What is "Rape Culture"?

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Bowser, Nov 8, 2015.

  1. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Please respond to post #676, Syne.
     
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  3. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Those sound ok to me. The objection is to what you've been posting.

    recall #676. Or this:
     
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  5. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Well of course one is responsible for their actions even when drunk. If you run someone over while drunk driving, you committed murder (vehicular manslaughter). If you while drunk force someone to have sex with you, you committed rape.

    It becomes problematic when two parties supposedly agree to have sex while drunk.
     
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  7. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    No, of course being drunk is not a legitimate defense. Seems everyone here likes to assume the worst. I sincerely hope these aren't evidence of projection, because if they are, I would have to start assuming 'rape culture' is very real (and prevalent in the people who most aver it).

    I'm mainly contrasting the lack of legal liability for both parties being drunk and consenting with the liability to the man in such cases being tried in the court of 'rape culture'-assuming public opinion, at the barest hint of allegation. A drunk perpetrator's choices and a drunk victim's inability to give valid consent is not the only possible combination. Both can equally display consenting behavior while unable to give legal consent. But it seems cases of simple 'regret sex' capitalize on the reluctance of real victims to report, so they can avoid evidence like a rape kit, and in the process cast doubt on real victims when exposed. With the prevalence of false rape stories in the news, the notion of 'rape culture' harms both victims of real rape and the innocently accused. Not to mention the harm it does to children growing up in an environment that seems to assume them probable criminals based on gender alone.
     
  8. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    You have no idea.

    This is an interesting theory, but is there any evidence?
     
  9. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    That's not what you were doing. You were attempting to claim that the law regarded all drunken people as incapacitated and unable to consent, and you were attempting to confuse consent with perpetration. Why you were attempting to do those things is the only issue remaining from them.
    No, they can't.
    Which is one of the serious problems with harboring a rape culture - if you raise your young men to obliviously tolerate, even abet, sexual assault then you are going to be raising your young women to take precautions accordingly.
     
  10. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    So we are to believe most women don't report rape? Well, how do we fix the problem? Should we just assume guilt when a man is accused, maybe require him to prove his innocent because, you know, he must be a rapist, he's a man? That's the only resolve I can see that might make those women come forward.

    Seriously. Rape hasn't been a common theme in my viewing history. And, no, I'm not trolling. Rape Culture hasn't been apparent in my long life. It is as though everyone was telling me that the sky is green, yet it looks blue to me. It is apparent that we disagree. If you call that trolling, then I accuse all those who argue their point.

    Cartoons are not my viewing preference; but, yes, I've watched a few episodes. Can't say rape was the center of the stories.
     
  11. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    do we need to go over the dangers of pretending to be stupid again?


    seriously people trying to make some varity of the argument i'm to stupid to know what i said, saw, heard is not a valid defense. just because you don't want to label it rape culture as such doesn't mean its not. i grow weary of people professing ignorance of shit right in their faces.

    i'm for come on do you want to be treated as if your a puppy and have your nose rubbed in it? claiming to be that fucking stupid is not a defense.
     
  12. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    I believe that. I believe these guys honestly can't imagine how else one could possibly deal with pervasive misogyny and its consequences, other than something like that. A reality in which women are not treated with contempt and prejudicial disdain at the same time as men are not treated with contempt and prejudicial disdain, is simply beyond their comprehension. It would be like a world in which trees grew sideways.

    They keep saying that, and I for one take them seriously.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2016
  13. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    I’m really at a loss as to how to respond to this, and I’m just going to ignore the rest of that and focus solely on your first sentence, for what should be obvious reasons. I guess a personal tale will have to suffice:

    I’ve pretty much spent my entire lifetime trying to avoid “talking” with people. I assure you that this is not some lame male cowboy type thing (not sure how many hyphens shoud go there), but rather more in line with Turing, and following Wittgenstein, in the simple conviction that most “talking” involves de-crypting a cypher, and I can’t figure out why people don’t simply say whateverthefuck it is that they’re thinking in the first place. Purported professionals have always alleged some sort of autistic thing, I however maintain it’s more a lycanthropic thing (and also a little misanthropic).

    I’ve mentioned that I presently live in the middle of nowhere, literally miles from any other people. In my previous life I consistently alternated between large cities and middle of nowhere, estimating roughly a third of my adult life spent in the latter.

    Unfortunately, my need to do music—and also “actual” work—required my being in populated locales, and around other people. I like playing with people and, strangely, performing in front of them. Apart from that I have little use for them. Most who’ve known me quickly learned that I could seldom be in the presence of more than one or two of ‘em for more than perhaps a couple of hours at a time. And I always made it pretty clear that I had little interest in talking about anything other than technical and logistical matters.

    Of course, it’s entirely possible that my efforts simply failed miserably, causing people in turn to “open up” to me. Even were this the case, often enough I assured that very little “talking” was even a possibility; fer instance, one can hardly get a word in underneath the monolithic thunderous roar of my Farfisa bass pedals.

    My point here is that although I’ve known an awful lot of people in my forty-odd years, I’ve probably gotten in about as much “talking” as the average person gets in in maybe five years. And yet, I have no difficulty in accepting an actual rate of, say, “one in five,” as contrasted with the various figures posited as “reported." In fact, I’d venture that one in five might be a little on the conservative side, if one factors child molestation into the equation. Fuck, I’ve known countless people who were raped by either a father, a stepfather, and uncle, or a grandfather—and sometimes, but very rarely, a female relative. And how many of these people do you suppose reported this to the police?

    Neverminding the children, consider the myriad reasons women do not report rapes. You don’t even have to use your imagination here, you can just read the damn thread as an abundance of reasons for such have already been posted countless times. However, should you do both—that is, read the damn thread and use your imagination—I should think it becomes clear that the question is not really “Why do so few women report rape?,” but rather, “Why do so many women actually report rape?”—when one considers what is likely to come of it.
     
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  14. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    I could not tell you what the vague sense of familiarity is about your point, except to simply say perhaps something like it has occurred to me in a fit of cynicism and thus didn't stick, or something, but in truth I don't recall actually encountering it before.

    It's an important point. Thank you.

    I also find myself recalling a farcical scene that has been flashing to mind in recent weeks. Do you recall the scene in Airplane! when the woman starts freaking out, and the stewardess tries to calm her? Then the woman's husband grabs her, telling her to calm down, and starts shaking her aggressively? And then Leslie Nielsen steps in, reminding that he's a doctor, but only beats her? So a nun pulls him away and then attacks the woman, and the camera shows the passengers lining up with violence in their eyes and weapons to beat the shit out of her with?

    Yet it's not the thrashing of the distressed woman that draws my attention; rather, it's a metaphor.

    I lit into someone in another thread for something that annoys the hell out of me, and also, quite frankly, seems at least as dangerous as it is stupid. You've been around here long enough to remember a string of threads regarding catcalling and harassment, abortion politics, rape culture, and the overarching subject of misogyny; and you might also recall that for several years the argument that you or I might describe as defending or promoting misogyny―which, of course, those advocates loathe and denounce―hasn't really changed?

    A number of points might apply here, such as the contrast between the complaint of describing all men as rapists or misogynists, and where those descriptions actually come from. It isn't those who denounce misogyny and rape culture, for instance, who tried comparing men's libido to a hand grenade, nor rely on a male's prerogative; indeed. Nor are they the ones telling women to suspect everyone. We really should acknowledge that after so many repetitions, it doesn't look like an accident. That is to say, at some point it seems absolutely and dangerously stupid to pretend these are just innocent, well-intended people accidentally clodhopping their way into rape advocacy or other misogyny; it really does start to seem calculated.

    We need not dismiss that for my purpose at the moment; it's related, and more than tangentially, because the next thing is to remind that we need not actually entertain notions of any conspiracies.

    Conspiracies?

    Right.

    It seems like no matter how much information we give this other bloc, the discussion frequently needs to reset and restart. Consider the topic post, which inquires about rape culture; if we take the question as genuine, there are plenty of ways to answer, and some of us tried. But the topic poster quickly tacked to raise a straw man, and the discussion swirled around that. A couple days later, another member checks in and raises the same straw man. And something like a month and a half later someone else checks in to raise the same straw man.

    And this is the way it goes. With each new iteration, the same characteristic applies: The advocate is ignoring everything that came before. So we're obliged in some manner to go about it again.

    And we keep going through this. Over and over and over. Something about "just read the damn thread" goes here, you know?

    And it's like the scene from Airplane! Not a whit of human sympathy; it's just a woman, after all. It's like they're lining up, and as soon as one exhausts the argument, the next one steps up to try to start it all over again.

    And no, it's not conspiratorial; it's just the blatant, hateful stupidity of these people. They're scared to death that society might someday actually recognize the humanity of women, and this pathetic begging for a do-over is all they can come up with.

    For some strange reason, they expect us to be polite about it.

    Here's the fun one, though: So, Bowser pulls his straw man stunt at the outset; Milkweed raises rape statistics two days later and deploys the same straw man. And now Bowser just reciprocated by pulling the rape statistics we've already been over.

    We might even wonder about the timing, except it really is all they have, so we ought not be surprised by the idea, say, that one might provide examples↑ of rape culture↑ in effect, and the next thing↑ that happens is someone hauls up a straw man and the subject changes.

    (Note: The first link in the preceding paragraph is sufficient in its own right, I suppose, because the three links represent three consecutive posts, #645-647.)

    Farce is supposed to be funny. Even morbid farce. This one, however, is simply dangerous.

    Questions, then, that remain unanswered, just from that sequence of posts I linked:

    • If she kisses you, can you force her to blow you?

    • If she blows you, can you force her to fuck you?

    • If she fucks you, can you force her to take it up the ass?

    • You know, since she consented to something, and is it really an all or nothing proposition?

    • Can you justify this with evopsych? Sociobiology?

    • Have you the courage to say it up front: "Hey, baby, want to go back to my place so I can hurt the hell out of you?"

    • What part of sexual intercourse necessarily demands injury?​

    It almost seems predictable that the next thing to happen is someone wants to change the subject.
     
  15. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    Strangely, I was actually recalling another scene from an 80’s comedy which was strikingly similar to that scene fromAirplane, I just can’t place it at the moment. Yet the details are so… jumbled that it may very well have been from a Marnie-era Hitchcock film—or even from Marnie itself.

    This all truly does seem so calculated, even conspiratorial, that it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that it most certainly is not (I think).

    We’ve all got our own unique tools and skill sets—both experientally and theoretically derived—for dissecting the underlying motivations for the professed ignorance, the insistent and repeated denials, the ever more curious and curiouser strawmen, etc. Yet nothing seems satisfactory.

    I feel like an explanation is looking me right in the face, but I’m denying it. I actually start to question my own methodologies: am I being too uncharacteristically benevolent? Pollyannaish? Maybe I’m thinking too much about Marnie and Laing, when I should be thinking about Ted Bundy? (overthetop perhaps, but even Eichmann in Jerusalem—Godwin’s Law and all that aside, Arendt was always keen on critiqueing metaphorical readings of what is really quite straightforward and literal (Kafka especially): Eichmann was too dumb to complete secondary school, and he was more of a buffoon than anything. And to forget this is truly dangerous.)

    The argument doesn’t change, just the dressing. And just ever so slightly. I remember that “hand grenade” “argument,” and recall wondering how considered that may have been: was it completely offthecuff, or was it actually a product of some deliberation?

    My own posting posting modus operandi is by no means instantaneous visceral response, but is still very much conversational-like; that is to say, I pretty much post as I would talk—even the annoying habitual coining of seemingly senseless neologisms is a part of my conversational speech (sadly derived from an extended period of having to read Heidegger in German for like 12 hours a day, some years back). I certainly consider my responses, but I don’t belabor or even apply the proper “due diligence” which I often hypocritically demand of others. I’ll often look back at a post and wonder, “What the fuck was I thinking?” (Though for the record, I can and do compose proper-like in other contexts.)

    Still, I couldn’t come up with something like that “hand grenade” remark, or even the “male perogative” one. So my bewonderment is actual and serious: Are comments such as those “composed” on the fly, or are they seriously a product of much consideration? The former is bad enough, but the latter is seriously fucked up beyond… Well, it borders on incomprehensible.

    It’s kind of like AI (artificial intelligence) created by someone who doesn’t quite get the whole point of AI—like Eliza never seems to recall that you like the color green. Or HAL forgets the lyrics.
     
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    If the data indicates that, yes. (Which it does, both in terms of epidemiological studies and my own experience.)
    Excellent question. There are a lot of ways. Education (of both sexes) is one. Better enforcement is another. More basic changes in culture will be a critical part, but are very hard to force.
    Then see a little farther. That's a terrible solution to the problem.
    And measles hasn't been a common theme in my viewing history. It doesn't make the anti-vaxxers any less of a threat to public health.
    Sounds more like you are saying "look, I just don't usually look at the sky; it's just something that doesn't really concern me. But somehow I know it's green. Because I saw a picture with a green sky, and I don't believe the people who say it's blue."
     
  17. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    It should be trivial that false rape stories are harmful to real victims and falsely accused. As for children:

    'Labeling theory is the theory of how the self-identity and behavior of individuals may be determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them.'
    - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labeling_theory

    As an application of phenomenology, the theory hypothesizes that the labels applied to individuals influence their behavior, particularly the application of negative or stigmatizing labels (such as "criminal" or "felon") promote deviant behavior, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. an individual who is labeled has little choice but to conform to the essential meaning of that judgment.
    - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labeling_theory#The_.22criminal.22

    I didn't make that claim. I cited a source that did:

    According to NYS law, a person cannot legally give consent if: a) the person is under the age of 17, b) the person is developmentally disabled, or c) the person is mentally incapacitated or physically helpless, including as a result of alcohol or drugs.
    ...
    Inability to consent due to intoxication means “no.” When a person is the recipient of sexual advances but is highly intoxicated, he or she may be unable to consent to any sexual conduct. In the words of the Review Board, “sexual interactions with another party who has been drinking heavily should . . . be undertaken . . . at one’s own risk.”
    - https://share.cornell.edu/education-engagement/sex-alcohol-and-clear-consent/

    That seems to be the view of those who assume 'rape culture' exists. The real law they are erroneously referencing:

    1. What constitutes lack of consent?
    Under New York State law, a sexual offense occurs when certain sexual acts are perpetrated against a victim without his or her consent. The law defines both (1) the behavior and the physical nature (body parts, etc.) of a sex offense and (2) the lack of consent involved.

    "Lack of consent" is defined in New York State's Penal Law as occurring in all of the following circumstances:

    · Person is rendered temporarily incapable of understanding or controlling his or her conduct or communicating consent due to the influence of narcotic or an intoxicating substance administered without the person’s consent
    - http://www.svfreenyc.org/survivors_legal.html
    The 'rape culture' advocates seem to have missed the 'administered without the person's consent' bit. I've been illustrating from the beginning the double standard of those who assume 'rape culture'.

    I agree, but apparently 'rape culture' advocates do not.

    Do you know a bunch of rapists in your personal life? Or even a significant number who 'obliviously tolerate, even abet, sexual assault'? If so, I'm glad I, and my female loved ones, don't live anywhere near you. Assuming 'rape culture' seems to presume that rape is a natural inclination of most men, that must be resisted. Do such 'rape culture' advocates view any other crimes as a natural inclinations of one sex or the other?
     
  18. tali89 Registered Senior Member

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    Why are we still arguing about whether a rape culture exists? The ideologues on this thread who were most vocal about its existence have implicitly conceded that their belief in its existence is not grounded in fact, as they have either ignored or flat-out refused to supply supporting evidence when requested. I think the real issue is why such individuals so fervently believe in the existence of rape culture when it's clear that this belief wasn't formed from an objective analysis of empirical evidence. Unfortunately I was banned when I attempted to have this discussion, but perhaps now we can address this pertinent issue? Or am I hitting a little too close to a nerve when I attempt to explore why some individuals cling so tightly to beliefs that demonize men?
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2016
  19. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    It should also be trivial that they are 1) comparatively rare and 2) dependent on a prevalence of rape that cannot exist without a protective and enabling culture.
    Your source did not even include the word "drunk", the key feature of your attempted deception via false claims.
    The opposite, of course. You have it exactly backwards.
    There's no real argument. The issue is only raised at all because guys like you insist on wallowing in your own shit, and it's only responded to because treating your posting with appropriate contempt may do some good.
    It's the denial of rape culture that demonizes men, as it leaves only inherent nature to explain the prevalence of the threat of rape and its tolerance, excuse, denial, and abetment in a given culture.

    This is of course obvious. If you deny the nurture aspect of a human behavior, the nature aspect is made prominent.
     
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  20. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    No, you're just trolling, as this point has been repeatedly debunked in this thread and not a single one of the members parroting some version of this line can be bothered to address that reality.

    Or maybe it's not that they can't be bothered, but are smart enough to recognize the point but not smart enough to figure out a solution that satisfies their needful aesthetics.

    But you're at least the fourth to go down this road, and like those who preceded you it seems the one thing you cannot be bothered to do is address the arguments already on the record.

    Which, in turn, is not surprising.

    There's a reason people don't believe this rape advocacy is some manner of accident.
     
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  21. tali89 Registered Senior Member

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    Well, if you modify that statement so that you're claiming that you have no real argument, I'd be in complete agreement.

    Whoa, now hang on. When we first started discussing this issue you claimed that the prevalence of the threat of rape wasn't relevant to establishing whether a rape culture existed, but now you're asserting the exact opposite? OK, I guess it's good that my critical analysis of your hastily put together assumptions has borne some fruit. Now that we've come full circle by having your acknowledge that yes, the prevalence of the threat of rape can be used to determine whether a 'rape culture' exists, can you finally answer the question I asked you what must have been 20 pages back? What is the cut-off point at which the risk of rape becomes indicative of a 'rape culture', and how did you establish and measure it?

    Claiming that the phenomenon of male-perpetrated rape (which only a small fraction of men engage in) can only be explained by either all men having a biological inclination to rape, or by a nebulous 'rape culture', is a false dichotomy and a straw-man . It would be like my claiming that some women must throw their live babies in a dumpster because either all women have a biological inclination to throw their babies in the dumpster, or because society actively condones and supports such behavior. Hey, it's got to be nature or nurture, right?
     
  22. tali89 Registered Senior Member

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    Trolling is a charge that has been leveled at me by a number of individuals in this thread. They are all leftists who fervently believe in the existence of a rape culture, and they have all ignored or flat-out refused to substantiate their claims with hard evidence and cogent logic. Funny thing, that.

    Anyway, do you have a question? Or better yet, are you going to address the questions you ran away from what must have been 10+ pages back? Huh, I didn't think so.
     
  23. tali89 Registered Senior Member

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    What is the result when you indoctrinate people into believing the 'rape culture' screed? Well, let's see:

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/m...ets-accused-of-sexual-assault/article/2565978

    It's hardly surprising that when men are wrongfully demonized as privileged individuals who supposedly exist in a culture that condones their abuse of women, we end up with stories like the above.
     

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