Towards A Virtual Williamsburg!

[Fugee]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Rape has a sexual element. We don't like to admit that, but hell... we don't like to admit a lot of obvious facts. Most of our society is based on delusions/narratives that allow us to avoid addressing facts we don't like. (I'm a broken record on that point, but am I wrong?)

If it were all about power, and had nothing to do with sexual aggression, these men would just physically abuse women. But they don't. They rape them.

It's not about blunt power. It's about difference. The female victim can be brutalized in a manner a male cannot. Even raping a male, it's not abusing "the difference." The perpetrator is fucking a guy in the ass - an orifice he also possesses. But a woman? In that instance, the rapist is doing something he can't do with any other victim. He's using the sexual difference between him and the victim to inflict a unique pain he can't inflict on anyone but another woman. Sex and power are inextricably interwoven in the act.

Rape's about power, but also sexual aggression. Sexual aggression is, of course, somewhat natural (testosterone, etc.). But when it goes rotten, when its owners are taught women are adverse to male sexual urges, rather than necessary participants in the act who'd like to be more overtly involved but are hemmed in by a culture that calls them whores when they think for themselves in that regard, you get lack of respect for women, which leads to things like Steubenville.

There's a difference between rape having a sexual element and rape being about sex. Attitudes about sex are more permissive than anytime in recent history and popular culture is full of examples of women being overtly involved in sex without calling them whores. So if your position were correct, you'd expect rape to be at an all-time low. But I don't think it is.

No matter what over cultural changes you'd like to see, as long as a woman has the right to say no to having sex with any particular guy at any particular time for whatever reason she feels like (which I assume you are not saying that should change), guys are going to rape as a means of exerting power and control by taking that choice away from her.

So basically I'm calling bullshit on your argument.