What is "Rape Culture"?

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Bowser, Nov 8, 2015.

  1. milkweed Valued Senior Member

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    But they lock their doors when they leave home right? But you dont think of it as Theft Culture do you? A just-in-case culture.
     
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  3. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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  5. milkweed Valued Senior Member

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  7. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Nobody said they were good jokes. Just that they were common, ordinary, culturally normal jokes. The people who tell them are not pariahs, excluded from normal society.

    But you do regard the cultures that threaten you with serious and dangerous theft, that harbor violent and motivated and vandalizing thieves as members in good standing, that feature bragging and boasting about particularly notable robberies, as Theft Cultures or labels to that effect. You have names for them - trailer trash, "inner city", mafia, gangs. In many places Gypsies (hence the term "gyp"),

    And an outside observer does not see your own culture's ordinary conversation and public discourse larded with robbery jokes or featuring discussions about whether a local teenage boy's unauthorized acquisition of his unwilling neighbor's car was a "legitimate theft" (by contrast, your culture's most esteemed political representatives have been observed making rape jokes from the podium, and being re-elected anyway. One needs little imagination to predict the electoral results of a similar "relax and enjoy the ride" joke about a constituent's being carjacked).
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2015
  8. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    My home has been burglarized once, my car stolen once, my car rummaged through twice. I don't consider it a theft culture, but I have good reason to lock my doors (for all the good it would do.)
     
  9. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Truth be known, I've never heard a rape joke, so I might be a bit more sensitive than others. There was one that involved camping and drinking with friends, getting drunk and waking up the next day with Vaseline around your ass. But that was offered as a question and the punch line depended on your answer.
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2015
  10. milkweed Valued Senior Member

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    Exactly. Most of us lock our doors Just-in-case and right, most of us dont consider it a Theft Culture. Its some a$$holes who cant keep their hands off my/your stuff, and for the most part you and I just dont know when one or four of those jerks are gonna be in the neighborhood.

    But we've all watched movies that portray the 'theft culture'. Godfather, Goodfellas, Oceans 11... etc... Most people call it organized crime rather than 'theft culture' and rightly so.

    And thats the difference between the attempt to legitimize the term Rape culture vs actually doing something to change the rape statistics.
     
  11. Secular Sanity Registered Senior Member

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    The article that I linked earlier said that this was causing a serious misallocation of the funds.

    “If verbal coercion constitutes rape, then the word rape itself expands to include any kind of sex a woman experiences as negative.”

    This part reminded me of something that The Marquis said before.

    When did "Baby, it's Cold Outside" become rape?
     
  12. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    you view them as baby factories with no bodily automony they exist only to reproduce..
     
  13. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    um this line
    the over all tone of the song is he is pushing alcohol onto her so that she is to drunk to leave. if you actually listen to the lyrics its actually a very skeevy song. its a lot like REM's "the one i love".
     
  14. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    You have no problem recognizing a theft culture when you see one.

    Likewise for the outsiders, looking at your rape culture.
    I missed the part where "the funds" allocated to community rape programs were diverted instead to feminist-addled university programs. That would be unusual. In my experience, community rape programs go begging for funds because the politically powerful don't live in those communities, and refuse to allocate tax money for them in the first place.

    Uh, what you have just posted is a claim that if verbal threats and intimidations were subtracted there would be no positive experience of sex for women. You sure?

    Do you also remember the answer to that question? Basically, whenever it became an excuse for raping anyone foolish enough to let the perp in where it was warm.
     
  15. Secular Sanity Registered Senior Member

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    And then she says "I wish I knew how to break this spell." It’s was originally recorded for Neptune’s Daughter. It was a comedy skit. See for yourself.

    The neighbors might think
    Say what's in this drink
    I wish I knew how
    to break this spell


    Baby it’s Cold Outside
     
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The question you asked was when it became rape. That question was answered.
     
  17. Secular Sanity Registered Senior Member

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    I didn't ask a question. The Marquis did. You're right, though. I guess it boils down to persuasion vs. coercion. Do you agree with Milton Friedman's definition?

    Persuasion vs. Coercion

    I don't know about sexual coercion, though. They have a few things on their list that I wouldn't think of as rape.
    • Try to normalize their sexual expectations: ex. “I need it, I’m a guy.”
    • React negatively (with sadness, anger or resentment) if you say no or don’t immediately agree to something
    • Give you compliments that sound extreme or insincere as an attempt to get you to agree to something
    • Make you feel like you owe them — ex. Because you’re in a relationship, because you’ve had sex before, because they spent money on you or bought you a gift, because you go home with them.
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2015
  18. milkweed Valued Senior Member

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    1,654
    And a part of the reason for the backlog in rape kit testing. Funding.


    Your linked article was an interesting read and highlights the difficulty in determining what the actual rape/sexual assault numbers are.
     
  19. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    skit not doing anything to alter the preception. not to mention in writing the lyrics to cut out half the lyrics. its a duet. you cut out the male half.

    here is the full block of that part of the song


    The neighbors might think - Baby, it's bad out there
    Say, what's in this drink - No cabs to be had out there
    I wish I knew how - Your eyes are like starlight now
    To break this spell - I'll take your hat, your hair looks swell
    I ought to say no, no, no, sir - Mind if I move a little closer
    At least I'm gonna say that I tried - What's the sense in hurting my pride
    I really can't stay - Baby don't hold out
    Ahh, but it's cold outside


    the full song just comes across as a guy hounding a women until she consents. the song has a decided rapey vibe to it no bones about it. like i said this is not the only song we take in good fun about relationships that a closer look at the lyrics give a much different picture.
     
  20. Secular Sanity Registered Senior Member

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    264
    Did you watch the entire skit? Right after that a woman is hounding a man. Like I said, it's a comedy skit.

    "The song was seen as presenting a liberal stand for women because the guest decides to stay despite what the neighbors might say about her reputation."
    Source
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2015
  21. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    16,479
    why are you try to defend something so rapey?
     
  22. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Two points stand out:

    (1) You keep dodging the point with inaccurate retorts.

    (2) Your standards are entirely unreliable.​


    To consider the present dodge, Iceaura↑ reminded:

    "A rape culture exists whenever the source of the threat of rape is an ordinary and accepted part of the structure of one's society, jokes about rape and other casual references are common, norms of behavior include recognition of the ordinary possibility of being raped by members of the culture which includes those norms, etc.

    As with lynching, "disappearances", etc, it makes no difference whatsoever how many rapes are actually accomplished. Maybe none, maybe just threats and punishments for not taking precautions, and jokes about one's potential victim status."

    Your response↑, that you have "Never heard a good rape joke in my time", is actually irrelevant. Iceaura reminded↑:

    "Nobody said they were good jokes. Just that they were common, ordinary, culturally normal jokes. The people who tell them are not pariahs, excluded from normal society."

    To which you replied↑:

    "Where the heck do you live? If someone were to make such a joke around the company I keep, they would be shunned."

    It's pretty useless, but reflects your entire participation in this thread:

    (1) Inquire about rape culture, claiming to be unfamiliar with the idea.

    (2) Ignore what people tell you in response.

    (3) Deploy chauvinist talking points to denounce rape culture.

    (4) Refuse to take the issue seriously by pretending innocent stupidity so great that if a child did it we would send them to their room in order to prevent them from further denigrating themselves.​

    But it's also true that you point ot one of the problems of rape culture. Your question about Iceaura's community makes the point. If someone were to make such a joke as to horrify the judgment of rape culture advocates, they probably would find themselves shunned, because by the point one offends rape culture advocates with rape jokes, it's a pretty rude donkey punch punch line.

    An example in application: The staff recently had a round trying to figure out what to do about a crude joke. There were, in fact, two crude jokes involved. The first crude joke was a door-hit-ass joke; a traditional version running back to saloon times involves leaving promptly, such that the swinging door does not come back and spank one's ass while they stand there indecisively. There is a doorknob variation that is a slut joke. So what happens if one invokes the slut variation in a manner that defines the slut according to forced anal penetration? Being raped does not make one a slut.

    There are a number of ways to address these issues, and we must always be prepared for the "What rape joke?" response. And we did see a couple variations on that in the discussion, but in the end the question remained: How does one remove forced penetration from a forced penetration joke?

    When we stop and think about the mechanics of the joke, the elements are plainly visible. The problem people have with recognizing the rape joke is generally personal; we're giving up a lot of jokes we used to take for granted. But the thing is that we don't necessarily have to give them all up forever; rather, it's a matter of how to address ourselves and our presentation honestly.

    Seriously, I live in a society where it is not entirely inappropriate to hear Neil Cavuto ask Ben Carson about credibility and biographies and wonder aloud, "Geez, Neil, why don't'cha just blow him next time?" Would I make the same joke about Maria Bartiromo softballing Marco Rubio so badly that even the Florida senator laughed? See, that's the thing; right now I wouldn't. Maybe someday, but right now, no. Part of this is another aspect of rape culture that, in terms of discussing the concept with you, would appear to be a year or so away if we went forward in good faith right now; part of it has to do with the inherent empowerment imbalance of sexual acts. Part of it has to do with the question of slut-shaming. And part of it has to do with the perpetual sexual harassment of women in our society. Functionally speaking, a fellatio implication has tremendously different meaning depending on whether the cocksucker is male or female. And perhaps someday this won't be true, anymore. But that's the thing, in order to get to the place where these jokes really are generally harmless, men have to give up the harm, and for the moment they just don't seem to want to do that.

    Would you shun someone for making an alien anal probe joke?

    As Iceaura explained, nobody said they were good jokes.

    In terms of rape culture, Bowser, think of it this way: The guy who made the joke? The rape implicaiton blew by him; didn't even see it. And that is what it is. He's generally a good person, as far as I can tell, but as I've said before↑, we all play our part. And it's true, we play our parts even when we don't want to. Exorcising rape culture from our praxis is not something we might expect to be easy.

    But if we find ourselves wondering how one excludes forced penetration from a forced penetration joke, well, at that point we're looking at an effect of rape culture. That is to say, if the punch line is that one is a slut because one has been anally raped, and another doesn't see rape about forced anal penetration, then we might take a moment to wonder why.

    Thus, you might be exactly correct in your assessment that, "If someone were to make such a joke around the company I keep, they would be shunned"; the challenge is what qualifies, in your view, as "such a joke". Or, as I have noted before↱:

    If a continuing rape crisis besieging the women we know—our mothers and daughters and sisters and friends—is what it takes for you to be able to crack a crude, locker-room joke without feeling like you're oppressing women, what the hell is wrong with you?

    And that particular blog post is actually behind schedule; the cartoon↱ it discusses was on its second iteration at the time; Barry Deutsch has attempted a third.

    And part of what he's trying to capture by reworking the punch line is, in fact, one of the most apparent effects of rape culture. The end of the setup, and all three punch lines:

    Dude 1: ... And if she passively "gives in" to sex, check that things are cool before going any further. Why is that so hard?

    Dude 2: Because!

    Dude 1: Because what?

    Dude 2: [1] Because then I might not get to fuck her! [2] Because it's impossible that anything I've done was rape! [3] Because she might say, "No"!

    In any case, a basic difference seems apparent. One can certainly look at Dude 2 and see the problem with his behavior. To the other, one can also look at Dude 2 and sympathize.

    Where are you at on that, Bowser? Deutsch's variable punch line shifts between future plans, past acts, and the immediate question, and it's a difficult choice to pick the "right" one; meanwhile, it's a hell of a discussion, and as brutal as you or I might find the implications in any of thsoe punch lines, neither can we complain. To wit, if we don't like seeing men portrayed that way, how do we address the question? Do we pridefully reject the reality facing other human beings, in which regardless of how you see yourself, people still have to deal with these behaviors and attitudes in society? That would seem to implicitly condone and license such behaviors and attitudes, which in turn contributes to rape culture. We might, though, acknowledge the reality that these behaviors and attitudes exist in society with sufficient gravity to influence outcomes.

    But if one aids and abets―gives comfort to―rape culture, one pretty much gives up any complaint about the brutal implications perceived. As I've noted before: If a continuing rape crisis besieging the women we know—our mothers and daughters and sisters and friends—is what it takes for you to be able to crack a crude, locker-room joke without feeling like you're oppressing women, what the hell is wrong with you?

    Would you shun John McCain? Or is the one about the woman wanting the gorilla's number after it rapes her not enough of a rape joke?
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Detusch, Barry. "Rape and Consent ― Affirmative Consent Explained". Ampersand. 9 October 2014. LeftyCartoons.com. 12 November 2015. http://bit.ly/1s1oRB9
     
  23. Secular Sanity Registered Senior Member

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    I didn't think it was rapey. Besides, you know what they say, truth is no enemy to compassion, and falsehood is no friend.
     

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