FAQ: Rape Culture 101
Editor’s note: this post does not follow the usual FF101 FAQ conventions, but it’s being included in the FAQ list anyway.
[Trigger warning.]
Frequently, I receive requests to provide a definition of the term “rape culture.” I’ve referred people to the Wikipedia entry on rape culture, which is pretty good, and I like the definition provided in Transforming a Rape Culture:
A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.
In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable as death or taxes. This violence, however, is neither biologically nor divinely ordained. Much of what we accept as inevitable is in fact the expression of values and attitudes that can change.
But my correspondents—whether they are dewy noobs just coming to feminism, advanced feminists looking for a source, or disbelievers in the existence of the rape culture—always seem to be looking for something more comprehensive and less abstract: What is the rape culture? What are its borders? What does it look like and sound like and feel like?
It is not a definition for which they’re looking; not really. It’s a description. It’s something substantive enough to reach out and touch, in all its ugly, heaving, menacing grotesquery.
Rape culture is encouraging male sexual aggression. Rape culture is regarding violence as sexy and sexuality as violent. Rape culture is treating rape as a compliment, as the unbridled passion stirred in a healthy man by a beautiful woman, making irresistible the urge to rip open her bodice or slam her against a wall, or a wrought-iron fence, or a car hood, or pull her by her hair, or shove her onto a bed, or any one of a million other images of fight-fucking in movies and television shows and on the covers of romance novels that convey violent urges are inextricably linked with (straight) sexuality.
Rape culture is treating straight sexuality as the norm. Rape culture is lumping queer sexuality into nonconsensual sexual practices like pedophilia and bestiality. Rape culture is privileging heterosexuality because ubiquitous imagery of two adults of the same-sex engaging in egalitarian partnerships without gender-based dominance and submission undermines (erroneous) biological rationales for the rape culture’s existence.
Rape culture is rape being used as a weapon, a tool of war and genocide and oppression. Rape culture is rape being used as a corrective to “cure” queer women. Rape culture is a militarized culture and “the natural product of all wars, everywhere, at all times, in all forms.”
Rape culture is 1 in 33 men being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is encouraging men to use the language of rape to establish dominance over one another (“I’ll make you my bitch”). Rape culture is making rape a ubiquitous part of male-exclusive bonding. Rape culture is ignoring the cavernous need for men’s prison reform in part because the threat of being raped in prison is considered an acceptable deterrent to committing crime, and the threat only works if actual men are actually being raped.
Rape culture is 1 in 6 women being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is not even talking about the reality that many women are sexually assaulted multiple times in their lives. Rape culture is the way in which the constant threat of sexual assault affects women’s daily movements. Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you’re alone, if you’re with a stranger, if you’re in a group, if you’re in a group of strangers, if it’s dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you’re carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you’re wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who’s around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who’s at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn’t follow all the rules it’s your fault.
Rape culture is victim-blaming. Rape culture is a judge blaming a child for her own rape. Rape culture is a minister blaming his child victims. Rape culture is accusing a child of enjoying being held hostage, raped, and tortured. Rape culture is spending enormous amounts of time finding any reason at all that a victim can be blamed for hir own rape.
Rape culture is judges banning the use of the word rape in the courtroom. Rape culture is the media using euphemisms for sexual assault. Rape culture is stories about rape being featured in the Odd News.
Rape culture is tasking victims with the burden of rape prevention. Rape culture is encouraging women to take self-defense as though that is the only solution required to preventing rape. Rape culture is admonishing women to “learn common sense” or “be more responsible” or “be aware of barroom risks” or “avoid these places” or “don’t dress this way,” and failing to admonish men to not rape.
Rape culture is “nothing” being the most frequent answer to a question about what people have been formally taught about rape.
Rape culture is boys under 10 years old knowing how to rape.
Rape culture is the idea that only certain people rape—and only certain people get raped. Rape culture is ignoring that the thing about rapists is that they rape people. They rape people who are strong and people who are weak, people who are smart and people who are dumb, people who fight back and people who submit just to get it over with, people who are sluts and people who are prudes, people who rich and people who are poor, people who are tall and people who are short, people who are fat and people who are thin, people who are blind and people who are sighted, people who are deaf and people who can hear, people of every race and shape and size and ability and circumstance.
Rape culture is the narrative that sex workers can’t be raped. Rape culture is the assertion that wives can’t be raped. Rape culture is the contention that only nice girls can be raped.
Rape culture is refusing to acknowledge that the only thing that the victim of every rapist shares in common is bad fucking luck. Rape culture is refusing to acknowledge that the only thing a person can do to avoid being raped is never be in the same room as a rapist. Rape culture is avoiding talking about what an absurdly unreasonable expectation that is, since rapists don’t announce themselves or wear signs or glow purple.
Rape culture is people meant to protect you raping you instead—like parents, teachers, doctors, ministers, cops, soldiers, self-defense instructors.
Rape culture is a serial rapist being appointed to a federal panel that makes decisions regarding women’s health.
Rape culture is a ruling that says women cannot withdraw consent once sex commences.
Rape culture is a collective understanding about classifications of rapists: The “normal” rapist (whose crime is most likely to be dismissed with a “boys will be boys” sort of jocular apologia) is the man who forces himself on attractive women, women his age in fine health and form, whose crime is disturbingly understandable to his male defenders. The “real sickos” are the men who go after children, old ladies, the disabled, accident victims languishing in comas—the sort of people who can’t fight back, whose rape is difficult to imagine as titillating, unlike the rape of “pretty girls,” so easily cast in a fight-fuck fantasy of squealing and squirming and eventual relenting to the “flattery” of being raped.
Rape culture is the insistence on trying to distinguish between different kinds of rape via the use of terms like “gray rape” or “date rape.”
Rape culture is pervasive narratives about rape that exist despite evidence to the contrary. Rape culture is pervasive imagery of stranger rape, even though women are three times more likely to be raped by someone they know than a stranger, and nine times more likely to be raped in their home, the home of someone they know, or anywhere else than being raped on the street, making what is commonly referred to as “date rape” by far the most prevalent type of rape. Rape culture is pervasive insistence that false reports are common, although they are less common (1.6%) than false reports of auto theft (2.6%). Rape culture is pervasive claims that women make rape accusations willy-nilly, when 61% of rapes remain unreported.
Rape culture is the pervasive narrative that there is a “typical” way to behave after being raped, instead of the acknowledgment that responses to rape are as varied as its victims, that, immediately following a rape, some women go into shock; some are lucid; some are angry; some are ashamed; some are stoic; some are erratic; some want to report it; some don’t; some will act out; some will crawl inside themselves; some will have healthy sex lives; some never will again.
Rape culture is the pervasive narrative that a rape victim who reports hir rape is readily believed and well-supported, instead of acknowledging that reporting a rape is a huge personal investment, a difficult process that can be embarrassing, shameful, hurtful, frustrating, and too often unfulfilling. Rape culture is ignoring that there is very little incentive to report a rape; it’s a terrible experience with a small likelihood of seeing justice served.
Rape culture is hospitals that won’t do rape kits, disbelieving law enforcement, unmotivated prosecutors, hostile judges, victim-blaming juries, and paltry sentencing.
Rape culture is the fact that higher incidents of rape tend to correlate with lower conviction rates.
Rape culture is silence around rape in the national discourse, and in rape victims’ homes. Rape culture is treating surviving rape as something of which to be ashamed. Rape culture is families torn apart because of rape allegations that are disbelieved or ignored or sunk to the bottom of a deep, dark sea in an iron vault of secrecy and silence.
Rape culture is the objectification of women, which is part of a dehumanizing process that renders consent irrelevant. Rape culture is treating women’s bodies like public property. Rape culture is street harassment and groping on public transportation and equating raped women’s bodies to a man walking around with valuables hanging out of his pockets. Rape culture is most men being so far removed from the threat of rape that invoking property theft is evidently the closest thing many of them can imagine to being forcibly subjected to a sexual assault.
Rape culture is treating 13-year-old girls like trophies for men regarded as great artists.
Rape culture is ignoring the way in which professional environments that treat sexual access to female subordinates as entitlements of successful men can be coercive and compromise enthusiastic consent.
Rape culture is a convicted rapist getting a standing ovation at Cannes, a cameo in a hit movie, and a career resurgence in which he can joke about how he hates seeing people get hurt.
Rape culture is when running dogfights is said to elicit more outrage than raping a woman would.
Rape culture is blurred lines between persistence and coercion. Rape culture is treating diminished capacity to consent as the natural path to sexual activity.
Rape culture is pretending that non-physical sexual assaults, like peeping tomming, is totally unrelated to brutal and physical sexual assaults, rather than viewing them on a continuum of sexual assault.
Rape culture is diminishing the gravity of any sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, or culture of actual or potential coercion in any way.
Rape culture is using the word “rape” to describe something that has been done to you other than a forced or coerced sex act. Rape culture is saying things like “That ATM raped me with a huge fee” or “The IRS raped me on my taxes.”
Rape culture is rape being used as entertainment, in movies and television shows and books and in video games.
Rape culture is television shows and movies leaving rape out of situations where it would be a present and significant threat in real life.
Rape culture is Amazon offering to locate “rape” products for you.
Rape culture is rape jokes. Rape culture is rape jokes on t-shirts, rape jokes in college newspapers, rape jokes in soldiers’ home videos, rape jokes on the radio, rape jokes on news broadcasts, rape jokes in magazines, rape jokes in viral videos, rape jokes in promotions for children’s movies, rape jokes on Page Six (and again!), rape jokes on the funny pages, rape jokes on TV shows, rape jokes on the campaign trail, rape jokes on Halloween, rape jokes in online content by famous people, rape jokes in online content by non-famous people, rape jokes in headlines, rape jokes onstage at clubs, rape jokes in politics, rape jokes in one-woman shows, rape jokes in print campaigns, rape jokes in movies, rape jokes in cartoons, rape jokes in nightclubs, rape jokes on MTV, rape jokes on late-night chat shows, rape jokes in tattoos, rape jokes in stand-up comedy, rape jokes on websites, rape jokes at awards shows, rape jokes in online contests, rape jokes in movie trailers, rape jokes on the sides of buses, rape jokes on cultural institutions…
Rape culture is people objecting to the detritus of the rape culture being called oversensitive, rather than people who perpetuate the rape culture being regarded as not sensitive enough.
Rape culture is the myriad ways in which rape is tacitly and overtly abetted and encouraged having saturated every corner of our culture so thoroughly that people can’t easily wrap their heads around what the rape culture actually is.
That’s hardly everything. It’s merely the tip of an unfathomable iceberg.
tigtog
tekanji
shakesville
@ Seksualisti,
You appear to be arguing pure semantics. Upthread you indicated that you would find the term “culture of sexual aggression” acceptable. “Rape culture” is a synonym for “culture of sexual aggression”, so where exactly does the difficulty lie other than you don’t like the rhetorical choice to use one term rather than the other?
Brilliant and comprehensive! Thank you for writing this. I hope you don’t mind me sharing this on my blog, with credits to you of course!
Tigtog, pure semantics? Did you happen to read my latest two posts?
Sexual aggression is much broader concept, and it is also more neutral, which means more options in determining the scope of the concept. It is also important to discuss the borders of the concept: is it universal, culture-dependent or appliable only to certain sub-cultures or groups. This is very important, if there are any ambitions to actually prove the existence of such culture.
I would prefer the third option and limit the use of the concept to certain sub-cultures or groups that have easily recognisable elements of sexually aggressive behavior.
This is also answer to Kandela’s question. Rape jokes and similar stuff can strenghten sexually aggressive attitudes in a group that already has misogynist, immoral or lawless basic atmosphere. This kind of group might generate attitudes and models of behavior (ie. joking) that makes harassing and even raping easier. Joking might also work as a form of self-deception for perpetrators own mental protection.
Totally opposite situation for telling rape jokes could be for example a comedian or a group of people, who are accustomed and known to use extreme humor. Even the most extreme jokes are understood in this context as breaking limits of conventional humor and thinking. There is no “rape culture” in this kind of situation.
These two examples are at the opposite ends of a line and one can imagine more examples along it. Somewhere there is the middle ground that is very problematic and dependent on individual circumstances. The diversity and ambiquity of individual cases make narrow ideological statements non-justifiable.
Seksualsti
Whilst understanding your general objection to ideological statements, as opposed to sociological or legal definitions, rape is not a suitable subject for “jokes” in any circumstances. It trivialises the subject, adds to the pain of any rape victim and anaesthetises society to the simple proposition that rape i.e. forcing someone to have sex against their will, is morally unacceptable.
The original ideological statement to which you refer sought to find implicit rape and false justification as cultural norms. They are not, nor should rape ever be considered as anything other than an affront to human dignity.
Phil, it is overstating to say that “rape is not a suitable subject for jokes in ANY circumstances”. There is a whole branch of dark humor that specialises in extreme topics like violence, catastrophes, psychopathy and awful happenstances. Why rape should be an exception?
I agree, that it is very rude to joke harshly about rape unexpectedly, but if some comic artists or comedians specialize in extreme stuff (like Hugleikur Dagsson’s work: http://www.dagsson.com), there is no reason to condemn them. Their reputation should be enough to keep sensitive people away from their work.
Someone’s vulnerabilities cannot be the defining line about what others may or may not do. One should try to pay regard to such vulnerabilities and to respect other persons’ sensitivities, but there is no ground for overall moral condemnation of rape jokes among other extreme humor.
Besides, jokes that happen to hurt someone’s feelings are RUDE, not IMMORAL. This is very important distiction. If jokes are deliberately used as tools of hurting or oppressing someone, then these act are immoral. This applies to all jokes, not only to rape jokes.
Seksualisti
No it is not over-stating the case. The whole purpose of humour is to relieve tension, rape jokes can only relive it. There is no humour in rape. There are some acts which are per se contrary to civilised values. Rape is one of them. It’s not just other people’s sensitivities in question, it’s our own sense of values. It’s a failure to hold the value that each human being has a right not to be raped, or to fear being raped, which gives rise to the suggestion that we live in a rape culture. Defending the indefensible, as you do, does nothing to disabuse females of the notion that we live in a rape culture.
@Seksualisti
Because rape is the only one of those topics where there is likely to be a significant proportion of the audience (1 in 4 women, 1 in 8 men) who have experienced it directly, at least an attempted if not a completed assault.
Unlike public catastrophes or violent attacks, people tend to keep sexual assaults and domestic violence more private, and are expected to do so. So joking about private assaults is likely to trigger PTSD in a significant proportion of the people listening, whereas jokes about murder are not (the victim is dead) and large public events like terrorism, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, floods probably won’t either if one is joking about them from a place where they are not actually happening.
It IS immoral to demand the right to trigger PTSD in people without being criticised for it, IMO.
@Seksualisti, I just wanted to add that I do agree with this part:
This is why I call bullshit on the whole “it was just a joke” defence against people offended by “taboo” humour. That’s not to say that taboo humour never has a place, especially when it is used by survivors/minorities to highlight shortcomings in broader society. But when it’s just used for shock value by someone with social privilege it’s hardly challenging those taboos, it’s only reinforcing them. This is particularly true when it’s an oppressor group making jokes where the punchline is someone else’s victimisation.
I’ve heard some funny rape jokes – they do exist. They’ve either been told by someone who was raped and using dark humour effectively in response, or by someone highlighting the deficiencies of rapists (e.g. packs of footballers) instead of making the lazy joke about how damned funny it is that some people get raped and they probably asked for it or are lying about it. Jokes about prison rape of male convicts are the laziest and nastiest ones I can think of in terms of casting the victims as deserving what they get, by the way.
Tigtog, that is exactly the reason, why it is overstatement to say that “rape jokes IS rape culture”. There are many kinds rape jokes and many reasons for telling them. There are also many different circumstances and sub-cultures where rape jokes might be told. Thus one explicit and singleminded statement can never include whole phenomenon sufficiently.
And I’m afraid there is more to say about dark humor and the risk of triggering post-traumatic stress disorder. No-one demands the right of triggering PTSD, but every one has the right of expression and freedom of speech. This includes expressing rude or inconvenient things.
Moreover, no-one has the subjective right of avoiding situations that MIGHT trigger PTSD or other negative effects in them. It would be good, if they were warned about situations that might trigger such effects, but it is sometimes practically impossible to consider ALL possible triggers and vulnerabilities.
It is also problematic to compare the RIGHT of expression and POSSIBILITY of triggering. There is no theory of rights, that would accept this kind of violation of someone’s rights, because this kind of structure would be disastrous to the whole concept of rights, if it was applied widely.
I sympathise with the pain of rape victims, but the problems above cannot be skipped in discussion of societal, legal or philosophical matters concerning rape and alleged “rape culture”.
Seksualisti:
[quote]“No-one demands the right of triggering PTSD, but every one has the right of expression and freedom of speech. This includes expressing rude or inconvenient things.”[/quote]
That’s not the point, Seksualisti. This isn’t a “free speech” issue; it’s about the morality of saying certain things that could have an adverse effect on someone else. And anyone with a modicum of understanding and sensitivity would – or should – exercise care and good judgment when it comes to saying things about rape. And I think tigtog was quite clear under what circumstances a rape joke can be considered funny and they’re quite specific and limited, and a reasonable person should have no problem making the distinction.
[quote]“no-one has the subjective right of avoiding situations that MIGHT trigger PTSD or other negative effects in them. It would be good, if they were warned about situations that might trigger such effects,”[/quote]
And this FAQ is a case in point. You’ll notice some of the very first words at the top here are “Trigger warning”. This a discussion about rape for educational purposes, so it’s a legitimate one. But even so, it still has potential to be a PTSD trigger for someone and any one who thinks it could has the option of not reading further should they not wish too.
@Seksualisti
Having the right to do something does not make doing that thing a moral act. Having the right to do something does not mean that others do not have a right to respond to that action negatively and make a judgement on the character of those who do that action. Freedom of speech does not and has never ever meant freedom from criticism.
People who make lazy/nasty rape jokes just for shock value are self-entitled insensitive jerks, it is right and proper to call them out for being self-entitled insensitive jerks, it does not infringe upon their right of expression or freedom of speech to call them self-entitled insensitive jerks. People being self-entitled insensitive jerks about rape IS rape culture.
Nobody is trying to take away their right to be self-entitled insensitive jerks, they’re just telling them that self-entitled insensitive jerks is what they are.
Oddly enough, many many many people do not like and do not want to be around self-entitled insensitive jerks. It’s a bit rich for the self-entitled insensitive jerks to then moan about being criticised and/or avoided because of their free choice to engage in free expression of speech that others find creepy and/or triggering.
@Phil, you might be interested in reading this news article about the attitudes towards rape ingrained in the culture of an elite residential dormitory colleges at one of Australia’s finest universities – they created a Facebook group that was pro-rape and proudly displayed their membership of it in their personal profiles.
Having attended the same university nearly 30 years ago, I can report that nothing much has changed – the college women are viewed as meat for the college men, and young men encouraging binge drinking and then isolating young women on campus so that they can force them into sex acts was then and is still now presented as the woman not being careful enough to avoid a bad apple (because obviously she should be able to tell) rather than the toxic culture of the residential colleges creating an atmosphere where young men realise that they can get away with just about anything, so why not a bit of recreational rape? As the college cheer says, Yes means Yes and No means Yes, so it’s all just what they are entitled to, no?
A persistent pattern of sexual assault in the same institutions over decades, where the assaults are explained away each and every time as “bad apples” and “boys will be boys” sounds like a cultural norm to me. I agree that they should be taken as an affront to human dignity, but I really do not see that as being the reality.
tigtog
I read the article and noticed the condemnation by the College authorities of the Facebook group, which was not established by the College itself. I understand the offending item has been removed. I notice too that the police made it clear that they would not tolerate such attitudes and gather they are investigating those people named on the Facebook. If, as you say, this culture prevails then it must be removed by redefining the culture, including the establishment of a commonly agreed set of rules about the behaviour of each sex towards the other.
It is for those of us who do not accept pro rape attitudes to ensure we change the culture so it becomes unacceptable in any form. “Boys will be boys” should be excluded as a cultural norm but it will only be so if we exclude it by taking action to ensure that rape is unacceptable in any form.
At the same time may I point you towards a well balanced article by India Knight in the Times of London? You may not agree with her but she makes some valid points about distinguishing between the utopia we would like to live in and the real world we do live in. We have to make the latter more like the former. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/india_knight/article641493.ece
You may also wish to look at this article on a contemporary feminst site which commented on Knight’s article. http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2008/10/incitement_to_rape
Neither fully solve inherent problems but that will only come about by changes in attitude. The question which remains is how soon this can this be achieved because it must be achieved if we are to have more equal sexual treatment of men and women in society as a whole.
The second link was supposed to be this one:
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/01/rape-culture-were-soaking-in-it.html
Tigtog, you forgot the context of my latest reply. I was not referreing to “insensitive jerks” but to some comedians, cartoonists and artists who have specialised in dark humor. It is far-fetched to call them jerks or accuse them about promoting rape culture.
I am pushing this claim, because I am taken aback about the rhetoric of overstating that Melissa McEwan uses all the time. She even claims that some people are rapists, because something they have said can be interpreted (with malevolent intent) as hints about their “true intentions” that is “raping women”. Consider these examples:
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/01/rape-culture-hells-kitchen-edition.html
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/01/rape-culture-were-soaking-in-it.html
All I am claiming here is that there are other more likely interpretations about these cases, and also other cases that involve slips of tongue, misunderstandings, dark humor, different sub-cultures etc. It is not justifiable or fair to shout “rape” or “rape culture”, when it feels like it. There must be good grounds for such serious accusations.
I am also shocked about your reactions, tigtog. You act like I am some kind of defender of rapists. I am not. I just want to broaden the narrow ideological frame of interpretation that is used by the rape culture text above. It would be everyone’s benefit, if discussion about such serious matters was as clear and justifiable as possible.
Dear Admin, my comment (November 10th, 2009 at 9:13 pm) has been now two days in moderation queue. Could you please do something about it. Meanwhile addition to the original comment was posted without any delay. There is something wrong with the commenting system of this blog…
This comment may be deleted after it is read.
@Seksualisti,
Any post which contains two or more links automatically goes into the moderation queue. This blog is not my life.
@Seksualisti, I didn’t forget the context of your latest reply (essentially “what about the comedianz?”) I just found it irrelevant the first time you brought it up and increasingly tedious each time since.
I have been in and around the comedy industry for over 10 years, I am a comedy enthusiast, and yet I can think of only one famous comedian (Eddie Izzard) who never marginalises an outsider group [edit] Australian comedian Adam Hills, too – not as famous though[/edit]. All those other comedians who marginalise people as part of their “dark humour” are contributing to a culture of
marginalisationstigmatisation and Othering, and those who make rape jokes that marginalise rape victims are contributing to rape culture. One of my otherwise favourite comedians regularly refers to certain famous women as “that bloke [masculinised pun of their name]“, thus managing to marginalise all women who don’t fit into the narrow young/white/thin mold of the beauty-myth culture, and to marginalise trans people as well. I always cringe at that part of his routine, [edit] and at that point of his routine he is being an insensitive jerk [/edit]. That these comedians have other social goals in mind with their “dark humour” does not absolve them of contributing to the marginalisation of people who are already victimised/stigmatised, and I don’t think that comedians should get a free pass for their reinforcement of toxic cultural tropes just because they make it “funny”.By the way, only one of the two posts you linked to was written by Melissa McEwan.
I am not acting as if you are a defender of rapists. I do think that you are defending some aspects of rape culture*, which is a culture that marginalises the reality of rape and the experiences of rape victims. Rape culture is not just a culture of promoting/excusing sexual violence, it’s the culture that averts its eyes from the victims of sexual violence.
* [ETA] by denying that some behaviours that you like to participate in/watch others perform, such as comedy, could be part of rape culture. The comedians who include lazy/nasty rape jokes, as part of their routines, even if most of their routine is genuinely challenging/subversive in other areas, are still being insensitive jerks about rape, even if they most probably are not insensitive jerks about everything. Being insensitive jerks about rape on stage reinforces the toxic trope that it’s OK to be an insensitive jerk about rape, particularly in the context of taking consent seriously. Jokes about lack of consent reinforce the particularly toxic trope that it’s OK to disregard sexual unwillingness and keep on pushing until s/he acquiesces (no matter how unenthusiastic or unconscious or exhausted or fearful s/he may be), and *blam* there’s your reinforcement of rape culture, because it’s saying that what s/he wants doesn’t matter.
I’m going to quote in full a comment from SKM on Deeky’s Hell’s Kitchen thread that I think clarifies some things:
[Reposting in the appropriate place in the thread, my previous comment deleted] – Gotta love it when a morphing troll with no patience appears in moderation – dewd, if you post close together with different names and email addresses from the same IP number, it’s just a little bit obvious.
It’s also classic that you dragged out the old chestnut “misogyny = hatred” and thus is an exaggeration immediately after I quoted SKM’s comment on just that claim – do have you the same complaint against the word “misanthropy” or do you just have a double standard operating here?
Unfortunately SKM’s comment is strong on opinion and weak on fact and I cannot see that there has been any rational appreciation of the issues involved. If in doubt just say people are in denial – it covers everything and avoids debate. At some stage you have to say where you stand rather than just shout slogans. I disagree fundamentally with Seksualisti’s notion that rape can be a subject for comedy but I also disagree with those who are not prepared to open the concept of “rape culture” to analysis. There is quite clearly a need to change some males’ attitudes (superbly illustrated on one of the blog sites which showed a braless female and the message along the lines, “This is not an invitation to rape” ). However, attitudes are not changed by ideology or noise but by education.
Phil, a few posts I’ve been reading lately have got me thinking about the core of rape culture, and I’m not entirely certain that it has only one single rotten core, but if it does I’m pretty sure it can be summed up along these lines:
“Sure, rape is the worst crime second only to murder when it happens to my daughter/wife/sister/mother (or me), but what happened to you wasn’t really rape because you should have known better, you slut.”
The above is often seen in combination with:
“Besides, he’s my mate so he couldn’t possibly be a rapist. You’re lying and want to ruin his life.”
Perpetration studies show that if men are asked whether they have ever “had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated (on alcohol or drugs) to resist your sexual advances,” (i.e. the questions avoid using the word ‘rape’) then 6-13% of men say yes (further questions elicit that a smaller fraction of these men (4-8%) are repeat offenders who deliberately set up women to be intoxicated/isolated with them).
And in a finding from McWhorter (2009) that indicates “common knowledge” about rape is totally upside-down:
“Of the men who used only force against their victims, none reported raping a stranger; all the men knew their victims… [T]he stereotypical rape incident characterized by a man violently attacking a stranger was not reported by any of the respondents. Instead, respondents who used only force against their victims reported raping only women they knew, men who targeted strangers exclusively reported they used substances only in the rape incident.”
P.S. I’ve turned off comment nesting – WordPress seems to have changed something so that it’s not working properly any more.
Tigtog
In broad terms I think you may well be right but it’s the extent to which such values are held which is a bone of contention. As a man I don’t come across such attitudes directly although my conversations with females, including my daughter who works for a women’s organisation, is that it is more prevalent than I would wish it to be.
I agree with the comment made on the study to which you referred which stated, ” we need to adopt the stance that sexual interaction ought to always be had in a state of affirmative consent by all participants; that anything else is aberrant.” This requires a cultural change and I don’t think the original comments on this thread are especially helpful in bringing that change about by tarring all males with the same brush. Men are essential to the process of changing attitudes towards women – treating all men as potential rapists undermines that process.
This is borne out by the report which states that, “If we could eliminate the men who rape again and again and again, a quarter of the violence against women and children would disappear”. It’s a minority who perpetrate violence against women and children. We need to reduce that minority to zero through public policy initiatives