"What is rape culture and how does it persist in society today?" By Sól Hilmarsdóttir – sh260991
The word “rape” is derived from the Latin word “rapere,” meaning “to steal, seize or carry away.” Forcible seizure and rape were accepted methods of claiming a wife in early history – and, in some cultures, this still occurs. Owning property and gaining wealth were considered marks of manhood. This ownership revolved around possessions and, without a wife, a man’s lineage would end. (Poskin, P. 2008). According to Susan Brownmiller, the author of ‘Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape,’ rape is not a crime fuelled by lust or want but power and violence. It is claimed to be one of the most influential books put on the market seeing as it changed so many views and public outlooks and attitudes on rape and even had the effect of changes to the law regarding rape. What is rape culture? The feminist movement in the 70’s and 80’s coined the term ‘rape culture’ but today every cultural and social issue acknowledges its existence. In our modern society rape culture is being used to ‘correct’ queer women, dominate and strip women of all preferences, to encourage men to use the words of rape like ‘I’ll make you my bitch’ and society uses rape culture to ‘castrate’ men by referring to them as women if they ever confront the issue of rape culture. Sex is not part of a relationship, but is, to the contrary, a solitary experience as well as being non-‐creative and a gross waste of time. The female can easily -‐ far more easily than she may think -‐ condition her sex drive away, leaving her completely cool and cerebral and free to pursue truly worthy relationships and activities; but the male, who seems to dig women sexually and who seeks constantly to arouse them, stimulates the highly-‐sexed female to frenzies of lust, throwing her into a sex bag from which few women ever escape. The lecherous male excites the lustful female; he has to -‐ when the female transcends her body, rises above animalism, the male, whose ego consists of his cock, will disappear. (Solanas, V. 2006). What Solanas is talking about is how we have been programmed to take away a woman’s right to sex, a woman is still not allowed fully to enjoy her body without being called a ‘slut’ or a ‘whore,’ it is not looked at like an issue within society but merely a radical feminist one, knowing fully well that more than half of society refuses to identify themselves as feminists and stand up to the problem. Women used to simply be about procreation, and then they discovered that they were allowed to enjoy sex like men did, somewhere along the way society caught on and stopped it, we’ve gone a full circle in shaming women that have sex, to praising them to shaming them again, blaming them for violent actions against them because after all, women want this, right?
Freud (1897) held two theories on child sexual abuse. At first he said that his patients were suffering from mental disorders due to being raped by their father in childhood. However, that theory was very controversial in his day. Freud later changed his theory to fantasies. He said that the women were not actually raped but fantasized about being raped. This led to the cornerstone of his theory, the Oedipus complex. The Oedipus complex is a theory by Freud that claims all children sexually desire the parent of the opposite sex, he became so uncomfortable by his first ideas on rape that he revisited his own theories and changed them, claiming that little girls and women simply imagined the rape and even “wanted” it during childhood due to their love for their father and envy towards their mothers. Is it safe to say that rape culture began that day when Freud went back on his own theory and started blaming the victim of wanting sexual abuse? Did Freud view victims as lesser beings? Thus resulting in refusal to deal with their mental issues of sexual abuse and instead stating the theory of this ‘sexual desire to be controlled and owned’? Probably. According to Suzanne Brown (A feminist history of rape), rape is an expression of a violent culture that uses gender stereotyping, among other forms of oppression, to sanction and justify the brutalization of women, children and, increasingly, men. While the origins of sexual violence predate any statute or cultural collective, the manner by which social structures choose to intervene or ignore rape speaks volumes about larger norms. In a modern society we still believe that women possess the need to be a controlled object and dominated in such a way that it borders on rape, teaching the aggressor that rape seems to be the total norm, even after all of Freud’s theories have been proven to be poppycock. It is argued that Freud’s emphasis on women’s fantasies about being raped are in fact fantasies by males, and desires to rape and control. Even though most scholars discount Freud’s Oedipus and Electra fantasies, the aftereffect of his thinking still lingers in our society. The opinion that victims of rape were simply asking for it is very prevalent and also that rape victims (and, in fact, most women) actually do fantasize about being raped. But are we asking for it or is it maybe just a big part of our heritage? Is the need to be dominated and taken by force something that runs deep down in our savage blood? Is rape culture simply, men who hate women? It seems to have begun that way, or have we evolved to people who hate people? There is a generation that is growing up and having children that will accidentally raise their sons and daughter to think that forcing their genitals on someone else is “normal” sex. This generation is raised on rape culture and unless we sit down and talk about the awkward pink elephant in the room our children will never get, that rape destroys a human being.
Let’s look at what is causing this issue in modern society; Television, music, magazines, movies, social media and news, but you also find the justification; “Boys will be boys”, “Men lack the self-‐control”, “what was she wearing?” and “He probably just likes you”. It’s the same element of “pulling the pigtails” on the playground and telling girls that “they just like you” thus normalizing violence. In today’s society we can’t keep running away from the issue, we can’t keep raising girls that think violence is a sign of personal sacrifice and love and we can’t keep raising boys to think that they have a right to someone else’s body. But it’s not always how you were raised that effects the way you think about sex and consent, our everyday lives are filled with subliminal messages moulding our minds. “Look at what she was wearing” is a very popular term when you hear about a female victim of sexual assault, the way that person was dressed is often said to have been an invite to sex that they didn’t ask for. The fashion industry has been portraying sexual assault on women more than anything throughout the years, displaying them in situations that no one would want to be in and calling it couture. Calvin Klein advertises jeans for both sexes by showing three men in jeans holding down a naked woman, grabbing her by the hair and pushing her down, giving the idea how sexy their jeans are by displaying a gang bang in magazines. The fashion industry has tremendous control of what we wear and how we wear it, but also shaped a world where a woman isn’t beautiful or sexy unless she is surrounded by men trying to have their way with her, giving young girls the idea that the only way they’ll ever be like that beautiful woman in the advertisement is to submit to situations like Calvin Klein and Dolce & Gabbana have painted up and put in front of them. It’s not just infecting girls to put themselves in unwanted situations but it’s also shaping up young boys into believing that women want to be treated like this, that if you treat a woman with disrespect and violent behaviour she will desire you more. But it’s not just the fashion industry that is effecting us, the average Brit spends almost a decade on watching television, television consumes too much of our lives and attention to condone this much evidence of rape, portraying it as something that it’s not, a joke, to gain shock value, and sympathise a female character that is genuinely not liked by the consumer due to her coldness and hardness. Sitcoms for instance have a domination rate of making it into joke. Take the American television series “2 Broke Girls” as an example, a show about a female friendship, co-‐written by a woman, where one of the female leads says in a whiny mocking voice "Somebody date-‐raped me and I didn't think I'd live through it, but I did, but now I am stronger, and I'm still needy.”
Sitcoms make fun of sexual assault survivors while shows like Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey use rape culture for shock value, Game of Thrones for instance altered the original story of the book which they base their television series on and added a rape scene just because they could, they put a grieving mother and her twin brother which has had consensual incest relations with her in the past and make him rape her, and Cersei’s initial “no, no” in the scene as just part of her game or foreplay for what becomes consensual in the end. The music industry has made millions by turning rape culture into something sexy and romantic, they have managed to turn a huge profit despite the fact that most songs send a subliminal message to young people that getting another person drunk to make them stay longer is alright and to use their position over them to make them submit and give into their ‘true want’.
A good example of this is the beloved Christmas song ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ where the character Wolf tries his best to make the female character Mouse stay a bit longer, warning her of bad weather and that it would be best for her to have another drink, the lyrics go as such; MOUSE: Maybe just a half a drink more WOLF: Put some records on while I pour MOUSE: Say, what’s in this drink? WOLF: No cabs to be had out there Mouse has been spiked, but honestly, not like she would have been able to get home in this horrendous weather anyway, right? This song is a good example of how we romanticise rape culture; we view a song about predatory attack as a simple gesture of want and love, he likes her so much that he doesn’t want her to leave him. Other pop songs have a clear message on the other hand; Robin Thicke’s song ‘Blurred Lines’ for instance is all about the subject of blurred lines of consent and how men know they want it when a girl clearly says no to sex. It’s easy to miss the subject of the songs when producers of the video show naked women prancing around that seem to be enjoying themselves when the man is singing to her how she’s a good girl and he’ll give her something that’ll tear her ass in two. We don’t think much about the people that represent us that have been victims of rape; we always question them and ask ourselves “is this just a publicity stunt? Are they claiming rape for a front cover?” But we still celebrate known rapists in the entertainment industry such as Bill Cosby, Mike Tyson and Roman Polanski, we see nothing wrong with their actions because they are famous, in fact, we as a society hardly see anything wrong with rape or rape culture.
We still listen to them, knowing what they did, and we look up to them because they got away with it due to fame. This sort of lenience encourages people to not care about the consequences, and not just in Hollywood, but everywhere. We can take The Steubenville High School rape case that occurred in Steubenville, Ohio, on the night of August 11, 2012 for an example on how we tolerate rape culture and the actions of rapists. The American football team videotaped a girl passed out from alcohol, the video contained them harassing and undressing her, digitally penetrating the victim's vagina and exposing her breasts while their friends filmed and photographed her, one of the boys attempted to orally rape the victim by forcing his penis into her mouth. Each defendant received a mandated minimum sentence, with the possibility of remaining in juvenile detention until age 21, the longest sentence given in this case was two years, and only one of the boys received it, the rest got one year. Social media went ballistic when the video came out and the sentence set, most people were defending the team, saying how they had had such a bright future in football. The victim? Slandered and blamed. If we take a look at modern society in greater detail, we will see that the number of rapes is increasing at an alarmingly high rate. In fact, we don't have to look far as Sweden now has the second highest number of rapes in the world, after South Africa, which at 53.2 per 100,000 is six times higher than the United States. Statistics now suggest that 1 out of every 4 Swedish women will be raped. Sweden, a country, which is considered one of the most forward thinking, and most educated country in the west is faced with an increasing problem with no end in sight. Although Sweden is as educated as it is, the problem can be linked directly to the lack of education and awareness on what rape culture is and how it effects people’s views on sex, and I'm not only talking about Sweden in this instance. By normalizing rape in the media, such as advertising, films, books, etc. where today's youth is exposed to it as 'normal', we are implanting the though in them that it's "normal", inadvertently perhaps, yet we are doing it all the same. This does not only lead to the fact that people think that rape is okay in itself, or an act which may constitute as rape seems to them to be normal sex. In effect, rape culture is in fact distorting people’s perspective of sex, and even making the heinous act of rape become a fantasy, just as Freud’s theory postulated. By discussing this issue with a close group of people in confidence I gained information from their daily lives and one good example is messages people receive on dating websites and apps where people are able to hide behind an
assumed anonymity. A good friend of mine who is gay received a message a while back which read something in the way of "I'll tell you where I will be, you will come there, punch me, hold me down, drag me to your car, drive me somewhere and have your way with me, no names, nothing, just rape me". This is a clear example of what rape culture can do. This young man thought this was normal, but it's not, and that clearly shows you that education on the subject is highly needed, to stop things like this in its tracks, we have become so jaded as a society that most people view rape and sexual violence as a sort of kink and a fantasy, bringing the subject back to Freud, is rape culture something we created or is it something that we desire? Do we want this? Rape culture is also a big part of the gay community where men rape men, or even women rape men and use it as a weapon to correct homosexuality and ´guide them onto the right track’. Approximately 1 in 8 lesbians and nearly half of bisexual women experience rape in their lifetime, and statistics likely increase when a broader definition of sexual assault is used. Nearly half of bisexual men and four in ten gay men have experienced sexual violence other than rape in their lifetime, and though statistics regarding rape vary, it is likely that the rate is higher or comparable to heterosexual men. As with most hate-‐based violence, transgender individuals are the most likely to be affected in the LGBT community. A staggering 64% of transgender people have experienced sexual assault in their lifetime. (Lauren Paulk, 2014) Way too many people think the idea of a man that has been raped by either sex is funny, they feel that a man can’t really be raped after a certain age, both due to the gender stereotype and/or sexual orientation. What we must portray to the world is that the scope of the problem is endless, and it will only increase if nothing is done about it, rape culture must end soon before we bring in future generations that think treating their fellow man like this is alright. We as a society created rape culture and now live with it, women and men are being raped daily and we don’t bat an eye, we have become so used to sexual violence in the media that when this is happening right next to us we do nothing. Osvaldo Peña Garcia came to Iceland not too long ago to teach men how to pick up women, he figures women are not in fact people but creatures that are to be treated like shit so they'll like you more. He's not the only "pick-‐up artist" in the world that thinks treating women like garbage is the way to go, there is also Julien Blanc. Julien Blanc is the epitome of rape culture, he saw an opportunity to use it to its advantage and he took it, he has created a group of men (and is still creating
them) that show violent and sexual aggression towards women, pushing rape culture to a new level, he tells men that if they pay him, he'll teach them how to rape them all. He convinces men that it's healthy to cheat on their wives and girlfriends and how one way to get women is to choke them, one of his tactics on how to get Japanese girls is to yell 'Pikachu' and shoving their heads in his crotch. He is moulding desperate, lonely men into violent psychopaths, he is encouraging them to go after them in a way that 'no' isn't an option and teaching them to manipulate guilt in women so they'll feel like they have to sleep with them.
What is to be done?
To stop rape culture, we have to remove the stigma that hangs over victims of sexual assault, we have to stop slut shaming and remove rape culture from television, stop turning it into this giant joke that it has become, we need to stop teaching people that rape and violent behaviour is something sexy and desired by women in songs, we need to bring the topic of rape culture into schools from an early age and educate children of what it really is. We all know the topic is uncomfortable to talk about, but that is why it must be addressed, we must create a world where victims of sexual assault can speak up without being asked what they were wearing or how much they had to drink that night, and where rapists are addressed right, with a heavier sentence in jail, no matter how bright their future might have been. It’s a fact that parents and even teachers have no interest in addressing the giant pink elephant in the room that is rape, but if we don’t get our act together soon we will create a world that encourages sexual assault and domestic violence by not dealing with the issue, by looking past it we will create empty shells of human beings that have lost all hope, and with no hope we can’t build a better future.
Bibliography Ad bites: Is Calvin Klein’s latest ad promoting rape and violence? (2010) Available at: http://www.examiner.com/article/ad-‐bites-‐is-‐calvin-‐klein-‐s-‐latest-‐ad-‐ promoting-‐rape-‐and-‐violence (Accessed: 28 April 2016). Blumenthal, R. (1984) FREUD: SECRET DOCUMENTS REVEAL YEARS OF STRIFE. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/24/science/freud-‐secret-‐ documents-‐reveal-‐years-‐of-‐strife.html?pagewanted=all (Accessed: 28 April 2016). BROWN, S. (2003) Feminist history of rape. Available at: http://www.safeplaceolympia.org/wp-‐content/uploads/2011/09/A-‐Feminist-‐ History-‐of-‐Rape.pdf (Accessed: 1 April 2016). Brownmiller, S. (1975) Against our will: Men, women and rape. New York: Simon and Schuster. Greenfield, D. (2015) 1 in 4 Swedish women will be raped as sexual assaults increase 500%. Available at: http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/175434/1-‐4-‐ swedish-‐women-‐will-‐be-‐raped-‐sexual-‐assaults-‐daniel-‐greenfield (Accessed: 1 April 2016). Murray, A. and birthinreverse (2014) Discourse of thrones: Jaime, Cersei, and confronting rape. Available at: https://cultural-‐ learnings.com/2014/04/21/game-‐of-‐thrones-‐jaime-‐cersei-‐rape/ (Accessed: 28 April 2016). Paulk, L. (2014) Sexual assault in the LGBT community. Available at: http://www.nclrights.org/sexual-‐assault-‐in-‐the-‐lgbt-‐community/ (Accessed: 1 April 2016). Poskin, P. (2008) ‘A brief history of the anti-‐rape movement’, . Romano, T. (2012) Rainn Wilson, ‘2 broke girls,’ and the rise of the rape joke. Available at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/22/rainn-‐ wilson-‐2-‐broke-‐girls-‐and-‐the-‐rise-‐of-‐the-‐rape-‐joke.html (Accessed: 28 April 2016). SHE & HIM LYRICS -‐ baby, it’s cold outside (no date) Available at: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/shehim/babyitscoldoutside.html (Accessed: 28 April 2016). Solanas, V. (2006) The S.C.U.M. Manifesto. Available at: http://kunsthallezurich.ch/sites/default/files/scum_manifesto.pdf (Accessed: 1 April 2016). Steubenville high school rape case (2016) in Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steubenville_High_School_rape_case (Accessed: 28 April 2016).
Citations, Quotes & Annotations BROWN, S. (2003) Feminist history of rape. Available at: http://www.safeplaceolympia.org/wp-‐content/uploads/2011/09/A-‐Feminist-‐ History-‐of-‐Rape.pdf (Accessed: 1 April 2016). (BROWN, 2003) Note: WASHINGTON COALITION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT PROGRAMS Poskin, P. (2008) ‘A brief history of the anti-‐rape movement’, . (Poskin, 2008) "The word “rape” is derived from the Latin “rapere”, meaning “to steal, seize, or carry away.” Forcibleseizure and rape were accepted methods of claiming a wife in early history – and, in some cultures, this stilloccurs. Owning property and gaining wealth were considered marks of manhood. This ownership revolvedaround possessions and, without a wife, a man’s linage would end." (Poskin, 2008) Solanas, V. (2006) The S.C.U.M. Manifesto. Available at: http://kunsthallezurich.ch/sites/default/files/scum_manifesto.pdf (Accessed: 1 April 2016).
"Sex is not part of a relationship, but is, to the contrary, a solitary experience as well as being non-‐creative and a gross waste of time. The female can easily -‐ far more easily than she may think -‐ condition her sex drive away, leaving her completely cool and cerebral and free to pursue truly worthy relationships and activities; but the male, who seems to dig women sexually and who seeks constantly to arouse them, stimulates the highly-‐sexed female to frenzies of lust, throwing her into a sex bag from which few women ever escape. The lecherous male excites the lustful female; he has to -‐ when the female transcends her body, rises above animalism, the male, whose ego consists of his cock, will disappear." (Solanas, 2006)