Does "rape culture" really exist?

[Mr.Big Meat McGee]

 

[YeLovesBoston]

Breh, you can't keep waving the banner of racism to solidify this argument. We can do this all day. Are there are lot of terrorists? Sure. Are they all muslim? Nah. Are there a lot of muslim
terrorists? Presumably, yes. But the culture of terrorism is the fringe, and a lot more layered than "We like to kill...so we do."

Are there rapists? YES. Just as your anecdote goes, lots more women than men realize have been raped, or at the very least put into a compromising situation. My mom was raped
when she was young, and one thing I think she understood, it wasn't a societal reason, it was that guy being a massive dikk who took advantage of a young'n.

Rape culture is not a thing. Rape also isn't exclusive to male activities, much less male on female. It's one of the societal ills that plague us, and unfortunately there is no real way to stop
it. We expect good and bad people to do bad things, even when we least expect it. The primary argument for a "rape culture" seems to want to direct itself toward misogyny, as that is
the root of what plagues the issues. A guy who thinks less of women (global issue, and you can argue its a culture in certain groups) is very likely to push the envelope at some point.
There is no "culture of rape", but there are sickos who find superiority in having a penis, and see women as a means to entertain himself. There is no culture surrounding rape, there are only
circumstances and cultures that MAY INCLUDE rape. Most men are not out here trying to take it by any means, much less conduct themselves in a way where women should feel
threatened at his very presence. This is nonsense, breh. Even if you stomped out the very systems that would foster an Elliot Rodgers-like cabal, that doesn't stop the seemingly normal
guy who one day decides to slip something in a woman's drink, or the pervert who grooms girls to lay with him, or the father who takes a disturbing interest in his own daughter.

People don't need a "culture" to do horrific things, but you can't tie the incidences of those horrific things together as if they are linked.

Now I understand

thanks for breaking it down breh

 

[Claudex]

Wish I could say I got it all on my own, but real talk I got a little sister @CinnaSlim whom I fully credit for puttin' me up on game.
Even after the 50+ times I hit her with the + + she'd send me links and stories just to make sure I could understand how different her world was. She my real MVP in this life.

 

[SunZoo]

Breh, you can't keep waving the banner of racism to solidify this argument.

Why not?

1. I'm speaking the language of the land. It took about two or three posts before somebody brought up da whites.

2. The parallels between misogyny and racism in my argument serve to try and get people who ask this question to RELATE. I'm not trying to beat you at some game, I'm trying to frame the situation in a way that you'll understand it. You as a black man have the inside track on what that means...on a particular brand of racism, of white supremacy that can't be experienced by people who don't. Women have this same inside track with the kind of culture and societal conditioning that lay the grounds for them to be be seen as less and overwhelmingly more subject to rape and harassment on a level we can't experience. True or false?

We expect good and bad people to do bad things, even when we least expect it. The primary argument for a "rape culture" seems to want to direct itself toward misogyny, as that is
the root of what plagues the issues. A guy who thinks less of women (global issue, and you can argue its a culture in certain groups) is very likely to push the envelope at some point.

So agree that women being perceived as less-than is a cultural...shyt global issue and that the men around the globe who think less of women are likely to push the envelope. It's like you feel as if the word "Rape" should only be used if someone gets drugged or mugged and forced into sex.

To me, "rape culture" is addressing the passive nature of misogyny that leads to the global and cultural phenomenon of women being seen as less-than. Sounds like a valid description to me, especially if it's coming from the people holding the envelopes being pushed (don't ask me how).



To go back to the racism comparison, it's a lot of people that don't even recognize racism in all of it's aspects, black, white or otherwise. Just like I'm sure there are men, who again are conditioned to lack empathy for women, may not even understand that they may have pushed that envelope until women start speaking up about their experiences.

 

[At30wecashout]

First of all, sorry that ever happened to your mums breh. For real.
But I beg to differ where rape culture is concerned, especially when I've witnessed homies scooping up drunk women like they're pulling bodies from a morgue with no security. Without repercussions whatsoever because "the fukk these hoes expect would happen to them when they get drunk at a bar/party"?
When you can fukk a girl who's blackout, and she wakes up like "Who is you? And what am I doing here? " and all you gotta do to KIM without issue is say you're so and so and they met yesterday on some shyt. Then that's culture, because she and you know that if she goes to the cops y'all gon' have several witnesses saying "Oh yeah, they left the club together all hugged up. Hope lil'homie got it in."

When you get a girl to your room with game and she tries to back-track on some "Hol'up we moving a little too fast." but you're like "But we already here tho'. I ain't gonna be left dry." and go to town on her without much resistance 'cause she know the cops will be like "But you just said you went to his room alone with him tho'". That's culture.

Point is; the cultural aspect isn't the fact that rapists are gonna rape. Everybody knows that already . The point is to get people to see these predators who think they're slick before they do some major damage to somebody's girl/mum/daughter. The point is to get bystanders to pay attention to women getting dragged because they're too drunk and afraid to put up a fight, and for cops to not just shrug off some girl's story about what happened between four walls.

Rape will always happen, but it CAN be minimized with a few tweaks, that's the point.

All this is fine, and true. The only thing I dispute is there being a culture of rape. A culture of bystanders who let bad situations take place...sureBut that goes for most crimes.
Even if people suspect, they don't act. Some of it reasonable, some of it pure negligence. To say there is a culture is to say we are all complicit in this happening, when as a society(half being women) we don't condone rape. Individual instances of said act does not mean that nobody would have stepped into a situation, like one with a girl who has had to many and the vultures come in.

Speaking of instances where you saw people take a drunk chick out, did you interject??? I have done so, twice on behalf of strangers (one happened to be with her boyfriend) and a few times
cause of ditsy female friends I kept. Mind you, everyone sees an event differently. The guy in front of the two saw a dude rushing a drunk chick out the bar...the guy to the side saw a chick
being helped by a guy who knew she had too many...a guy from behind can not see anything out of the norm, because he might very well be doing the same thing with his buddies when the
girls they are with drink too much. Clear-cut examples aren't the ones that happen most often, so predators win when there is doubt about intentions, especially if EVERYONE in the bar is drinking.
Who really is assuming anyone is there to harm anyone? It's like saying "Teach men not to rape." Well, teach murderers not to murder...teach thieves not to steal...etc.

See how asinine that sounds? Now you can say "Exercise judgment, before and after you drink, so you don't get yourself into a situation where you might cross the line with a lady."
And then they might call it victim blaming, but if you are out drinking and don't have a support system that will keep you straight if you do too much, you are open to the off chance that
either
A: some nut comes and takes what he wants
or
B: A drunk guy comes along, you both make a poor decision, and at the end, you both don't really know what went down.

Remember, rape is USUALLY committed by someone who is familiar with the victim, so it might not even be a chance for others to intervene, much like my mother.
It was a family member.

 

[At30wecashout]

Ok, i'm not gonna keep arguing this point. Someone please, define a "rape culture."

Rape and misogyny don't go hand in hand. A rapist doesn't have to be a misogynist though he may be(that goes for rapes against females AND males), and a misogynist doesn't necessarily want
to rape.

One man may think women are less than men, but not to the extent of dehumanization. Simply to the extent that her opinions and feelings are ALWAYS secondary to his.

The next man will beat and berate a woman openly, and may or may not rape.

There is no culture built AROUND rape, but there may be cultures where rape isn't taken seriously as a crime (Middle East is notorious for this).

That does not mean that within a culture, a man who may overlook a rape will also commit one, though one is very much as bad as the other.

Just define a rape culture. Hint: You can make it small in scope, or as large as you want, because just about anything can be used...hence the terms ridiculousness.

 

[SunZoo]

@At30wecashout

An excerpt from the article that breh above posted that I think you'd find to be a reasonable explanation.

"Perhaps some people truly don’t understand what rape culture is.

After all, if you’re hearing the phrase for the first time, it can be really confusing.

We understand the word “culture,” from a sociological or anthropological viewpoint, to be things that people commonly engage in together as a society (ranging from the arts to education to table manners), and we find it difficult to link the word “rape” in with that concept.

We know that at its core, our society is not something that outwardly promotes rape, as the phrase could imply. That is, we don’t, after all, “commonly engage” in sexual violence “together as a society.”

To understand rape culture better, first we need to understand that it’s not necessarily a society or group of people that outwardly promotes rape (although it could be).

When we talk about rape culture, we’re discussing something more implicit than that. We’re talking about cultural practices (that, yes, we commonly engage in together as a society) that excuse or otherwise tolerate sexual violence.

We’re talking about the way that we collectively think about rape.

More often than not, it’s situations in which sexual assault, rape, and general violence are ignored, trivialized, normalized, or made into jokes.

And this happens a lot."

I'm not a male feminist, I've laughed at rape jokes and while empathy has always been one of my strong suits I have certainly treated women poorly at times just off instinct...but I GET IT. More importantly even if I don't quite "get it" I'm willing to hear women out who feel the need to put the issue on the table.

 

[CinnaSlim]

All this is fine, and true. The only thing I dispute is there being a culture of rape. A culture of bystanders who let bad situations take place...sureBut that goes for most crimes.
Even if people suspect, they don't act. Some of it reasonable, some of it pure negligence. To say there is a culture is to say we are all complicit in this happening, when as a society(half being women) we don't condone rape. Individual instances of said act does not mean that nobody would have stepped into a situation, like one with a girl who has had to many and the vultures come in.

Speaking of instances where you saw people take a drunk chick out, did you interject??? I have done so, twice on behalf of strangers (one happened to be with her boyfriend) and a few times
cause of ditsy female friends I kept. Mind you, everyone sees an event differently. The guy in front of the two saw a dude rushing a drunk chick out the bar...the guy to the side saw a chick
being helped by a guy who knew she had too many...a guy from behind can not see anything out of the norm, because he might very well be doing the same thing with his buddies when the
girls they are with drink too much. Clear-cut examples aren't the ones that happen most often, so predators win when there is doubt about intentions, especially if EVERYONE in the bar is drinking.
Who really is assuming anyone is there to harm anyone? It's like saying "Teach men not to rape." Well, teach murderers not to murder...teach thieves not to steal...etc.

See how asinine that sounds? Now you can say "Exercise judgment, before and after you drink, so you don't get yourself into a situation where you might cross the line with a lady."
And then they might call it victim blaming, but if you are out drinking and don't have a support system that will keep you straight if you do too much, you are open to the off chance that
either
A: some nut comes and takes what he wants
or
B: A drunk guy comes along, you both make a poor decision, and at the end, you both don't really know what went down.

Remember, rape is USUALLY committed by someone who is familiar with the victim, so it might not even be a chance for others to intervene, much like my mother.
It was a family member.

We generally do teach people not to murder, lie and steal. However, culturally, we teach girls that they have to be careful of what they wear and how they act, to watch their drinks as if they are at fault if they get raped. As if their rape was brought on by a lack of caution. Instead of teaching boys to respect a woman's right to say no.

We teach boys that girls play hard to get, and to watch out for these "fast ass girls".

So yeah, part of it is ingrained into the culture.

To add to that, because it goes both ways. It is taught that men are always horny so they can't be raped. If a woman molests a guy, people make jokes that the guy should be grateful, he's lucky even. All part of rape culture.

 

[At30wecashout]

@At30wecashout

An excerpt from the article that breh above posted that I think you'd find to be a reasonable explanation.



I'm not a male feminist, I've laughed at rape jokes and while empathy has always been one of my strong suits I have certainly treated women poorly at times just off instinct...but I GET IT. More importantly even if I don't quite "get it" I'm willing to hear women out who feel the need to put the issue on the table.

I'm glad you said this, because when I mentioned rapes were going to happen, I didn't mean for it to come off cavalier, devil may care, etc. Just that crime happens, and we wince
at it when we see it, but we all just hope it never happens to us or people we love.

Men should really be there to listen to the concerns of women, cause ultimately, we run things, so the onus is on us to assuage their fears.
The idea of a "rape culture" though to me interconnects a ton of isolated incidents that dont necessarily correlate. It's not unlike if we chuckle at a crude rape joke, and those around us
*assume* that not only do we enjoy that kind of stuff, but that we may participate in a rape, or in it's dismissal in the court of public opinion.

It's a dangerous correlation to make. Rape does not need a culture around it, as rape was likely a thing before a "society" became a thing. It happens. It's awful. But there is no
concerted effort nor an undertone to condone it. Humans can be morbid creatures, though, so we can turn tragedy into a punchline at the drop of a hat.

Rape is not immune to that.

 

[Doomsday]

There is no rape culture. Men don't care about women's plight because of the 80/20 rule that comes from the tradition of modern society. You can't say 'fukk you' to the majority of men and then ask them to feel sorry for you later. It's as simple as that.

Added to that, women only cry foul when it's convenient for them. Women are only "abused" by men when it's time to get attention and money for it.

 

[Wild self]

There is no rape culture. Men don't care about women's plight because of the 80/20 rule that comes from the tradition of modern society. You can't say 'fukk you' to the majority of men and then ask them to feel sorry for you later. It's as simple as that.

Added to that, women only cry foul when it's convenient for them. Women are only "abused" by men when it's time to get attention and money for it.

And on top of that, if the man is attractive and/or have other women already, they don't say a word because he is desirable. they only go after the unattractive men or men without large sums of $$ to harass, because like one poster said, it's big business for the $$$ the rape consulars, the prisons, the media to bank on.

 

[Wild self]

Rape is a horrible thing that men, women, and children go through. The fact that they call it a culture and not an act of violence, is very telling.

 

[At30wecashout]

We generally do teach people not to murder, lie and steal. However, culturally, we teach girls that they have to be careful of what they wear and how they act, to watch their drinks as if they are at fault if they get raped. As if their rape was brought on by a lack of caution. Instead of teaching boys to respect a woman's right to say no.

We teach boys that girls play hard to get, and to watch out for these "fast ass girls".

So yeah, part of it is ingrained into the culture.

To add to that, because it goes both ways. It is taught that men are always horny so they can't be raped. If a woman molests a guy, people make jokes that the guy should be grateful, he's lucky even. All part of rape culture.

You can't "teach" people not to do things such a murder or steal or lie. Those are, for the tabula rasa that is a kids mind, abstract concepts. They can watch a man be murdered in a movie, but
they don't really know the consequences. The family that just lost a loved one. The productive member of society that is now gone. Same with stealing and lying. The big deterrent for those things
are empathy (do unto others), compassion, and the consequences that follow for committing such acts.

Presumably, every man knows the consequences for rape, yet that does not deter those that are determined results be damned, or those that do it because they are unlikely to be caught.

But thats less than the feeling that most people get that harming someone else in any way is wrong. Most of us don't do these things because we don't want to hurt someone. I may not have
raped anyone, but I know what its like to betray someones trust. To steal. To strike someone. It wasn't so much the trouble that followed that bugged me as much as the sheer disrespect I saw
in committing the act, the anguish I inflicted on another well-meaning person. This is why you cannot "teach" not doing these things after a certain point, because people that don't give a fukk
will do so.

The thing about teaching girls things, it is because ultimately, there will come times and situations where there isn't someone there to look out for them. 4 blocks from my house is a bad neighborhood.
Dealers openly deal, and we always hear the stories of who got stomped out or shot. If i'm out there at 2am, something I've done dozens of times, and get robbed and shot, do we blame me?

I was just out, and it doesn't matter the reason, so long as I wasn't harming anyone. Maybe I was also out there with some common tats, dreads, etc, and whomever clapped me thought I was an
OPP. Is this my fault?

You don't need to answer that question. This is the same reason it is drilled into girls, because ultimately you can do whatever you want, but since wellmeaning people outnumber those who would
do you wrong, the person who might harm you needs one thing: opportunity. I can tell my son not to harm women, no means no, etc. That does NOT mean he will listen. This is common knowledge,
we are autonomous beings, and since a few people(rapists in this case) ruin it for others, the majority has to be proactive, cause the strongest tool is prevention.

The alternative is to tell people in a given place to pay near-constant attention to women on the off chance someone assaults them. Maybe some people blame the girls, but the rest of us
mentally play out a situation in which an opportunity was afforded to a criminal who then took it. Again, you can't teach people to be decent, as they already know the consequences of being
awful people. They simply choose to do what they do anyway. Not making it easy is all we can do.

 

[philmonroe]

What's the quickest way to get a white man mad? Call him a racist....

It's to the point where "racist" is the worst thing you can call a white person, cac, cracka, peckerwood will NEVER, EVER turn a white man red the way calling him a racist is, even if he calls you a racial name directly after it...he will still defend himself like that word is made out of acid. Why?

Just because it's not socially acceptable to be BLATANTLY racist (or misogynist) like it used to be (championed) doesn't mean racists disappeared or that the societal conditions don't make plenty of opportunity for people to be conditioned toward racist behavior.

nikkas see the words Rape culture and automatically jump to a blatant example of forced sex. That's like reducing racism to n words and violent acts. It's about the CULTURE that fosters shyt like the "incell" movement that people like Elliot Rodgers came from.

This shyt y'all cats that spend too much time online be on. Ain't no fukking rape culture. Bet most of you cats don't even see this shyt in y'all real life offline but there is some culture please. nikka using some random ass Elliot Rodgers weirdo to make that out to be the majority of guys and you a guy? Man some of you cats be lost like shyt smfh

 

[Man Down]

Regret a hook up? Rape culture.

This the one I agree with since I've seen it happen a couple of times.