Culture of Rape

This post by Melissa McEwan and the comment thread was a real eye opener. Apparently, if Cosmopolitan magazine publishes an article about the 5 places where sexual predators most prefer to strike, that constitutes “rape apology”. It puts the burden on women not to get raped instead of expecting the rapist to eschew rapine. I learned from the post and comments that American culture is infected with a “culture of rape” that tacitly or even explicitly condones sexual assault.

Putting on my sociologist’s hat and looking at the situation in as detached a manner as I can helps me get past the offence I might take at having my entire sex indicted for rape apology. I remind myself that being male means being part of a category, people with penises, and that we don’t necessarily have to answer for what other males do, although some might make normative assertions to the contrary. I also observe that the differences between men and women on this issue of rape and rape avoidance/prevention appear to center on what constitutes consent.

There is a strain in the culture that recognizes certain behaviors as implying consent to sex. I’m not saying that this is right or good. I’m saying that it is an observable cultural phenomenon, a social fact, that many people deem it appropriate to take into consideration a woman’s dress, demeanor and other circumstances in evaluating whether a sex act was consensual or nonconsensual notwithstanding the testimony of the woman. Moreover, the subjective beliefs of the man as to whether he thought the woman consented are considered central to determining the criminality of the act.

There is a countercultural strain, manifest especially among feminists, that regards unequivocal and enthusiastic verbal consent as necessary and that regards sex in the absence of such consent as rape. In this value system, a woman may dress as provocatively as she can, go to a frat party, flirt like a fiend, shake her booty, and get roaring drunk and pass out with nobody so much as laying a hand on her lest they be rapists. In contrast, under the other cultural value system, that woman might be considered as having signaled her willingness to have sex by her dress and behavior. The same situation can be viewed in two entirely different ways. Both value systems decry rape. They just don’t agree on what constitutes rape. I would argue that our current legal system recognizes the frat party scenario as rape; however, cultural factors make it extremely unlikely for such victims to come forward.

Of course, there is yet another countercultural strain which condones rape outright, but I’m not familiar with it other than to know it exists.

The comments to Melissa’s post reminded me of the many conversations I have had over the years with feminists about this very issue. Some of the scenarios which have been characterized as rape by them have included:

1. Pestering a woman into having sex with you until she finally relents to appease you.
2. Sweet talking a woman into having sex with you when you don’t really mean it. Her consent was fraudulently obtained.
3. Having sex with a woman who, despite not really being into it, goes ahead and reluctantly has sex with you. She consents, but you know her heart’s not in it.
4. Any sex act that has not been explicitly negotiated in advance with the woman’s announcing her consent to each stage. “May I place my right hand on your left breast and fondle your nipple?” “Why yes, you certainly may.”

These definitions of rape are quite a bit removed from the cultural norm, and they shift the burden substantially to men. Who should bear the burden is culturally in dispute. The issue is not necessarily pertinent to the scenario on which a sexual predator lurks somewhere and forces himself on a stranger. There is little doubt in anyone’s mind that a rape has occurred in those circumstances. Where the issue comes into play is when the woman is acquainted with the man whom she accuses of raping her. In those cases, you are apt to have circumstances which the man may attempt to use in his defense to establish that he believed that the woman had consented. What kind of circumstances and facts ought to be considered? Should some kinds of facts, past acts of the accuser for example, be excluded?

It is a challenge to balance the rights and interests of the accuser, the accused and society at large in such cases. At present, the accuser is going to be put through the wringer in many cases, and many will be reluctant to press charges.

The dilemma for those who would like to see more of the burden shifted to men is that this requires significant cultural change, something which is hard to pull off. It requires vigilance and total intolerance for anything that smacks of rape apology or victim blaming. If it seems as if your feminist friend is going nuts over something that seems trivial to you, like the Cosmo article, it’s because she’s fighting a whole cultural strain of which the example of the moment is only a small manifestation. If she takes an extreme position on the issue that seems crazy to you, she’s working against what seems to her to be a culture that puts the onus on her not to get raped.