On this thing called "rape culture"

Mystic Violet wrote:
LarryC wrote:

Ah! Thanks, Hypatian. It seems the penal code I have around the house has been rendered obsolete. That information is very interesting. I'm not sure how this interacts with marriage laws, specifically, since marriage specifically obligates spouses to have sex with each other. Note also that it's not possible for ME to pursue rape against women who take advantage of me, and yes, that is not unheard-of around here.

"Having sex with each other" and "rape" are two completely different things. One does not own a spouse's body after marriage. Marital sex happens by request and agreement by both parties. Sex by force is rape regardless of the parties involved or any ridiculous "purpose." Being impregnated or impregnating another against one's will still flippin' counts as rape.

I'm not entirely sure that's how the local law sees it. You see, last time I checked the Family Code, sex between spouses was supposed to be a conjugal duty, and if you're not compliant with that duty, your spouse could actually go to court to compel you to have sex with him or her. I have heard of one such incident, in fact, though that is strictly hear-say. Apparently, the guy was spending too much time at his mistress' place, and not enough time at home.

Speaking in a more general sense, it's not laudable among Filipino menfolk to have to beat your wife to get her to have sex with you. It's not macho. Even if you did such a thing, you'd probably get ridiculed for it if it ever came out.

Hypatian wrote:

(Oh, and note: Of course, as a liberal American, I think the "any gay sex is rape" is a bit overbroad. Really, I was trying to say: "There is no class of people for which unwilling/unknowing sexual intercourse is not rape.")

LarryC: I think that part of the reason people are skeptical of what you are claiming is that all of the things you are saying are *exactly what a doctor, a member of polite society, of a good family would have been said in British society 150 years ago*. All of them. ALL of them. And strangely enough, there was an awful lot of rape going on at the time, and women would become poor marriage prospects if it became known they'd been raped, and it was endemic to the lower classes but not at all uncommon (particularly within the family) in the upper classes.

So, it could be you're absolutely right. Or it could be that you're deluded in exactly the same way.

It's possible.

However, if rape is not more commonly reported it's not because women become poor marriage prospects or have poor financial prospects as a result of being poor marriage prospects. Women in these parts can get a good living in terms of work, particularly if they are single and wish to remain single - or have no husband, as the case may be. Your financial future is not tied to your marriage prospects, as it was in Victorian-era Britain. It's also not a death-knell to have formerly been a rape victim. You still have a good chance of marriage.

I'm also not of good family. We have not always been wealthy. My grandmother was a schoolteacher - a single mother raising six children in a depressed neighborhood. Her husband abandoned her. I became an MD largely through the efforts of my mother and myself. I was on scholarship for the majority of my academic life. Where I used to live, gang violence was not uncommon.

Rape is mainly between guardians and dependents, since any rape of a person who was not beholden to you was and continues to be exceedingly dangerous. Rape against grown women is doubly so, since it's not unknown for women to hunt down and attack their rapists with intent to kill. Again, this has to do with the power structure and the law. If you make a habit of raping women, your clan begins to see you as a liability. If one of those women happen to track you down and kill you - well that's a problem that's taken care of itself.

DSGamer:

I believe you're getting the wrong idea about who that law is meant to protect. Men are more powerful than women, and it's impossibly hard to get a conviction on a husband who has raped his wife, particularly with the Family Code stating that any case in which a reconciliation is attempted between family members is thrown out of court, for reasons of preserving the family unit.

Ergo, men do not need this protection.

The law requiring spouses to have sex is often brought to court by womenfolk because they are physically weaker and require court proceedings to enforce their will. Sometimes, this is meant as an exercise of power, but it's not that uncommon for a woman to have a child by a man against his will in order to secure more of his resources for the use of the conjugal household.

Speaking more broadly about the sexes, women in my culture (or subculture, maybe?) are not viewed as chattel and will not suffer it. They are remarkably strong-willed and energetic. Offending a woman because she's "weak" is a very, very bad idea.

Edwin wrote:

I'm curious to see if the numbers continue to break a lot of misconceptions that people have here. If you feel comfortable sharing, out of everyone here who has been sexually assaulted in one way or another, did you report the incident?

Yeah, I did. I was 6, he was 13, and said if I ever told anyone, he'd kill my family. As soon as my parents got home, I told them what happened, we sued, and he got 2 months probation, if I remember correctly, because he was a minor.

heavyfeul wrote:
Jonman wrote:
heavyfeul wrote:

LarryC:

You should find a surgeon in your hospital to have your head extricated from your ass. No one is impressed by your "professional" opinion.

Speak for yourself.

I think it's useful to have some light shone on cultures other than our own, and for all that I may disagree with Larry's positions, it's illuminating to get an outsider's perspective.

Cultural relativism is no excuse for violence.

I agree wholeheartedly. But that doesn't mean that I should tar as invalid anything someone from one of those cultures says.

More information is better. More exposure to other cultures is better. It gives us a backdrop to examine our own culture against.

I agree. Information, knowledge, and understanding of other cultures is important. But it does not mean we should not judge.

An old professor of mine used to work in Namibia (sp?) as a cultural anthropologist. She came out of graduate school with a staunch belief in cultural relativism. She now sits on the UN committee dedicated to eradicating the practice of female circumcision.

The, "but its their culture," argument will never hold water for me. Some things are wrong regardless of the cultural context.

Remember, "exposure to other cultures," is not just some exotic food and strange dress. That can also encompass things like female circumcision, pedophilia, canabalism (yes it still exists), rape, murder, and genocide.

heavyfeul wrote:

I agree. Information, knowledge, and understanding of other cultures is important. But it does not mean we should not judge.

An old professor of mine used to work in Namibia (sp?) as a cultural anthropologist. She came out of graduate school with a staunch belief in cultural relativism. She now sits on the UN committee dedicated to eradicating the practice of female circumcision.

The, "but its their culture," argument will never hold water for me. Some things are wrong regardless of the cultural context.

If it's any comfort, a large chunk of my native culture, and almost the entirety of the national spirit was crushed under Spanish and American rule under exactly that philosophy. So cheer up. You already "got us" for being barbarians. You got us real good.

LarryC wrote:
heavyfeul wrote:

I agree. Information, knowledge, and understanding of other cultures is important. But it does not mean we should not judge.

An old professor of mine used to work in Namibia (sp?) as a cultural anthropologist. She came out of graduate school with a staunch belief in cultural relativism. She now sits on the UN committee dedicated to eradicating the practice of female circumcision.

The, "but its their culture," argument will never hold water for me. Some things are wrong regardless of the cultural context.

If it's any comfort, a large chunk of my native culture, and almost the entirety of the national spirit was crushed under Spanish and American rule under exactly that philosophy. So cheer up. You already "got us" for being barbarians. You got us real good.

I'm not excusing the violence endemic in my culture either. I am against pain, trauma, and violence, irrespective of the culture that condones it. Two wrongs do not make a right. Just because one culture was decimated by another, does not mean they get a hall pass. How much leeway should we give you for the sins of our fathers?

heavyfeul:

My apologies. I was defensive what with your telling me to get my head out of my ass and everything. In retrospect, that was clearly a respectful tone to take regarding my culture's mores.

What's becoming increasingly evident to me is that several of you (not just you) are taking what I say and applying it to YOUR cultural situation. In the US, a blanket law stating that sex is obligatory in marriage might be used by a man to escape a rape charge. Locally, that does not make sense, since men are already protected from that charge by other provisions of the Family Code. Instead, it is mainly used by women to compel men who are remiss to go home and stay home.

This means that you are essentially doing what the Spanish and Americans did before: they saw things that they did not understand, rendered snap judgments, and eradicated that which offended them, regardless of what it actually was.

Filipino womenfolk are not like other Asians. They don't walk behind you. They will press for a career; and in the event that they stay home, your ass and your paycheck belong to them. Representation is not even across professions, of course, but women doctors are numerous, as are women accountants. Women in top management positions occupy a substantial fraction of the business workforce. They are physically weak, but in facing that head on, they will usually ask for (and get) concessions in other ways.

In my own graduating class in medicine, there were more women than men, and their collective grade point average was higher as well.

In some ways, it skews the other way. I know of several men who endure physical abuse from their wives because it is not socially acceptable to complain that your wife is beating you. I no more condone this than the more common occurrence of men beating on their wives, but the law prefers not to get into the middle of that, in the interest of not splitting up families.

When discussing across cultures, it isn't a simple matter to establish universal human rights or values. Like Heavyfeul, I do believe that there are core rights that all people should be privy to regardless of one's culture, and to restrict one's rights beyond that is a sign of a society that is still clinging to barbaric elements.

To ever tell any person that someone else has a more solid claim on their body than they do is barbaric and wrong. If a woman does not want to allow a man to have sex with her, even if he is her husband, then that should be her universal right to expect that she has the final say on what happens to her body, not someone else. Period. Full stop.

Otherwise, you are endorsing some form of servitude, no matter how "limited" it may seem.

So in that regard, LarryC, I do believe you are being naive in thinking that rape doesn't happen much in the Phillipines. I suspect it happens roughly as often as in most developed nations.

And to be perfectly clear, "naive" is not meant as an insult. I have had many times in my adult life in particular where I had to learn that views I held were founded on naivete, not on an understanding of the actual facts.

LarryC wrote:

heavyfeul:

My apologies. I was defensive what with your telling me to get my head out of my ass and everything. In retrospect, that was clearly a respectful tone to take regarding my culture's mores.

What's becoming increasingly evident to me is that several of you (not just you) are taking what I say and applying it to YOUR cultural situation. In the US, a blanket law stating that sex is obligatory in marriage might be used by a man to escape a rape charge. Locally, that does not make sense, since men are already protected from that charge by other provisions of the Family Code. Instead, it is mainly used by women to compel men who are remiss to go home and stay home.

This means that you are essentially doing what the Spanish and Americans did before: they saw things that they did not understand, rendered snap judgments, and eradicated that which offended them, regardless of what it actually was.

Filipino womenfolk are not like other Asians. They don't walk behind you. They will press for a career; and in the event that they stay home, your ass and your paycheck belong to them. Representation is not even across professions, of course, but women doctors are numerous, as are women accountants. Women in top management positions occupy a substantial fraction of the business workforce. They are physically weak, but in facing that head on, they will usually ask for (and get) concessions in other ways.

In my own graduating class in medicine, there were more women than men, and their collective grade point average was higher as well.

In some ways, it skews the other way. I know of several men who endure physical abuse from their wives because it is not socially acceptable to complain that your wife is beating you. I no more condone this than the more common occurrence of men beating on their wives, but the law prefers not to get into the middle of that, in the interest of not splitting up families.

If I were trying to make you into a cathloic or capitalist or a coca cola drinker, then fine, label me an imperialist. We are talking about rape here and you got it wrong. Plain and simple. I know you want to believe that it is just my big dumb American bias, but you are worng:

LarryC wrote:
Seth wrote:

(you've already said it's legally impossible for a spouse to rape a spouse, which I consider barbaric)

The understanding is that the entire point of a marriage is so you have sex and have children. Not having sex would undermine the very point of such an arrangement, so sex is obligatory - you can't refuse. Don't imagine that this is primarily anti-woman. While it's true that women are not empowered to refuse, men aren't either, and they can neither refuse nor compel their spouses to take birth control. If you're married and don't want to have kids, then you're pretty much out of luck if your partner is dead set on it.

The point underlying this is one of population sustainability. If you want right of refusal, the option is there - don't get married.

Edit: on definitions, rape is pretty strictly one person putting something into another person's orifice. Barring that, it's not rape. It's sexual harassment, but not rape. Harassment is common. I've been the victim of such actions myself, more than once.

Also...correct me if I am wrong, but isn't abortion, adultery (women having sex with someone who is not their husband), and "concubinage" (unmarried and living together) illegal in the Philippines? You also mentioned pedophiles walking down the street with their "children" and the human trafficking that goes on unchecked.

You are more then welcome to point out the instances of institutionalized violence in my country and I will jump in on your side and focus my ire on anyone trying to rationalize the immorality away. But do not try to justify those institutions in your country with cries of imperialism.

Farscry:

Haha. I think you've got it wrong. I did NOT say that I thought rape happens less in the Philippines than it does elsewhere, and particularly not the US, so all you Americans can just take that off your chests right now. Don't worry, your culture is still superior. You can still tell me I'm a barbarian. I'm sure it's right for you to come down here and impose your values on me, right through the internet.

Farscry wrote:

To ever tell any person that someone else has a more solid claim on their body than they do is barbaric and wrong. If a woman does not want to allow a man to have sex with her, even if he is her husband, then that should be her universal right to expect that she has the final say on what happens to her body, not someone else. Period. Full stop.

Otherwise, you are endorsing some form of servitude, no matter how "limited" it may seem.

Frankly, I don't see where any form of servitude is inherently wrong, particularly when it's mutual. The man has a claim on the woman's body, but it works both ways. The woman also has a claim on the man's body and as I said, it's often the woman who has to resort to legal measures to get her way, not the man, since he can usually just resort to more direct measures.

heavyfeul:

heavyfeul wrote:

Also...correct me if I am wrong, but isn't abortion, adultery (women having sex with someone who is not their husband), and "concubinage" (unmarried and living together) illegal in the Philippines? You also mentioned pedophiles walking down the street with their "children" and the human trafficking that goes on unchecked.

You are more then welcome to point out the instances of institutionalized violence in my country and I will jump in on your side and focus my ire on anyone trying to rationalize the immorality away. But do not try to justify those institutions in your country with cries of imperialism.

Waitaminute. Who's trying to justify anything? Did you think that I was trying to whitewash child prostitution by saying that it was mainly catering to North Americans and that what you're doing here is similar to the imperialism that's crushed most of the native culture I had a right to enjoy? Oh, no, sir. You have it completely backwards!

Human trafficking goes unchecked and unabated right in broad daylight, but don't imagine for a moment that it's either legal or approved of by the common population. We abhor and hate it, but we can't really do anything about it. Child prostitution rings bring in dollars, and they thus have a lot of money, which comes with power and lobbying capability. They can't outright legalize it because the population won't stand for it, but their money does a lot to ameliorate the heat, and push back some. You try to interfere in the goings on of a ring and you're going to die - it's that simple.

Is that a justification? Do you think I'm happy that Americans come over here for the express and explicit reason of buying children off of the street and sodomizing them? How would you feel, heavyfeul, if a significant contingent of Filipinos supported and patronized child prostitution rings in your country and the money was so good that they can just walk in the street and not really have anyone do much to so much as inconvenience them?

Imagine that for a moment. Everyday, when you go out into the street, Filipinos are walking down it with small Americans in tow who can't possibly be their children. It's a wonder I don't just put you all under a blanket judgment of being sodomites and pedophiles (and make no mistake, some of us do).

And no, that doesn't mean that I think well of your people.

Edit: As far as the law is concerned, I believe that adultery is any single instance wherein a married woman has sex with a man who is not her husband. Penalties are severe. Concubinage is when a married husband has sex with a woman who is not his wife. Penalties are significantly less severe. In practice, this means that unmarried women are punished significantly less for having sex with married men than unmarried men are with married women. Conversely, married men are punished less for sex with unmarried women than married women are with unmarried men.

I'm not aware of any law in which two unmarried people can be prosecuted for living together.

LarryC wrote:

Frankly, I don't see where any form of servitude is inherently wrong, particularly when it's mutual. The man has a claim on the woman's body, but it works both ways. The woman also has a claim on the man's body and as I said, it's often the woman who has to resort to legal measures to get her way, not the man, since he can usually just resort to more direct measures.

That makes me want to throw up.

LarryC wrote:

Is that a justification? Do you think I'm happy that Americans come over here for the express and explicit reason of buying children off of the street and sodomizing them? How would you feel, heavyfeul, if a significant contingent of Filipinos supported and patronized child prostitution rings in your country and the money was so good that they can just walk in the street and not really have anyone do much to so much as inconvenience them?

Imagine that for a moment. Everyday, when you go out into the street, Filipinos are walking down it with small Americans in tow who can't possibly be their children. It's a wonder I don't just put you all under a blanket judgment of being sodomites and pedophiles (and make no mistake, some of us do).

And no, that doesn't mean that I think well of your people.

I'm not sure if HeavyFuel is trying to do this, but I will. A society, any society, that treats women like property is likely going to have a substantial amount of people who think it's okay to sell children into prostitution (i.e. child rape) rings. Yes, the buyer is to blame. But so is the seller who values human life like that. One of the most interesting things to come out of centuries of studying the slave trade is that we've learned really terrible things about the people who sold slaves on the African side of things. It wasn't just Europeans capturing Africans and selling them as slaves. Often it was African tribes and warlords selling other Africans as slaves.

Taking this back to the original point, there was a culture in Africa (stemming in large part from the use of slavery in the Middle Ages and incursions into Africa by Muslims and Catholic crusaders as well as the Byzantine Empire) where slavery was fairly common. This helped make the European and later North American slave trade possible. So I would be careful about defending a culture that treats your spouse as property. It's probably not an accident that the same culture has pervasive child prostitution.

That's my point. It doesn't matter if it cuts both ways. Humans aren't property. I believe that idea is barbaric and indeed I'd expect the chances of children being sold in that culture would be higher. Of course this happens in all societies, including America. And of course poverty plays a role. I imagine treating humans as property legally impacts how much people value the rights of other humans as well, though.

It could happen in America, but if it did you'd see a huge outcry from the large portion of the population who don't, in any way shape or form see other people as property.

DSGamer:

DSGamer wrote:
LarryC wrote:

Frankly, I don't see where any form of servitude is inherently wrong, particularly when it's mutual. The man has a claim on the woman's body, but it works both ways. The woman also has a claim on the man's body and as I said, it's often the woman who has to resort to legal measures to get her way, not the man, since he can usually just resort to more direct measures.

That makes me want to throw up.

That's probably because you're STILL not getting the point. A husband is already protected from accusations of rape by OTHER (as in not this one) provisions of the Family Code. Having this one be operative is totally redundant, if the concern is that husbands will rape their wives. What this aspect of the law does in practice is to allow women to have a claim on their husband's bodies, since they are usually physically incapable of enforcing their claims.

Now, you can still criticize that if you want, but you could at least be fair about it. This portion of the law does not operate substantially to curtail female power, but to enforce it.

DSGamer wrote:
LarryC wrote:

Is that a justification? Do you think I'm happy that Americans come over here for the express and explicit reason of buying children off of the street and sodomizing them? How would you feel, heavyfeul, if a significant contingent of Filipinos supported and patronized child prostitution rings in your country and the money was so good that they can just walk in the street and not really have anyone do much to so much as inconvenience them?

Imagine that for a moment. Everyday, when you go out into the street, Filipinos are walking down it with small Americans in tow who can't possibly be their children. It's a wonder I don't just put you all under a blanket judgment of being sodomites and pedophiles (and make no mistake, some of us do).

And no, that doesn't mean that I think well of your people.

I'm not sure if HeavyFuel is trying to do this, but I will. A society, any society, that treats women like property is likely going to have a substantial amount of people who think it's okay to sell children into prostitution (i.e. child rape) rings. Yes, the buyer is to blame. But so is the seller who values human life like that. One of the most interesting things to come out of centuries of studying the slave trade is that we've learned really terrible things about the people who sold slaves on the African side of things. It wasn't just Europeans capturing Africans and selling them as slaves. Often it was African tribes and warlords selling other Africans as slaves.

Taking this back to the original point, there was a culture in Africa (stemming in large part from the use of slavery in the Middle Ages and incursions into Africa by Muslims and Catholic crusaders as well as the Byzantine Empire) where slavery was fairly common. This helped make the European and later North American slave trade possible. So I would be careful about defending a culture that treats your spouse as property. It's probably not an accident that the same culture has pervasive child prostitution.

You're saying that like we specifically only treat women as property. What the hell does that even mean?

There are people in ANY society (including yours!) who think it's okay to sell children into prostitution. If you had a bunch of foreigners coming in spreading money around that's going at a 50:1 conversion rate, do you imagine for an instant that it won't become a problem? Imagine for a moment, a steady stream of billions of dollars in money coming in every month, paid to whoever is going to sell Americans as child prostitutes. This is not an exaggeration. The money coming in is really that large, comparatively speaking. A stream of Americans paying for child prostitutes could pay upwards of $15,000 a month on five children. That's more money than average Filipinos make in a decade.

Imagine your own salary now. Multiply that to account for decade. Imagine that that kind of money is going to get paid to you in ONE MONTH. Every month. Are you still absolutely, absolutely sure that none of your lower economic groups isn't going to form child prostitution rings?

I don't believe that the marriage laws or the mores surrounding marriage are linked to child prostitution. No one here does. It's utterly preposterous. The marriage law cuts both ways, so if it treats women as property, then it treats men as property as well. It treats everyone and everyone else's property. Whatever the hell that means.

Ha ha! You fools! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia," but only slightly less well known is this: "Never go in against LarryC when the thread is on the line!" Hahahahahahahahahahaherk—

DSGamer:

That's precisely what happened with the US bases in Subic and Clark. They have always been hugely unpopular because everyone knows that the soldiers go out and pay for sex, and occasionally rape random girls they find on the street. Your own country lobbied and paid to have them stay against the wishes of my people. We all know who won in the end. You did. It's not that farfetched to say that Uncle Sam paid to have his soldiers come over here to rape people and support local prostitution. If you ever see Filipinos giving you weird looks, bear that in mind.

In a recent case where a soldier was accused of rape under the Visiting Forces Agreement, your embassy took the side of the rapist and protected him. He was later convicted. Your country sympathizes with and supports convicted rapists. Your embassy is known to protect local pedophiles when they set up eporn shops and prostitution dens. This is one of the issues with the law enforcement battling that trend. Pedophile gets arrested, Uncle Sam acts to have him moved into US custody, where he gets a slap on the wrist. Later on, he returns and does the same thing all over again.

I'll ask you to be realistic. How long do you think public outcry in the US will last, and how much do you think it can be sustained in the face of billions of dollars of money coming in? We're talking more money here than the drug trade, and I'm fairly sure that's a problem with your country right now.

My expectation is that it will be just as big of a problem then, if not more, particularly if the Filipino embassy makes a point of interfering with your local law process.

DSGamer wrote:

That's my point. It doesn't matter if it cuts both ways. Humans aren't property. I believe that idea is barbaric and indeed I'd expect the chances of children being sold in that culture would be higher. Of course this happens in all societies, including America. And of course poverty plays a role. I imagine treating humans as property legally impacts how much people value the rights of other humans as well, though.

I think you're putting a little too much melodrama with the "treating as property" thing. As I said, what does that even mean? Married men and women are obligated by law to have sex with each other. To be honest, I find absolutely nothing wrong with that. If you don't want to have sex, don't marry.

For some reason, I think you have a difficult time with the notion that somebody else might have a right to your body, because in your culture it's associated with sexual abuse and particularly with chattel slavery. We have not had endemic chattel slavery locally. Native forms of slavery prescribed multiple lines of self-improvement and integration into society. When Magellan landed, he lost several men to slavery in the islands. When the next expedition came, those men did not want to be "liberated" because they had married locally and were climbing the ranks - they'd become invested.

All people negotiate rights to body and labor. In your own work contract, your employer can stipulate a right to your body. It won't be sexual, of course (you guys really have a major hangup with that), but he does have a right to expect your body to be at your place of work at the stipulated time.

DSGamer:

Made a more solid estimate. Assuming the average median income is $45,000 annually, the projected gross income for the theorized child prostitution ring using just five children would be $450,000 monthly or $4,500,000 annually. If the industry involved just 50 children (8-10 small mom-and-pop operations) in a small city, the total projected gross income would be $45 million.

I apologize for the former underestimate. A theoretical problem in the US of a similar magnitude would involve trillions, not billions of dollars in income.

Regarding the marriage law:

I think that a significant amount of disconnect is occurring precisely because you don't understand the local culture. Theoretically, the law could be used to justify men raping women in marriage or to have the courts compel women to have sex with their husbands against their will.

In practice, such recourse is rarely resorted to by Filipino menfolk because of the culture surrounding man-woman relationships. It's macho for a guy to have many women and have sex with many women, but that only holds if all the sex is consensual. Getting turned down by a woman is humiliating, but the worst humiliation is to have to force your own wife to have sex with you. It implies that you're so horribly unpleasant that you can't get a person who's legally obligated to even own up to her obligations, even if it only takes you a minute.

Accusing a man of raping his wife is a deadly insult - the kind that results in random shootings and knife fights.

Women who get raped by their husbands are reluctant to say that they were raped if they still have any ounce of regard for their husbands, because the accusation would be immediately tenable (what woman would accuse her own husband of rape just because?) and the damage to his reputation would be large and permanent. Even if she were not taken seriously because she's known to be a liar in general, the mere fact that she would use so deadly an accusation at all makes him out to be a terrible, terrible person, and impacts her own rep only insofar as she's related to him at all.

One of my former friends was accused of rape. I was friends with the guy, but I thought that it was plausible. Talk amongst us was predictably about how horrible the girl was for levying such an accusation, but also largely on how stupid he was for placing himself in such a situation in the first place. Needless to say, all her friends believed her implicitly.

His career prospects were destroyed, and remain tenuous to this day. He can't look us in the eye. He doesn't even want to meet with us - his former friends. I think he's too ashamed to look us in the face. No formal charges were ever levied and the truth was never discovered, but the damage done by just the accusation was incredible and wholesale. He'll never be the man he could have been.

Gravey wrote:

Ha ha! You fools! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia," but only slightly less well known is this: "Never go in against LarryC when the thread is on the line!" Hahahahahahahahahahaherk—

Don't worry, I'm slowly but surely gathering my forces in Australia, 2 armies a turn, and then we'll see who's laughing.

LarryC wrote:

DSGamer:

DSGamer wrote:
LarryC wrote:

Frankly, I don't see where any form of servitude is inherently wrong, particularly when it's mutual. The man has a claim on the woman's body, but it works both ways. The woman also has a claim on the man's body and as I said, it's often the woman who has to resort to legal measures to get her way, not the man, since he can usually just resort to more direct measures.

That makes me want to throw up.

That's probably because you're STILL not getting the point. A husband is already protected from accusations of rape by OTHER (as in not this one) provisions of the Family Code. Having this one be operative is totally redundant, if the concern is that husbands will rape their wives. What this aspect of the law does in practice is to allow women to have a claim on their husband's bodies, since they are usually physically incapable of enforcing their claims.

Now, you can still criticize that if you want, but you could at least be fair about it. This portion of the law does not operate substantially to curtail female power, but to enforce it.

For reference, fundamentalist Christians use identical logic to defend Colossians 3:18: the theory is that the counterbalance to wives submitting to husbands is husbands loving their wives like Christ loves the Church.

No, that's not identical logic at all! How? Am I not somehow talking in English anymore?

That law is superfluous when it comes to rape defense for married men. As in not necessary. Unneeded. Never used that way. Nuh-uh. Doesn't happen.

Men do not need to go to court to force women to have sex. They just use their superior physical strength. Other (as in NOT this one! NOT. Nada. Nuh-uh. NO.) provisions of the Family Code protect them.

This law is mainly used by women to coerce men to have sex with them.

Because their lower physical strength generally means that they can't use physical force to accomplish this task.

In the milieu and context of what's happening on the ground, the law is FOR women, not against them.

Even without that context, what's being said here is that the law demanding that wives submit to husbands is counterbalanced by husbands submitting to wives, which is an equal and identical exchange.

We're looking at this in the context of rape culture. A law making it okay for women to rape their husbands is not a counterbalance to the fact that strong men can rape their wives.

And beyond that, women raping men is still rape. It happens less, sure, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored or downplayed.

Seth:

Something is still being lost in the shuffle, I think. Perhaps part of that is the part where people around here are linked and take context from obligations. An obligation is a requirement and is coercive in the normal sense, but it is also perceived to link and give meaning. DSGamer takes such offense, I think, from the marriage laws because it implies that his marriage is meaningless. To some extent, that perception is accurate.

From my perspective, I do not see the point of a marriage that can be dissolved by mutual consent of the parties, that don't involve an exchange of obligations, and which doesn't ask a committed sacrifice to a common cause. Part of the way we define the parent-child relationship is by exchange of traditional obligations. Parents are obliged to care for their child, without age limit and unconditionally; but the reverse is also true - a child is also obliged by the same ties. A child who consigns his parents to homes is not seen as providing for their freedoms, but as being cold and uncaring.

We've been living in very closely packed families for centuries at this point. We get in each other's business - that's just how the culture works. If you are not related to your wife by ties of obligation, and by vows that are hard to dissolve, then you are not bound to your wife at all.

Edit:

That said, something struck me about your last sentence - your last comment. If you read the law quoted by Hypatian (of which I am somewhat familiar) you will note that rape in the Philippines is committed by men and ONLY by men. Coercive sex done by women to men is not perceived as rape. It is not even perceived to ever happen. As in your culture, men getting raped by women is considered a joke.

In that way, predatory behavior by women is actually protected and overlooked. The perception is that as a man, your usually greater physical strength should afford you enough protection from coercion.

LarryC, are you telling us how it is or are you telling us how it ought to be?

Meaning, do you find this system acceptable?

LarryC wrote:

Seth:

Something is still being lost in the shuffle, I think. Perhaps part of that is the part where people around here are linked and take context from obligations. An obligation is a requirement and is coercive in the normal sense, but it is also perceived to link and give meaning. DSGamer takes such offense, I think, from the marriage laws because it implies that his marriage is meaningless. To some extent, that perception is accurate.

I'm not taking offense at that. I just think it's wrong. I think every couple decides what they want their marriage to mean. The state can't imbue meaning on marriage anymore than the church can. It's up to the individuals, in the end, to decide how their marriage is meaningful. This is how I see it. Now some lean on the state or lean on religion to provide that meaning for them. I'm just saying you don't need that. Not in my opinion. So no offense taken. I have an opinion. By definition my opinion of my own marriage can't be wrong. It's an opinion.

I am wondering the same thing as Kier.

Also:

LarryC wrote:

If you are not related to your wife by ties of obligation, and by vows that are hard to dissolve, then you are not bound to your wife at all.

I'm afraid you are misunderstanding something here. Do you think that in a marriage without children, there are no ties of obligation? That a husband and wife are not bound to each other? There are many things that a couple can vow to each other at their marriage, and none of them involve having children. We vow to love, protect, and support one another both financially and emotionally, and to go through life as a unit. As a woman who is recently married but doesn't plan on having children any time soon, I find it very difficult to understand your view.

LarryC wrote:

Men do not need to go to court to force women to have sex. They just use their superior physical strength. Other (as in NOT this one! NOT. Nada. Nuh-uh. NO.) provisions of the Family Code protect them.

It is also generally understood that a husband or wife who has made these vows is violating them if they hurt their spouse physically. Using a man's "superior physical strength" to coerce his wife into sex when she is not willing? You seem to imply that the only reason this is a problem is because others in your society will ridicule the man for having to go to this measure to have sex with his own wife. Your implication is that it is within his rights for a husband to use his physical strength to HURT his wife, who he has made vows of marriage to under the law, as long as he is not deterred by the ridicule. Obviously this is rape when the two are not married. In the context of marriage, the concept and the physical and emotional harm done remain the same.

LarryC wrote:

Farscry:

Haha. I think you've got it wrong. I did NOT say that I thought rape happens less in the Philippines than it does elsewhere, and particularly not the US, so all you Americans can just take that off your chests right now. Don't worry, your culture is still superior. You can still tell me I'm a barbarian. I'm sure it's right for you to come down here and impose your values on me, right through the internet.

I was actually respectful of your thoughts and views in my post, and if I came across otherwise, that was not my intention and you have my apology for my unintended tone.

Farscry:

Apology accepted. I really am outraged by all the child prostitution that goes on around my city and the fact that nearly all the patrons and a significant number of the operators are North Americans does little to endear that particular brand of foreigner to me. It takes real effort to stay calm when North Americans tell me that this is a problem with MY culture and my people, and that WE are perpetuating the status quo.

Kier:

No, I do not find it ideal. Ideally, wives do not need the law to ask their husbands to stay home and have sex with them. Ideally, husbands will not have to rape their wives. Ideally, law would not be needed to mediate between marriage and married people, but that's ideal and not realistic.

The law is a reflection of the people, and all the moreso in marriage and in sex culture, including anything that pertains to rape. The law is the way it is because interested parties saw to it that it was made that way. It requires context to understand.

DSGamer:

DSGamer wrote:

I'm not taking offense at that. I just think it's wrong. I think every couple decides what they want their marriage to mean. The state can't imbue meaning on marriage anymore than the church can. It's up to the individuals, in the end, to decide how their marriage is meaningful. This is how I see it. Now some lean on the state or lean on religion to provide that meaning for them. I'm just saying you don't need that. Not in my opinion. So no offense taken. I have an opinion. By definition my opinion of my own marriage can't be wrong. It's an opinion.

I confess that I do not understand the convention. My own marriage was attended by nearly 300 people in a sit-down dinner and that was as small as we could manage it and not mortally offend people we wanted to keep around us. The event itself was not for us - we had already decided what our relationship was going to be. This did not need to be formalized by anyone or any public event. The marriage itself is a social convention - meant to communicate to others that my wife and I were entering into a social contract with everyone in general.

Every couple decides what their relationship with each other will be, but this is not marriage. It's a relationship. Relationships can exist outside of marriage. By definition, the state contract called the marriage contract is a legal document with certain privileges and obligations imposed upon the agreeing parties, according to law. The only way a legal marriage can happen is for the state to acknowledge it according to the meaning established by the state.

Likewise, a religious marriage is by definition given meaning and purpose by the religion that espouses it. If you are not married by Catholic priests, you are not married in the Catholic Church.

One can be married in the Church but not in the state, or in the state but not in the Church. One can be married according to one Church but not according to another. It is, by definition, a social contract or situation arrived at by agreement from the interested parties, which includes not only the two individuals getting married, but the institution under which the marriage is given meaning, and usually their entire extended families and friends.

Are you conflating the relationship between two people as marriage? Is there some US tradition that says that marriage is an individualized social contract between two Americans that is established only by them and given meaning only by them? Such a social agreement seems somewhat self-indulgent and limited. What would be the purpose of such a convention?

rolanberry:

rolanberry wrote:

I'm afraid you are misunderstanding something here. Do you think that in a marriage without children, there are no ties of obligation? That a husband and wife are not bound to each other? There are many things that a couple can vow to each other at their marriage, and none of them involve having children. We vow to love, protect, and support one another both financially and emotionally, and to go through life as a unit. As a woman who is recently married but doesn't plan on having children any time soon, I find it very difficult to understand your view.

I think you're confusing different things that I said. I said that it is to the state's interest to ensure that married people procreate and that in large part, marriage is meant to foster the creation of families, according to the interests of the state. The Catholic Church views marriage on very similar terms.

This does not imply that married people without children do not have ties of obligation. In that part, I was referring to DSGamer's horror at what he thought was a set of rules that say that marriage is an arrangement of mutual rape. It is, rather, an arrangement where both parties agree to be obligated to have sex with each other.

While there are many things that a couple may vow to each other at their marriage, many vows and many things said in many marriages are vague and nearly meaningless. What does it mean to vow to love each other? Do you mean that you commit to control your affection such that it will never waver, regardless of what happens? What are the specific ways in which you agree to show that this is so? What does it mean to vow to support each other emotionally? If you ask me, it all sounds like a bunch of hogwash - pretty things to say that don't really mean anything.

What do I mean when I say that I will live with my wife during the marriage vows? It means that I commit to establish one household with her on one property and that I will be legally constrained to stay within the confines of that household if she is there whenever I am not at work or occasional leisure activities. It is literally a legal ball-and-chain - like a restraining order working the other way. The agreement holds until I am dead, with a few explicitly stipulated caveats.

I promised, on pain of incarceration or other penalty, to have sex with her and only with her. There are no exceptions.

My financial obligations are similarly stipulated and arranged. So with my professional caveats, business dealings, etc., etc.

I did not promise her that my love will be forever and unwavering. This is because I do not know what will happen to me after I am dead. I am not sure I can show her everpresent signs of my love after I am dead, and I am not sure she will want to be benefited by such signs in that event. Neither is she. I cannot promise her that my love will even last to the end of our days. I cannot control my affections and I do not know what the future holds. If she turns into a nasty tyrant who finds pleasure in torturing me physically and emotionally, I cannot ensure that my affections will remain intact. However, I can promise her that I will remain in our household and abide by all my stipulated promises even in that event, regardless of what happens in the future, until I am dead.

I confess that I am a rather unromantic individual (though my wife says otherwise!) and I can't take a marriage arrangement seriously until you show me the money. I've known unmarried people who have stronger bounds of obligation than a marriage that could be dissolved through mutual agreement.

In this light, my promise to engage in sex with my wife is a binding agreement that constrains me to this conjugal duty regardless of how her body, or personality, or sexual preferences change. In the most extreme case, this means that I have agreed to engage in sex with her, to the best of my ability, even when she turns into a limbless disgusting pile of slime whose primary sexual satisfaction is to run herself through my nasal passages while I vomit from the sensation.

Anything less sounds to me like "I promise to have sex with you for as long as I want to," which to me hardly sounds like any kind of a commitment at all.

I'm not conflating a relationship with marriage. I think we just have a different definition of what marriage should be. Thankfully we largely allow people to define their marriage for themselves in the US.

DSGamer:

Again, I am not conversant with that practice. I'm aware that that is how it is, but what's the use of it? If you can dissolve a marriage at any time through the right legal proceedings, and it's only exactly what two people describe it to be between them, what's the difference between marriage and a pinky swear? The white dress?

LarryC wrote:

I really am outraged by all the child prostitution that goes on around my city and the fact that nearly all the patrons and a significant number of the operators are North Americans does little to endear that particular brand of foreigner to me. It takes real effort to stay calm when North Americans tell me that this is a problem with MY culture and my people, and that WE are perpetuating the status quo.

Yeah, makes sense to me too. I wasn't pointing at Phillipines culture as being the issue, so much as pointing out how aspects of Phillipines culture, just like aspects of US culture, and everywhere else, have factors that contribute to the "rape culture" problem. Even "rape culture" itself isn't going to manifest itself universally in the same way.

Like you, I'm outraged at how frequently the US is involved in really dirty, nasty operations in other nations; especially since those very operations are often then used as "evidence" of the problems in those nations.

I was definitely careful in wording the point about being naive to indicate that I understand that we all have some naive viewpoints; very often I have to correct myself when a certain view I held is found to run counter to evidence. So please don't take it as an insult or accusation in a bad way. It was more an encouragement to not let your understandable frustration with the US in particular cloud your perception of what I was saying. I think that being able to discuss cultural differences is actually very important, as is being able to look with a critical eye at one's own culture to see the ways in which it propagates negative behaviors or attitudes.

I'm also coming down with some kind of nasty cold or something, so I may not be explaining myself very effectively.

LarryC wrote:

Kier:

No, I do not find it ideal. Ideally, wives do not need the law to ask their husbands to stay home and have sex with them. Ideally, husbands will not have to rape their wives. Ideally, law would not be needed to mediate between marriage and married people, but that's ideal and not realistic.

The law is a reflection of the people, and all the moreso in marriage and in sex culture, including anything that pertains to rape. The law is the way it is because interested parties saw to it that it was made that way. It requires context to understand.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to me. I realize it is probably starting to feel like a dog pile but I wanted to say that I admire your willingness to continue to discuss this topic. You offer insight into a culture and way of thought I have never really experienced. I enjoy reading your posts.

It seems that the definition of marriage you are used to is vastly different from what America and Canada consider marriage. It seems much stronger contractually.

Here, marriage provides some financial obligations but nothing else. You cannot be compelled to behave in any way, only prohibited from crimes. Infidelity might end a marriage or it might not. Not having sex with your partner might end a marriage or it might not. In either case you can probably use them as grounds for divorce but you cannot legally compel the other party to comply.

Most north Americans probably see your definition as state sanctioned rape because of the mores associated with compelling behavior here and the rights concerned with a persons body.

Now you may not agree with this definition but understanding it will probably help explain the reactions you received.

I have a question for you:
You mentioned in your reply to DSGamer that promises of love seem flimsy and insubstantial. That promises to stay home and perform sexually are more concrete and can hold a person accountable for. I suppose I have a hard time seeing my self ever agreeing to be married under such a system. What are the motivations? What advantage is there to marriage?

Thanks again for your responses.