Today’s unrelated photograph is the latest in my acclaimed series, “Ironic Plastic Nuns on Toy Store Roofs of Austin.” Toy Joy toy store, 29th and Guadalupe, April 22, 2007.
Speaking of child rapists who freely roam the countryside, have you Brits wondered why it is that every time you turn around lately, some perv in your neighborhood is throwing an acquittal party?
Because rape convictions in the UK have plummeted to Taliban-level depths, that’s why! They’ve sunk from a 1977 high of 32% to a low of just 5.6% in 2007. Why? Hold on to your hats. It’s because nobody believes the women.
That’s right. According to The Guardian, when it comes to men brutally assaulting women, there festers in Britain a certain “culture of scepticism.”* Supporters of women’s continued oppression have successfully countered small gains in the number of rapes reported by propagating the notion that women are both congenitally insatiable and naturally perfidious. Because of the success of this bogus narrative, prosecutors, cops, and the citizenry are overwhelmingly convinced that a woman’s overriding impulse is to punch herself in the face a few times, chain herself in an underground bunker, and plead with innocent male passers-by to let her service them. Gentlemen that they are, the men reluctantly comply. Once her slutty objective is accomplished, the ‘victim’s’ natural feminine depravity kicks in, whereupon she compulsively makes a false rape accusation. It’s as simple as that!
Here the faint of heart should avert their eyes, because we now allude to the repellent story of just such a case. This particular atrocity, gothically dubbed the “Dungeon Rapes” to titillate pornsick media consumers, occurred in the US, but it perfectly illustrates the juridical savagery of this “culture of scepticism.”
To wit: Convicted child rapist builds secret underground bunker. Convicted child rapist serially abducts two 17-year-old girls, duct-tapes them in the bunker, savages them, and leaves them to suffocate to death in the airless room. At the trial, convicted child rapist claims the “sex” was “consensual.” He is acquitted on insufficient evidence, and, of course, “smiled as he was escorted from the court.”
The “sex” was “consensual.” The chicks were just sluts who wanted drugs. The convicted child rapist built his sleazy underground rape room for innocent romantic getaways. Why not?
The “culture of scepticism” would have us believe that this kind of prevaricating-slut scenario takes place in all but 5.6% of the 12,000 annual reported rapes in the UK.
Quoth The Guardian:
Rape is unique because in no other crimes were victims subject to such scrutiny in court or was the defendant so likely to claim the victim had consented to the attack. Between half and two-thirds of all cases are dropped before they come to court.
How is this possible?
Naturally, I have a theory which is mine. It has two parts. Here they are. But be forewarned. In Part 1 I’m going to go slightly Dworkin on your ass and blame it on porn. Specifically BDSM. Even so, please do not write in and lecture me on how ‘liberating’ your groovy BDSM ‘lifestyle’ is. Believe me, I’ve heard all the arguments, and believe me, they are all asinine. Please, just get some help.
But I digress.
To continue, this “culture of scepticism” crap actually makes perfect sense. Why shouldn’t juries believe that women enjoy abuse? The mainstreaming of sadomasochistic porn into the everyday onslaught of media imagery — advertising, fashion, TV shows, video games, garden-variety Hollywood movies, music videos, email spam, et al — has made the improbable equation, “sex + violent dominance = pleasure,” seem perfectly accurate and perfectly reasonable.
Note, if you don’t mind, that this thinking is insane. Pornography, particularly the S&M genus, is the graphic representation of the violent oppression of half the human race. It degrades the whole species because it has normalized the fetishization of suffering to the extent that convicted child rapists may, with the blessing of a jury of their peers, routinely saunter away smiling after brutalizing teenagers in their goddam underground bunkers.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If women were not systemically oppressed, pornography could not exist. In a post-patriarchal society, free of the degrading paradigm of dominance and submission, pictures of people fucking would have all the prurient allure of a podiatrist appointment. It is the rape-based degradation to which consumers of pornography respond, dum-dum!
But I digress.
The remaining part of my theory is that the populus is so desperately invested in patriarchy that they are unwilling, even in the interest of justice, to part with one of its primary cornerstones: the slut class. Patriarchy depends on the slut class to serve as the receptacle for its pornsick incontinence. A slut class naturally implies a good-girl class, from whose virginal ranks the privileged male selects his unpaid housekeeper/fetus incubator/childcare worker. It naturally follows that if you go around convicting rapists, you diminish the she-was-asking-for-it slut class, which in turn, as distinctions between the two become more and more nebulous, diminishes the good-girl class. See, convicting rapists has the undesirable side effect of making women a bit more human.
You know, if I were a little more on the ball this morning, I might dip a querulous toe into the argument that society will never stand for the eradication of rape. Such success as capitalism enjoys is largely based on the wide availability of unpaid domestic labor created out of the sex class. Which sex class could not exist if women were not rapeable. Can you dig it? The global economy would collapse without rape.
Have a nice day.
________________________
* Apparently there also festers in Britain a culture of spelling skepticism without a K.
[Gracias, Perinteger]
That South Carolina guy story (Consensual, my ass. This guy is deeply, disturbingly creepy, which is sort of comforting in that such a large number of guys who do this sort of thing are, literally, the Guy Next Door.) really chapped my hide yesterday. How long do you think it will be until we see him on the 6:00 news again?
Here in Cleveland, we have a guy who’s been in trouble with the law repeatedly for raping teenage girls, including his own cousin. He’s already been tried (and acquitted) for molesting and murdering an eleven-year-old. And surprise, surprise, he’s being indicted again.
What’s it gonna take?
jeezuz h christ on a broomstick, twisty. i love your ass.
“To continue, this “culture of scepticism†crap actually makes perfect sense. Why shouldn’t juries believe that women enjoy abuse? The mainstreaming of sadomasochistic porn into the everyday onslaught of media imagery — advertising, fashion, TV shows, video games, garden-variety Hollywood movies, music videos, email spam, et al — has made the improbable equation, “sex violent dominance = pleasure,†seem perfectly accurate and perfectly reasonable.”
THANK YOU. This is something I’ve been saying for what feels like 100 years.
Simply put - people saw the *men* tortured at Aru Gharib and they were horrified!! Horrified!!
They see women tortured in brutal porn and it’s sexysexy!
And we’re somehow surprised that some sick fuck who rapes two underaged girls in a fucking bunker gets away with it.
This country sucks. And what’s worse - there’s no where to go that this isn’t the result.
The longer I read your blog, the more amazed I am at your patience and ability to explain over and over again, in elegant and stately phrases, the same urgent yet self-evident observations.
Though circumstances always call for new and deplorable combinations of misogyny to condemn, you never seem to lose sight of the sad fact that many people out there are incapable of seeing the assumptions of sexist privilege as clearly as you.
You are so right to blame it on the porn. Rape is judged and juried in a rape fantasy state of mind by all the frightfully excited jurors, I’m sure. Humanity means nothing to a populace enslaved by their sex dreams.
A specific suspicion in this case is jury selection. Only a very carefully selected jury could have returned a verdict like that.
How horrifying to think that it would be easy to stack a jury of smug rape deniers from a random call for jurors.
“Why shouldn’t juries believe that women enjoy abuse? The mainstreaming of sadomasochistic porn into the everyday onslaught of media imagery…has made the improbable equation, “sex violent dominance = pleasure, seem perfectly accurate and perfectly reasonable.—
Disclaimer: Not trying to defend the men or justify the behavior in any way.
That said, I would add to your point that there’s also a cultural narrative/myth that women simply aren’t telling men everything when it comes to what they want in the bedroom. There’s the myth of the “men don’t know, but the little girls understand”. This myth asserts that men should try things that are a little dirtier than what the woman has plainly stated that she wants. Why? Because she secretly wants it but would never tell. It’s the naughty nice girl embellishment of your basic slut narrative.
The problem with it is that many women play along with this narrative, for a variety of reasons I’m not studied enough to understand.
It might be interesting to see a cleverly worded campaign for dispelling the myth of secret female lusts.
You know, to augment your basic “No Means No,” maybe something like “Now why would I (or anyone else) want to do that?” -or- “I’m only doing this because you drive a BMW.” Ok, that’s not very catchy or clever, but, it’s the best I’ve got on short notice.
-finn
finnsmotel:
“It might be interesting to see a cleverly worded campaign for dispelling the myth of secret female lusts.”
Off the top of my head, how about:
“What the HELL did you just tell me to do?”
or
“You first.”
It is really, really inconvenient to admit that rapes happen, especially in cases like this — not just because it might make women seem more human and it diminishes the slut class but because it’s so much more comfortable to believe that these things don’t happen to the virginal (unconsenting) class.
He kidnapped these girls from their bedrooms. If we concede that this is possible, then we have to concede that there’s no reason for it not to happen to me, or my daughter. Or anyone else that I would really like to consider “above that”.
It makes sense for those who love living in a bubble. And it leads right back to putting the onus on the victim to have prevented the crime by being less victimy. That’s win-win for patriarchy.
Once again, Twisty hits the nail right on the head: everything I had been trying to explain to my boyfriend about why the porn he sometimes watches, particularly the Bang Bus variety, is so obscenely degrading it makes me nauseous to see it and is the whole reason people don’t believe rape-receiving women. And once again I am forwarding it on to him, “nag” that I am.
Megan A., dump him.
I don’t suppose the fabulous Twisty Faster will be attending Robert Jensen’s lecture tonight:
Lecture examines pornography and its threat to intimacy
Robert Jensen, professor of journalism, presents “Pornography and the Threat to Intimacy” at 7 p.m. in the Thompson Conference Center, Room 2.120. Jensen discusses the consequences of an increasingly pornographic culture on intimate lives. The event is hosted by Voices Against Violence, A Call to Men-Austin and the senior fellows honors program of the College of Communication.
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~vav/
Frankly, I think your points are far more compelling than its “Threat to Intimacy” and I don’t reckon he’d say anything you don’t already know, but it would be great to see you there!
I vaguely remember from my college Poli Sci studies that Mao said something similar about prostitution; something about prostitution being a symptom of female oppression and that when women were truly free we would know, because prostitution would disappear. I also remember thinking that was one of the most attractive things about Communism, that realization on his part.
Excuse me for taking so long to wonder about this piece of the whole sick pie, but why does any juror believe a woman would go through the shit storm of hate and suspicion that pressing charges of rape requires?
What motive is even conceivable to compel a woman to bring spurious rape charges against a man? Considering what a woman goes through to prove a rapist actually raped her, what is the goddam prize they think the accuser is hoping to get?
In the TP world, any woman who tries to help get a rapist off the streets deserves a medal, not the contempt of disbelief.
Does anyone know what on earth these jurors were thinking when they decided these girls were lying?
The way pornography permeates cultures is so beyond the lens of most people I might even be willing to suggest it’s the reason for paper. (Dont challenge that–it’s exam week and I’m busy and it’s a hyperbole, etc)
finns, if there is anything women arent telling men it’s that they are eFFing sick of being puppet-mastered by the porn world and all it’s many messages (i.e. “she is always wanting it and always not telling you how much she wants it”).
And then this:
“In a post-patriarchal society, free of the degrading paradigm of dominance and submission, pictures of people fucking would have all the prurient allure of a podiatrist appointment.”
Ohhhh hells yeah. TF: I think your commenters would be more than happy to pitch in and buy an island with you and begin such a society.
Apparently there also festers in Britain a culture of spelling skepticism without a K.
Hey, leave the language out of it!
The nail. on. the head. Hit.
The three factors causing people to disbelieve rape survivors: porn, porn, porn.
And the slut class. Yeah, because who wants to be in that class? Despite what the man says, no one does, really in their heart of hearts. They have to be recruited–or rather, branded.
Damn, just damn. You are an awesome thinker & writer Twisty Faster.
I am reminded of a case, maybe a year ago, when a woman working for disneyworld in Orlando was walking home one night and was abducted and gang raped by a bunch of French males who also worked for Disneyworld. She reported, but the French guys showed the cops video they made of the thing and so SHE was arrested for making a false report, and because when they busted in her apartment she had a doobie on a counter.
My question is, how did the cops determine it was consensual from the video? How can they tell, when most porn looks like rape to me and it’s called consensual.
ALso, sometimes when someone is afraid, she will try to appease her attackers. Did the cops know this?
I read a really interesting article recently by an Australian academic called Alison Young. It’s basically a discourse analysis of the cross-examination methods used in court by various defense lawyers in rape cases, working from actual court transcripts. The findings will not surprise anyone who reads this blog: rape trials are (unnecessarily!!!) harrowing, traumatic events which undoubtedly make many rape victims reluctant to take matters as far as trial. Nevertheless, the article is excellent and makes the point very clearly indeed.
I’ve posted a pdf copy in the downloads section of my blog (here - http://inspiredbycoffee.squarespace.com/downloads/) if anyone fancies reading it. It’s the one at the top there, imaginatively named “Alison Young article”!!!!
“‘I think the verdict says it all,’ he [Hinson] said.”
Yup. In case the pornotopia doesn’t tell men strongly enough that whatever they want is ok, because secretly, women want or deserve it, the verdict has said that the law agrees.
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, bloody BRILLIANT post!
You know who could be helping with the arrests and processing of accused rapists? Rape crisis center workers, and any women who have had the experience of rape who have made a choice to work at helping other women, if they wanted to take on something like that. Not a bunch of sexist male cops who enjoy BDSM porn and think women are liars.
In the meantime, I’m all about the sawed-off pool cue and the insanity plea. This horseshit enrages me.
Wow, Twisty. You are amazing. I love the way you write, the way you think. Just amazing.
My philosophy teacher used to complain about how the letter ‘k’ was notoriously underused in the queen’s english, his protest was to use ‘k’ in place of ‘c’ wherever possible.
What motive is even conceivable to compel a woman to bring spurious rape charges against a man? Considering what a woman goes through to prove a rapist actually raped her, what is the goddam prize they think the accuser is hoping to get?
I had someone explain this to me the other day. According to this person (and others I’ve had the misfortune of meeting in the series of tubes), filing false rape reports is an easy way for women to get money.
My guess is that media-sensationalism-induced fears of frivolous lawsuits (OMG SHE GOT MONEY FOR SPILLING COFFEE ON HERSELF?!) merged with the belief that women are responsible for their own rapes as well as the gold-digging bitch trope, resulting in the paranoid chimeric delusion that women are going out and suing innocent men for all their moniez for the rape that didn’t happen that’s really their fault anyway.
To steal a phrase from I-don’t-remember-whom, it really is the perfect storm of dumbass.
I saw a rerun of CSI in which one of the dtcetives’ ex husband was falsely accused of rape by a slutty stripper.
Then the stripper confided with the detective (who used to be a stripper too) that the reason she falsely accused him of raping her (they had consensual sex in the stripclub’s parking lot. Romantic no?) was so she could make a lot of money from it.
So the dumbass probably watches TV, or reads magazines, or lives in this world.
TP: Also, the way it was explained to me once on a LiberalDude blog thread: It seems women frequently claim falsely they were raped because they regret their consensual-sex “decision” later, and just want to get back at the guy by ruining his life. Nevermind the obvious holes one could drive a truck through in such an argument. When I suggested some of the very points you bring up, I was of course met with a cascade of ugly, hostile comments replete with “stats” pulled out of their asses and the usual misogynist unpleasantries. And again, this is on the allegedly “liberal” blogs, as we’ve discussed before here at Twisty’s place.
“Such success as capitalism enjoys is largely based on the wide availability of unpaid domestic labor created out of the sex class. Which sex class could not exist if women were not rapeable. Can you dig it? The global economy would collapse without rape.”
Aboslutely I can dig it, but I don’t want it.
Capitalism, oligarchies, monarchies, aristocracies, fascism are economic systems that reward exploitation and robbery of the stronger over the lesser; they are rape as an economic and social system.
Thanks everybody, for making me feel just a little bit sicker and sadder. Not that it is your fault, god no - I blame the patriarchy.
If any rapist is so obviously guilty that all the tricks and fantasies of a pool of jurors still aren’t enough to let him walk, then I say castrate the son of bitch. Is sex so incredibly sacred that anyone needs it more than they need to be relieved of their own supply of testosterone? I’ll never give up this conviction.
I lived in Italy for four years. The cultural dominance of the madonna/whore view of women was unquestioned and hard-coded in the language of sex to an extent I found difficult to believe.
I blame the porn. It was everywhere a newspaper was sold, every corner, several theaters in every town, and I don’t know for sure, but certainly easily bought and rented on video.
I believe that censorship of violence to women is good for the general population. Making it as hard as possible for men to find and look at these things is one reason. The next is that it says that in our culture, this shit is bad and we all acknowledge it.
It isn’t important to me that censorship “doesn’t work” or isn’t “perfect” or anything like that. What’s important to me is that we should all find it unacceptable, and say so by making it against the law.
exactly, when we realize banning porn is not censorship because porn is not expression. It is an act done to women, caught on video.
Kate, I think you’re reading these economic and political systems as metaphorical rape (i.e., general exploitation of the weak), and while I can get behind that reading, I wish to observe that Twisty seems to be alluding to the literal, physical rape of women.
I don’t understand the “GET RICH QUICK!” notion of rape charges. Most rape plaintiffs never win. Out of the ones that amazingly do, what percentage of those would be from plaintiffs with no evidence? In all likelihood, any “made-up” rape charge isn’t going to have any evidence, and thus would nearly never win. Heck, the rape charges with tons and tons of evidence hardly ever win–everyone knows about the OC cop. Since the “made-up” excuse is the go-to response of every media personality when a rape charge is reported (which isn’t very likely, either), I deem these terrible times indeed. Faludi’s “Backlash” doesn’t seem to be anywhere near over yet.
And if anyone in LA remembers, voters decided to fund a few million into freeway construction over here, yet wouldn’t give less than 10% the cost of that project to battered women’s shelters. IBTP.
Change that above to “I don’t understand the ‘GET RICH QUICK!’ explanation by so many people of rape charges.”
Oh, yeah.
Tack that on to the slew of disgusting -and wrong- false rape accusation statistics “liberal” folks like to haul out here and there as was mentioned. There are men and some women rushing to the defense of the downtrodden rapist, or the “rights” of the pornagrapher. And they love mentioning that there are women who are producers of porn, like that makes everything just okey dokey.
Assholes.
“He was place in federal custody after Monday’s verdict was read, but smiled as he was escorted from the court.
“I think the verdict says it all,’ he said.”
Yes indeedy, it sure does.
Sigh. Twisty, your perfectly correct, of course. I come here for my daily dose of sanity on porn. If you’re going to go all Dworkin on us though, couldn’t you go with the cheery part where she talks about rape not being inevitable and 24 hour truces and all that?
That said, TP when it comes to Italy and the madonna/whore complex, I blame the church. But that’s just me. Okay, its not just me. And I’m not letting porn off the hook. But the Madonna/whore stuff practically comes down from the pope.
Twisty, I absolutely love the way you write. I couldn’t have put it even a fraction as well as you did, and I am so glad you brought up this issue because I was really scared that no one in the feminist blogosphere was going to do it. I will have to say that, in context, porn is certainly to blame for this type of attitude that assumes women are “liars” or “asked for it.” But I am just wondering, what about women who tried to report rapes before porn ever got even slightly mainstream (for example, in the early 1900s) and were still not believed or blamed for being raped? Just wondering what other people’s thoughts were on that….
You would not believe how many of the general public actually think these two girls are liars! Amazing. And if anything like this happened in a predominantly Muslim country people in the U.S. and even the UK would be all over it, bitching out Muslim countries by saying they’re misogynist and “barbaric.” Strange isn’t it?
SaltyC wrote, “My question is, how did the cops determine it was consensual from the video? How can they tell, when most porn looks like rape to me and it’s called consensual.”
Sadly, I suspect the answer is in that second sentence.
On the “get rich quick” motives of rape victims: Aren’t most rape charges filed in criminal, rather than civil court? In that case, penalties would be in terms of prison time, rather than monetary judgments. And, in the U.S. at least, the charges in criminal court are brought by the state, with the victim as a witness, right?
So can someone please explain to me how a woman who files criminal charges against a rapist stands to gain financially?
Utter, f-ing bullshit.
CafeSiren, I had one guy assert recently, in an argument about the Duke case, that grand juries(!) routinely take false rape charges to small-claims court(!!) because they have a lower burden of proof.
It was like watching a chimp play legal-terms madlibs.
The “get rick quick” explanation for rape accusations is indeed absurd. I think one reason men give so much credence to the idea that many rape accusations are false is that to be so accused is literally a nightmare scenario. It’s easier for a man to sympathize with an accused man (”What if that happened to me?”) than an accusing woman (since most men cannot even fathom what it means to be raped). This is especially true if he doesn’t know either party. Throw in a few high profile, actual-false-accusation cases, and it’s easy to see how the intellectually lazy justify concluding that most rape accusations are false.
When I read the title of this piece I was wondering if it was going to be about the recent case here where a 20 year old rapist walked free out of court after the judge pronounced that his ten year old victim “was looking for sex and that’s what she got”.
Or it could have been about that dreadful docudrama mock rape trial where a mixed jury trotted out the usual rape-apologist myths: lying women, asking for it, it was the man they should feel sorry for and so on. Aired on the “liberal” BBC with no comment or analysis of the misogyny whatsover.
Or maybe, the story mentioned briefly in the news the other week where a government schools inspector declared that lads mags were “a good source of sex education”.
It’s relentless. Mainstream culture here is totally pornified. What now passes as “normal” is in fact a grotesque, deeply misogynistic and violent distortion of human sexuality - but very few people are prepared to acknowledge that. They just will not join the dots.
It’s frustrating that the media presents false accusations of rape as terrible and life-destroying, with no equivalent coverage of rape trials or women’s experiences to show rape as the awful crime it is. So rape is only a terrible crime when it damages men’s reputations. Rape hurts men too!
I agree that porn contributes to increasing rape rates and decreasing convictions, but what bothers me the most in a way is how many women think that victims of rape either deserved it or are lying. That’s how far porn has sunk into our culture: it doesn’t just affect the people who watch, it affects everyone.
A brilliant, brilliant post, yet again. Can someone please get Twisty a book deal?
One thing that strikes me about the trope of the wicked woman bringing a good man’s downfall by her false accusations is the possible other side of the story. In cases where there is some confusion over whether or not the woman consented, does it really surprise anyone that women are confused about their desires and depersonalised as entities by living in a pornocentric society ? And that, as a result, some might have trouble even understanding their own ability to consent or not? Perhaps that women might “go along with it” in the moment, and that the reality of what has been forced on them might take a while to sink in through layers of social conditioning telling them that their duty is to be ever-ready, pliant sexual receptacles?
I’m sure lots of people here saw Samhita’s post at Feministing yesterday: the postcard from PostSecret on which a woman confessed that after she was raped, she dated the rapist, in the hope that by making it a ‘real’ relationship she wouldn’t have to admit that the rape had, in fact, been real. The responses are heartbreaking.
It doesn’t surprise me at all. I don’t know how any of us is supposed to figure out our own desires and how to assert our agency when we’re constantly bombarded with propaganda telling us that we don’t have those things anyway, and really we’re supposed to exist as little more than perfectly-groomed fucksocks.
Lara asks an interesting question:
The whole definition of rape and recognition of it has changed so radically in the 20th & 21st centuries that it would take a book-length study to answer this. In most Western countries in 1900, rape could not occur within marriage, for instance; I’m sure it would have been impossible to bring a case if you were a prostitute (it usually still is). The whole notion of female consent was basically nonexistent, and therefore the definition of rape was completely different. If I remember correctly, rape was defined as the defilement of a lady’s virtue, and generally charges would be brought by an outraged father against a young seducer who had interfered with his daughter’s marriage prospects. Under those circumstances, actually, she often had consented. But legally she could not; she was just a piece of her father’s property that had been shop-soiled.
I’m generalising across a lot of history and a large geographical area here, of course. But I don’t think you could even begin to do a comparison between then and now. Though it would be fascinating to try.
Lara: I think you underestimate how mainstream porn has been for hundreds of years. The Victorians famously had a flourishing porn industry and photographs and drawings were available at practically every street corner. There is surviving porn from the sixteenth century. You also underestimate how prudish our own society has become. There are plenty on songs and ballads from the last few hundred years that deal with rape and were a part of mainstream culture. The ballad In Heriot’s Walk from 1715 describes a man raping a woman, and ends from the victim’s point of view saying ‘Read in my eyes, my grief, my jewel, but in my heart my coming joy’.
It is argued that rape convictions were difficult to get in the past due to understandings of women’s nature and sex. Women were the sexually agressive sex who were made passive or brought under control by the act of sex. Furthermore women desired to be made passive or brought under control (hence the ‘coming joy’ in the quote above). The act of sex always involved a women submitting to a man, but by submitting a woman de facto gave consent. To get a rape conviction women had to prove an act of sex where submission did not happen- which is virtually impossible.
If you read rape narratives from the eighteenth century, women try to get round this by removing themselves from the story. They emphasise male violence upon them, the ripping of their clothes, hitting or grabbing them. They do not talk about themselves or how they fought back as this would a) remove their passivity and need for protection from men and b)draw attention to the point where they submitted. Oh, and of course the Madonna/whore thing come in as it is impossible for prostitutes to be raped as their bodies are common property, unlike chaste women whose bodies belong to their fathers and husbands.
For those with access, you might be interested in Garthine Walker, ‘Rereading rape and sexual violence in early modern England’, Gender and History, 10, (1998), pp.1-125
Ah, yes, this reminds me of a class I took last quarter.”Do you think that men are naturally at a disadvantage during rape trials?” -asked by yet another bright young future leader of America.Hmm, NO!I was so shocked and furious I could barely sputter out an answer. Now, I will just print out this post, and the next time it is asked in my presence (and oh, I know there will be a next time), I will just read it aloud.
Not to mention that education for the upper class gent, for hundreds of years, centred on learning Latin. In addition to the awesome level of mysogyny contained in the language itself, the first texts one learnt at school were those, like the Metamorphoses, which glorified rape. Rape was literally a part of the curriculum. Someone’s written a great article on this, but as I’m now unable to remember her name or the title of the article, that’s probably less than helpful.
Back to the present, the 5.6% actually includes those who have pleaded guilty - if you only look at contested cases, the figure is more like 4.3%. In some areas of the country, it’s down to 2%. Which means someone, somewhere is looking at this figure and saying, “98% of rape victims are lying? Hmm, that seems totally normal. Nothing more to do here.” Hurrah for the British justice system.
Who are those jury people? Why do they walk among us?
There was porn in the 19th-century, but it probably wasn’t the main factor when it came to rape. Men had power over women then in a way they aren’t supposed to have under law now. The reasons have changed although the result is the same.
In between the Victorian era and today, rape convictions in Britain have been 6 times as high as they are now. The 70s isn’t reknowned for being the most liberal era but it managed a 32% conviction rate. The 70s also defines the idiosyncratic porn style of handlebar moustaches and perms. There’s a research paper in there somewhere.
South Carolina is the heart of the bible belt. Hard core southern baptists. Everything is sinful and it’s all the fault of women. Don’t ever go there!
As other have said, a huge part of the problem is that false accusations of rape get so widely - and gleefully - reported by the UK media. There’s another one all over the papers today. Obviously I’m not saying that false allegations don’t happen and that they’re not extremely damaging to the falsely accused. However, they receive a disproportionate amount of coverage, particularly compared to the amount of our attention that our appallingly low conviction rates receive.
There’s an excellent article by Christine Christie (‘Rewriting Rights: a relevance theoretical analysis of press constructions of sexual harassment and the responses of readers’ Language and Literature 7:3, 1998, pp.215-234) all about how newspapers tend to report failed prosecutions for sexual harrassment far more frequently than they report successful prosecutions, leading to the widespread perception that sexual harassment is either trivial or a complete myth.
Put together the fact that many of the tabloids which pedal the ‘accusations of rape are frequently false’ line with the fact that many of them regularly carry pictures of scantily clad women, and you have a particularly toxic and woman-hating brew.
Hey bookblob,
Another interesting fact to throw into the mix is that in the 1970s the rate of marriage was the highest it had ever been and the age at first marriage the lowest it had ever been in Britain. Am not sure how that relates to high rape conviction rates but there might be something there.
(I can totally see myself walking into a ‘it’s the feminists fault’ discussion here!)
oh my fucking god, twisty - with each new post you consistently blow my mind. what would i do without your bloggins?!? thank you.
At least the “gold digging bitch, “regretful lover,” and “get rich quick” scenarios give the woman credit for being intelligent enough to concoct a scheme. I can’t help but wonder if those aren’t just male attempts at falsely elevating their estimation of women to make themselves appear somewhat fairminded. What I fear to be closer to reality is a deeper disdain for women and their ability to reason, that exists at such a base level, we liberal dudes rarely notice.
My oldest (13) is beginning to show an interest in girls at school. He’s met someone he likes and they’ve been trying to plan a time to get together at her place (with her parents as chaperones, of course). As the date grew near, I felt compelled to have a “talk” with my son about sex and birth control.
First off, the compulsion to have this talk is, in and of itself, a culturally programmed behavior. The parent fears retribution from the culture at large, should a pregnancy occur and, gods forbid, they had not given him the “talk”, they might be to blame. So, we have the talk.
During the talk, I couldn’t help but notice that the language that sprang to mind most immediately was loaded with distrust for women. I had to work hard to re-craft, on the fly, what I wanted to say vs. that which would spring forth on its own.
We are culturally programmed, to a certain extent, to repeat messages to our kids that we have been given from society (or the subculture we choose to inhabit). For example, most folks, these days, when finishing a beverage, will ask you if you recycle, even if they themselves don’t care about Earth Day. Culturally programmed language.
So, as I’m telling my son that he should always use a condom, I found myself working hard to be careful how I tell him to do so. The culturally programmed language includes loaded phrases like “just because she says she’s on the pill, doesn’t mean you don’t use a condom.” Those phrases are built upon mistrust of the woman. I felt it important to at least try to present the information as fairly as my liberal dude brain could manage. Instead, I said, “she may very well be on the pill, but, people make mistakes and if she missed a pill or two, you could be at risk.”
Still, the implication seems that he could be tricked into being a father at age 13 by an evil woman lurking inside the body and mind of a 13 year old girl. Adam and Eve all over again.
So, right from the outset, in his first interaction with a woman, his liberal dude father, with the best of intentions, has taught him to fear women and question their honesty and integrity (his liberal chick Mom nodded along in agreement). All along the path of life, the culture at large will reinforce this adversarial relationship.
That rape accusations are dismissed summarily should be no surprise. We start the conditioning very young, and don’t even realize we’re doing it most of the time.
-finn
“unpaid housekeeper/fetus incubator/childcare worker”
You left out the most important part of the job - unpaid sex worker.
Which sex class could not exist if women were not rapeable. Can you dig it? The global economy would collapse without rape.
You just blew my mind.
Really.
I felt it expand in a little spasm, and I had to sit still for a bit so my whirling snowglobe of thoughts could settle down.
Awesome post, Twisty.
I think it’s really interesting (and distressing) that right on the heels of those clear, direct words, a number of commenters here have alluded to or recognized some notion of the actuality of “false accusations” and in so doing, have made sure that the concept is part and parcel of this conversation.
I want to know how ANYONE could know what is “false” in the realm of the porn-saturated, rape-naturalized patriarchy that Twisty has just so eloquently described? In a rape culture, there is no such thing as a “false” accusation. Feminist theorists have been saying this a long, long time and more articulately than I.
In a comment here, Catherine Martell lends some clarity to the issue:
“women might ‘go along with it’ in the moment [and] the reality of what has been forced on them might take a while to sink in through layers of social conditioning telling them that their duty is to be ever-ready, pliant sexual receptacles”
But we like to cling to the notion of some “truth” and we childishly hope that the legal system can find what that is. But there is no such thing when the standards of “truth” are already set in stone by the patriarchy. You have only to look at the standard situation of two people who may have had some kind of relationship before the violent act, where the standard reaction by all and sundry is that this is a “he said, she said”‘ situation. This is based on the convenient construct, for this one special circumstance, that we can’t sort it out because we have no idea who would lie in such a situation. The legal system works this way only in this situation; suddenly the police and the courts have no way of working out who has more at stake in the lie.
This is just one of the many infuriating things about the behavior of the sick fuck at Virginia Tech and the reactions to that behavior before the killings. Two women reported being stalked, but declined to press charges. Why can’t the state, as it normally does in all other criminal matters, press charges on their behalf? The answer is a whole ball of legal precedent and standards, but, being formed in thousands of years of the patriarchy, they are based on the notion that we can’t trust what women say in a rape situation.
We live in a rape culture and we have not one fucking thing to lose by wholly believing and supporting every single woman or child who says they were raped, whether they say it during the rape, two hours after the rape, or twenty years after the rape.
Cho also like to use prostituted women.
Cho Hired an Escort Before Rampage
April 24, 2007 — Seung-Hui Cho hired her to dance for him in a motel room one month before the massacre at Virginia Tech’s campus, dancer Chastity Frye said in an on camera interview with a TV station in Roanoke, Va.
“He was so quiet. I really couldn’t get much from him. He was so distant. He really didn’t like to talk a lot,” Frye said in the interview. “It seemed like he wasn’t all there.”
Frye said that a “creepy” Cho, 23, called the escort service she works for and hired her to meet him for one hour at a Roanoke motel, about a 30-minute drive from Virginia Tech’s Blacksburg campus.
Maybe it’s our fault. According to the UK’s Feminist and Women’s Studies Association, feminists have “failed to theorise rape” -
http://tinyurl.com/2afpm2
With friends like these etc, etc.
I was sexually abused by my grandfather as a kid. When I was about 23, I had recovered some solid memories, and I was so angry. I was a total mess, couldn’t work, didn’t have health insurance. My parents were paying for therapy but it was tough on them. I thought about pressing charges against my grandfather.
I talked to a lawyer at my city’s rape crisis center, who explained that it would likely take 2-3 years to get through the trial. She told me that I had to be prepared to act out the scenes in the courtroom-to literally get down on the floor, or whatever, to act out the abuse. She was very nice, but also very clear that pressing charges was going to be hell. Hell, for 2-3 years. And since I had recovered memories (which many think are false) I probably would have lost.
I wanted him to go to jail. I wanted for him to pay for my therapy and lost wages. But I was barely able to make it through one day as it was-there was no way I could manage a trial that would rip me and my family apart even more than it already had been. I had to decide-because with the statute of limitations, I only had three years (I think) after the recovery of the memory to press charges.
So basically, once I was healthy and healed enough to press charges, I couldn’t anymore, because time had run out.
So yeah, I don’t see how anyone could say that a rape trial is “easy.” Or that it’s something women enter into with no thought other than the money they might get. It’s just an insane suggestion, completely ungrounded in reality.
Twisty, you are my hero (and sanity).
To delphyne:
Wow. That first sentence from the link nearly made my jaw hit the floor. I thought the patriarchy was one gigantic rape machine, and that 60s-70s feminist writers, ala Shuly Firestone and Dworkin, practically created and contributed to such a discourse. I guess I must’ve been wrong.
It was a real WTF moment for me too.
Who has theorised about rape if not feminists? It’s not unlike arguing that socialists forgot to address the class system. Academentia, eh?
Jeeshus, Twisty, should I admit my fear that you will die before I can wring every last bit of patriachal-blaming venom from your tiny body? Is it wrong to feel this way? I’m sure you’re a lovely person an all, but what you do for women’s rights - you probably have no idea of the impact of each stone you throw into the pondscum, and how far those ripples go.
Need more on this, please: I said please!
You know, if I were a little more on the ball this morning, I might dip a querulous toe into the argument that society will never stand for the eradication of rape. Such success as capitalism enjoys is largely based on the wide availability of unpaid domestic labor created out of the sex class. Which sex class could not exist if women were not rapeable. Can you dig it? The global economy would collapse without rape.
Oh dear vera! So true! “Simply put - people saw the *men* tortured at Aru Gharib and they were horrified!! Horrified!!
They see women tortured in brutal porn and it’s sexysexy!”
I’d like to see violent porn banned completely. There is no reason whatsoever to be sexually aroused by images of violence. Rape studies clearly show the coorelation between “rape supportive attitudes” and the likelyhood of committing actual rape. Studies also show the clear affect of viewing violent rape as porn - more likelyhood of male’s committing actual rape AND a changed belief system that rape is “not so bad”. That changed belief system led to “pretend juries” in a “pretend rape trial” to view the rape as consensual. Porn does has effects, and none of them are good!
I saw the videos of that Wheeton? College conference on pornography that was going around. Pretty incriminating evidence the reseachers have uncovered.
Finn - I think the problem with sex in general is that the onus is on the woman to not get pregnant, to clearly say ‘no’ when she doesn’t want sex and to not get herself raped.
I think it’s actually quite easily countered, the focus should be on the actions of the man and it should be instilled in them from when they are young boys. So, for example, a discussion, like yours, with a young boy who is about to engage in sexual relations would make it clear to him that HE is in control of his fertility. He must wear a condom because he could, very likely, get a girl pregnant. If she is taking the pill then she is doing her bit to control her fertility and since sex is an act that requires two people to be full participants, he must also fully participate in controlling his own fertility. In fact, that she would even be taking the pill is putting a lot more effort into sex than putting a condom on.
Obviously, when it comes to rape, they need to be educated similarly. It is not up to the girl to try and fight him off if she doesn’t want sex, etc.
The problem is that men have been given a free ride when it comes to responsibility for sex.
Another thing. Ever since I saw the acquital of Kenneth Glenn Hinson (sun or mon night) I haven’t been able to sleep much, and today I played hooky from work. I’ve been leaving the following on message boards as my way of venting, and yet one more time still will not be enough.
One good man does not make up for 99 monsters. Monsters are told over and over that certain things cause pain and harm to others, yet still they continue to enable and approve the behavior of other monsters. They are the accomplices, the foot soldiers in the Invisable War on Women; and on Monday April 22, 2007 they lost the right to called human.
Tell me I’m taking this too hard. Tell me I’m reading too much into one lousy aquital. Tell me a history of monsters doesn’t indicate a pattern. Tell me why I should believe you. Tell me why you continue to fuck monsters. Tell me.
Oh… “The talk.” Wouldn’t it be wonderful if “the talk” included a discussion on the theory of sex (and how it has nothing to do with all those “feelings” the teenage boy is having that make him see a knee on the subway and want to violently hump it), proper techniques for providing pleasure to one’s partner, etc.
I hear where you’re coming from, finn, but I don’t see how blaming the girl ever needs to enter the picture: “Son, you are responsible for your sexual health. That means when you’ve met a girl whom you care about and respect, and the two of you have decided together to have sex, then you are going to need to put a condom on your penis. This will prevent you from transmitting or contracting sexually transmitted diseases, and will prevent your sperm from reaching her eggs, thus preventing pregnancy. Son, you do do not badger girls into having sex with you- that is not the way it works. Son, you are not entitled to have sexual fantasies about any girl you so choose- when you begin to think of other human beings as objects, you are behaving less than human.”
What a great speech. I could have a fleet of pubescent boys changed into feminists in no time with that fantastic rhetoric (sic)
finnsmotel
I tell my two boys, 9 & 12, that their bodily fluids are THEIR responsibility. End of story. No discussion of what the other person might be doing. It is not relevant. I tell my daughter the same but add that she must insist any guy wear a condom or no go.
OT completely but Twisty is there any chance of you starting up a radio station? I guess I have dudely taste in music or something but I am so tired of trying to listen to the radio & hearing about strip clubs, milf contests, babes of the day, Brittany hawt again, age of consent debate (really!!), etc.
I can’t even watch tv.
IBTP
On person sez:
“I hear where you’re coming from, finn, but I don’t see how blaming the girl ever needs to enter the picture”
I sez: It’s not just about blaming the girl, though. It’s about the cultural mandate of an adversarial relationship based on gender. I’m not sure my 13 year old is going to sit still long enough for a “normal talk” let alone a discussion that breaks down gender roles in society.
Another person sez:
“I tell my two boys, 9 & 12, that their bodily fluids are THEIR responsibility. End of story. No discussion of what the other person might be doing. It is not relevant.”
In theory, that seems sound. But, when the rubber meets the road (instert trojan joke here), it seems necessary to address some possible scenarios with the other person. We’re not talking about test tube sex, here, we’re talking about an emotionally charged situaion replete with peer pressure, cultural expectations, and much more. To say there’s “no discussion of what the other person might be doing” seems like a statement that would get dismissed as unrealistic without some provision for context and conditions.
For example, how realistic is it to tell your boys that they should use a condom if receiving oral sex (does anyone actually do that)? Wouldn’t it be more realistic to suggest they have a conversation with their partner and learn about that person’s sexual health (got herpes?) prior to engaging in that activity?
-finn
I feel a peculiar need to apologize for my anger… that’s it not a ladylike thing to do, that it’s not fair to inflict myself on anybody else - but you know what? Even though I just came back from feministing where I found a couple nice feminist men (and there’s probably a couple here), that doesn’t change the fact that we live in a deeply embedded pro-rape culture. And I ain’t falling for that “women do it too” crap.
Don’t know about you, but when I do something stupid and someone calls me on it, and I think about it, and if what they said makes sense, I don’t do it again. But we have to tell the morons over and over that rape is bad, that unreported rape happens, that most women DON’T lie about rape you jackass, and still they find another excuse - almost as if they want an excuse to rape.
So no, I’m going to fight the guilty feeling telling me to apoligize. But I will change my original comment to MOST men are monsters. Some of you men are fine human beings, but the rest are a waste of oxygen.
“Son, you are not entitled to have sexual fantasies about any girl you so choose”
Wrong. There aren’t any laws against thought crimes… yet.
“In most Western countries in 1900, rape could not occur within marriage…”
I seem to remember that a few years ago, when VAWA was up for renewal, a southern congressman rejected to inclusion (extension?) of marital rape into the legislation on the grounds that … the justice system would collapse due to all the new cases.
You shouldn’t feel like you have to apologise mAndrea, I know what you mean though. I have a lot of anger at men as a group and as individuals, so I say comments like yours that all men are monsters, but in my mind I know there are those anomalies that aren’t and I don’t mean them, because they’re not acting like what I mean when I say ‘men’. To me, they’re not ‘men’ (don’t mean that in a derogatory way, to be called a man is an insult, imo). I figure that the ones who are good will get that blanket statements do not include them, but I still feel a tinge of guilt. So just to be clear, I hate men, but not those of you who truly do act like decent human beings.
Finn says:
For example, how realistic is it to tell your boys that they should use a condom if receiving oral sex (does anyone actually do that)?
Err, part of the basic sex-talk? And yes, I hope so!
Wouldn’t it be more realistic to suggest they have a conversation with their partner and learn about that person’s sexual health (got herpes?) prior to engaging in that activity?
Again, isn’t that part of the basic spiel? I mean, unless you’re teaching your son the “fuck and toss aside like used tissues” approach to women.
Anyway, I think you’re splitting hairs, Finn. Nobody is arguing against nitty gritty realism in your sex-talk with your boys, just the focus of the gender bias in your talk. There’s a world of difference between a discussion that needs to address particular sex acts (oral sex for BOTH partners,anal sex, hand jobs, blah blah) and the one that you were originally talking about: the bias of the talk that was tending to instil “blame” or mistrust for the female gender in your son.
I have two sons (9 and 12)and with the oldest I’ve already had “the talk” in the sense that whenever the subject of sex comes up naturally in the conversation, we talk about it. My basic strategy is to stress to him that women are human beings and need to be treated as if they are human beings - it starts and ends right there. I tell him that sex is an act of trust and intimacy between two human beings and shouldn’t be entered into lightly as either party could be hurt, physically, mentally or emotionaly. I tell him that sex is an adult activity (over 16 here) and he should be sensitive and careful in all his sexual relationships.
So, my rock-bottom opinion is: if there’s no trust and intimacy and you still want the blow job? Wear a fucking condom.
And frankly, Finn, you’re talk of “realism” in this scenario bothers me a whole lot. It’s like you assume that “realism”=getting carried away with passion=excuses being an arsehole about sex. And isn’t that the whole problem with patriarchal male/female sex relations in the first place? This idea that men can’t control themselves so women have to suck it up and put up with their shit? Isn’t that the slippery slope that dumped us in the rape culture quagmire? IBtP.
L.B quoting Babs:
“Son, you are not entitled to have sexual fantasies about any girl you so chooseâ€
Wrong. There aren’t any laws against thought crimes… yet.
Law or not, he’s not entitled. End of story.
Any such entitlement implies an ‘ownership complex’ which is itself wrong. Law has nothing to do with this. The magnificent UK law and courts systems are acquitting 95% of accused rapists; that’s how important ‘law’ is.
And frankly, Finn, you’re talk of “realism†in this scenario bothers me a whole lot. It’s like you assume that “realismâ€=getting carried away with passion=excuses being an arsehole about sex.
Yes, and this is something that any decent parent should be spelling out to their boy-children particularly: just because you have an erection is NO EXCUSE for anything regardless of “conditions”. The world will not end and your knob will not drop off if you wait for 30 seconds to roll a condom on. (Nor if you don’t get “serviced” at all)
You could even teach them some handy phrases, “hang on a second”. “are you OK with this ?”, “do you like this ?” while they get the hang of the idea of women being human and having their own feelings in what should be a fully MUTUAL situation, and you know - would they like it if someone treated them like nothing more than a human toilet ?
I think one reason men give so much credence to the idea that many rape accusations are false is that to be so accused is literally a nightmare scenario. It’s easier for a man to sympathize with an accused man (â€What if that happened to me?â€) than an accusing woman (since most men cannot even fathom what it means to be raped).
Nah, I don’t think men do any such thing. Sympathy and empathy aren’t exactly the virtues masculinity is noted for.
Ever notice how men get the willies when another man even so much as looks at, let alone approaches, his wife/gf/daughter/etc? If men regard other men in general to be basically good guys that get falsely accused, why would men get their boxers all in a bunch over it? Why the over-reaction?
It’s because men know exactly what they do. After all, who would know men better than men? The proof is in the pudding. Don’t look at what men say. Look at what they do. And the fact of the matter is, men don’t trust other men around their wives/gfs/daughters/etc. Not even for a second. They trust them about as far as they can throw them. And are far less trusting of their brothers than women are.
In short, it’s a game and we’re being played when men act all huffy and indignant when other men are accused of rape. IOWs, we’re being gaslighted. While at the same time, they’re sending up signals to each other that they’re a team player and loyal to the brotherhood. They’re then able to recognize each other as card carrying members and work as a team to overpower any opposition and act individually or collectively with impugnity. See how that works?
P.S. Think in terms of power, not feelings.
“Law or not, he’s not entitled. End of story.”
Who gave you the right to decide what others can and can not think?
Luckynkl:
Actually, I think men get their boxers in a bunch in such situations due to a lack of trust in the woman, not necessarily due to a lack of trust in other men. Men will make sexual overtures to women. Men know this; as a group, they do it, regardless of the availability or interest of the women at whom it is directed. However, the boys with their knickers in a twist over it are less likely to be thinking that the dude who is looking at/approaching “their” woman is likely to rape her than they are to be reacting to the fear that if the right candidate came along, “their” woman would betray them in a heartbeat.
That’s not all of it, of course. A lot of it is pure property ownership issues: “their” woman is theirs to fuck, to look at, to talk to, and everything else. No other man should be deriving ANY sort of pleasure from “their” woman. In fact, I think the only emotion sanctioned in males who are not the proprietor of a given woman is envy of a particularly froggy sort.
Ron’s point made sense to me. I have thought about what it would be like to be falsely accused of a crime and convicted on circumstantial evidence, mostly when up to my ears in arguments about the death penalty. Frankly, seeing as how I’ve made a point of building my life in a way that my trappings of success include moi, choices of which I can be proud, and my dear ones, it scares the bejeezus out of me. I am willing to accept Ron’s statement that when looking at rape cases, men would be generally unable to comprehend the aftermath of being a victim of rape, but that they are fairly well-equipped imaginatively to understand the repercussions in their personal and professional lives of a false accusation/conviction. Of course, the fundamental distrust men have of women in M/F relationships (see above, also Finnsmotel’s comments), the myth that a woman must have been forcibly restrained and assaulted by a stranger for it to be called rape, the role of women as the sex class, and the general asshattedness of rape skeptics as a breed take this arguably fairly approachable problem of paradigm differences and turn it into a stinking, festering mess.
IBTP.
Also, Twisty:
fantastic post.
Ah, the age old dilemma. The men want to fantasize about the faces and bodies of the women- the human being who happens to own the face and body does not want to be fantasized about. Who wins? Under the current social system, not the owner of the face and body. I blame the patriarchy!
I swear, I have tried to have this argument with a man who has been raised to think that “girl watching” is a legitimate activity. I could almost hear crickets chirping when I said “well, what if that girl doesn’t want you looking at her? what if she doesn’t want you to picture her face and figure on whatever porn-created sexual fantasy you cook up in your head? what if the thought of doing anything with you sexually makes her throw up in her mouth?” For some reason, to folks like my anecdote guy, LB here, and an unfortunately large number of males raised under the system of patriarchy, the idea that a woman would not want the “admiration” of a man- any man- is inconceivable. Yet to me, the idea that a man- any man- feels comfortable randomly thinking sexual thoughts about any female he cares to, is lunacy. I guess that’s the “adversarial” relationship to which finn was referring.
No one’s saying you can’t, L.B. No one’s going to take away your fantasies of every reasonably attractive woman you encounter smiling gratefully with a face full of your own jizz. Don’t worry.
The thing is, though, if you were a halfway decent human being, you wouldn’t want to fantasize about that kind of thing. So, carry on with your depraved fantasies about women you don’t even know; just know that it makes you an asshole. That’s all. She doesn’t want to raise sons who are assholes. You, however, are welcome to continue on the path of assholery and, except for perhaps in this one little patch of the internet, never have anyone call you on it.
I release you back into the arms of privilege, Loathsome Buzzard.
Who gave you the right to decide what others can and can not think?
Ah, so rape fantasies are now considered “thinking?”
Rape is a reality for women. Not fantasy. Not “thinking.” Thoughts affect attitude and actions. But you’d like what? To not be held responsible or accountable for it? Like you’re a runaway freight train without any brakes? That is what is meant by entitlement. Sorry, but unless you’re an infant, you’re not entitled to think, say or do whatever you damn well please without any accountability.
Oh, isn’t this nice. Back on the same treadmill.
“And frankly, Finn, you’re talk of “realism†in this scenario bothers me a whole lot. It’s like you assume that “realismâ€=getting carried away with passion=excuses being an arsehole about sex.”
I’m not suggesting any of the things that are being foisted on my comments w/re to slippery slopes of getting carried away, etc., so everyone please put away their projections.
My original point was that the inherent problem with “the talk” is that the gender distinction - and its concomitant implication of adversarial positions - has been instilled in the kid by mainstream culture. So, by default, the rhetoric in the discussion is loaded. Unless a parent has the wherewithall (and a willing and interested kid as participant) to break down the conditioning and rebuild the language from the ground up, the talk is rhetorically hamstrung. So, whether it’s a liberal dude giving the talk to his son, or a feminist mom giving the talk to her daughter, it seems to me that the deck is stacked from the outset. I was attempting to make this point to suggest that the rape case dismissals are merely an extended manifestation of a bias that’s instilled since birth.
Probably a mistake to use my own kids/anecdotes as examples, but, I’ll attempt to defend.
The “realism” I’m speaking of is the difference between the subculture here at IBTP and the mainstream culture my kids are submerged in. IBTP comments section culture is of the future. Its rhetorical framework suggests a sort of post-revolutionary mindset, using language that I find to be nearly impossible to apply to normal everyday conversations. Though I do try, it’s a bit like being from another planet.
I mainly used my kid as an example to illustrate that there’s a certain point where what we’d like to instill in our kids (desired culture) has to address the realities of the culture they live in. I feel like using the IBTP rhetoric during “the talk” would alienate me from them in the same way suggesting they never watch TV or only grow their own food might.
But, now I’m rambling.
-finn
**pulls up chair, tosses popcorn in microwave**
My mind still reels at the vicissitudes of the attempt to move the non-objectifying restaurant fantasy into the sexual realm…you’d have to have an established relationship before confessing, “Oh, well, I was having certain…thoughts…which led me to approach you, and, well, there are some blank areas there regarding your personal preferences. Can we discuss them?” Not the sort of thing you could do 5, 10, or 15 minutes into a discussion. Or even a few hours. More like the 7th hour of the 2nd date. Heck, by that time you’d have a handle on your opposite number’s culinary preferences, which makes the restaurant fantasy EASIER.
“For example, how realistic is it to tell your boys that they should use a condom if receiving oral sex (does anyone actually do that)? Wouldn’t it be more realistic to suggest they have a conversation with their partner and learn about that person’s sexual health (got herpes?) prior to engaging in that activity?”
So, you only care about your son *getting* an STD, not about *giving* it? Is this the respect for women/girls that you are teaching your son? Make sure she doesn’t have cooties and then fuck her as you wish. Sick and disgusting.
“I feel like using the IBTP rhetoric during the talk would alienate me from them in the same way suggesting they never watch TV or only grow their own food might.”
Expecting your son to respect women in his sexual interactions and to always use protection is the same as asking him never to watch TV or to grow his own food?
Yeah, this whole fucking culture has now degenerated into bdsm as a lifestyle choice, but let’s forget that for a minute - you hear a good song on the radio or wherever - a new one you haven’t heard before, you turn on one of the music channels only to find more, mostly naked or hyper-sexualised women dancing in “fuck me” manner, no connection to the actual song - yep, just about every fucking single vid now is that in various guises - pop culture is damaging women as much as any bdsm - reinforcing the slut class and the rape culture - stop the demand and stop the pressure on women to “please daddy” and start teaching girls that their value lies in other aspects of themselves than being “not” - and last but not least, men, start valuing women for being human beings and start being human beings yourself, with feelings and a conscience - stop demanding and using porn. Just fucking stop using it, making it, pressuring your girlfreind’s, wives, partners to act it out, pressuting them to look like it, talk like it and be it 24/7- just fucking stop.
“…..value lies in other aspects of themselves than being “not†”
Goddam typos - should be “hot” - my fingers go flying all over the place when I’m pissed off.
Ah, the “playing hard to get” myth, in which it is impossibl