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[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

You absolutely cannot be this dense and literal.

Contributing to a culture in which sexual assault is laughed off, excused, or (as in RT's example) leads to punishing the fucking victim is part and parcel of what we're talking about when accusers are grilled about their sexual past, what they were wearing, how flirty they were. It's the culture that allows a Brock Turner to act contrite in front of a judge and get a minimum sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman in public. It's about "boys will be boys" and "It's just horseplay," and "He does that because he likes you." It's the culture in which we laugh about prison rape or accept it as part of someone's sentence. It's about conditioning girls to be constantly aware of what they're wearing, how they're acting, where they are, how much they drink, what they say, how they act. It's about conditioning boys to not worry about any of that shit, even when it involves harmful, awful behavior. It's about shifting focus away from the accused and putting it on the accuser. All of that shit contributes to an atmosphere--a culture in which rape is more of a danger than it should be. It's about developing a culture in which a senator can scream at the top of his lungs about how a guy who has been accused of multiple assaults is having his life ruined by those he allegedly victimized right before he puts him on the highest court in the land. Rape culture. And it's a broad term for a reason. If you can't understand the term beyond the most literal reading of the term imaginable, you're being intentionally ridiculous, because you're not that stupid.

Nah. You're the one who's losing respect.

TM

So it's "culture." Because that's so broad, it could be all of culture.

Losing respect here doesn't count.