Rape Culture is Real

[Shadow Wolf]

When we were burglarized, not one person ever suggested to us that we were careless in securing our household. When a family member was physically assaulted, not one person ever asked him if he provoked the assault (oh, and he was left alone after the guy received the guilty verdict. When a con artist is exposed in the media, I haven't seen one person suggest that the victim(s) should die, should shut the **** up and leave the perpetrator alone.

I've seen it alot. If you were robbed, you should have locked the door, covered things up, not flashed things, etc., if were harassed you shouldn't have went there, and of course maybe you shouldn't have said whatever it was you said that upset the person who beat you.
I found an article examining victim mentality, but it mentions how we, as a society, have traditionally blamed the victim.
Psychology of Victimhood, Don't Blame the Victim, Article by Ofer Zur, Ph.D.

Traditionally, two main approaches have dominated the way we look at victimization in the modern West. In the first approach, the finger points the blame at the victim (Brownmiller, 1975; Ryan, 1971; Sundberg, Barbaree, & Marshall, 1991; Walker, 1979). This may be a battered wife, a woman who was raped, a person of color, or an economically disadvantaged person. The second approach views men as solely responsible for violence, whether as soldiers on the battlefields, politicians in government, or husbands in domestic violence (Hughes, 1993; Keen, 1991; Zur & Glendinnning, 1987). These two approaches of blame have not only failed to resolve the violence and suffering but in fact, as this paper explains, have tended to perpetuate and exacerbate them.

As for rape culture, it's sickening. The last job I worked at, one store in town had a maintenance guy who is always sexual harassing female managers, but the district manager will not do anything about it. The store I was at had a fat ******* who was very lewd and made many women uncomfortable, but it was dismissed as "that's just how he is." One female employee, who worked there only for one day, was even warned of his behavior, and his behavior is why she only worked one day. Unfortunately I could get no one to speak up about what was going on, and gathering evidence on my own proved to be very difficult.
I really hope that the pressure of the rape culture in the military stays alive, and something is done to address it. There is no reason or excuse to tolerate an environment in which a service woman is more likely to be raped than a regular civilian woman.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

but this is not what the facts are revealing. Women do not have a better place in society just because sex has been brought out into the open. (and it is everywhere)

If what you are saying is true, then there would be no rape culture. We would not see sex being used in destructive and harmful ways. But the more we allow sexual content to infiltrate the media, advertising and entertainment, the more woman are abused. And that is what we see happening.

Please explain!!!


There is a reason why the ancient people covered up... we are uncovering and rape and abuse is rampant. You dont think there is some correlation there between what we see and how we think and feel?

The problem isn't liberal attitudes towards sex. The problem is that we haven't cast off outdated notions of it such as patriarchy, heteronormativity, racism, etc. The old framework of viewing it is still there and that's what's causing harm.

 

[LuisDantas]

To be fair, a liberal attitude may be problematic for people who don't know how to deal with it.

It happens.

 

[SoulDaemon]

Does anyone have facts about how many percent of who watch porn and who have a high sexual/reproductive drive commit rape? or those who try to live in "celibacy"?

Even if you don't watch porn, but have a drive, millions of years old and hyperactive at that, what do you think happens?

Or if you keep denying that we as human beings are sexual?

I think there is too much sexually orientated stuff and yet wrong kind of denial about human sexuality.

If you go against it too much or with it too much your bound to mess up at some point.

There are those who are true predators by nature and those who become one by misused sexuality. Ever seen an abuse victim on a psychotic brake?.

In sexuality fear, anger and neglect are poison. If you wanna joke about someones sex and sexuality you might wanna think it over.

It's one aspect of the most powerful drives of humans, to reproduce.

 

[freethinker44]

We would not see sex being used in destructive and harmful ways.

Sex isn't used in destructive or harmful ways, it's reacted to in destructive and harmful ways.

There is a reason why the ancient people covered up... we are uncovering and rape and abuse is rampant. You dont think there is some correlation there between what we see and how we think and feel?

Pick any year in the past. Any year at all from the beginning of recorded history to present and I guarantee life is better for women now than it was then. So if I was to make any kind of correlation it would have to be less sexual repression equals a better society.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

but this is not what the facts are revealing. Women do not have a better place in society just because sex has been brought out into the open. (and it is everywhere)

If what you are saying is true, then there would be no rape culture. We would not see sex being used in destructive and harmful ways. But the more we allow sexual content to infiltrate the media, advertising and entertainment, the more woman are abused. And that is what we see happening.

Please explain!!!


There is a reason why the ancient people covered up... we are uncovering and rape and abuse is rampant. You dont think there is some correlation there between what we see and how we think and feel?

Advertising and media are bigger problems than sex. It isn't our society being more open about sex that has many Western women suffering eating disorders like Anorexia or causing about half of American women to feel like they are constantly dieting, it is the bombardment of advertising that demands women be rail thin just to have a chance at being attractive.
And I wouldn't be so certain that all the ancients were covered up. Plenty of ancients wore nothing more than a cloth over their genitals to keep stuff off and out of them. Just about everything else, was exposed. Even when Western culture was very sexually repressed during the Victorian Era, women were very much covered up but they were still raped. The only difference between now and then is now we have laws against domestic violence that did not exist then. And thinking rape happens because of the way a woman is dressed overlooks that fact that about 70% of all rape victims know their rapist.
Our society is very patriarchal, and many men still see women as being inferior to men and as nothing more than sexual objects and baby makers.

 

[Pegg]

It's one aspect of the most powerful drives of humans, to reproduce.

if it was about reproducing, why the massive abortion rate?

One of the problems is that sex is not about reproduction. Its about personal pleasure.

 

[Pegg]

Sex isn't used in destructive or harmful ways, it's reacted to in destructive and harmful ways.

so a woman fighting off her attacker is being harmful and destructive to herself?

 

[Pegg]

Our society is very patriarchal, and many men still see women as being inferior to men and as nothing more than sexual objects and baby makers.
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this is how the media and entertainment portray women.... we are very strongly influenced by what we see and hear. Attitudes are molded by what is dictated in the media and by what people watch. Ideas affect our views and if the ideas tell us that woman are inferior and 'sexual' then the people will respond to that.

And we can see how this is happening. Women are dressing more in more sexually provocative clothing because they see all the women in the media dressing like that and it becomes 'normal' to them.

men see women portrayed as sexually available and willing, and they view women that way.... more men treat women as sexually available and willing.

Now society has to implement more and more laws surrounding such behaviour because its so prevalent.

 

[freethinker44]

so a woman fighting off her attacker is being harmful and destructive to herself?

I have no response, I don't know what that has to do with anything.

 

[Pegg]

I have no response, I don't know what that has to do with anything.

Your comment was :

Sex isn't used in destructive or harmful ways, it's reacted to in destructive and harmful ways.

How can you react 'harmfully' to sex in the context of 'rape'?

 

[SoulDaemon]

if it was about reproducing, why the massive abortion rate?

One of the problems is that sex is not about reproduction. Its about personal pleasure.

Have you skipped basic human biology? What are humans and animals most primal instincts and drives?

 

[Pegg]

Have you skipped basic human biology? What are humans and animals most primal instincts and drives?

Animals only breed during certain times of the year when they are ready to reproduce. The rest of the year, they are not sexually active. A male animal of most species is only interested in the females when they come into season...and that may only be once or twice a year.

So if you want to place humans in the same category as animals with regard to sex, then we should only have sex when we want to reproduce, right?

 

[SoulDaemon]

Animals only breed during certain times of the year when they are ready to reproduce. The rest of the year, they are not sexually active. A male animal of most species is only interested in the females when they come into season...and that may only be once or twice a year.

So if you want to place humans in the same category as animals with regard to sex, then we should only have sex when we want to reproduce, right?

Oh dear...

 

[Pegg]

Oh dear...

well you said we are like animals with the most basic insticts being to reproduce.


But maybe you need to rethink that because humans want sex for other reasons....and perhaps that is why its abused so much. If we did follow the pattern of animals, we would only breed for reproduction.

 

[dust1n]

In an attempt to maintain some semblance with the OP, I'd say it's always difficult to use two works to describe a huge portion of human activities, but what could easily be considered "rape cultures" have existed for a very long time. It may be the case that, well, at least here in comfy, smug America, that such cultures exist to a lesser extent than other geographical or chronological positions. Of course, there are plenty of cultural elements that exist here that do basically what can described as an element of rape culture.

 

[Sunstone]

One of the problems is that sex is not about reproduction. Its about personal pleasure.

You have an knack for replacing an overly simplistic view with...an overly simplistic view.

 

[Sunstone]

There is a reason why the ancient people covered up... we are uncovering and rape and abuse is rampant. You dont think there is some correlation there between what we see and how we think and feel?

Yeah, no one was ever raped back in the days they covered up.

 

[SoulDaemon]

To Pegg:

You say humans want sex only for pleasure, I think they're in the minority. Most people go for companionship, to bond and reproduce. And what I know all those three can be put under the definition sex.

Not just pleasure, and besides sex produces one the strongest human hormones oxytocin, which strenghtens the bond between couples thus creating a better chance for them to be together and produce offspring. And it's even produced after childbirth to strenghten the bond between child and parent.

If you think sex is all about pleasure, you might wanna check again.

Ex. Honest sexuality strenghtens social skills and self esteem.

That what you are talking is just the thing a was pointing, overreaction to sex. It seems the word sex to you is just plain penetration. While it's much more than that.

 

[Debater Slayer]

if it was about reproducing, why the massive abortion rate?

One of the problems is that sex is not about reproduction. Its about personal pleasure.

Should partners who don't want children abstain from sex for life, then? What about those who have children but don't want to reproduce anymore?