Women and sexual assault.

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

@Ludovic

Do we glorify (the occurrence of rape)? Do we have a “murder culture”?

@Wesley_Clark

I think we glorify murder far more than rape. In between movies, video games, gangster rap, and endless salutations towards the military we love witnessing, (virtually) committing or honoring others who commit homicide. Despite that we only have about 17,000 homicides a year in this country vs millions of sexual assaults.

I’ve never seen a movie where the hero commits graphic rape, or heard music depicting graphic rape, or played a video game where I have to commit rape. But I have seen all that with homicide.

The claim isn’t that we have a culture that celebrates graphic, violent rape, however. The claim is, more or less, that we have a culture that encourages a climate in which sexual aggression in general can flourish, which is not the same thing. Rape is at the most extreme and catastrophic end of an entire spectrum of sexual behavior. It’s very easy to be aggressive sexually without coming close to committing a rape. It’s very easy to victimize a person without anything even resembling forced intercourse. That’s what we’re talking about here, the entire course of conduct, from a glance to an outright physical molestation, that ends in the most vicious way in rape. The point isn’t that forced penetration at gunpoint, the worst case scenario, is encouraged by society, the point is that society condones and encourages a level of aggression that is societally unhealthy if you’re willing to include the feelings of the victim in the equation.

Certainly, and I imagine very much intentionally, the phrase “rape culture” is a difficult one to swallow and is an extremely loaded way of making the point, and if that’s the objection then all right, I can understand the discomfort, because I think it’s supposed to be uncomfortable.

But do either of you really not think that there exists

a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women

if we stipulate that we’re talking about a lower grade of sexual aggression and violence than out-and-out forcible stranger rape? Don’t you think that, for instance, dogged pursuit of an unwilling female partner by a male, particularly a young adult male is, if not celebrated, very clearly tolerated by society at large?

(I’d argue in response to your question, by the way, that we absolutely have such a thing as a “murder culture;” several, in fact, but that’s neither here nor there. Unless it is.)

OK, no longer addressing anyone specifically.

The way I see it, there are really only a few ways we can disagree here on the question of whether this phenomenon, the rape culture, exists in some form.

You can tell me that no, you’ve never seen any societal imprimatur granted to men when it comes to chasing, hounding, and bullying women into sex. If that’s the case, I and I’m sure many others would be glad to provide examples. It ain’t hard.

You can tell me yes, you are familiar with these kinds of beliefs and patterns, but that you don’t think they amount to a rape culture, in which case we’re just having semantic difficulties, and I’ll show you the legal definitions of various grades of sexual assault so we can agree that you have, in fact, seen movie and TV heroes committing these kinds of crimes, that the level of sexual aggression that passes for regular behavior fairly often borders on criminal, and I’ll suggest that maybe rape culture wasn’t such a hysterical characterization after all.

Or you can tell me that yes, there is a culture that encourages men to be sexually forceful and to place the utmost primacy on the satisfaction of their own desires, because this is the natural order of things, and that sure, technically it’s accurate to say that maybe, in some way or another, if taken to an extreme, maybe this could potentially trivialize – a little bit – an incident of sexual assault, but that it’s just not that big a deal, and that “rape culture” is an overreaction and a dramatization of something that’s maybe a little offensive if you’re trying to be offended. If this is the case, I’ll repeat my question from before, which I’m kind of disappointed neither Der Trihs nor Quartz or anyone else wanted to answer, which is: what the hell do you know about that that the actual victims of the actual crimes (lots of them; look around) do not?

There’s a problem, isn’t there? Women are subject, as a class, to a level of hostility and a degree of risk that is wholly unacceptable, aren’t they? That’s where all these stories come from, from an atmosphere of something gone fucking wrong, don’t you think? So what’s the problem, if it isn’t that we as a society (and “we as a society” is a phrase that means men in this context, damn it) have up to this point been a little too tolerant and too “boys will be boys” about the fact that on a daily basis a human being is treated in a way that we’ve already codified as a crime? I don’t want to be pompous about it, and, even though I like to curse to make my points, I really really am not trying to attack anybody personally or suggest that you guys are active participants in anything like a rape culture, but I just feel like this is a big argument where this giant point isn’t being addressed at all by one half of the participants. There’s a problem, isn’t there? Isn’t it possible that this huge group of people whose lives are massively affected by this problem have thought about this more than we have, given that we don’t actually have to think about it if we don’t want to?

I just wish somebody would tell me what’s going on with this thread. If you don’t believe that these people are telling actual stories about their lives, say so. If you do, um, isn’t this bad? Aren’t you inclined to listen to what they have to say about it? That last one is rhetorical. My question is why not?

[Wesley_Clark]

@Jimmy_Chitwood

The claim isn’t that we have a culture that celebrates graphic, violent rape, however. The claim is, more or less, that we have a culture that encourages a climate in which sexual aggression in general can flourish, which is not the same thing. Rape is at the most extreme and catastrophic end of an entire spectrum of sexual behavior. It’s very easy to be aggressive sexually without coming close to committing a rape. It’s very easy to victimize a person without anything even resembling forced intercourse. That’s what we’re talking about here, the entire course of conduct, from a glance to an outright physical molestation, that ends in the most vicious way in rape. The point isn’t that forced penetration at gunpoint, the worst case scenario, is encouraged by society, the point is that society condones and encourages a level of aggression that is societally unhealthy if you’re willing to include the feelings of the victim in the equation.

Certainly, and I imagine very much intentionally, the phrase “rape culture” is a difficult one to swallow and is an extremely loaded way of making the point, and if that’s the objection then all right, I can understand the discomfort, because I think it’s supposed to be uncomfortable.

But do either of you really not think that there exists

if we stipulate that we’re talking about a lower grade of sexual aggression and violence than out-and-out forcible stranger rape? Don’t you think that, for instance, dogged pursuit of an unwilling female partner by a male, particularly a young adult male is, if not celebrated, very clearly tolerated by society at large?

(I’d argue in response to your question, by the way, that we absolutely have such a thing as a “murder culture;” several, in fact, but that’s neither here nor there. Unless it is.)

OK, no longer addressing anyone specifically.

The way I see it, there are really only a few ways we can disagree here on the question of whether this phenomenon, the rape culture, exists in some form.

You can tell me that no, you’ve never seen any societal imprimatur granted to men when it comes to chasing, hounding, and bullying women into sex. If that’s the case, I and I’m sure many others would be glad to provide examples. It ain’t hard.

You can tell me yes, you are familiar with these kinds of beliefs and patterns, but that you don’t think they amount to a rape culture, in which case we’re just having semantic difficulties, and I’ll show you the legal definitions of various grades of sexual assault so we can agree that you have, in fact, seen movie and TV heroes committing these kinds of crimes, that the level of sexual aggression that passes for regular behavior fairly often borders on criminal, and I’ll suggest that maybe rape culture wasn’t such a hysterical characterization after all.

Or you can tell me that yes, there is a culture that encourages men to be sexually forceful and to place the utmost primacy on the satisfaction of their own desires, because this is the natural order of things, and that sure, technically it’s accurate to say that maybe, in some way or another, if taken to an extreme, maybe this could potentially trivialize – a little bit – an incident of sexual assault, but that it’s just not that big a deal, and that “rape culture” is an overreaction and a dramatization of something that’s maybe a little offensive if you’re trying to be offended. If this is the case, I’ll repeat my question from before, which I’m kind of disappointed neither Der Trihs nor Quartz or anyone else wanted to answer, which is: what the hell do you know about that that the actual victims of the actual crimes (lots of them; look around) do not?

There’s a problem, isn’t there? Women are subject, as a class, to a level of hostility and a degree of risk that is wholly unacceptable, aren’t they? That’s where all these stories come from, from an atmosphere of something gone fucking wrong, don’t you think? So what’s the problem, if it isn’t that we as a society (and “we as a society” is a phrase that means men in this context, damn it) have up to this point been a little too tolerant and too “boys will be boys” about the fact that on a daily basis a human being is treated in a way that we’ve already codified as a crime? I don’t want to be pompous about it, and, even though I like to curse to make my points, I really really am not trying to attack anybody personally or suggest that you guys are active participants in anything like a rape culture, but I just feel like this is a big argument where this giant point isn’t being addressed at all by one half of the participants. There’s a problem, isn’t there? Isn’t it possible that this huge group of people whose lives are massively affected by this problem have thought about this more than we have, given that we don’t actually have to think about it if we don’t want to?

I just wish somebody would tell me what’s going on with this thread. If you don’t believe that these people are telling actual stories about their lives, say so. If you do, um, isn’t this bad? Aren’t you inclined to listen to what they have to say about it? That last one is rhetorical. My question is why not?

http://www.darkness2light.org/knowabout/statistics_2.asp

One in six boys is sexually abused when under 18 vs 1 in 4 girls. So about a 17% rate for guys and 25% for girls before age 18. I don’t know the stats for prison sexual abuse, but sexual abuse of men seems to be rampant in prisons.

So it isn’t necessarily an anti-woman culture because male children have rates of sexual abuse almost as high as female children. A culture where objectifying another person and forcing them into sexual acts w/o their consent is something that affects males too. So the concept of a misogynist rape culture against adult women doesn’t make sense to me. We have nothing in our culture that endorses forced sex on children and endless social brakes on it. Despite that fact, sexual abuse of children is one of our biggest public health hazards that affects boys almost as often as girls.

You can claim that sexual abuse is something we are evolved via natural selection to do. People who are willing to force sex on an endless string of strangers tend to have more children than people who only have sex after months and months of courtship. A rapist may have sex with 100 partners, a courter may have it with 4 partners.

However, if that is the case viable ways of paying for sex and seeing prostitutes should cut down on rape (by opening up opportunities for sex with endless partners). I don’t think it does though, at least I’ve never heard statistics showing a culture with open access to prostitutes has a lower rate of rape or molestation.

At the same time, you can argue that homicide is something we are evolved to do also because homicide removes threats and gives you status. However despite the fact that both homicide and severe sexual abuse are heavily punished by the legal system, that both cause huge amounts of pain and suffering for everyone involved and their families, that being caught for either act can destroy the life of the perpetrator and despite the fact that you can make strong arguments that we have evolutionary tendencies to do both, the rates of severe sexual abuse (forced penetration of children and adults) are hundreds to thousands of times higher per capita than homicide. No idea why.
In my view, dogged pursuit if a woman can be seen as a bad thing. It generally is seen as a sign that a person has no self control or emotional control, no self respect and no other options, all of which are frowned upon. I know in romantic movies it is not uncommon for a woman to blow a guy off, then have the guy pursue her until she relents. However those movies are made with a female audience in mind. I think those women want to watch movies where the female lead character is so irresistible that a guy will jump through hoops and embarrass himself to be with her. A romantic comedy where the guy loses interest at the drop of a hat because the female lead character isn’t worth the effort wouldn’t sell as many tickets.

So to the degree that we have a sublime rape culture via our filmographic endorsement of stalking it, in my view, is something we have because women want it. If they didn’t we wouldn’t have so many artistic films and books devoted to it that are made with a female audience in mind. Are there movies depicting a lovestruck guy endlessly pursing a woman that are written for a male audience? There may be, but the ones written for a female audience outnumber them.

That isn’t to say women like being stalked, but that is to say that the films that depict a lovestruck guy endlessly pursuing a woman until she relents because she is so desirable tend to be watched by women, and they are the ones who buy the movie tickets, DVDs and books.

Again, that is supposedly due to evolution. Women invest a huge amount of themselves in having kids and need to know a guy won’t abandon them after the kids are born, so a guy who jumps through endless hoops to be with a woman is proving he won’t abandon her 5 years down the road. Watch the movie ‘the notebook’ for an example of this kind of devotion.
Suffice it to say, we do not have a pedophilia culture. We have an anti-pedophilia culture where it is shamed and ridiculed endlessly. Despite the endless cultural criticisms of pedophilia, 1/6 of boys and 1/4 of girls are sexually abused before age 18.

We do have a murder culture where murder is endorsed, celebrated and treated as acceptable in our art & authority figures (being a war veteran is a huge boost for a politician). And our homicide rates are far lower. In fact homicide rates in other OECD nations are a fraction of ours, which are a tiny fraction of our severe sexual abuse rates.

The politician Bob Kerrey is a murderer. He killed people as a Navy SEAL during Vietnam. His credentials as someone who committed homicide for the benefit of the state were one of his most appealing selling points while running for president, senator and governor. If Bob Kerrey were a pedophile or rapist, or if he committed rape and pedophilia on behalf of the state, he wouldn’t be able to use those credentials to win elections or respect from the public.

And despite that, our murder rates are again far lower than sexual assault rates.

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

OK. My problem is that I don’t understand what point you’re defending, or what you’re arguing against. I just know that you’re arguing, and I know what the thread’s supposed to be about, and I’m trying hard not to combine the two to conclude that you’re arguing that sexual assault of women is not something you and me and a lot of other people ought to be thinking about and doing something about.

Sexual assault isn’t something that is only a problem for women. Absolutely true. Murder’s a big problem. Yes sir. Bad things happen left and right, sometimes entirely without regard for whether or not society encourages them. Undeniable. You can claim that sexual abuse is an evolved trait. Certainly you can, you’d just have to do it. Are you doing that? Are you arguing an evolutionary defense of sexual assault? I don’t think you are, but then I’m not sure.

If it’s all right for me to just come right out and say it, it seems to me that you’re reflexively picking away at points orthogonal to the real issue here. I didn’t say that the existence of a rape culture is or would have to be entirely anti-woman; not at all. I did say it encourages male sexual aggression, and that it supports violence against women. Actually, I asked whether you thought those things were true. It was kind of my main theme there, the asking.

I am inferring from the direction of your response – though you aren’t saying so – that you think those statements aren’t true. But since you aren’t saying it, I can’t really be sure. When you say that sexual assault doesn’t just happen to women, what you aren’t addressing is the fact that it does happen to women at an unjustifiable and frankly infuriating rate, which fact - the fact of women and sexual assault - serendipitously enough is the purpose and even the title of this thread. It’s the banner that we’re all gathered under here, so to speak. Your unwillingness to address it is frustrating, and very difficult not to interpret as resistance to the truth value of the things that other posters are saying. Which, in my view, are pretty fucking compelling truths. So what about that? What about all the women who are sexually assaulted, all the time? Is that an anti-woman culture? Is that a pro woman culture? Is it just like atmospheric conditions, a cruel twist of fate, evolution, what? that make it an inevitability that if you sit in a public space in the city for 20 freaking minutes and keep your eyes open, you can regularly enough watch men harassing women like as if the world was putting on a public service announcement just for your personal edification?

I’m sorry that I keep returning to the angry rhetorical question. I’m just confused. Rape culture does not exist, you are saying? It is not the case that in a world where it wasn’t considered charming or complimentary to hoot in the direction of a woman’s ass as she passed by, or a world where the first question asked to a rape complainant wasn’t “what were you wearing,” or where the first observation made about a Supreme Court nominee/ presidential candidate/ fucking anything else under any circumstances was not upon her appearance if she was a woman, sexual assault would be less of a problem? Because we can’t control it, something else is going on?

*By the way, there are real women in this thread. You, happily, don’t have to have a “view” about what they want from cultural media. In the context of this thread, I think it would be a good idea to stay away from the construction “women want it.” I don’t think you really meant it that way, but hoo-whee.

[FloatyGimpy]

@Jimmy_Chitwood

snip

I think this is one of the most powerful posts I’ve ever read.

[Wesley_Clark]

@Jimmy_Chitwood

OK. My problem is that I don’t understand what point you’re defending, or what you’re arguing against. I just know that you’re arguing, and I know what the thread’s supposed to be about, and I’m trying hard not to combine the two to conclude that you’re arguing that sexual assault of women is not something you and me and a lot of other people ought to be thinking about and doing something about.

Sexual assault isn’t something that is only a problem for women. Absolutely true. Murder’s a big problem. Yes sir. Bad things happen left and right, sometimes entirely without regard for whether or not society encourages them. Undeniable. You can claim that sexual abuse is an evolved trait. Certainly you can, you’d just have to do it. Are you doing that? Are you arguing an evolutionary defense of sexual assault? I don’t think you are, but then I’m not sure.

If it’s all right for me to just come right out and say it, it seems to me that you’re reflexively picking away at points orthogonal to the real issue here. I didn’t say that the existence of a rape culture is or would have to be entirely anti-woman; not at all. I did say it encourages male sexual aggression, and that it supports violence against women. Actually, I asked whether you thought those things were true. It was kind of my main theme there, the asking.

I am inferring from the direction of your response – though you aren’t saying so – that you think those statements aren’t true. But since you aren’t saying it, I can’t really be sure. When you say that sexual assault doesn’t just happen to women, what you aren’t addressing is the fact that it does happen to women at an unjustifiable and frankly infuriating rate, which fact - the fact of women and sexual assault - serendipitously enough is the purpose and even the title of this thread. It’s the banner that we’re all gathered under here, so to speak. Your unwillingness to address it is frustrating, and very difficult not to interpret as resistance to the truth value of the things that other posters are saying. Which, in my view, are pretty fucking compelling truths. So what about that? What about all the women who are sexually assaulted, all the time? Is that an anti-woman culture? Is that a pro woman culture? Is it just like atmospheric conditions, a cruel twist of fate, evolution, what? that make it an inevitability that if you sit in a public space in the city for 20 freaking minutes and keep your eyes open, you can regularly enough watch men harassing women like as if the world was putting on a public service announcement just for your personal edification?

I’m sorry that I keep returning to the angry rhetorical question. I’m just confused. Rape culture does not exist, you are saying? It is not the case that in a world where it wasn’t considered charming or complimentary to hoot in the direction of a woman’s ass as she passed by, or a world where the first question asked to a rape complainant wasn’t “what were you wearing,” or where the first observation made about a Supreme Court nominee/ presidential candidate/ fucking anything else under any circumstances was not upon her appearance if she was a woman, sexual assault would be less of a problem? Because we can’t control it, something else is going on?

*By the way, there are real women in this thread. You, happily, don’t have to have a “view” about what they want from cultural media. In the context of this thread, I think it would be a good idea to stay away from the construction “women want it.” I don’t think you really meant it that way, but hoo-whee.

Cracks knuckles, takes a deep breath, grabs thesaurus

Homer Simpson Spins On His Shoulder For Ten Minutes

[Wesley_Clark]

@Jimmy_Chitwood

OK. My problem is that I don’t understand what point you’re defending, or what you’re arguing against. I just know that you’re arguing, and I know what the thread’s supposed to be about, and I’m trying hard not to combine the two to conclude that you’re arguing that sexual assault of women is not something you and me and a lot of other people ought to be thinking about and doing something about.

You stated we live in a culture where forcing yourself on women is culturally acceptable, and that this contributes to rates of high sexual abuse. I said this wasn’t true for several reasons.

1. Boys are forced into sexual situations nearly as often as girls when they are under 18. There are no cultural standards endorsing forced sex on children.
2. Our culture glorifies murder, and murder rates are a fraction of sexual abuse rates.
3. As far as our cinema and arts depict men as stalkers, to a large degree that is because women (instead of men) want to watch movies like that. Men generally are not the target audience of the kinds of movies you are referencing that depict men as never giving up. Claiming women are victims of a media culture that only exists because they (women) are willing to pay money to view it is silly.
4. Our culture frowns on sexual aggressiveness from what I can tell. A guy who is lovelorn comes across as desperate, having no other options and having no self esteem or self control IMO. A man who openly forces himself on a woman (which is not the same as pursuing a woman after she says no as far as cinema is concerned) is virtually always portrayed as a villainous character in movies.

@Jimmy_Chitwood

Sexual assault isn’t something that is only a problem for women. Absolutely true. Murder’s a big problem. Yes sir. Bad things happen left and right, sometimes entirely without regard for whether or not society encourages them. Undeniable. You can claim that sexual abuse is an evolved trait. Certainly you can, you’d just have to do it. Are you doing that? Are you arguing an evolutionary defense of sexual assault? I don’t think you are, but then I’m not sure.

I’m saying being sexually aggressive may be a trait that is selected for. Then again, sexual aggression puts you at risk of being the recipient of social ostracization, social rejection and physical violence. So you’d assume it’d be a trait that is selected against too. I once read a major reason militaries around the world are trying to ban soldier rape of civilians is because this causes the insurgency in a conquered country to be much harder to quell.

This is where my confusion comes from. I don’t understand sexual abuse from a ‘rape culture’ perspective. But from an evolutionary perspective it doesn’t make much sense either (prostitutes can serve the same purpose as rape, to impregnate as many people as possible, with few/none of the risks). At the same time, boys can’t get pregnant and neither can girls under 12-ish. Nonetheless boys/men and girls under 12 are sexually abused all the time. I have no clue why sexual abuse is so common in human societies.

Issues like gang rape may be designed to intimidate social deviants or ‘uppity’ women. There could be an evolutionary reason for this, as a means of maintaining social cohesion. But that is just a hypothesis.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11710275&postcount=2

@Jimmy_Chitwood

If it’s all right for me to just come right out and say it, it seems to me that you’re reflexively picking away at points orthogonal to the real issue here. I didn’t say that the existence of a rape culture is or would have to be entirely anti-woman; not at all. I did say it encourages male sexual aggression, and that it supports violence against women. Actually, I asked whether you thought those things were true. It was kind of my main theme there, the asking.

No, I don’t think it is true.

@Jimmy_Chitwood

I am inferring from the direction of your response – though you aren’t saying so – that you think those statements aren’t true. But since you aren’t saying it, I can’t really be sure. When you say that sexual assault doesn’t just happen to women, what you aren’t addressing is the fact that it does happen to women at an unjustifiable and frankly infuriating rate, which fact - the fact of women and sexual assault - serendipitously enough is the purpose and even the title of this thread. It’s the banner that we’re all gathered under here, so to speak. Your unwillingness to address it is frustrating, and very difficult not to interpret as resistance to the truth value of the things that other posters are saying. Which, in my view, are pretty fucking compelling truths. So what about that? What about all the women who are sexually assaulted, all the time? Is that an anti-woman culture? Is that a pro woman culture? Is it just like atmospheric conditions, a cruel twist of fate, evolution, what? that make it an inevitability that if you sit in a public space in the city for 20 freaking minutes and keep your eyes open, you can regularly enough watch men harassing women like as if the world was putting on a public service announcement just for your personal edification?

I’m not denying the stories of women on this board, but I don’t agree that you see open sexual abuse every 20 minutes in public.

It happens to women. It also happens to boys under 18 which is a major reason I don’t agree with this concept that sexual abuse is somehow tied into misogyny. It also happens to grown men in prison. To claim that our species (sexual abuse is an issue that the entire species has problems with, every culture as far as I can tell) is somehow doing it because we decided it is culturally acceptable to force sex on women doesn’t make sense to me. How does a culture that endorses forcing sex on women (which our culture does not) explain the fact that 1/6 of boys under 18 are sexually abused?

Why would prison rape be so common due to misogyny.

My point is I have no idea why sexual abuse is so common. No clue. However I seriously doubt the response of ‘we live in a society that doesn’t respect women’ is the reason. If that were the reason, why are boys assaulted nearly as often as girls before age 18? Why are so many people willing to throw everything away (their lives, careers, families, freedom, social standing) just to be pedophiles? A few romantic comedies in the 80s about guys not giving up on pursuing girls they love can’t explain that.

@Jimmy_Chitwood

I’m sorry that I keep returning to the angry rhetorical question. I’m just confused. Rape culture does not exist, you are saying? It is not the case that in a world where it wasn’t considered charming or complimentary to hoot in the direction of a woman’s ass as she passed by, or a world where the first question asked to a rape complainant wasn’t “what were you wearing,” or where the first observation made about a Supreme Court nominee/ presidential candidate/ fucking anything else under any circumstances was not upon her appearance if she was a woman, sexual assault would be less of a problem? Because we can’t control it, something else is going on?

Its not considered charming to hoot at a woman’s ass.

Asking ‘what were you wearing’ is more an attempt at the just world phenomena. If people can effectively blame the victim of a crime or misfortune, they can delude themselves into thinking the world is safer.

For example many people feel people who are poor or uninsured are that way because they are lazy or stupid. This lets them pretend the world is a safe place and as long as they are not lazy or stupid they will always have a job and health care. Same with asking ‘what were you wearing’. It is a way for people to delude themselves into thinking ‘if I don’t wear X, I won’t be raped’.

@Jimmy_Chitwood

*By the way, there are real women in this thread. You, happily, don’t have to have a “view” about what they want from cultural media. In the context of this thread, I think it would be a good idea to stay away from the construction “women want it.” I don’t think you really meant it that way, but hoo-whee.

Women appointed me their spokesperson in 2007. They had a big vote in the parking lot of the Mall of America. So I am comfortable with my statement. Either way, men are not the target audience for movies that depict men as willing to pursue women until they relent and agree to a relationship. Claiming women are victims of a media culture that only exists because they throw money at it is silly.

[SecondJudith]

I’d just like to point out that while some films may be targeted at women, the vast majority of them are still written, directed and produced by men.

[nicole1912]

Jimmy, I just wanted to thank you for your contributions to this thread - you are an absolute star and it is heartening to see that one man, at least, thoroughly gets it.

@Wesley_Clark

I’m not denying the stories of women on this board, but I don’t agree that you see open sexual abuse every 20 minutes in public.

It happens to women. It also happens to boys under 18 which is a major reason I don’t agree with this concept that sexual abuse is somehow tied into misogyny. It also happens to grown men in prison. To claim that our species (sexual abuse is an issue that the entire species has problems with, every culture as far as I can tell) is somehow doing it because we decided it is culturally acceptable to force sex on women doesn’t make sense to me. How does a culture that endorses forcing sex on women (which our culture does not) explain the fact that 1/6 of boys under 18 are sexually abused?

Why would prison rape be so common due to misogyny.

My point is I have no idea why sexual abuse is so common. No clue. However I seriously doubt the response of ‘we live in a society that doesn’t respect women’ is the reason. If that were the reason, why are boys assaulted nearly as often as girls before age 18? Why are so many people willing to throw everything away (their lives, careers, families, freedom, social standing) just to be pedophiles? A few romantic comedies in the 80s about guys not giving up on pursuing girls they love can’t explain that.

I’m not sure there has been an argument made in this thread that blames the whole thing on misogyny. (I’ve read it in bits, though, so I might have missed a bit - my apologies if so.) Adult women are not the only ones sexually harrassed and assaulted by men. Indeed, many of the women in this thread have shared stories of being harrassed, abused and assaulted as children. Boys are, by your cite, similarly subject to sexual abuse. But I would question whether they’re subject to similar levels of harrassment. Are boys frequently followed down the street by men commenting on their arse? Or whatever the male teenage equivalent of breasts would be?

Jimmy’s point about sitting in an open space and watching for 20 minutes - no, you probably won’t see physical assault taking place (depending on where and when you pick your 20 minutes), but you’re telling me you don’t think you’ll see men hassling women who are alone? You must live somewhere nice. Verbal abuse, particularly in the context outlined in this thread, does count.

It’s not that we live in a society that doesn’t respect women (though I’d argue we do) - it’s that we live in a society that privileges male aggressiveness, particularly sexually. The common theme in all the groups of victims you mention is that they are almost all assaulted by men. Not all men are going to be abusers, obviously, but it is made easier for them to do so, if they’re already used to the idea that their desires are more important than other people’s boundaries. And given even this thread, I can’t see how you can argue that this isn’t the case - even in this thread, you have men arguing that they have a right to be heard by women; women who are scared of them, or busy doing something, or who are just generally uninterested in conversation. That’s not abuse, clearly, but it is a disrespect of other people’s boundaries, and betrays a surprising indifference to other people’s thoughts and experiences. It appears to be a systemic problem - and at the far side of the spectrum is rape.

[Lynn_Bodoni]

But all those extra rules, (Did Lynn say if she is looking out a window, he should not approach??) are not right.

Actually, I posted a link to a blog that said that. What I say is that if someone wants to start a conversation with someone who’s looking out a window, or reading a book, or who is generally obviously lost in thought, that it’s not polite to interrupt. Note that I’m not assigning sexes here. If a man is reading a book, and I want to talk to him, I can steal glances at him, and if I happen to catch his eye, smile. If he is willing to look back and smile at me, then possibly he’d welcome some conversation. If he glances at me, smiles back, AND GOES BACK TO HIS BOOK, then that’s my clue that he doesn’t want to talk. Maybe he wants to get that book read and give it back to the friend he borrowed it from. Maybe he’s got a test on that book coming up. Maybe he just doesn’t feel like talking to any strangers today. Whatever the reason, I have no right to assume that my desire for conversation (and possibly his email) should override his desire for solitude. Same for someone looking out the window. Maybe she’s thinking about the cure for cancer or world peace. Maybe she’s just daydreaming about her last date. If she’s not glancing around occasionally, she’s probably trying to avoid socializing.

But I do have an honest question for the women. Do women find it sexually threatening when you catch a man checking you out fleetingly ?

A quick glance is fine, and if I’m trying to catch your eye too, it’s welcome. Quick glances are the way to start interacting with someone else.

[Broomstick]

@Wesley_Clark

In my view, dogged pursuit if a woman can be seen as a bad thing. It generally is seen as a sign that a person has no self control or emotional control, no self respect and no other options, all of which are frowned upon. I know in romantic movies it is not uncommon for a woman to blow a guy off, then have the guy pursue her until she relents. However those movies are made with a female audience in mind. I think those women want to watch movies where the female lead character is so irresistible that a guy will jump through hoops and embarrass himself to be with her. A romantic comedy where the guy loses interest at the drop of a hat because the female lead character isn’t worth the effort wouldn’t sell as many tickets.

There are some major, major differences between the romantic comedy guy who pursues a woman and a real life stalker. Movie Guy pursues the lady by doing nice things, as a general rule. Real life stalkers do things like threaten physical violence, call a woman 50 times in a night disrupting her sleep and impairing her ability to function, they kill pets, they show up at work and make a scene, they’ll claim to be a husband when they’re not (this can happen when the woman seeks the help of some authority, like the police - Stalker Guy claims it’s a domestic spat, authority walks off, woman is at Stalker Guy’s mercy), they break into the woman’s home - that’s a hugely different level of threat than Romantic Comedy Guy. Sometimes Stalker Guy will rape or kill the object of his attention - something Romantic Comedy Guy would never do. Because it’s fiction and the audience knows Romantic Comedy Guy actually does care for Romantic Comedy Gal as a human being and would never hurt her he’s safe - unlike Stalker Guy.

Romantic comedies (ideally - there really are problem with them being written/produced by men) portray a low-level threat of pursuit, a guy who seeks to win the woman by “jumping through hoops” in a low-threat context, outside of her home, usually in situations where she can easily walk away, he doesn’t grab her, press her up against a wall, and prevent her from leaving a situation she doesn’t like. He doesn’t threaten to harm other men in her life. That’s far different from the reality of an actual real-life stalker.

[Wesley_Clark]

@nicole1912

I’m not sure there has been an argument made in this thread that blames the whole thing on misogyny. (I’ve read it in bits, though, so I might have missed a bit - my apologies if so.) Adult women are not the only ones sexually harrassed and assaulted by men. Indeed, many of the women in this thread have shared stories of being harrassed, abused and assaulted as children. Boys are, by your cite, similarly subject to sexual abuse. But I would question whether they’re subject to similar levels of harrassment. Are boys frequently followed down the street by men commenting on their arse? Or whatever the male teenage equivalent of breasts would be?

The impression I’m getting is that people are saying we live in a society where it is considered ok to ignore a womans fears, needs, input, wants, etc when you want something from her sexually, and that is the fundamental cause of a culture with pervasive sexual abuse.

My counterpoint to that is that sexual abuse is rampant in all human cultures (openly misogynistic and western), and can be directed at almost everyone. Even grown men, if they find themselves in prison, are at high risk of sexual assault. Male and female children are abused rampantly.

True, men aren’t subjected to the kinds of harassment you are talking about (being followed, being screamed at for turning someone down). But my point is that sexual abuse is pervasive in pretty much all human societies, and I don’t personally know why. I don’t know if anyone knows.

I am under the impression that the truly bad sexual abuse (molestation, rape, etc) is generally done by a tiny minority of men who do it against a large number of victims. The stats I posted earlier show the average pedophile has 5-30 victims. So if the ratio of male adults to children is 0.5:1, that means 3% of all men being pedophiles means 7.5% to 45% of all children will be victims of pedophilia.

@nicole1912

Jimmy’s point about sitting in an open space and watching for 20 minutes - no, you probably won’t see physical assault taking place (depending on where and when you pick your 20 minutes), but you’re telling me you don’t think you’ll see men hassling women who are alone? You must live somewhere nice. Verbal abuse, particularly in the context outlined in this thread, does count.

I really haven’t seen it, in the sense that a woman can’t go 20 minutes w/o being threatened. I’m sure it happens, but it happens in places I am not at all times. I haven’t seen men screaming things like ‘cunt’ at women in public or grabbing their asses on more than a small handful of occasions over the years.

@nicole1912

It’s not that we live in a society that doesn’t respect women (though I’d argue we do) - it’s that we live in a society that privileges male aggressiveness, particularly sexually. The common theme in all the groups of victims you mention is that they are almost all assaulted by men. Not all men are going to be abusers, obviously, but it is made easier for them to do so, if they’re already used to the idea that their desires are more important than other people’s boundaries. And given even this thread, I can’t see how you can argue that this isn’t the case - even in this thread, you have men arguing that they have a right to be heard by women; women who are scared of them, or busy doing something, or who are just generally uninterested in conversation. That’s not abuse, clearly, but it is a disrespect of other people’s boundaries, and betrays a surprising indifference to other people’s thoughts and experiences. It appears to be a systemic problem - and at the far side of the spectrum is rape.

The comment about women who are scared of them could be/probably is a reference to something I said earlier in this thread. I guess I can see your point. To me, the fact that a simple apology took the pressure away and that we had nice conversations after that made it different, but I guess putting women in a situation where they felt uncomfortable in the first place was a bad idea, even if the situations were diffused easily. I really don’t know though. I can be awkward at times, but I have met many women who enjoyed having a guy approach them and talk to them. Its not like every woman I have ever talked to in public thought I (or any other man for that matter) was harassing them. If I got signs of disinterest, I picked up on them and left.

I don’t know. I have had conversations where other people talk over me and ignore my input (ie where they are just waiting for their turn to talk, and interrupt you when they think of something new to say). That is arguably the same thing (not having any interest in the other person’s thoughts or experiences) as what you seem to be referencing. However I do not think that that is somehow a sign of an all pervasive cultural flaw that is damaging society. I assume it is just a handful of self absorbed or rude people and don’t attribute it to a cultural neurosis like mass narcissism.

[Wesley_Clark]

@Broomstick

There are some major, major differences between the romantic comedy guy who pursues a woman and a real life stalker. Movie Guy pursues the lady by doing nice things, as a general rule. Real life stalkers do things like threaten physical violence, call a woman 50 times in a night disrupting her sleep and impairing her ability to function, they kill pets, they show up at work and make a scene, they’ll claim to be a husband when they’re not (this can happen when the woman seeks the help of some authority, like the police - Stalker Guy claims it’s a domestic spat, authority walks off, woman is at Stalker Guy’s mercy), they break into the woman’s home - that’s a hugely different level of threat than Romantic Comedy Guy. Sometimes Stalker Guy will rape or kill the object of his attention - something Romantic Comedy Guy would never do. Because it’s fiction and the audience knows Romantic Comedy Guy actually does care for Romantic Comedy Gal as a human being and would never hurt her he’s safe - unlike Stalker Guy.

Romantic comedies (ideally - there really are problem with them being written/produced by men) portray a low-level threat of pursuit, a guy who seeks to win the woman by “jumping through hoops” in a low-threat context, outside of her home, usually in situations where she can easily walk away, he doesn’t grab her, press her up against a wall, and prevent her from leaving a situation she doesn’t like. He doesn’t threaten to harm other men in her life. That’s far different from the reality of an actual real-life stalker.

I fully agree. Empathy and respect for the other person is a huge difference between those situations. My point was that I was getting the impression that some people feel movies which portray men as ignoring womens protestations or rejections and pursuing them anyway was a sign of a rape culture which victimizes women, but which is ironically only in business because women enjoy it enough to pay for it. I don’t know if men actually write romantic comedies that involve a lovestruck guy ignoring a woman’s rejections until he wins her over more than women write them. Even if they do, I assume most of the sales go to women.

[Wesley_Clark]

@SecondJudith

I’d just like to point out that while some films may be targeted at women, the vast majority of them are still written, directed and produced by men.

I disagree, I don’t think a guy who writes a script for a romantic comedy can be called a man.

Am I the only one throwing jokes and smartass comments around on the thread about sexual abuse? If so, thats a shame.

[SecondJudith]

Why do you think it’s appropriate to try to trivialize sexual assault in a thread where 52 women in our community said they have been raped?

[Dangerosa]

@Wesley_Clark

I fully agree. Empathy and respect for the other person is a huge difference between those situations. My point was that I was getting the impression that some people feel movies which portray men as ignoring womens protestations or rejections and pursuing them anyway was a sign of a rape culture which victimizes women, but which is ironically only in business because women enjoy it enough to pay for it. I don’t know if men actually write romantic comedies that involve a lovestruck guy ignoring a woman’s rejections until he wins her over more than women write them. Even if they do, I assume most of the sales go to women.

We romanticize it. When it actually happens to you - a guy who even nicely continues to pursue you when you aren’t interested, it gets creepy and scary very quickly.

Which is what I said earlier. We romanticize sexual aggression.

(and I’d agree we have a murder culture as well).

[nicole1912]

@Wesley_Clark

Am I the only one throwing jokes and smartass comments around on the thread about sexual abuse? If so, thats a shame.

Have you read the rest of the thread? The bits where women were telling of the times when thy’ve been raped, humiliated, terrified, beaten?

If so, what makes you think jokes and smartass comments are an appropriate response to those stories?

[Czarcasm]

@Wesley_Clark

I disagree, I don’t think a guy who writes a script for a romantic comedy can be called a man.

Am I the only one throwing jokes and smartass comments around on the thread about sexual abuse? If so, thats a shame.

[Moderator Admonishment]It certainly is a shame that some people don’t know that there is a time and a place for jokes, and that this isn’t it.[/Moderator Admonishment]

[tumbleddown]

@nicole1912

If so, what makes you think jokes and smartass comments are an appropriate response to those stories?

That would be male privilege, which is the lynchpin on which just about everything we’ve been discussing over these pages turns, and everything that Wesley Clark rejects or downplays.

[NinetyWt]

I get the feeling that Wesley is trying to understand though.

Regarding the abuse of boys, I’ll repeat a point someone else made upthread. You mention that the occurence of abuse of boys is similar to that of girls.

After adulthood, don’t you think that changes drastically? If men were molested at the same rate as women, don’t you think we’d be hearing from them in this thread? You can’t meaningfully compare child abuse to the abuse of adult women.

Here’s the difference: all children are equally vulnerable. After adulthood is reached, men are no longer vulnerable. But women are, partly because of culture but partly due to biology (men are bigger and stronger).

[you_with_the_face]

@Wesley_Clark

The impression I’m getting is that people are saying we live in a society where it is considered ok to ignore a womans fears, needs, input, wants, etc when you want something from her sexually, and that is the fundamental cause of a culture with pervasive sexual abuse.

To me, this is pretty good summation of what a lot of posters are saying. Not seeing why it would be contestable, either.

A couple of years ago, I started a Pit thread about a guy in my building who kept hounding me for a date *every time * I saw him. I’d turn him down politely, and yet he persisted. And persisted. And persisted. It got to the point that I couldn’t even walk down the stairwell without worrying about bumping into him and seeing him drop into his obnoxious “I want to have lunch with you” routine.

A lot of posters in that thread seemed to understand why this was a headache for me and they offered some good advice. But other posters (all men, if it matters) chided me for “leading him on” because I kept brushing him off politely rather than explicitly telling him to get out of my face. The impression I got from them was that it was unreasonable to expect this man to back off on his accord; I needed to take responsibility for his annoying behavior. Because apparently saying “sorry, can’t do lunch today, but thanks for asking” is equivalent to saying “I’ma need you to ask me out 30,567 more times before I say yes, so please keep it up!”

A lot of men delude themselves in thinking this behavior is okay because “she might be playing hard to get!” So to get that 1 woman out of 10,000, these guys will end up harrassing 9,999 and see absolutely nothing wrong with that. The women they do this too are expected to practically scream and shout to have their wishes heard; if they fail to do anything short of that, the guy gives himself license to continue the pestering. Because, you know, she might be playing hard to get.

It’s not a coincidence that this same dynamic is in place when it comes to the stereotypical rape mentality. If the woman isn’t kicking and screaming, it might mean she really wanted it. It doesn’t matter if she gets drunk and passes out, she didn’t say no, did she? She’s saying that she doesn’t want it, but she might just be playing hard to get.