|
Aswad -> RE: Is rape about power? (5/20/2013 8:48:10 PM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess
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.
Every human being is a potential rapist, but some are more likely to rape than others.
Every human being is a potential killer, but some are more likely to kill than others. At the most fundamental level, we are violent beings. Yet, if you have a look at the history of warfare, it took a long time to get armies to the point where most of the soldiers were actually ready to kill. We could say they just weren't killers and that we've turned them into killers now, but it's more useful to say they had a high threshold for killing and few of the traits and beliefs that lend themselves to killing, and that we lowered their threshold, imparted new traits and instilled new beliefs, thus making them more inclined to kill. Most people do have the occasional impulse to kill, but most people also quite easily suppress it, though it can build up over time (e.g. constant abuse or other frustrations).
Sex drive isn't much different in that regard. Most of the guys in a college class will have fantasized about "doing" the hot chicks on campus. Few are going to act on it, and fewer still are likely to do so by force. It doesn't take extreme effort to control one's sex drive. But it does take the inclination to do so. And while nature equips us with the basic understanding to figure out what parts go where, it doesn't fashion us with any encyclopedic knowledge of consent and a good sex life, so both of these things need to be taught. Part of what must be taught is the appropriate expression of sexuality, including the topic of consent, for both parties.
My parents taught me about violence, its implications and consequences, about porportionality, about when it's appropriate and when it isn't, about all the different steps you try first in order to avoid a situation escalating into physical violence, about when to stand your ground and when to back down, about which things in life are important enough to consider that particular tool in the toolbox. They also taught me about sexuality, again with implications and consequences, about consent, appropriateness, respect for women's minds, bodies and boundaries. Same thing with my sister, on both counts.
Recent experiments here have involved teaching precisely such things to teenagers, of both genders. The result has been: fewer of the boys committed rape in the followup term than in the control group, and fewer of the girls were raped than in the control group (including by boys not in the programme). Note that the definition of rape used here is very wide. Part of what was taught was simple things. Having done the driver's licence thing at a late age, I've seen how many things that should be immediately obvious to my mind simply don't occur to them, particularly as regards responsibility, and I've seen how some of these attitudes persist into adulthood unless they're taught better. For instance, in many cases the younger people in the theory class I was in ascribed responsibility to the wrong party in certain traffic situations, when it was obvious to me (presumably because I've been taught differently as regards the subject of responsibility) that I would be the responsible party in those situations. Once explained the logic of it, they had no problem.
You don't need extreme effort. You just need to impart some basic ideas along the way, along with normal, healthy impulse control. Teach the boys about the meaning of consent and the consequences to the girl when consent is ignored, for instance, and teach the girls about how to manage risk and expectations, how to be clear about their boundaries and so forth. It's a dynamic involving two parties that may have been socialized to different norms of communication, and teaching them about each other is an interplay, one which requires complementary instruction. The result is a healthier, richer sex life for both genders, and fewer instances of rape.
Strangers committing assaultive rape is a comparative rarity. Most women are raped by someone close to them. And a lot of the time, at least around these parts, the guys don't realize what they're actually doing. They have a mental image of what rape is, and their actions and mindspace are nothing like that mental image. Aligning their mental image with reality is the point of this education, and it helps. As I recall, at least one boy in the programme required therapy to deal with guilt at realizing he'd actually raped someone, a tragedy for both parties involved. This indicates to me that there's a lot of low hanging fruit in terms of addressing the problem of rape.
quote:
In a way, the woman's ability to pick and choose creates balance in what would otherwise be a completely unbalanced situation.
What creates balance in the situation you describe is his willingness to make this concession, stemming from his respect for her as a person, and his desire to be desired by her, and his desire for her as more than an outlet for his urges, as an equal party to the interaction. If she has the power to pick and choose, rape isn't even a topic, because she'll just use that power to decide that sex isn't happening, and it doesn't happen. That's power. What you're talking about is the willingness on her part to say no, and the willingness on his part to respect that boundary; the power in that exists by tacit agreement.
quote:
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.
Yes? I would imagine that should be elementary. I know my sister was taught that well before her teens, at least, though it had already occured to her.
quote:
A man who rapes fundamentally wants to take that power away.
Here we have to disagree, but I hope it's just a nitpick on my part. First off, in the typical case of rape by someone close to the woman, his motive isn't taking away power, that's just something that happens incidentally to the whole thing. Secondly, it's a breach of social contract, unless she actually has the power, in which case he's unable to rape her. Power by social contract is seperate from inherent power. If we're talking about inherent power, it only happens through a failure to exercise that power. In many cases, that's also the case when the perp is someone close to the woman, and sure, it's worthwhile to teach them to use what power they have. But in the scenario you mentioned above, with an actual disparity of power, there's no power to take away in the first place.
Fundamentally, he wants what he wants, and the social contract is breached in the process.
quote:
He, at some level. resents the fact that the woman is the gate keeper to her own body, and sexuality.
This, I've heard on rare occasions, usually with MRA folks that are upset that they're not getting laid, but it doesn't seem to be the norm.
quote:
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.
This, I haven't heard offline. More to the point: what power?
A woman that tells me "no" will get an "okay, fine" and that's pretty much that.
It doesn't imply any sort of power over me. It implies I respect her and/or the social contract.
quote:
And the rapist's sense of winning comes not from being able to orgasm - but being able to take the woman's power away.
No offense, but that's like getting a sense of winning from being able to squash a bug. For there to even be any power to take away, one must first buy into the social contract, and while it may perhaps be a big leap in the relevant guy's head to breach the social contract, that's more of an argument that the social contract makes it attractive than that her power factors into it somehow.
quote:
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.
I'm not sure how you make this leap. Again, no offense, but this sounds like a classic case of trying to climb into a guy's mind and failing abysmally at it by overcomplicating what's really a pretty simple thing in his mind. He wants what he wants, and lacks whatever it takes to see a sufficient reason to stop, such as respect for her or awareness of the consequences of his actions. You're positing the presence of a negative, rather than the absence of a positive. Also, if he cares about being rejected, the last thing he'll want is to rape her (assuming he understands that's what he's doing).
quote:
To say it is their sex drive means all men should be raping all the time (Particularly between the ages of 13 and 35).
How do you make this leap?
Also, note, I'm not saying it's sex drive, I'm saying an impulse originates there, then has to pass executive control. This points at a motive, one that normally doesn't cause a problem, and something that needs to be present for that motive not to cause a problem (and which usually is present). The motive being the urge, and the thing that needs to be there being the respect, the understanding and the participation in the social contract. Nothing about that lends itself to the assumption that «all men should be raping all the time».
quote:
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.
The best child pedagogue I know tells me this is bullshit, but that it's a common misunderstanding.
quote:
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.
First off, how on Earth do you get from the idea that rape is about sex to the idea that it must be occuring in very high numbers, let alone potentially as high as consensual sex?
Secondly, most rapists here use a condom.
Third, guys are taught to use a condom here (but often don't), girls are taught to insist on it (but rarely do), and girls are taught to additionally consider other means of birth control for the simple reason that it's a matter of owning their own body and being responsible for managing it in line with their desire (or lack thereof) for a child, seeing as they're the final link in that chain under any circumstance.
quote:
I think rape and sex need to be separate discussions.
I think they need to be part of the same conversation, encompassing human sexuality, warts and all, pun intended.
quote:
Part of the issue here is that women need to be empowered to be able to say "yes" when she wants.
If you don't have the agency (that's not power, but agency and autonomy) to say "yes" or "no", the problem is more fundamental than anything to do with men.
quote:
To say rape is just sex actually takes power away from women.
How does a statement take away power?
I know of no form of power that is so flimsy that a simple statement negates it.
quote:
It suggests that whether she says "yes" or "no" it is sex.
To one of the parties. The term "sex" spans a wide semantic range. I'm using a narrow, physical sense of the word.
quote:
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).
Emphasis mine. You're showing a latent premise here, the one I voiced earlier in this post, that the woman (in this situation) doesn't have power over her own body, but can be allowed to have final say anyway. Which makes it interesting to turn the question on its head: why do most men allow women final say over their own bodies? When you have answered that, you have identified that which you must impart to those men that don't. The simplest explanation, it seems to me, is that the part that leads to adherence to this social contract is missing, and that everything else is largely the same, which matches what I've heard from some rapists, who relate that the motivations were quite similar to consensual sex.
Guys do wierd things when they're horny, like get stuck in vacuum cleaners, which is absolutely about sex for them. Most guys stay clear of the vacuum cleaners, however, and I got to figure there's something missing (e.g. common sense) with those that don't refrain from doing the Hoover snake wrangling thing. Similarly, some guys will push on (or, for some of them, whine) when the girlfriend doesn't want sex. Most guys will, however, stop if she can get it into his thick skull that it's not at all welcome, and I again figure there's something missing (e.g. respect, awareness) with those that keep going anyway. Similarly, some guys will take advantage of the girl passed out next to them at the dorm. Most guys won't. Again, educate properly, and most of those in the former category will end up in the latter instead.
quote:
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.
Well, obviously.
quote:
Having her power taken away from fundamentally changes the nature of the interaction that follows from the moment of "no" onwards.
Being put through something she neither wants nor welcomes nor agrees to is what changes the nature of the interaction, whether she said "no" or not.
Boxing can be a real kick, if you like it. Taking repeated blows to the body and head when you don't want it, however, changes the nature of the interaction, particularly for the recipient of those blows. That's when it qualitatively becomes assault / battery instead of consensual violence, and goes from being fun to being traumatic, when you're being put through something you didn't agree to and don't welcome.
quote:
Power exchange only works if you believe that I, as a submissive woman, have power over my body to relinquish.
Can't it just work because I, as a decent guy, will uphold my end of what we agreed to?
Again, you seem to be confusing power with something else entirely.
quote:
And any other human being who is unable to respect that power has issues that go far beyond sex drive.
Someone that doesn't respect power gets whacked with it. Power that's conditional on being respected has nothing to do with power, and everything to do with social contract. I'm perfectly able to respect your boundaries, whether or not you have the power to enforce them, so I'm still not sure what your power analysis brings to the table, other than to confuse a previously perfectly well defined word. Perhaps you'd do better to talk about the right to control your own body? That certainly makes a lot more sense to me than the power to.
quote:
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?
They accept the terms of the relationship, obviously. Not sure why you'd think a "no" represents any kind of threat.
quote:
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".
One thing I've found is that it's rarely the case that someone is at an arrested state of development, but that it's also the norm that most people have things yet to learn, whatever their age and experience (indeed, I've rarely met anyone I couldn't learn something from, or teach something to, assuming both parties were able to be civil and respectful of each other). As such, if someone is at an arrested state of development, I usually try to teach them how to move forward, and usually succeed. Often, they proceed to teach others, which is very rewarding and enhances their own understanding in the process, just as teaching them enhances my own understanding. Only frank retardation and the like presents any substantial difficulty to imparting something that's missing, in my experience, so long as I'm able to put my finger on what's missing. For this reason, I spend a lot of time picking up the slack from parents and teachers that don't impart everything they should.
quote:
Men with a secure sense of self do not feel the need to try to exert power at the word "no".
Generally not, no.
quote:
To reduce men to simply sex-drive really serves no useful purpose.
Agreed. Please don't do that. Also, please don't reduce my position to that, either.
quote:
While women might like to say that all men are children in jest, I, for one, don't happen to believe that.
Glad to hear it.
quote:
But to treat rape as being about sex is to reduce men to children who have no control over themselves and their bodies.
No, but I do get the distinct sense that you want to restrict sex to the female definition of the term, which is typically more encompassing than the male one (you'll note, for instance, that far fewer women use male prostitutes strictly for sex; most instead use an escort, who has to go through the whole seduction process and then deliver on what the typical male client would consider to be the sex part).
That being said, all human beings are children. Some are just more well developed children than others.
quote:
Whereas power and power dynamics make much more sense to me as a starting point for discussion.
Consent, negotiation, communication and respect are the entities that make perfect sense as a starting point if we posit equal footing or equal power. If we don't posit that, they still make perfect sense, with a stronger need for the respect element. What doesn't seem to make sense, is the notion that power dynamics are the case if there's a vast power imbalance to begin with. Fortunately, in that case, too, it still makes sense with the starting point I'm positing. Note, though, that I typically find BDSM very confusing, largely because of these constructs that seem to overcomplicate what, to me, is a simple matter of "if you want to hook up with me, and I want to hook up with you, then we can talk about it, reach a mutual understanding, and take it from there within the agreed-upon bounds", in which power really isn't a factor at all, most of the time, because it's all civil.
IWYW,
— Aswad.
|
|
|
|
