Feminist rape apology when it comes to male victims of rape, and especially victims of female perpetrators, comes in various forms.
And by the way, feminists are not at all alone in employing these forms when they make their rape apologist statements or lapse into their rape apologist silence in the face of rape apology from other feminists. No, they share several of them with mainstream society. Some of them are thoroughly tradcon. They didn’t invent this stuff, and they are certainly not alone. They have lots of company. It’s called the “patriarchy.”
“Men are just getting what they deserve after the way they have oppressed women.”
Men deserve rape? Rape victims deserve rape?
And you wonder why we are calling you rape apologists?
And this kind of rape apology — hell, rape enthusiasm is not rare or anomalous. It’s quite common to hear people opine that criminals get what they deserve in prison and that includes rape. That’s the kind of company these rape apologists keep.
“But it’s just men raping other men.”
Another is that most men are raped by other men (all without evidence because actual data on rape incidence is impossible to get, but why let that get in the way of an expression of dogma?) so these rapes don’t matter. Nothing to see here, move along. This one is especially dehumanizing and it is explicitly objectifying—it is a claim of fungibility, since it involves lumping all men into a borg doing all this rape to itself.
“It’s worse for women.”
Then there is the old “Well, rape is worse for women than for men” ploy, that has never once, that I have seen, avoided rape apology because discounting the harm of rape is one form of rape apology.
Irrevocable Consent
Then there is the irrevocable consent dodge—”Well, he’s a guy, so he must have wanted it.” One aspect of so-called “toxic masculinity” is Mr. Ever-ready. This is the reason erectile dysfunction is such a taboo for a lot of guys, as we see in the careful way that advertisements edge up to the whole issue.
Oh, and if a guy just stands his ground and insists? This cultural expectation usually gets backed up by an accusation of misogyny because a man can only refuse the feminine awesomeness of Teh Pussy any time any place by anyone if he hates all women, amirite? That, or a big helping of gay-shaming.
Oh, and “I bet no one ever asks a man what he was wearing when he was raped!”—Gotcha there, motherfucker! Actually, not quite; they never ask because it never matters; a man is presumed to always want sex whatever the circumstances, no autonomous choice in the matter whatever he may or may not be wearing. There’s your rape culture. At least that question presupposes that a woman might not want sex.
One way you see this attitude expressed is in hyperagentic weasel-wording, in which male victims, say boys, are not said to be “raped” but rather are said to have “engaged in sex” à la [saloppe apologiste de viol] Adèle Mercier. The presumption of agency and therefore of consent is just too hard for these rape apologist bigots to shake—feminists like Jaclyn Friedman, who even when directly confronted refuses to condemn Mercier’s rape apology, even as she pontificates in print on the rapey horrors of US college campuses.
It’s shit like this, feminists—shit like this is why we call you rape apologists.
- The Woman Card - May 2, 2016
- Frat boy bachelorettes and the invasion of gay bars - April 15, 2016
- “Not my kid….” - February 22, 2016
by 
http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/33860743
Yep, “it’s worse for women”.
Now all someone has to do is make a feminst rape apology bingo card.
Hi Ginkgo. Thanks for your welcome last time.
This is why I dislike Feminism. It dehumanizes men in many respects; treating us as if we’re all emotionless and without feeling, no intelligence, or anything that defines us as human beings. We’re somehow blank entities.
These assumptions that men, ‘ask for it,’ and ‘are always gagging for it,’ when a man suffers abuse, be that plain physical violence, or sexual assault, denies us any respect as people; and just serve to reinforce the negative stereotypes that perpetuate feminist thought. If thought is what it deserves to be called.
The fact that men are abused, and its not considered bad or important, and is somehow lesser than the suffering of women, is a disturbing element of the ideology. This is what they think of men. The self-righteous female chauvinism really stands out. If that’s progressive, enlightened thinking, I should hate to see intolerance. The Third Reich anyone?
This view that men are only raped by other men is the same as their line with DV; that it’s predominantly men who abuse other men, mostly in gay relationships, and refusing to accept that women abuse men as well.
All of which denies reality, and a nice passing insult to homosexual men generally, who they like to use as colonial troops when it suits their agenda.
Regards,
Dave.
And let us not forget THIS piece, in which we not only call statutory rape of males “consensual” but then justify forcing them to pay child support. http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/he-says-he-said-no-to-sex-now-says-no-to-child-support/1183449
My favorite part is early on-when the writer asserts: “Around the country there are plenty of cases of underage boys who got a woman pregnant and then tried to avoid paying child support. The 15-year-old in California who was seduced by the 34-year-old mom next door. The 13-year-old boy in Kansas who had sex with his 17-year-old babysitter. The 15-year-old boy in Florida who impregnated a 20-year-old. Under a strict interpretation of the law, these boys, by virtue of their age, were raped. But family courts have seen these incidents for what they were: consensual sexual encounters. And as a result, they have ordered the boys to pay child support.”
Gotta love the “technicality”-statutory rape isn’t statutory rape if the victim is male.
And then, of course, there was the episode of Louie-in which a man had his head bashed into a window-and Alyssa Rosenberg liked the idea-I’m sure we all remember that.
Ask any male rape survivor and I’d bet he can tell you that when discussing his experiences with a feminists, the response he has received is “I’m sorry that happened to you….BUT……” They are incapable of responding without some standard “but” that leads to something justifying themselves, emphasizing the plight of oppressed women, or some other standard ideologically driven BS designed to silence him: they will demean, shame, marginalize, deny or ignore male victims at any opportunity.
And just try pointing out that the whole feminist theory that ALL men are “part of rape culture” means, in effect, they are blaming male victims for their own rapes, and see what happens. My but they go ballistic…
They have not one iota of compassion or caring for male victims because their ideology does not ALLOW for that. Adele Mercier is just the latest in a line of these feminists. From dismissing underage male victims to re-defining rape laws to redefining rape definitions to exclude men, feminism is actually the worlds biggest and frankly, most vile proponent of rape culture-as long as the victims are male.
(Sorry, bit of a tirade there I suppose-but been there, done that…).
@Dave: “…and a nice passing insult to homosexual men generally, who they like to use as colonial troops when it suits their agenda. ”
Pretty much, yeah.
@EvilGreenRanger: You might ask the folks at Cards Against Humanity to make one. LOL
And another thread from that same article; http://bit.ly/1jQNmtP . Note how “criticizing feminism for ignoring male rape” is switched out for “trying to shut up women”. Which is doubly sexist. It ignores male feminists, who are also criticized, as is anyone who ignores male rape, and it pretends there are no women giving the criticisms. Also, what is it with gynocentrists being unable to tell the difference between “you should change what you’re doing” and “you need to shut up entirely”? Are they so sexist they literally can’t conceive of feminism doing any abuse advocacy that is not overwhelmingly focused on women? Do they think feminism is like a shark and swimming, and if it stops being about women, it’ll die?
@Paul:
“We’re willing to help you riiight up until it clashes with our real priority; women.” I actually have a GWW post, somewhere in her tag on SYABM, pointing out how the LGBTQ lobby’s partnership with feminism actually hinders them in getting justice for that group of abuse victims.
@Palmer:
Yeah, I’m gonna have to use that one on SYABM at some point.
There are increasing numbers of feminists who will call out such behavior, even among other feminists. Ironically, they tend to be shamed, silenced, and often mistaken for MRAs.
And considering that the Wikipedia definition of “rape culture” wasn’t de-gendered until early 2012, and most uses are still gendered, what does that say about the term?
I’m glad you called it what it is, rape apology. Too many people dance around that term when it comes to feminist rape apology.
There is nothing more heinous than trying to make it all about “Women are victims, Men are perpetrators” in a discussion about male rape victims.
“I’m sorry. Nobody should go through that. All people who are raped deserve help…
BUT…
…Women are the primary victims of rape. (Insert biased study here) will prove it. While it’s sad that male victims are ignored, women should be focused on because it’s worse for them.”
I tried viewing a thread in the r/feminism on reddit discussing Male Victims of rape. What does the op do? “Keep in mind that women are the majority victims of rape”.
WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH THE TOPIC?
Every. Single. Time.
Every. Single. News Report.
Every. Single. Opinion. Piece.
Every. Single. Discussion.
Every. Single. FUCKING. Time.
Feminist and non-feminist alike. Every. Single. Fucking. Time.
“The majority victims of rape are female. Majority perpetrators are men.”
@Eagle35
There’s an AMPToons post by Fecke, himself a victim, criticizing how Jezebel downplayed male rape. In the comments, someone bought up the CDC study and its results, and Fecke went “th…that’s derailing! And it’s not true, anyway!”
These people know damn well that if “Made to Penetrate” was defined as rape, the numbers of male victims and female perpetrators would reach close enough to that of female victims and male perpetrators to make all this use of “Women are the majority victims” null and void. It’s their last line of defense when cornered about their ignorance on the topic of male victims.
Believe me, when the FBI reclassifies that as rape, these apologists and their ilk will no longer have the “derailing” argument to fall back on. Then they’re going to look like real insensitive assholes with egg on their face.
I look forward to that day. Believe me, as someone who knows what it’s like to be rendered invisible and made to feel like what happened is nothing compared to what women endure.
@Eagle: “I’m sorry. Nobody should go through that. All people who are raped deserve help…
BUT…
…Women are the primary victims of rape. (Insert biased study here) will prove it. While it’s sad that male victims are ignored, women should be focused on because it’s worse for them.”
BINGO. Lord forbid we should ever fail to forever admit that female victims matter more…in the feminist lexicon everything MUST be about them.
“Note how “criticizing feminism for ignoring male rape” is switched out for “trying to shut up women”.
Absolutely nothing can be allowed to penetrate the protective shield of the victimhood narrative .
As Eagle says, “…Women are the primary victims of rape. (Insert biased study here) will prove it. While it’s sad that male victims are ignored, women should be focused on because it’s worse for them.”
And David Palmer:
“And just try pointing out that the whole feminist theory that ALL men are “part of rape culture” means, in effect, they are blaming male victims for their own rapes, and see what happens. My but they go ballistic…”
That’s a start, but we won’t be getting anywhere unitl their heads start exploding. that willbe the beginning of real progress for them.
Self-styled gender radicals who cling like barnacles to the hypoagency narrative. Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Patriarchy indeed.
Obsidian did an interview with Michael Kimmel:
http://www.justfourguys.com/guyland-angry-white-men-an-interview-with-prof-michael-kimmel/
Welcoem, Joe!
That’s an interesting article and Obsidian is always worth reading. I was not aware he identified with the manopshere. So that’s news. He sounds like an MRA.
Anyway that article and the comments are worth a second and a third read. Thanks!
And once again: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/04/male_rape_in_america_a_new_study_reveals_that_men_are_sexually_assaulted.html
They go along just fine here-we’ve misreported the facts, 46 percent of male victims now report female perpetrators, we need to re-think…and then at the VERY end they say about the researcher:
“Stemple is a longtime feminist who fully understands that men have historically used sexual violence to subjugate women…”
Ah, the joy of the never ending “but”. Always have to find a way to take the dig about “but the wimminzzz” even in an article that is all about male victims. Talk about a TOTALLY unnecessary little “addition” to the piece.
Sigh…
David,
““Stemple is a longtime feminist who fully understands that men have historically used sexual violence to subjugate women…”
If they would just adjust the definition of “sexual violence” to include lynch mobs , that would be a contribution to the conversation …but no.
They just can’t quite bring themselves to just denounce female rapists and leave it at that. They just can’t face it.
Do you think Stemple has this from Typhonblues original text or from MRA writings? Did anyone argue this before MRAs did?
Hi, Tom.
MRAs were arguing this before Stemple ever thought of it, but there is no obvious link. she probably came up with this as a research subject on her own.
Here’s that whole paragraph and it raises another question for me:
“Stemple is a longtime feminist who fully understands that men have historically used sexual violence to subjugate women and that in most countries they still do. As she sees it, feminism has fought long and hard to fight rape myths—that if a woman gets raped it’s somehow her fault, that she welcomed it in some way. But the same conversation needs to happen for men. ”
Does Stemple, as a feminist, understand that women can use sexual violence to subjugate men, that they can parlay consensual sex into proxy violence?
How long have MRAs argued this? I`m thinking of the whole envelopment and 12 month number thing. Did not all of that start with Typhons manufacturing victimhood post a couple of years ago? And had MRAs found high rape numbers before that?
MRAs (including Typhonblue) and others (Toysoldier, Feckless and me) have written/commented etc about the last 12 months numbers since December 2011 when the CDC published the NISVS 2010 Report. Some examples:
http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other/
http://feck-blog.blogspot.com/2011/12/you-just-cant-make-this-shit-up.html
As for finding high rape numbers for men prior to the NISVS 2010, yes MRAs and others have done that, here is Feckless in 2009:
http://feck-blog.blogspot.no/2009/09/sexual-violencethe-forgotten-victims.html
Here’s another Feckless post from May 2011 citing the “Predictors of Sexual Coercion Against Women and Men: A Multilevel, Multinational Study of University Students ” study which found that male students reported being forced to have sex more often than female students did:
http://feck-blog.blogspot.no/2011/05/predictors-of-sexual-coercion-against.html
One important earlier incident is when James Landrith told the story of him being raped by envelopment by a female rapists at Helen Smith’s blog (Helen Smith is also a contributor at AVfM).
Here are some posts about James Landrith’s story and the reactions to it:
http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/being-a-man-202/
http://thesuperfluousman.blogspot.no/2008/07/cheerleading-for-rapists.html
Ginkgo: I just submitted a comment with quite a few links, I suspect it’s trapped in the spamtrap. Would you care to rescue it?
Actually, Tom, someone makes that exact point. And of course the ignoring of MRAs is blamed entirely on…MRAs. Thing is, even when non-MRAs try to talk about men’s issues, no matter how politely, they get attacked just the same as MRAs, and are usually mistaken for them. In fact, just criticizing feminism is enough; Feminist Critics is blocked by several filters, and not only does the website specifically prohibit broad-brush generalizations about feminism, the main admin is, ballgame, is a feminist.
The term “MRA” gets slapped on any critic of feminism who doesn’t clearly identify themselves as feminist, as a synonym for “misogynist”. Including other feminists. The ironic thing is that for a group stereotyped as being a small amount of whiny men, such efforts create the impression the MRM is a lot bigger than it actually is.
I really want to see how many feminists who tried to downplay TB’s post are going to accept this. How many more are just going to do their best to ignore it. And how many are going to rationalize it so they can claim feminism’s been fighting these issues the whole time (but don’t actually ask for examples).
Tom: In lieu of my spam-trapped comment. MRAs and others in the male gendersphere (to include people like Toysoldier who doesn’t identify as MRA) have talked about the last 12 months numbers and how CDC defined rape and made to penetrate since within a few days of the publication of the NISVS 2010 Report.
Toysoldier, Feckless and others have discussed male rape (and female perpetrators) a long time prior to the NISVS 2010 Report.
One of the most visited posts on Feminist Critics was published in 2009 and is titled “Can Women Rape Men”. Typhonblue is a prominent commenter in that thread.
And in January 2008 Daran wrote an article titled “The Anomalisation of Male Rape”.
From the Slate comments:
My reply:
Thanks Tamen. I`ll check the thread you mentioned. Did MRAs find any high rape numbers before the made to penetrate report? I`m asking because I think it is meaningful to point out in later discussions when this does become more accepted in the mainstream that MRAs did in fact figure this out before feminists and have been campaigning relentlessly ever since, without it seems much effect on feminists writings on rape. I´ve been disappointed with feminists for still presenting rape of men as rare and not taking the made to penetrate numbers and 12 month numbers into their writings when MRAs have made them so aware of those numbers and debated them with them continuously since they came out.
Yes, they did. Feckless amongs others had a write up on this paper published in 2007: http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID45-PR45.pdf
It found that more male than female students had experienced forced sex. The sample were students who were in a heterosexual relationship.
Feck-blog.blogspot.com and toysoldier.wordpress.com are good places to start looking as well as the archives here.
I have tried to reply earlier, but comments containing links from me seem to be spam-trapped. I tried to link to Feckless (feck-blog (dot) blogspot (dot) com and toysoldier (dot) wordpress (dot) com who both have written quite a lot about male rape.
I can count on one hand the times I’ve seen feminist write about the last 12 months numbers in any article or blog-post. And that includes this article by Rosin as well as ballgame of FeministCritics.
Lara Stemple has previously written about how male victims are excluded by many definitons of rape – here is a 2009 paper from her titled “Male rape and human rights”: http://scienceblogs.de/geograffitico/wp-content/blogs.dir/70/files/2012/07/i-e76e350f9e3d50b6ce07403e0a3d35fe-Stemple_60-HLJ-605.pdf
Here is Lara Stemple in 2011 rising awareness of male victims of conflict rape: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/opinion/02stemple.html?_r=0
For a feminist, the point of every discussion is “how women are affected.” The spotlight must always, ALWAYS be on women at all times, and any attempt to discuss anything else–for example, male victims or men’s problems–is a threat to this focus that must be dealt with harshly and immediately. NEVER take the focus away from what’s best for women, and how women are affected. That’s all that matters, and all that will ever matter.
There you go,Tamen. and thanks, as always.
@Tom:
“…If the apparent misandry is really “backfiring” misogyny.”
Really? Haven’t run across that one myself. It sounds…rather convoluted-although it would fit with the usual narcissism.
“They also have to ignore “violence against women” by women”
Yep. And sort of semi-related-I wonder what they’ll do about same sex marriage outcomes. The samples are still WAY to small to judge-but at least in initial reports on same sex divorce it appears F/F marriages are more likely than M/M marriages to end up in divorce. I imagine it’s a little tough to blame those problems on “patriarchy” (although I’m sure someone will come up with some pretzel logic to do just that…).
Or they may just ignore and deny, as they do with the greater incidence of DV in lesbian relationships.
There is a word for all the distortions and prevarications and special pleading everyone is describing here: DARVO. It is a hallmark of abusive relationships. That is what feminists have with men and men’s issue – they have an abusive relationship, and they are the abusers.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/women/darvo-deny-attack-and-reverse-victim-and-offender/
That DARVO article was one of my favorites-and it’s a pattern of behavior feminists engage in all the time.
In my work I’ve been referring to it as “victim-bullying”-the phenomenon which occurs when a bully is challenged for their abusive behavior and responds by claiming to be the victim.
OT but nice article on “check your privilege” here: http://theprincetontory.com/main/checking-my-privilege-character-as-the-basis-of-privilege/comment-page-1/#comments
I quote like his idea of using ‘character’ as the basis of “privilege”.
P.S Read it then read the 4th comment from champion of social justice Samantha Benning, who describes an account of someone building themselves up from the devastation of the holocaust as “entire wall of text of absolute meaninglessness”. It’s because she cares so much about other people /s.
@Palmer
@SYABM “How often, in media, is a woman slapping a man portrayed as wrong?”
Pretty much never. But then that, of course, would be part of the non-existent female privilege feminsits maintain does not exist.
SYABM:
One feminist on Reddit argued that although she personally thought that MTP is rape she thought CDC and other studies were correct in not categorizing it as rape. This because she “had reasons to believe” that doing so would not help male victims and she “had reasons to believe” that doing so would harm female victims.
Then came some half-assed explanation on how statistics showing a higher number of male rape victims would be used as an excuse for men to rape women.
She has since deleted her comments.
Oh, since I already have you here SYABM and I can’t for the life of me make heads nor tails about “commenting” on Tumblr:
In this article/comment/post (!?!) you write that a woman can be convicted for assault by penetration and that’s it.
http://siryouarebeingmocked.tumblr.com/post/72392148369/raxacoricofallapatoriusobviously
That is not correct. You are forgetting SOA 2003 Section 4.4 (c)(d) which makes “making someone penetrate someone else” a crime punishable with up to life in prison:
You are right that it isn’t called rape though, and that is a big deal as it relates to visibilty/awareness and allocation of resources as well as how PSAs and other anti-rape and anti-sexual abuse campaigns are designed and implemented.
My jaw kind of dropped when I realized that the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) does not report on victims of SOA 2003 Section 4.4(c)(d) and in fact doesn’t even capture them with their questionnaire:
http://tamenwrote.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/uk-csew-doesnt-count-all-sexual-offences/
Regarding the CSEW – I wrote a letter to the ONS enquiring about CSEW not capturing these victims. I discovered today that I got an answer from ONS:
It may be small steps, but it’s still a forward momentum which I believe will only increase. Soon all former nay-sayers will claim that they cared and advocated for male victims all along.
http://tamenwrote.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/ons-will-look-into-adding-questions-to-the-csew-to-capture-more-male-victims/
@Tamen
Funny. Futrelle (before backpedalling) and those Indian feminists who opposed the country’s sexual assault laws becoming gender neutral used similar rationales. In the later case, it was claimed that making the laws nongendered would allow men to falsely accuse women of rape as a defense against accusations. Futrelle never explained his logic at all, despite repeated requests.
I’ll make a new post with the corrections soon. Or maybe just alter my 10th anniversary post.
Alternately, to paraphrase Scott Adams, nothing makes people argue harder than being proven wrong.
That said, it’s really weird to see people doing the “glad I thought of it!” trope in real life, such as the feminists who claim they’ve really been fighting for men all along, even when they personally demonstrate sexism against men.
I´m going to write an opinion article about Stemples new paper. I am highly interested in ideas of what to include that she does not and of what in her paper you think is most important to emphasize. It will be a long article and I will cover a lot.
I plan to include Typhones study about men repressing memories of victimization 400% more than women and the one about witnesses remembering the violence between a man and a woman differently the more time passes as an explanation of the difference between lifetime and 12 month numbers. I am going to be quite hard on rape researchers in general for not having understood the importance of this difference as it is well understood in social science that people change their answers over time a lot and it is obvious that this would the case for male rape victims to an unusually large degree.
I plan on including the South Africa numbers to show that this is not just a western issue but is relevant in the third world as well.
I am going to include the numbers for male victims of sexual violence in wars and the fact that 41% of female rape victims in Congo where victims of other women, yet mostly reported as victims of men in the media.
I have just downloaded Stemples paper and so have only read the first few pages but it seems while she emphasizes the need to include studies of the prison population she ignores that because men are overrepresented amongst the homeless, in heavy psychiatry, in dropouts from school, amongst those who kill themselves and die of risk behavior and from violence from others and since these groups likely have far more rape victims than the general population this will further skew the numbers. I am planning on using the diffence between the rate of prostitution between boys in shelters and in the general population as an example of how strong this effect can be. The best would be to find some study of the rate of rape or sexual abuse in the history of people in one of these categories. Even a study showing the rate amongst women in one of these categories would illustrate the difference between the general population and the disadvantaged risk groups.
While Stemple criticizes parts of the feminist perspective gently she tries to do a turnaround and puts more emphasis on things such as not seeing men as sex crazed and deemphasizing traditional views of masculinity as important feminist contributions that can be important in understanding fairly similar victimization rates between men and women. What do you think of this. I am aware of Mary Koss` views and I find that to narrow to include. What would you say have been the normal feminist perspective on this issue and how do you think it jukes with what Stemple says? The way I see it feminists have connected rape to masculinity and mens control over women and to inequality in general and this has contributed strongly to making people unable to see male rape victims. Yet I do see some aspects of feminist theory that can be used to see it differently. Though I do find this mostly irrelevant since the core of feminist theory so strongly masks reality.
I am also planning to emphasize that the rate of rape in the prision population makes rape of men highly relevant and underreported in the third world. Since prisons there are often organized in a way where the guards just make sure no one escapes but lets the prisoners organize life in the prison through violence hierarchies this makes it extremely likely that the rate of prison rape on third world countries are vastly higher than in the US. In the US prisoners get quite a bit protection through the guards. I am guessing the third world prison population is much higher than in the west because of high crime rates on long sentences but I am unsure wehter this is the case. Does anyone have any sources on this?
Oh, and what do you guys think about the studies on women raping women are higher rates than men raping men in prisions and the study that showed such high numbers of male juveniles victimized by female guards/staff? Any perspective on this and how to use it is highly welcome.
Just wanted to say I’m a woman and I mostly agree with everyone’s opinions on here.
Not all women are crazy feminists. I refuse to call myself a feminist since I believe the latest generation has made a mockery of the whole damn thing.
Katana: I suspect I would be correct if I were to guess who you are… If so; will you please alert me when your opinion piece is published?
You might want to look at the book “Just Sex?: The Cultural Scaffolding Of Rape” by Nicola Gavey. In it she has a chapter titled “Turning the tables? Women raping men” where she argues that one can’t do a gender-reversal to determine if a man was raped:
Or more specifically:
The context for this quote is an analysis/discussion on a scene from the 1990 movie “White Palace” featuring James Spader and Susan Sarandon. The scene in question is described by Gavey in her book like this:
The complete chapter in that book is pretty interesting and telling – the chapter in full is available here: https://www.geneseo.edu/webfm_send/3243
In particular the little nugget where the woman who clearly defines the scene depicts rape and applies a gender neutral analysis to arrive at that conclusion is identified as a not a feminist. While the woman who doesn’t call it rape because he asked for it by coming home with Sarandon’s character identifies as a feminist. Gavey states that the feminist veers into victim-blaming only because she lacks the vocabulary to explain that it’s different. (See the quote above where Gavey states this scene is profoundly different if it were a man waking up an non-consenting woman with oral sex).
The scene from the “White Palace” movie is available here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xduv3_s-sarandon-w-palace_redband
The book won an award and is for instance cited in this article on VAWnet.org.
Honestly, I don’t care. I don’t gender feminists as women. That would be sexist. Ironically, it’s something a lot of feminists do, especially when they want sympathy. I only gender feminism when I sardonically call it “The Sisterhood”.
Feminism has always been biased towards women. Claims that it’s helping men too are fairly recent, and generally unsupported with actual examples.
Thanks for this piece, it’s pleasant to know that I’m to blame for my own rape, because (insert feminist BS study or ‘theory’ here). How refreshing it is to know that it wasn’t an assailant I will likely never know, who won’t be prosecuted due to lack of evidence.
I’m just glad that;
a) not all people buy into this nonsense anymore
b) some female police officers in the UK, clearly give a shit
c) I didn’t catch anything
d) my loathing for the guardian newspaper is justified
e) people are doing something to stem the tide
Also, if anyone wants to be utterly horrified for 60 minutes of their life, ‘Blurred Lines – The New Battle of the Sexes’ put out by the BBC last night, would be a most excellent programme to use to play ‘Feminist Canard Bingo’ with. (It may only be available in the UK, for now).
Thanks to you all.
Thank you Tamen. I am indeed who you think I am. I missed your comment. Was it stuck in moderation for some time? I sent you an email at about the same time I wrote here. Do you still use the same email address?
Yeah, it was stuck in moderation because of all the links. I have approved it
Katana: I do have the same mail-address. It is however also connected to my blog and my twitter account as well as other sites which sends out lots of notifications making it easier for mail to slip by me. I am sorry about that.
OK. I`ll resend it now so you can look for it.
The link referenced by these words ” be “raped” but rather are said to have “engaged in sex”” is broken.
Fixed. Thanks for catching that.
Other comments on the article?
It’s short. It hits all the main points, but I think I might be able to come up with a few examples (of other kinds of apologia) after I rest my brain for a while. But it’s very succinct and spot-on.
Not just wrong, but comically wrong.
“but I think I might be able to come up with a few examples (of other kinds of apologia) after I rest my brain for a while”
I will add them in on the end. The more the merrier.
Yeah, sounds like Tax-a-mony — what single males are going to pay the state to subsidize all the single mothers.
No promises on coming up with more examples — you might have hit them all. It’s just a feeling.
Great call on the objectification->fungibility thing, BTW! I’ve been looking for a better way to express that objection.
It’s time for a post on objectification in general and how the term has been hijacked and restricted to refer mostly to sexual objecitiication. Goddamned sex obsessives!
The end. The end of
all you’ve done. You see, none of it was real. It was illusion. Your dictionary definitions, your false statistics, it was all a nightmare. And now it’s done.
To my brethren our task is nearly complete. Feminists are those who brought the
punishment to us. We have exposed and purged their lies.