on I ground with that thread, trying to rub the guys’ noses in their behavior. After three hundred posts (mostly my own) someone (a man) stepped in and began mocking the men’s appearance as the models not being ‘real men’. Other men jumped in and talked about how hurtful it was when I said that some of the models needed to lose weight because the models were much thinner than they were. Guys got angry because I was dehumanising men. And yet they did it every day to women and didn’t appear to notice.
Men do not want to be objectified any more than women do.
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June 16th, 2005 at 9:48 am
I don’t even think that Robert was being all that honest. I’ve heard guys from deeply religious backgrounds say stuff like that before, and it’s only a rotten layer of an onion whose deeper layers are yet more rotten. What sexists who base their morality first and foremost on a “personal relationship with God” usually mean is that “I can ask God for forgiveness anytime” is pretty much the same as “I can get away with it.” :(
This comment was written by alsis38.99.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 9:53 am
Thomas, it gave me a lot to chew over, though. I think that many men’s unwillingness to embrace female subjectivity is probably one of the biggest underlying causes of the rape-permissive culture. Like BritGirl pointed out, men desire, women consent. Well, men also consent and women also desire and unless all four elements are in place, you should walk away from the encounter.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 9:55 am
I don’t believe that I could ever rape, under any circumstances. But…
How many of the mobs who contributed to or directly committed mass-murder and mass-rape in Rwanda would have said, “If I could get away with it, I would rape and murder” if someone had asked them that in 1990? I bet lots of them would have said “I could never do something like that. I could never rape. I could never kill if it wasn’t self-defense.”
I assume everyone here has heard of the famous experiment in which test subjects were given a button to press, which they were told would give a painful electric shock to someone in the next room. A person in a white lab coat ordered them to press the button, and if they did an actor in the next room screamed as if in horrible agony. What the experimenters found is that the vast majority of people tested kept on pressing the button when ordered to - despite the screams of pain.
I’m sure that we’d all like to imagine that, if we had been a subject of that experiment, we would have been among the tiny percentage of people who refused to press the button. But if nearly everyone says that they wouldn’t have pressed the button, but we know that in fact most people did, then what can we conclude?
I conclude that people’s self-assessments of what they’d do are probably not always accurate. As Robert said, you can’t know for sure until you’re tested.
In a world gone mad - if I had been in the midst of the Rwandan genocide - what would I have done? I think I would not have raped, not in that circumstance, not in any circumstance.
But then again, I think I would not have pressed the button.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 9:56 am
Interesting thing to say, it reminded me of a ‘discussion’ I had on another board last year. I had replied to a thread discussing sex, most of it a bunch of men od’ing in bravado, and I said something along the lines of ‘well when I fuck my husband blah blah’. It was met with a kind of uncomfortable shock. I got chastised, as well as a few choice words being tossed my way. Only a few reacted positively. At the time I had thought nothing of it, until realised just how threatened these men seemed at the idea of being ‘fucked’ back by a woman. Thinking about it now, it really fits in to this statement.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:04 am
Most “average guys”? would love to be objectified like your “average gal”?. When is that parade starting?
I sincerely doubt this is true. “Most guys” just probably think objectifying means finding them sexy, just as they are, rather than holding them up to unachievable standards. Something my brother loves to complain about the few times it does happen to men.
Or, you know, what Jeff and ginmar said.
“I think it scares the crap out of most women, because it implies that the man/men in question don’t really care about how we feel or whether they’re harming us, that all we are to them is a body. And that’s pretty damn disturbing. ”
Yeah, that’s what bugged me about that too. To go with the stealing analogy (despite it’s faults) one of the big reasons why I don’t steal is because it’s harmful, even if only a little bit. So the idea that rape being harmful to others doesn’t play a part in the average guy’s morals scares the crap out of me.
I second the comment that this is a great thread.
Amanda, are you talking about your own post - ’cause I seriously want to go kick some ass (or, well, um, at least try to) but I’ve been having issues with typekey. :(
This comment was written by Jenny K.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:10 am
Jake wrote:
Part of the difference between you and Robert is the difference between someone who thinks “I do know what I would do if I could get away with it” and someone who thinks that such things are inherantly unknowable. I tend more towards Robert’s view than towards yours, as far as that question goes.
I don’t think there’s much limit to the evil people will do, if circumstances are right. Faced with Nazism, some people refused to cooperate, and some people hid Jews; but the vast majority went along with the flow, regardless of how evil that flow was.
I’ve met plenty of guys who were picked-on wimps in childhood and who grew up into classic misogynists, resentful of women because of a sense of wounded entitlement. (Go to a comic book con, you’ll meet dozens of guys like that - as well as dozens who are not, of course.) Would some of those guys rape if they were sure they could get away with it? I suspect so.
Q Grrl wrote:
Rereading Robert’s comments, I don’t think he can fairly be said to have said either of those things.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:14 am
I sincerely doubt this is true. “Most guys”? just probably think objectifying means finding them sexy, just as they are, rather than holding them up to unachievable standards.
Well, that and they think it means someone who they find sexy finding them sexy. Because there’s a tendency, when men start talking about this sort of thing, to forget that women they don’t find attractive exist.
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June 16th, 2005 at 10:14 am
I said it initially to Steve, because he was deliberately blurring the lines between sex and rape. It really makes me sad–I love sex and hate to hear other people even claim they can’t tell the difference between sex with someone who is mentally checked in with you, having fun and someone who is resisting you.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:14 am
Rereading Robert’s comments, I don’t think he can fairly be said to have said either of those things.
That doesn’t really make a difference. ;) But thanks for reading.
When I studied the Nazis in college, the main lesson I came away with was a sobering and rather glum one; there isn’t really any difference between a Nazi and a human being. I would like to believe that I would have been among the tiny minority of heroes, and that my friends would have been, as well.
But the things I’d like to believe, and the things that I observe, don’t cohere nicely together.
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June 16th, 2005 at 10:21 am
Ampersand, I think the much-cited experiment has a fundamental difference with real-life scenarios of violence and rape: a) you know you’re in an experiment; b) you only see a button you’re pressing, what you hear of its effects, paradoxically, goes in the background of your mind; and most of all c) there is some authority figure ordering you to press that button.
I can’t think of a realistic rape scenario which has analogies to all three conditions.
The experiment has a relevance to analysing the behaviour of people who were ‘only following orders’ in a military dictatorship, but I don’t see how it relates to a rape situation in any other context.
As for mass-murder and mass-rape in Rwanda, or the Balkans, or Chechenya etc etc. or any other violent ethnic conflict, I don’t think it’s the first instance of hypothetical rape that someone replying ‘I can’t know for sure’ would think of. Not that it would change things much, because a man who doesn’t fantasise about rape as a kick and as an act of power that they could do in their ordinary life in their ordinary peaceful country, wouldn’t feel any inclination to do it even in a war. I don’t think the people who committed mass murder and mass rape EVER asked themselves any questions even before they did it.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:22 am
Amp,
It’s true that you can never know with 100% certainty what you’d do in a hypothetical situation. I don’t believe that I would be physically or emotionally capable of rape no matter the circumstances. A big part of that has to do with my viewing women as people and not a different group of people. I wonder what Robert’s answer would be if he was asked if he would/could rape a man if he thought he could get away with it.
Amp says, “I’ve met plenty of guys who were picked-on wimps in childhood…”
That’s not what I was referring to when I said that I was physically overwhelmed and powerless. I’m talking about being 3 (or possibly younger) and having an adult hold me in the air - one hand holding my wrists and the other hand holding my ankles - naked and unable to get away or even move really for what seemed an eternity to a 3 year old. I’m talking about being beaten on a regular basis by adults who were 4 to 5 times my weight and infinitely stronger than me. Being picked on & beaten up by classmates was a cakewalk compared to that shit.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:28 am
It really makes me sad”“I love sex and hate to hear other people even claim they can’t tell the difference between sex with someone who is mentally checked in with you, having fun and someone who is resisting you.
I think most people can tell the difference between the two; it’s just that we’re in a culture where it’s still not acknowledged that women actively enjoy sex, so they think they’re being asked to tell the difference between resistance and acquiescence.
It’s that whole “‘no’ means ‘no,’ but we’re not going to teach you what a ‘yes’ is for fear that you’ll actually have sex” issue. It encourages men to treat anything but an unequivocal rejection as an invitation, and means that a lot of people who don’t think of themselves as rapists are doing an awful lot of harm.
This comment was written by Jeff.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:30 am
I agree with Amp on this one. (Egomaniacal advert: in my comment 28, I made a similar, but more theoretical point than the more striking one Amp did in case of Rwanda). It really is one of those questions to which plenty of people will answer: ABSOLUTELY NO! But is there really a way of knowing? I don’t think so. One can make an estimation, though.
It tends to turn at some point into: “But I wouldn’t do it, and neither would any of the men I know, that I can say for sure”. But in reality plenty of women do get raped, and too many men rape. And I’m betting that potential rapists are quite vehement in denying their “needs” to general public and friends, so I’m not concerned about the “I sincerely hope that I don’t have an urge to rape” -group. I’m far more concerned with “But it’s a natural instinct that men have!” -group, and tend to view “Only thoroughly fucked-up, sick and irredeemable men rape, certainly not me or my any of my buddies, like never” -group as naive and living in denial.
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June 16th, 2005 at 10:37 am
Maybe I should say, “… because I know what it’s like to be physically overwhelmed and powerless and I can empathize when others are in that situation and I never, ever want to make another person experience that feeling.”
My reading of Robert’s statement didn’t lead me to think he was referring to a situation like Rwanda.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:43 am
Not picking on comic con men because I was a D&D playing, comic-reading nerd in my youth, but Amp’s comment reminded me of an LA Times article about child pornography a few weeks ago.
Sifting Clues to an Unsmiling Girl
Their work is a daily sojourn to the underworld. Gillespie has a team of 10 men and six women who spend hours in front of their computers, extracting leads, writing warrants and sifting photos for clues. The payoff is the day they get to kick down a door and take the “bad guy” away. The mood is light and the humor often off-color to ease the horror.
On one wall is a “Star Trek” poster with investigators’ faces substituted for the Starship Enterprise crew. But even that alludes to a dark fact of their work: All but one of the offenders they have arrested in the last four years was a hard-core Trekkie.
Det. Constable Warren Bulmer slips on a Klingon sash and shield they confiscated in a recent raid. “It has something to do with a fantasy world where mutants and monsters have power and where the usual rules don’t apply,” Bulmer reflects. “But beyond that, I can’t really explain it.”
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June 16th, 2005 at 10:44 am
I don’t get it why rape as it happens ordinarily every day in even the most peaceful, advanced, civilised countries (yes, including the US), has to be compared to living in nazi Germany.
You don’t live in a dictatorship. No one is forcing you or intimidating you to harm anyone. You’re not going to risk your life if you abstain from collaborating with evil. You’re not being asked to stand up and resist against a whole regime.
I’m not particularly interested in what Robert meant with his statement, I read it as ‘I can’t know for sure because it’s hypothetical’ rather than ‘wow I just can’t wait to rape someone, if only there was an amnesty’. I still wonder how can anyone not know for sure what they’d want or like to do if they could get away with it (like Jake I also have a very long list, none of it including actual violence of any kind, but I guess I’m just a boring peace-loving deluded naive wussy…). But in any case I just want to point out that the answer to that “would I do it? could I do it?” had none of those nazi or rwanda scenarios in it.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:50 am
Rape is not being compared to living in Nazi Germany. Complicity in evil is being compared to complicity in evil. The active choice of doing evil is being compared to the active choice of doing evil.
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June 16th, 2005 at 10:52 am
Noodles,
Actually, I think that Robert’s answer - in which he pretty much had to postulate a world in which God didn’t exist - was very similar to the Rwanda or Nazi Germany examples, as I understand it. From the relgious perspective Robert is speaking from, if I understand it correctly, “imagine that you could get away with it” is saying “imagine a situation which is utterly unlike any situation you’ve ever experienced, in which the world has gone mad.”
If you accept that Robert is sincere in his religious beliefs, then the change from a world in which God exists to a world in which it’s possible to get away with it is just as extreme as the difference between our society and Nazi Germany, if not much more so. From Robert’s perspective, the “if you could get away with it” hypothetical is just as extreme as the Rwanda or Nazi Germany hypothetical.
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June 16th, 2005 at 10:56 am
Thanks for correcting me.
I’m sure what you’re saying is true of you, but I suspect that it’s not true for everyone. Isn’t it statistically the case that many abusers were abused themselves as children? Some abused children learn to be repulsed by abuse; others learn that it’s how people should be treated.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:58 am
Well Amp, then what is he saying?
To me it’s really clear. Rape is thrusting your penis into a woman’s body without her consent. Robert seems to imply that god’s overview not-withstanding he would rape. He doesn’t mention the woman involved. From this it is obvious that he doesn’t consider her human. All he is considering is that act of thrusting his penis into an unwilling female body. And he would do this given the right circumstances (i.e., no condemnation from a god which might or might now exist, entirely ignoring the real female body upon which his hypothetical morality will be played out.)
You might be looking at Robert’s comments in a vaccuum, but I’m not. Robert openly insists that when his wife is pregnant, he is pregnant with her (i.e, “We’re pregnant). He openly insists that women do not have a right to abort a fetus. And now he “honestly” admits that he would rape. There is a sum total here that can’t be ignored, not even for blogosphere politics.
How can you, Robert or Amp, suggest that you raping a woman is some “unknowable” factor in your life. I mean, WTF? It’s unkowable to you whether you would forcibly take something that you have know friggin right to? You would use a woman’s body without her consent? I bet there are five things you could name off the top of your head that you would never do in your life… why isn’t rape so easily qualifiable for you? For any of you men?
I’m really having a hard time imagining that this is an unknown.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:59 am
[...] 17;s prescriptive etiquette for women, in other words, his essay on How Not To Get Raped. Pseudo-Adrienne takes on t [...]
This comment was written by Feministe » Women Speak on Rape.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:05 am
I’m gonna have to agree with Q Grrl here. I understand saying that “well one never knows what may happen” only to a certain line. I hate saying never too. But there are some things I know I can’t do. Raping another individual is one of them. By not saying that you know that you will NEVER rape a women, aren’t you allowing really allowing yourself an out, even if its a purley subconsious out?
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June 16th, 2005 at 11:06 am
Robert, your answer made a lot more sense before you brought in the nazi comparison. Not least because nazi comparisons tend to be out of place 99% of the time.
Sorry, I genuinely can’t see how the difference between complicity vs. actual evil doing has anything to do with the “I can’t be sure if I personally wouldn’t rape” answer. The hypothesis there was about active choice of doing evil, right?
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:10 am
Noodles wrote:
I really don’t understand where your certainty comes from, but I don’t share it.
I also think that ordinary rape - even date rape - is in fact comparable to more overt large-scale instances of societies going mad and evil. The most basic evil, in my view, is a combination of entitlement and selfishness - the belief that we’re entitled to ignore the horrible effects of our actions on others, because they make us feel good or benefit us in some way.
In the case of American slavery, the widespread cultural belief that blacks were lesser humans enabled whites to believe that slavery was justified, and even a good thing. In the case of same sex marriage, the widespread cultural belief that same-sex couples are worth less than cross-sex couples enables people to believe that “protecting” heterosexual families justifies any amount of harm to non-heterosexual families.
In the case of rape, the widespread cultural belief that women are worth less than men enables rapists to feel entitled to take what they want from women. Most rapists aren’t deeply individualistic thinkers; they’re aligning themselves with the messages the culture sends them, about sexuality as something possessed by women and pursued by men, about male entitlement, and about the relative worth of men and women.
Is there a difference between Rwandan gang-rapes and the date-rapes in the USA? Yes, of course. But there are also significant overlaps. Apart from sociopaths, rapists are doing what their culture has given them permission to do; and that’s true in both the “date rape” example and in the Rwandan example.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:14 am
Awhile back Amanda said
I love sex and hate to hear other people even claim they can’t tell the difference between sex with someone who is mentally checked in with you, having fun and someone who is resisting you.
and though the “Would I rape” discussion has drifted off into extreme circumstances, back in the real world the more likely question probably is “Would I call what I did rape?”
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June 16th, 2005 at 11:16 am
Could I rape someone if I knew I’d get away with ti?
No only no, but HELL NO. Few things get me as visceraly upset as the idea of whomever I’m having sex with wanting it to stop, and me not stopping. The idea that any partner I’m with feels anything but safe with me is repulsive.
And I do have ‘rough’ sex, and have played with BDSM. Consent, and the knowledge that afterwards, my partner really wanted all of those things to happen, is vital.
People who’d commit rape are like aliens to me. I understand that they exist, and even have good theories that explain how they exist, but I can’t figure out wanting to do that to someone. I have wanted beat the crap out of someone, but never rape them.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:20 am
jstevenson Writes: Most “average guys”? would love to be objectified like your “average gal”?. When is that parade starting?
Really? Then how come most straight men I know are deeply uncomfortable with the idea that gay men may find them attractive? Most straight men I know are really unhappy with the idea of being “objectified” - unless it’s by someone whom they find attractive.
Did you get a little thrill out of the guy with the cucumber making it clear he found you attractive? Did you love it? Somehow, belying your claim that you would love to be objectified, I got the strong impression that it made you as uncomfortable as being objectified makes “your average gal”.
This comment was written by Jesurgislac.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:20 am
Tuomas, there’s another possible answer to that question, and it’s: I cannot answer for anybody else but me, because I cannot read their minds; however, as far as I’m concerned, I can’t really picture myself raping anyone as a pleasant form of sadism I may want to entertain when and if possible. Not because I’m particularly moral or have a high notion of myself or think myself above any act of evil, but because, long before any sense of morals or considerations about the other person even had time to kick in, my sense of disgust at the act of rape and at myself doing it would simply make it impossible for me to even entertain the idea of getting a sexual kick out of it.
I don’t think that’s a form of denial. I think that’s simply liking sex for what it is.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:20 am
Q Grrl wrote:
Actually, he didn’t say that; he said he didn’t know. Here’s what he said:
To characterize “I don’t know” as being the same as “I would,” as you’ve been doing, is inaccurate.
As I wrote before, I don’t think I’d rape under any circumstances. But I can’t say I know for sure, because I think it’s impossible to know for sure.
You’d lose that bet.
Putting aside physically impossible things, no, there are not five things I can think of that I could say “it is unimaginable that I’d do that in any circumstance.” Historically, all sorts of evil things have been done by people who (before they did the evil things) did not appear to be monsters before they were put to the test. I suspect that some of them, at one time or another, imagined that they were incapable of doing real evil, too.
(Edited to change “most of them” to “some of them.”)
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:21 am
Nothing enrages certain groups of men more than the idea that women have more right to define what they do to us than they do. Language gives them a cozy, deceptive cushion. They call it ‘a mistake,’ they call it ‘things got out of control,’ they call it all kinds of things—-including sex. But they hate it when their gender gets mentioned, and they hate it that women now have the power to say, “Rape, not sex.” That’s the real reason for the hatred of the term PC; it’s language. It’s the real civility unlike the stuff the trolls complain about.
But they slip up when we try and have a discussion about rape and all they talk about is what women should or shouldn’t do. It’s funny, the way men want to disappear themselves from the language just when they’re the whole topic of the discussion.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:28 am
Thanks AndiF for steering this convo back on track :)
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June 16th, 2005 at 11:35 am
That is a reasonable answer, noodles. I’m quite disgusted at the thought of using someone purely for my pleasure too, when that person is clearly suffering from what I do and wanting me to stop. But I lack the certainty to say that for sure, not because of low notion of self (I like myself at least) but simply because people have done bad shit in extreme situations before. So maybe I should answer: No, I would never rape anyone as I am now , but were I to change fundamentally I might. However, I’m past the age where my views and especially my ethics fluctuate, so I think such a situation would be very unlikely, and hypothetical at best.
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June 16th, 2005 at 11:35 am
Ampersand - If you accept that Robert is sincere in his religious beliefs, then the change from a world in which God exists to a world in which it’s possible to get away with it is just as extreme as the difference between our society and Nazi Germany, if not much more so.
But that sounds like mind-reading, no? I didn’t read any of that in Robert’s first reply. If that’s what he had in mind - ie. ‘I could perhaps have done it if I had been a Nazi or a Janjaweed’ - he should have written that. But then, that’d be adding conditions - being a nazi or a Janjaweed - that already define you as evil. So wether you rape or torture or murder or boil people doesnt make a difference.
My idea of “getting away with it” was “not getting caught”, in the ordinary reality of the thousands of rapists who do get away with it because of lack of forensic evidence, or lack of reporting, or the police not believing the woman, etc.
Besides, I don’t see the relation between ‘a world where God doesn’t exist’ and total lawlessness. Laws exist even without the need for religious beliefs, surely?
I’m sorry I don’t mean to be dense on purpose, I honestly am not getting it. I didn’t even pay attention to Robert’s comment, I don’t care, but I don’t think these explanations make it sound like it makes more sense, quite the opposite.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:37 am
The common theme I’m seeing among all of these examples is that people are capable of doing horrible things to other people if they are successful in being able to characterize them as inferior others. Which is the whole point feminists have been trying to get across for years - that when women are seen as inferior others by men, then men will be capable of raping women and not seeing it as a bad thing. Those of us on this thread agree that rape is not about sex; it’s just called sex because that’s the way the perps can justify it to themselves afterwards.
This comment was written by Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:37 am
Amp: “Isn’t it statistically the case that many abusers were abused themselves as children?”
Yes that is so. But that is also why I wrote, “…I can empathize when others are in that situation…” I believe that makes a big difference in people’s attitudes and actions. I believe that not understanding that other people have feelings & emotions & physical sensations just like you is what allows people to rape & kill & oppress & torture and all the other billions of horrible things that people do to each other.
So, you don’t see women as being the same as you? Then, sure, “No means yes,” and you need to care for & shelter & protect your women. Because they’re not fully human. They have only the attributes that you ascribe to them. It’s today’s version of the old belief that animals are just little machines - no thought, all instinct. Women are not men, therefore women are inferior & only capable of what men decide they are capable of.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:37 am
“Would I rape if I thought I could get away with it? Well, I believe that I can’t get away with it where it counts, so the hypothetical is moot. But my answer would have to be “I don’t know.”? The only way to know is to find out; I pray never to undergo such a temptation. But even if I did undergo such a temptation, I would be aware that “getting away with it”? was not on the table. ”
These are Robert’s words Amp. He says that because he “can’t get away with it where it counts” the hypothetical is moot. But it isn’t is it? In fact, he’s just compounding the hypothetical in such a way so as not to have to make a decision. Later he says, “The only way to know is to find out ” To me this means he won’t know if he would rape until he is actually raping a woman. Nice. Real nice.
But, given the right set of circumstance (i.e., he could get away with it where it counts) he *would* rape. No, he doesn’t state that in black and white, but he certainly makes it clear that getting away with it is the deal maker. Rape is plausible to Robert if he doesn’t have to suffer for it. Again, nice.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:42 am
While I do think Robert was, perhaps, misunderstood, as I think the vital point was the apparent understanding that you can never “get away with it” as even escaping punishment still leaves one with a victim. I took that reference to mean that he valued the horrific impact this would have on someone’s life as equally important to suffering legal consequences, which I would take to mean that he genuinely couldn’t ever do it.
Nevertheless, I have to quite emphatically say that this is something I could never do and I have a tough time appreciating the personal skeptism of some that they don’t think they can say that. That is not to say that I think any of them are capable of rape. I don’t. I just wish they could see that in themselves.
Look, I’ll admit that I can’t know a lot of things in an absolute sense. I don’t think I could murder someone, but I can’t say for certain that a hypothetical circumstance couldn’t arise where I might. I don’t think I’ll ever steal, but I know I can’t say it for certain. Rape is different. And I think that’s why a lot of the people here are taken aback by the lack of an absolute answer. I am, too. I functionally understand what motivates the reluctance, but from my personal experience I simply can’t understand how someone could feel that way.
Rape is a sadistic crime. It is not something one does in a passion or out of fear. It is either done with creulty and malice or it is committed by someone with such self-importance that they are incapable of seeing their actions for what they are. I know myself enough to know that I am incapable of rape. Rape is something I am extremely aware of. If I am with a woman and I hear anything even hinting of resistance I will pull back immediately and address the situation. Not that I can recall having even had to do so. In general, though, I know that I’m, if anything, over sensative to the issue. Which is certainly the side I want to err on. I’m reluctant to initiate sexual contact because I don’t want a woman to feel that I am at all pushing her into anything. I would never have sex with someone I thought was intoxicated. I’d hope that belief is strong enough to survive my own intoxication, though here I’ll admit I can’t know if it would because I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten drunk enough in the first place, much less gotten drunk and had a sexual opportunity with someone who is drunk. But I darn well want to be careful because I don’t know how I could live with myself if I did that to a woman.
(switching gears now) All men aren’t to blame for rapists. No one is making that suggestion. But all men need to play a part in stopping it. We can make a difference. Moreso, it makes utterly no sense to only focus on victimin intervention. There are a lot of things men can do and it starts young but that doesn’t mean there is every a time not to do something. I saw the origins of these attitudes growing up and I wish there was something I could have done, but it was always expressed by people who had no use for me to begin with. It bothers me to this day, though. The ease with which these proto-rapists would banter about this. And nobody says anything. I hope I would have had the guts to say something if it was a friend of mine express these kinds of attitudes, but I don’t know. I do know that many men who probably don’t feel that way smile and nod. They don’t challenge it. They probably don’t even think much about it.
But men, as a gender, do have to take some responsibility for the way we, as a gender, treat women. That doesn’t mean taking personal responsibility. It means realizing that we need to be a part of the solution. We can’t possibily do that if we want to argue that rape is inevitable and the only thing to do is get women to try to stop it. That’s not a productive solution at all, and it seems to just make excuses for rapists.
This comment was written by BStu.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:44 am
So why is it that now the men are only thinking about “extreme” circumstance regarding their ability to rape.
This really chaps my ass. This isn’t about hypothetical ethics. This is about the reality of women, like me, who daily have to make choices to avoid rape… any rape. Not the extreme ethical dilemna type of rape, but your goddamn garden variety it-happens-every-fucking-day to women rape.
Why, why, why are you men so capable of extracting women’s lived realities into hypotheticals? It just seems like a sick twist of the objectification game to me. And it seems immature, to be honest. Rape is not an anomalie. It is not an extreme occurrence, only because it happens so frequently and only because so many men refuse to see the role they play in perpetuating rape.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:47 am
Look, I concur with Amp and Robert. They’re talking about the heart of darkness that lurks in every man. It is likelier easier not to fall victim to it if you acknowledge, in fact. Those who think they are always acting righteously are the ones who end up SS guards, I’d think.
It’s why there’s torture at Gitmo–the prison guards there are in the raptures of their righteousness post-9/11.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:50 am
You know what. I find the heart of darkness a very convenient patriarchal excuse. Very convenient.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:52 am
Amp, re: comment 127, I didn’t mean to enter into the sociology of gang rape and mass rape in ethnic conflict and how it differs from date-rapes in the USA and how it can compare. My “certainty”, when I wrote that “I don’t think the people who committed mass murder and mass rape EVER asked themselves any questions even before they did it”, was simply that they obviously never questioned what they were going to do. The other certainty is: if someone is repulsed by the idea of committing rape, out of a genuine disgust for picturing themselves in the action of harming another person, even aside from morals, then they would not do it, even in the worst of circumstances. I mean, what would change? What benefit would they get? Why should their desire to rape suddenly manifest itself? Because it’s no longer repressed? But that means it must have always been there.
The only situation I could think of where the worst of circumstances can turn you into a rapist is like that experiment, someone literally ordering you to do it even if you you really wouldn’t want to in normal circumstances. And again, that’s a pretty strict condition for an hypothetical question about rape as it manifests itself in ordinary, peaceful, lawful, democratic countries.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:55 am
QGrrl - What, you don’t have a heart of darkness? You are a remarkable person.
This comment was written by Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:57 am
I disagree w/ the “heart of darkness” hypothesis. I believe that it is people who are unable to really look at themselves and their actions who are guards at Gitmo. I don’t acknowledge any “heart of darkness” in myself, yet I would never be a guard at Gitmo. I don’t acknowledge any “heart of darkness” in myself, yet I would never rape.
There is torture at Gitmo because the victims, “…don’t value human life the way that we do.” They are other and different and inferior. It is not because the guards (and their superiors and the folks in charge of the US government) don’t acknowledge their own “heart of darkness”.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:59 am
Perhaps we need a clear definition of this “heart of darkness.” What is meant by it? And does it ever lurk in woman?
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
Whew. I am a feminist guy who has just read this whole thread. I agree with Amanda who says
“Sex is fucking a girl who’s fucking you back. And that’s gonna make a lot of men squirm.”
I get this, and I think it’s exactly right. (Well, if you were going to embroider it on a pillow it’s be a “person.”) It just doesn’t make me squirm. Not only does it not make me squirm, but in fact, I can’t really get into the heads of those it would make squirm. This is the source of the defensiveness that comes up with many men. Those of us who get this cannot reach out to the ones it does make squirm. We don’t know who they are. They wouldn’t hang out with us. I certainly don’t know how to reach them, on this, or really any other topic.
Some of the “honest” postings above have been rightfully condemned. Other than adding my voice to the chorus, what can I do?
This comment was written by biztheclown.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:05 pm
Yes, it lurks in every woman. And granted, it’s a poetic reference–some things are indescribable in the language of logic.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
[shrug] If by “heart of darkness” you mean “fantasy world,” then yeah. I’ve got one. I also can state with absolute certainty that there’s an iron wall between my fantasy world and my daily life at least three or four feet thick. Whether that would break down under a neo-Nazi regime or in a Portland that looked like a bombed-out Iraqi urban center ? I can’t say, but I don’t find it particularly relevant to the original point of the thread. Gilliard went to great lengths to talk about sexual mores in the context of world tourism: A state of leisure and luxury, not a bombed-out near-Armageddon full of traumatized and terrified people desperate for a crust of bread. Going off on what state of mind I’d have to be in to forget or ignore the moral code I believe in is completely besides the point.
Though I will restate my utter creeped-out feeling at jstevenson, and submit that for me, there wouldn’t be enough booze in the world to make me assault anyone while he or she was passed out. :(
This comment was written by alsis38.99.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
Perhaps we need a clear definition of this “heart of darkness.”?
A Christian would characterize it as original sin. Some orthodox Jews would put in terms of a fallen and fractured world, whose brokenness is shared by humanity.
To put it in rationalist and empirical terms, it is the innate selfishness of the biological organism: overridable, but ineradicable. You’ll have to override it again tomorrow; practice may make it easier.
I’m a Christian, albeit not a very good one, so I put it in the Christian terms; I incline to evil, and have to resist that evil with God’s assistance if that isn’t the direction I want my life to go in. I believe that this is true for others, but can speak definitively only of myself. YMMV.
The condemnatory posts appear to be a lot of soup from a little bone. But everyone is entitled to their own point of view.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:18 pm
From Wikipedia:
The Heart of Darkness is what Conrad called a “hidden evil” in his novel Heart of Darkness. The Heart of Darkness is a universal part of the human condition that was first notably used in Conrad’s literature. To be put simply, the Heart of Darkness is a human’s struggle with their own morals, and their own battle with their inner evil. Although first chiefly used in the novel, this device is now used in countless pieces of literature and media, it is an unwritten conventions for almost any piece of art. For example, one of the most notable uses is the Star Wars franchise, with characters always struggling over falling to the Dark Side of the Force. Although slightly exaggerated perhaps in literature, Conrad questioned humanity and proposed the idea that we all, by nature, have a Heart of Darkness, and that idea has existed from the dawn of man.
This comment was written by Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
Whatever. It’s a convenient excuse to ignore reality.
I’m still waiting for some of the guys to step up to the plate of normative experiences for women.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
“Sex is fucking a person who’s fucking you back.”
I think I will embroider that on a pillow! Good idea, biztheclown!
This comment was written by Sara.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:29 pm
Q Grrl, does something being convenient have any probative value in determining whether or not it is true?
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June 16th, 2005 at 12:32 pm
tuomas - But I lack the certainty to say that for sure, not because of low notion of self (I like myself at least) but simply because people have done bad shit in extreme situations before. So maybe I should answer: No, I would never rape anyone as I am now , but were I to change fundamentally I might.
Yes, but see, you’ve added another qualification there - if you were a different person. Which means, you can’t picture your actual self doing it.
You’ve just described the reason for this surreal drift from the hypothetical “would I ever do it?”, to the hypothetical “would I do it in extreme situations? of course I can’t know because I’ve never been in extreme situations”. People are assuming external circumstances alone can fundamentally change them from ordinary boring fucker into the next Hitler. A bit egomaniac, perhaps?
Of course in theory anyone could be the next Hitler.
It becomes absurd though. If we all in theory could be Hitler, what makes us ourselves, as individuals?
Plus, again, no one was talking of extreme situations of fundamentally altered personalities a la Dr Jekyll vs. Mr Hyde when they answered the “would I personally do it” question.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:32 pm
God, original sin? Some Christians call that the sin of Eve. Just sayin’.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:34 pm
I agree with noddles that as someone who finds rape very personally repugnant, the only time I could imagine myself doing it is if someone had a gun to my head and order me to under threat of death to myself and to the women. Now, I’m pretty sure if someone puts a gun to your head and orders you to have sex or be killed, that’s rape itself. And I still don’t know that I’d do it. Just that this is a scenario where I can admit that I’m not sure how I’d act.
Still, I do want to stress that while I don’t get why some people can’t see this as unthinkable for themselves, I do feel myself that the people in this thread, at least, are incapable of rape. I just have more faith in that then they do because I’m not as moved by the notion of an unavoidable evil lurking within us. I don’t think acknowledging it makes it easier to hold at bay. I think ignoring the issue entirely isn’t going to do any good, but I feel I’ve considered the issue and I am deeply repulsed at the notion of raping anyone. I find it incomprehensible and I further find men who do rape to be incomprehensible. I think that’s the concern that’s playing out in this thread is that some cannot understand how someone can’t see this issue as being able to have an absolute. I get what you’re saying and I’m not going to condemn you for it, but I also don’t understand it and can see why others are responding as they are.
This comment was written by BStu.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
This thread is really hitting home for me, after having just told the third person in five years about a date rape that happened to me in college.
I was drunk, he was drunk, and we were fighting. We’d had casual sex many a night before that, but this time was very different. This time I didn’t want to, but he won. He won because he was bigger. He won because I couldn’t face the aftermath of telling people what happened, of being blamed for “asking for it,” for leading him on. He won because he was “a good man” and I would be “lying” or “misguided.” He won because I eventually forced myself to forgive him just to give myself some piece of mind.
He tells a very different story. He does not see himself as a rapist, or a bad man. He “does not hit women.”
I don’t know what it means that even though he hurt me I do not identify him as a rapist or a bad man either, but I have an idea.
I think that it is easier for men to say “I could never hit a woman,” or “I could never rape a woman” than it is to admit that yes, they actually could. This is different from saying that you would, or you’re inclined to do so. Admitting that you have the potential to rape is a first step towards erradicating rape - it does not condone it, or make it a “boys will be boys” issue. We all have the potential to harm each other. Some of us have greater potential than others. Pretending that this is not so - DENYING it, claiming that intentionality or fear of punishment is all that matters, that it is somebody else’s issue, somebody else’s crime, somebody else’s theoretical victimhood will not solve our problem.
This thing of darkness we must acknowledge ours - condemning those who are able to do so serves only to keep it deeper buried.
Could I rape? I don’t know. I don’t have the equipment to do it, the conditioning to understand my sexuality as a physical power. Could I assult a child? Yes. I have the conditioning to understand my physical superiority over a more vulnerable creature and the ability to exert it. But I believe that I would not. I like to think that in the future I will not. But I am surrounded by opportunities to do so. It does me no good to pat myself on the back for drawing a line in the sand in the belief that this somehow makes me more moral - because if I do not I force myself to continually acknowlege that there is a power imbalance at work in which I have the advantage.
When a man admits that he could rape or hurt a woman, he is acknowleging his physical and socio-cultural power - with a full understanding of what that entails. He cannot hide behind the fact that rape or violence against women is the work of “other” men, or something unique to individuals in specific situations. It is in him too. He is now a potential rapist who must actively fight against rape. He can not sit idly by and muse about “those others” - they are a part of his gang. Rape is no longer theory. It is a part of his life in a way that it wasn’t before.
This comment was written by Gisele.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
Thanks for the definitions, but I’ve gotta agree with alsis and Q Grrl on this.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
I’m sorry, Q Grrl, are you saying that, in the real world, people don’t struggle internally with “stop it” and “go ahead”? Haven’t you ever had a situation where you had to stop yourself from following through on an urge to do something that another part of you knew was wrong?
What a few of the guys here have posted is an acknowledgement that they can’t say for sure that they would always win that inner struggle. It creeps me out that they are saying this, but they are not ignoring reality.
This comment was written by Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
Heart of darkness. How come nobody ever wants to talk about the brain of consciousness that makes these decisions? Actually, screw that. How come we’re not talking about the ‘temptation’ of rape? Let’s stop talking in metaphors and internal organs and talk about the real life men they’re in. Blaming it on heart of darkness is just one more way of compartmentalzing it and taking it away from the real live guy who decides to rape the girl from the next dorm room over, secure in the knowledege that as long as he doesn’t use a gun, attack her in an alley, makes sure she’s had a drink or two, nobody will think of blaming him for his own damned actions.
Heart and brains are still just organs. Let’s talk about the man who has control over both of them and uses that control to shove his dick inside another person.
There’s nothing poetic about rape. Poetry, in fact, is about as cruel as you can get in this situation.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
Amanda - They’re talking about the heart of darkness that lurks in every man. It is likelier easier not to fall victim to it if you acknowledge, in fact. Those who think they are always acting righteously are the ones who end up SS guards, I’d think.
It’s why there’s torture at Gitmo”“the prison guards there are in the raptures of their righteousness post-9/11.
Oh well that’s a special kind of righteousness, then, isn’t it? And I thought that the prison guards were in the raptures of their government’s complete disregard of all international laws, of an imperialistic mindset that led to two unjustified wars that killed thousands of people, and scapegoating 9/11 on any poor Arab/Muslim fucker who happened to be in the vicinity when they raided Afghanistan, instead of actually pursuing the investigation into which rich Saudi banker financed the operation. But maybe that’s just my flawed impression.
Also, incidentally, they’ve been instructed to do all they do. They didn’t wake up one morning and single-handedly decide to create Guantanamo.
I’m not sure the idea of a heart of darkness lurking in every man quite accounts for all that.
No one’s saying that we are all happy fluffy bunnies with no sadistic desires, Amanda. But it’s quite a stretch to go from saying every human has the capacity to do harm and even more or less occasionally also the desire to do so, to say we all could one day rape or torture, and that we can actually picture ourselves doing it and deriving pleasure from it. Which I thought was the idea of wondering, “would I do it”?
Besides, again, what does Guantanamo have to do with that question? It wasn’t “if I was in Guantanamo I guess I could rape a woman”. It was “if I could get away with it, I don’t know, I can’t tell, but maybe I could do it”.
By the way, I also read Robert’s statement as “I cannot know” and I really couldn’t care less about second-guessing what he might or might not have implied. But it had nothing to do with extreme situations, or government-enforced torture. That was only thrown in later.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:43 pm
In my case, I’m absolutely certain that I’d never rape in ordinary circumstances. So, the way my mind works, if I’m asked if I could ever rape, and I know I’d never rape under ordinary circumstances, I’m not really answering the question if I don’t also address what I’d do under extraordinary circumstances.
I was also trying to make a point that what rapists do is dependent on what their culture says to do. Why do I think that matters? Because, in Rwanda or in the ordinary USA, we have to change the messages we send men and boys if we want to make rape something that’s rare, instead of something that’s common. Individual rapists are to blame for what they did; but at the same time, we have to understand how the society enables them to rape.
It’s not about hypothetical ethics. It’s about trying to understand why men rape and what could make men rape less.
And it’s close-minded at best to imply that the only reason to believe that a “heart of darkness” might exist is a desire to create excuses for patriarchy.
Hell, another way of putting it - and a way I believe - is that the Heart of Darkness is patriarchy. And I don’t think any of us raised in patriarchy ever completely unroots it, although we can do a lot to lessen it.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:49 pm
Actually, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was about British colonialism in Africa, and the marriage of militarism with tribal violence and a one man’s descent into the maddest bits of both. Which was even clearer in Coppola’s adaptation. It’s more political than about an individual battle with morals in any pseudo-christian terms and it’s definitely got nothing to do with Star Wars.
But I’m being pedantic now =)
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
I’m not excusing it. Just acknowledging it. To my mind, knowing that even you have evil in your heart makes it easier to control. If you don’t think you have a scrap of evil in you, then when an evil impulse comes into your head, you tend to think that it’s right to do it. In fact, that’s exactly what happens with rapes–the guy who does it denies that he acted out of evil and claims the woman provoked him, since women are the evil ones.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:52 pm
“Now, I’ve always been confused as to why a girl would go off with three guys. Was she going to pull a train? Or did she have two spare sex organs for them to use? Because otherwise, that sounds like a really bad decision.”
That quote really bugs me. For many years now I’ve found it easier for me to make new male friends than female friends. (I’m sure there’s some sort of subconcious issue here, but that’s not the point.) Anyhow, when I’m thrust into a new environment, the truth of the matter is, I find it easier to talk to strange guys than strange gals. If I were to show up at a club/party/gathering in another city or country, I might well end befriending males before females. That’s just my nature. Of course, this quote implies that the only reason I’d want to befriend them is so we can have a mad orgy, and that if I’m not interested in such play then I’m some sort of ignorant cock-tease. The original post addressed the absurd fact that statements such as this place the responsibility of stopping rape square in the hands of the woman, and I wholeheartedly agree with it. Obviously, everyone is responsible for his/her own personal safety to a great extent, but this fellow apparently thinks that if I want to make friends but don’t want to screw, I need to stay away from the opposite sex. Bah!
This comment was written by jane.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
Problem is, I don’t for one minute think it’s the unconscous process that the phrase makes it seem like. Too many guys get too defensive for it to be lurking somewhere in their hearts. They know. They know what they’re doing.
Sorry, handing out passes isn’t going to help anybody.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:54 pm
Robert: perhaps my emphasis should have been more on “excuse” than “convenient”. In this case it’s convenient because some other man has done the thinking for you and coined the phrase.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:58 pm
“Haven’t you ever had a situation where you had to stop yourself from following through on an urge to do something that another part of you knew was wrong?”
No, Lee. I have never had the “urge” to violate the bodily integrity of another human being. Ever. It is beyond my comprehension. Maybe that’s because I know all to well how that violation feels and how it shapes and socializes women.
Rape is not a hypothetical urge and I resist placing it on the slippery slope of historical horrors and how one *might* react.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 12:59 pm
Amp - Thanks for fixing my Wikipedia link. I don’t know why my links haven’t been posting properly.
This comment was written by Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
“Hell, another way of putting it - and a way I believe - is that the Heart of Darkness is patriarchy. ”
That’s actually what I was trying to say, but obvioulsy failed.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:10 pm
Hmm. Asking the question: “Would I ever rape?” to me, is asking the question about all circumstances, and therefore the question in itself is almost absurd. The question is all-encompassing, and does, to me at least, include ordinary and extreme circumstances. But maybe this is splitting hairs about the issue.
Maybe. But I will do everything in my power to preserve my current self, because I happen to like my current self, and respect my current self (especially on theoretical ethics level) even if I’m seen as a “boring fucker” instead of a cool super-villain. Maybe I am egomaniacal in that respect, but really, egomaniac is not the term I want to be paired with, except as a joke (I try only speaking from my own experience/viewpoint, seldom on absolutes, there is no egomania involved there. There are many, many good comments by other people that I have enjoyed reading, that have IMHO, surpassed my comments, but this is not a competition). I don’t know whether it’s egomania manifesting on Robert or Amp. I would quess not.
Certainly I’m not assuming that extreme circumstances turn me into the next Hitler, or a rapist (btw. can we stop the nazi stuff?), or making an excuse in advance. But I cannot say with absolute certainty what I will be like after 20 years, for example. Hopefully older, happier and wiser mostly. :|
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:13 pm
Fair enough, ginmar, but I think acknowledging it is the first step towards prevention. Otherwise you have the excuse-making going on at Gilliard’s place.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:14 pm
Gisele, I’m really sorry you had to deal with that shit. I hope the people you’ve told your story to have at least been receptive, and not anxious to play the kind of games that Kos and Gilliard and too many other men did in their comments elsewhere.
That being said, I don’t think that acknowleding some inner darkness is the same as saying, “I could do that.” I know very well that I *could* beat up small child, burn down my neighbors’ house, what have you. I know that these things are physically plausible. That’s not by any means the same as saying “I *would* do those things if I could be assured that no one could ever catch me and punish me.” Not even close. There is no child or neighbor I can imagine hating enough to ever do something like that, under any circumstances.
Jake, Q, ginmar, noodles, thanks. Sometimes when these tangents really get rolling, I worry that I’m losing my mind. :/
This comment was written by alsis38.99.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
Oh, I cross-posted with plenty of people now. Response was directly to 156 in case anyone wondered.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:17 pm
Q Grrl, actually I have been in a situation where I seriously contemplated violating the bodily integrity of another human being. And I really really had to hold myself back from laying a finger on him. I was shaking and trembling with the urge to castrate him with my bare hands. But I didn’t.
That situation isn’t comparable to rape. We have to change the message men, boys, and the rest of society believe concerning unconsentual sexual contact, and it has to become as ingrained as deeply as not killing or maiming other people. Acknowledging the heart of darkness is one way of approaching this goal, because then we can take it into account.
This comment was written by Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:21 pm
I don’t believe in giving them any outs. It just draws the process out. It’s conscious, and the most dark thing about it is their denial about what it is and how it benefits them. If we let them keep doing it, we just keep going nowhere. At least we can back them into a corner and hold up a mirror.
I’m so sick of denial and excuses. I had some guy talk about how ‘rape happens’ and he got snitty with me when I pointed out it wasn’t like the weather. I’ve been seeing the same discussion for twenty years; same tactics, same thread drift, and same words. Only time is changes is when you do take a chance and stop letting them deny their actions.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:23 pm
Gotta go, so if I don’t respond to posts for a while, I’m not blowing you off, I’m just not where I can post.
This comment was written by Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:32 pm
I suppose that what it really comes down to for me now, is that I do not believe anyone who says “Oh, I could never hurt/rape a woman.”
It seems too easy to say. I feel much more comfortable with someone who can say, “Yeah, I think I could. I know that it’s possible, however unlikely, no matter how much I don’t want it to be possible - and so I have to actively try not to make it happen, by not drinking or by not letting myself see women as objects or by not doing any of the things that contribute to rape or violence against women. I have to act. Rape is now MY problem, just as it is a woman’s problem.”
“Oh I could never ____” is a carte blanche to do nothing. This statement makes rape/violence a thing outside oneself, somebody else’s problem. When you talk about rape in such a context, you become either patronizing (”oh, poor victim!”) or condemning (”rapists are evil”) or both. But you will not learn much from such a manner of discourse, because you have no vested interest in the matter. It is not a personal issue for you, as it would be if you viewed yourself as a potential participant.
This comment was written by Gisele.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:33 pm
I’m sorry. I just can’t agree here. The ‘potential’ I have to rape is not something I feel I’ll ever actualize outside of alien mind control, or some other such implausible conditions.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:42 pm
Tuomas, that “boring fucker” and “egomaniac” was a joke and a little sarcastic and it wasn’t even directed at you. It was a dig at that shift in the discussion, that desire to entertain extreme scenarios in which one would suddenly turn into Colonel Kurtz!
There is a bit of fascination with that idea, I think. Hmm.
Oh, and the “boring fucker” was a self-reference! I do feel like a boring fucker after all this talk of how all ordinary men and women have a bottomless heart of darkness they need to keep under control or else they’d all run around opening Guantanamos in their gardens. I have a terrible fear at the bottom of my heart there’s nothing but a desire to watch Eastenders with a good cup of tea and a smoke. I must find myself some truly evil desires and acknowledge them, possibly by paying $400 a month to a Freudian analyst, or I may end up raiding my neighbour’s house and raping his daughters before I even realise it! Yikes!
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 1:54 pm
noodles:
This comment was written by Tuomas.*bit off topic*
I suspected that, but wasn’t sure, and decided to play the game anyway :)
I gave you too little credit, it seems. I was bit worried earlier whether some of my comments that had subtle sarcasm would be taken completely literally, because I try not to get too “jokey” on a rape thread, but I can’t be dead serious all the time either (not that I’m accusing you of any of those either). And considering I’ve spent the whole God damn day on this thread I too feel a bit of a boring fucker. :|
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June 16th, 2005 at 2:00 pm
Yeah, what Josh said. I have the PHYSICAL EQUIPMENT to potentially wring someone’s neck, but that’s still thousands of miles away from thinking “I’d strangle so-and-so if I could get away with it, you know for kicks or just ‘cuz I really really hate them.”
If you want a “heart of darkness” revelation, than yeah. Some people I do really hate. But not that much. Nowhere near that much.
This comment was written by alsis38.99.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:00 pm
But hey, you’re pro-choice, so you can always murder unborn babies and laugh maniacally.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
Ugh. That didn’t look too good on the screen. It’s either sleep or back to topic now…
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:13 pm
Just in case it wasn’t clear, Tuomas, I really genuinely enjoyed all your contributions along with those of most other commenters and please don’t even think I was calling you an egomaniac or boring or whatever. Sorry if it came across that way!
I think there is whole lot of confusion in this thread between thoughts and desires, theoretical possibilities and actual likely situations from one’s daily life, and good/evil and simple pleasure/harm distinctions.
That being said, I don’t think that acknowleding some inner darkness is the same as saying, “I could do that.”? I know very well that I *could* beat up small child, burn down my neighbors’ house, what have you. I know that these things are physically plausible. That’s not by any means the same as saying “I *would* do those things if I could be assured that no one could ever catch me and punish me.”? Not even close. There is no child or neighbor I can imagine hating enough to ever do something like that, under any circumstances.
Alsis, you took the words out of my mouth. Aside from morals, I don’t think everybody is mentally and emotionally capable of cruelty (or any other emotion, good or bad) in the same exact terms. Some people don’t even want dead animals on their conscience, I don’t think we can say they’re only being righteous or not acknowledging their darkest desires to slaughter pigs and cows and drink their blood, they genuinely dislike the idea.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:32 pm
Tuomas, I hadn’t seen your reply when I posted that…
I gave you too little credit, it seems. I was bit worried earlier whether some of my comments that had subtle sarcasm would be taken completely literally, because I try not to get too “jokey”? on a rape thread, but I can’t be dead serious all the time either (not that I’m accusing you of any of those either).
I didn’t get that impression at all from your posts, in fact, I thought some of my comments may have come off as too long and preachy. Or too snarky. Or both.
And considering I’ve spent the whole God damn day on this thread I too feel a bit of a boring fucker. :|
Heh, I so know what you mean! I just looked at the time…
It’s just the irresistible magnetic force of this blog. It’s all its fault.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:32 pm
noodles:
Thanks, my fragile ego is saved and I don’t have to turn into a MRA. Oh, I think I got the correct impression and to tell the truth this I’ve enjoyed this a lot too.
Gisele:
This comment was written by Tuomas.I appreciete your honesty about your horrible experience, (and I can only hope that stuff didn’t happen in this world we live in, but reality sucks, and work needs to be done to make it suck less, by men us mostly on this issue) and I agree that acknowledging the possibility of being a rapist would probably be a reassuring thing. It does show a certain degree of introspection, while “I would NEVER rape” comes across as a knee-jerk reaction sometimes. Not so when backed with truly credible reasons going beyond “rapists are just sick”, or “I don’t need to rape”.
I am a bit sexist on this issue though (or something), I don’t go very hard on women who say they would never rape, because men are the ones who are taught to be the ones who ought to “get sex”, while women are the ones “possessing sex”, so rapist mentality is generally instilled on boys and men only. And these views, these mentalities, might be quite deep-rooted. It could be also that some men have natural inclination to rape (that’s no excuse, of course), even if that sounds a bit oxymoron.
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June 16th, 2005 at 2:34 pm
“men us” no, not that but “us men”. Typo
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:49 pm
There is no child or neighbor I can imagine hating enough to ever do something like that, under any circumstances.
But the limitations of your imagination do not prevent your future action.
Some people don’t even want dead animals on their conscience, I don’t think we can say they’re only being righteous or not acknowledging their darkest desires to slaughter pigs and cows and drink their blood, they genuinely dislike the idea.
And I would venture that most of those people would slaughter animals and drink their blood if they were starving, regardless of how abhorent the idea of it is from their comfortable positions of entertaining hypothetical situations. And they would do it because they’d be in a position where they could rationalize that behaviour as being necessary, integral to their survival. The movement from integral to survival to integral to self-identity (gender, cultural), I’d argue, is one of degree, not kind.
Rape is not so simple that one can say “HE would do it, and I wouldn’t”. Men rape. Women rape too, even though we don’t like to talk about it. Women-on-women sexual violence also happens, and so long as we admit that “WE could do no such thing,” I don’t believe we’ll get anywhere. There is a culture of silence in sexual assult around shame and guilt - but we’ve been led to believe that that shame and guilt is the victim’s alone. The perpetrators feel it too - and so long as we create us/them divides around ideas of “evil” and exclusivity, there will not be a dialogue on what leads perpetrators to rationalize rape.
This comment was written by Gisele.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
I’m surprised it took as long as it did for someone to point out that Robert’s early statement was just his personal account of his belief in Original Sin. And it was Robert pointing it out.
You want to know what sustains rape culture? Christianity’s a big reason. Why did Eve get kicked out of Eden? She wanted to be powerful in her own right. Why did Adam get kicked out of Eden? He chose Eve over God.
Look through the Bible some time, and notice how often rape is treated as if it were the natural form of sexuality. How many rapes are described? How many times are women portrayed as intrinsically evil? And compare that to the number of times there are descriptions of loving relationships.
What I hate most about religion is that it treats figments of the imagination, the big phallus in the sky, as more important than any actual living, breathing, thinking, feeling human being. And in Christianity, the worst thing you can possibly do is care about another person more than you care about God — because humans are evil and only God is good.
No, Robert wasn’t giving an honest admission of the secret heart of darkness in every man. That attitude is, in fact, precisely the problem: treating other human beings as completely alien to each other, treating all human interaction as battles between enemies.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 3:18 pm
REgarding the original post, I am very suspicious of men who say men and women can’t really be friends and any woman who thinks so is a fool. When I really think about it, this is about a sexist an attitude as there is. Friendship is a relationship of equality and respect, and these men say that even if I am deluded that some men regard me this way, really there is no way this could be true, and I’m foolish and naive to boot.
This comment was written by Elena.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
“But hey, you’re pro-choice, so you can always murder unborn babies and laugh maniacally.”
Yarrgh. That’s only funny if you live in a country where radical pro-lifers are as rare as hen’s teeth, Tuomas. Maybe they are in Finland. More than once, I’ve been treated on this very blog to graphic, one might almost say lovingly detailed, descriptions of cuddly pre-born babies getting their brains sucked out, faces gouged with scissors, etc. The language would be right at home on one of those websites where slasher/splatter movie fans gather. At least a few radical pro-lifers seem to enjoy reeling that sort of thing out. They seem to enjoy it an awful lot for people who claim to love babies.
noodles, thanks. May I join you in the sad confession that most of my long-playing fantasies also involve kicking back with cool videos and cool beer ? In my case, it’d probably be MST3k and a nice microbrew. Hold the smokes.
Sorry to have drifted the thread, All.
“But the limitations of your imagination do not prevent your future action.”
How so, Gisele ? As I said earlier, it’s entirely possible that in a bombed-out post-apocolyptic wreckage, I’d behave like a different person. But that STILL strikes me as pointless speculation, having little to do with the piece that kicked off this thread. Certainly the assholes that targeted you, or Amanda, were not operating in some post-Apocalyptic mode. The man, or men, who went after that poor girl on her tropical getaway weren’t, either. The hypothetical drunken man who rapes a hypothetical passed-out drunk woman a la’ jstevenson’s earlier post ? Also, I’ll wager, not acting in that mode, since few –if any of us– are posting from such an environment or have experienced it directly.
This comment was written by alsis38.99.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 3:40 pm
alsis:
Yes, I had that revelation myself a bit after a clicked submit (and pro-lifers are quite rare here, but they are vicious too, though not to the point of killing doctors). And knowing the kind of shit american women and abortion providers have to put up with your “pro-lifers” does make the comment quite unfunny. My apologies. The comment was tacky.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 3:48 pm
>>And I would venture that most of those people would slaughter animals and drink their blood if they were starving, regardless of how abhorent the idea of it is from their comfortable positions of entertaining hypothetical situations. And they would do it because they’d be in a position where they could rationalize that behaviour as being necessary, integral to their survival. The movement from integral to survival to integral to self-identity (gender, cultural), I’d argue, is one of degree, not kind.
Rape is not so simple that one can say “HE would do it, and I wouldn’t”?. Men rape. Women rape too, even though we don’t like to talk about it. Women-on-women sexual violence also happens, and so long as we admit that “WE could do no such thing,”? I don’t believe we’ll get anywhere. There is a culture of silence in sexual assult around shame and guilt - but we’ve been led to believe that that shame and guilt is the victim’s alone. The perpetrators feel it too - and so long as we create us/them divides around ideas of “evil”? and exclusivity, there will not be a dialogue on what leads perpetrators to rationalize rape. >>
I think it’s equally important to recognize how strained some of these scenarios are. It’s like the “Well, what if you knew that this particular suspect wasn’t only a suspect but a confirmed terrorist operative–no, um, wait, wait, actually, he’s Osama bin Laden himself!–and he knows the locations of several nuclear devices planted by his followers in major metropolitan areas all over the country! Some under orphanages and petting zoos! And there was no other way to find the bombs in time! And he’s a total wuss, really, just turn on the Christina Aguilera and he’ll fold! Then would you use torture?” argument.
At some point, the “Yes, that could be me,” is utterly meaningless. And at some point, it becomes clear that the arguer is not seeking reasons, but excuses.
Sure, the darkest depths of the human heart &c., but the rapes we are confronted with here and now do not take place in extremis. They don’t involve the snowball effect. They aren’t a result of anarchy or fear. They sure as hell aren’t necessary to the survival of the rapist. They involve perpetrators who live mundane lives. These men are not normal people driven to acts of inhumanity by desperate circumstances, like lifeboat cannibals. They themselves are in entirely comfortable positions.
It isn’t naive to say, “That’s not me,” given that we are actually comparing two people in normal circumstances. It doesn’t really matter whether Robert would commit one sexual assault in order to save Manhattan’s water supply from a drug resistant supervirus. The question is whether, upon encountering a clearly drunk and out-of-it woman by herself at a party, he would help her or hurt her.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 3:55 pm
Since someone brought up the “but men have uncontrollable sex drives and can’t help themselves!” cliche, I have an answer that’s always worked for me.
Sweetie, that’s why God gave you hands!
Of course you can substitute the deity or belief system of your choice.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.See that’s what I don’t get about the uncontrollable desire/temptation theory. Men come equipped with these wonderful appendages that have opposable thumbs and everything. Why not use them?
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June 16th, 2005 at 4:06 pm
Amanda, I’m going to “borrow” both Keeper of the Cock and Pussy Oversoul from you (and zuzu). Is it just me or do both of those sounds like characters in an RPG? To recieve the knowledge you need to complete your quest and recieve the secret of life from the Pussy Oversoul, first you must battle the Keeper of the Cock!
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 4:09 pm
You may believe what you want, piny, but I think that we want to believe ourselves incapable of violence because it helps us sleep at night. There comes a point where methinks some just protest too much.
If we return to the race issue, acknowledging capacity for rape is the same as acknowledging receiving the benefits of white privilege - claiming that you’re not a racist becasuse you don’t burn crosses doesn’t help anyone. Ditto claiming that you can’t imagine a scenario where you could rape someone, so therefore you’re not a potential rapist.
As a woman, I can’t afford to believe you. I’ve heard it before.
This comment was written by Gisele.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 4:27 pm
Umm… not to split hairs, but aren’t “capacity” to commit a violent act and the society one lives in two different things ?
I’d be the first to agree that I benefit from having White skin, that I’ve done stupid, thoughtless things as a result of racism, etc. But, no, I would never burn a cross on somebody’s lawn, even if I am racist by dint of racist acts. All racist acts, from confusing one Black person for another because “they all look alike” to cross-burnings, are part of one continuum. They all take place in a racist society. But they are not identical acts. They do not have identical results, and the latter would indicate a great deal more malice than the former.
This comment was written by alsis38.99.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 4:28 pm
Thomas
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Thank you for the great example. You saved me the trouble of having to come up with one of my own!
Slightly off the main topic but still relevant - I used to be very much involved in the S&M scene in London, and that’s the one and only place in which I’ve never felt even the slightest fear of rape. The whole idea of mutuality and knowing EXACTLY what your partner does and doesn’t want is so ingrained into the culture that the idea that someone might try to do something against my will just never occurred to me. Another thing I noticed is that in that scene men as well as women stringently police the whole idea of consent ie the idea that it’s the job of women to be the gatekeepers and that men just can’t be expected to exercise any self-discipline just isn’t prevalant. Which to me proves that anyone who claims that gender roles are inherant, men are unable to learn not to rape etc is talking crap. I’ve seen the proof.
The mainstream has some wierd ideas about S&M though. One anecdote that shows how deep the whole gender roles brainwashing goes. I was once sitting in a bar having drinks with a few male co-workers who I was pretty friendly with. Somehow we got onto the subject of S&M. One of the guys was spouting off about how dangerous it all was and how I as a tiny little woman was crazy to even think about getting involved. It wasn’t until we were well into this conversation that one of the guys said something about how I would be so vulnerable when I was all tied up that I realised that they were all assuming that I must be a sub. When my answer was “but I’m a dom, I would never be in that position anyway” they all looked at me like I had two heads until finally one broke the silence and said “but you’re a girl…”
Which is funny because most of the subs I know are men.
And Alsis - I don’t get the “I was drunk” thing either. Smoking pot makes me horny, booze just makes me chatty and inclined to spill a lot of info that I should probably keep to myself (see above co-worker example).
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June 16th, 2005 at 4:41 pm
Ginmar, you said
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.“I forsee another round of people complaining about how it’s unfair for them to be sandbagged when they answered a question honestly. The answer was honestly revolting. ”
I’m curious if you were referring to my intial freaked-out response to Robert’s posting. I got several “how can you say that!” responses in a row and genuinely didn’t understand why, as I thought my response was a lot less harshly worded than it could have been.
Tuomas - this isn’t directed at you since I think you and I have already figured out what both of us were actually trying to say.
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June 16th, 2005 at 4:49 pm
Actually, that analogy is as flawed as the analogy between “Calls self vegan but would eat flesh if starving to death,” and, “Calls self not a rapist.”
Saying you’d never burn crosses on someone’s lawn is not the same kind of pr0testation as saying that you do never and would never benefit from white privilege or engage in racism. The former is a specific act; the latter two are broad categories that the speaker and hearer might not agree on. One benefits from white privilege merely by being white; one is not a rapist merely by virtue of being male, although men do benefit from rape culture.
When a man says that he would never rape a woman, and you know that you both define “rape” the same way, it’s irrelevant that things might be different under circumstances so extreme as to be virtually impossible. What he would do is nowhere near as important as what he will do. It would be valid to dispute a man who says that he has never benefited from male privilege, engaged in sexism, or been complicit in rape culture, but that’s still not the same as saying that he would commit rape under extreme circumstances.
If you are saying–as you now seem to be–that you _don’t believe_ men when they say that they would not commit rape under normal circumstances, then that’s different. If that’s your position, then concentrating on the potential for human abuse and violence in situations that none of the men here have to deal with–partly because they are men in a culture which privileges and protects men–makes no sense. Like I said, rape is not something that happens in extremis.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 4:50 pm
Kim
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.“Interesting thing to say, it reminded me of a ‘discussion’ I had on another board last year. I had replied to a thread discussing sex, most of it a bunch of men od’ing in bravado, and I said something along the lines of ‘well when I fuck my husband blah blah’. It was met with a kind of uncomfortable shock. I got chastised, as well as a few choice words being tossed my way”
What do you mean by “chastised”? I ask because whenever I talk about sex (in person rather than online- I don’t talk about sex online much at all) I always use the active voice, ie I fucked person A, rather than person A fucked me.
The only time I ever use passive terms is if I’m referring to receiving oral. And I’ve heard a few uncomfortable silences, but I don’t think anyone has ever actually scolded me. Maybe it’s because they know me and they know that I would mock them without mercy if they did. What exactly did they say to you?
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June 16th, 2005 at 5:04 pm
Regarding the Nazi example that Amp raised, I actually do believe that some people know what they would and wouldn’t want to do in terms of abusing power. For example - I lived in Libya as a child, and also in Saudi Arabia. In both of those places most men could have gotten away with doing pretty much anything they wanted to the women in their lives. Rape definately, even murder. And yet there were many men who I knew well who didn’t do these things and who treated their wives and daughters (and their sons, who are also relatively powerless in that environment while they’re children) even though they knew beyond a doubt that they could get away with it. Most of the people I knew there(women as well as men, even kids) also had servants who, again, they had almost absolute power over and could have easily gotten away with mistreating. And yet, very few of them did. So, I suppose that I have more faith the basic decency of most people because I’ve seen people who have the opportunity to abuse power and choose not to do it. Not because they’re afraid of being punished, but because they don’t want to.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 5:04 pm
Britgirl, that was in refernce to Robert’s remark. Also the original sin thing from somewhere squicked me out. But that’s a whole other issue—-Eve, temptation, anybody see some probelms with this?
I don’t understand what the deal is with theory, frankly. Rape isn’t like stealing food or medicine. Is rape higher or lower on Maslow’s pyramid? Rape isn’t a survival need. It won’t kill you to not rape. That’s what’s squicking me out.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 5:08 pm
Brit, you are welcome to it, but I will warn zuzu made up the phrase Pussy Oversoul.
This comment was written by Amanda Marcotte.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 5:17 pm
Alsis,
<inexcusable thread drift> Never apologize for bringing up MST3k. Just the MST3k Mole People episode alone is clearly relevant to any possible subject on this or any other blog, pilgrim</inexcusable thread drift>
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 5:21 pm
“It’s that whole “‘no’ means ‘no,’ but we’re not going to teach you what a ‘yes’ is for fear that you’ll actually have sex”? issue. It encourages men to treat anything but an unequivocal rejection as an invitation, and means that a lot of people who don’t think of themselves as rapists are doing an awful lot of harm. ”
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Bingo. I think that it would be a very productive feminist project to try to teach people what a real “yes” looks like, and to try to shift the consent standard to that instead of “well she’s not threatening to call the cops so it must be fine to proceed”. This would also mean teaching women that they have a RIGHT to say yes as well as teaching men what that looks like.
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June 16th, 2005 at 5:22 pm
>>I don’t understand what the deal is with theory, frankly. Rape isn’t like stealing food or medicine. Is rape higher or lower on Maslow’s pyramid? Rape isn’t a survival need. It won’t kill you to not rape. That’s what’s squicking me out.>>
Yes, exactly. Nor does it usually occur in situations where the rapist’s otherwise-active moral center is overriden by some kind of aberrant circumstance. It’s usual, commonplace, mundane: women are normally vulnerable and men are normally in a position to take advantage. Your average rapist is a guy at a party or on a date. He doesn’t have to concern himself with the violence he’s capable of any more than a vegan has to concern himself with the eat-flesh-or-starve question during a trip to the grocery store. That’s why all of these Philosophy and Human Ethics 101 scenarios are so…weird. And a wee bit unsettling.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 5:37 pm
And why all these potentialities where the rapist’s autonomy is compromised, or where the rapist is threatened with injury or death? I don’t really care what a man would do if the gun were pointed at his head. That’s not how it works.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 5:44 pm
AndiF
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.“and though the “Would I rape”? discussion has drifted off into extreme circumstances, back in the real world the more likely question probably is “Would I call what I did rape?”?
Excellent idea. I know I keep repeating this, but I still think it’s the crux of the matter. I think that the majority of men who rape define what they did as “Not rape”, and that’s the real issue.
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June 16th, 2005 at 5:52 pm
Jake
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.“I believe that not understanding that other people have feelings & emotions & physical sensations just like you is what allows people to rape & kill & oppress & torture and all the other billions of horrible things that people do to each other.’.
Precisely. A long way back at the beginning of this discussion someone (I think it was Tuomas) thought that I was saying all rapists are crazy. I don’t think that they’re crazy in the “need to be in an institution because they are liable to jump off a building because they think they can fly” sense, but crazy in the sense that whatever part of the brain it is that allows us to empathise with other people and react to their pain and fear does not appear to be working properly.
I think the reason all these bad things happen so often in war, or in cases like the Janjaweed, is because the victims have been quite explicitely defined as “not people”. Which also partly explains why in our culture rape happens to women (and children) more often than it happens to men.
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June 16th, 2005 at 6:08 pm
BritGirl,
Naturally I agree. While there are certainly men who intend to rape and hurt women but more of them are ones who accept this idea that fucking is something that men do to the women they decide are fuckable. These men aren’t likely to believe that they’ve committed rape. Instead, I think they see it as just ‘bad sex’ as if it was just one of those instances where the woman didn’t climax.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 6:20 pm
And why all these potentialities where the rapist’s autonomy is compromised, or where the rapist is threatened with injury or death? I don’t really care what a man would do if the gun were pointed at his head. That’s not how it works.
Gee, because it lets them off the hook, maybe? Keeps the idea of rape away from the norm, away from them, lets them not think about it as part of the day to day lives of people? Of women?
I notice nobody here has come up with real-life hypotheticals that would strike too close to home.
My son was accused of rape.
My daughter was raped.
My best buddy who, okay, tells sexist jokes, was accused of rape.
My best buddy was accused of rape by this total slut!
My brother, my uncle, myself—we were all accused of rape, and we didn’t use guns or anything, but, hey, she didn’t say no, really, c’mon, she was into it for a while there—
Yeah, it’s all Rwanda and Nazis, and nobody here lives in Africa or has a time machine.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 6:56 pm
Interesting fact–Steve’s girlfriend came into the thread at his place and said that no matter how hard she followed instructions to prevent her colds, she still got them. She likened people’s tut-tutting of her for not “taking care” of herself when she takes scrupulous care of herself to the way people treat rape victims. Despite this, one commenter who blamed the girl and her parents for the rape seemed to think Jen was siding with him. I don’t see it myself, but it’s worth checking out. Towards the bottom.
This comment was written by Amanda Marcotte.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:00 pm
Can I make a sugestion to get this thread back onto a more potentially productive thread? How about if we’re going to talk about whether men would or would not rape we stick to whether they would do so in the circumstances in which most rapes actaully happen (meet drunken stranger at the bar or party, someone you’re already involved with decides on a specific occasion that she doesn’t want to fuck right now, girl you’ve been flirting with for months at work and you are alone together and you make a move and she pushes you away)? Because I don’t think there’s much point to talking about extreme circumstances, since we all now that’s not how most rapes happen.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Also, about the survival analogies…this is bullshit. Killing in order to eat, in order to save your own life etc is in no was similar to rape. Food, not allowing yourself to be shot etc are matters of life or death. Going without sex isn’t fatal. Like I said before, men have hands too.The survival analogy isn’t really relevant.
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June 16th, 2005 at 7:04 pm
Sorry if that last post sounded preachy. by the way. Everyone is of course entitled to express their opinions, I just thing it would be more useful to talk about rape in the context where it typically occurs. Also I think we’ve been arguing apples and oranges - the “what I might hypothetically do if I were a Janjaweed” group versus the “what I would actually do in real life group.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:09 pm
Good point, BritGirl. I started a thread at Pandagon so that men could express their frustrations with other men for acting like assholes and moving onto the next step–how to turn those frustrations into action. Rape thrives in large part because men casually condone the attitudes to perpetuate it, like Steve did when he said that a girl who is alone with three guys should be able to play train or whatever. A lot of men are appalled by statements like that but are afraid to speak up. I think that’s a useful vein to mine for productive action.
This comment was written by Amanda Marcotte.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:11 pm
I would not rape someone in ordinary circumstances. Rape is morally wrong, for a variety of reasons; most immediately, because it contravenes another person’s will over something which their will ought ordinarily to control.
However, I would not characterize my belief that I would not rape in absolute terms. If other men say they know their own potentialities so well that they can speak in absolute terms, then civility requires me to take them at their word; though, if I had something on the line other than politeness, that belief would be entirely superficial and I would be very open to contradictory evidence.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:32 pm
Here’s a radical plan of action for (sexually active straight) men to try that would take care of the “consent” issue and strike a blow against the cultural view of women as passive “receivers” to boot: next time you find yourself in an intimate situation with a woman that seems as though it’s about to progress into sex, instead of plastering yourself all over her like an overeager puppy, make her come and get it. Sit back, smile seductively and invite her to take you as she will. Take your own clothes off, not hers. Better yet, invite her to take your clothes off. Don’t make the first move — hell, even try putting your hands over your head and not touching her at all until she asks you to.
This foreplay strategy certainly flies against all social conditioning men receive to be the instigators and “doers” during sex, and the conditioning women receive to sit back and not actively express their desire/pleasure. It also forces the woman to make a clear decision and send a clear message.
Sure, she might get turned off. She might say no. She might not be able to get over her own inhibitions and preconceived notions of how men and women should behave. And the answer might have been no all along, regardless. But if she says yes, you know it’s a yes, because she’s the one reaching for you.
Not necessarily applicable in all situations, but it could be interesting and informative for men to experiment with taking a more “passive” role and allowing themselves to be “taken” and enjoyed, instead of being the “doer” all the time. I know lots of men already engage with women this way as part of their normal repertoire of sexual behaviors/styles without even giving it much thought, but many more would be stepping far over their comfort zones to act the way women more often do.
This comment was written by Accipeter.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:33 pm
Amanda
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Good idea, will check out the thread on Pandagon later, and I hope it doesn’t get hijacked by trolls. Do you have any way to bounce trolls if they do start to overwhelm the discussion?
Robert
This time I agree with you. In fact it would probably have been better to be more specific about what I meant in my original question.
I don’t like absolutes either because I can usually think of an exception. For example, in general I am not inclined towards murder. I find it morally repugnant. However, if I had a child and someone hurt or killed that child I admit that the thought might cross my mind, even though I like to hope I wouldn’t act on it.
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June 16th, 2005 at 7:47 pm
Giselle, I’m sorry but I don’t see how your line of thinking differs significantly from that of the people at Gilliard’s site. You’re treating rape like its the natural product of being a man. Like I need to be in a 12-step program just so I won’t run around raping women. I’m really personally offended at the suggestion that saying I cannot rape a woman makes me MORE suspect or is in any way an easy way out.
SOME men may just use it as a knee-jerk response, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be a fair response. I don’t say I can’t rape a woman because I just don’t want to think about it. I say it because I have seen what rape does to a woman. I have seen the impact of it up close and personal and I have seen it far too often. I don’t make excuses for men. But I do believe that on sobering self-reflection that I can say that I would never rape anyone. I believe that I can say that it disgusts and horrifies on me on such a base level that it simply will never happen. And I feel that is a point that men can come to honestly.
The whole arguement here was not about giving rapists an excuse. What better excuse than to treat rape as the inevitable product of gender. Something every man must live with every day of his life. This is only going to discourage men from participating in the discussion and being engaged to take proactive steps in their own lives and in the lives of those around them to stop rape. The situation you present sounds hopeless. If I were to believe it, I don’t know how I could function. Under constant fear that I would commit such an act. We may all have a darkness in our hearts, but I don’t think its fair to say we are all capable of horrible evil. What we must realize is that there is nothing innate about us which prevents evil. It is our will and mind which prevents it. It is knowing rape. Knowing evil. This is what can allow us to say, no. That is not who I am. I don’t see how we can have a conversation on how some men self-justify rape if we conclude its something we all can do. If we are all the same, what hope is there? If we cannot make ourselves into something different, what can hope to achieve? The first step is not admitting you have a problem. I think its wrong to create a culture of presumed evil and I think this only sends people away from the discussion. It makes it easier for them to dismiss the matter out of hand. We need to get men to confront rape, not on the premise that they must be constantly aware of their rapist tendancies, but because knowing rape can prevent rape. Knowing the horror of it, knowing the consequences, this is what can undo rationalizations of rape. This is what will weaken the attempts at self-justification. And I think it is perfectly fair for a man to conclude through such introspection and understanding that he cannot do this. I think its what he must conclude.
Branding all men as potential rapists just strikes me as non-productive. I don’t think its going to spark reflection. I think its going to spark the kind of easy denial you say is so wrong. If that’s the framework of a discussion of rape, I know I wouldn’t participate because it strikes me as fundamentally wrong. Men can rape. Men have this power. No. Saying “no, not I” should not be the first step for a man confronting this issue. But I absolutely think it can be the last step. And I think the men who have expressed that in this thread have come to this place through thoughful deliberation of the issue of rape and from experiences with people in our lives who have been victims of rape. I do think the end of that journey can be a self-awareness that one is incapable of rape. Not through their natural state, but through their understanding and awareness of it. At a basic level, are men capable of rape? Obviously. But that’s no reason to call it a cop out should any man who concludes that the cannot, must not, commit rape.
This comment was written by BStu.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 7:58 pm
I don’t think its fair to say we are all capable of horrible evil…
What we must realize is that there is nothing innate about us which prevents evil.
I have to admit, this formulation confuses me. It’s not fair to say that we can all commit horrible evil, but it’s nonetheless true?
If we are all the same, what hope is there? If we cannot make ourselves into something different, what can [we] hope to achieve?
This is a standard crisis point for the non-theist. Your conclusion follows with inexorable logic from your premises. However, your conclusion is intolerable to you. You’re left with three possibilities:
1) decide that logic is invalid, load a bowl, and stop thinking about it
2) embrace the (nihilistic and evil) conclusion and give up on humanity, or
3) abandon one or more of the premises.
Good luck with it.
(I am assuming you are a non-theist because of the philosophical predicament you lay out. It’s easily resolved by theists, very hard for non-theists. Apologies if I’m misreading you.)
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:06 pm
Gisele:
“If we return to the race issue, acknowledging capacity for rape is the same as acknowledging receiving the benefits of white privilege - claiming that you’re not a racist becasuse you don’t burn crosses doesn’t help anyone.”
It’s not quite the same thing. Receiving the benefits of white privilege is probably more analogous to receiving the benefits of male privilege. And I don’t quite see “capacity for rape” as a male *privilege* (I suppose “capacity to live one’s life without fearing being raped” might be, but even then I’m not quiet comfortable with defining a right as a privilege).
This comment was written by Sheena.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:23 pm
Robert, you leave out:
4) Conclude that we are not incapable of making ourselves something different, that we are not all the same.
5) Everything that BStu says after your second quote from him.
Hope your theist superiority mode of thought works out well for you.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:31 pm
“Hope your theist superiority mode of thought works out well for you.”
He’s pulling that shit again? First he ‘kinda-sorta-but-not-really-but-still’ drops hints of being a potential rapist and now this–again? Come on!
This comment was written by Pseudo-Adrienne.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:41 pm
No superiority involved. Theistic philosophies are going to be better at handling some kinds of problems than non-theistic philosophies; this is one of them. Non-theistic philosophies have their own unique advantages.
Of course, if your commitment to non-theism is shaky enough that you view any articulation of a different worldview as an attempt to assert superiority, or vice versa, then you’re probably not going to see it that way. They don’t read a lot of Nietschze at Oral Roberts University. It was not my intention to claim the higher ground; I simply see someone struggling with a problem that a lot of people end up struggling with.
P-A, do you believe that all-slash-most men are potential rapists? And if you do believe that, then your attempted slam at me for acknowledging that I am indeed prone to the sins and crimes that beset our species is based on what, exactly?
If you don’t believe that, then I’d be genuinely interested to see how you integrate the belief with your other espoused philosophies.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:55 pm
“And if you do believe that, then your attempted slam at me for acknowledging that I am indeed prone to the sins and crimes that beset our species is based on what, exactly?”
Your past comments on this thread. Apparently, some are more prone then others, as you demonstrated with your comments and personal sentiments within them. Potentiality is one thing. But your willingness (or how strong or weak is your proneness) to act on it and fulfill that, is quite another thing. I should have focused on the issue of the strength or weakness of ‘proneness’ rather than the pontentiality. My_bad.
However your comments leads me (and has led others) to believe that since you seem to have such a low opinion of humanity in general, acknowledge humanity’s capability to commit such horrors (which is true, it happens) but seem to believe that we’re far too barbaric and “sinful” at heart to exercise restraint (and hope your deity will forgive you for it and if that happens then all is well and no skin off your back because you were forgiven by your deity), or exercising restraint is futile due to the strong “sinful” urges of human nature (and why bother when your deity will forgive you anyway), then you in particular are very prone to commit violence–such as rape. Which is why not only are you a “potential rapist” but are pretty damn prone to it as well, given your own sentiments of the nature of humanity–males in this case. Because you know, you just can’t help yourself.
This comment was written by Pseudo-Adrienne.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 8:56 pm
Robert, it ain’t your articulation of a different world view that’s a problem. The problem is your snide and condescending method of articulating that view. The combination of your giving only 3 options for resolution of a view that isn’t yours while ignoring what BStu had to say after the snippet you quoted with, “Good Luck with it,” is both disingenuous and dismissive. I honestly don’t care if you pray to the Easter Bunny. I do care about your dismissiveness and false representation of the possible conclusions of what BStu had to say.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 9:01 pm
BStu wrote the following. All I can say is, Amen. THIS is how we start addressing the problem.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.“The whole arguement here was not about giving rapists an excuse. What better excuse than to treat rape as the inevitable product of gender. Something every man must live with every day of his life. This is only going to discourage men from participating in the discussion and being engaged to take proactive steps in their own lives and in the lives of those around them to stop rape. The situation you present sounds hopeless. If I were to believe it, I don’t know how I could function. Under constant fear that I would commit such an act. We may all have a darkness in our hearts, but I don’t think its fair to say we are all capable of horrible evil. What we must realize is that there is nothing innate about us which prevents evil. It is our will and mind which prevents it. It is knowing rape. Knowing evil. This is what can allow us to say, no. That is not who I am. I don’t see how we can have a conversation on how some men self-justify rape if we conclude its something we all can do. If we are all the same, what hope is there? If we cannot make ourselves into something different, what can hope to achieve? The first step is not admitting you have a problem. I think its wrong to create a culture of presumed evil and I think this only sends people away from the discussion. It makes it easier for them to dismiss the matter out of hand. We need to get men to confront rape, not on the premise that they must be constantly aware of their rapist tendancies, but because knowing rape can prevent rape. Knowing the horror of it, knowing the consequences, this is what can undo rationalizations of rape. This is what will weaken the attempts at self-justification. And I think it is perfectly fair for a man to conclude through such introspection and understanding that he cannot do this. I think its what he must conclude.”
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June 16th, 2005 at 9:08 pm
Oh, and Robert, on BStu’s comment, I’m an atheist and his thinking makes perfect sense to me. One need not believe in God in order to have a clear sense of morality.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 9:32 pm
A point I made earlier but no one has picked up on.
We blame people who are the victims of horrible acts (rapes, murders) or occurrences (floods, fires) partly because it reassures us that it won’t happen to us.
“Oh, that girl got raped. But she was slutty anyway, so it was bound to happen. Lucky for me, I/my daughter/my sister am not slutty, so I don’t need to worry that it will happen to me/my daughter/my sister. “
This comment was written by Glaivester.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:15 pm
I have to admit, this formulation confuses me. It’s not fair to say that we can all commit horrible evil, but it’s nonetheless true?
You mistake me. I acknowledge that humanity has shown the capability of evil. Therefore I reject the notion that we can simply assume ourselves to be incapable of acts of extreme depravity. That doesn’t mean it is wrong for an individual to confront the issue and come to the conclusion that they are not capable of such acts. Human potential is a very different thing than an individual’s potential. We shouldn’t make the mistake of dismissing the notion of doing evil, but we should also not feel bound to such potential. We have the freedom of will to compel us to act differently.
This is a standard crisis point for the non-theist. Your conclusion follows with inexorable logic from your premises. However, your conclusion is intolerable to you.
Pardon me, but I believe if you read above you will see that I do reach my own conclusion. I do believe we can make ourselves into something more through self-reflection. If I was a theist, I might refer to this action as prayer or meditation. I can see that humans of committed great acts of evil and those acts disgust and horrify me at a basic level. I do not shy away from confronting those acts. I feel it is vital to understand them and to understand the horror that lies in their wake. I do not dismiss the human potential for rape. I confront it so that I can reject it. Humans are also clearly capable of great acts of kindness and good. You have concluded that evil is our natural state, while good is not. I can see that neither is a natural state. We are shaped partly by genetics, yes, but also by the world around us and our understanding of that world. We are not slaves to biology. We have our minds and our wills to shape who we are and what actions we will take. And it is perfectly appropriate to conclude that there are some actions we simply will not take.
Now, maybe my Catholic education deceived me, by I seem to recall my theology professors touching on the subject of free will. The idea that God has endowed humanity with the ability to think and act for oneself. How is it not possible for a person of faith to conclude they are incapable of rape through their own thoughful contemplation and prayer on the matter?
You were right that I am not a theist. I am agnostic and have been for all of my life. However, your reasoning was nevertheless flawed. A person of faith could easily view these issues in much the same way as I do, although with different guiding principles. But not as different as you seem to imagine. I am thankful for my Christian friends who do not dismiss me in such a manner for my own acts of concience.
Though, I do admit I got quite a laugh from your “I’m not superior. I’m just better,” self-justification. Rather made it worth it, I would say. I’m glad you find faith valuable to your own life, but I will thank you not to presume to know what is best for me. That you have found morality through your chosen path is by no means an indication that it will be impossible or even more difficult to find it by my path. I’m not going to engage in a moral philosophy measuring contest, so I will simply say that I am quite satisfied with my beliefs.
This comment was written by BStu.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:16 pm
Sorry I failed to close an HTML tag there.
This comment was written by BStu.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:21 pm
“Sorry I failed to close an HTML tag there.”
It’s okay, I got it BStu.
This comment was written by Pseudo-Adrienne.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:30 pm
What does having the ability to do something have to do with accountability and respect for others? Whether or not one is capable of evil has nothing to do with subjecting another person to something against their will. It is wrong to act in a way that causes harm or restricts someone’s freedom and integrity. It doesn’t make any difference if it is war and you have the bigger guns and a certain moral imperative (all war is evil in my mind), or if one is independent, weaker, stupid, trusting, honest, or showing poor judgment. There is no justification to forcing sex, (which is more about control, dominance and violence) theft, lying or any other deception that harms another, especially over the weaker ones.
It is obvious that many men are unclear, and see a role they seem to ascribe to, and believe that it is threatened and needs to be defended. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could come in off the margins and let it be OK, and in the process stop marginalizing women? What a relief that would be, so much wasted energy and happiness. We wouldn’t need 200+ blog entries trying to rationalize an indefensible position. Just think of the possibilities of another half of the population made available to be friends and coworkers in the fields, instead of someone to fear.
This comment was written by Rock.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:44 pm
Well, obviously I didn’t make my intention or meaning clear. However, it’s also obvious that its a complete digression from the main line of discussion, so rather than keep yakkin’ about it, I’ll drop the matter with “sorry, Btsu, no offense was intended”.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 10:49 pm
Blast. BStu, not Btsu. Me smart. Me goed kolege.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:19 pm
Gisele (re: 191) - yes of course even the strictest vegetarian would eat meat if it was the last thing available and the only alternative to starving. It wouldn’t be a rationalisation, it would be a real necessity. I just don’t see how rape is in the category of necessity!
I thought of that example of people who are genuinely repelled by the idea of eating animals because of the nature of that repulsion, which is not just or even necessarily physical; it’s repulsion at the idea of harming a living being even if it’s not human. Maybe some people are vegetarian by fashion; maybe because of diet reasons; maybe because of a lot of other ’superficial’ reasons; but many do genuinely dislike the thought of harming animals, period.
Point was, there is such a thing as a genuine desire *not* to harm others. Sure I agree with being suspicious of people who say they could or would never do anything bad or cruel to anyone and only see themselves as good and generous and nice, but that’s not the question here, no one was saying such a thing; the question is specifically rape.
The question “would I do it?” doesn’t mean “would I be capable of doing it at all” but “would I want to do it”. Otherwise, why ask that question at all. Everyone is theoretically capable of anything; murderers are often the nicest neighbours (”oh I could have never guessed!”). Not everyone has to the same desires to do the same things, though.
Not everyone even has the same ‘heart of darkness’. Some people’s heart of darkness is more suicidal rather than homicidal; depressive rather than aggressive; masochist rather than sadist. They’d sooner hurt themselves than others. Anyone could ‘flip’ and do horrible things, to themselves and/or others, of course. No one comes with safety instructions and there is no neat divide between ‘normal’ and ’sick’ people, only between healthy and sick behaviour. But in every day life, which is where rapes do occur, and where rapists do get away with it, as you unfortunately know from personal experience, well there is no such extreme ‘flip’ switch. Rapes are the most ordinary crime sadly.
To translate “would I do it if I could get away with it” as “would I do it if I flipped/if I was in an extreme situation where my personality was fundamentally altered/if I was living in a completely lawless society and had no sense of empathy or humanity” is to turn the question into a silly game. Plus, no extreme scenario ever justifies the condition of “necessity” by which people can be forced to alter their desires, behaviour and moral codes (as in the vegetarian example).
I’m just wondering, again, out of sheer curiosity, how can anyone envisage a situation in which rape would suddenly become something they would do (would want to do), without meaning they do think it’s an extreme version of sex, so that it becomes an extreme form of necessity or desire, like a substitute for sex.
And I don’t have to be a man to wonder about that question too. It’s not like women are incapable of picturing themselves as doing something usually and predominantly done by men. It’s not like we can’t crack the mentality behind rape unless we’re man and/or rapists. We should all shut up if it was so and only let certified rapists speak to enlighten us.
And yes, women rape too, just like children kill their parents. It’s a bit rare for it to register in the debate about rape. Plus, we’re talking specifically of men raping women.
On the one hand, the attitude of saying “only some men do it, most don’t” in the way Steve Gilliard put it is a convenient excuse to avoid all social and cultural notions that allow rapists to get away with it, socially and legally, or their actions to be put in the background while we counter-examine the victim’s lifestyle. It’s a way to put it down entirely to individuals and to individual responsibility and avoid looking at the bigger picture. But it does not follow that we should equate “every man is capable of rape” or “there is a mentality that allows men to get away with rape” with “every man would rape if only they could get away with it”. That assumes that rape is an extension of sexual desire; that it’s a “temptation”, that it’s a desire as natural as wanting to fuck, and only a strict sense of morals or Christian notions of a punishing God would restrain you from doing it. That’s bullshit. That’s a puritan, hypocrite notion of morals. It’s also a reinforcement of the notion of rape as a natural, biological inclination or urge that’s part and parcel of male sexuality and needs to be tamed. That is what I personally call righteousness, the idea that refraining from harm is all about morals one has imposed on one’s unruly nature. Look at me, I’m a sinner, but I make a great effort at domesticating the wolf in me.
Well, I don’t believe in that concept of morals, I don’t believe in the good/evil dichotomy in Christian or Bushian terms, and I don’t believe refraining from harm is a simple matter of having an external restraint whose removal would turn us automatically into wolves. I don’t quite believe anyone is born automatically 100% good and saintly, or 100% evil bastard. There’s varying degrees of good and bastard in everyone. I do believe in both individual responsibility and social and cultural influences; I do believe, barring extreme cases and circumstances etc. etc., in the ordinary, we all, or most of us, have a capacity for empathy which is necessary for our own survival, not just for social life. What can silence, or kill, or manipulate that empathy is not a lack of restraint, but ideology, especially the us/them mentality. Which is, IMHO, the real “heart of darkness” that leads to violence, rape, wars, etc.
I don’t think saying “who me? oh no I’d never ever do that” is necessarily to be taken at face value; but denying it’s even possible to be truly repelled by doing harm to others (or calling it ‘righteousness’) is denying the existence of empathy, which is independent of a belief in the existence of a god. Actually, I think people who deny the existence of god can often have a lot more empathy with others because they don’t need an external validation for it.
(I’m not responding only to Gisele, of course, but to a series of points in the discussion.)
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:32 pm
piny - I think it’s equally important to recognize how strained some of these scenarios are. It’s like the “Well, what if you knew that this particular suspect wasn’t only a suspect but a confirmed terrorist operative”“no, um, wait, wait, actually, he’s Osama bin Laden himself!”“and he knows the locations of several nuclear devices planted by his followers in major metropolitan areas all over the country! Some under orphanages and petting zoos! And there was no other way to find the bombs in time! And he’s a total wuss, really, just turn on the Christina Aguilera and he’ll fold! Then would you use torture?”? argument.
Exactly! And it’s an attempt to validate the use of torture.
(Piny, you’re only slightly exaggerating some of the hypotheticals used in pro-torture arguments. The famous ticking bomb scenario. )
BStu - Look, I’ll admit that I can’t know a lot of things in an absolute sense. I don’t think I could murder someone, but I can’t say for certain that a hypothetical circumstance couldn’t arise where I might. I don’t think I’ll ever steal, but I know I can’t say it for certain. Rape is different. And I think that’s why a lot of the people here are taken aback by the lack of an absolute answer. I am, too. I functionally understand what motivates the reluctance, but from my personal experience I simply can’t understand how someone could feel that way.
Rape is a sadistic crime. It is not something one does in a passion or out of fear.
Absolutely, that’s what I was thinking too, and thanks for putting it so clearly and perfectly, BStu (I’d missed that comment earlier on).
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:50 pm
Rape is a sadistic crime. It is not something one does in a passion or out of fear.
Wouldn’t you say that some fraction of rapes are motivated, partially anyway, by a fear of women? It’s always looked that way from here.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 16th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
I know this is late — I have a job, family and sleep which require much of my time.
To clarify my statements about 200 posts ago — Amp came to my rescue:
“How many of the mobs who contributed to or directly committed mass-murder and mass-rape in Rwanda would have said, “If I could get away with it, I would rape and murder”? if someone had asked them that in 1990? I bet lots of them would have said “I could never do something like that. I could never rape. I could never kill if it wasn’t self-defense.”?”
I know he may not have wanted to come to my defense, but it is stupid to not acknowlege that people do stupid things when they are drunk. Yes, perhaps you live in the biodome and have never seen people do stupid things when they are drunk, however if you live in Austin I challenge you to say you have never seen people do stupid things when they are drunk.
Also, Jake, who hung me on a spike so I may die an aggravating Aztec conquered tribe death sentence, but managed to support me — of course he then went on to insult me personally:
“Dad shows Junior “Playboy”? when Junior is 5. Dad tells Junior how women are different than men (on the rag, a slave to cock, etc.). In school, Junior’s playmates (who have been taught the same things) reinforce not only these beliefs, but the need to act as if women are a different species. In highschool & college if you don’t talk about how you’d like to fuck this girl or that, you are suspect. When you enter the workforce, on your breaks the guys will ogle women and say things like, “I’d do her.”?
That was my point — we (as in men) cannot change the way men think unless we change the way we raise our men. I am not saying that men are born that way Jake (notice the lack of personal attack everyone — “tact” goes a long way) I am saying that MANY young men ARE that way. It is not because they are wired to think that way (does it really matter — it is just bad enough that enough young men during their early years will do the drunken creep if given the chance. Isn’t that enough?). Most of the problem is the definition of RAPE. If everyone was on the same page on that definition things would work out better. However, personal attacks, name calling does nothing in making it better for women. The best way to reduce sexual assault and other gender issue problems is communication and understanding. You cannot get your point across to the other side unless you understand what the other side is thinking and why. Robert pointed out the problem (not all men Jake, but the one’s who are a problem is what we are talking about)
I am currently prosecuting my 20th date rape case by the way. I have defended many others. So before you criticize me, I can tell you I know what THEY are thinking because I have been able to get both sides of the story. I actually asked my defendants — what the fuck were you thinking! I also tell my victims the problems that they will face, to prepare them for cross-examination. Isn’t it possible when you said on the videotape “I really want to be taped having sex” or the time on the videotape where you were on top and said “This is like a porno; I love pornos!” — isn’t it possible that he could have mistook those phrases for consent? That is how I have to prepare her — am I blaming the victim, no. However, I am trying to make it clear that her STUPID statements may derail the prosecution of this potential sexual predator.
Next time you rail on someone — do a better job of trying to see what they are saying instead of flying off the handle on the first possible negative analysis and calling that person a name.
The castration issue was probably because I have become jaded due to the stupid things I have seen young, immature men do.
This comment was written by jstevenson.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 12:32 am
I wholeheartedly concur with the suggestion that men need to be taught not only that “no means no” but what constitutes a “yes.”
In discussions about rape, pornography, and sexual harrassment (ie throughout the “pie fights” and the Gillard post that inspired this one), far too many people seems to be operating under not only the assumption that men have more sexual desire than women, but also that women’s sexuality is synonymous with what men find desirable in women. Sexuality is a combination of having sexual desires and being seen as sexually desirable, but the common perception is that male sexuality is defined only by male desires, and that female sexuality is also defined only by male desires.
As others have already pointed out, the false assumption that men need sex but women don’t really even like it all that much makes it easier for many people to argue that focusing only/mainly on victim initiated prevention is not blaming the victim, as if it is simply natural for women to always be on guard and working to abstain from sex. The perception that only male desires define sexuality makes this argument, and other arguements defending rape, easier too, because it ignores the idea that a woman could discover that the encounter being offered was not what she thought it would be, and instead focuses on the stereotypes of women constantly changing their mind or being submissive.
These assumptions also make it easierfor people to see sexual harrassment as merely a side effect of men liking sex, and women not liking it, rather than sexism.
They also allow people to assert that pornography that does objectify women (but not men) is either inevitable or automatically empowering for women, as if being seen as sexual is the same as expressing one’s own sexuality.
This comment was written by Jenny K.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 12:46 am
A couple of times, BritGirlSF has brought up the question of how men and women define rape, and I’ve been meaning to address that, but it’s difficult. When I was younger, before the first time I’d had sex, I read Andrea Dworkin’s Intercourse and grossly misunderstood it — I actually thought it proved that all sexuality was rape. On a recent rereading, I found it was quite clear that’s not what Dworkin was saying, and I had to wonder why I’d misunderstood it. I think that, having no experience at the time with the reality of sexual activity, I’d simply accepted the widely held belief that men were always active, women always passive, and agreed that that model amounted to an assumption that normal sexuality was rape, and completely failed to understand Dworkin’s suggestion that we could have sex that was an expression of mutual desire.
I had heard women friends describing their sexual desires for men, but I’d never heard anyone describe a sexual experience in which a woman was active. Until my first sexual experience, it had never occurred to me even as an abstract possibility. I was astonished, to say the least, when my first partner initiated sex. I was delighted, but totally surprised.
The notion that woman are always passive, men always active, is incredibly pervasive. There are a few places in Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex where she insists it’s impossible for a woman to enjoy sex unless she’s passive, for instance.
My second sexual partner, also a woman, didn’t have any idea that women could be active in sex. I never touched her without her consent — but I never knew if she really wanted to have sex, and I didn’t get the impression she enjoyed it at all. I tried to be as kind and gentle and giving as I could, but it didn’t seem to help. I gave up trying to have a sexually intimate relationship before long, and I was very upset by the entire experience — I think it’s a large part of the reason I’ve been single ever since.
If the “normal” view of sexuality is male active, female passive, then it’s all too easy to skip over that bit about consent. I think these attitudes are very common, and that often men initiate sex when it’s murky whether consent was actually given.
I think there’s a range of distorted sexual events — from miserable sex with pro forma consent, to sex in which it’s not clear whether consent was given, to sex without consent. Many men, talking about the violence they’d like to see done to rapists, think of rape only in the most extremely violent form — in order to distance themselves from the nagging feeling that they really shouldn’t have had sex with their girlfriend that one time when she was really drunk.
I do think part of the problem is that men and women don’t have a clear sense of what it means to say “yes,” or that women can initiate sex, because it leaves female sexual agency out of the picture. And rape is about denying a women’s agency and autonomy.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 12:51 am
>>Gee, because it lets them off the hook, maybe? Keeps the idea of rape away from the norm, away from them, lets them not think about it as part of the day to day lives of people? Of women? >>
Now you’re just being paranoid.
>>piny - I think it’s equally important to recognize how strained some of these scenarios are. It’s like the “Well, what if you knew that this particular suspect wasn’t only a suspect but a confirmed terrorist operative”“no, um, wait, wait, actually, he’s Osama bin Laden himself!”“and he knows the locations of several nuclear devices planted by his followers in major metropolitan areas all over the country! Some under orphanages and petting zoos! And there was no other way to find the bombs in time! And he’s a total wuss, really, just turn on the Christina Aguilera and he’ll fold! Then would you use torture?”? argument.
Exactly! And it’s an attempt to validate the use of torture.
(Piny, you’re only slightly exaggerating some of the hypotheticals used in pro-torture arguments. The famous ticking bomb scenario. )>>
Yup. To be fair, I don’t often hear men objecting to the insistence that men not rape with, “Well, but, but, what if they were gonna murder my whole family? Then I’d have no choice!” This is the first time I’ve ever encountered the drift, and I understand that it’s not a straight-out excuse for rape in the situations we’re actually discussing. But why focus on it? Vegans usually discuss the justice of meat-eating without wondering what would happen if they were marooned on a barren desert island with a chicken.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 1:20 am
“…it is stupid to not acknowlege that people do stupid things when they are drunk. Yes, perhaps you live in the biodome and have never seen people do stupid things when they are drunk, however if you live in Austin I challenge you to say you have never seen people do stupid things when they are drunk…”
Trouble is, jstevenson, that doesn’t account for those who manage to not rape anyone while they are drunk. Or do you think that on the occasion that I did go drinking with a male friend, or several male friends, I just got lucky. [shrug] I do regard myself as a lucky woman for never having had a man rape me, but I wouldn’t go so far as to think that the guys I was drinking with who didn’t rape me just happened, by strange coincidence, not to be in a raping mood that day. That would just be too damn strange, even for a natural-born cynic like me.
I tend to agree with others in this thread who said that alcohol might provide an excuse to someone who already intended to prey on someone else, but by itself, no– I don’t think it can do a Jekyll/Hyde number on the average adult man– IF he has a healthy view of sexuality and women.
To compound the confusion of any MRA who might be passing through with his pre-conceived notion of feminists as man-haters, I’d also like to comment on:
“…The castration issue was probably because I have become jaded due to the stupid things I have seen young, immature men do.”
Excpet that castration doesn’t necessarily destroy the urge to rape, if one considers that urge something other than just an amplified sexual urge. I certainly do. Furthermore, it’s tough to imagine how chopping off a rapist’s balls would lead overall to a less violence-oriented relationship between men and women. If anything, I fear it would give rapists one more excuse to indulge their hatred for women. Some clues as to why this might be the case were provided nicely by this thread on the Black Looks blog that talks about a supposed “anti-rape” device and its quite obvious drawbacks as a “training tool” to keep rapists at bay.
http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks/
This comment was written by alsis38.99.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 1:42 am
I’ll back up alsis on the subject of drinking and it’s role in rape. In my exprience drinking doesn’t make anyone do anything that they didn’t already want to do. It lowers inhibitions to be sure, but it doesn’t produce voices in people’s heads telling them to do bad things. In fact I think that many people who drink too much do so precisely because they want to use it as an excuse for doing things they wanted to do anyway. I’ve been around plenty of drunken men in my time, and many of them have indeed tried to make passes at me, but all of them have still been able to understand the meaning of the word “no”.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 2:52 am
Brian, thinking of all my own misconceptions about female sexuality when I was younger, I’m not really surprised that young men have so many misconceptions about female sexuality.
you said:
“A couple of times, BritGirlSF has brought up the question of how men and women define rape, and I’ve been meaning to address that, but it’s difficult.”
And I agree, it’s difficult and important.
I grabbed a copy of Dworkin’s “Intercourse” and Susan Brownmiller’s “Against Our Will” to skim during my breaks today. (the joys of working in bookstore - and yes, I got some very odd looks from co-workers) Brownmiller talks about how men and women define rape differently. For women, rape is simply being made to have sex, in any form, when she doesn’t want to. (paraphrased)
I don’t think that men and women would disagree with the that definition of rape, I think that the confusion comes into play with words like “being made” and on what type of burden of proof there is that she doesn’t want to have sex. If she says no, but doesn’t fight, is it still rape? If she didn’t say yes, but didn’t say no either, it is rape? I would say yes, because both deny women agency and autonomy, but I have a feeeling that a lot of people would disagree.
Because, as you said:
“If the “normal”? view of sexuality is male active, female passive, then it’s all too easy to skip over that bit about consent. I think these attitudes are very common, and that often men initiate sex when it’s murky whether consent was actually given.”
When male sexuality is defined as inheirently aggressive and female sexuality is considered to be nothing more than capitulating to male desires, how can you define rape as a violation women’s autonomy? It seems to me that you can’t, and this is a big part of why our culture and legal systems fail so miserably in addressing the problem of rape.
This comment was written by Jenny K.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 3:11 am
I agree with Alsis on the castration issue…
Also, (I’m not an expert on legal systems but anyway) I think the castration penalty would make it more hard to convict rapists, if the jury thinks the rapist was just a nice guy who made a mistake and victim was a lying slut (or, maybe I should say it would create a certain pressure to see things this way, as I think most people wouldn’t be happy to castrate people unnecessarily). Such change in the law is, IMO, good for nothing without a cultural change to a culture that doesn’t minimize rape and blame the victim.
More rapists would get off the hook, even though those convicted would get a truly memorable punishment (and I fear this would become a matter of getting the best defense lawyer, racial prejudices[ a rapist of "scary" race would probably be convicted more easily] etc.)
And I’m not exactly happy about the idea of cruel physical punishments (though It would be a fitting punisment in some sense, if you ask me), because of pragmatic reasons like irreversibility etc. But that would be a variation of the death-penalty discussion, which is kinda off-topic, and I don’t have interest in it anyway right now.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 4:15 am
The threat of severe punishment as a means of preventing rape isn’t likely to be effective. First of all, as the never-dwindling prison population shows, you can’t prevent crime with the threat of punishment. Secondly, the more severe the punishment, the more likely the resistance to prosecution (which is already fairly high). And finally, if a man doesn’t think that what he is doing is rape, then the potential punishment for the act isn’t going to deter him.
I’m all for teaching women not to do stupid things but that advice also isn’t going to do much prevent rape, unless one of the stupid things we are going to avoid is breathing. What’s more I’m not willing to curtail my freedom so men can behave in any way they choose. If I wanted to live like that, I’d move somewhere they had purdah.
The solution is, as has been stated here, better sex education for both men and women from both parents and schools (and the religious institution of your choice should you be so inclined). Any being with the capacity to learn calculus ought to be able to learn to respect each other’s needs, wants, and desires. The real problem is getting society to believe that we should do so.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 5:08 am
Brian, thanks for the response. I think we’re starting to get at the heart of the matter here. Which, IMHO, is what we actually mean when we use words like rape and consent. We don’t all mean the same things, and it’s hard to have a conversation when you’re not actually sure what other people mean. Or maybe I just read too much linguistic philosophy!
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.Still, I think that everyone defining what the terms mean to them is a start. I think that talking about the frames we grew up with (ie the ones that we had before we ever even came close any kind of sexual contact with anyone other than oursleves) would also be a start. The more people’s responses I read on this thread, the more convinced I become that we all have an idea of what we think the words mean and what we think is considered “normal” within our culture, but that each of our ideas of what “normal” is is slightly different.
For the record I have a great deal of respect for Dworkin but I don’t think that anyone should be reading her books at a young age, and certainly not before they have had any real sexual experience. I first read them in college (I started with Men Possessing Women) and in my case I responded with a freak-out so monumental that I was terrified of men for months - even my nice feminist boyfriend, even the guys I’d know for years. Her books scared me, and it was a long time before I could take anything useful away from them rather than just fear. Before anyone jumps all over me please note the stuff I’ve already written about this - I’m not an apologist for rape, or for patriarchy, or for porn. But I do think that Dworkin is heavy stuff that most people just can’t really comprehend until they’re a bit older (and note that it was still too much for me at 18 and I was reading Orwell and A Clockwork Orange at 11). Brian, I’m not surprised that you reacted the way you did, but I’m glad that you went back to it later and were able to make sense of it at that point.
Something that really struck me reading Brian’s post was how different his frames are from mine. (Out of curiosity, how old are you, and where did you grow up?) I don’t recall ever having the idea that women were “supposed” to be passive or that men were in any way “entitled” to sex (which was probably why Dworkin was such a shock to the system). I do recall being taught that it was the man’s “job” to initiate in terms of making the intitial introduction, but the idea that men were supposed to make the first move each and every time in terms of initiating sex definately wasn’t part of my frame. I did get the message that women didn’t necessarily have orgasms and that for some women this was “normal”, but I also got the message that women were supposed to enjoy sex too or why bother doing it? I also always assumed that it was Ok for women to initiate, and it never occured to me that some men might not like it if you did (which interestingly enough I never experienced in the UK, but I’ve heard plenty of women complain about it in the States). But the whole idea that sex is something done by a man to a woman was never part of my frame at all, even as a kid. I think I know why but I’m going to stop babbling at this point as I don’t think anyone’s really interested in my childhood.
I also always assumed the Brownmiller idea of what rape means, ie any sexual act that a woman doesn’t want. The idea that a man could be raped by a woman never occured to me, and I still have trouble imagining how that would work (although sexual assault of the kind Thomas described is pretty easy to imagine and I always assumed that that could potentially be done by anyone to anyone). I still think that idea of rape still sounds right. However, the legal definition of rape is often very different, though, and frankly I think it needs to be brought more into line with the Brownmiller version.
I would be interested to find out what the average male definition of rape is. It’s kind of hard to do this in hypothetical terms though, unless it’s a definiton as simple as the Brownmiller one. If anyone wants to take a crack at it (Brian? Tuomas or Thomas?) please do.
I still think that framing the issue in the terms “sex may proceed as long as the woman consents” is inherently problematic. Firstly, because this frame implies active doer/passive person who is done to. Secondly because it also assumes lack of any real desire for sex on the part of the woman. It just kind of seems like it makes the woman’s body into a toll booth - her only role is to say yes you may pass or no you may not. The idea that she’s a participant is missing. It just doesn’t resemble my real-life experience of sex at all. Where’s the idea of pleasure, or of sharing, hell, even of interaction? Where’s the idea that sometimes the woman can be the dominant party, or that sometimes there actually isn’t really a dominant party? I think that we need to work on reframing this in a big way.
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June 17th, 2005 at 5:20 am
There’s so much discussion here about rape being a result of male sexual desire, which I find a bit hollow, to be honest. I think this is used as an excuse, as discussed, but I sincerely doubt it’s at the heart of the issue.
If you’re fucking someone who’s upset about it - and you get gratification from the experience - that’s a power issue. Like, a way to “Fuck you/Shut up/How could you do that to me?/Take that!” someone.
I do agree that the reason a lot of men get away with their behaviour (to themselves, and to their friends, not in the legal sense) is by pulling the gender get-out-of-jail-free card.
I think the power issue also helps to explain female-female rape, of which I’ve been a victim (but which NEVER FUCKING gets discussed, because many feminists want to sweep it under the rug and pretend it doesn’t exist because it doesn’t fit their 101 of why rape exists).
This comment was written by Anna.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 5:21 am
IMHO, the two questions: “Can you ever imgine yourself torturing someone?” and “Can you ever imagine yourself raping someone?” are very similar.
I worry most about the people that don’t see these questions as more or less equivalent (along with the ones that answer with an enthusiastic “yes!” of course…).
This comment was written by Barbara Preuninger.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 5:26 am
ginmar wrote:
1) I don’t have children, so I’m taking the liberty of changing my son, into my brother. Very unlikely, I might say, but I would wait for the trial and evidence. Maybe I could hear her story as well?
2)Im changing this to a a friend (a woman), all support for her and I would encourage her to press charges. And support her when the inevitable: “she’s a slut” comes (and if I were to hear such stuff from, say, my other friends, they wouldn’t be friends anymore.)
3)Wait for evidence… Dismissing sexist defenses (like if he told me that okay, she said no but you know women really mean yes or shit like that, be suspicious of my best buddy…)
4)Wait for evidence… Not dismissing the case because her sexual promiscuity even if the police/jury does. Actually, that would probably make the rape more likely (easier to get away with, and attitude of “she’s having sex with everyone, so it’s not fair I’m not getting any” -> rape) be suspicious of my best buddy…
5) Now, this would mean I would have been doing stuff I find repulsive/wrong (if we used force/coercion), ditto for my uncle and brother (I would strongly suspect that for my brother and uncle)… That would mean that all of us were different persons than we are, so hypothetical at best… If I were a scumbag like that I’d probably loudly proclaim my innocence, but this is a far-out scenario, even more so than the extreme circumstances discussed earlier (wars etc.).
There… I can discuss situations like this just fine, however, since none of them have happened they too seem hypothetical. This is of course, how I would do things in ideal situations and I’m not sure just how far I would go if it’s against my interests. I would hope that I would do the right thing no matter what (for self-respect among other things).Anyone else care to give it a try, the questions were good…
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 5:30 am
Of course my best buddy isn’t like that, I don’t hang out only with feminists but neither do I hang out with blatant sexists.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 5:35 am
I don’t want to put words in Gisele’s mouth, but I think I understand, in part, what she is saying.
She’s not saying that all men are inevitably rapists, she’s saying that a woman cannot afford to assume that the men with whom she interacts are not rapists. That’s a reasonable statement, at least in my opinion. If you assume that the men you know are all ‘nice guys’ it leaves you very vulnerable to the danger that they are not.
And I don’t think rape is a question of evil at all. I think it’s a question of power. Rapists aren’t evil, with all the dismissive end-of-story connotation that entails. They’re men who, for whatever reason, do not believe that a woman has the right to control. It doesn’t have to be some stalker in an alley- all a rapist has to be is a man who chooses to keep going when his partner doesn’t want to continue. The consequences of that action are terrible and life-altering for the victim, but that doesn’t make that man a mustache-twirling Snidley Whiplash. Somehow that makes it more horrifiying to me.
I really dislike the use of the word evil in most instances, simply because it is such a distancing, Other-signifying kind of word. Evil makes it simple. It’s not simple. A person can be a good friend, a good coworker, a good parent… and a rapist. And not see anything strange about that, unless it’s a guilty, back of the mind rationalisation about how ’she really wanted it’ or ’she was just a slut, anyway’ or ’she was too drunk to know what she was saying’. And calling it evil helps that man put his act even further into the background, after all, he’s not evil! Look, he gives to charity! He cares for his family! Evil makes a Manichean distinction that is unecessary and potentially harmful because every human being likes to think of themself as ‘good’.
Don’t mean to lecture or sound preachy, it’s just one of my pet peeves.
This comment was written by werefish.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 5:35 am
Oh and I hope I didn’t sound whiny on the I can discuss situations like this just fine, that would not be my intention.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 6:57 am
BritGirl:
I cannot say I’m qualified to answer the question: What is the average male definition of rape is, but I might have some insights (because many misogynists have the idea that you can’t really talk to a woman, that all talk with a woman is useless if it doesn’t lead to sex, and I am a man so they might confide things to me, especially in the past when I was considerably more misogynistic than now, few are open with very misogynist attitudes in Finland).
I’d say plenty of men define rape by the amount apparent suffering. If there is no clear woman screaming to the man to stop/fighting back, it seldom is seen as rape. Coercion/bribes/threats of non-physical variety (like I won’t pay for the taxi unless I get something in return, threatening to drop a woman out of taxi if she has second thoughts when paying), having sex with a drunken or even passed out woman are not thought as rape. They are considered slightly, or very distasteful, but sometimes “funny” in a rude way. Ultimatums are seen as rude (you came to my apartment, now you’d better have sex with me) but not rape. Please note that these are all real-life situations that I’ve encountered in the past, not hypotheticals, as are the responses/attitudes to those cases, and lately I’ve been feeling quite alienated from discussions of the “sexual exploits” of some of my second-hand acquintances, especially when friends discussing them feel it clear that they are completely different from rape.
Happily, many finnish women are quite strong-willed and willing to stand up in such situations, but plenty aren’t, and are probably raped in such situations (and drunk/passed situations…). There was quite a conroversy few years back with a reframing of rape law to include “forcing to an intercourse” (? different from rape?) as a distinct crime from rape (the excuse was that many rape cases were dismissed because of lack of violence), and also including aggravated rape in cases of much violence and/or threatening with a weapon. Critics claimed that this was giving in to attitudes that minimize rape (and I agree with them…).
Again, I don’t know about different cultures and I’m not qualified to speak for my entire gender, or my whole country.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 7:05 am
Now you’re just being paranoid.
I hope there’s a smiley missing from there or something because otherwise….
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 7:06 am
BritGirlSF- But the whole idea that sex is something done by a man to a woman was never part of my frame at all, even as a kid. (…) It just kind of seems like it makes the woman’s body into a toll booth - her only role is to say yes you may pass or no you may not. The idea that she’s a participant is missing. It just doesn’t resemble my real-life experience of sex at all.
Same here. But when I hear the word ‘consent’ in this context, I do read it in that sense, of actual active participation, so to speak. It’s a cold, dry (frigid?) term because it comes from a legal context but I don’t it necessarily refers to something like that when used to talk about sex.
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 7:51 am
To add to Tuomas’s point, I think a lot of men dwell on the physical harm done, and to a lesser extent the use of physical force, because that’s more easily understood, and because we still privilege physical harm over psychological.
This comment was written by Jeff.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 8:02 am
I don’t think acknowledging what a heinous act rape is really offers rapists an out. These people have already self-justified their behavior and condemning it in appropriate terms isn’t going to make that easier. But it might make it more difficult for another man to start down that path. It might make another man recognize their actions.
I think some rapists can be rehabilitated, but I see no good coming from minimizing their actions like some kind of natural consequence of maleness. By acting like is just like any other crime, we contribute to that attitude. Rape is different. Evil, if you will. I don’t think those who commit it require any assistance in ignoring the consequences of their actions. They are clearly perfectly adept at this to begin with. We coddle them if we refuse to condemn them in the strongest language simply because we feel it might put them off.
As to how we would define consent (what means yes), I must admit I am at a loss. Consent is so flipping obvious, that I don’t get why some men don’t understand it. Its often easier for me to simply assume all rapists knew what they were doing, but I can recognize that some did rationalize it as okay and we need to find out how that process took place. Its an important question, but I’m not sure I have an answer. How do some men manage to not understand consent. Obviously, anything except no is far too broad. I’m hampered by my fundamental lack of understanding of how a man can justify his behavior in that scenario that I don’t know where to begin in defining the process.
This comment was written by BStu.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 8:23 am
Experts in sexual assault say that the alcohol factor in so many acquaintance rapes has more to do with making the victim helpless, not lowering the inhibitions of the rapist. I sincerely believe that people don’t do things while drunk that they didn’t want to do anyway, or make people do things they are morally opposed to.
Like I told Steve, I’ve had male friends try to “steal a kiss” after drinks more times than I care to admit. But as soon as I resisted, they immediately stopped, every single time. And I don’t mean resist like I had to fight. Just the resistance of pulling away was enough to make most of them really, really ashamed. Because consent isn’t as hard to figure out as the sexists will have you believe.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 8:37 am
>>As to how we would define consent (what means yes), I must admit I am at a loss. Consent is so flipping obvious, that I don’t get why some men don’t understand it. Its often easier for me to simply assume all rapists knew what they were doing, but I can recognize that some did rationalize it as okay and we need to find out how that process took place. Its an important question, but I’m not sure I have an answer. How do some men manage to not understand consent. Obviously, anything except no is far too broad. I’m hampered by my fundamental lack of understanding of how a man can justify his behavior in that scenario that I don’t know where to begin in defining the process.>>
Yeah, it requires the premise that sex is something that women put up with, not something they engage in.
Maybe this is part of the, “Would you…?” disconnect. (I’m trying to come up with a way of phrasing this that doesn’t sound cold-blooded or just plain self-ignorant.) For me, sex without mutuality is not…sexy. Even setting aside the morality of violating someone, stripping them of dignity and bodily integrity, and giving them emotional scars they will bear for the rest of their lives, none of that is attractive. It’s repulsive. And not to other or narrow rape, either–the put-up-with kind, the “nonviolent” kind, the Care and Feeding of Husbands kind is also not something I can sexualize. Maybe that’s because I’ve been on the receiving end of that kind of attention and pressure. Maybe it’s because I’ve been socialized to base my sexual gratification on the gratification of my partner.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 9:05 am
But as soon as I resisted, they immediately stopped, every single time.
Yet they thought it was OK, in the first place, to try something they knew you wouldn’t accept sober.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 9:14 am
Jstevenson #243, Thank you for sharing that personal data.
I think it helps to illustrate a larger point, and that is that as people we do some very crazy things that are often motivated out of difficult circumstances in our lives. I administrate a large Residential Rehab for men. One recurring theme is that many of our guys have been sexually and emotionally abused in childhood. The shame and debasing nature of these acts cause them to suffer from PTSD, Arrested Development, personality disorders like NPD and BPD and a host of other issues not limited to using drugs, cutting, overeating etc. One thing that is apparent, many women have suffered the same sort of abuse. One of the byproducts of the abuse is to seek out relationships where this abuse is all but assured to reoccur. We deliberately teach and model that respect for ones self and respect for others is essential to recovery and making a way through the world in serenity. There is however great difficulty in doing this because the world sends so many terribly slanted messages to our folks. The myths that women love domination, that men are to be the agressor in things of this nature, the distorted Biblical messages of penance and subservience make all of this very difficult. The popular medias reinforce this at every opportunity. There is an emphasizing of the competitiveness between men and women and less focus on the compatative aspect.
I believe we suffer from a societal PTSD, this is evidenced by the Gov. use of force when it is unwarranted to meet our needs; the justification being hung on moral rectitude. Our culture reinforces the entitlement mentality to such an extent that one that goes out and gets what they want or need by god or by gun is held up as a hero. The defining of human beings as “consumers”? does very much to minimalise our humanity. It is easy to treat people poorly when we teach they are less then human.
I am deeply saddened when my faith is minimalised as causing less compassion or empathy in my fellows because there is abuse of the Gospel that I know, that does not in the least way call for anyone’s freedom to be abridged but fulfilled. The call of my faith is to share in the suffering with others and share the first love I know, it is for me liberational. The messages preached from movies and television and sadly from feminists at times as well are ones of exploitation and not compassion.(Some men read the covers of women’s magazines that say, 25 ways to better sex and believe that is all women want… How about, 25 ways to serve each other and have a better relationship?) The omni presence of sex and violence in our society can be argued is causative or reflective, however it is symptomatic that many are deeply troubled in this area. The fact that men rape women and the tacit approval by marginalizing women who are raped is not difficult to understand, in a world where men and women receive the same broken messages. (Carl’s Jr. anyone?) Many of the messages that men get about women are from women. It is said, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. It is going to take a lot to change the messages that are being perpetrated to all of our suffering.
This is a good dialog; it has shown where I have need of checking some attitudes. It also shows how little progress we have made with the very best the world has to offer in our freedoms. Perhpas it is not about doing what we want as oposed to doing no harm.
This comment was written by Rock.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 9:36 am
Beats me, myth. I have no clue.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 9:54 am
Mythago and Amanda,
I think that the ’stolen kiss’ and similar activities are just normal ‘when I’m drunk I’m not as worried about being embarrassed’. I’m not going to condemn anyone for that when I will have to carry the memory to my grave of getting up on a table at a bierstube and dancing the hora to accordion music (polka, of course). But what we are talking about is a lessening of the awareness of embarrassment and I don’t see any way that can translate into a willingness to harm another person.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 10:17 am
My son was accused of rape.
My daughter was raped.
My best buddy who, okay, tells sexist jokes, was accused of rape.
My best buddy was accused of rape by this total slut!
My brother, my uncle, myself…we were all accused of rape, and we didn’t use guns or anything, but, hey, she didn’t say no, really, c’mon, she was into it for a while there…
1. If he did it, he’ll have to live with the consequences of that, including prison. And when he gets out, he doesn’t have a father. I’ve cut people out of my life for less, and if that’s the kind of monster I raise, knowing him will only rub my nose in the shame of my failure. I’d rather deal with a meth addict as a son than a rapist. The latter can, in my view, fully redeem themselves.
This comment was written by Thomas.2. I’ll do whatever she needs. My desire for prosecution or revenge cannot be more important than her healing process.
3. My best buddy does not tell sexist jokes. He respects women. He’s engaged to a feminist. My other friend who does tell sexist jokes once had to flee prosecution after beating the hell out of two men in a foreign nation for groping a black-out drunk woman in a hot tub. He used force only after hotel security refused to intervene. He’s willing to endanger himself to protect a woman’s right to decide who has access to her body. I’m not worried about him.
4. I don’t doubt that he could prove that he was never alone with her, never had sex with her, and that the accusation was motivated by money (he’s a trust fund baby). If, on the other hand, for whatever reason I’m wrong about his fundamental character after twenty years, and I think he did it, I’ll never speak to him again, and I’ll change my will to remove him as executor.
5. Any of my piece of shit convicted felon relatives that get themselves in trouble are on their own. I don’t speak to most of them anyway.
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June 17th, 2005 at 10:49 am
I think that the ’stolen kiss’ and similar activities are just normal ‘when I’m drunk I’m not as worried about being embarrassed’
We’re not talking about merely embarassing behavior. If Amanda’s male friends had a couple of beers and asked her on a date, that might be alcohol-fueled “Who cares if she laughs at me?”
But doing something physical to another person that you wouldn’t do sober is completely different. I don’t get how you have such a problem grokking this. As we’ve been discussing, there are plenty of people who hide behind alcohol to do what they really want to do anyway, and there are plenty of men (and, of course, women) who think alcohol is a substitute for the other person’s consent.
So I don’t have issues with thinking the reason Amanda’s guy friends tried to “steal a kiss” is not just that they were drunk, but that they figured Amanda wouldn’t object as much as she would 100% sober. It’s the same mentality.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 10:51 am
I’m 34, and grew up in the California Central Valley, which is adjacent to the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s much more conservative, and at least at the time was sparsely populated — I had little social contact with peers outside the context of formal school functions until I left for college. I didn’t start dating until I was 20, and my first sexual experience I was 21. The second relationship I was describing was about ten years ago, when I was 24.
I never had the idea that men were “entitled” to sex, and I was surprised to learn later that some of my friends who were women had conflicts in relationships because of that attitude.
On the idea that women are supposed to be passive in sex: in high school, I’d hear stories from my friends who were women about sex, but they’d leave the details blurry. It was always implied that their male partners initiated sex. My first partner initiated sex occasionally, and would take an active role, but kept expressing shame at her desire to be assertive and resentment that I wasn’t dominant enough. A few times, she insisted I must be gay, because I wasn’t sufficiently dominant or aggressive in sex. My second partner just didn’t seem to have any idea that anything but passivity was an option for her. I think her background was significantly more conservative than mine, and I think part of the problem was the “Asian fetish” — her previous male partners apparently expected her to be completely passive.
My sense is that, at the time, there was something of a taboo to admit that women could be as sexually assertive, and I would occasionally hear women complaining that they’d had to initiate sex, that this was some sort of denial of their desirability.
I have the sense that things have shifted a great deal since then, and I hear my younger female friends describing themselves as sexually assertive as a point of pride. This is not universal, however: one of the recurring phrases I’ve seen in Internet personal ads is that the woman is looking for someone “pro-feminist but sexually dominant,” and a few weeks ago, I saw a string of rants on Craigslist from women complaining that men in the Bay Area would expect sex to be slow and gentle and mutual, and that men in the Bay Area weren’t really men.
One thing that strikes me as I write this is that most of what I’ve ever heard about the real sexual practices and desires of other men, I’ve heard from women, not from men directly.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 10:53 am
Thank you, werefish, for being the one person who understood my point. FWIW, I did not bring up the point about vegans and flesh, but was responding to a direct question that had been posed - nor was I personally responsible for hypothetical extreme rape scenarios.
The notion that rape is “evil”, I will say again, is not helping. Nobody wants to believe themselves capable or willing to do evil, and the notion is so repellant that most men - and women - will say that they would not, could not rape because it is so utterly foreign to their understanding of themselves. How can you acknowledge your capacity for violence against another human being as a potential risk (no matter how small) if understanding that potential means you have to admit yourself “evil,” that term filled with so much brimstone and other socio-cultural baggage?
It is the notion that rape is evil that encourages many women to keep silent about rape, because the men (and women) we know and love could not do such a thing to us. They are not evil, they are our partners, friends and colleages. In many cases of date rape (like mine), feelings do not change overnight, simply because of a horrible encounter. You cannot press charges on someone you care(d) about when you know that that will villify them as evil, especially if you are a woman who has been conditioned to nurture and protect others. I am not a rape apologist. I am merely trying to point out that a villification of rape as “evil” serves to hinder many of the victims it ostensibly trys to help.
I’m glad that some people have the self-awareness to know in know uncertain terms that they could not rape - but this does women (and children, and other men with less power) no damn good. It serves no purpose except to inflate the speaker’s self-importance as a feminist or compasassionate human being or a Christian or Theist or whatever they want to call themselves - by itself it has no practicality. How can somebody who says “I could never rape” begin a dialogue with a man who has, as somebody said, a “guilty feeling in the back of their mind about that one time with their girlfriend when she was too drunk…”, or one who genuinely believes that women are of a lower order? You can start a grassroots campaign to erradicate rape by raising sons and daughters to challenge gender stereotypes, but that doesn’t do anything about those who can and do abuse their ability to oppress and harm right now.
Maybe I’m talking about something different than what other people are talking about - I’m wondering how you change men who have raped (even though they don’t think they have raped, such as my rapist) into ones who can consciously understand how to stop themselves from doing it again. Or how do you engage with men who may rape in the future, but just don’t know it yet because they think they are immune to taking the advantage they pretend not to have? Or is such a thing not even possible? Is the only answer to raise new generations of feminist men and watch rape die by attrition?
This comment was written by Gisele.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 11:25 am
>>How can somebody who says “I could never rape”? begin a dialogue with a man who has, as somebody said, a “guilty feeling in the back of their mind about that one time with their girlfriend when she was too drunk…”?, or one who genuinely believes that women are of a lower order?>>
How does someone who can’t use “loaded” or emotionally-charged words get into a dialogue with _anyone_ about something emotionally charged? How do we confront those evil attitudes in the here and now, and describe the deep harm they do to others, and dismantle the idea that there’s any excuse for them whatsoever, without calling them evil, wrong, bad, terrible, horrible, damaging, and way the fuck out of bounds? I gotta say, I’m really freaked out by this idea of gentle diplomacy towards _men who rape_. Outrage is totally useful in communicating the idea that something is outrageous.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 11:25 am
Probably, myth, though I would point out that the attempted stolen kiss usually goes like this–he leans in, hesistates to see your reaction, you pull away, he apologizes. No actual kisses in this way since I was like 18. So I still classify it in that hazy area of someone’s inhibitions down and trying to find out if it’s going to work without actually violating my space.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 11:32 am
Gisele, I think the answer it to pressure men not to rape. Progressive and feminist men need to stay on-message — that consent is the presence of “yes”, not the absence of “no,” that there is nothing acceptable about sex with a woman who is not into it, that too drunk to make good decisions is too drunk to consent, and that their friends will not forgive or excuse unacceptable conduct. Just getting that said, a lot, can influence other men a lot.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 11:42 am
There are differences in how people communicate. Not everyone is verbal. Some people are more visual or more kinesthetic. The non-verbal are unlikely to preface sexual initiation with conversation, and are unlikely to respond positively to someone else initiating with conversation.
The verbally strong seem to have a powerful cultural value that tells them that only verbal communication counts; if you can’t say it, then you can’t do it. Much of the species just doesn’t work that way, however, and they have to find other means of discerning intention and interest.
It behooves any initiator to know how their intended prefers to communicate such information. And of course there’s a burden of communication on all parties involved.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 12:10 pm
I’m glad that some people have the self-awareness to know in know uncertain terms that they could not rape - but this does women (and children, and other men with less power) no damn good. It serves no purpose except to inflate the speaker’s self-importance as a feminist or compasassionate human being or a Christian or Theist or whatever they want to call themselves - by itself it has no practicality.
I can understand why you think that, but it seeems to me you are projecting a sense of egocentrism and holier-than-thou attitudes into what might, at least for some, have been a genuine statement of genuine repulsion, of wishes vs. non-wishes, and maybe some of those who said so even know what abuse and rape is.
I don’t understand why one single answer should do for all. Most of all, I don’t understand why the “well I cannot know for sure” answer has to be the one and only sincere, brave, genuine reply, and the others are just deluding themselves.
I don’t know. Maybe we are indeed speaking of different things.
(Then again, maybe I really should not even try to wonder about that question myself because we’re talking men raping women and since I’m a woman I probably can’t think of the question in the same way a man would, I guess? But my problem with that is that it means I’d need to take for granted this idea that men are from mars, women from venus, blah blah. I can’t see how that doesn’t get close to saying, male brains are hardwired for rape. Because if we see the difference is cultural, then we have to take into account that culture doesn’t work in automatic fashion like biology does. So there are going to be variations within the same gender, no? Is that even a possibility?)
This comment was written by noodles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 12:15 pm
I really don’t think that’s a proper comparison, mythago. Given that the men themselves are drunk, it may simply be that their inhibition is lowered and they think it might be a good idea to try to kiss her. Unless they forced themselves upon her, I don’t think there is any relation to that behavior and to rape. The resistance to rape is more than inhibition. It must be something a man views as fundamentally wrong. Its an act of sadistic and arrogant violence. That’s simply different from leaning in to kiss someone. And this is coming from a man who won’t even kiss a woman without a confirmation that she wants to.
Concerning who gets to start a conversation with potential rapists, I’m not sure I understand how “you’re a potential rapist and always will be” is a better way to start the dialogue. That approach will cause a lot of men to shut down and fall onto a knee-jerk “well, I never” instead of one born out of introspection. I do not say I would never rape a woman out of some sense of pride. There is nothing to be proud of in simply not committing horrific acts. Nor do I understand how humanizing rape is going to work to anyone’s advantage. Normalizing rape just provides rapists with a comfortable justification. Far more comfortable than “well, I’m good in other ways so I guess this doesn’t count”. Its telling them directly that their behavior is the norm. To treat rape like a natural and unavoidable consequence of humanity is a breath way from excuse it. It may not be a step you approve of, but it’d be far liklier for a rapist to make it if the subject were handled in that manner.
We need to challenge men to think about these issues and to reflect on them. Someone who has thought about and reflected on them is hardly unqualified for the job. Someone who finds rape to be abhorant doesn’t suddenly become incapable of campaigning against it. This is a daunting task and there are no easy answers.
You say you cannot trust me when I say I will never rape someone. Well, if that’s what you need to do, then so be it. But to think that insisting men can never trust in themselves as some kind of answer to rape? I don’t get it. So, then everyone thinks everyone is a rapist in waiting, including themselves. How does that get to be productive? You may not be able to trust a man who has engaged in sobering reflection on these issues, and I’m not going to blame you for that. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value and that it can’t encourage people to change. Our conversation about rape can’t just be with the people who are going to rape any day now. It has to be with the people whose attitudes can be shaped and changed. Who can listen and empathize on this issue. We need to increase awareness of rape and why its wrong. We can’t confine ourselves to not explaining why its wrong. We can’t lay blame upon all men and think any man will listen. We need to find ways to communicate the impact of rape to these men. Yes, those who have raped, too. We have to try, but I’m afraid there may not be easy answers. I know my understanding came from seeing the aftermath of rape in people I care about. It shock me from, “well, I’d never” into a full understanding of why I would never. Giving them a why. That’s what we need to do. We don’t get there without acknowledging rape for what it is. It is an evil, but we can’t afford to just write these people off. And in the meantime, we use much the same means to engage younger generations to confront the issue for what it is. A horrible crime of violence and humiliation. We can’t coddle them. We can’t say they are like everyone else. The truth is, they aren’t. That’s their problem.
The issue is, though, that there is a lot of expectation from women for a man to be sexually aggressive so I’m not going to say that the answer is necessarily the sexual passivity that Brian and myself may exhibit. I’ve only had one partner who really found me to be timid, but she was also willing to be fairly aggressive herself. But still, there is surely a balance. Indeed, I think its a balance most men do find but often it comes back to how obvious consent seems to most people. What’s the disconnect between us and the far too sizable minority? Surely, popular culture deserves some of the blame for promoting the notion of the aggressive male and the “mysterious” female. But also I’ve witnessed a boys culture where these attitudes ferment. Is rape always a product of hatred of women? What of these men who genuinely believe they haven’t raped, yet who have? What fuels their self-deception? Telling everyone else that they are no different from rapists doesn’t seem likely to yield solutions, but I will grant you that I struggle with solutions as well, simply out of a fundamental lack of understanding for these rationales and thought-processes.
This comment was written by BStu.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 12:33 pm
I think there’s not just a quantitative, but a qualitative difference between men insisting on sexual dominance and men raping women. But, there is a sense in which they are related, in terms of matter of degree, or quantity — and I think that’s part of why many men are inclined to condone all but the most brutal forms of rape.
Accepting male dominance and female passivity as norms makes it difficult to talk seriously about rape, and we need to overcome that problem.
I don’t think I said this clearly enough: I don’t really know, from my direct experience, how other men behave sexually. I haven’t had sex with them. My experience only revealed that some women expect men to be dominant and that they should be passive — and that this made them miserable. I don’t blame women for this — it doesn’t make sense that women, on their own, would choose that sex take a form they don’t enjoy. There’s some external pressure being placed on them to accept that sex take that form, and I think it’s transmitted by men.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 2:09 pm
I think the real question here is, how do we get these men to look at women and see someone who’s a human being, deserving of respect, and not to be treated like an inanimate object or an animal.
The best answer I have is to keep repeating these facts loudly, and with conviction, and to get other people in power, and in the public eye, to repeath these statements loudly and with conviction, and to condemn the ideas that are to the contrary.
If someone came to me with guilt or worry over consent issues, I’d give them the best advice I could: be cautious, ask multiple times, try and be sensitive to your potential partner’s desires, and allow yourself to be patient.
I can’t see how admiting that I don’t have those feelings is proclaiming anything about myself personaly, because I’m not doing it reflexivley, I’m doing it in response to a discussion about the topic.
This sounds an awful lot like name-calling of people who politley disagreed with you.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 3:04 pm
“Why, why, why are you men so capable of extracting women’s lived realities into hypotheticals? ”
Seems to be a common theme in discussions on women’s issues.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 4:36 pm
““Why, why, why are you men so capable of extracting women’s lived realities into hypotheticals? “?”
It’s very easy for them. Kinda like an armchair psychologist or sociologist who makes all kinds of claims and postulations, without getting up off his smug ass and doing some real research with the subject group (ie: women) he’s making all kinds of claims about. Besides, I’m sure doing that reinforces their sense of, “by virtue of my dick, I know I have a far better grasp of the situation than the women it directly effects, because I’m more rational and civil due to my sex, unlike theirs’.” Crude, but whenever talking about women’s issues with certain guys with certain views about women and gender, I pick up on that attitude from them.
This comment was written by Pseudo-Adrienne.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 4:47 pm
Brian
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.I’m in the Bay Area too, so I know what you mean about the Central Velley. I have a friend from Modesto who complains bitterly every time she has to go home and refuses to stay from more than a few days (she’s usually chased of by family asking why she doesn’t have a husband and kids yet).
I’m not sure about the age/time difference though. I’m not much younger than you (31) and I think that the women I grew up with and went to high school with were actually much more assertive than the younger women I know now. I also wonder how much of the assertivenes I do see is more about bravado than anything real. I think that some women are doing the same kind of faux-bravado thing that men have been doing for years.
You raise a good point - why don’t men talk to each other about sex? I mean in an honest way not just as a competative, prove you’re a stud way.
I’m also a bit puzzled about what’s going on with the people on craigslist. It seems as if both men and women in the Bay Area are miserable with the current dating culture, but nobody seems to know what to do about it.
Slightly off topic, but I think the Asian Fetish thing is really creepy. I have enough Asian girlfriends to have seen it in action, and one of my best friends in London was Japanese and she used to get the same thing there too so it’s not just an American phenomenon. Or actually when I think about it maybe it’s not entirely off topic at all - it seems to be a sort of extreme manifestation of gender stereotypes mixed up with some equally messed up racial stereotypes.
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June 17th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
Tuomas Writes: (#259) “Please note that these are all real-life situations that I’ve encountered in the past, not hypotheticals, as are the responses/attitudes to those cases, and lately I’ve been feeling quite alienated from discussions of the “sexual exploits”? of some of my second-hand acquintances, especially when friends discussing them feel it clear that they are completely different from rape.”
—
I rather suspect that it’s not that unusual for men bragging about their “sexual exploits”? to be crossing over the line into rape.
I expect the guy who raped me was all about bragging to his brother, his friends about all the women he “did” or whatever he called it. I clearly said no, he clearly understood that I said no and he proceeded anyway. Later I heard from someone else how many he bragged about.
I think as far date rape goes - that this notion that some men have that the more women they fuck the more of a man they are or something CAN be influenced by acquintances. That if guys didn’t encourage each other in that regard - that the loose canons with antisocial tendencies would not be reinforced in their delusions of status.
I suspect that these “bragging rights” would be a difficult notion for many men to give up.
This comment was written by cloudy day.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 5:08 pm
I am leaning towards Ampersand, Robert, Tuomas, and Amanda in this discussion.
Another way to describe the “heart of darkness” concept would be the more primitive regions of the brain, such as the limbic system. A basic concept in neuroscience is that the brain is a bunch of interconnected modules which monitor each other. For instance, your cerebral cortex (specifical the prefrontal lobes) regulates your limbic system. That is why one often has impulses that must be suppressed, and why people with damage to the prefrontal lobes have problems with impulse control.
I agree on all counts.
I think what Ampersand has been getting at is a well-documented phenomenon in social psychology: that human behavior is massively influenced by the situation and social context. In the right (or the wrong?) social contexts, people can behave in ways that are shocking, and even at odds with values they held before they entered that context. Hence, psychologists like Dr. Phillip Zimbardo at Stanford claim that evil is not always dispositional, but situational. Examples: Abu Ghraib, the Stanley Milgram’s shock experiments that Amp alluded to, Nazi Germany, Rwanda, and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo studied one of the commanding officers who came back from Abu Ghraib, and the guy was completely normal. In The Trial of Eichmann: A report on the banality of evil, Hannah Arendt mentions that the psychologists who interviewed Eichmann found him to be more sane than they felt after interviewing him. Hence, I agree that I could never never rape in normal situations, but in extraordinary situations? I cannot even guess.
These are good questions, and nobody has properly addressed them so far. I think the answer is that finding rape repugnant depends on having empathy and sympathy for the pain of others (note wikipedia’s interesting distinction between empathy and sympathy). Without these, then you would be like a sociopath and have no emotional deterrent to hurting someone. In the above examples of negative social contexts, clearly sympathy (and probably empathy also) can be suspended. So, I don’t think it’s as simple as saying that the desires were there all along, and they were just repressed. For people normally experiencing empathy and sympathy, the desire for rape would simply not emerge, because those feelings would make hurting someone unappealing and unarousing. Once hurting someone is no longer so repugnant, then desires for rape might emerge, but I don’t think that means there were there all along.
Well said.
Wait a sec, women definitely have the equipment to rape (although this equipment is not as effective as male equipment). For example, a woman can envelop a man when he is passed out or sleeping but happens to be erect (and an erection does NOT necessarily mean consent, because it is simply a physiological response controlled by primitive areas of the brain). And women can use objects to rape.
This comment was written by Aegis.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 5:19 pm
Oh, God, and here’s Aegis to save the day with talk of brain centers. What next?
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 5:37 pm
“Oh, God, and here’s Aegis to save the day with talk of brain centers. What next?”
Do note, Aegis will not be allowed to usurp this thread and spam it with his usual smug and completely unfounded, false bullshit postulations about women, gender, and other subjects, as he usually does on other threads dealing with women, gender, sociology, etc. We’ve heard all of his ridiculous boasts of having vast wisdom in particular areas of sociology and psychology, and women and gender before anyway–all steming from the sadly deluded fanatasies of a egotistical, ignorant, sexually frustrated adolescent male of course. It’s embarrassing that I share the same age group with him.
Oh, but now he’s delving into neuropsychiatry and women raping men with foreign objects (which is possible and does happen–but rarely)! What_a_surprise. This should make for some good laughs. I can’t wait to see his other comments on this subject, that he’s brought to the discussion. ::rolls eyes::
This comment was written by Pseudo-Adrienne.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 5:44 pm
BritGirl,
I do have to wonder how common that idea of female passivity really is now, but my point was that it’s out there, still in circulation, still believed by at least some members of both genders.
There was a heated debate about the “Asian fetish” on http://www.pandagon.net a few weeks ago, but I can’t find the link. But yes, I think that’s a related issue — a racist and sexist stereotype at once. And I just got around to reading the thread on Gilliard’s blog — part of what was sickening was it quickly turned into a discussion of whether American or Scandinavian women tourists were “easier.”
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 6:38 pm
Actually, that’s a discussion I’d like to have about whether the rise of the wingnuts is actually succeeding in pushing young women (and men) back into more old-fashioned gender roles.
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.I gave up on the thread at Gilliard’s blog a while ago, but the fact that they’re discussing Scandanavian women as “easy” is pretty funny. I knew a lot of Finns in London and did tend to find them to have less sexual hang-ups than most other people (ie to be less prone to the religiously motivated “sex is evil” idea), but anyone who decided that those girls were “easy” and tried to make an unwanted move on them would have gotten a nasty shock. I once saw a Finnish girl I knew hit a guy over the head with a bottle of vodka after he kept following her down the street trying to talk to her and then invaded her space (he eventually called her a “stuck up bitch” and grabbed her arm, which was the point at which she hit him). Isn’t it interested how people seem to view all other races/groups as inherantly more slutty?
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June 17th, 2005 at 6:48 pm
Isn’t it interested how people seem to view all other races/groups as inherantly more slutty?
Many cultures implicitly or explicitly encourage exogamy, so the viewpoint is probably based on experience. IE, young Ruritanian comes to Urbopolis and does better with the people of the interesting sex (and vice versa) than back at home; heshe returns to Ruritania and reports that the Urbopolans are “easy”. And when other Ruritarians visit, they find the reports to be accurate - at least until the Urbopolans get used to those sexy Ruritanians in their tight overalls.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 8:03 pm
My contribution to the “Would I rape?” discussion.
If, at this moment, I had a chance to rape someone, and that rape would satisfy a desire of mine (i.e. I am not thinking about raping for rape’s sake, but rather let’s say I really wanted to have sex with someone but she didn’t want to have sex with me), and I knew I could get away with it, I know for a certainty (at least as certain as a person can be) that I would not do it.
But if I lived for a prolonged period in a situation where I could do things without facing any consequences; if I had for a prolonged period absolute power over another person or people; I don’t know if that would change me.
I don’t think anyone on this board is saying that the threat of punishment is the only thing keeping them from raping at this minute; but they are saying that the threat of punishment may be necessary over the long term in order to keep them from going down a path where they could become the type of person who would rape.
I think part of the reason for the disagreement on this is that one side is interpreting the question as “would you rape someone right now if you could get away with it?” and the other side is interpreting it as “if there were no sanctions on such behavior, could I ever become the type of person who would commit rape?”
This comment was written by Glaivester.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 8:30 pm
Glaivster
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.That was a pretty good summation. I don’t think the two sides are nearly as far apart as they initially thought.
I’m just going to throw something out there since it’s been on my mind recently and Glaivster’s post made me thing of it again.
Kobe Bryant. I’d say that pro athletes are about the best example of the premist that Glaivster gave above that you could find.
“But if I lived for a prolonged period in a situation where I could do things without facing any consequences; if I had for a prolonged period absolute power over another person or people; I don’t know if that would change me.”
Not absolute power, but certainly a lot of power, especially in a small town where the local football team is the only thing that anyone has any real sense of pride in, or on a college campus. Could it be that pro athletes are actually a pretty good test case for the “what if I could realistically assume that I would get away with it” scenario.
I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this, but it’s been at the back on my mind this whole time. I do know that I’ve run across a few pro athletes in my time and almost every one of them has scared me - not in terms of anything they’ve actually done so much as in the kind of on-edge feeling you get walking through a bad neighborhood late at night. I instinctively didn’t trust them. What does that mean? And what does is mean about our culture that we do habitually let them get away with rape?
And just to clarify, this isn’t about being intimidated by big people, that part I’m sure of. I like big guys. But these men scare me, and I don’t think I’m the only one. I just wonder what it tells us about rape in general that the one group who CAN rape with impunity often DO.
BTW, I think that this also gets into the idea of how we define masculinity in general, I’m just trying not to complicate things by going there.
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June 17th, 2005 at 8:38 pm
Actually, the incident that Aegis hypothesized is how my husband lost his virginity. He’s very much a feminist, and yes, he was ‘acquaintance’ raped by a woman he had not given consent to. He woke up with her on top of him, and him inside of her. He was 17, she was 19 and he states that he only barely recollects the situation, other than horror as she ‘did her thing’. He didn’t talk about it as a ‘rape’ for a very long time, because often times people did not want to hear about how men can be victimized too. While he point blank will never attempt to pull it off as an ‘equal’ crisis in terms of the percentages of women being raped to men, he certainly would take offense at being snubbed as a victim.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 8:41 pm
Oh - also, he’d turned down his rapists offers to have sex earlier in the evening. They had ended up sleeping at the same place after a party, and despite his vocal lack of consent earlier, she went ahead and initiated unconsentual sex when he was sleeping.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 8:56 pm
Not a lot of time to read the rest of the responses ;) so I’ll just inject a little of my own so-called “wisdom” into the veins of this thread. A major problem here is that this is one of those issues that people like to look at in black and white. Also, blame is always thrown around like it’s going out of style. It is convenient to say that the victim is never at fault, yet it is also convenient to say that the victim is always at fault. This convenience principle applies to the rapist as well. (Note that I do not use “man” or “woman” in determining who is the victim and who is the rapist.) There have been a good number of cases where the “victim” has done something on purpose (but not necessarily for the effect that follows) to trigger the control aspect in the “rapist”…where do we point the finger here? Well, most people only seem to have one pointing finger, so they have to choose which side to point it at! It doesn’t work that way in real life, people…a rapist preys on those who are weak. Even if you get the best martial arts training in the world or you carry that pepper spray like you’re gonna douse everyone who looks at you cross-eyed…sorry, this just isn’t enough. If you are perceived as weak, those who would control you have the means to do so.
Sorry if this brings up points already referenced…like I said, I don’t have time to read the rest of the responses…wifey is waiting. :)
This comment was written by Dave.Report this comment to the moderators
June 17th, 2005 at 9:52 pm
I couldn’t agree more. If feminism had done this, I think there would be lot less guys complaining about the “ambiguity” of women.
When I was a sophomore in highschool, anti-date rape advocate Katie Koestner (who is a feminist, btw) came to give a seminar on date rape. During this seminar, she described her rape in graphic detail and broke down in tears. She talked about her injuries and chewing out the inside of her cheek. Now, I have no objection to anti-date rape education on principle, but I think this was the wrong way to handle it. It was overkill, it was inappropriate for the age group (freshmen were in the audience), and it was emotionally bludgeoning (kind of like reading Andrea Dworkin, now that I think about it, but in a different way). That seminar was presented in a way that made it impossible to think critically about it: so I think some people (like me) took its messages to a paranoid level, while others probably dismissed it completely. It contributed to me being afraid to even flirt with girls (because I though I would somehow be molesting them if I was to “hit on” them).
At one point, someone asked her how a guy should initiate sex in a way that wasn’t date rape. She said she didn’t know! But she said the only way to ensure consent was if the woman said “yes.”
How do you think that made me, and probably many other young men in the audience, feel? Here we had spent ages hearing about all the terrible things men could do wrong with women, but we were given absolutely no practical suggestions on how to actually do things right. Except for getting verbal consent.
I don’t think the speaker was being purposefully unhelpful. After all, what did I expect, that she would give me a step-by-step guide on what to do with women sexually? She wouldn’t know how to do that, and of course there is no way she could give a lecture on how to get going with sex to a highschool audience (because then they might go out and start having it!). What I find revealing about her comments is a general cultural problem: our culture expects males to initiate sex, but really has no idea how males should go about doing so in a way that is comfortable for women! This seems like a recipe for disaster.
You don’t go about teaching someone by telling them everything they can do wrong, but giving them no useful guidelines to doing things right. If you applied that approach to, say… teaching driving, it would be like giving someone a book of traffic violations, and telling them to figure out how to drive by themselves (or that they should know naturally). In a situation like that, someone would probably become extremely paranoid and never learn to drive at all, or they might throw away the rulebook out of frustration and try driving on their own, which would probably lead to disaster because nobody has bothered to show them how. Now, I am not claiming that getting into a car accident is analogous to rape, because rape is not just an “accident.” The point I am making is that approaches to teaching people that focus on all the horrible mistakes they can make, without showing them a better way to go about things (or expecting them to figure that out on their own), is not going to work very well. Since men don’t pop out of the womb knowing how to interact with women and initiate sex with them in a way that women are comfortable with, it is something they must learn, especially since some women are taught to be sexually passive. It may not be rocket science, but it’s still something that men need to learn; the big question: are men being taught how to do those things in a way that leads to positive experiences for them and for the females they interact with and have sex with?
Btw, that seminar is one reason I distrust feminist attempts at social engineering: I think they have uncovered very real problems with gender roles, but sometimes their cures are almost as bad as the disease. Though I do try not to judge all feminists based on that experience, and I have talked to feminists who agree with me that such an approach to educating males is problematic. Since then, I have been trying to find the answers to the question of how males should conduct interaction with (specifically sexually) in a practical and empathetic manner, because my socialization failed to teach me this. That is why I have so many wild theories. In my opinion, it’s better to think about gender and risk the possibility of sometimes being wrong, than to not think about it at all.
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June 17th, 2005 at 9:54 pm
Exactly. I think the way verbal communication is put on a pedestal as the only valid way of doing things, especially sexually, is both inaccurate and counterproductive. It isn’t good enough to focus on words, you have to see the person behind them and what they are feeling. There are at least a couple problems with the strange emphasis on verbal consent:
Verbal consent alone is not sufficient for creating a positive sexual/emotional experience for both people. As BritGirl put it: