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RE: Is rape about power? - 5/19/2013 4:16:27 PM

Aswad

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quote:

ORIGINAL: egern

When you say that rape rates are very high in Scandinavia, what do you compare it to? Where do you get your statistics from? I'd like to see them.

BBC, UN and the Statistics and Census Bureau of Norway, for instance.

quote:

It is hard to read the stats in cases of rape, because you do not know how many are reported, and laws on what constitutes rape are different. It is possible that more rapes are reported in Scandinavia than elsewhere, I do not know. Certainly Sweden's rate is sky high, but their laws are extremely strict.

What counts as rape differs dramatically between countries, true. But in your OP, you didn't qualify the kind of rape you wanted to discuss, and some posters have gone so far as to lump in war rape and rape-as-torture with marital rape, which makes it the natural thing to count everything. The figures can be multiplied by ten to get the assumed actual occurence.

In Norway, any sexual act without consent is rape. If you want to limit yourself to stranger rape, then yes, the rates are fairly low, at 2.4 per 100,000 capita per annum, up from 2.0 per 100,000 capita per annum before we criminalized the purchase of sexual services. Sweden saw the same jump when they enacted the same law (before we did, incidentally).

quote:

Noway is much less than for example UK and USA, and Denmark is quite low.

Norway is number 5 on the list, internationally, in terms of rapes per capita per year.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to egern)

Post #: 101

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/19/2013 4:27:15 PM

fucktoyprincess

Posts: 2337
Status: offline

FR

I still say rape is about power. Nothing I've read on this thread says to me otherwise. Whether it is date rape, rape within the context of a preexisting relationship, stranger rape, etc. it is about some imposing themselves on another person.

Those who refer to things like alcohol and diminished capacity are simply giving further credence to the power argument. A victim who is drunk is an even easier target because the power imbalance is even larger.

The rape statistics exist because some men (i.e., less than a majority of men) seem to need to exert their power in this way. The majority of men do not rape and would not rape even if they didn't have access to regular sex, and even if they were in a situation of extreme power imbalance.

Again, absolutely nothing on this thread tells me that rape is about anything other than power.

_____________________________

~ ftp

(in reply to Aswad)

Post #: 102

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/19/2013 4:27:32 PM

Aswad

Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: njlauren

The problem is your understand of rape seems to be it is always where a man's sexual desire gets out of hand, as in some cases of date rape, and if women just learned to say no better, rape would go away.

No, I didn't say always. In fact, I would've preferred to limit the discussion to a single phenomenon at a time, because it's quite counterproductive to lump it all under one heading and then trying to generalize without having things in naturally delineated categories in which one can find more similarities. For instance, where I live, date rape and marital rape are the primary forms of rape, to the point that I occasionally have to point out the absurdity that some women will rush home from town (where the chance of being raped is infinitesmally small, but where the media makes big headlines every time it happens) to the male company that makes them feel safe (where the chances are more than thirty times higher that they'll be rape, but where media rarely covers it unless it's particularly vicious).

And, no, rape doesn't go away if women get better at saying 'no', any more than auto theft goes away if people stop leaving the keys in the ignition, or any more than burglary goes away if people lock their doors. But the rate at which it occurs drops significantly, according to the experiments we've done here, and the rate at which it's successfully completed also drops significantly. Something that also makes a huge impact, again going by the experiments we've done here, is teaching teenage boys about consent, about the consequences of rape to the victim, about how to communicate better, and so forth.

quote:

What you are saying is that rape is about men's sexual desire getting out of hand, and if we want to prevent rape women have to learn to be more forceful, and say no, and this is the ultimate in black and white thinking.

The only black and white thinking here is what I've been trying to dispel, such as the notion that it's always about hate.

quote:

A lot of the men who rape do so out of hate or anger at women and also feel empowered in doing so, and studies have shown that.

Are you arguing, then, that it's a socioeconomic phenomenon?

quote:

What you are talking about will work in date rape situations and such, but it doesn't cover a wide spectrum, and it is probably a lot more useful to look at most rape as being about anger and hate and power, then lust.

Date rape and such are a lot more common than assaultive stranger rapes, at least around these parts, to the tune of a factor of thirty difference in the number of reported rapes between those two categories.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to njlauren)

Post #: 103

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/19/2013 4:29:14 PM

Aswad

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Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Powergamz1

Your fabricating those quotes and editing out of words is doing exactly what I predicted... playing an internet troll game of semantics and strawmen at the expense of rape victims.

What on Earth are you talking about?

Please show me what quotes I've fabricated, then we can talk about the rest of your baseless accusations.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to Powergamz1)

Post #: 104

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/19/2013 4:51:43 PM

Politesub53

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quote:

ORIGINAL: egern

quote:

ORIGINAL: Politesub53

Rape is about bullying...... Nuff said.

But what about stranger rape then?

What part of forcing a person to have sex, isnt bullying ?

(in reply to egern)

Post #: 105

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/19/2013 5:28:44 PM

Powergamz1

Posts: 1927
Joined: 9/3/2011
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No troll, I'm not playing your strawman, denier, game... anyone who wants to scroll up to post #62 and compare what you put in quotation marks with what I actually posted, is welcome to do so...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aswad

quote:

ORIGINAL: Powergamz1

Your fabricating those quotes and editing out of words is doing exactly what I predicted... playing an internet troll game of semantics and strawmen at the expense of rape victims.

What on Earth are you talking about?

Please show me what quotes I've fabricated, then we can talk about the rest of your baseless accusations.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

< Message edited by Powergamz1 -- 5/19/2013 5:29:11 PM >

_____________________________

"DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment" Anthony McLeod Kennedy

" About damn time...wooot!!' Me

(in reply to Aswad)

Post #: 106

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/19/2013 5:34:21 PM

Aswad

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Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: njlauren

There are different types of rape, I used the Serbs as an example of where it wasn't about lust, but about using rape as a weapon, to demoralize an enemy or get revenge.

Yes, arguably an effective (though unethical) tactic. But I'm confused as to why you'd group it with conventional rape.

quote:

When someone rapes a women because they are angry about something, feeling powerless, whatever, they are using sex to take it out on women they have a grudge for.

But why not just beat her up instead?

Unless you're positing that the motive is that our culture elevates the act of rape to a supreme expression of power, in which case it's time to stop analysing it as being an expression of power, and to stop pushing the idea that it's always the worst thing that can happen to any woman, etc., since that would only fuel the problem by providing a symbol to go for.

No offense intended, but raping a woman is so easy I just can't see any way that could possibly make me feel powerful, vindicated, or whatever else you'd care to ascribe to it.

quote:

Empathy means you can feel what someone else is feeling, and understand the pain, and if someone has empathy, humiliating someone, especially via rape, means they cannot feel what they are doing to the person, they have stopped empathizing with them as a human being.

As a sadist, I distinguish between cruelty and sadism in that the former is when I care about what I do, while the latter is when I care about what she feels, and I'd note the latter absolutely requires empathy. I have a very well developed sense of empathy, and it's a major source of sadistic gratification, including in the context of humiliation. The fact that I stick to consenting partners is a choice on my part, made in line with my own sense of ethics.

As such, no, I don't see it as a no-brainer that hurting people automatically and necessarily precludes empathy.

quote:

To use an analogy, those responsible for planning and carrying out the holocaust felt no empathy for the people they were hurting, which allowed them to do what they did, those raping someone to humiliate them likewise couldn't do what they were doing if they had empathy at all.

To take your analogy further, people eat meat. This entails a fuckton of suffering, well beyond what one mind can comprehend. The reason people can do so, is that most humans have the ability to switch empathy on and off at will, though most also need a scaffolding for it (such as a (usually culturally derived) distinction between an ingroup and an outgroup in terms of moral cores, etc.). But while dehumanization is an effective tool to further acceptance of atrocities, that doesn't necessarily mean the people involved lack empathy, only that they exclude someone else from it (assuming we don't count the ones that actually have sadistic motives, who will need empathy to get full gratification), at least for a time.

quote:

The problem with occams razor as you are applying it

... is that I haven't applied it in this thread. Jeff did.

quote:

The real problem with claiming rapes are men going out of control with lust is it puts the onus on the victim,

Back up there a bit. If I claim a traffic accident is a guy having a stroke, it puts the onus on the person being hit by the car? No. Not even if the stroke were because he got a high blood pressure from getting pissed off at the car in front of him doing something. No, just no. That leap is being made, but not by me.

It's also not the argument, but hey...

quote:

By looking at it from the vantage of power, it puts the onus where it should be, on the rapist, because once someone says no or never gave consent, it is rape.

How is throwing power in there anything but a needless multiplication of entities?

One person engages in sexual activity without the consent of the other party, that's rape; why do you need power in there, too?

quote:

I have never said all rape was about power (and also keep in mind when that was written, things like date rape were not even in the lexicon, date rape is an artifact of the past 30 years, it has been added to the definition, as marital rape was).

Good. I got the distinct impression that's exactly what you were saying. I'm glad it's a mistaken impression.

I've no idea when it was written; I've just seen it repeated ad nauseam, so far without good backing. And remember I'm in my thirties, meaning that date rape and marital rape have been considered rape here, legally and culturally, for as long as I've had any sexual awareness. What's a more recent addition for me is the inclusion of sexual remorse and the like in the definition of rape here (on its ways into the books now), yet another reason I prefer to compartmentalize the kinds of rape into seperate discussions.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

P.S.: Since you've repeated your gripes about Islam here a few times, I hope you're not mistakenly assuming that I'm a Muslim, or that my nickname indicates Arab culture or ethnicity? The nickname is from Mage and from H. P. Lovecraft, the former as a reference to an oracle, the latter as the first recorded human name of Nyarlathotep. I know this kind of misunderstanding has happened in the past, so I'm just asking to be sure it's not the case.

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to njlauren)

Post #: 107

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/19/2013 5:39:59 PM

Aswad

Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess

I still say rape is about power. Nothing I've read on this thread says to me otherwise. Whether it is date rape, rape within the context of a preexisting relationship, stranger rape, etc. it is about some imposing themselves on another person.

I still say life is about power. Nothing I've read on this thread says to me otherwise. Whether it is agriculture, cultivating the stock on hand, technology, stock markets, etc., it is about humans imposing their will on the environment.

The question is: does that perspective afford us any insights on how to live, on how to wield power, on the motives for abuses of power, on how we get from A to Z?

Does this perspective indeed do anything but throw out there the idea that men are powerful and women powerless?

Because I don't think that's a particularly helpful or empowering idea, nor even necessarily a correct one.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to fucktoyprincess)

Post #: 108

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/19/2013 5:47:49 PM

Aswad

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Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Powergamz1

No troll, I'm not playing your strawman, denier, game... anyone who wants to scroll up to post #62 and compare what you put in quotation marks with what I actually posted, is welcome to do so...

Fuck, that statement is so stupid it's offensive.

Did it ever occur to you that I was using quotation marks to encapsulate, that I wasn't pretending to quote you, but rather making a substatement and encapsulating it the way one might shift tone in normal conversation to mark the transition from a main clause to an extended embedded clause being treated as a part of speech?

Yes, by all means, I encourage everyone to go read post #62 so they can see for themselves the violation of sense in what you're going on about here.

Sheesh. The gods themselves contend in vain...

IWYW,
— Aswad.

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to Powergamz1)

Post #: 109

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/19/2013 6:48:47 PM

Powergamz1

Posts: 1927
Joined: 9/3/2011
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The legal definition of rape contains the element of 'force, actual or constructive', which is clearly about power. It doesn't matter if the power is a fist, a knife, or a threat against the victim or even against a 3rd party.

Child rape by authority figures is about the imbalance of power, incestuous familial rape is about the imbalance of power, wartime rape is about the imbalance of power, marital rape is about the imbalance of power, and of course drugged date rape is about the imbalance of power.

The pro-rapists posting here are simply playing a version of 'you can't rape the unwilling' blame the victimism, it's probably time to quit feeding them.

quote:

ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess

FR

I still say rape is about power. Nothing I've read on this thread says to me otherwise. Whether it is date rape, rape within the context of a preexisting relationship, stranger rape, etc. it is about some imposing themselves on another person.

Those who refer to things like alcohol and diminished capacity are simply giving further credence to the power argument. A victim who is drunk is an even easier target because the power imbalance is even larger.

The rape statistics exist because some men (i.e., less than a majority of men) seem to need to exert their power in this way. The majority of men do not rape and would not rape even if they didn't have access to regular sex, and even if they were in a situation of extreme power imbalance.

Again, absolutely nothing on this thread tells me that rape is about anything other than power.

< Message edited by Powergamz1 -- 5/19/2013 7:20:53 PM >

_____________________________

"DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment" Anthony McLeod Kennedy

" About damn time...wooot!!' Me

(in reply to fucktoyprincess)

Post #: 110

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/19/2013 7:55:56 PM

Aswad

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Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Powergamz1

The legal definition of rape contains the element of 'force, actual or constructive', which is clearly about power.

Where you live, perhaps. Here, it's sexual acts without consent.

quote:

The pro-rapists posting here [...]

Care to elaborate on which posters you're calling pro-rapists, and on what grounds?

I've seen none of that here.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to Powergamz1)

Post #: 111

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/19/2013 8:35:56 PM

njlauren

Posts: 1577
Joined: 10/1/2011
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aswad

quote:

ORIGINAL: Powergamz1

The legal definition of rape contains the element of 'force, actual or constructive', which is clearly about power.

Where you live, perhaps. Here, it's sexual acts without consent.

quote:

The pro-rapists posting here [...]

Care to elaborate on which posters you're calling pro-rapists, and on what grounds?

I've seen none of that here.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

Non consent is about power as well, if you think about it. If someone rapes me, it means they had sex without my consent, which means I either said no and they still did it, or I wasn't even given the chance to say no. In either case, the power that should have been vested in me to say yes or no was taken away from me, which means the other person had a power imbalance they exploited, whether it was physical force or by having me in a position where I couldn't say yes or no, since I was out of it. Consent implies equal power, non consent implies unequal power.

(in reply to Aswad)

Post #: 112

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/19/2013 8:44:18 PM

njlauren

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Joined: 10/1/2011
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aswad

quote:

ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess

I still say rape is about power. Nothing I've read on this thread says to me otherwise. Whether it is date rape, rape within the context of a preexisting relationship, stranger rape, etc. it is about some imposing themselves on another person.

I still say life is about power. Nothing I've read on this thread says to me otherwise. Whether it is agriculture, cultivating the stock on hand, technology, stock markets, etc., it is about humans imposing their will on the environment.

The question is: does that perspective afford us any insights on how to live, on how to wield power, on the motives for abuses of power, on how we get from A to Z?

Does this perspective indeed do anything but throw out there the idea that men are powerful and women powerless?

Because I don't think that's a particularly helpful or empowering idea, nor even necessarily a correct one.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

For one thing, it leaves out the fact that while most rape is male on female, other kinds of rape go on, male on male, female on male and female on female, if in lesser numbers. First of all, rape can happen at gun or knifepoint, where the gender doesn't really matter. Seconds, and more importantly, a typical man is stronger physically then the typical female so it is likely that the man could overpower the woman. The whole point about rape isn't that men are rapists naturally or anything close, it is that someone took advantage of another person in a sexual way, whatever the motivations, and took away the power to say no.

(in reply to Aswad)

Post #: 113

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/20/2013 6:55:35 AM

Aswad

Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
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njlauren,

The only reason I've left out male/male, female/male and female/female rape is because the thread was already mixing up a bunch of different scenarios. Whether the true numbers favor male/female rape is actually less clear the more you look at it, in part because it's largely culturally accepted (at least here) that only men rape and only women and children are victims. I seem to recall a recent pilot study here finding that the differences are down to opportunity and risk tolerance, though I feel it's unlikely we have good enough data to really make good educated guesses at the underreporting rates yet.

Anyway, I still don't see how this differs from any other human endeavour. Power is being able to act. Imposing our will is what our existence as human beings is based on. It's how and why we no longer hunt and gather in Africa. Rape seems pointless to me to single out as 'the activity that's about power', when all human activities are about power on some level, analysed in that manner. Particularly when we throw in the fact that it's so easy to rape most people, due to there typically being very little resistance involved.

In what way does this analysis provide us with a useful model? Meaning, a model that allows us to make predictions with accuracy, and to influence the occurence rates and outcomes of rape? What predictions follow from this model? Do those predictions pan out, crossculturally? Does it suggest any effective measures we can take to reduce the occurence, giving a higher success rate at reduction than other measures? Does it have usefulness in therapy, compared to controls?

ETA: Out of curiosity, what does the model say about the tendency to not offer meaningful resistance? Is that voluntary powerlessness?

IWYW,
— Aswad.

< Message edited by Aswad -- 5/20/2013 6:56:41 AM >

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to njlauren)

Post #: 114

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/20/2013 8:09:44 AM

thishereboi

Posts: 14463
Joined: 6/19/2008
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quote:

ORIGINAL: egern

quote:

ORIGINAL: njlauren

quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffBC

quote:

ORIGINAL: egern
However, this concept, that all rape is about power, period, has never been proven or, to my knowledge, even researched. It just keep getting repeated as if it were.

Feminism is like that. For me, the idea is ludicrous. Not to put too fine a point on it but last I checked "rape" was about "me fucking some woman who does not want to be fucked". It would appear at a casual glance that "fucking" has to be somewhere in the mix.

For me it's pretty simple...

A) Humans are a highly sexual species
B) Some humans really don't see other humans as meaningful or as having any rights.
C) Society is terribly permissive about this particular form of transgression.

It seems to me that with those three simple ingredients you get what we see in our society. It's only the 3rd point that can be changed and so is interesting at all to me.

The problem is that you are seeing it as an act of lust, because they use the equipment used for consensual sex...but in reality, what they are doing is using their sex organs as a weapon, to humiliate the victim, to take out their anger and rage on them. Point B is what makes the point, we might be a highly sexual species, but you don't have to be driven by lust to use your penis on someone, or as in the case of some assaults use objects like bottles and such to assault the victim.

A classic example is that homosexual rape was often used to humiliate captives in warfare, to demean them and show them contempt.

I have trouble seeing all rapes as hate or rage. Why should that be the case? Why should some men hate all woman with such hate, or men as well? This is what I do not get.

Why would you try to see all rapes as anything? There are many reasons why a man would rape a women and to try to come up with one reason to cover them all seems a bit silly.

_____________________________

"Sweetie, you're wasting your gum" .. Albert

This here is the boi formerly known as orfunboi

(in reply to egern)

Post #: 115

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/20/2013 9:46:18 AM

Powergamz1

Posts: 1927
Joined: 9/3/2011
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Rape contains multiple elements, non-consent being one, use of force or deceit being another, particulars of physical contact being yet another... in your country as well. Your claim that the element of force does not exist in your country is patently untrue.

And your repeating that force, threats, etc. have nothing to do with power, is still trolling at the expense of rape victims by any standard.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aswad

quote:

ORIGINAL: Powergamz1

The legal definition of rape contains the element of 'force, actual or constructive', which is clearly about power.

Where you live, perhaps. Here, it's sexual acts without consent.

<SNIP>

_____________________________

"DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment" Anthony McLeod Kennedy

" About damn time...wooot!!' Me

(in reply to Aswad)

Post #: 116

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/20/2013 1:56:26 PM

fucktoyprincess

Posts: 2337
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aswad

quote:

ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess

I still say rape is about power. Nothing I've read on this thread says to me otherwise. Whether it is date rape, rape within the context of a preexisting relationship, stranger rape, etc. it is about some imposing themselves on another person.

I still say life is about power. Nothing I've read on this thread says to me otherwise. Whether it is agriculture, cultivating the stock on hand, technology, stock markets, etc., it is about humans imposing their will on the environment.

The question is: does that perspective afford us any insights on how to live, on how to wield power, on the motives for abuses of power, on how we get from A to Z?

Does this perspective indeed do anything but throw out there the idea that men are powerful and women powerless?

Because I don't think that's a particularly helpful or empowering idea, nor even necessarily a correct one.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

I do, actually think that when we frame rape as being about power it helps us think about constructive ways to prevent (or at least reduce) the instances of this act. Thinking of power opens up all sorts of dialogue about gender equity, education, risks, responsibilities, etc. that other constructs do not. For example, because I firmly believe that rape is about power and NOT about sex, I am not going to support laws that force modesty on a woman's body. Whether it is orthodox Jews in Brooklyn or the Islamic sharia laws of various countries, the notion that women are solely responsible for not enticing men is a perverse turning on its head of where the responsibilities should be. Because I don't think rape is about sex, it also affects the way I view issues like birth control and abortion. It also informs me about how to handle rape victims. It also informs me about how to view relationships between men and women in general. It suggests that not all men will rape (which is true). It suggests that there are ways to identify those who are at greater risk of committing rape. It even allows one to identify who might be at greater risk of being a victim. The fact that rape is about power informs me as a woman much more about how to protect myself and handle myself in a multitude of situations to minimize my own risks while still being able to enjoy my life. As a woman, I can tell you for a fact, no other single construct is as helpful for understanding this crime. Most of the literature and studies that look at rape through the power lens are extremely informative in terms of what tools we have available as a society to try to handle this issue and the variety of issues raised by its occurrence. Again, no other construct comes close to the explanatory strength of "power". It's sort of like Einstein's Theory of Relativity - which does not deny that there could be another explanation, but is the most complete explanation we have, and continues to be proven to hold under a variety of circumstances.

When we reduce rape to a man needing to fulfill his sexual urges, it really doesn't tell me anything that I can use in my regular existence. It also doesn't inform me in ways that are meaningful about what the social constructs should be around male-female relationships in order to reduce the risks of rape. If rape is about sex, then all men are potential rapists. I find that to be an untrue and unhelpful starting point. It is that type of extremist thinking that leads to burkha wearing as the only way to minimize threat. I just categorically reject that kind of thinking.

I'm happy to look at other constructs that have the same explanatory depth and breadth as "power", but "sex" is not it, and I haven't seen anything else on this thread that I find helpful.

Thinking of rape as being about power gives a society so many more ways to think about rape and think about how to prevent it, and manage the outcomes of it when it occurs. I do not see it as a negative that power is a complicated construct. And if that is your objection, i.e., how do we deconstruct "power", that is a different objection that what you've been making so far. And there has been a lot of discussion about how to deconstruct the concept of "power" when it comes to rape. But my point is that deconstructed, these various aspects are still all about the larger construct of "power". I still stand by by belief that it is the best overall construct.

_____________________________

~ ftp

(in reply to Aswad)

Post #: 117

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/20/2013 2:41:12 PM

Aswad

Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Powergamz1

Your claim that the element of force does not exist in your country is patently untrue.

Your claim was that the legal definition is so-and-so. My claim was that the legal definition where I live is such-and-such instead.

Misrepresenting my position so you can knock down your own invention has a name you're familiar with.

quote:

And your repeating that force, threats, etc. have nothing to do with power, is still trolling at the expense of rape victims by any standard.

I've never said that, let alone repeated it. As for standards, yours and mine don't align, fortunately.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to Powergamz1)

Post #: 118

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/20/2013 3:40:00 PM

Aswad

Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess

Thinking of power opens up all sorts of dialogue about gender equity, education, risks, responsibilities, etc. that other constructs do not.

If you feel you must go that route to open up that dialogue, then obviously it's useful to you.

I feel those dialogues must be opened anyway, and for other reasons, so to me it doesn't add anything.

quote:

For example, because I firmly believe that rape is about power and NOT about sex, I am not going to support laws that force modesty on a woman's body.

Regardless of rape altogether, and without the assumption that it's got anything to do with power, I'm not going to support laws that force any kind of dress code for any citizen, regardless of gender; heck, I even oppose laws against public nudity (not that they'd be particularly relevant in Norway, with the temperatures we have here). Similarly, I'm not going to support laws that enforce the opposite (such as laws against hijabs, which have been enacted in France, etc.).

For me, this comes down to a question of liberty, and modesty doesn't enter into it.

quote:

Because I don't think rape is about sex, it also affects the way I view issues like birth control and abortion.

Would you care to elaborate?

I don't have a rape-centric worldview, so I've no idea how birth control and abortion have anything to do with this. ETA: That sounded offensive. It wasn't meant to be.

Just so we're clear, I'm in favor of universalized access to birth control, and I'm in favor of universalized healthcare providing free abortions up to somewhere around week 12-16 with the same available after that, but subject to review beyond that point (at least here; bunch of details that would take us off topic, suffice to say there haven't been any rejections so far, as far as I know).

quote:

It also informs me about how to handle rape victims.

How does seeing rape as being about power tell you how to handle rape victims?

Specifically, what does it tell you that wouldn't be obvious otherwise?

quote:

It also informs me about how to view relationships between men and women in general.

Wow. Your views of relationships between men and women are informed by rape as a starting point?

To me, that seems terribly destructive, but I'm curious about the details.

quote:

It suggests that not all men will rape (which is true).

This was obvious from observing the statistics. The highest estimates put it at one in three to one in four, the best estimates seem to put it at three in one hundred. What do you have to add to that observation from your model?

quote:

It suggests that there are ways to identify those who are at greater risk of committing rape.

Okay. Now you're piqueing my interest. Please do tell. I'm assuming the predictions agree with the evidence?

quote:

It even allows one to identify who might be at greater risk of being a victim.

Again, I'd like to hear more about this.

quote:

As a woman, I can tell you for a fact, no other single construct is as helpful for understanding this crime.

I hear this. And I'm very curious as to how it does help. Genuinely curious.

quote:

Most of the literature and studies that look at rape through the power lens are extremely informative in terms of what tools we have available as a society to try to handle this issue and the variety of issues raised by its occurrence.

Would you care to suggest some examples?

quote:

When we reduce rape to a man needing to fulfill his sexual urges, it really doesn't tell me anything that I can use in my regular existence.

Now I'm baffled. What it suggested to me were a series of educational measures that an experimental trial of proved to be highly effective, until someone looking at it through the power lens came in and removed some of the effective measures, without having any suggestions as to what might take their place, under the general assumption that adherence to dogma would be better than going by the evidence, no matter what actual measures were in place.

quote:

It also doesn't inform me in ways that are meaningful about what the social constructs should be around male-female relationships in order to reduce the risks of rape.

See the above. Also, I'm getting the sense that you're looking for a way for women to fit into men's lives, which I'm sure isn't what you're actually saying, so again, a bit of clarification would be very much appreciated.

quote:

If rape is about sex, then all men are potential rapists.

Every human being is a potential rapist, but some have a lot more potential than others.

A binary division regarding what humans may or may not do doesn't seem likely to be very accurate.

Sidebar: Are you referring to male-on-female rape exclusively by convention, or does the power theory only cover those?

quote:

It is that type of extremist thinking that leads to burkha wearing as the only way to minimize threat.

How do you get from here to there? That seems like a huge and unsupported leap, to my mind.

quote:

I'm happy to look at other constructs that have the same explanatory depth and breadth as "power", but "sex" is not it, and I haven't seen anything else on this thread that I find helpful.

Perhaps if you explain this notion of power to me, I might be able to grasp why you think it's useful. It's quite possible that what you find to be a big eye-opener about it is something I've already got as a tacit assumption that I'm no longer aware of, for instance, in which case we could advance our discourse meaningfully.

quote:

I do not see it as a negative that power is a complicated construct.

Me neither, it's just that so far, it sounds a lot like saying "cooking is all about water", which is certainly correct in a way, but fails to tell me anything about the subject that I can use.

quote:

And if that is your objection, i.e., how do we deconstruct "power", that is a different objection that what you've been making so far.

It just seems to me like there's something here that's too tacit for me to grasp that it's really a part of the topic. Power is a very wide and vague term, and it ends up coming across as something that's equivalent to saying "rape is about the ability of one party to force sex on another party", which is a tautology and thus by definition doesn't add anything, unless it serves to unblock a previously mistaken assumption or something.

So, yeah, there's probably some simple bridge missing, because what you're saying comes across as saying "it's all about the air" when we're discussing flight. Telling me you mean "it's all about aerodynamics", or "it's all about lift", or "it's all about how great it is to fly" would lead to us connecting and being able to have meaningful discourse in a way that just doesn't happen with "it's all about the air", even if that's strictly speaking true.

I hope you get that I'm not trying to be coy or anything.

I want to understand what you're saying, and I feel like I probably should be able to, yet I'm seriously not getting it.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

< Message edited by Aswad -- 5/20/2013 3:41:11 PM >

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to fucktoyprincess)

Post #: 119

RE: Is rape about power? - 5/20/2013 4:40:49 PM

fucktoyprincess

Posts: 2337
Status: offline

Okay, let's just take a few examples and see if it illuminates or just adds to the confusion on both sides.

If you tell me rape is about sex, then all men are potential rapists, because the sex drive is a natural part of the human existence. At the most fundamental level we are sexual beings. So then it suggests that rape is fundamental to human existence and can only be prevented through extreme effort. And I disagree with that notion. But fine, let's take that line of argument for a moment.

Even if we assume a power imbalance between men and women (due to for example, size, strength or other societal things such as earning potential, etc. - again for sake of argument), then when it comes to consensual sex, the power base for a woman is the power to determine who she has sex with, where, and under what terms. And that, as any man can tell us, is actually a lot of power. In a way, the woman's ability to pick and choose creates balance in what would otherwise be a completely unbalanced situation. And that to me is really what the gate keeping mechanism is about. It is that women have the power to say "no". And this is true whether what we are talking about is kissing, copulation, spanking, bondage, etc. In other words there are plenty of activities a woman can engage in that involve her body but are NOT sex. And is absolutely all cases, the woman is the gatekeeper to her own body.

A man who rapes fundamentally wants to take that power away. He, at some level. resents the fact that the woman is the gate keeper to her own body, and sexuality. The refusal to take a "no" at any point in the interaction between a specific man and woman is at the most fundamental level a rejection of a woman's power over her own body, and subsequently, the power she has over that particular man. And the rapist's sense of winning comes not from being able to orgasm - but being able to take the woman's power away.

Date rape is a classic example of where most men, in that situation where a woman starts to say "no" (at whatever point) will stop. What prevents the man who doesn't stop from stopping? He wants control of the situation. He doesn't want to be rejected. This is all about power. It is important that while we use the term date rape that not all date rape occurs because a woman says "no" when both parties are in bed, naked, and part way through the act. It can just as often occur much earlier in the evening - i.e., in a juncture where all man have the ability to exert self-control. But regardless of when it occurs why are some men are simply not able to do exert control over themselves? Is this because their sex drive is so strong? Or is it because they don't like how the power dynamics are playing out. To say it is their sex drive means all men should be raping all the time (Particularly between the ages of 13 and 35). But we know this isn't true. What is it that distinguishes the man who can take a "no" from a man who can't (I'm quite sure it's not the difference in their sex drives). And as any parent can tell you a child who gets upset when a parent says "no" is often not upset about the thing itself, but about the power dynamic - the child wants control.

My point about birth control and abortion is that if you believe that rape is about sex then it must be occurring in very high numbers - as high as consensual sex potentially. It then puts the entire burden of birth control on the shoulders of the woman, because what rapist uses a condom? This seems to me a very sad, and bad way to be teaching young people about sex. I think rape and sex need to be separate discussions.

Part of the issue here is that women need to be empowered to be able to say "yes" when she wants. That is the fundamental way in which a woman takes control of her own sexuality and her own sexual freedom. To say rape is just sex actually takes power away from women. It suggests that whether she says "yes" or "no" it is sex. And I quite disagree because the motivations of a man in a consensual situation are quite different from that of a rapist (who can't take no for an answer, who can't be a gentleman, who can't let a woman have power over her body). And the implications for a woman are quite different if she has consensual sex or if she is raped. Just because from the outside it might look like the same physical act does not mean it is experienced that way by a woman. Having her power taken away from fundamentally changes the nature of the interaction that follows from the moment of "no" onwards.

My thoughts on this are absolutely informed by my interest and experience in BDSM. For the record, one of my interests in BDSM is resistance and rape play. But the reason that type of play is fun for me is that I only do it with a trusted partner ON MY TERMS. Such play is not an open invitation to a partner to ignore limits and/or ignore a safe word should one be in place. Power exchange only works if you believe that I, as a submissive woman, have power over my body to relinquish. And I've never had a bad experience with a Dominant when it comes to this. Never. (Meaning if I ever needed to stop play, my wishes were respected).

At the end of the day, this is about power. And while this discussion has been framed within a certain way (male-female), each of us is entitled to power over our own bodies. And any other human being who is unable to respect that power has issues that go far beyond sex drive. Trust me, every one of my Dominants has/has had a very, very strong sex drive. That never prevented them from respecting my safe word. Ever. (Although, quite frankly, I've only rarely in my life had to use mine, because my Dominants knew better than to overstep). Neither has it prevented them from accepting a "no" to an invitation to play or have sex (because sometimes, sorry, but it really just isn't a good time for it - my D/s relationships have room for the "honey tonight I just don't have the energy for it" kind of situation - it is not always on the Dominant's terms). Does this make them less manly, less dominant, that they respected the limits determined by their submissive? Does it mean they like sex less than other men? Or does it mean they understand and accept the power exchange and dynamic of our relationship, but also respect that in a relationship, sex is not always going to be their call at any moment of the day or night? And therefore, they don't see hard limits (hard limits for me are non-negotiables) as threats or as something that threatens or challenges their masculinity? And they also don't see a "no" to sex as a threat to the underlying relationship. (I can't comment on those who have D/s or M/s relationships where you have negotiated different boundaries and where "no" is never permissible - I am NOT speaking to those situations.)

To me, this BDSM discussion is completely relevant in the vanilla world. There is a limit and a safeword in the vanilla world. It is called "no". A man who loses his self-control at the invoking of "no" seems to me to be at an arrested state of development - like the child who is upset at "no". Men with a secure sense of self do not feel the need to try to exert power at the word "no". To reduce men to simply sex-drive really serves no useful purpose. While women might like to say that all men are children in jest, I, for one, don't happen to believe that. But to treat rape as being about sex is to reduce men to children who have no control over themselves and their bodies. I feel it's insulting to both men and women to treat rape in that fashion. Whereas power and power dynamics make much more sense to me as a starting point for discussion.

_____________________________

~ ftp

(in reply to Aswad)

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