Some thoughts about rape culture, rape humor, and sexual assault in general.

[Karelwolfpup]

Remember that moral and considerate people despise rape, rape language, and rape culture.

Er, yes and no. Any number of people considered (not least by themselves) to be moral and considerate aren't concerned with it.

It's depressingly common for people to rally to defend rapists if they personally know them, or are celebrities, or if they didn't make a signed confession saying they were bad people.

And these people are moral and considerate in their own minds and the minds of other incorrect people and nowhere else.

What with morality being relative and all (your personal religious faith or lack of aside) everyone who considers themselves moral and considerate is wrong to someone. People on the left who support welfare as a program based on morality and consideration are countered by those on the right who see it as an immoral way to keep poor people from ever rising above the grasp of welfare, for example.

It's easy to say that anybody who defends an accused rapist is flat-out wrong on an objective scale, but we don't really have an objective scale to judge on. Our society largely condemns rape, but even within that society there are those who justify it to themselves or quibble over definitions. Not to mention that, while it isn't as prevalent as the MRA warriors would have you believe, there are people who are falsely accused of rape. Is it particularly immoral to assume that someone you love might be one of them?

Do we have a rape culture in the West today?
I thought most rapes were committed by sociopaths and mentally scarred people who do it serially rather as something that just happens generally regardless of whom the person may be or what sex they are.

This is absolutely not correct. Here in the UK, recent TV PSAs have tried to push the message that what you're doing could be rape even if you don't think of it that way. Rape exists, and it's not the sole domain of sociopaths.

I'm sorry, what are you trying to say here? are you intimating that random drunk teenage idiots are more likely to rape and continue raping people compared to sociopaths and mentally scarred individuals?

 

[Karelwolfpup]

Do we have a rape culture in the West today?
I thought most rapes were committed by sociopaths and mentally scarred people who do it serially rather as something that just happens generally regardless of whom the person may be or what sex they are.

Unfortunately not. People worry more about the "jumped in dark alley by stranger" type rapes because they are a comforting kind of scary. 90+% of rapes in the west are committed by friends and family of the victim.

It is understandable to portray rapists are inhuman monsters, but by that reasoning, when it's someone that doesn't look like an inhuman monster, it's obviously not really rape.

In much of the west, up until very recently, a man couldn't be convicted with raping his wife. As in, if your father or perhaps grandfather had raped his wife, that would have been considered acceptable. Of course, things are different now, but the thinking which led to things like that hasn't fully disappeared.

Maybe it's because many people treat rapists even worse than murderers and even being accused of it is going to cause irreparable damage to their lives. I mean innocent until proven guilty doesn't really enter into most peoples minds when they read "Person X accused of rape" in a newspaper. I don't think people leaping to defend the people they love or admire is really a terrible thing, especially when it can really only be seen as disbelief that that person would commit something so heinous. If your Dad was accused or even convicted, would you really accept that he was a rapist?

Er...you're saying that people will assume suspects are guilty, so they assume they are innocent?

Certainly, there is a problem with people defending suspects, or even people known to be rapists...Steubenville comes to mind, endless blather about how terrible it was that the rapists were convicted of the rapes they have committed.

Certainly, people leaping to defend those they love or admire is understandable, but defending them regardless of whether or not they are guilty certainly is a terrible thing.

I remember reading about most victims of female on male/male on female rape were sons and or husbands/wives and or daughters, so i can certainly see how the thread of it being "in the family" can come about. But I still doubt that is the product of a normally functioning human, either in terms of genetics or due to behaviours and thought patterns caused by past experiences. Which would also mean that it falls within sociopathic or abnormal mental processes. Just because a sociopath has a family that does not change their basic mental landscape.
I don;t think sociopaths are inhuman in any form. Most "Evil" is actually quite bland and very day to day, and can be traced back and mapped out to a greater or lesser extent. The frightening part for most people is precisely that sociopaths and the mentally scarred/disturbed are very human, frighteningly so. Especially in that they think and feel so differently from the "norm", whatever that may be.
Certainly there was a time when a man could beat or rape his wife and not be brought to court for it, especially if social status and money was involved. Even then it was not an act condoned by most people even if little was done about the crime in question. Then again, back then there was not the wealth and availability of information at one's beck and call and we all lived under some very different systems.
I'm sure there are people who believe they can do whatever they want, but they are most certainly in the minority in the West and in humanity in general.

 

[Serioli]

An interesting comment I remember reading was along the lines of: "Rape is not a crime of sex, it is a crime of domination". This stuck with me and has been reinforced when I heard/read about male-male sex and rape and how it is viewed in various cultures. Some examples:

Prison and ancient Greek (also Roman?) male sex is seen as bad ('gay') if you are the 'receiver', namely it is perfectly acceptable for a guy to stick his dick in someone and he won't see himself, or be judged by his peers, as gay.*

One program which discussed a find of a Roman rubbish tip was analysing some of the discarded letters and found one from school boys propositioning/preparing to rape another. Along the lines of "If you want us to stop beating you, you know what you need to do" with a picture/doodle of a spread ass. Note that the 'we' who were beating apparently were unable or unwilling to have (consensual) sex with each other.

Is it possible that 'rape culture' has parallels or is the symptom of a wider 'domination culture'?

I'll add this press release (Note the date of Dec 2011) and some other language you may have heard.

http://www.surrey.ac.uk/mediacentre/press/2011/69535_are_sex_offenders_and_lads_mags_using_the_same_language.htm?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

'This match is going to be a gang-rape'
'Take/suck it!'
'Pretty girly dude'
'You're not manly enough to [X]'
'You should just lie down and take/accept it'


*Which led to an interesting insult in ancient times of 'Your breath smells like a slaves semen'

 

[Jux]

Without a doubt this is the core of the issue. Every specie which requires sexual reproduction has a singular sex which governs the sexual power of the specie. This is possible also one of the reasons Prison-Rape is so prevalent. Removing access to sex, in this case sex with women, drives men off the edge when it comes to needed sexual release. Rape in turn, and it's horrible to say I admit, simply exists because of the dynamics of sexual denial within our specie (and in turn, every other specie where rape occurs).

Citation? Everything I have seen suggests that prison rape is primarily about exerting control and dominance, forced sex is simply a particularly emasculating tool used to exert said control. If removing access to sex with women was 'driving men off the edge', I think you'd be seeing a lot more violent/forcible rape outside of prison. Having gone 6 years since I hit puberty to the first time I had sex, there was never a single point where I had the urge to rape. Similiarly, I went on a 5 year stretch in my 20's where I wasn't having sex, still no urge to rape there either. If it were simply about sexual release, they would just masturbate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_sexuality

 

[Jux]

I can't imagine someone going through with rape and midway thinking "What I'm doing isn't so bad."

Some people don't see what they are ding as rape. Date rape, especially where a guy is just trying to get a girl drunk so she'll have sex with him[footnote]Going to add in here that I'm not saying all drunk sex is rape, but if you're trying to get people intoxicated to the point where they can't give informed consent, that is rape.[/footnote], isn't seen as rape by everyone. This is part of rape culture.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

http://www.surrey.ac.uk/mediacentre/press/2011/69535_are_sex_offenders_and_lads_mags_using_the_same_language.htm?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

I see a couple of things in that article that need adressing.
They say that men in general identified more with the rapists quots. So that would be all men, not just the ones who read lads mags, so they can't really conclude that lads mags make men more "rapey" or more prone to it.
Which leads to the other thing, cause and effect, wouldn't men with rape tendencies be more inclined to lads mags than men without if statements are so similar?

Some loose ends that need tying up there.

 

[Thaluikhain]

That's a little different, honestly. Pointing to why a particular case of rape isn't rape doesn't make you condone rape.

For an example, in USA it's legal to shoot people breaking into your house, yes? In a lot of Western Europe, that's seen as murder. I wouldn't really call the lot of Americans who like this law murderers.

But they are murder supporters from the point of view of those people in Western Europe, though.

To re-use the example of being able to have sex wife your wife without her consent without it being rape of a few decades ago...we'd all agree that was rape, yes?

People doing it are rapists, people supporting people doing it are supporting rapists, the culture which permits or downplays that behaviour was a rape culture.

Now, I'm certain that many people who did that or supported that considered themselves to be adamantly opposed to what they considered rape.

 

[Smeatza]

Political propaganda tends to coalesce around some sort of economic benefit. I don't think of a bunch of women organizing "take back the night" rallies as propaganda. I also believe that sexual assault is easily the most under-reported crime in developed nations for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the viewpoint that anti-sexual assault info is somehow propaganda. I'm actually immensely insulted by that sentiment.

You're taking my words out of context. Well technically "Propaganda is a form of communication aimed towards influencing the attitude of the community toward some cause or position by presenting only one side of an argument." So many things you might otherwise no consider to be so, are propaganda.
Surely you'll concede that when some activists come out and say "men can't be raped" or "women can't be sexist," that it's crossed the line into propaganda, well where do you draw that line?
I would consider the deliberate overstating of how at risk a one is to rape, propaganda, when it is used to try and forcibly make political change.
At what point will you become concerned with people exploiting such a sensitive issue for their own political gain?

Comparing bike theft to rape because they both hold some position on a spreadsheet is a fantastic failing of analysis. Sexual assault frequently leaves victims traumatized for life. It goes well beyond the destructive impact of even non-sexual assault. Some view it as a crime on par with or even worse than death, depending on the circumstances. I think your attitude here is beyond dismissive of the special circumstances surrounding this crime.

You're avoiding the point of my question.
You say that we have lots of rape so we live in a rape culture.
I say we have more bike theft than rape, so do we live in a bike theft culture?
The emotional and physical damage a crime causes has no bearing on it's relevance to the larger culture.
I'm not about to start speculating as to which crime is more traumatic than what. There are so many variables that the sensationalist "rape is always the worst thing you can do to someone" just doesn't fly for me.
I can imagine that almost all parents would rather be raped than see their child die, and that the trauma from witnessing or knowing your own child is dead must be just as bad, if not worse.

My eagerness to blame capitalism? Read more closely. I said "runaway capitalism", and that was in a digression with no bearing on this thread. Call it a needle, if you like. Anyways, are you one of the folks who views any criticism of capitalism as intent to enslave everyone under communism? That's honestly the best evidence for the pendulum having swung too far; right wingers love to call Obama a socialist when he's hilariously right-wing himself. Whatever, not important, part of a separate discussion that may or may not involve you (depending on whether or not you believe certain things or merely enjoy pointing them out - and yes, it was intentional on my part).

I was drawing a humourous comparison between yourself and the stereotypical 1970's feminist. Meant to highlight just how easy it is to see confirmation of our pre-conceptions and bias' when there is none.

I find this notion completely insane. We're talking too much and too loudly about sexual assault, so a bunch of women aren't reporting it because they think they don't qualify? What's the solution to that? Talking about it less?

No, you know that's not what I said.
My comment referred to the "RAPE IS THE WORSE THING YOU COULD POSSIBLY DO, WORSE THAN ANY KIND OF TORTURE OR ANY OTHER KIND OF PAIN, IF YOU ARE RAPED YOU NEVER EVER FEEL THE SAME AND ARE A BROKEN PERSON FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE" attitude.
And it was spot on, especially when you take date rape, or rape within an consensual relationship into account.

Meanwhile, Justin Timberlake was 100% ignorant of "Take Back the Night" when he named his most recent album/single (w/e). So even some of the most well-known educators and activists regarding rape on college campuses (where the shit is rampant, btw) have almost zero recognition in popular culture. If you want to be truly depressed, go read the comments sections for the Justin Timberlake stories. They're mostly people saying they didn't know about TBTN either - and telling those stupid hippy college chicks to stfu.

I'm supposed to care that an ex-member of N-SYNC didn't know about an annual march? That's supposed to mean something? I'm not one of those who thinks that anyone even slightly famous have a duty to act as a moral arbiter for the rest of us.
In any case, if any social/political movement has recognition in popular culture, it's feminism and it's causes.

Also, the stats I can find regarding England/Wales claim that 1 in 5 women between the ages of 16 and 59 have experienced sexual violence. Even if you trim that number significantly, throwing out what you or others might perceive as borderline or unqualified behavior, what could possibly be the best result? 5%? Do you know 20 women?

First of all, link your stats so they can be scrutinised.
Second of all, That's a rather misleading statistic.
I mean after all, if rape outright stopped in England and Wales tomorrow, as in it just didn't happen anymore. That stat you gave wouldn't significantly change for at least a year.
And it's important to remember, while statistics are a good way of illustrating the potential extent of a problem, or giving someone an emotional gut-punch. They mean nothing to the individual.

I almost lost a friend because she was suffering through traumatic effects from an incident that occurred years before I met her. When she revealed her story to me, I was shocked and appalled by the lack of empathy and support given her by the institutions that should have been protecting her. A ridiculous number of women carry similarly disturbing stories in silence. These aren't stolen bicycles or a run-of-the-mill dust-up. Sexual assault is very unique in its destructive potential, and I think you're analysis is missing that.

Like I say, the emotional impact of a crime has no bearing on how victims of said crime are treated in different cultures.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

It depends on the person, there are some women and men alike that see the best sex and forceful clothes ripping domination. There are others whom may of had a bad experience, therefore goes ballistic when its presented to them so casually. I often wonder what WWII veterans would think of Battlefield 1942. Its all on the person, and we can't make it best for everyone because everyone is a... snowflake. Unique to the others around it.