Rape culture: British Style

[prideandfall]

You would think that a rapist would be more likely to engage in fraud, robbery, theft, assaults and so on. Especially, what his cowardly ass thinks he can get away with.

i wouldn't think so - that statement suggests that a lack of impulse control regarding one specific set of emotions means a lack of control over all actions.

if someone has a poorly developed restraint over their sexual urges which causes those impulses to bypass their social conditioning and thus leads them to sexually assault someone, that doesn't mean that they necessarily will also be unable to stop themselves from taking a shit on the sneeze guard of the salad bar at Wendy's.

humans are only as 'moral' as the ratio of impulse strength to socially conditioned resistance to impulses allows them to be. some people are stronger on one side of that ratio and some people are stronger on the other.

 

[repoman]

wow, nice image :laughing-smiley-014

 

[Bronzeage]

Well, there is a term called "circle of empathy" isn't there? We should have rape and sexual assault and sexual harassment victims inside of it. Any victim warning that is done should not be seen as or have the effect of casting them out of the circle.

It just seems that there is a lot of economic inequality and insecurity in America now that really feeds a huge amount of lack of empathy and people feeling that there is no empathy paid to them in any aspect of their lives.

Most empathy is expressed in the form, "I'm glad that's not happening to me," not as, "I'm sorry that is happening to him."

 

[Metaphor]

Here you claim that a rape might be a "crime of opportunity" but are implying that there is some critical window in which the opportunity must present itself, or else the rapist will not act: That they will not simply wait for another night when the intended victim is intoxicated or find a better victim.

Your narrative is self-contradictory. If the rapist acts on another night or chooses someone else, then clearly the behaviour (sobriety) did reduce the sober person's risk of being raped by that rapist at the time she was sober.

Car theft has declined a lot since I was born, but I don't think there were any 'don't steal cars' campaigns, nor that people's desire to steal things went down a lot. It's just a lot harder to steal cars than it used to be.

Unlike the desire to kill other humans, the desire to fuck other humans is something most people will have frequently for most of their life. The strong desire to fuck something is going to come over most people thousands or millions of times. It's not as if that's only going to happen once or twice and as long as the closest person is prepared to defend themselves on those rare occasions no crime will be committed.

I understood the comment. I simply pointed out that most members of this forum believe that rape has nothing to do with wanting to have sex, because rape is not about sex.

Now following that comment, a person who actually believed I was incorrect and cared enough to make an issue of it would have responded to something I said, and a person with no further interest in the conversation would have not responded, and a person with nothing left to say but who wasn't about to let that stop them from talking would have resorted to ridiculing some other idea or position that I never advanced.

I believe there are probably marginal rapists as well as marginal wallet thieves. A marginal wallet thief, if they found a wallet on the road full of cash and nobody saw them pick it up, might take the cash out and keep it. But the selfsame wallet thief would never target anyone to steal their wallet, would never try to pick the pocket of anyone, wouldn't do a snatch and run.

A marginal rapist might be a guy at a party who is sitting on a couch when a drunken woman comes into the room and passes out next to him. If no-one but the two of them are in the room, the marginal rapist might be inclined to cop a feel or rape the passed-out woman. But if the marginal rapist is surrounded by people who would witness the rape, or if he thinks the woman would remember, or wake up and offer loud resistance, he might not do it. He might just decide to go home and jerk off.

Now I think there probably are 'marginal' rapists, and these rapes may be the ones that can be prevented by the mobilisation of social force against those acts, and not just efforts of potential victims to mitigate their risk. Athena linked to a 'don't be that guy' campaign which has had positive results in Canada.

So yes: most men think about and want sex a lot, but most men are not rapists. If there are men on the margins, limiting their opportunity will reduce the incidence of rape, and mobilising social force against them (shaming, ad campaigns, etc) might move them off the margins all together.

 

[prideandfall]

Well, there is a term called "circle of empathy" isn't there? We should have rape and sexual assault and sexual harassment victims inside of it. Any victim warning that is done should not be seen as or have the effect of casting them out of the circle.

It just seems that there is a lot of economic inequality and insecurity in America now that really feeds a huge amount of lack of empathy and people feeling that there is no empathy paid to them in any aspect of their lives.

Most empathy is expressed in the form, "I'm glad that's not happening to me," not as, "I'm sorry that is happening to him."

the problem with "empathy" in this context is that as an emotion it's a lot like love - it's meant to be small and localized, relevant to your immediate peers, family, and community.
when you try to start applying "empathy" to society as a whole you run into the same problem you get with trying to apply terms like "love", in that by its very existence the emotion isn't designed to encompass something that big.

empathy is a feeling which compels "can do something" into "do something", and for most people in most situations, there's just no "do something" to be done, at least not directly, and thus empathy is thwarted and frustrated and IMO ultimately blunted.
some people are capable of sustaining that level of emotional strain over long periods of time, but most people can't. i don't think that in america there is a 'lack of empathy' so much as there is 'empathy burnout.'

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Notice what all those signs lack

A gendered picture, a particular history, and a cultural narrative.

But do carry on.

Because none of those crimes has a gender component.

 

[Toni]

Well, there is a term called "circle of empathy" isn't there? We should have rape and sexual assault and sexual harassment victims inside of it. Any victim warning that is done should not be seen as or have the effect of casting them out of the circle.

It just seems that there is a lot of economic inequality and insecurity in America now that really feeds a huge amount of lack of empathy and people feeling that there is no empathy paid to them in any aspect of their lives.

Most empathy is expressed in the form, "I'm glad that's not happening to me," not as, "I'm sorry that is happening to him."

Yeah, that's not really empathy. Much more common, though than actually feeling empathy for the victim instead of relief that you aren't the victim.

 

[RavenSky]

Next Time Someone Says Women Aren't Victims Of Harassment, Show Them This: http://m.tickld.com/x/next-time-someone-says-women-arent-victims-of-harassment-show-them

 

[Shadowy Man]

I believe there are probably marginal rapists as well as marginal wallet thieves. A marginal wallet thief, if they found a wallet on the road full of cash and nobody saw them pick it up, might take the cash out and keep it. But the selfsame wallet thief would never target anyone to steal their wallet, would never try to pick the pocket of anyone, wouldn't do a snatch and run.

A marginal rapist might be a guy at a party who is sitting on a couch when a drunken woman comes into the room and passes out next to him. If no-one but the two of them are in the room, the marginal rapist might be inclined to cop a feel or rape the passed-out woman. But if the marginal rapist is surrounded by people who would witness the rape, or if he thinks the woman would remember, or wake up and offer loud resistance, he might not do it. He might just decide to go home and jerk off.

I find this comparison to be quite unsettling.

 

[doubtingt]

I believe there are probably marginal rapists as well as marginal wallet thieves. A marginal wallet thief, if they found a wallet on the road full of cash and nobody saw them pick it up, might take the cash out and keep it. But the selfsame wallet thief would never target anyone to steal their wallet, would never try to pick the pocket of anyone, wouldn't do a snatch and run.

A marginal rapist might be a guy at a party who is sitting on a couch when a drunken woman comes into the room and passes out next to him. If no-one but the two of them are in the room, the marginal rapist might be inclined to cop a feel or rape the passed-out woman. But if the marginal rapist is surrounded by people who would witness the rape, or if he thinks the woman would remember, or wake up and offer loud resistance, he might not do it. He might just decide to go home and jerk off.

I find this comparison to be quite unsettling.

Reality IS unsettling.
The reality is that the world is not so simplistically composed of rapists and non-rapists, or of people who will do X and those who will not. It is composed of people whose actions are heavily determined by an interaction between their internal traits and features of the situation and context. This is just as true for moral good deeds, bad deeds, and neutral actions that no one else really cares about.
I would guess that most rape activists grasp this simple idea and apply it regularly to explaining other types of crimes, or even when trying to explain why one racial group is more likely to rape than another group. But somehow they get confused when understanding that it applies to the probability of a person being raped being impacted by that person's own actions and whether those actions create the contextual situation that makes more people more likely to act in a way that constitutes "rape". Merely, pointing out the scientific facts related to these probabilities, apparently makes one a propagandist for a pro-rape culture.

 

[Unbeatable]

It is time for more conversation about, for instance, raising our boys to not assume consent unless it is explicit and enthusiastic; raising our boys and girls not to idolize the "drunken hook-up"; raising our girls to embrace their own sexuality so we eliminate the "no means yes" meme. It is time for more conversation about, for instance, making the prison sentences for rape match the severity of the crime; about having a "no tolerance" policy in our universities that doesn't allow admitted rapists to finish their school terms before being "expelled; about eliminating the boys club in our military that allows the gang rapes of our female soldiers to go unpunished. We could be having all of these conversations.

Do you have ideas on how to persuade people to do things that they aren't already motivated to do? That's what these alternate conversation suggestions seem to come down to. We could be having all of these conversations about how to do things that take time and effort and discomfort and inconvenience for the sake of rape prevention. But isn't it much easier giving suggestions to potential rape victims i.e. the ones with the strongest vested interest in the matter? Do you have ideas on how to persuade the majority who aren't already interested in them that these conversations are worth the effort?

Well, there is a term called "circle of empathy" isn't there? We should have rape and sexual assault and sexual harassment victims inside of it. Any victim warning that is done should not be seen as or have the effect of casting them out of the circle.

It just seems that there is a lot of economic inequality and insecurity in America now that really feeds a huge amount of lack of empathy and people feeling that there is no empathy paid to them in any aspect of their lives.

Right, and who wants to be the sucker who extends empathy to others and gets taken advantage of for it? Who can afford to take that risk? Empathy is an ability that we use to different degrees at different times. A part of us suppresses it when it conflicts with stronger needs, or when we just don't have the energy to deal with it.

 

[Metaphor]

I believe there are probably marginal rapists as well as marginal wallet thieves. A marginal wallet thief, if they found a wallet on the road full of cash and nobody saw them pick it up, might take the cash out and keep it. But the selfsame wallet thief would never target anyone to steal their wallet, would never try to pick the pocket of anyone, wouldn't do a snatch and run.

A marginal rapist might be a guy at a party who is sitting on a couch when a drunken woman comes into the room and passes out next to him. If no-one but the two of them are in the room, the marginal rapist might be inclined to cop a feel or rape the passed-out woman. But if the marginal rapist is surrounded by people who would witness the rape, or if he thinks the woman would remember, or wake up and offer loud resistance, he might not do it. He might just decide to go home and jerk off.

I find this comparison to be quite unsettling.

Whether it's unsettling or not is beside the point. Is it a valid comparison?

There are, of course, many aspects of the reality of existence which are unsettling. I'll start with the tsunami of suffering experienced by conscious beings since life emerged and cannot be stopped.

 

[Toni]

I find this comparison to be quite unsettling.

Whether it's unsettling or not is beside the point. Is it a valid comparison?

I think the comparison is valid to a certain extent. Yes, there are opportunistic rapists just as there are opportunistic thieves. But there are also rapists who specifically target vulnerable victims: disabled, drunk, drugged into unconsciousness, very young, very old, etc. It takes a bit of planning to slip a roofie into someone's drink but that happens. It's somewhat different than: " hey, here's this drunk girl passed out in the back bedroom of this party: freebie!" although that is despicable enough.

And that does not include those whose sexual gratification is based upon forcing the victim.

 

[Shadowy Man]

I find this comparison to be quite unsettling.

Whether it's unsettling or not is beside the point. Is it a valid comparison?

What's unsettling is that someone might consider this a valid comparison. The likening of a passed out woman to a wallet lying on the ground is the unsettling part. But if your point is that a rapist is the kind of person who would basically consider a passed out woman to be of the same value as a lost wallet then I guess your point is well made.

 

[Metaphor]

What's unsettling is that someone might consider this a valid comparison. The likening of a passed out woman to a wallet lying on the ground is the unsettling part.

What is it about analogies that get people into such a state? When you describe one situation as analogous to another, you are not saying the two situations are alike in every conceivable way (otherwise, you'd be describing only one situation; it wouldn't be an analogy).

An unlocked car is not equal to a lost wallet and is not equal to an unconscious woman's vagina. No-one ever implied that they were exactly alike. Using an analogy does not imply they are exactly alike. For example, stealing a car or a wallet violates someone's property rights; raping someone violates someone's bodily rights. But all three situations are alike in one sense: an unethical person might simply take what they want when presented with temptation, no matter what rights are violated. I cannot grasp why this analogy is so 'unsettling'.

But if your point is that a rapist is the kind of person who would basically consider a passed out woman to be of the same value as a lost wallet then I guess your point is well made.

No, that isn't my point, and I don't even know if it's true. They could even value it less. Indeed: a rapist might rape a passed out woman, but return a lost wallet to its owner without stealing any cash! That to me would indicate they hold a woman's bodily rights even less value than someone's property rights.

 

[ksen]

I cannot grasp why this analogy is so 'unsettling'.

Maybe because you're posting like a beep-booping automaton with no human empathy whatsoever?

eta: lol, I almost posted "hymen empathy"

 

[Toni]

Saw this and thought it was apt since the thread is about British rape culture. It's a real thing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/w...d&version=Full&src=me&WT.nav=MostEmailed&_r=0

When parents reported their daughters missing, it could take 24 hours for the police to turn up, Ms. Jay said. Some parents, if they called in repeatedly, were fined for wasting police time.

Some officers and local officials told the investigation that they did not act for fear of being accused of racism. But Ms. Jay said that for years there was an undeniable culture of institutional sexism. Her investigation heard that police referred to victims as “tarts” and to the girls’ abuse as a “lifestyle choice.”

In the minutes of a meeting about a girl who had been raped by five men, a police detective refused to put her into the sexual abuse category, saying he knew she had been “100 percent consensual.” She was 12.

“These girls were often treated with utter contempt,” Ms. Jay said.

Lucy, now 25 but too scared to give her last name because, she said, the men who brutalized her still live nearby, knows about contempt. During an interview at her home outside Rotherham, she recalled being questioned about her abuse by police officers who repeatedly referred to the main rapist as her “boyfriend.”

The first time she was raped, there were nine men, she said, one on top of her, another to pin her down and force himself into her mouth. Two others restrained a friend of hers, holding open her eyelids to make her watch. The rest of the men, all in their 20s, stood over her, cheering and jeering, and blinding her with the flash of their cameras.

It was November 2002, and Lucy was 13.