All posts tagged "Rape Culture"

Yesterday, the group "Upsetting Rape Culture" and affiliated conspirators redirected traffic from Playboy's "annual college party guide" to a convincingly similar one that featured pro-consent statements. The altered "party commandments" aggressively focused on promoting "consent culture," beginning with the altered home page, which stated:

[rebelmouse-image 24749958 original_size="252x168" expand=1]This weekend, there was a minor kerfuffle over yet another poorly sourced assertion that people evolved in just such a way as to uphold the meanest, ugliest, most essentialist gender roles the patriarchy ever produced. This time, it was over the shoddy theory that men and women evolved to constantly be in a violent struggle over the vagina, with men trying to force sex on women and women trying mostly to avoid getting pregnant by rapists (though, bafflingly, being more cool with rape when they're not ovulating). The article reinforced tired, disproven ideas about rape, the most disturbing being that it's an act of horniness instead of violence, when the more established research shows the opposite. Emile Yoffe and I addressed the flaws in this article, so I'm not going to rehash the science issues here.

[rebelmouse-image 24749360 original_size="312x360" expand=1]I feel like Captain Obvious pointing this out, but there's so much confusion and defensiveness about religion and patriarchy out there, I'm going to have to say it: That there's a bunch of rapist priests in the Catholic church and the Pope was involved in the cover-up should not be surprising. The Catholic church is the classic example of what feminists like me like to call "rape culture". Rape culture crops up when male power over women and children is exalted, when sexuality is demonized, and when men are encouraged to think of women (and children's) bodies as their property. All these aspects of patriarchy aren't only part of the Catholic church, they're celebrated. The exuberant love of male dominance that is the Catholic dogma is going to turn men into rapists who get a rise out of sexually dominated people they believe are lesser than them.

[rebelmouse-image 24748462 original_size="159x239" expand=1]If you read Savage Love this week, no doubt you were as haunted as I was by the letter written by an 18-year-old rape victim who is being re-victimized by the rape culture. Haunted, because her story is so common as to be mundane: Her ex-boyfriend rapes her, but of course, it's "gray", not because he didn't rape her, but because we allow men to rape under some circumstances by politely calling it something it's not. Perhaps we would like to see it as "seduction", or even badgering someone into sex, but if we look at it honestly, what happened was he made it clear that her choices were to "consent" to sex quietly or be raped more roughly. It's not consent if you're told that you consent or else, even if that message is conveyed non-verbally by showing force, as this young man did. (And I disagree with Dan---I think, depending on where she lives, she has a case. Lawyers in the audience?) But because we live in a rape culture (definition for those who are confused about this term), she's not getting support and sympathy, much less justice. Her current boyfriend is blaming her for "cheating", which is like blaming your significant other for overdraft when your house has been burglarized. She's in a swirl of self-doubt and self-hatred, even though she should be proud of herself for doing what she had to in order to get through the encounter with minimal damage to herself. Like Dan says, in our fucked up system, she doesn't have much of a chance to get justice, because we live in a culture that condones aggressive behavior to "get some" from men, including badgering, guilt trips, misrepresenting yourself, and other forms of light coercion that fall short of legally defined rape. And because of this, men who cross the line from, as in this case, mere badgering to making it clear to their victim that her options are non-injurious or potentially injurious rape, and when that happens, we end up condoning that as well, straining to give the attacker the benefit of the doubt, saying he just overdid it out of passion, and ignoring that he was on a power trip. And that these power trips are far more common than we'd like to admit, and they're a factor even in many uncomfortable encounters that aren't legal rape, but are still forms of coercion. (Margaret Cho explains: "Often I would initiate the encounter just to get it over with, so it would be behind me, so it would be done. It is the worst feeling; it is like emotional prostitution, emotional whoring. You don’t get paid in dollars, you get paid in averted arguments.")