How would you feel if your partner confessed that they had raped someone?

[Ropebunny]

So tattooed body builder MUST be a guy, and the stranger unnerved by his presence MUST be his prospective lady friend. And you're saying that fitness nuts and ink enthusiasts and by extension here any number of other subcultures should just ASSUME they are scary, that there is no place in public where they can be permitted to relax, and you lump it in with the same social travesty that black people must assume they are frightening to white people.

... wow.

Look at it this way. When approaching people I don't know, I flip my 'how-do-I-appear-to-others' switch. I don't want people to think I'm insert adjective here so I make sure I'm aware of my behaviour and others non-verbal communication, to minimise the chances of that happening. If someone seems uncomfortable, I back away. I know I appreciate it when others offer me the same courtesy.

This isn't just about tattooed body builder guy. It's about small, white, non-tattooed girls like me too. It's about everyone being aware of how they might be making others feel and having the respect to act on it.

 

[KoPilot]

Stag, you're forgetting one little thing: sexualized violence isn't gender neutral.

 

[KoPilot]

Violence is absolutely gender neutral.

drugging someone apparently is as well.

Getting someone too drunk to say no is definitely gender neutral.

As is coercion.

And someone answer this because I have no cache to say so; Does rape never ever happen between two women?

I won't go so far as to call my experience sexualized violence. But parts of it were pretty violent. Having porcelain thrown at my head while i'm in an altered state and unwilling to deflect it? Being kicked awake hard enough to leave buises every 15 to 30 minutes for ten hours?

This was the method that got her laid on a regular basis. I had sex with dried blood on my face more than once. It did not occur to me at the time that "alright lets get this over with" could be rape. And yeah, given my recent admission, maybe I was getting a little karma, but with the girl that took my virginity; my only leverage was "maybe I should go home."

we live in a society where it's legal for women to rape men as long as the men don't understand what's going on, and no one is telling them.

That's because the society we live in tells women that their sexual agency is meaningless and inconsequential. If you're a small child and you hit your parent, of course neither party is going to equate that with the parent doing the hitting. Not to say that that's the deal, but that's the analogy that we're fed from day 1: that women are children that need handlers and keepers.

Yes, it's wrong. And I'm not going to claim to understand why you would sympathize with your rapist and say her emotional trauma from hurting you, or someone like them hurting someone like you, is as valid as someone being ordered to in a combat situation, or someone doing it to save their life, or someone witnessing a terrible disaster, but if that's how you cope then that's how you cope.

But the fact of the matter is that you've been completely contrarian during this entire thread; you've got a weird, convoluted devil's advocate position to counter every single one someone comes up with here that isn't "well, rape is basically a meaningless concept when you think about it too hard", and I don't really know what you're doing that. You're not even making points, you're just spewing counter-arguments to every disparate thing you see, as if you have a problem with the very premise of people getting mad at rapists to begin with. And that's something that's incapable of being argued with, but I don't think that you're interested in that anyway.

 

[KoPilot]

Yes, the problem as it exists is relatively one sided. Thats bad and needs to change.

The way forward cannot be one sided.

Alright, I'm bowing out because this is basically the entire premise of the feminist movement, and I've got the feeling that you don't want to read any part of that.

Let's just say, that the only people really giving a fuck about male rape victims right now are feminists.

 

[Stella_Omega]

The one thing that upset me was the implication that as a man, if I meet a woman (specifically) I should assume she is afraid of me.

Sucks, doesn't it?

But we are talking about when a woman meets you in circumstances where she has no choice, really. Alone in an elevator, or on a sidewalk, or when you fetch up against her butt in a crowd... Or even when she has been stupid enough to go home with you somehow, because being stupid? isn't a reason to be raped.

Under those circs-- what's the harm in going that extra inch and a half to show someone that you mean no harm?

AS far as you being afraid f a woman, yes. it's feasible and needs to be talked about. A lot. Loudly.

but understand, not to women who are talking about having been raped or intimidated by men, not right then, but in brand new fresh conversations.

Get talking. I'm your ally.

 

[Netzach]

So tattooed body builder MUST be a guy, and the stranger unnerved by his presence MUST be his prospective lady friend. And you're saying that fitness nuts and ink enthusiasts and by extension here any number of other subcultures should just ASSUME they are scary, that there is no place in public where they can be permitted to relax, and you lump it in with the same social travesty that black people must assume they are frightening to white people.

... wow.

Seriously, on what planet do you purport to live where everyone's blind and clueless? Where I should walk down the street with the giant muscular guy with the tattooed face and not the mom holding her kid's hand on the other side of the street, because folks is folks. Fuck that. I am not here to prove my open mindedness to the universe at the expense of my own safety every single day and in every single action.

Now if I get to KNOW a guy with giant biceps and face tattoos and I can't get past the idea that he may be a pussycat once I start TALKING to him, then I'm the idiot.

Of course there are a million permutations on scary guy and woman, including scary guy and twink, scary woman and unscary woman. scary woman and unscary guy and whatever else you want to picture, but that's not what anyone's talking about. We're talking about appropriate patterns of empathy among men who are GENERALLY stronger and generally the aggressor, and women who are GENERALLY less strong and GENERALLY the victim.

Are there exceptions? Of course. But these exceptions are not systematized into existence, they are not the norm. Are women capable of being abusers, being rapists, being dangerous, having weapons - sure. You don't want to be completely blind to statistical anomalies, but I think you can play Vegas odds with them.

And the "scary man" meme is HIGHLY relevant to discussions about race and where scary man ends and racism picks up, or where racism isn't and scary man is. THAT is a highly toxic, dangerous, fucked up thing wherein a guy has a LEGITIMATE worry about being labeled "scary."

I'm actually dating someone who is physically capable of flattening most people, me for sure. I realized that even to this day, after YEARS of being together, he still waits for a verbal cue from me that yes, I would actually like very much to fuck. It's smart on his part, and it's who he is - a scary strong motherfucker who actually gets it.

It's not that onerous on anyone to empathize with the smaller human.

 

[Marquis]

It's not that onerous on anyone to empathize with the smaller human.

On a mostly unrelated note, I have lived in Asia for the last 1 year+ and I am getting damn sick of the smaller human.

Always elbow jabbing me on the train.

 

[Curious_in_Cali]

What if the rape happens when one party feels forced to have sex that they do not want to be having, and the other has sex with them. For this example let's say it is due to social conditioning of the self preservation construct of allow it happen so I can live or walk away uninjured because I am out classed physically, and the other larger human honestly does not know that it is unwanted because the smaller is not physically resisting or saying no.

Do you think it is possible that when the victim says "I was raped" and the (accused) rapist says "I did not rape", that they could both be right? If so, what then?

 

[Bramblethorn]

What if the rape happens when one party feels forced to have sex that they do not want to be having, and the other has sex with them. For this example let's say it is due to social conditioning of the self preservation construct of allow it happen so I can live or walk away uninjured because I am out classed physically, and the other larger human honestly does not know that it is unwanted because the smaller is not physically resisting or saying no.

Do you think it is possible that when the victim says "I was raped" and the (accused) rapist says "I did not rape", that they could both be right? If so, what then?

That sort of situation certainly can arise, and not only in a situation of perceived physical threat. It's one of the reasons why I get twitchy about employer/employee and grad student/supervisor relationships. That power imbalance leaves one person uncertain about whether they are free to say 'no' without being punished for it.

Do we call that "rape"? I don't know. From the victim's perspective, it certainly is. From the perpetrator's perspective, it might be unintended, but I'm wary about giving them a free pass because they didn't recognise the situation. Sometimes the reason people don't recognise their own privilege is because it's not in their interests to examine the situation and think about the other person's position. People should be encouraged to seek out 'enthusiastic consent' rather than just 'didn't resist'.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I understand you now, thank you for this clarification. I just don't approach it from the viewpoint of being feared. What you call "going the extra inch to show I mean no harm," I call common courtesy. Like common sense; its never so common as one would hope.

What common culture considers "common courtesy" does not include the mechanisms that show one is harmless. It certainly doesn't include things like crossing the street to move away from a lone woman walking at night...

The one woman who ever mysteriously crashed at my house too drunk to walk came to call on my then room mate now sister in law; who wasn't there. She got to sleep in my room. Alone. With the door locked from the inside, and a tall pitcher of water by the bed. I slept on the couch through her departure but she left a very short thank you note and was kind enough not to nose around noticeably. She later asked my sister in law if I was gay.

I'm sure you're getting tired of me by now.

That was courteous indeed, and do you notice her reaction? She wasn't used to it.

 

[Primalex]

Seriously, on what planet do you purport to live where everyone's blind and clueless? Where I should walk down the street with the giant muscular guy with the tattooed face and not the mom holding her kid's hand on the other side of the street, because folks is folks. Fuck that. I am not here to prove my open mindedness to the universe at the expense of my own safety every single day and in every single action.

Somehow I'm totally lost now. What is the current scenario?

Woman meets stranger that scares her so much that she brings him back home to her, where she drops her clothes and spreads her legs and feels raped, because he didn't assure her properly that he will listen and honor a 'No' and so she decided to not say 'No'?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Somehow I'm totally lost now. What is the current scenario?

Woman meets stranger that scares her so much that she brings him back home to her, where she drops her clothes and spreads her legs and feels raped, because he didn't assure her properly that he will listen and honor a 'No' and so she decided to not say 'No'?

and another stupid question.

What is wrong with your reasoning processes this morning?

 

[Primalex]

Do you think it is possible that when the victim says "I was raped" and the (accused) rapist says "I did not rape", that they could both be right? If so, what then?

Actually it is possible, has happened before and the legal implication is 'not guilty', because every criminal conviction requires criminal intent.^1


(^1 simplified, not true in all cases, especially not these days with fucked up anti-terror-laws)

 

[Dyslexicea]

The thread was about people. Not specifically women and men. Any thread I start here would be empty or taken over by women abused by men.

I do appreciate your appeal for another conversation though.

It's feels pointless to me.

If you want to spread a message of equality they should be the same conversation. About people and society, not about shaming men.

I'll cut myself off there.

You really have taken over this thread! Somehow you've made this about you men. I'm sorry that men are sexually abused but the facts are almost 210,000 people in the US, one every two minutes, are sexually abused, of those 210,000 3% are men. I'm sorry if I don't care to concentrate on the 6,300 men instead of the 203,700 women.

Yes I want equality. I also want all of us to be safe, I'd even settle for only 6,300 women being raped.

Speaking of rapist, which was what this thread was about, most of those 6,300 men who were raped weren't raped by women.

It is pathetic that every issue which is more about women than you men, some man has to cry equal rights. When Stella made her point about fear, which is the way it is for us, you cry out "but what about us men".

 

[Primalex]

You really have taken over this thread! Somehow you've made this about you men. I'm sorry that men are sexually abused but the facts are almost 210,000 people in the US, one every two minutes, are sexually abused, of those 210,000 3% are men. I'm sorry if I don't care to concentrate on the 6,300 men instead of the 203,700 women.

Yes I want equality. I also want all of us to be safe, I'd even settle for only 6,300 women being raped.

Speaking of rapist, which was what this thread was about, most of those 6,300 men who were raped weren't raped by women.

It is pathetic that every issue which is more about women than you men, some man has to cry equal rights. When Stella made her point about fear, which is the way it is for us, you cry out "but what about us men".

I don't think you got his point.

It was never (except in sidetracks maybe) about men getting raped, it was about holding men responsible for harm caused, they did neither desire nor intend to cause.

 

[Marquis]

This is not a "what about us men" thing for me, but it would be cool to approach some kind of gender neutral Kantian type of rule on this thing that really makes sense.

 

[Dyslexicea]

This is not a "what about us men" thing for me, but it would be cool to approach some kind of gender neutral Kantian type of rule on this thing that really makes sense.

I don't know how you intend to do so when the genders aren't equal. It's like trying to have Kantian type rules between slaves and owner, no I don't mean BDSM.

Being I'm not really that ^^^ pessimistic I think we can have these discussion if we put them in the context of social justice. Before we can do so we have to come to some common ground to what social justice is. We even have to agree that we live in an unjust society, which is my opinion, someone else may think it's very just.

A good start may be to monitor this course. Harvard University Justice with Michael Sandel

I'm willing to try but I still may let my anger show from time to time.

 

[Curious_in_Cali]

You really have taken over this thread! Somehow you've made this about you men. I'm sorry that men are sexually abused but the facts are almost 210,000 people in the US, one every two minutes, are sexually abused, of those 210,000 3% are men. I'm sorry if I don't care to concentrate on the 6,300 men instead of the 203,700 women.

Yes I want equality. I also want all of us to be safe, I'd even settle for only 6,300 women being raped.

Speaking of rapist, which was what this thread was about, most of those 6,300 men who were raped weren't raped by women.

It is pathetic that every issue which is more about women than you men, some man has to cry equal rights. When Stella made her point about fear, which is the way it is for us, you cry out "but what about us men".

OK, I have to disagree with you here. It really is kind of odd to me to want to exclude someone from a discussion because they are in a minority. This thread is in the topic of rape/sexual violence and he has identified himself as a victim that has experienced it, but because he is a man you somehow seem to find his posts to be offensive and his experience less relevant? Really?

For what it is worth, I am a woman and I haven't read anything he has written to be offensive. Rather, he has asked good questions, is open to exploring the topic from the female perspective, and offered up his own (rather painful) experiences for the thread as well. Isn't the different perspective of others what makes the discussion possible here?

I honestly do not understand or relate to your venom at all and appreciate that Stag has continued to contribute to the thread. I respect that you clearly don't seem to want to listen to what he has to say, but I do. I just don't think that compassion for ANY victim detracts from the others. It seems to me that he is speaking from the male perspective because he IS a man and wants to include men and not because he wants to exclude women. Equality is about inclusion and not exclusion.

In my experience, male victims have an especially hard time talking about it because they are the minority and because of the social "less of a man because you were an out muscled victim" stigmas. A guy in my life was drunk and passed out and was raped by a female friend of his. He has still not been in a relationship since, he can't talk about it without staring at the floor, and it means something to me personally that his voice is ALSO heard here.

On behalf of the 6300 women offered up as a "step in the right direction", no thank you. I don't think the gender of those 6300 means a wit compared to the fact that they ARE victims of a horribly damaging and painful thing and need to be heard and deserve just as much compassion. I am not willing to "settle" for anyone being raped regardless of gender and find no value in carving them off as "not really the problem" because of it.


Stag, thank you.

 

[Marquis]

Thought of this thread when I recently came across below photo of Alexander Skarsgaard signing an autograph for an awestruck fan.

http://i.imgur.com/qAP1Rqu.jpg

He could have his dick in and out of her and it'll be weeks, maybe years before she figures out if she actually wanted to fuck him.

Is that rape?

Actually, I guess it is.

 

[Stella_Omega]

An awful lot of celebrities have made an assumption that a fan wanted to fuck them, only to be hurt and dismayed to find out that she didn't ever say 'yes.'

This is not a "what about us men" thing for me, but it would be cool to approach some kind of gender neutral Kantian type of rule on this thing that really makes sense.

That will happen when we live in a gender neutral, Kantian culture. And may we someday see that happen. But it hasn't happened yet.

 

[Stella_Omega]

OK, I have to disagree with you here. It really is kind of odd to me to want to exclude someone from a discussion because they are in a minority. This thread is in the topic of rape/sexual violence and he has identified himself as a victim that has experienced it, but because he is a man you somehow seem to find his posts to be offensive and his experience less relevant? Really?

For what it is worth, I am a woman and I haven't read anything he has written to be offensive. Rather, he has asked good questions, is open to exploring the topic from the female perspective, and offered up his own (rather painful) experiences for the thread as well. Isn't the different perspective of others what makes the discussion possible here?

I honestly do not understand or relate to your venom at all and appreciate that Stag has continued to contribute to the thread. I respect that you clearly don't seem to want to listen to what he has to say, but I do. I just don't think that compassion for ANY victim detracts from the others. It seems to me that he is speaking from the male perspective because he IS a man and wants to include men and not because he wants to exclude women. Equality is about inclusion and not exclusion.

In my experience, male victims have an especially hard time talking about it because they are the minority and because of the social "less of a man because you were an out muscled victim" stigmas. A guy in my life was drunk and passed out and was raped by a female friend of his. He has still not been in a relationship since, he can't talk about it without staring at the floor, and it means something to me personally that his voice is ALSO heard here.

On behalf of the 6300 women offered up as a "step in the right direction", no thank you. I don't think the gender of those 6300 means a wit compared to the fact that they ARE victims of a horribly damaging and painful thing and need to be heard and deserve just as much compassion. I am not willing to "settle" for anyone being raped regardless of gender and find no value in carving them off as "not really the problem" because of it.


Stag, thank you.

Neither is anyone else willing to settle.

But between our Idealistic veiwes of what should be, and the bad stuff that is what it is it, there's a pragmatic element in changing things, to wit; You spill a gallon of milk. You spend an hour finding all of the little stray droplets that spattered off from the main puddle and you carefully wipe them up. The main puddle, most of that gallon, is still there.
You mop up that gallon puddle, and then the splatters are more apparent and easier to find, take a lot less time to mop.

IFFFFF if, if, if, we can begin to effect a change in culture that says "no" means no every time WOMEN say it -- then it will be far far easier for WOMEN-- and men as well-- to believe that NO means NO when men say it. And I know, believe me, that men don't have the right to say "no" but that is because women don't have that right, and because men are expected to disbelieve women who say "no."

I am experiencing this in my own life as the testosterone HRT continues; The more masculine I look and present, the less I am expected to say, or listen, to "no."

 

[Netzach]

On a mostly unrelated note, I have lived in Asia for the last 1 year+ and I am getting damn sick of the smaller human.

Always elbow jabbing me on the train.

Those old ladies are somethin' else!

 

[Curious_in_Cali]

Neither is anyone else willing to settle.

But between our Idealistic veiwes of what should be, and the bad stuff that is what it is it, there's a pragmatic element in changing things, to wit; You spill a gallon of milk. You spend an hour finding all of the little stray droplets that spattered off from the main puddle and you carefully wipe them up. The main puddle, most of that gallon, is still there.
You mop up that gallon puddle, and then the splatters are more apparent and easier to find, take a lot less time to mop.

IFFFFF if, if, if, we can begin to effect a change in culture that says "no" means no every time WOMEN say it -- then it will be far far easier for WOMEN-- and men as well-- to believe that NO means NO when men say it. And I know, believe me, that men don't have the right to say "no" but that is because women don't have that right, and because men are expected to disbelieve women who say "no."

I am experiencing this in my own life as the testosterone HRT continues; The more masculine I look and present, the less I am expected to say, or listen, to "no."

I'm sorry Stella, I just don't understand what you are trying to say. It's all milk. It's the same mess. The same rag cleans it. The order that you wipe it up doesn't change the fact that it is not clean until it is ALL clean... Right?

Or are you really suggesting that we ask male victims to be the patient splatter because it seems addressig the majority is a more "efficient" way to handle it? What if you were the man, you were the splatter?

To me it makes sense to engage any victim to speak. Support their voices. Bring more awareness to the range of the problem. Really listen. Make speaking up safer. Helping the smaller speak up is kind of the big rag anyways isn't it? The mess needs more rags and more hands, which HAS to include all of our men, not exclude them... Right?

 

[Netzach]

Neither is anyone else willing to settle.

But between our Idealistic veiwes of what should be, and the bad stuff that is what it is it, there's a pragmatic element in changing things, to wit; You spill a gallon of milk. You spend an hour finding all of the little stray droplets that spattered off from the main puddle and you carefully wipe them up. The main puddle, most of that gallon, is still there.
You mop up that gallon puddle, and then the splatters are more apparent and easier to find, take a lot less time to mop.

IFFFFF if, if, if, we can begin to effect a change in culture that says "no" means no every time WOMEN say it -- then it will be far far easier for WOMEN-- and men as well-- to believe that NO means NO when men say it. And I know, believe me, that men don't have the right to say "no" but that is because women don't have that right, and because men are expected to disbelieve women who say "no."

I am experiencing this in my own life as the testosterone HRT continues; The more masculine I look and present, the less I am expected to say, or listen, to "no."

MOST men who are raped are raped by men, and the "maybe no is yes" doesn't even enter into it. No means no, and nobody cares.

It's not about "no really means yes" it's about rage and lack of power, it usually happens to children and it often happens in high pressure sexually divided environments. Personally I think prison rape is one of the biggest, most tragic, most marginal, and worst things in the whole culture, a human rights violation that should have all of us throwing bricks. I really do. THAT is still a punchline, THAT is still just "one of those things" THAT is the ultimate "he probably deserved it."

Does it mean that a male victim who's had his life ruined by a female aggressor isn't important as a *person* - no. I don't think he's as important as a *statistic* however. Notice I said AS.

Just like a woman who beats the shit out of her male partner doesn't belong in prison any less than the reverse, it doesn't mean that we now have some kind of a widespread pattern that requires as much examination about how and why. Crazy evil people happen, that's why. How does one prevent violence? How does one prevent assholes? More psychiatric help and luck.

The percentage of women raping - is minute. The percentage of women raping grown men - MORE minute. NO this should not be a punchline, and NO this should be dealt with as a crime - but I also maintain that this should not be treated as an issue of SCALE, scaled up to be an equivalent problem from a sociological point of view.

 

[Netzach]

I'm sorry Stella, I just don't understand what you are trying to say. It's all milk. It's the same mess. The same rag cleans it. The order that you wipe it up doesn't change the fact that it is not clean until it is ALL clean... Right?

Or are you really suggesting that we ask male victims to be the patient splatter because it seems addressig the majority is a more "efficient" way to handle it? What if you were the man, you were the splatter?

To me it makes sense to engage any victim to speak. Support their voices. Bring more awareness to the range of the problem. Really listen. Make speaking up safer. Helping the smaller speak up is kind of the big rag anyways isn't it? The mess needs more rags and more hands, which HAS to include all of our men, not exclude them... Right?

Honestly? I've been the splatter. We're all the splatter sometimes. If you're actually paying attention, you decide whether there's a valid point being made and you hold your horses or organize within your demographic.