A while ago, I was looking up some facts and stats on rape, and collected a handful of links that might prove useful when arguing with people who refuse to see that there is a substantial subset of men who are, indeed, the majority of the problem. It also speaks to why we shouldn’t tell daughters not to get raped as much as tell sons (and, indeed, daughters) not to rape. As even Narendra Modi says, “After all, the rapist is also someone’s son.” (Or daughter. Let’s not pretend women can never rape, and men can never suffer rape, because that’s hardly true. It’s just that men are overwhelmingly likely to be the perpetrators rather than the victims. And those men who want to argue that, answer this honestly: when you plan a first date with someone, are you afraid she may not sleep with you, or that she’ll be weird or boring, or you’ll make such a fool of yourself she’ll never want to see you again – or that she will violate and then possibly kill you?)
Right. Here are the links. Feel free to add your own links to good resources in the comments.
Pharyngula Wiki Link Roundup: Rape and Rape Culture
I’ve noted in some forums a new anti-feminist trope which argues against the use of “predator” in cases of serial sexual assaulters (predators are killers yada yada rape isn’t murder yada hyperbole yada).
This strikes me as striving to elide the distinction between premeditated victimisation and opportunistic victimisation, and that distinction is very much worth maintaining, because it’s fairly obvious on purely deductive grounds that premeditated assaulters are far more difficult to avoid than the opportunistic, especially those who are serial rapists because they’ve learnt how to get away with it before, and they get away with repeated rapes by exploiting a general social unwillingness to intervene when someone moves to manipulate an intoxicated person into an isolated situation.
Lisak and Miller and McWhorter’s studies show that 70% of admitted rapists use intoxication as their primary method of overcoming resistance. This is not an isolated misunderstanding, this is cynical exploitation. This is predatory.
Oh, look, Merriam-Webster on the word predator. Turns out, believing that the word ‘predator’ implies obligatory killing is the hyperbole (not all predators are killers, hey?). :P The operative word seems to be harm rather than kill, when using the term to refer to people, so I would say using “predator” in the case of serial sexual assaulters is spot-on.
Otherwise, those anti-feminists are demeaning men again by equating them with animals.
I wonder if these people think predatory lending is when banks give you loans such that, when you can’t pay, the bank kills you and eats your corpse.
Project Unbreakable is a valuable source of qualitative analysis, because it gives insight into how predators operate. I’ve collated a list of 50+ quotes from there, which show how predators manipulate their victims. (STRONG TW.)
They send their resident spinosaur to do the job, but yes, in essence. (It poos out all your money afterward.)
Telling men not to rape sounds about as effective as telling people not to murder or telling politicians not to lie. What does it accomplish?
Glendower:
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur:
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
Henry The Fourth, Part I Act 3, scene 1, 52–58
It accomplishes quite a bit. That took me 30 seconds of googling to determine. When you’re tempted to spew ignorant nonsense like that in the future, do a search to see if the question has already been answered.
Note to Paul and others making ignorant remarks: that was the only slack I’m giving today. I’ve got no patience left, and so similar comments will be treated as spam and their authors kicked out of the cantina. You’re supposedly smart and rational people. Do your research.
One major difference is that everybody pretty much agrees on what constitutes murder or a lie, even if they have excuses for why they killed or lied. If you read the links, you will find evidence that many people (not just men) do not regard penetration of an intoxicated person as rape (certainly not rape-rape), and (as I mentioned above) that 70% of admitted rapists (who only admitted acts meeting the legal criteria for sexual assault so long as the r-word was not used) describe intoxication as the primary method they use to overcome resistance.
It’s not a great leap to realise that social narratives about drunk victims being ‘fair game’ and ‘bringing it on themselves’ are the ones that enable these deliberate rapists to operate without legal consequences, because nearly everybody bends over backwards to give people who penetrate intoxicated people the benefit of the doubt, especially if they have pretended to be equally intoxicated themselves as part of their plausibly-deniable plan to end up alone in a room with an intoxicated person.
Telling everybody that penetrating anyone who is too intoxicated to give crystal clear consent is actually rape, and that it is not just a regrettable accident but unconsionable exploitation to penetrate an intoxicated person, and that any bystanders who allow an intoxicated person to be isolated for the purposes of penetration are morally culpable for that person’s rape? Yes, once people unequivocally name the penetration of an intoxicated person as rape no matter what, then it is very likely to lead to fewer rapists believing that they will get away with these rapes, and thus they will be less likely to rape.
Ah yes, the “Don’t Be That Guy” campaign. I can’t find the link right now, but I remember reading that part of the effectiveness of that campaign was attributed to how it educated the friends of intoxicated people to be more watchful and wary of anyone seeking to isolate their intoxicated friend, and less willing to accept the excuses of those who penetrated an intoxicated friend. Social disapproval and exclusion of the person who “took advantage” of another’s intoxication rather than the more common disapproval and exclusion of the person “making a fuss” about “a bit of drunken sex” turns out to be a powerful preventive tool.
Oh, fuck off. We tell people not to murder and teach them that it’s wrong, and we also disapprove of politicians who lie. Yes, there will always people who do bad things and terrible things – why should we just roll over and put up with that?
No. Teaching people and educating people can, at the very least, reduce the number of men raping, reduce incidents of rape, reduce the social acceptibility of those who do rape, and increase the chance for the victims of such a horrendous crime.
Your stupid response of ‘it’s always been that way’ is a bullshit argument that refuses to acknowledge the agency of rapists, relegates them to the rank of incorrigible animals, and brushes the entire issue under the rug of tradition.
Well, newsflash: today we’re cleaning out from under that rug. Thanks, rape apologist.
(Uh, that response was for Paul, not anyone else. Nested comments, tplrplrplrplrplrplr.)
I keep thinking that your last paragraph is something that even Hollywood movies tend to get right, as a trope no less. I’m thinking of when the later-to-be romantic couple challenge each other to a drinking contest that ends with the man chivalrously turning down the intoxicated come-ons of the woman. As in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and other movies I can’t remember right now.
Are there movies where actions like in tigtog’s second paragraph are being portrayed as acceptable now? It sounds like something that would be considered a bad guy move in a Grand Theft Auto game, much less a movie.
Yes, dear departed Maude forbid anyone think they can tell men what to do. I mean it’s not like men posses capacity for empathy or actually listen to anyone, and it’s certainly not possible to change society for the better just by declaring something harmful and wrong that people do to be, you know, harmful and wrong. That has never happened ever in the course of human history and besides men are just slaves to their ever-raping peens, totally beyond salvaging. Amirite? #anti-feminist misandry is the best misandry #change is haaaard
For the eager-to-quote-mine: That was sarcasm.
paul:
In case you don’t like clicking links-
As Dana mentions, you really ought to make sure the BS you’re spewing is true before asserting it. Given that you’re connected to the Internet, it ain’t hard to do. Now I hope you toddle off and don’t return until you’ve decided to become a better human being.
rq:
I concur. The *only* thing I don’t like about Dana’s blog are the nested comments.
Sorry Dana, your blog only gets a 99.8 grade from me.