Chris Tian said:
To the point you make. Is that really true? Maybe its not specifically stated to every young boy "Do not rape" but isn't that kind of implied in the very basic core value of most societies that you should not harm others? And in my experience there is far more effort invested in teaching kids not to harm others than in teaching them how not to get raped.
JazzJack2 said:
I am sorry but I don't see this at all, committing rape is seen as breaking the most basic forms of human morality and empathy and when cases of rape come up in the news even the coldest, most sociopathic newspapers like the Daily Mail won't attempt to blame the victim. There is universal hatred towards rapists and rape across all the developed world and people don't take it as trivially as you might suggest.
You are both right, and rape is considered reprehensible in most countries, even those we tend to think of as backwards in regards to sexual liberties still treat unlawful or unrighteous sexual assault as heinous (they just have less situations where it is unlawful or unrighteous). But, while it is implied that rape is problematic the world over, why is it that women are taught specifically and pointedly how to avoid rapists while young men are not taught, directly, not to rape? Our culture is lined with male-as-actor conventions; playing hard to get, women denying sex as a form of punishment and a hundred thousand media conventions that depict a relationship as a man conquering a woman. I mean, the pick up artist community is based entirely on a notion of man-wins-sex and even if they are a thousand times less numerous, charming and/or successful than the cultural understanding would depict them, there's no denying that in most portrayals they do get a lot of action. I don't say this as a list of grievances, but a list of common examples that follow a similar theme; sex is something a man has to coerce, or win, from a woman.
I mean, step back from the rape-culture term and what I said earlier, doesn't our media and library of recurring stories use that idea a lot? The hero gets the girl, as roughly a billion tales go. There are definitely exceptions, many of them recent, but the bulk of our cultural makeup is one in which men get, and think about that word, sex from women. The bride is presented to the groom, not the other way around.
Why am I pointing this out? Because that's not sexual equality. Women are horny, horny fucks. Because they're human, and humans love us some sex. Stories where a man doesn't win sex, but rather wants it and so does a likely partner, are overwhelmed by the kinds of examples I presented above. We're a people for whom sex is a commodity surrendered by women, not an activity both parties get a ton of fun out of.
So, why did I post all of that stuff? Because it relates to a central point; we aren't a society with underlying sexual equality. We're a lot closer than most, and a lost closer than we were 50 years ago, but it's still not there. That's why girls are taught not to walk alone at night, and guys aren't sat down and told not to rape women alone in the dark. Rape is all about power, even if you think everything else I've said is utter horseshit this fact is fairly stone-set. Committed by women or men, in the vast majority of cases, a 'typical' rape (and there's a sadly colossal amount of data to determine that) is about power, about claiming something. While we still think that 'something' is a gendered activity, we're still a rape culture.
Take a look here if you don't think what I've said has relevance.
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.
