He, like the OP, is arguing that a normal, non-sociopathic man would see rape as a valid option if the opportunity arose.
The reason this view is so abhorrent is that it’s giving a pass to rapists, by saying that it is normal for a man to be willing to rape someone to get his rocks off, if the circumstances are right. It blames the environment, not the perpetrator.
In addition, I find it extremely insulting for Astro to imply that I, being a man, would lower myself to raping someone, as long I was lustful enough and knew I could get away with it.
What’s even more interesting to me is that animal sex can be considered to ever be NOT rape considering our pretty broad definition of rape.
In pack mammals specifically sex usually goes to the dominant leader of the pack. In our society using a position of direct dominance is always considered rape. Having sex with a child, a slave, or even an underling at work is often classified as rape simply because the power differential makes it difficult to render meaningful consent.
I guess I am not sure how the term rape can meaningfully be applied to sex in the wild.
Is vs. ought.
Astro isn’t simply claiming that most men are sociopaths - he is claiming that someone who lacks all of those bad attributes he listed would still rape.
Is it normal for a man to be willing to rob someone to get money, if the circumstances are right? I mean, sure, maybe some guys get off on the power trip of brandishing a gun and making people do stuff, but don’t some guys steal because they simply want the money and so are victimizing this or that person as a means to an end?
I mentioned this the last time this came up, but the idea that rape is about more than just sex is a powerful antidote to the usual response to rape accusations against a successful businessman, celebrity, sports star, popular boy, etc.
‘Why would he need to rape someone? He can have any girl he wants!’
Answer: Because he just didn’t care about her desires. He was in the mood, she was there, he raped her.
And since when is that defense usual anyway? The usual response I hear is “He’s guilty!” This isn’t the 50s.
But does that apply to all rapes? (I mean, the whole point of that comment is to imply that various other men “would need to rape someone”, right?)
The argument seems to be that rape is the result of sexual desperation, some loser man who can’t find a willing woman or girl (a variation on the stranger in an alleyway, I guess, and also perpetuated as much by women as men, it seems).
As for this being the 1950s, not quite. The Kobe Bryant case was a while ago, but not that far back. The most memorable debate I read about that, before anything but the basic accusation was available to the public, involved a term I had never heard before – ‘stealing sex.’ As in, that guy doesn’t need to steal sex, he gets it for free. Enlightening stuff. There was also a case recently where a Bollywood actor was accused of assaulting his maid. I got a real nice look at my friend’s family as they pointed out how fat and ugly she was and that no successful man would ever risk his career just to ‘have sex’ with a servant.
I agree with those who ask ‘Can’t it be both?’ I wasn’t even aware that there was one standard definition for ‘sex,’ so it would be difficult to classify something as ‘about sex,’ point final, IMHO.
But what do you make of the two most recent cases of sexual assault brought against famous athletes, Kobe Bryant and Ben Roethliesberger? Kobe’s accuser quietly dropped the charges after witnesses came forward to say she was bragging about the encounter after it happened (this corraborating Kobe’s version of events that it was consensual). Roethliesberger’s accuser never even filed criminal charges, but emails from her account show she was making up the rape accusations as well.
And then of course there’s the Duke lacrosse team.
I’m speaking from a man’s perspective who has been, at one point or another in his life, under the influence of extreme lust in my younger days, and am giving a first person report that the primal power of extreme lust can make you somewhat irrational, and without functioning external social controls and internal emotional controls it’s not a far leap to see how someone “under the influence” and without these controls could be a rapist.
Your notion that male sexual lust is a constant “obsession” and your puzzlement of why potential rapists aren’t cruising craigs list hookers for relief go directly to my point that you really have no clue as to what is going in a man’s head in this context. I was trying to give you a picture of how the male sexual urge is highly situational and that it surges and recedes.
That you have to accuse me in a not so crypto way of being a sexual offender of some kind because I am trying to illustrate to you the power of this drive, is IMO somewhat petty and rhetorically cheap. I had thought better of you.
Another issue for another (dozen) thread(s). I am commenting simply on the initial reaction of people to the accusation, both of celebrities and of popular, well-liked boys. The perpetuation of the notion that rape is always an act of sexual desperation.
What about those examples? Some cases are accepted as having been without substantial legal merit, therefore nobody ever implies in any case that a man wouldn’t “have to” commit rape if he was powerful enough?
Disregarding the specifics here I think it’s pretty safe to say that some male celebrities have indeed committed rape, it would be statistically unlikely to claim otherwise.
But claiming that this is evidence against the claim that rape is not always about power are sort of like using the flawed original study to claim that rape is always about power. Celebrities have almost as little in common with the average person as the power-crazy psycho.
In the gedanken (effectively fantasy) experiment scenario I outlined where there are absolutely no repercussions of any kind whatsoever, in thinking about the IRL requirements for a scenario where there are “no repercussions of any kind whatsoever” this is clearly pretty impossible, and it’s evident we’re effectively talking about something akin to Star Trek holodeck fantasy. But let’s say that this option existed. If it did I do think that a good number of otherwise normal, law abiding men would quite possibly behave badly if they were extremely lustful, and the opportunity presented itself. And I should be clear here with respect to what I mean by “a good number”. I don’t mean “most” men, and I don’t mean you personally, I do mean a far higher number of men than would normally behave this way.
I don’t think the lack of repercussions scenerio is impossible.
It can occur in times of war. When the victorious soldiers/warriors rape and pillage.
Hello? I never said that male lust was a constant obsession. Where are you getting this from?
And there you go again conflating what goes on in your mind what goes on in a rapist’s mind. That’s weird to me. Why should any one of us have a clue as to what is going on in a man’s head who would brutally rape someone? That’s as foreign to most people’s experience as the mentality of a mass serial killer. But you’re trying to act like you know something about that kind of mind. How could you, really?
Please. My question was not intended to hurt your feelings, but when you try to speak with authority on what drives a rapist when presumably all you have in common with one is gender, then expect to get called on it with a provocative question. I don’t think you’re a sexual offender in any shape or form, which is exactly why I’m wondering you think you’re in any better position to understand a rapist’s motivation than anyone else in this thread. Shit, it’s really not me who you’re offending. It’s your fellow men.
I bristle at the notion that any man with a high enough sex drive could rape. That attitude makes men out to be nothing but brutes who are slaves to their hormones. It sounds like something a so-called feminazi would say to make women feel morally superior to men.
If we legalized rape tomorrow, I’d expect a rise in statutory rape for sure. Also date rape, particularly the drug-associated kind. But rape involving the threat or application of physical force? Rape in which a man forces himself on a woman with her kicking and screaming? I can not imagine most men doing this, no matter horny they got. Consensual sex is not so rare as to make rape a alternative to most sane individuals. In my experience, most men can barely get it up if the woman is less than enthusiastic about the act. If a woman is actively fighting the guy, the only way that I see him being able to keep an erection is if he is fucked up in the head. Not on the high of end of normal, as it seems you’re trying to say.
astro and other advocates of the “lust-based rape” theory: in your opinion, why is sex better than masturbating?
The lack of repercussion scenario occurs when the individual cares not about the repercussion. It is the disregard of how you regard rape morally and how it is punished by society that would lead a man or a woman to rape someone. A man would have a hard time, forgive the pun, raping someone if he couldn’t get it on. If his sexual libido wasn’t high enough, then he wouldn’t be doing any sex.
I completely disagree. I assume you’re not a man making this statement. If you are, then perhaps your bits aren’t working properly. I can get erections by thinking of lemons, it’s not hard (once again, forgive the pun) to get one on.
Sometimes it isn’t, depending on the partner. Sometimes we know our bodies much better than anybody else and know how to get ourselves off. But sex is generally better because of intimacy, feeling close to someone special, sharing an experience, being in love.