On this thing called "rape culture"

Yes. Note the difference:

"This is one illustrative example of the many things that collectively and over time make up the conditions we call rape culture."
"This example IS rape culture and if you do it, you are an evil person who is morally equivalent to a rapist."

Please note that these two statements are not identical. When someone claims the first, the second should not be assumed.

Oso wrote:

Yes. Note the difference:

"This is one illustrative example of the many things that collectively and over time make up the conditions we call rape culture."
"This example IS rape culture and if you do it, you are an evil person who is morally equivalent to a rapist."

Please note that these two statements are not identical. When someone claims the first, the second should not be assumed.

+1,000

My understanding, which may not be especially valid, is that rape culture is a lens. It's an attempt to understand why certain undesirable events happen in the world (most notably rape and its consequences or lack thereof, but other things as well) by analysing society as a collection of systems and identifying those aspects of it that produce said undesirable events.

This means that one cannot 'do' rape culture or 'be' rape culture; it also means that everyone is implicitly 'part of' rape culture because it is a theory that critiques the society to which we all belong. You don't really get to choose whether you are part of it. You don't even get to choose whether you perpetuate it most of the time because it can just sort of rebound off of you through interactions with other people.

I don't think it is useful try finding out in binary terms whether your actions are or aren't 'part of the problem', nor is it generally ever helpful to assert that someone else's actions are in fact 'part of the problem'. Rhetoric like that implies that every decision either passes or fails the rape culture test, which inevitably leads to people marching back and forth in an attempt to locate exactly where the line of acceptability lives. I think it might be better to contextualize decisions in terms of whether they make the world a little better or a little worse, because at least then you're debating the essential issue (what is good for people) rather than which theoretical construct can best claim ownership over which action.

Is a 'dumb blonde' joke classifiable as a symptom of rape culture? Yeah, probably. Is it therefore 'part of' rape culture? I mean, yes, as a symptom it does belong in one sense to the syndrome. Does telling it make you part of rape culture? Well, you were already an implicit part of rape culture. So does it make you... more... part of rape culture? Does it cause you to perpetuate it more than you otherwise would, or make you a bigger piece than you would otherwise be of this enormous, all-encompassing social problem that dwarfs you to begin with? Those are weird questions to ask. The essential issue is whether telling the joke renders you guilty of wrongdoing, and the answer to that lies in whether the joke was hurtful to other people. Rape culture, as a theoretical framework, helps us answer that question because it helps us understand the etymology of the joke, the butterfly-effect-like consequences of telling it, how people might react to it and the reasons why, etc....

It's important to remember that everybody hurts other people to various degrees almost every day. The idea is not to designate who is innocent and who is a perpetrator; it is instead to get better at making less harmful decisions, and I believe reading this thread can help you do that.

There was a cool example in Mex's post that I hadn't thought about before:

Don't these ideas develop because they've worked for a long time? "Sex expectation" is created by one guy saying "I need sex" and the other person goes "Well, I can give it to you but I'd like something in return because otherwise society says I'm easy" instead of them simply saying "Yeah, me too, let's go".

I had not considered this uniquely insane dynamic of rape culture: That even if your goal is just to have sex, you might actually have to let someone buy you an expensive dinner first just so nobody perceives you as having given away sex for too little. Monetizing sex, and then artificially driving up its value to men only, is a great way to limit sexual freedom because it makes women who don't assess their sexual decisions financially appear stupid/unambitious and grants wealthier people superior access to sex partners AND more control over them. There is an idea for a Facebook game in there somewhere.

Random aside: Is using the verb 'to dwarf' hurtful? Should I stop doing that?

So, interesting (and disturbing to me) data point:

My 4 year old son loves the Avengers. For Christmas, he got this poster:
IMAGE(http://www.badhaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/avengers-promo-art-image-02-600x446.jpg)
He looks at me this morning with his sly look and says, "Guess who's bum we can see? Hers. *chortle, chortle*" Oy.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

So, interesting (and disturbing to me) data point:

My 4 year old son loves the Avengers. For Christmas, he got this poster:
IMAGE(http://www.badhaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/avengers-promo-art-image-02-600x446.jpg)
He looks at me this morning with his sly look and says, "Guess who's bum we can see? Hers. *chortle, chortle*" Oy.

Did you show him pictures from the Hawkeye Initiative?

Statutory rape is awesome, amirite?

IMAGE(http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5529/10392712134_5f422ee2f9_b.jpg)

I love how the first comment I circled makes it seem that the teacher owes the student sex for leaving a joke on her desk.

IMAGE(http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/329/e/9/avengers_booty_ass_emble_by_kevinbolk-d4hb4xl.jpg)

Another take on the Avenger's poster. via: http://kevinbolk.deviantart.com/art/...?

That poster made me think of this, too: If Men Posed Like Motorcycle Babes (via Huffington Post).

Mimble wrote:

That poster made me think of this, too: If Men Posed Like Motorcycle Babes (via Huffington Post).

I don't know if you people noticed, but the girls all look like they have maaaaaaajor lordosis. Ouch, looks super painful. The guys... less so, interestingly enough.

Mimble wrote:

That poster made me think of this, too: If Men Posed Like Motorcycle Babes (via Huffington Post).

Some of those guys can really work a pair of heels.
Jealous.

Eleima wrote:
Mimble wrote:

That poster made me think of this, too: If Men Posed Like Motorcycle Babes (via Huffington Post).

I don't know if you people noticed, but the girls all look like they have maaaaaaajor lordosis. Ouch, looks super painful. The guys... less so, interestingly enough.

Of course! Lordosis behavior shows the male that she is ready to mate be mounted, like the motorcycle she's selling.

I find motorcycle magazines quite depressing. I like motorcycles but what a cesspool. You can't read simple article without flipping past dozens of 'booth babe' type girls.
And while I admit I don't read them much because of that fact, I don't remember seeing a single road test by a female biker.
The one or two times I have bought one for a particular article it has made me feel downright dirty.
Besides, get the model out of the picture, I want to see the motorcycle.

Hypatian posted this in the Feminism FAQ thread, but given the problematic tangents hitting this thread, it's quite fitting to put in here as a reminder/resource as well:

The Masculine Mystique: Inside The Men's Rights Movement (The Daily Beast, Oct 20 2013) wrote:

This, of course, is the real tragedy of the MRM. Male victims of domestic abuse need more help than they’re currently getting, as do male victims of sexual assault. Lower-income divorced fathers need a different system to ensure the well-being of their children. But all of this help requires both financial and political resources, and getting society to allocate those resources requires support and interest from the larger tax-paying community.

What the MRM doesn’t seem to realize is that every time they lionize someone who says a four-year-old girl drowning is a good thing, or giggle over a leader bragging about taking sexual advantage of a woman who’s too drunk to understand what’s happening to her, or theorize that fat women want to be forcibly raped, or float a preposterous claim that women’s brains are physically incapable of comprehending morality, they only put those resources that much further out of reach. It is telling to note that of the professional male-victim advocacy organizations I spoke with, every single one specifically asked that I not allow readers to think they were in any way related to the MRM.

That's because it's so common for people here and elsewhere to compartmentalize others. Several people here have done that to me, grouping me in with MRM. Problem is, my arguments have nothing to do with MRM. It's like the whole Bingo Card thing, where people try to wrap up these often nuanced, complex arguments into neat little packages and toss them over into the appropriate response department. It's intellectually lazy and shows a lack of understanding and basic respect.

1) Somehow I knew you'd be the first to respond.
2) Somehow I also knew you'd write something as amazing hypocritical and ridiculous as "It's intellectually lazy and shows a lack of understanding and basic respect."

I actually don't lump you in with MRM. I just lump you in with trolls at this point.

realityhack wrote:

I find motorcycle magazines quite depressing. I like motorcycles but what a cesspool. You can't read simple article without flipping past dozens of 'booth babe' type girls.
And while I admit I don't read them much because of that fact, I don't remember seeing a single road test by a female biker.
The one or two times I have bought one for a particular article it has made me feel downright dirty.
Besides, get the model out of the picture, I want to see the motorcycle.

I have a few contacts left in the sport bike community from back when I considered myself a member of that group (accident led to me selling my bike...can't really call myself a biker without the bike). A few of those contacts are women who just have to either trudge through the pseudo soft core porn or act like they're as turned on by the photos as the males are (I'm not a mind reader, but given that none of the women I knew who did that actually participated in same sex behavior, I suspect it was not a sincere attraction).

Weird and strange.

Farscry wrote:

1) Somehow I knew you'd be the first to respond.
2) Somehow I also knew you'd write something as amazing hypocritical and ridiculous as "It's intellectually lazy and shows a lack of understanding and basic respect."

I actually don't lump you in with MRM. I just lump you in with trolls at this point.

So I'm amazingly hypocritical talking about people compartmentalizing others, and in the next sentence you do exactly that. Do you not get the concept of irony?

It truly is tragic when someone gets lumped for nothing more than a continual history of and a persistent dedication to bad behavior.

Another post like this Farscry I'll be directing you out of P&C. You're not a moderator and you certainly don't get to accuse people of trolling and make personal attacks because you don't agree with them.

Consider this an open warning to participants who indulge in disdain and personal attacks as a way to vent frustration. Back up your own arguments, respond to the arguments of others or don't participate. - Certis

Seth, sold mine for a down payment on a condo. Planning to get back to it as soon as possible though. But I can't just grab a magazine and browse current bikes because I find so much of the content repulsive.

cheeba wrote:

That's because it's so common for people here and elsewhere to compartmentalize others. Several people here have done that to me, grouping me in with MRM. Problem is, my arguments have nothing to do with MRM. It's like the whole Bingo Card thing, where people try to wrap up these often nuanced, complex arguments into neat little packages and toss them over into the appropriate response department. It's intellectually lazy and shows a lack of understanding and basic respect.

I don't believe anyone here ever "grouped you in with MRM", I don't see how that would be relevant to the discussion in any case.
One has to wonder if you actually read the entire article. Admittedly, it is a bit king, but it clearly states, demonstrates even, that there is a world of difference between people like Hembling who advocate just walking by if there is a rape in progress and people like Price who are more moderate and fiercely defend the cause of divorced fathers on the matters of custody and alimony.
You compare it to the Bingo card, but those are two vastly different things. The bingo card expresses frustration at hearing the same, old tired rape apologist arguments. The MRM is a movement which includes all people trying to forward men's cause above women's. It is, however unsurprising that members would want to distance themselves from rape apologists (and that almost seems like a euphemism) such as Hembling.

In other words, MRM (which will forever stand for Multi Resolution Mesh in my mind) is doing a lot more to stymie progress for men than it is doing to help.

Seth wrote:

In other words, MRM (which will forever stand for Multi Resolution Mesh in my mind) is doing a lot more to stymie progress for men than it is doing to help.

It really is the case. The sad part, as noted, is that there really are issues that should be addressed, but these folks are a hurdle when they seem to see themselves as the champions of men or something. They're kind of the mirror to what was mentioned before - the woman who says "no" but means yes and helps perpetuate the problem. The sad part is that the Internet only helps reinforce the notion of the white male as society's victim these days, since you can go to any given corner of the Internet and find or set up the echo chamber you really want.

I'm glad the Good Men Project exists, because it's a ridiculously good resource for articles and philosophy about these issues, but also as something I can point people to as an example of ur doin it rite. Very, very rarely does that site host some sort of article that tries to take blame or responsibility off a man's shoulders for what a man decides to do in the context of dating or sex. It is also, sadly, one of the extremely rare places where it takes the notion of men also being victims of rape culture seriously and not just as a jab of "well but men..." to try and shut down talks about something else.

realityhack wrote:

I find motorcycle magazines quite depressing. I like motorcycles but what a cesspool. You can't read simple article without flipping past dozens of 'booth babe' type girls.
And while I admit I don't read them much because of that fact, I don't remember seeing a single road test by a female biker.
The one or two times I have bought one for a particular article it has made me feel downright dirty.
Besides, get the model out of the picture, I want to see the motorcycle.

It's really a shame that they don't have more reviews and road tests by female bikers - that would be really awesome. It would be interesting to read about how a given bike handles from a female point of view given the differences in body weight/strength etc. between male and female riders.

I wonder if the photos will make any motorcycle magazine think twice about putting booth babe-esque photos in their issues. And would it be better/worse/just as bad to maybe have some photos of male models in open leather jackets and underpants/hotpants/something else skin tight and revealing in the same magazines? I mean, I agree that neither are really necessary to selling bikes (and if the model is draped all over the bike, you can't see the bike very well), but would that even things up a bit, or just make things worse?

It'll be both. They'll still be objectifying people, but they won't be sexist about it.

I think Naomi Wolf did a great job of showing what real equality would look like, in terms of objectification:

Naomi Wolf in the Beauty Myth wrote:

Women could probably be trained quite easily to see men first as sexual things. If girls never experienced sexual violence; if a girl's only window on male sexuality were a stream of easily available, well-lit, cheap images of boys slightly older than herself, in their late teens, smiling encouragingly and revealing cuddly erect penises the color of roses or mocha, she might well look at, masturbate to, and, as an adult, "need" beauty pornography based on the bodies of men. And if those initiating penises were represented to the girl as pneumatically erectible, swerving neither left nor right, tasting of cinnamon or forest berries, innocent of random hairs, and ever ready; if they were presented alongside their measurements, length, and circumference to the quarter inch; if they seemed to be available to her with no troublesome personality attached; if her sweet pleasure seemed to be the only reason for them to exist--then a real young man would probably approach the young woman's bed with, to say the least, a failing heart.”

We've been presented with critiques of the idea of rape culture that focus on how the idea of rape culture is unfairly biased against men. The key line quoted was: "Gender equality requires equal concern for the rights of accused men." I find it tremendously illuminating that the "what about the mans!?!" line selected as the pull quote while the very next sentence: "Let us, by all means, confront ugly, sexist, victim-blaming attitudes when we see them." was completely ignored. This leaves little doubt as to where the critics' priorities lie.

But even if we (foolishly?) extend the benefit of the doubt and grant that the rape-culture deniers aren't actually prioritizing men's hurt feelings above the real consequences of ugly, sexist, victim blaming attitudes, we still have to face the underlying foundation of objectification. Do you want to know what "equal concern for the rights of men" looks like? It looks like what Wolf describes above.

Oso wrote:

IThe key line quoted was: "Gender equality requires equal concern for the rights of accused men." I find it tremendously illuminating that the "what about the mans!?!" line selected as the pull quote while the very next sentence: "Let us, by all means, confront ugly, sexist, victim-blaming attitudes when we see them." was completely ignored. This leaves little doubt as to where the critics' priorities lie.

The "key line" was quoted because it was most relevant to the discussion about whether or not this woman was raped. People were not only calling this man a rapist based on very limited information, they were saying I was defending rapists and of course I've actually been likened to rapists in this thread. Such words can only come from those who are not considering gender equality.

The very next sentence was not ignored at all. I recommended the entire article, not just one line from it. Earlier in the article it discusses the Steubenville case and argues that its ugly, sexist, victim-blaming is more an example of athletic culture than rape culture. That is an argument I absolutely agree with.

But even if we (foolishly?) extend the benefit of the doubt and grant that the rape-culture deniers aren't actually prioritizing men's hurt feelings above the real consequences of ugly, sexist, victim blaming attitudes, we still have to face the underlying foundation of objectification. Do you want to know what "equal concern for the rights of men" looks like? It looks like what Wolf describes above.

OK, but it also looks like my argument above, questioning whether or not that case was rape. So I guess we're quite a ways from equal concern.

But let's talk about objectification. I would argue that objectification of women has increased exponentially since the advent of the web (about 1992). Porn has become more mainstream, celebrity sex tapes have become expected, bikinis are steadily getting smaller, and of course it is all very easily accessible. But if you look at the bureau of justice statistics, you'll see that "forcible rape" has decreased about 30% in that time. Of course, statistics - and especially rape statistics - offer a very limited view. But is there any evidence that rape culture has grown more severe as the objectification of women has grown more severe since the advent of the internet?

Ok, I have a question.

Is advising girls to do things to avoid rape, like "Do not drink so much that you are not in control of yourself so people won't take advantage of you?" promoting rape culture?

Just my personal opinion, but I think trying to advise people on how to say safe is diffrent from blaming people who are hurt when they are in said situations. It should be possible to be cautious and compationate.

Warnings like that strike me as living with rape culture, but not promoting it. If a girl you knew said she was raped and you asked her how much (or whether) she had been drinking, that'd be promoting it, as you'd be suggesting that she's at least partially responsible for what someone else did to her.

Tenebrous wrote:

Ok, I have a question.

Is advising girls to do things to avoid rape, like "Do not drink so much that you are not in control of yourself so people won't take advantage of you?" promoting rape culture?

Just my personal opinion, but I think trying to advise people on how to say safe is diffrent from blaming people who are hurt when they are in said situations. It should be possible to be cautious and compationate.

It is, only if you do not address the other side of the coin. If you only advise girls in how to avoid rape, and don't advise boys on how not to rape, you're contributing toward rape culture, because it's putting the responsibility solely on the girl.