Rape vs Violence: A Double Standard

[Ultrajoe]

Like i stated earlier, the term "rape culture" blows the problem of rape out of proportion compared to other problems our society faces. Dont get me wrong I am not saying rape is not a problem or a little problem, its just not a bigger problem than other violent crimes.

But you're talking in circles here, you previously said you get what rape-culture means, in response to me saying:

A rape culture is simply one in which rape is facilitated, in any small or large way, by the various mechanisms of the culture itself.

And now you're saying that this doesn't apply because we have other problems, similar in severity. What you need to remember is that I'm not arguing from the perspective that 'rape happens, we're a rape culture', but that our culture facilitates rape by its nature. We aren't a bar-fight culture because the majority of depictions of a pub don't include the message that bar-fights are a fundamental dynamic of drinking alcohol. As I said in a post above, genocide, cannibalism and slavery are taught to be unequivocally evil by the media we consume. Django Unchained, whatever else you think of it, was permitted to depict the cruel and painful deaths of scores of people because they were slavers. We, as a culture, hold it as undeniable that these crimes are unforgivable and totally wrong, and rejoiced to see them die. If you think Django was a terrible example, see basically any action film for the same thing. Rambo, anyone? They're evil, kill 'em all.

We might well be called a murder-culture, as you say (you can be both), given how much our media loves to portray it done for righteous reasons. But as I said earlier in this thread, when I posted accidentally as Labyrinth, murder and rape are differentiated by the fact that rape is never justified in and of itself (you can play thought experiments about truckloads of babies dying if you don't rape someone, but that's so juvenile it's not funny, that's selecting for utility and mitigation, not justification).

And yeah, we *are* a racist culture, why else is this such a common disparity?

Calling us a rape-culture doesn't preclude us from being other things. We're also a musical culture, an honor-culture, a family-culture and a whole bunch of positive things too. Those things are reinforced by our media, our narratives and our expectations. It's just who we are. I'm just saying that our gender-biases, as equally automatic as our love of music, contribute to instances of sexual assault. Our culture enables, to some degree, rape. That's all rape-culture means, and I think I've demonstrated that this occurs. That's what me talking about gender depictions and media tropes was all about.

Well its a bit hard to argue an article who doesn't really quote anything specific and is clearly intended to shock people (not by you by the author) and has very little scientific value.

Just to weigh in here, what's not scientific about it? They had controls, multiple variations on each experiment and they declared only what the data indicates pretty clearly; readers of lad's mags have trouble telling the difference between rapists and their chosen magazine. How is that done for shock value? How is that unscientific? Here's a link to an article that contains some of the quotes used, for further reference. I admit I would like to see the data directly myself, but unless you think they're outright lying the results presented are not an unreasonable conclusion.

 

[Denamic]

War and violence is bad, but it's also something we do normally. Even little kids playfight all the time and sometimes actually fight. I don't remember any kids playing rape.

But you surely have seen a kid kissing another when the other clearly doesn't want to get kissed, yes? I remember it happening quite often in my area when I was younger, and the kisser was having a hell of a time. It's just that kissing is the go-to thing because they don't understand how sex works yet.

Not saying that kids would go around raping one another if given the choice, just pointing out that demonstrations of affection and control in a not completely violent way still occur with the younger people.

That reminds me. Back when I was a kid, 8-10ish years old, there were this girl who were a year older than me living a couple of houses down the road. She was dominant as hell, and every single time we played, she'd come up with some reason or other to force me to kiss her. Every goddamn time. At least I built up my immune system against cooties.

OT: We've long had a strong anti-sex attitude in the west. Sex is immoral, dirty, etc. Just bringing up sex in a conversation in a less 'liberal' area makes people uncomfortable. It's ridiculous, and I think it's this social taboo that's the fundamental cause for the double standard against rape in media. Murder is objectively worse, and we're (mostly) fine with that. No amount of mental gymnastics will change that.

I mean, worst case of rape in games as far as I'm aware is RapeLay. You rape the girls. They get traumatized, but they'll live, and possibly cope. In almost any open world game, like Skyrim, Fallout, GTA, whatever... SPONTANEOUS MURDER SPREE! They're now dead. Forever deprived of everything, and their surviving families can do nothing but mourn. But look! I've reanimated their corpses and are making them kill their own families! Haha, that's so funny!

 

[Darken12]

I don't think the question is "why is rape such a bad thing?", but "why are we so casual and flippant about the horrors of war, the thoughtless ending of lives and the visceral agony of the dying?"

While I definitely agree that we shouldn't be censoring video games (or any other art form), I also feel that the death of critical thought is the death of the human spirit itself. Should we ban games like Rapelay? No. Should we shut down critical thought and discourse about those games? Also no.

We should criticise games that glorify and exult in violence, rape, war and murder. We should talk about them. We should speculate and investigate and gather scientific data on why those games are made, what needs are being satisfied by their creation/purchase, who plays them (and why), and what impact they have on many different types of individuals (whether positive or negative). We should discuss these games calmly and rationally. And even if scientific evidence is found that they indeed cause any negative effects (and that's quite a big if), we should treat them the way we treat cigarettes or alcohol, as products that are perfectly legal but fit only for adults and which carry due warnings about their potential effects.

Above all, I believe that we should strive to discuss these issues with calm.

 

[Chris Tian]

Like i stated earlier, the term "rape culture" blows the problem of rape out of proportion compared to other problems our society faces. Dont get me wrong I am not saying rape is not a problem or a little problem, its just not a bigger problem than other violent crimes.

But you're talking in circles here, you previously said you get what rape-culture means, in response to me saying:

A rape culture is simply one in which rape is facilitated, in any small or large way, by the various mechanisms of the culture itself.

And now you're saying that this doesn't apply because we have other problems, similar in severity. What you need to remember is that I'm not arguing from the perspective that 'rape happens, we're a rape culture', but that our culture facilitates rape by its nature. We aren't a bar-fight culture because the majority of depictions of a pub don't include the message that bar-fights are a fundamental dynamic of drinking alcohol. As I said in a post above, genocide, cannibalism and slavery are taught to be unequivocally evil by the media we consume. Django Unchained, whatever else you think of it, was permitted to depict the cruel and painful deaths of scores of people because they were slavers. We, as a culture, hold it as undeniable that these crimes are unforgivable and totally wrong, and rejoiced to see them die. If you think Django was a terrible example, see basically any action film for the same thing. Rambo, anyone? They're evil, kill 'em all.

We might well be called a murder-culture, as you say (you can be both), given how much our media loves to portray it done for righteous reasons. But as I said earlier in this thread, when I posted accidentally as Labyrinth, murder and rape are differentiated by the fact that rape is never justified in and of itself (you can play thought experiments about truckloads of babies dying if you don't rape someone, but that's so juvenile it's not funny, that's selecting for utility and mitigation, not justification).

And yeah, we *are* a racist culture, why else is this such a common disparity?

Calling us a rape-culture doesn't preclude us from being other things. We're also a musical culture, an honor-culture, a family-culture and a whole bunch of positive things too. Those things are reinforced by our media, our narratives and our expectations. It's just who we are. I'm just saying that our gender-biases, as equally automatic as our love of music, contribute to instances of sexual assault. Our culture enables, to some degree, rape. That's all rape-culture means, and I think I've demonstrated that this occurs. That's what me talking about gender depictions and media tropes was all about.

Well its a bit hard to argue an article who doesn't really quote anything specific and is clearly intended to shock people (not by you by the author) and has very little scientific value.

Just to weigh in here, what's not scientific about it? They had controls, multiple variations on each experiment and they declared only what the data indicates pretty clearly; readers of lad's mags have trouble telling the difference between rapists and their chosen magazine. How is that done for shock value? How is that unscientific? Here's a link to an article that contains some of the quotes used, for further reference. I admit I would like to see the data directly myself, but unless you think they're outright lying the results presented are not an unreasonable conclusion.

I think the thing is we dont really argue the term itself but how its applied. You would call it rape culture and racist culture and a murder culture too, for me a term like that indicates rape/racism/murder is a disproportionally big problem.

Saying our society facilitates rape because of some gender roles/inequalitys is a bit like saying it facilitates murder because i can go buy a knife and even learn how to use it in combat.

You could probably argue the later is true, and I would argue its hyperbole.

To come back to the intial topic, since we are, like you say, a murder culture and a rape culture, the term is meaningless in a rape compared to violance discussion. And since we are all those things the term means nothing at all to me, and I think I'm not alone there because you only read that on some corners in the internet. At least I never encountert that term in RL.

As for the study, I think comparing some quotes out of context means nothing, shows nothing, thats a bit like saying: "Every murderer drinks water." Both rapists and the readers of the magazine are horny males that want sex, sure there will be similar quotes regarding that topic. Its like asking a assassin and a car salesmen what they want to do with their next paycheck, most likely there will me similaritys, but those say nothing about how both guys make their money.

 

[Ultrajoe]

I think the thing is we dont really argue the term itself but how its applied. You would call it rape culture and racist culture and a murder culture too, for me a term like that indicates rape/racism/murder is a disproportionally big problem.

But in doing so you're redefining the term, unjustly, so you can dismiss it. Rape culture just means that our society facilitates rape, that's what it means, you can't change the meaning of the term and then brush it off under those definitions. That's a textbook logical fallacy. you *do*, however, challenge my assertion that we meet the criterion for being a rape culture with your next comment:

Saying our society facilitates rape because of some gender roles/inequalitys is a bit like saying it facilitates murder because i can go buy a knife and even learn how to use it in combat.

You could probably argue the later is true, and I would argue its hyperbole.

Well no I wouldn't argue that, because not only is it hyperbole it is also entirely wrong. The comparison doesn't exist, you aren't offering a fair equivalent to our social attitudes towards sex for murder, which is baffling because you've provided them earlier in our discussion. We don't facilitate rape because it's possible and you can physically do it, we facilitate it by depicting sexual exploitation and the coercion of sex as natural and desirable. I feel like a broken record, but it really is the same point as I've been trying to make all this time; our culture is flawed and it directly or indirectly leads to more sexual assault than there would be if we weren't this way. That's why it's a problem.

To come back to the intial topic, since we are, like you say, a murder culture and a rape culture, the term is meaningless in a rape compared to violance discussion. And since we are all those things the term means nothing at all to me, and I think I'm not alone there because you only read that on some corners in the internet. At least I never encountert that term in RL.

I agree we have gotten off topic, I did not bring the term up initially but disliked the way it was being dismissed incorrectly in the discussion. But, just for clarity, is the second part of this section really implying that because most people don't care it doesn't matter?

As for the study, I think comparing some quotes out of context means nothing, shows nothing, thats a bit like saying: "Every murderer drinks water." Both rapists and the readers of the magazine are horny males that want sex, sure there will be similar quotes regarding that topic. Its like asking a assassin and a car salesmen what they want to do with their next paycheck, most likely there will me similaritys, but those say nothing about how both guys make their money.

Another logical fallacy. Here's the quotes we have access to:

Spoiler: Rapist or Men's Magazine?

1. There's a certain way you can tell that a girl wants to have sex . . . The way they dress, they flaunt themselves.

2. Some girls walk around in short-shorts . . . showing their body off . . . It just starts a man thinking that if he gets something like that, what can he do with it?

3. A girl may like anal sex because it makes her feel incredibly naughty and she likes feeling like a dirty slut. If this is the case, you can try all sorts of humiliating acts to help live out her filthy fantasy.

4. Mascara running down the cheeks means they've just been crying, and it was probably your fault . . . but you can cheer up the miserable beauty with a bit of the old in and out.

5. What burns me up sometimes about girls is dick-teasers. They lead a man on and then shut him off right there.

6. Filthy talk can be such a turn on for a girl . . . no one wants to be shagged by a mouse . . . A few compliments won't do any harm either . . . ?I bet you want it from behind you dirty whore' . . .

7. You know girls in general are all right. But some of them are bitches . . . The bitches are the type that . . . need to have it stuffed to them hard and heavy.

8. Escorts . . . they know exactly how to turn a man on. I've given up on girlfriends. They don't know how to satisfy me, but escorts do.

9. You'll find most girls will be reluctant about going to bed with somebody or crawling in the back seat of a car . . . But you can usually seduce them, and they'll do it willingly.

10. There's nothing quite like a woman standing in the dock accused of murder in a sex game gone wrong . . . The possibility of murder does bring a certain frisson to the bedroom.

11. Girls ask for it by wearing these mini-skirts and hotpants . . . they're just displaying their body . . . Whether they realise it or not they're saying, ?Hey, I've got a beautiful body, and it's yours if you want it.'

12. You do not want to be caught red-handed . . . go and smash her on a park bench. That used to be my trick.

13. Some women are domineering, but I think it's more or less the man who should put his foot down. The man is supposed to be the man. If he acts the man, the woman won't be domineering.

14. I think if a law is passed, there should be a dress code . . . When girls dress in those short skirts and things like that, they're just asking for it.

15. Girls love being tied up . . . it gives them the chance to be the helpless victim.

16. I think girls are like plasticine, if you warm them up you can do anything you want with them.

Young men couldn't tell which of these were said by a rapist, and which were said by a publication that they read as a form of sexual advice. Yeah, the assassin and the car salesman both buy milk. We can deduce from that that they both enjoy milk. Both the magazine writers and the rapists agree that abusive, exploitative, sexist and aggressive behavior towards women is an acceptable way to go about your sexual life. You don't see a problem with that? You say 'sure there will be similar quotes regarding the topic', but read the damn quotes,

'You know girls in general are all right. But some of them are bitches . . . The bitches are the type that . . . need to have it stuffed to them hard and heavy.'

That's one that explicitly says women he dislikes need to be violently fucked (and given he's a rapist (revealed in the source article), that would probably imply that he didn't care much for what she wanted). And magazine readers couldn't determine this from something they would read daily. And you honestly think that's the same as comparing a shopping list from an assassin and a car salesman. Really? And do you honestly think that doesn't imply that those young men, at least, had a fucked up view of relationships? Yeah, both they and the rapists wanted to get laid, and they were indistinguishable in their efforts to do so. You do know what a rapists efforts to get sex are, right?

It would be more apt to see if car buyers could tell the difference between advertisements for cars and murders. And if they can't, then that *does* say something valid about the way we think about hired killers and a new 4x4.

 

[bz316]

The main difference is the issue of purpose. Killing and violence, while deplorable, can be used in defense or to achieve a greater goal. Rape has no purpose except to abuse and demean another human being for your own twisted pleasure. One can kill or harm in self-defense or for a cause. The same cannot be said of sexual assault.

 

[Smeatza]

Really? So is this class just full of rapists or is there maybe something wrong with the way we teach children about consent? http://accidentaldevotional.com/2013/03/19/the-day-i-taught-how-not-to-rape/

A room full of inexperienced people is not the same as a room full of potential rapists, you are sensationalising.
Would you call a room full of medical students a room full of potential murderers?
I wonder if the answers would be any different if the question asked was ?Is it morally sound to force somebody to do something they don?t want to do??
I doubt that account is completely accurate as well.
"Something wrong with the way we teach children about consent" -spot on. This falls under the woefully inept and inadequate sex education provided to children today.

Why do so many rapists defend themselves with the idea that what they did could happen to anyone, that everyone does it and that it's normal?

Maybe because they aren't telling the truth. Certainly not about western developed society.
Do we actually have any statistics to support the idea that all or even most rapists claim this? not that I doubt it, just that I?m interested.

That's either the most uniform pathology in the world or they're just fucked up people who didn't know any better. What's wrong with telling them straight up what's right and wrong? Why is this idea offensive?

Perhaps I?ve done a poor job of explaining myself.
I'm not saying the idea is offensive, the idea that the current status quo is the product of inequality is silly.
We shouldn't have to tell people rape is wrong in developed western society. We should be comfortable enough with sex, sexual subjects and discussing them with our children, for them to connect what they know about assault, and what they should know about consent, and reach the natural conclusion that rape is wrong.
On the other hand, rape as a sexual deviancy will exist as long as mental illness exists. It will always (for the foreseeable future at least) be justifiable to tell young girls about the dangers of going out alone .

 

[Gorrath]

Whether one thinks we live in a rape culture or a murder culture, or whether one thinks that rape can never be justified (it can't, and neither can torture), there seems to be an element missing from this discussion. What difference does it make whether something is justifiable in real life? These are games built for the purpose of entertainment and exploration of themes. Whether an act in a game is justifiable in real life has absolutely no bearing on fantasy in any way, shape or form.

One might claim that having the PC callously rape another being in a game is only something perverts would want. Again, so what? I could just as easily argue that having the PC callously drive over a prostitute or shoot a nun in the head for the fun of it is only something perverts would want. It does not matter if rape and murder aren't the same. You might think such portrayals of rape are sick, tasteless, and pointless. So what? If you don't like the content, don't buy it.

Rape in a game might be handled for narrative purposes or simply for fetishists to get their jollies. NO matter what the reason or how classless the depiction, no one is forcing anyone to consume the content. The minute we accept arguments like "Rape is just too taboo" we open up a floodgate of self-appointed moral authorities clamoring to decide what should and should not be included in video games. Or if you make the argument "Rape can be depicted but not as a game mechanic" you end up in the same boat. It doesn't matter if you think rape is worse than murder for fun because there is certainly someone else who thinks the murder is just as bad.

I'm not even making a slippery slope argument here. It's simply a case of either we accept censorship in the medium or we don't. I find censorship to be far worse than any fictional portrayal of anything. I personally have no interest in a game about a person who commits rape. I also have no interest in Manhunt, but neither would I take the position that either game shouldn't exist. Rape is in fact not the same as murder, but censorship is censorship no matter how you cut it.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Like i stated earlier, the term "rape culture" blows the problem of rape out of proportion compared to other problems our society faces. Dont get me wrong I am not saying rape is not a problem or a little problem, its just not a bigger problem than other violent crimes.

But you're talking in circles here, you previously said you get what rape-culture means, in response to me saying:

A rape culture is simply one in which rape is facilitated, in any small or large way, by the various mechanisms of the culture itself.

And now you're saying that this doesn't apply because we have other problems, similar in severity. What you need to remember is that I'm not arguing from the perspective that 'rape happens, we're a rape culture', but that our culture facilitates rape by its nature. We aren't a bar-fight culture because the majority of depictions of a pub don't include the message that bar-fights are a fundamental dynamic of drinking alcohol. As I said in a post above, genocide, cannibalism and slavery are taught to be unequivocally evil by the media we consume. Django Unchained, whatever else you think of it, was permitted to depict the cruel and painful deaths of scores of people because they were slavers. We, as a culture, hold it as undeniable that these crimes are unforgivable and totally wrong, and rejoiced to see them die. If you think Django was a terrible example, see basically any action film for the same thing. Rambo, anyone? They're evil, kill 'em all.

We might well be called a murder-culture, as you say (you can be both), given how much our media loves to portray it done for righteous reasons. But as I said earlier in this thread, when I posted accidentally as Labyrinth, murder and rape are differentiated by the fact that rape is never justified in and of itself (you can play thought experiments about truckloads of babies dying if you don't rape someone, but that's so juvenile it's not funny, that's selecting for utility and mitigation, not justification).

And yeah, we *are* a racist culture, why else is this such a common disparity?

Calling us a rape-culture doesn't preclude us from being other things. We're also a musical culture, an honor-culture, a family-culture and a whole bunch of positive things too. Those things are reinforced by our media, our narratives and our expectations. It's just who we are. I'm just saying that our gender-biases, as equally automatic as our love of music, contribute to instances of sexual assault. Our culture enables, to some degree, rape. That's all rape-culture means, and I think I've demonstrated that this occurs. That's what me talking about gender depictions and media tropes was all about.

Well its a bit hard to argue an article who doesn't really quote anything specific and is clearly intended to shock people (not by you by the author) and has very little scientific value.

Just to weigh in here, what's not scientific about it? They had controls, multiple variations on each experiment and they declared only what the data indicates pretty clearly; readers of lad's mags have trouble telling the difference between rapists and their chosen magazine. How is that done for shock value? How is that unscientific? Here's a link to an article that contains some of the quotes used, for further reference. I admit I would like to see the data directly myself, but unless you think they're outright lying the results presented are not an unreasonable conclusion.

A few things.

For starters, this U of Surrey is extraordinarily dubious on multiple accounts. I read through the quotes used, and only 2 of them actually say anything about forcing a woman to do something against her will (11, 13), and these quotes themselves are somewhat dubious. You can argue that #7 does, but anytime a quote has multiple '...' smack in the middle of it, I take it with an enormous grain of salt. Likewise, I can almost guarantee that you could produce similar results by talking to convicted murderers about how they killed people and then having gamers talk about kills they made and get similar results with asking people "which came from gamers and which came from convicted murderers?" Does that prove that we live in a murder culture? I guess you could argue we do.

The "What would you do?" portion is the result of statistics, not racism or sexism. Blacks commit a disproportionately larger amount of petty theft than whites do in the US. That's not a racist statement, it's fact, and any Law Enforcement professional will back it up (I would provide the FBI crime database link, but it seems down right now). Likewise, men commit FAR more petty theft than women do, so it makes sense that people will be more suspect when a guy is attempting to break a lock than when a woman is. The fact that she was hot adds a whole other dimension with the "beauty=good" aspect, but that's a discussion for another day.

EDIT: I mean, who do you assume is the agressor when you hear the word 'rape'? If you don't automatically assume a gender, then I salute you, but most people assume that it was a man committing the crime, which itself is telling.

Yes, it's telling that they are intelligent people making a justified assumption. 99% of rapes in the US are committed by men (that's against both men and women). Again, statistics.

Look, if you want to declare that we live in a "rape culture" that's fine, but the whole idea of "we shouldn't teach women how to avoid rape, we should teach men not to rape" is a complete cop out. By that logic, I could say "we shouldn't teach people not to leave their keys in their car, we should teach people not to steal cars". If it were that incredibly simple, crime (and not just rape) would have been eliminated years ago. We should, of course, do what we can to teach people that rape, theft, murder, assault, etc. are terrible and should not be done, but the notion that there's something wrong with having people exercise reasonable judgment in order to avoid becoming victims of crimes is ludicrous. Crime will never go away 100%, and proclaiming that asking people to take steps to avoid becoming the victims of crime is somehow "victim-blaming" or contributing to "_________ culture" does no one any favors.

 

[Ultrajoe]

Maybe because they aren't telling the truth. Certainly not about western developed society.
Do we actually have any statistics to support the idea that all or even most rapists claim this? not that I doubt it, just that I?m interested.

...

On the other hand, rape as a sexual deviancy will exist as long as mental illness exists.

https://www.d.umn.edu/~bmork/2306/readings/scullyandmarollis.htm

Have a gander at this, the first two paragraphs are particularly important regarding the second part of your post I have quoted.

For anyone who can't be bothered to click the link, here's the relevant excerpt (although all of it is relevant)

"Rape is viewed as an individualistic, idiosyncratic symptom of a disordered personality. That is, rape is assumed to be a psychopathologic problem and individual rapists are assumed to be "sick." However, advocates of this model have been unable to isolate a typical or even predictable pattern of symptoms that are causally linked to rape. Additionally, research has demonstrated that fewer than 5 percent of rapists were psychotic at the time of their rape (Abel et al., 1980).

We view rape as behavior learned socially through interaction with others; convicted rapists have learned the attitudes and actions consistent with sexual aggression against women. Learning also includes the acquisition of culturally derived vocabularies of motive, which can be used to diminish responsibility and to negotiate a non-deviant identity."
- CONVICTED RAPIST'S VOCABULARY OF MOTIVE: EXCUSES AND JUSTIFICATIONS, Diana Scully and Joseph Marolla

 

[Ultrajoe]

Look, if you want to declare that we live in a "rape culture" that's fine, but the whole idea of "we shouldn't teach women how to avoid rape, we should teach men not to rape" is a complete cop out. By that logic, I could say "we shouldn't teach people not to leave their keys in their car, we should teach people not to steal cars". If it were that incredibly simple, crime (and not just rape) would have been eliminated years ago. We should, of course, do what we can to teach people that rape, theft, murder, assault, etc. are terrible and should not be done, but the notion that there's something wrong with having people exercise reasonable judgment in order to avoid becoming victims of crimes is ludicrous. Crime will never go away 100%, and proclaiming that asking people to take steps to avoid becoming the victims of crime is somehow "victim-blaming" or contributing to "_________ culture" does no one any favors.

I actually agree with most of what you've said, statistically validated stereotypes are evidence of both societal inequality and that precautions are important. Unless you believe that the reason black people are the major source of petty theft is that blacks are inherently kleptomaniac, in which case I would direct you to some entry-level sociology regarding povery/crime cycles. Here's the thing, though;

- We teach people not to leave their keys in the car, but we also teach people not to steal cars.
- We teach women not to get raped... but there is no equivalent education for men instructing them not to rape. There is almost no consent-based content in sex ed curricular. Seriously. That's why its fucked, and that's why I bring it up. You're right, it might never be safe for a women to go out at night, and there should always be considerations of safety... but let's teach the boys not to steal the car too, right? Even if it doesn't work, it'd be a start.

For starters, this U of Surrey is extraordinarily dubious on multiple accounts. I read through the quotes used, and only 2 of them actually say anything about forcing a woman to do something against her will (11, 13), and these quotes themselves are somewhat dubious. You can argue that #7 does, but anytime a quote has multiple '...' smack in the middle of it, I take it with an enormous grain of salt. Likewise, I can almost guarantee that you could produce similar results by talking to convicted murderers about how they killed people and then having gamers talk about kills they made and get similar results with asking people "which came from gamers and which came from convicted murderers?" Does that prove that we live in a murder culture? I guess you could argue we do.

1) I would argue that we live in a violence/murder culture. As I have said, you can be both. We're also a music-culture and a bunch of other fun stuff, it's just a statement of societal internalization.

2) The elipses are irrelevant, those are the quotes as they were presented, and they were unable to distinguish them. Even with what we are given, unless you assume that Usurrey are lying the facts as presented show that in a controled, mis-attributed and randomized environment, young men couldn't tell apart convicted rapists and their lad's mags. Could the argument be made that the quotes were cherry picked, and that lads mags were disproportionately punished by the selection? Yes, definitely. But go pick one up and have a read, I think you'll find that the researchers wouldn't have had to look all too hard to pick those examples. Furthermore, while only a few directly insinuated rape, every quote given there is sexually exploitative or dismissive of consent.

Yes, it's telling that they are intelligent people making a justified assumption. 99% of rapes in the US are committed by men (that's against both men and women). Again, statistics.

Yes, and the statistics indicate a horrible reality. The assumption is justified, and it's justified because of a disturbing gender-bias concerning sexual violence. I'm not sure what we disagree on here.

 

[Gorrath]

Maybe because they aren't telling the truth. Certainly not about western developed society.
Do we actually have any statistics to support the idea that all or even most rapists claim this? not that I doubt it, just that I?m interested.

...

On the other hand, rape as a sexual deviancy will exist as long as mental illness exists.

https://www.d.umn.edu/~bmork/2306/readings/scullyandmarollis.htm

Have a gander at this, the first two paragraphs are particularly important regarding the second part of your post I have quoted.

For anyone who can't be bothered to click the link, here's the relevant excerpt (although all of it is relevant)

"Rape is viewed as an individualistic, idiosyncratic symptom of a disordered personality. That is, rape is assumed to be a psychopathologic problem and individual rapists are assumed to be "sick." However, advocates of this model have been unable to isolate a typical or even predictable pattern of symptoms that are causally linked to rape. Additionally, research has demonstrated that fewer than 5 percent of rapists were psychotic at the time of their rape (Abel et al., 1980).

We view rape as behavior learned socially through interaction with others; convicted rapists have learned the attitudes and actions consistent with sexual aggression against women. Learning also includes the acquisition of culturally derived vocabularies of motive, which can be used to diminish responsibility and to negotiate a non-deviant identity."
- CONVICTED RAPIST'S VOCABULARY OF MOTIVE: EXCUSES AND JUSTIFICATIONS, Diana Scully and Joseph Marolla

I'll have to read through it, but that could be because rape has such a broad blanket of different acts that it covers. The act of forcibly penetrating someone at gun-point is usually kept in these statistics along with things like "18 year old had consensual sex with his 16 year old girlfriend." The first example could be viewed as 'sick' while the second does not require any kind of psychosis on the part of the 18 year old.

What's more, there gets to be very sticky and unclear rules when alcohol gets involved. If a guy is using alcohol to ply a victim, he might be viewed as 'sick' while another guy who's getting drunk right along with a woman and they end up having intercourse back at her place, things often become less clear. That is not to say that a man is correct in assuming that just because he gets invited back that she's consenting to sex, but how and when consent is given between two people drunk off their behinds is not always a clear issue. It is wholly possible for someone to commit rape without even intending to.

Edit: I wanted to add that the '99% of rapes are committed by men' statistic is actually incorrect if you use a definition of rape that isn't reliant just on penetration. If you expand the definition to include other sexual acts and use the same principles about intoxication and such, I believe I've read that it's something like 55% male/45% female perpetrators.

 

[petrolmonkey]

The difference is that nobody's ever RAPED anyone in self-defense.

I mean how could it even work? Someone pulls a gun at you, you dive bomb for their crotch in the hopes of giving them a blow job so they don't kill you but out of shock they shoot you in the leg.

Robber: What the fuck, man?
You: I was gonna suck you off in exchange for my life!
Robber: I didn't want to shoot you, just wanted your wallet!
You: Well fuck all now!
Robber: What the hell can of plan was that anyway? You think if I was set on killing you the only thing that would make me change my mind would be an inexperinced blow job from you?
You: I really didn't think this through.
Robber: Clearly. You'd be under stressed, so it would of been lousy.

Honestly, first thing that popped into my head was something you'd see in a SAW movie.

"Fk the girl and I'll let you live." Or something like that.

Se7en. You are thinking of the film Se7en.

 

[Ultrajoe]

It is wholly possible for someone to commit rape without even intending to

I disagree emphatically. Try this; Only have sex with someone when you have received an unambiguous, clear YES from that person in a setting and environment where they are comfortable and completely lucid. And, here's the important thing, only when you trust that person to be honest when answering your proposition. It's an extremely robust ethos.

Don't fuck while drunk, like you wouldn't drive. Don't fuck someone who is drunk, like you wouldn't let them drive you home. Why? So you can't 'accidentally rape'. Make responsible decisions about your sex life, like your driving, and make sure you only screw people who take an equally responsible attitude towards sex. That way you can't be caught in a situation where you hurt somebody, or be hurt yourself.

The idea that 'It could happen to anyone' is insulting . No, it couldn't, because I'm not a rapist and I give a damn where my dick ends up, and that the people who it interacts with want it to.

 

[Ultrajoe]

I'll have to read through it, but that could be because rape has such a broad blanket of different acts that it covers. The act of forcibly penetrating someone at gun-point is usually kept in these statistics along with things like "18 year old had consensual sex with his 16 year old girlfriend." The first example could be viewed as 'sick' while the second does not require any kind of psychosis on the part of the 18 year old.

I'll go ahead and clear this up to save you the searching;

"From September, 1980, through September, 198 1, we interviewed 1 14 male convicted rapists who were incarcerated in seven maximum or medium security prisons in the Commonwealth of Virginia. All of the rapists had been convicted of the rape or attempted rape (n = 8) of an adult woman, although a few had teenage victims as well. Men convicted of incest, statutory rape, or sodomy of a male were omitted from the sample.

Twelve percent of the rapists had been convicted of more than one rape or attempted rape, 39 percent also had convictions for burglary or robbery, 29 percent for abduction, 25 percent for sodomy, and 11 percent for first or second degree murder. Eighty-two percent had a previous criminal history but only 23 percent had records for previous sex offenses. Their sentences for rape and accompanying crimes ranged from 10 years to an accumulation by one man of seven life sentences plus 380 years; 43 percent of the rapists were serving from 10 to 30 years and 22 percent were serving at least one life term. Forty-six percent of the ' rapists were white and 54 percent were black ' Their ages ranged from 18 to 60 years; 88 percent were between 18 and 35 years. Forty-two percent were either married or cohabitting at the time of their offense. Only 20 percent had a high school education or better, and 85 percent came from working-class backgrounds. Despite the popular belief that rape is due to a personality disorder, only 26 percent of these rapists had any history of emotional problems. When the rapists in this study were compared to a statistical profile of felons in all Virginia prisons, prepared by the Virginia Department of Corrections, rapists who volunteered for this research were disproportionately white, somewhat better educated, and younger than the average inmate."

 

[Ihateregistering1]

- We teach women not to get raped... but there is no equivalent education for men instructing them not to rape. There is almost no consent-based content in sex ed curricular. Seriously. That's why its fucked, and that's why I bring it up. You're right, it might never be safe for a women to go out at night, and there should always be considerations of safety... but let's teach the boys not to steal the car too, right? Even if it doesn't work, it'd be a start.

See, you need some sort of evidence of this, you cannot simply declare it. I obviously can't speak for everyone, but I can absolutely say that my parents, my sex ed curriculum, my peers, and society taught me that "no means no" and that having sex with a woman who cannot give consent is wrong, and I've yet to meet anyone who believes otherwise who isn't already a sociopath or criminal (obviously an extremely tiny minority) and I've lived all over the country, so this notion of there being this incredible epidemic of guys who think rape is ok seems like a huge stretch to me. I'm sure you can find random internet postings of guys trying to justify such behavior, but I need some hard data in that particular regard.

2) The elipses are irrelevant, those are the quotes as they were presented, and they were unable to distinguish them. Even with what we are given, unless you assume that Usurrey are lying the facts as presented show that in a controled, mis-attributed and randomized environment, young men couldn't tell apart convicted rapists and their lad's mags. Could the argument be made that the quotes were cherry picked, and that lads mags were disproportionately punished by the selection? Yes, definitely. But go pick one up and have a read, I think you'll find that the researchers wouldn't have had to look all too hard to pick those examples. Furthermore, while only a few directly insinuated rape, every quote given there is sexually exploitative or dismissive of consent.

Several things.
1: For starters, the test was given to both men and women, and neither could distinguish.
2: No, only 3 quotes are dismissive of consent, and all 3 came from rapists, not "lad's mags" (love that name, BTW).
3: The U of Surrey test fails because they do not show which quotes in particular people got consistently right or wrong. As I pointed out, only 3 quotes are actually dismissive of consent (in other words, actually meet the definition of rape), and thus if the vast majority of people correctly associated those quotes with rapists (but may have gotten many of the others wrong) it pretty much sinks the entire thesis of the Surrey study.
4: 'Sexually exploitative' is extremely vague. I could say that you're being sexually exploitative by saying "women are horny, horny fucks". A men's mag saying something such as: "A girl may like anal sex because it makes her feel incredibly naughty and she likes feeling like a dirty slut. If this is the case, you can try all sorts of humiliating acts to help live out her filthy fantasy." is not exploitative. Why? Because some women do like anal sex for those reasons (trust me, I've known them). Now, if it had "all women really want anal sex so give it to them" then ok, I could see your point.

 

[Gorrath]

It is wholly possible for someone to commit rape without even intending to

I disagree emphatically. Try this; Only have sex with someone when you have received an unambiguous, clear YES from that person in a setting and environment where they are comfortable and completely lucid. And, here's the important thing, only when you trust that person to be honest when answering your proposition. It's an extremely robust ethos.

Don't fuck while drunk, like you wouldn't drive. Don't fuck someone who is drunk, like you wouldn't let them drive you home. Why? So you can't 'accidentally rape'. Make responsible decisions about your sex life, like your driving, and make sure you only screw people who take an equally responsible attitude towards sex. That way you can't be caught in a situation where you hurt somebody, or be hurt yourself.

The idea that 'It could happen to anyone' is insulting . No, it couldn't, because I'm not a rapist and I give a damn where my dick ends up, and that the people who it interacts with want it to.

Well, firstly please don't put words in my mouth. I did not say 'it could happen to anyone' I said 'someone can commit rape without intending to'. Those two statements are not at all the same. While adhering to the standards you set forth would eliminate the possibility of rape without intention, people often do not. An individual can very well think they have received consent when they have not, in which case they can, in fact, commit rape without intending to. You can disagree with that having ever happened, but I think it's pretty easy to see various scenarios of just exactly how that could happen. This doesn't make what happened okay either. You can commit murder without intending to and it's still wrong (we usually call this manslaughter). I am simply illustrating that rape can have varying factors that may or may not lead to the conclusion that someone was 'psychotic' when they committed the act. Someone having sex while drunk in a way that their partner didn't clearly communicate was okay is still rape, but does not require the rapist to be psychotic.

 

[Chris Tian]

But in doing so you're redefining the term, unjustly, so you can dismiss it. Rape culture just means that our society facilitates rape, that's what it means,

So I looked the term up, in my native language I might add, and the definition is as follows:

Rape Culture is a form of society in which rape or sexual assault is mostly tolerated (not a direct quote but as close as I can translate).

So dont try to tell me I am redefining the term, while I just said it implicates certain things. While your own definiton is far more off.

we facilitate it by depicting sexual exploitation and the coercion of sex as natural and desirable. I feel like a broken record, but it really is the same point as I've been trying to make all this time; our culture is flawed and it directly or indirectly leads to more sexual assault than there would be if we weren't this way. That's why it's a problem.

I would say the bold statement is just untrue. How is exploiting women for sex socially desirable, outside of a few juvenile male groups? I'm a bit unclear how you would define "the coercion of sex", but if you mean finding someone who wants to have sex with you, yeah thats pretty natural and desirable, but even that only to an certain extend. In my experience people who sleep around alot get judged, how much is depending on the social circles.

Even if we assume our society encourages men to "conquer" women. I dont really get how you jump from: "Men have to be the more active part in most romantic/sexual encounters, within our society" to: "Our society encourages men to get sex by any means necessary."

Especially since the first one is not a cultural thing but a biological one: Male presents itself, thus making the first step. Then trying to impress the female, however they do that: by being charming, showing of money, or having colourfull feathers. And the female has more of a choosing role. Thats basically in every species the same way.

In conclusion I think your assumption that our society facilitates rape by how a desirable "sexual conquest" for a man is depicted, is far fetched and a theory at best.

To come back to the intial topic, since we are, like you say, a murder culture and a rape culture, the term is meaningless in a rape compared to violance discussion. And since we are all those things the term means nothing at all to me, and I think I'm not alone there because you only read that on some corners in the internet. At least I never encountert that term in RL.

I agree we have gotten off topic, I did not bring the term up initially but disliked the way it was being dismissed incorrectly in the discussion. But, just for clarity, is the second part of this section really implying that because most people don't care it doesn't matter?

No "rape culture" doesn't matter to me because its not really a thing, at least not by the definitions I could find, and where I live (Germany that is).

Another logical fallacy. Here's the quotes we have access to:

Spoiler: Rapist or Men's Magazine?

1. There's a certain way you can tell that a girl wants to have sex . . . The way they dress, they flaunt themselves.

2. Some girls walk around in short-shorts . . . showing their body off . . . It just starts a man thinking that if he gets something like that, what can he do with it?

3. A girl may like anal sex because it makes her feel incredibly naughty and she likes feeling like a dirty slut. If this is the case, you can try all sorts of humiliating acts to help live out her filthy fantasy.

4. Mascara running down the cheeks means they've just been crying, and it was probably your fault . . . but you can cheer up the miserable beauty with a bit of the old in and out.

5. What burns me up sometimes about girls is dick-teasers. They lead a man on and then shut him off right there.

6. Filthy talk can be such a turn on for a girl . . . no one wants to be shagged by a mouse . . . A few compliments won't do any harm either . . . ?I bet you want it from behind you dirty whore' . . .

7. You know girls in general are all right. But some of them are bitches . . . The bitches are the type that . . . need to have it stuffed to them hard and heavy.

8. Escorts . . . they know exactly how to turn a man on. I've given up on girlfriends. They don't know how to satisfy me, but escorts do.

9. You'll find most girls will be reluctant about going to bed with somebody or crawling in the back seat of a car . . . But you can usually seduce them, and they'll do it willingly.

10. There's nothing quite like a woman standing in the dock accused of murder in a sex game gone wrong . . . The possibility of murder does bring a certain frisson to the bedroom.

11. Girls ask for it by wearing these mini-skirts and hotpants . . . they're just displaying their body . . . Whether they realise it or not they're saying, ?Hey, I've got a beautiful body, and it's yours if you want it.'

12. You do not want to be caught red-handed . . . go and smash her on a park bench. That used to be my trick.

13. Some women are domineering, but I think it's more or less the man who should put his foot down. The man is supposed to be the man. If he acts the man, the woman won't be domineering.

14. I think if a law is passed, there should be a dress code . . . When girls dress in those short skirts and things like that, they're just asking for it.

15. Girls love being tied up . . . it gives them the chance to be the helpless victim.

16. I think girls are like plasticine, if you warm them up you can do anything you want with them.

Young men couldn't tell which of these were said by a rapist, and which were said by a publication that they read as a form of sexual advice. Yeah, the assassin and the car salesman both buy milk. We can deduce from that that they both enjoy milk. Both the magazine writers and the rapists agree that abusive, exploitative, sexist and aggressive behavior towards women is an acceptable way to go about your sexual life. You don't see a problem with that? You say 'sure there will be similar quotes regarding the topic', but read the damn quotes,

'You know girls in general are all right. But some of them are bitches . . . The bitches are the type that . . . need to have it stuffed to them hard and heavy.'

That's one that explicitly says women he dislikes need to be violently fucked (and given he's a rapist (revealed in the source article), that would probably imply that he didn't care much for what she wanted). And magazine readers couldn't determine this from something they would read daily. And you honestly think that's the same as comparing a shopping list from an assassin and a car salesman. Really? And do you honestly think that doesn't imply that those young men, at least, had a fucked up view of relationships? Yeah, both they and the rapists wanted to get laid, and they were indistinguishable in their efforts to do so. You do know what a rapists efforts to get sex are, right?

It would be more apt to see if car buyers could tell the difference between advertisements for cars and murders. And if they can't, then that *does* say something valid about the way we think about hired killers and a new 4x4.

"logical fallacy" Sure you know what that means? Because it does not mean "You dont agree with me and thus your arguments are illogical".

Of course my example with the salesmen was hyperbole, my point is certain people share certain core mindsets even if they are very different in other regards.

Some groups of juvenile men tend to have fucked up views about women and sex, no shocker here, some rapists tend to have fucked up views about women and sex, again no shocker.

My initial point is that such a study has no scientific value. That is because finding some vague out of context quotes that share similaritys between to groups says nothing about those groups or a connection between those in a scientific way. You might find the study shocking, but that does not add to its value as a scientific project. The same thing could be done with any two groups you like.

 

[Chris Tian]

A few things.
For starters, this U of Surrey is extraordinarily dubious on multiple accounts. I read through the quotes used, and only 2 of them actually say anything about forcing a woman to do something against her will (11, 13), and these quotes themselves are somewhat dubious. You can argue that #7 does, but anytime a quote has multiple '...' smack in the middle of it, I take it with an enormous grain of salt. Likewise, I can almost guarantee that you could produce similar results by talking to convicted murderers about how they killed people and then having gamers talk about kills they made and get similar results with asking people "which came from gamers and which came from convicted murderers?" Does that prove that we live in a murder culture? I guess you could argue we do.

Thank you that makes my point about that study perfectly. It's just sensationalism and has less in common with actual research than it has rainbow press.

Try this; Only have sex with someone when you have received an unambiguous, clear YES.

Now it gets a bit tricky as to what exactly consent is, because if you only count explicit verbal consent I think you are wrong. I had many situations where I did not formaly declared that I want to have intercourse and gotten a clear verbal consent to that. I mean If she pulles you in and rips you clothes of thats equally okay in my book.

 

[Ultrajoe]

See, you need some sort of evidence of this, you cannot simply declare it. I obviously can't speak for everyone, but I can absolutely say that my parents, my sex ed curriculum, my peers, and society taught me that "no means no" and that having sex with a woman who cannot give consent is wrong, and I've yet to meet anyone who believes otherwise who isn't already a sociopath or criminal (obviously an extremely tiny minority) and I've lived all over the country, so this notion of there being this incredible epidemic of guys who think rape is ok seems like a huge stretch to me. I'm sure you can find random internet postings of guys trying to justify such behavior, but I need some hard data in that particular regard.

I actually have to go to bed, but I will find the study concerning deficient consent education when I awake.

Several things.
1: For starters, the test was given to both men and women, and neither could distinguish.

My mistake, you are correct. The first article I read about the study indicated it was supplied to men only, incorrectly. I don't think it impacts the implications of the study, however; men's mags share a problematic vocabulary with rapists. A broader spectrum of participants only strengthens its validity.

2: No, only 3 quotes are dismissive of consent, and all 3 came from rapists, not "lad's mags" (love that name, BTW).

I contest this. 1 and 2 are textbook examples of somebody interpreting desire or a proposition from a passive action (dressing), and the second literally refers to a woman's body as 'something', with no address to the individual's preference. 3, I admit, is merely a statement of possibility, but I argue its inclusion is valid because of the context; we know it's from a lad's mag. Were it revealed to be from a rapist the implications would be less benign. 4 recommends sex as a substitute for apology, 5 is blatantly entitled to someone else's body, 6 is stating that all women like dirty talk and 7 advocates rape. 8 I admit is benign, even if it indicates some troubling attitudes to women. 9 is like 3, it's valid in its context because we don't know who said it, but given it's actually from a rapist it would be interesting to note what 'willingly' entails. 10 through 13 are all talking about the desirability of a woman in a position of vulnerability (as are many others) and the last three are concerned with women being natural victims.

3: The U of Surrey test fails because they do not show which quotes in particular people got consistently right or wrong. As I pointed out, only 3 quotes are actually dismissive of consent (in other words, actually meet the definition of rape), and thus if the vast majority of people correctly associated those quotes with rapists (but may have gotten many of the others wrong) it pretty much sinks the entire thesis of the Surrey study.

I concede this on its premise, but not its conclusion. We do suffer for not seeing the exact responses. But one of the supplied results is important even without them; When given sources for the quotes, the participants associated with those not attributed to rapists, when mis-attributed and given correctly. This indicates an inability to separate the two sources. In addition, the researchers stated that the results were as effective as pure guesswork, which would imply there was no across-the-board avoidance of particular questions by all involved. I agree though, I can't say this for certain. It's tempting to give them the benefit of the doubt, but that wouldn't be intellectually honest of me, now, would it?

4: 'Sexually exploitative' is extremely vague. I could say that you're being sexually exploitative by saying "women are horny, horny fucks". A men's mag saying something such as: "A girl may like anal sex because it makes her feel incredibly naughty and she likes feeling like a dirty slut. If this is the case, you can try all sorts of humiliating acts to help live out her filthy fantasy." is not exploitative. Why? Because some women do like anal sex for those reasons (trust me, I've known them). Now, if it had sex "all women really want anal sex so give it to them" then ok, I could see your point.

I apologize for my vague statement.