I Loved Deeper

There was a study once where a group of young children, I believe under the age of 8, were asked what a “stranger” looks like. I mean, we tell our kids not to talk to strangers all the time but do kids really know what the hell we’re talking about? Apparently, they don’t.

The descriptions provided by the children amounted to “people dressed in black” “men in masks” “men with guns”. Well, considering that my children have never seen any of those things, it makes sense that Christopher talks to everyone.in.sight.

I was reminded of that study when I read this piece from the LA Time opining that RAPE is no longer a crisis:

It is a central claim of these organizations that between a fifth and a quarter of all college women will be raped or will be the targets of attempted rape by the end of their college years. And who will be the assailants of these women? Not terrifying strangers who will grab them in dark alleys, but the guys sitting next to them in class or at the cafeteria.

Such a crime wave — in which millions of young women would graduate having suffered the most terrifying assault, short of murder, that a woman can experience — would require nothing less than a state of emergency. None of this crisis response occurs, of course — because the crisis doesn’t exist

During the 1980s, feminist researchers committed to the rape-culture theory discovered that asking women directly if they had been raped yielded disappointing results — very few women said that they had been. So Ms. magazine commissioned University of Arizona public health professor Mary Koss to develop a different way to measure the prevalence of rape.

Rather than asking female students about rape per se, Koss asked them if they had ever experienced actions that she then classified as rape. One question, for example, asked, “Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?” — a question that is ambiguous on several fronts, including the woman’s degree of incapacitation, the causal relation between being given a drink and having sexual intercourse, and the man’s intentions. Koss’ method produced the 25% rate, which Ms. then published.

It was a flawed study on a number of levels, but the most powerful refutation came from her own subjects: 73% of the women whom the study characterized as rape victims told the researchers that they hadn’t been raped. Further, 42% of the study’s supposed victims said they had had intercourse again with their alleged assailants — though it is highly unlikely that a raped woman would have sex again with the fiend who attacked her.

Federal law requires colleges to publish reported crimes affecting their students. The numbers of reported sexual assaults — the law does not require their confirmation — usually run under half a dozen a year on private campuses, and maybe two to three times that at large public universities.

So what reality does lie behind the rape hype? I believe that it’s the booze-fueled hookup culture of one-night, or sometimes just partial-night, stands. Students in the ’60s demanded that college administrators stop setting rules for fraternization. The colleges meekly complied and opened a Pandora’s box of boorish, promiscuous behavior that gets cruder each year.

read here for the full story: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-mac_donald24feb24,0,7810608,full.story

I think the writer, as well as most of our nation, has fallen into the same “trap”. We are asking women if they’ve been raped, but limiting “rape” to only men in black masks. I think her definition here is skewed.

Apparently, she believes that “rape” means, “someone had sex with me who was mean, dressed in black, holding a gun, that I didn’t know who dragged me out of the grocery store”.

What amuses me, but doesn’t, is that I had always thought that “rape” was about the ACT, not the who the attacker was. Truly, if you look rape up in the dictionary, it does little to describe the perpetrator and does everything to describe the ACT.

RAPE is an action. It constitutes someone using my body for sexual pleasure in a manner I have not fully approved of. I don’t care if the person enacting it on me is a stranger, a friend, a family member or a priest. If I haven’t given my full approval, then it is RAPE. If I look back and say “I didn’t want to have sex with him”, it was RAPE. (Note that that is different than “I wish I didn’t have sex with him”).

If the perpetrator uses a drug or alcohol (or a blackjack) to put me in a state in which I will participate (conscious or unconscious) even though I don’t want to, that is also RAPE.

As long as people (men and women) are basing the definition of RAPE on the attacker and whether or not I was beaten to a pulp in the activity, of course women, when given that definition will often have to say, “No”. My problem here is that we are only playing into that mindset of our rape society by continuing to use a definition that is just false.

If the definition of RAPE is being made to have sex when you don’t want to, then if someone drugged me so that I would have sex with them when I didn’t want to, then I was RAPED. Also to note: it doesn’t matter WHO I am either. I could be a prostitute drug addict - if I don’t want to have sex, I don’t want to have sex. Rape is Rape is Rape is Rape is Rape.

The entire article made me shake in fury. I don’t get THAT angry about a lot of things but I will with this one. I don’t know what kind of masochistic woman wrote the article but she can kiss my ass and get away from my world. My daughter deserves to grow up in a place that:

1. Acknowledges her rights to make decisions about her own body (no matter if I agree with all of them or not).

2. Acknowledges that anyone who attempts to influence her, drug her or take advantage of her is wrong.

3. Calls it like it is. Rape is Rape, no matter who the perpetrator (or victim) is.

I suggest that if you choose to reply to me, that you understand fully what victim blaming is and avoid it. Also, keep your “rape justifications” to yourself unless you want pointed out how YOU are the problem.

I could get into the whole “the law throwing cases out” and “stupid women who are like you” contributing to the whole “women not reporting the crime” but of course. cart. horse. It’s a circular argument that with people who are unable to see beyond their own nose is impossible.

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