reaction?

[mzteris]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2980288


Funny - I was in agreement with the thing. The men seem pretty WTF bewildered and pissed off.

I'm not asking you to post in there, but in here about the difference in perception of this issue.

I thought everything it said was true. How about you? Do women and men really see "it" that differently?

[lukasahero]

1. Honestly? I had some issues with it.

"You are a rapist if you get yourself drunk and have sex with her."

I think it's misspoken.

Perhaps were it worded "You are a rapist if you get yourself drunk and have sex with her against her will" but the way it's worded, is pretty bad.

In fact, I suspect the second wording is what is meant but there is no way someone can post this and not expect people to react badly to it.

One poorly worded choice will be used to flame the entire thing and that (as was noted but later redacted by one poster) only serves to dismiss and minimize rape.

There are some extremely important points to be made in the post but they are overshadowed by the tone and the one inaccuracy made early on in it and I believe those important points can't be successfully argued now. Too bad - it could have (should have) been an important post.

[mzteris]

2. I read it differently -

I read it as if you use "I was drunk" as an EXCUSE for having had sex with her against her will -

I thought it was implied.

I honestly don't think that's the "problem" with the post. Though some may use it as an excuse to dismiss it. I think a lot of men think they're ENTITLED to sex. That women "owe" it to them (for some of the reasons listed in that post).

Is it "rape" if you nag and nag and nag your wife and tell her you're going to leave her if she doesn't have sex with you - and so she does (because she does love you), but doesn't want to "do it". (And then you get flaming mad because she doesn't participate wholeheartedly and doesn't say it was 'good for her, too'? :eyes: )

And then can't understand why she's MAD that you basically "made her have sex" and that - essentially - it's rape. ??

Personally, I think the men who are mad at that post might just see themselves somewhere in it and they don't like it. So they have to dismiss it.

[lukasahero]

3. I agree that's what was meant

Unfortunately, in GD people will reach for any excuse to dismiss an important post about rape that they can and yes, there are people on that post saying that according to the post they are rapists while laughing at the very notion. The post is, in my opinion, unsuccessful as a result.

Like I said, there's a lot there worthy of discussion but as it's posted and where it's posted, the opportunity will be lost. I encourage anyone who wants to try to get a serious discussion going with it but I know DU and GD in particular well enough to know how that will turn out.

And the losers will continue to be the women who are raped by their husbands, women who are coerced into saying yes, women who are afraid to say no.

We have to have these conversations but we have to do so in a responsible way because, I'm sorry, people are laughing at this post - not listening to what it wants to say.

[Warpy]

6. "against her will" is the operative phrase and it was left out

in too many of the cases. That's really too bad. If it had been included, there would have been fewer "WTF?" from women.

Coerced sex by threat of violence or abandonment is one of those really grey areas. It feels like rape. Men will never see it that way.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

4. Not that we could post now, because it's locked

Funny how threads that apologize for, and scrutinize the victims of, rape are allowed to go on forever.

But in this case the boys were getting their fee-fees hurt so the hammer had to come down. :eyes:

[noamnety]

5. I've seen the list before

and don't understand the wtf responses or the joking about being a rapist.

As for differences in perception there are two that jump out at me, the first being that it's pretty difficult for me to understand the appeal of having sex with someone who doesn't want to have sex with you. The second is that I don't think men have the same sort of fear of consequences if they say no, so maybe they can't understand how the nagging on their end is just nagging, whereas on the receiving end it's everything from a perceived threat of violence to an accusation of inadequacy (do men even have an equivalent term for being "frigid"?) eventually leading to being thrown out without means of support for herself or kids, particularly for housewives without an independent salary or health insurance, or the many women who earn less for the same work men do.

[ThomCat]

7. I like that list.

I'm going to have to borrow that.

The defensive people who complained seem to want to keep their options open just in case. x(

[ismnotwasm]

8. Yes, they see it differently

I'm a strong believer in rape culture. It's a difficult concept to wrap a mind around really, especially for men. Women tend to take the fact that they are potential victims for granted, or a "normal" part of culture rather than a symptom of a deep societal sickness. Both women and men get raped, but except in a very few cases rapists are men.

Men have their sense of sexual entitlement, usually unacknowledged. Many men can get very indignant if it's pointed out to them. To me, this sense of entitlement is part of rape culture even if it doesn't involve rape. Women so often presented as packaging more than a person. It can be worse-- women as some sort of orifice for penile penetration. Or just penitration.

And as always, SEX and the pleasure that can go with it somehow gets intertwined with the subject of rape. So many cannot separate rape from sex, because sex is the medium-- if you will-- for an act of violence, power and control.

The list has flaws, but it's simplistic enough cut through the bullshit of what rape is. Men and some women would rather discuss what rape isn't--more comfortable I guess. One of the ways to fight rape is through education of what it IS, and this list is a pretty good start.

[ThomCat]

9. Yes, and more so.

When men joke about a man getting raped it's often in terms of "becoming someone's bitch." It's about men becoming women. Built into it is the idea that women get raped, and that men don't unless they aren't really men. So rape is about gender.

This also seems to me to imply that it's okay, or at least normal, to rape women.

When men joke about a man getting raped there is also an undercurrent that if a man gets raped, maybe it's because he's gay, or maybe he'll become gay. So rape is about sex and sexuality.

There is some acknowledgement that rape is violent but there isn't an acknowledgement that the violence is bad. After all, the real man is the rapist and the victim isn't a real man. Real Men are supposed to be violent. So the rapist inherently gets more support than the victim, and so does the rapist's violent behavior.