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Misogyny and Rape Culture on Campus

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  • CogliostroCogliostro Marginal Opinions Spring, TXRegistered User regular
    Having actually seen rape, I can tell you it is one of the most heinous things that one human being can inflict on another human being.

    The reason I think that our culture seems to be okay with it is because it is portrayed in television and movies as this gentle, easy thing where the woman basically gets roughed up a little. That's the problem right there.

    People who get raped aren't 'roughed up a little'. I cannot accurately describe how horrible it is to see the result of a rape. Not only the physical signs, but the haunting look in the person's eyes after it happens. I joke about being driven to physical violence a lot... but when I see that I seriously want to hunt down whoever did it and make him suffer in a very graphic and prolonged manner, then leave a bleeding - but still alive - sack of pulped meat on the doorstep of the nearest police station.

  • hadokenhadoken Registered User regular
    That's funny because it is awful, and because it shouldn't be funny, but I don't think that this will necessarily lead people thinking rape is at all OK. You can make jokes about horrible things and still maintain a reasonable perspective, no?

  • CogliostroCogliostro Marginal Opinions Spring, TXRegistered User regular
    It is hard for me to do it because of my personal experiences with rape victims.

    But I'm not going to go around screaming at people who joke about it because I firmly believe that if they saw the real thing... well let's just say no sane person would joke about it any longer.

  • Evil MultifariousEvil Multifarious Registered User regular
    Bethryn wrote: »
    Magic Pink wrote: »
    So... that makes it ok to sing about how you wish all women were handicapped so you can rape them in public. Your mind works in amazing ways.
    Yes, thank you, I do think it's quite amazing that I'm capable of not taking everything absolutely literally.

    This applies to both the above comments as well.

    i don't think you're quite grasping the issue with your analogy:

    One person said something horrible and meant the opposite, using satire as a critique of the thing. it is impossible to accuse him of truly believing the horrible thing, or of being insensitive to people who have Irish babies and are afraid of them being eaten; clearly he does not believe it, and the eating of Irish babies is not a real problem.

    the other person said something horrible as a joke. nobody here thinks he literally wants to have sex with armless statues, or wants all women to be dismembered so that he can sexually assault them. We can even give him the benefit of the doubt, and suggest that he does not, in fact, wish that women were unable to refuse consent! However, cracking jokes about a real and prevalent issue, an issue which is a problem precisely because people don't take it seriously and attempt to downplay its severity, is very different from creating an absurd and satirical horrible issue to point out a real issue.

    So, your analogy was poor, and I for one am not taking him literally, or even taking him figuratively in a profoundly negative fashion.

  • BagginsesBagginses __BANNED USERS regular
    Cogliostro wrote: »
    It is hard for me to do it because of my personal experiences with rape victims.

    But I'm not going to go around screaming at people who joke about it because I firmly believe that if they saw the real thing... well let's just say no sane person would joke about it any longer.

    I dunno, Jews love holocaust jokes.

    How many Jews does a Volkswagen/Ford hold?
    Two in front, three in back, and six million in the ashtray.

  • BethrynBethryn Unhappiness is Mandatory Registered User regular
    Cogliostro wrote: »
    The reason I think that our culture seems to be okay with it is because it is portrayed in television and movies as this gentle, easy thing where the woman basically gets roughed up a little. That's the problem right there.
    Except the thing is, our culture isn't okay with it.

    Women certainly aren't okay with it, and unless you want to go down the "majority of men are rapists" road, most men aren't either. What it is is a shithole legally. It's almost always one person's word against another's, and it's a crime of consent rather than physicality (not saying rape isn't physical, but the distinction between rape and legitimate sex is one of consent primarily), which makes it extremely difficult to prosecute without it being either a case of outsider rape, statutory rape, or drug-assisted rape (not including alcohol). The other issue is that if you shift the burden of proof onto the alleged rapist, you go down a rabbithole of guilty until proven innocent for a criminal conviction (and sadly, we already have examples of women falsely accusing men of rape, which does every rape victim a massive disservice).

    That's in a perfect setting; hangover's of last century's misogynistic shit with the victim's sexual history, and "asking for it" still abound, but I would personally say I'm optimistic for this generation learning that rape isn't okay, at least to a greater percentage of us than the previous ones.

    When someone talks of cultures that are 'okay' with rape, I'm really thinking more of Afghanistan and other LEDCs where honour-rape is acceptable, often not even prosecuted, and expected of young men. That is a rape culture.



    As to the whole 'movies are the reason why', once again, this is a serious post hoc you've got going here. If you can somehow make this argument in a logically distinct manner from "DOOM caused Columbine" I'll be willing to listen, but "they did it because it's gentle in the movies" seems pretty loose justification to me.

    ...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
  • PonyPony Registered User regular
    Bagginses wrote: »
    Cogliostro wrote: »
    It is hard for me to do it because of my personal experiences with rape victims.

    But I'm not going to go around screaming at people who joke about it because I firmly believe that if they saw the real thing... well let's just say no sane person would joke about it any longer.

    I dunno, Jews love holocaust jokes.

    How many Jews does a Volkswagen/Ford hold?
    Two in front, three in back, and six million in the ashtray.

    You know what we find even funnier?

    Holocaust jokes we ain't heard ten million times, fella.

  • SheepSheep Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Pony wrote: »
    Magic Pink wrote: »
    I think that chant is ridiculously offensive and I would hope the guy gets booted from the college. It's absolutely disgusting.

    Are you serious? You want someone to be expelled from college solely on the basis of his posting a drunk song on a Facebook forum for posting random overheard conversations?

    I actually think that sexual harassment and underreported rapes are huge problems at colleges, and based on my own experience I assume that anyone I meet who was in a frat probably either raped someone, enabled a rape, or stood by and failed to stop a rape (mostly girls too drunk to be capable of consenting being lead/dragged/carried to bedrooms). I would fully endorse abolishing all frats because of this. But even I would never endorse penalizing someone (let alone expelling them) for posting that song on Facebook. I am also disgusted with this professor for not even having the decency to contact his former student about this. If he was actually concerned about educating instead of grandstanding, then he should have seen this as an opportunity to engage with, instead of punish, someone he seems to think he failed as an educator.

    that's pretty fucked up, brah.

    Not really.

    We're just seeing an example of myopic middle class privilege. Scare mongering, heavy handed, "think of the children", nonsense.

    Jack Thompson is insanely proud between his bouts of anger over the double standard.





    Bagginses wrote: »
    Cogliostro wrote: »
    It is hard for me to do it because of my personal experiences with rape victims.

    But I'm not going to go around screaming at people who joke about it because I firmly believe that if they saw the real thing... well let's just say no sane person would joke about it any longer.

    I dunno, Jews love holocaust jokes.

    How many Jews does a Volkswagen/Ford hold?
    Two in front, three in back, and six million in the ashtray.


    Obviously the best course of action here is to ban political parties.

  • CptKemzikCptKemzik Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    I like how we have to point to war-torn countries as places where "rape culture," can be considered legitimate. Remember a chapter of a frat at my university posed the question If you could rape anyone, who would it be? To new pledges. If you're going to deny that as evidence of rape culture, you're playing mental gymnastics.

    Just like trying to point out lyrics of women trying to push away penises, and the desire for them to be inanimate objects, is totally not about rape guys! Honestly!

    CptKemzik on
  • BethrynBethryn Unhappiness is Mandatory Registered User regular
    i don't think you're quite grasping the issue with your analogy:
    I think you're reading too much into my analogy. I didn't bring up Swift because he was a satirist, I brought him up because it's an example of reading something too literally.

    As I've said above, I see the song being about getting 'shut down', not making women easily rapeable. People can disagree with me on that if they want, it's a matter of opinion.

    Now if you want to address the more general point of "it's so awful we can't joke about it ever", that's a different issue entirely, one I do not believe I was weighing in on with my comments there (but will a little now).
    However, cracking jokes about a real and prevalent issue, an issue which is a problem precisely because people don't take it seriously and attempt to downplay its severity
    I think the manner in which people downplay the severity of rape that has a significant effect on the issue of rape is distinct from downplaying rape for the purpose of a drinking song.

    If I saw a lawyer make a rape joke (which inherently downplays rape) among his friends on a night out, I wouldn't think much of it. It might affect his reputation if his clients felt they didn't want to have a lawyer who didn't take rape totally seriously 100% of the time, but I wouldn't think it made him any less capable of prosecuting a rapist/defending a rape victim.

    If I saw a lawyer downplay rape in a courtroom, I'd want that lawyer at least re-educated, if not suspended, until he can get in line with justice.

    ...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
  • BethrynBethryn Unhappiness is Mandatory Registered User regular
    CptKemzik wrote: »
    I like how we have to point to war-torn countries as places where "rape culture," can be considered legitimate. Remember a chapter of a frat at my university posed the question If you could rape anyone, who would it be? To new pledges. If you're going to deny that as evidence of rape culture, you're playing mental gymnastics.
    Yup.

    Your frat is representative of all males.

    All guys want to rape women.

    Case closed guys.

    ...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
  • SheepSheep Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2012
    CptKemzik wrote: »
    I like how we have to point to war-torn countries as places where "rape culture," can be considered legitimate. Remember a chapter of a frat at my university posed the question If you could rape anyone, who would it be? To new pledges. If you're going to deny that as evidence of rape culture, you're playing mental gymnastics.

    Just like trying to point out lyrics of women trying to push away penises, and the desire for them to be inanimate objects, is totally not about rape guys! Honestly!

    I think when people start bandying about the idea that all men are rapists and we need to ban entire organizations because of the ignorance of a few assholes, it's good form to point out that poshlust hyperbole isn't a good analogue for situations and environments where those types of cultures are codified and really exist.

    Especially when, for all intents and purposes, people happily participate in the culture that "spawns" this behavior in practically all other aspects.

    Sheep on
  • Evil MultifariousEvil Multifarious Registered User regular
    CptKemzik wrote: »
    I like how we have to point to war-torn countries as places where "rape culture," can be considered legitimate. Remember a chapter of a frat at my university posed the question If you could rape anyone, who would it be? To new pledges. If you're going to deny that as evidence of rape culture, you're playing mental gymnastics.

    I don't think you can hold up one gross fraternity as evidence of the existence of a rape culture outside of that fraternity.

    I'm saying this as someone who actually knows what the term "rape culture" means and believes that we live in one.

    For those who are disagreeing: just to clarify, the term doesn't mean that the culture supports or glorifies rape as a whole. There is rarely explicit support for rape, although it does happen in many subcultural groups. The problem is the way our culture frames, defines and reacts to rape, namely 1) rapists don't think they're committing rape, or don't think rape is harmful, or think it's justified, and 2) rape is frequent and is committed by people who are not dramatically antisocial or maladjusted.

    Of course the term is inflammatory; whatever term is used will be inflammatory, because it is jarring to respond to the idea that sexual assault is an endemic and institutionalized problem even aside from the inherent issues of ambiguous consent, lack of witnesses, misinterpreted communication, etc.

  • CptKemzikCptKemzik Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Sheep wrote: »
    CptKemzik wrote: »
    I like how we have to point to war-torn countries as places where "rape culture," can be considered legitimate. Remember a chapter of a frat at my university posed the question If you could rape anyone, who would it be? To new pledges. If you're going to deny that as evidence of rape culture, you're playing mental gymnastics.

    Just like trying to point out lyrics of women trying to push away penises, and the desire for them to be inanimate objects, is totally not about rape guys! Honestly!

    I think when people start bandying about the idea that all men are rapists and we need to ban entire organizations because of the ignorance of a few assholes, it's good form to point out that poshlust hyperbole isn't a good analogue for situations and environments where those types of cultures are codified and really exist.

    Especially when, for all intents and purposes, people happily participate in the culture that "spawns" this behavior in practically all other aspects.

    I'm failing to see where I ever said all men are rapists in this thread, or that entire organizations need to be banned. In fact when I brought up my example in the last page I mentioned how only the local chapter was shut down, and the national fraternity itself made that call. I'm trying to point out that a place can have a "rape culture," without men blatantly running around everywhere trying to perform "honor rapings."

    Saying America can't have incidents of "rape culture," being fostered because "we're not afghanistan!" Is ridiculous.

    CptKemzik on
  • Grid SystemGrid System Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Bethryn wrote: »
    CptKemzik wrote: »
    I like how we have to point to war-torn countries as places where "rape culture," can be considered legitimate. Remember a chapter of a frat at my university posed the question If you could rape anyone, who would it be? To new pledges. If you're going to deny that as evidence of rape culture, you're playing mental gymnastics.
    Yup.

    Your frat is representative of all males.

    All guys want to rape women.

    Case closed guys.

    This is the kind of exaggeration and misrepresentation I mentioned in my first post.

    Grid System on
  • BethrynBethryn Unhappiness is Mandatory Registered User regular
    This is the kind of exaggeration and misrepresentation I mentioned in my first post.
    It is, mostly because I get really quite frustrated when people try to pull a hasty generalisation as support of their position.

    ...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
  • Grid SystemGrid System Registered User regular
    CptKemzik wrote: »
    I like how we have to point to war-torn countries as places where "rape culture," can be considered legitimate. Remember a chapter of a frat at my university posed the question If you could rape anyone, who would it be? To new pledges. If you're going to deny that as evidence of rape culture, you're playing mental gymnastics.

    I don't think you can hold up one gross fraternity as evidence of the existence of a rape culture outside of that fraternity.

    It is the sort of explosion of bad taste that you would expect to see every so often in a rape culture though. This story would be another. I don't throw that out as conclusive proof, but I wonder how many documented incidents like this it would take to convince people that we live in a rape culture. At what point do people stop seeing bad apples and start thinking that the orchard might be diseased?

  • Grid SystemGrid System Registered User regular
    Bethryn wrote: »
    This is the kind of exaggeration and misrepresentation I mentioned in my first post.
    It is, mostly because I get really quite frustrated when people try to pull a hasty generalisation as support of their position.

    I think you're reading something into CptKemzik's posts that isn't there. Specifically, it seems you're interpreting the words "example" and "evidence" to mean "proof", which is more than a bit of a stretch.

  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    Bagginses wrote: »
    Disrupter wrote: »
    This. I dont even get an especially rapey vibe from the song. "Push away my penis" comes off as a metaphor for rejection rather then physically stopping someone from having sex with you. I mean, has anyone ever in the history of man actually pushed away a penis to avoid rape?

    Especially given that the part about the girl being a statue is pretty much a perfect strategy for making it so sex without consultation wouldn't be rape, as statues are inanimate objects.

    This is exceptionally stupid. Depriving a woman of arms so she can't resist is obviously rape-y. That's the point of the song. Whether that strikes you as deeply disturbing or just a bit of bawdy fun is another matter, but it's useless pretending that the subtext is anything but what it is.
    so if the guy sang a song about racially motivated beatings, which happened to 20% of minority students and were largely ignored by the college and not reported by the victims due to the perception that nothing would be done, you'd still laugh this off as oversensitive professor and a douchebag butting heads?

    In case this is directed at me, I should clarify: thinking the professor is a bit of a twit is independent of my view of the song, which is indeed not so great and should not be sung.

  • Magic PinkMagic Pink Tur-Boner-Fed Registered User regular
    Bethryn wrote: »
    This is the kind of exaggeration and misrepresentation I mentioned in my first post.
    It is, mostly because I get really quite frustrated when people try to pull a hasty generalisation as support of their position.

    Except that it does support it, perfectly, which is why you're resorting to lame tactics to discredit it. You're trying to pretend he saying it's representative of all males and he's not.

    The problem with this frat and this guy isn't that they make rape jokes; I make inappropriate jokes all the damn time, it's that they do it either in public or from a position of influence. It's the difference between me telling a racist joke to my friend and me telling a racist joke over a school loud speaker.

  • FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Let me start out with a quick position statement to prevent misunderstandings:

    I think it is okay, in a small minority of contexts, to joke about rape.
    I think that if you do so, you should be extra-conscious about the people immediately around you. A bus, for example, is not the right venue for it.
    I think that if you do so, you should be extra-conscious about whether you're making fun of rapists, or siding with them. The chant makes it sound like you're siding with them. That is not okay.
    I think that if you joke about rape, and somebody says, "Hey, that is not cool," the appropriate response is to say, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I'll let it go." and then let it go.
    I think if somebody jokes about rape inappropriately, it is okay to criticize them.
    I think if somebody jokes about rape inappropriately one time, and it does not appear to be a matter of sexual harassment, kicking them out of school is a severe overreaction.

    Whew. Okay.
    Cogliostro wrote: »
    It is hard for me to do it because of my personal experiences with rape victims.

    But I'm not going to go around screaming at people who joke about it because I firmly believe that if they saw the real thing... well let's just say no sane person would joke about it any longer.

    Well, I've had personal experiences with rape victims, too, and some of them joke about rape. Others are triggered by rape jokes.

    Humor can be a way of defusing trauma, of taking control of it, making it seem less overwhelming. It can be a healthy part of the recovery process.

    At the same time, humor can be a way of trivializing an issue, making a real social problem seem like something people just need to get over.

    I hope it is self-evident how these two functions of humor overlap and that there is no way to really separate them. Irreverence makes a big problem seem smaller. Sometimes that is okay. Sometimes it is not.

    Feral on
    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • JihadJesusJihadJesus Registered User regular
    I'm not sure I follow this thread. Am I supposed to be upset that this cockbag is being publicly shamed for being a cockbag? Because I don't see why I would be. He attached his name to being a cockbag and got called on it. Go take a seat over there with Rush and I'll play you a song on the world's tiniest violin.

  • BethrynBethryn Unhappiness is Mandatory Registered User regular
    The problem is the way our culture frames, defines and reacts to rape, namely 1) rapists don't think they're committing rape, or don't think rape is harmful, or think it's justified, and 2) rape is frequent and is committed by people who are not dramatically antisocial or maladjusted.
    Except that we appear to be doing quite a good job at defining all these things as rape. The courts define all these things as rape. The psychologists and sociologists do too. Most universities (and colleges and even some schools I hear about now and then) have a 'no means no' seminar for freshers.

    This is what I do not get about the term "rape culture." If it were used to apply specifically to the subgroups who are focused on regular sexual conquest by almost any means necessary, I could sort of understand where it's coming from, but it seems more commonly to be used about anything from victims not wanting to come forward, to courts being unable to prosecute because of lack of evidence, to jokes about rape.

    We know what rape is. We do what we can to punish it within reasonable limits (barring some dickwads who have still to get the memo re: marital rape, plus sexual history). We do what we can to educate young people who are entering the sexual phase of their lives how to not be rapists. There is still more to be done, and we continue to investigate how best to do that.

    How are we then a rape culture?

    Rapists obviously conform to 'rape culture', but that's like saying that murderers conform to 'murder culture'. If you want to extrapolate rape culpability beyond the rapist themself, and prove the existence of rape culture is dependent upon non-rapists accepting rapists, please give examples.
    I don't throw that out as conclusive proof, but I wonder how many documented incidents like this it would take to convince people that we live in a rape culture. At what point do people stop seeing bad apples and start thinking that the orchard might be diseased?
    The above addresses this as well.
    Magic Pink wrote: »
    Except that it does support it, perfectly, which is why you're resorting to lame tactics to discredit it. You're trying to pretend he saying it's representative of all males and he's not.
    "x is evidence of rape culture" is anecdotal evidence, and using it as evidence that rape culture exists is a hasty generalisation.

    We do not accept the existence of large country-wide phenomenon based upon isolated incidents, sorry. If you think he wasn't making that statement:

    "If you're going to deny that as evidence of rape culture, you're playing mental gymnastics."

    ...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
  • FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Bethryn wrote: »
    How are we then a rape culture?

    Rapists obviously conform to 'rape culture', but that's like saying that murderers conform to 'murder culture'. If you want to extrapolate rape culpability beyond the rapist themself, and prove the existence of rape culture is dependent upon non-rapists accepting rapists, please give examples.

    Rape culture refers to elements of culture that normalize or facilitate rape.

    "Normalization" in this sense doesn't mean "morally acceptable." It means routine, expected, or unavoidable. For instance, a 90-year-old dying in her sleep is a normal death. That doesn't mean it's okay, that just means it's expected. A 9-year-old dying in her sleep is not a normal death. We are shocked by the latter whereas we might be sad but we are not shocked by the former.

    Similarly, certain kinds of rape are normalized, or we try to fit instances of rape into our schemas of what normality would be. It is not okay but we are not necessarily shocked if a woman walks down a dark alley in a skimpy dress and is raped. Well, perhaps we are shocked, but we are less shocked than if a child is raped in her bedroom by her own father. The former is at least somewhat normalized, the latter is not.

    Note: I actually disagree with the normalization of the former example; I think we should be shocked by that occurrence. I'm just describing what I perceive to be typical reactions to these hypothetical events.

    Misogyny facilitates rape; by holding that women are less valuable than men, or that women are sexually submissive, the atrocity of rape is diminished, and social shame towards real rapists is diminished. Not eliminated, mind you - nobody is arguing that rape is always okay all the time in our culture. The argument is that rape is considered less of an atrocity than it could be or should be because of our culture.

    It can be argued that rape jokes (in some contexts) normalize rape; it can also be argued that victim-blaming and slut-shaming normalize rape. I don't necessarily want to get into the latter examples here (we're talking about rape jokes and if we start talking about victim-blaming instead that will hijack the thread). I'm just trying to explain what 'rape culture' means so we can get on the same page.

    I have a very simple acid test to determine whether a joke is rape-culture-y. If the implied victim were a child, would I be laughing? If the answer is "no," then I do a bit of quiet soul-searching.

    Feral on
    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • Fuzzy Cumulonimbus CloudFuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud Registered User regular
    Rape Culture threads have kind of been beaten into the ground but I will say the same thing now that I have in every other thread. The severity of rape culture may not be easily assessed but if you as a human cannot understand that the words you say contribute to social atmospheres, then please remove yourself from social situations, because it is probably not a thing you are very good at doing.

  • Fuzzy Cumulonimbus CloudFuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud Registered User regular
    I think every person on this board would be willing to replace rape culture with bully culture, at least when we were kids in K-12.

  • BethrynBethryn Unhappiness is Mandatory Registered User regular
    Feral wrote: »
    Similarly, certain kinds of rape are normalized, or we try to fit instances of rape into our schemas of what normality would be. It is not okay but we are not necessarily shocked if a woman walks down a dark alley in a skimpy dress and is raped. Well, perhaps we are shocked, but we are less shocked than if a child is raped in her bedroom by her own father. The former is at least somewhat normalized, the latter is not.
    I don't get this in the least bit.

    By analogy, you're saying that because I'm not shocked that someone robbed a convenience store, I'm part of a 'robbery culture'?
    Feral wrote: »
    Misogyny facilitates rape; by holding that women are less valuable than men, or that women are sexually submissive, the atrocity of rape is diminished,
    Yup, I get this. That's what misogyny is. As I've said before, I'm not seeing how jokes that are misogynistic are indicative of actual misogyny. A rapist is a misogynist by definition.
    Feral wrote: »
    and social shame towards real rapists is diminished.
    Not sure about this. I've never met another male who glorified having date-raped someone; hell, very few guys I know give that much detail about their sexual encounters, even if they do acknowledge having had one. So how am I supposed to shame them if I don't know they're a rapist? This seems to be an issue of exposure, not attitude.

    ...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
  • mrt144mrt144 King of the Numbernames Registered User regular
    Cogliostro wrote: »
    It is hard for me to do it because of my personal experiences with rape victims.

    But I'm not going to go around screaming at people who joke about it because I firmly believe that if they saw the real thing... well let's just say no sane person would joke about it any longer.

    Unless they are rape victims who use humor as a form of coping. It happens.

  • Grid SystemGrid System Registered User regular
    Bethryn wrote: »
    How are we then a rape culture?

    Rapists obviously conform to 'rape culture', but that's like saying that murderers conform to 'murder culture'. If you want to extrapolate rape culpability beyond the rapist themself, and prove the existence of rape culture is dependent upon non-rapists accepting rapists, please give examples.
    Before getting into specifics, it would help if you could describe, in broad strokes, what kind of and how many examples you are looking for.

  • Fuzzy Cumulonimbus CloudFuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud Registered User regular
    Also if you want to learn about rape culture, go to a Take Back The Night in your city or university. Sit and listen to the stories of male and female people who have endured terrible things and the secondary victimizations when no one listened to them or didn't believe them.

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

  • mrt144mrt144 King of the Numbernames Registered User regular
    Feral wrote: »
    Bethryn wrote: »
    How are we then a rape culture?

    Rapists obviously conform to 'rape culture', but that's like saying that murderers conform to 'murder culture'. If you want to extrapolate rape culpability beyond the rapist themself, and prove the existence of rape culture is dependent upon non-rapists accepting rapists, please give examples.

    Rape culture refers to elements of culture that normalize or facilitate rape.

    "Normalization" in this sense doesn't mean "morally acceptable." It means routine, expected, or unavoidable. For instance, a 90-year-old dying in her sleep is a normal death. That doesn't mean it's okay, that just means it's expected. A 9-year-old dying in her sleep is not a normal death. We are shocked by the latter whereas we might be sad but we are not shocked by the former.

    Similarly, certain kinds of rape are normalized, or we try to fit instances of rape into our schemas of what normality would be. It is not okay but we are not necessarily shocked if a woman walks down a dark alley in a skimpy dress and is raped. Well, perhaps we are shocked, but we are less shocked than if a child is raped in her bedroom by her own father. The former is at least somewhat normalized, the latter is not.

    Note: I actually disagree with the normalization of the former example; I think we should be shocked by that occurrence. I'm just describing what I perceive to be typical reactions to these hypothetical events.

    Misogyny facilitates rape; by holding that women are less valuable than men, or that women are sexually submissive, the atrocity of rape is diminished, and social shame towards real rapists is diminished. Not eliminated, mind you - nobody is arguing that rape is always okay all the time in our culture. The argument is that rape is considered less of an atrocity than it could be or should be because of our culture.

    It can be argued that rape jokes (in some contexts) normalize rape; it can also be argued that victim-blaming and slut-shaming normalize rape. I don't necessarily want to get into the latter examples here (we're talking about rape jokes and if we start talking about victim-blaming instead that will hijack the thread). I'm just trying to explain what 'rape culture' means so we can get on the same page.

    I have a very simple acid test to determine whether a joke is rape-culture-y. If the implied victim were a child, would I be laughing? If the answer is "no," then I do a bit of quiet soul-searching.

    But if it was a baby...

  • FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Bethryn wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Similarly, certain kinds of rape are normalized, or we try to fit instances of rape into our schemas of what normality would be. It is not okay but we are not necessarily shocked if a woman walks down a dark alley in a skimpy dress and is raped. Well, perhaps we are shocked, but we are less shocked than if a child is raped in her bedroom by her own father. The former is at least somewhat normalized, the latter is not.
    I don't get this in the least bit.

    By analogy, you're saying that because I'm not shocked that someone robbed a convenience store, I'm part of a 'robbery culture'?

    Sure. However, I don't feel that we treat robbery and rape the same way. If a convenience store is robbed, we rarely if ever try to find reasons why the convenience store deserved to be robbed. This is a thing that happens with rape.

    You might feel that this is a thing that should happen with rape, because rape is a crime of a different nature than robbery, and that's an understandable line of reasoning. But I think that we can agree that rape is not directly analogous to any other crime, so while we might disagree on the implications of that lack of similarity, I think we can agree that there are big complications to such analogies.

    Bethryn wrote: »
    As I've said before, I'm not seeing how jokes that are misogynistic are indicative of actual misogyny. A rapist is a misogynist by definition.

    Well, I don't think that sexist jokes are necessarily intrinsically misogynist all the time. I do think that they are sometimes. The real problem is that they can be construed that way. If you make a sexist joke, I might not know whether you're actually being sexist or not. If I'm a little sexist myself, I might accept your joke as kind of a reinforcement of my own sexism. I might not think this in conscious words, but I might subconsciously feel something like, "Bethryn made a sexist joke, so he thinks a little bit of sexism is okay, too."

    Bethryn wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    and social shame towards real rapists is diminished.
    Not sure about this. I've never met another male who glorified having date-raped someone; hell, very few guys I know give that much detail about their sexual encounters, even if they do acknowledge having had one. So how am I supposed to shame them if I don't know they're a rapist? This seems to be an issue of exposure, not attitude.

    Well, this is a thing that happens. I don't have time to go grab the studies right now, but maybe somebody else can do the dirty work for me, or I'll post them later. If you ask people, "Have you ever raped somebody?" they are more likely to say "no," than if you ask people, "Have you ever used physical force to get somebody to have sex with you?" or "Have you ever had sex with somebody who didn't fully consent?" There's a subset of people who think that rape is okay, as long as you don't use the scary R-word.

    Feral on
    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • BethrynBethryn Unhappiness is Mandatory Registered User regular
    Before getting into specifics, it would help if you could describe, in broad strokes, what kind of and how many examples you are looking for.
    I want to see what it is that the non-rapist is doing that is allowing the rapist to think he's okay with rape.

    For reference's sake, my current view is that the people who date-rape regularly work in a paedophile-ring like system. They self-reinforce the idea that it's okay to get a girl so drunk/drugged she can't resist and have sex with her. They are distinct from the majority of people, who don't view sexual conquest as an ends-justify-the-means important status marker, and generally view themselves as superior to that majority.

    That may be naive, but given the 75% (self-reported) rape rate among women, I - perhaps naively - have trouble assuming there's a 1-1 rate of women rape victims to male rapists, and the belief that 3 out of every 4 guys I met has raped a woman.

    Now those groups, that is what I think of when I think 'rape culture', because they are mini-versions of actual country-wide rape cultures where it's okay to rape women. I do not think that those groups receive significant indication from the majority that their attitude towards rape is okay, nor do I think that if they received negative indications of their attitude from outside (barring actual prosecution) would they give a rat's arse.

    ...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
  • Grid SystemGrid System Registered User regular
    Also if you want to learn about rape culture, go to a Take Back The Night in your city or university. Sit and listen to the stories of male and female people who have endured terrible things and the secondary victimizations when no one listened to them or didn't believe them.

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

    More immediately, take a look at Project Unbreakable. Some of the photos point to cultural norms that rapists use to coerce, shame and silence.

  • FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Bethryn wrote: »
    I - perhaps naively - have trouble assuming there's a 1-1 rate of women rape victims to male rapists

    It is most likely the case that most rapes are committed by repeat offenders, so there are more rape victims than rapists.

    It is also likely the case that many of those repeat offenders don't think they're committing rape. In their own minds, they have legitimized the actions.

    Edit: the question becomes, "is this internal rationalization of rapists facilitated by aspects of mainstream culture?" and I happen to think the answer is yes. Certain parts of our culture make it easier for rapists to tell themselves that their actions were acceptable (or only mildly unacceptable).

    Feral on
    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • Fuzzy Cumulonimbus CloudFuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud Registered User regular
    Your current view is inconsistent with the literature and reality. Not sure what to say there.

  • FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    Your current view is inconsistent with the literature and reality. Not sure what to say there.

    I think you're responding to Bethryn, but I'm not sure. Would you specify?

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • Fuzzy Cumulonimbus CloudFuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud Registered User regular
    Feral wrote: »
    Your current view is inconsistent with the literature and reality. Not sure what to say there.

    I think you're responding to Bethryn, but I'm not sure. Would you specify?
    Bethryn.

  • Dread Pirate ArbuthnotDread Pirate Arbuthnot OMG WRIGGLY T O X O P L A S M O S I SRegistered User regular
    Cogliostro wrote: »
    It is hard for me to do it because of my personal experiences with rape victims.

    But I'm not going to go around screaming at people who joke about it because I firmly believe that if they saw the real thing... well let's just say no sane person would joke about it any longer.

    I've lived through it, multiple times, and I'm able to make jokes about it now.

    That being said 90% of the time I'm going to frown at a rape joke because 1) it's coming from someone who is lazy and using 'rape' as shock cause his joke isn't funny, 2) because a ton of rape jokes are made for the rapist to laugh at, not the victim, and 3) it's not the sort of thing you should joke about in a super public place, like a bus on campus.

  • BethrynBethryn Unhappiness is Mandatory Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Feral wrote: »
    It is most likely the case that most rapes are committed by repeat offenders, so there are more rape victims than rapists.

    It is also likely the case that many of those repeat offenders don't think they're committing rape. In their own minds, they have legitimized the actions.
    This is more or less my opinion, but I don't believe there are decent statistics to back up the first one (nor to contradict it, not least because of the low conviction rate for rape preventing us from getting a good indication of who rapists are). I'm not saying that to try and detract from it; merely to point out that it is, to my knowledge, a position of belief rather than documented fact.
    Your current view is inconsistent with the literature and reality. Not sure what to say there.
    You're going to have to be more specific on which points, please.

    Bethryn on
    ...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
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