In general, not just in the case of rape, anything involving
sex is automatically assumed to be a special case, and none of the normal rules
apply.
Considering someone other than your spouse to be your best
friend is either a sign of a less than ideal relationship, or perfectly normal,
depending on who you ask, but having sex with someone other than your spouse is
"cheating".
Complimenting a person on any aspect of themselves, mental
or physical is a good thing - unless there is a sexual implication, in which
case it is objectifying. For example, I could tell a woman she is strong,
which is a physical characteristic, but to some, saying she is pretty is
demeaning, and saying she is sexy even more so.
The mainstream view is still that female promiscuity implies
a lack of self-respect, which goes all the way back to my comments on page one
regarding biology and reproduction, which are of course no longer valid or
relevant considerations.
Deeper still, bias is embedded in our very language. The word “penetrate” itself, used in both law and
science, has implications for how society views sex. We wouldn’t say that you “penetrate” your car
or your house when you open the door and go inside. Your food doesn’t “penetrate” the fridge when
it’s put away, nor does it “penetrate” your mouth when you eat it. You don’t say “a square peg can’t penetrate a
round hole” or “a bird penetrating the hand is worth two penetrating the
bush”. The word penetrate is used when
something forces its way in that isn’t
supposed to be there. A hypodermic
needle penetrates the skin. An assassin penetrates the castle’s defenses.
And in sex a man “penetrates” a woman.
And in sex a man “penetrates” a woman.
In popular language, men fuck women. Its something a male does TO a female. And in clinical language, although longer,
fancier sounding words may be used, the exact same presumptions exist. “Penetrate” implies that a female’s sex parts
are something to be guarded, not something she might voluntarily invite someone
into.
What every example in this entire essay has been
demonstrating is the almost universal idea that by the very fact of biology -
of how sex works, that males have external sex parts which fit inside of
female’s internal sex parts – women are inherently victims in all hetero sexual
experiences (and perhaps by extension in all interactions).
Nearly nobody would acknowledge that outright.
Its clear that most people believe this in some sort of abstract, indirect way.
Its been surprising to me that some actually are willing to admit something along those lines, rather explicitly:
Roger Canaff says:
…
Given the typical nature of most profound sexual
activity (the usual penetration of some orifice by the male and every
anthropological factor that goes with that basic, biological fact) I believe
that women and men experience victimization through sexual violence far more
from men than from other women. …
Mind you, this comment came after the CDC report was introduced to the discussion.
This reminds me of a long internet
based discussion I had several years ago, in response to the following
sentence:
Divine Purpose on http://aladydivine.wordpress.com
Aug 31, 2009
"Consent doesn’t exist withing hetero relationships due to the unequal power between men and women."
Aug 31, 2009
"Consent doesn’t exist withing hetero relationships due to the unequal power between men and women."
Which essentially implies that ALL heterosexual sexual contact is rape. That would mean not only mutually consensual, but even if a female coerced a male into having sex with her, it was still him who raped her, presumably because of some sort of sexism existing on a societal level. But all formal, law based forms of power imbalance by gender have been eliminated. This is not the 1950s. Legalized discrimination was a really big deal, it was completely unjustified – and it was corrected, a long time ago. If we can agree that women are fully capable human beings with free will and the agency to act on their choices, then in normal day to day life, nobody has any more control or power over anyone else than that person chooses to give them.
Mr. Canaff is a former prosecutor
who specialized in rape and sexual assault, and currently an educator on the
same subjects. “Divine Purpose” is a
self-described radical feminist blogger.
The people mostly closely involved in and focused on feminist issues, these are the people one would hope would be most conscious of the implications of what they say.
The people mostly closely involved in and focused on feminist issues, these are the people one would hope would be most conscious of the implications of what they say.
What chance is there that average
ordinary people, who don’t think about these issues at all, will have
internalized these beliefs any less?
The male sex organs are seen as a symbol of power, strength, and dominance. But if you take just a moment to think about it, this relatively small (compared to the size of the body overall) bit of anatomy has no bones, no muscle, projects outward, and is particularly prone to injury from even small impacts, making it the single most vulnerable part of the human body in either gender. Specifically, a male is at significant risk of catastrophic injury from vaginal intercourse without sufficient lubrication or at a bad angle. If you don't believe it (and you have a strong stomach), look up the medical terms "penile fracture" or "degloving".
In the comments in response to my own previous blog entry (on prostitution), was the following statement:
Next, presumably, would be an assertion that this isn't a good enough analogy after all, in which case the only person who could actually confirm or deny any fundamental difference would be a hermaphrodite or transsexual - although even then the individual would have spent a lifetime in this culture, with all of its biases and assumptions, and these things color individual experiences. I think it is particularly illustrative to simply think about fellatio - we generally assume it to be a situation similar to vaginal intercourse, but the male role of dominance is even more pronounced since the woman is not receiving direct sexual stimulation from the act. But clearly the male is by far the more vulnerable in this situation. The human jaw has the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any muscle. He is one small chomp away from being very literally emasculated. She has complete and total power over him. And yet, somehow, in our collective minds she is the one who is considered vulnerable in this situation.
These beliefs about male dominance and female vulnerability due to the biological reality of sexual intercourse is clearly not coming from the reality of the situation. It is coming from culture.
At its root, believing that the physical act of sex inherently creates a dynamic where male is dominate and female is submissive, (and that this naturally sets the stage for females to be victims) is misogyny.
The male sex organs are seen as a symbol of power, strength, and dominance. But if you take just a moment to think about it, this relatively small (compared to the size of the body overall) bit of anatomy has no bones, no muscle, projects outward, and is particularly prone to injury from even small impacts, making it the single most vulnerable part of the human body in either gender. Specifically, a male is at significant risk of catastrophic injury from vaginal intercourse without sufficient lubrication or at a bad angle. If you don't believe it (and you have a strong stomach), look up the medical terms "penile fracture" or "degloving".
In the comments in response to my own previous blog entry (on prostitution), was the following statement:
...the experience of sexual intercourse itself is different for women than for men. Opening yourself to allow someone to enter you is a different experience than that of putting your sex organ into another person's opening. If you ever try being the receiving partner in anal sex, you may find that you feel more vulnerable in that position than in the position of the enterer.As it happens, I have - my ex suggested all sorts of different things, and I never refused any of them. I didn't find it objectionable, but I didn't find it especially stimulating either. But it certainly did not make me feel in any way more vulnerable than being naked and intimate with another person already does.
Next, presumably, would be an assertion that this isn't a good enough analogy after all, in which case the only person who could actually confirm or deny any fundamental difference would be a hermaphrodite or transsexual - although even then the individual would have spent a lifetime in this culture, with all of its biases and assumptions, and these things color individual experiences. I think it is particularly illustrative to simply think about fellatio - we generally assume it to be a situation similar to vaginal intercourse, but the male role of dominance is even more pronounced since the woman is not receiving direct sexual stimulation from the act. But clearly the male is by far the more vulnerable in this situation. The human jaw has the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any muscle. He is one small chomp away from being very literally emasculated. She has complete and total power over him. And yet, somehow, in our collective minds she is the one who is considered vulnerable in this situation.
These beliefs about male dominance and female vulnerability due to the biological reality of sexual intercourse is clearly not coming from the reality of the situation. It is coming from culture.
At its root, believing that the physical act of sex inherently creates a dynamic where male is dominate and female is submissive, (and that this naturally sets the stage for females to be victims) is misogyny.
It’s a very deep seated misogyny
which nearly everyone in the whole of American culture (and surely many other
cultures as well - I don’t know any others well enough to comment) are blind to
because it is so universal and fundamental to our understanding of sexuality.
We need to realize it’s there
first, before we can stop believing it.
We need to stop believing it before we can progress any further as a society.
We need to stop believing it before we can progress any further as a society.
We still have a long way to go, but
I believe it can be done.
That's why I took the time to read, to research, and finally to write this giant monstosity of a blog post.
I know it was really long to read. It took me even longer to write it. Even though I am not normally focused on these issues, it stood out to me as being really, really important. A great many well meaning people are unknowingly working to preserve the status quo, because they don't even realize that they hold some of the same beliefs that they are trying to fight.
When ever a person has settled on a belief system, anything that challenges it provokes hostility. This is why Galileo spent the latter part of his life under house arrest. This is an issue that sparks strong feelings even when everyone agrees. I realize that many people are probably going to find some parts offensive, and some may find every part to be. My only real hope for avoiding hate mail is that nobody ever reads it, but I'm going to promote it anyway. I imagine most of the people who would be most inclined to argue will likely never read this far, nevermind bother to comment. Of course, if anyone does, I welcome any response, positive, negative, or neutral, sad or angry or whatever else.
The only thing I ask is that you actually read the entire thing first.
I could have summed up the overall thesis in a single paragraph.
But with something as deeply invisible as I am saying these assumptions are, people would simply read it and say "no, that's not how I really feel" and cease to think about.
So I put in examples and thought experiments and statistics, and I explained how all of them are related.
If you skip some parts, skim over others, because its unpleasant to think about, or just because its so dang long, it going to be easy to dismiss the conclusions I draw.
If you read it all, and still disagree, I'd like to know why.
That's why I took the time to read, to research, and finally to write this giant monstosity of a blog post.
I know it was really long to read. It took me even longer to write it. Even though I am not normally focused on these issues, it stood out to me as being really, really important. A great many well meaning people are unknowingly working to preserve the status quo, because they don't even realize that they hold some of the same beliefs that they are trying to fight.
When ever a person has settled on a belief system, anything that challenges it provokes hostility. This is why Galileo spent the latter part of his life under house arrest. This is an issue that sparks strong feelings even when everyone agrees. I realize that many people are probably going to find some parts offensive, and some may find every part to be. My only real hope for avoiding hate mail is that nobody ever reads it, but I'm going to promote it anyway. I imagine most of the people who would be most inclined to argue will likely never read this far, nevermind bother to comment. Of course, if anyone does, I welcome any response, positive, negative, or neutral, sad or angry or whatever else.
The only thing I ask is that you actually read the entire thing first.
I could have summed up the overall thesis in a single paragraph.
But with something as deeply invisible as I am saying these assumptions are, people would simply read it and say "no, that's not how I really feel" and cease to think about.
So I put in examples and thought experiments and statistics, and I explained how all of them are related.
If you skip some parts, skim over others, because its unpleasant to think about, or just because its so dang long, it going to be easy to dismiss the conclusions I draw.
If you read it all, and still disagree, I'd like to know why.
Crazy long post, but actually very interesting and I pretty much share your views.
ReplyDeleteThe only question I have is about the statistics on violent crimes against men vs women on page 4. I was thinking maybe less women get assaulted because they have been taught not to walk outside at night alone - perhaps a chicken/egg scenario. If women stopped believing it was unsafe to walk alone at night and men stopped believing they in turn were safe - would the rates be equal?
As far as I know, you may be the first person to ever read all the way to the end!
DeleteWhen I wrote it I was expecting, if anything, hate mail, so I really appreciate that you took the time to comment with mostly positive feedback.
What you are suggesting could definitely be true. I think it is definitely some combination of social factors that leads to the difference, but all of them come down ultimately to some form of the misogynistic notion that women are inherently weak and vulnerable, biologically prone to be victims. That manifests itself in women being unnecessarily fearful, and it also manifests in the notion held even by violent criminals that one should "never hit a woman".
Now, I acknowledge that if we removed that idea, if we accepted that women are people (full stop), then random stranger violence might well increase until the rates were equal. Which could seem a bad thing in isolation, but it would mean an entirely different mindset culture wide on what it means to be human, what it means to be male or female, people's social conditioning and expectations would change. I think there would be FAR less domestic violence in that hypothetical world, since 100% of DV victims are complacent to some form of abuse (there are always warning signs before it gets to physical violence, and the vast majority don't leave after the first time it gets that far), which is a very clear sign of a lifetime of learned helplessness. Rape would plummet, because attempted rapes almost never succeed if the victim physically fights back. And just in normal daily life, a lot of the double standards and social rules and issues around dating and sexuality are all dependant on this idea of woman as innocent, weak, or victim, which overall make life worse for everyone, that would have to dissolve along the way - I think those trade-offs would probably be worth the increase in rates of women getting mugged or punched in bar fights and such.