"Talk to your dudes about believing women who say they've been hurt."
October 14, 2015 9:16 AM   Subscribe

"I am a hetero white cis man working to take the space I have in the world and make it feminist... I know that it should be rapists' responsibility to not rape instead of survivors' responsibility to not get raped, and I know that by virtue of being a dude who doesn't talk to other dudes about rape I am complicit in rape culture, but I just have no idea where to begin. Can you talk to me about talking to rapists about rape?" [cw: potentially triggering language abounds]
posted by divined by radio (31 comments total) 83 users marked this as a favorite
 
The notion that in order for rape to occur, the rapist must have “rapist” intentions is a garbage folly, because rape has absolutely nothing to do with a perpetrator’s intentions and everything to do with a lack of consent. Just because a perpetrator didn’t mean harm, it doesn’t mean they meant well.

This is fantastic and so very necessary. Thanks for posting.
posted by giraffe at 9:30 AM on October 14, 2015 [30 favorites]


Until dudes have the opportunity and reason to think through how their socialization has groomed them to be rapists, we’ll always believe that rape is inconceivable—too big, too irreproachably evil to even consider, let alone deconstruct or eradicate. You know how an ancient Roman dude once wrote, “I am human, and nothing of that which is human is alien to me”? I encourage you to apply that notion to rape. You are a human, and rape is a human thing. Do not let rape remain alien to you, because it does nothing to stop anyone from raping.

Oh. Oh, this is excellent.

One thing that I think a lot of people struggle with when it comes to dealing with abuse of all kinds and of rape in particular is that it's very easy to write off the people who commit vile acts as somehow not human, impossible to understand, and inherently evil. It's hard to say that someone who didn't mean to, who wasn't thinking about it, could be responsible for great harm to another person. It's deceptively hard to acknowledge that someone who means well might still do something terrible because they wanted a thing that someone else didn't want to give, and they selfishly chose not to see what another person was trying to say. I say deceptively because it looks like it should be easy, and yet the behavior of people who are exposed as rapists or harassers--including serial rapists and harassers--demonstrates over and over again that this is incredibly difficult for many people.

I think the recent Marcy thread illustrates this well. It's hardest to acknowledge that someone you love or like, someone who has been good to you, committed assault or otherwise harmed women. That's a hard thing specifically because people we know and like can't be slotted into that inconceivable "but how could you?" person of a rapist or a harasser. That box is an oversimplification, and knowing someone gives that person too much dimension to fit into a narrow label of misogynist evil. One of the most powerful--and terrifying--things an ally can do is look for places where they wanted to do something horrible, but didn't--and talk to other people who might want the same thing about it. Not to victims--this ain't something to ask for cookies over, and anyway asking is tantamount to threatening all the women you know. But to model that you don't do that even if you want to, because the risk of harm to someone else is so great that it outweighs what you want in that moment.

I mean, there's wanting and wanting. There's been times when I was drunk that I thought driving would be a great idea, because I had somewhere to be and I couldn't afford a cab and it was hard to get there via public transit. But I didn't drive--I waited, or I sucked it up and got on the bus, because the risk of killing someone loomed large enough in my addled mind that I made sure I wouldn't be on the road to chance it. We talk about that, as a society. Can men talk to each other about the consequences of not pausing to get affirmative consent from women?
posted by sciatrix at 9:45 AM on October 14, 2015 [52 favorites]


My favorite part is:
Talk to your dudes about the fact that rapists are not anomalous evil monsters: they are men who were raised with devastatingly common attitudes about manhood who have not had reason or opportunity to confront entirely how deeply rooted their masculine socialization actually is, perhaps because it so often works to their advantage.
Because in any conversation about sexual assault, the very first thing a whole bunch of dudes are gonna want to know is what you did to stop it and why you weren't smart or adept enough to avoid coming into contact with a rapist in the first place. Then they're gonna want some kind of comforting, right after we've made sure to assure them that we know they aren't rapists, and that they could never be rapists, because men who commit sexual assault are obviously devil-people, as opposed to being the invisible, unremarkable kind of people we see, work with, partner with, live with, and love every day.

I think a key aspect of dismantling rape culture is going to require men acquiring insight into just how utterly quotidian rapists are, which is going to involve the deeply uncomfortable realization that they're actually quite likely to be at least acquainted with one or more of them right now.
posted by divined by radio at 10:25 AM on October 14, 2015 [66 favorites]


As the indomitable fangmeli tweeted the other day, “we love ‘good intentions’ and ‘bad intentions’ but ‘no particular intentions for anyone but myself’ is where most shit goes down.”

I want this tattooed across my back, Sublime style, but then I wouldn't be able to see it.
posted by phearlez at 10:38 AM on October 14, 2015 [18 favorites]


I think the recent Marcy thread illustrates this well. It's hardest to acknowledge that someone you love or like, someone who has been good to you, committed assault or otherwise harmed women. That's a hard thing specifically because people we know and like can't be slotted into that inconceivable "but how could you?" person of a rapist or a harasser.

Yes, this! The National Sexual Violence Resource Center released a study recently that upends the very common notion that sexual violence is mostly confined to a few bad actors. They found that it's not a few bad actors. It's a lot of people who probably consider themselves decent folks, and who others probably see as decent, who commit rape a small number of times.

It really points to how important it is to change rape culture - sexual violence isn't coming only from a few sociopaths that we can identify and contain or avoid. It's coming from a culture that encourages even "decent" people to push past non-consent. There are risk factors that make it more likely that people will rape, and we have to deal with those on a systemic level.

You can't just assume that of course a nice and decent-seeming person would never commit rape. Men have to realize that the potential to rape is in them, that it's in their friends and acquaintances, that they are not automatically exempt just because they are nice. And they need to commit to addressing the factors in their own minds and in the culture that make that the case.
posted by aka burlap at 10:38 AM on October 14, 2015 [5 favorites]


Because in any conversation about sexual assault, the very first thing a whole bunch of dudes are gonna want to know is what you did to stop it and why you weren't smart or adept enough to avoid coming into contact with a rapist in the first place.

YES YES YES OH MY GOD YES. If I had a nickel for every time I've found myself having to say some variation of, "What, do you think 'guys like that' go around with a giant red 'R' tattooed on their foreheads or something?" I'd have a big bag of nickels to swing at the asshole I was talking to.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:04 AM on October 14, 2015 [18 favorites]


"Rape is very rarely deranged men leaping out of bushes at women in the middle of the night."

This perception by society is one of the things that makes it so hard to talk about though. Co-workers (male, naturally) have said to my face that rape isn't a problem and rape culture doesn't exist, because we as a society vilify rape. It is impossible for me to explain to them that we only vilify one or two specific kinds of rape, which don't represent the vast majority of rapes. It's impossible for me to convince them of anything other than violent rape perpetrated by strangers still being prevalent and, yes, actually rape.

If you can't convince someone that rape other than 'man jumps out of bushes' exists it is impossible to convince them that rape culture exists, and therefore there is no deeper, societal problem to worry about or bother thinking about. Let alone actually thinking about your own behavior and responsibility. We just have to lock up the men with knives! Problem solved.

Maybe if there was a single dude in the office who would step up they'd listen, but who knows because none of them have, and I don't hold out any hope they ever will. It's much easier to ignore it, and since I (the only woman in our group) am the only one talking about it then who cares really. This is a less common attitude with my male friends, but I've chosen them carefully, we know each other well and have cultivated a pretty deep relationship, so they actually seem to respect me as a person and put stock what I'm saying . Maybe more importantly a couple of them actually seek out my opinions on this stuff.

Good article. Really good article. Hits on a lot of my personal frustrations. Glad people like the question asker exist though and very good response.
posted by nogoodverybad at 11:05 AM on October 14, 2015 [13 favorites]


The notion that in order for rape to occur, the rapist must have “rapist” intentions is a garbage folly, because rape has absolutely nothing to do with a perpetrator’s intentions and everything to do with a lack of consent. Just because a perpetrator didn’t mean harm, it doesn’t mean they meant well.

This is the exact same issue I faced recently in trying to make some strangers on the internet aware of their systemic racist attitudes. As soon as the hint of accusation hit the air, I got pounded with "I'm not racist. I don't hate X group!" You don't have to hate a group to act in a racist way without intending to do so. But boy was that the wrong place and time for me to try to educate people.
posted by tippiedog at 11:29 AM on October 14, 2015 [14 favorites]


Here is a very good addendum that also came across my facebook feed today
posted by eviemath at 11:50 AM on October 14, 2015 [10 favorites]


This is really good! I also think something about enthusiastic consent should be added to this. I remember when I was younger, and foolish (cis female here, so not just about how dudes are raised!) I earnestly asked the question of "how would someone know their partner doesn't consent, if they don't hear them say the word 'no'?" Because my whole life, that was the only way anyone had talked to me about consent: "no means no". So in my mind, anything other than a "no" was an ambiguous sign.

I'm lucky; my first serious relationship was an extremely healthy one, and as soon as I saw how it was supposed to look, it seemed in retrospect to be blindingly obvious. But only in retrospect, because before that I just didn't know better.

I think dudes should talk to dudes about how ridiculous it would be to want to be intimate with someone who isn't totally thrilled to be intimate with you and/or isn't super into doing things that make you feel good. I think dudes should talk to dudes about how awesome enthusiastic consent can really be, how awesome healthy relationships are, how much better relationships are when we talk to each other and ask about each other's wants and needs. I think everyone should talk to everyone about this.
posted by capricorn at 12:18 PM on October 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


The part where the author tries to isolate respecting women from the whole "she could be your mother, your daughter, your sister!!!" relational thing is awesome. IMHO the worst misogynist of all is John Mayer with that "mothers be good to your daughters exclusively because they exist to breed" bullcrap that was so popular on the radio all those years ago. (Also he peed on my friend, non-consensually.)
posted by Mooseli at 12:44 PM on October 14, 2015 [21 favorites]


I think dudes should talk to dudes about how awesome enthusiastic consent can really be

I agree, but negative reinforcement matters too. If I had a son*, I would absolutely want him to cultivate empathy and respect and to see affirmative consent as foundational, but I'd also want him to understand that even with those things sex will still be an ambiguous space where unexamined power dynamics are always at play and where risk is ever-present. This is why I support the "Yes means Yes" standard; not because it somehow clarifies what sex should be like under ideal conditions but because it demands that young men acknowledge uncertainty and warns of unintended consequences.

* (or any young person who's world-view I was in a position to influence)
posted by ducky l'orange at 12:54 PM on October 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


Wow, that was great. And I sure do love that this got called out:

Don’t let your dudes go from “man that’s afraid to hurt a lady” to “man that just won’t have sex” to “man that’s bitter about not having sex” to “man that hates women for being so fragile.”
posted by Sublimity at 1:44 PM on October 14, 2015 [14 favorites]


THIS IS REALLY, REALLY GOOD. I'm sharing everywhere and re-reading a few more times.
posted by naju at 2:00 PM on October 14, 2015


Given recent discussions of emotional labour and the social and emotional isolation that plague dudes as a result, I loved this bit:
When men hurt women, and women say so, and men get upset and say things like “that’s not what I meant, that wasn’t my intention,” it implicitly asks women to drop their emotions and take care of men. In these situations, men ask women to do the kind of empathy work that falls into a long and storied line of women being rendered responsible for the impossible and dangerous task of loving the misogyny and homophobia out of their dude partners. Don’t rely on femmes to do this: it is high time that men loved the misogyny and homophobia out of one another instead.

posted by Phire at 2:03 PM on October 14, 2015 [29 favorites]


I think a key aspect of dismantling rape culture is going to require men acquiring insight into just how utterly quotidian rapists are, which is going to involve the deeply uncomfortable realization that they're actually quite likely to be at least acquainted with one or more of them right now.

I've posted about this before on here, but it's depressingly 100% true. It took several well liked people everyone knew and thought were completely Good Guys and harmless turning out to be repeated rapists before there was even a sort of half hearted acknowledgement that yes, the phone call is coming from inside the house.

I don't know how to fix this either, because at least from everything i've seen so far throughout like my entire life... no one is willing to believe it could be anyone including themselves until it gets really uncomfortably close to them.

I don't know how to fix this, but the discussion does seem to be shifting with stuff like this article and just everything i've been hearing offline.

As the indomitable fangmeli tweeted the other day, “we love ‘good intentions’ and ‘bad intentions’ but ‘no particular intentions for anyone but myself’ is where most shit goes down.”

...Damn.

This whole thing is amazing. Just damn.
posted by emptythought at 3:47 PM on October 14, 2015 [5 favorites]


So last week, there was a viral internet kerfuffle about a 19-year-old UConn student who went into a drunken rage because he was refused service at a student union. There was a long video of him demanding mac & cheese, bitching at a manager, finally assaulting him, being taken down and arrested. It became a meme, as these things do.

I bring this up because when I read about it, I found in the comments section a link to a reddit thread in which one user alleges:

I'm his classmate at UConn. I was with him in a HuskyPride meeting during orientation, which is essentially a sexual assault prevention lecture. The presenters are explaining that it is dangerous for a drunk woman (or man) to be taken away by someone they don't know because of the possibility of sex without sober consent. Pretty standard stuff.

So this little shit pipes up. "But WHY do we have to help them??" He's in the center of a 200 person lecture hall, and he's speaking loud enough for everyone to hear.

So the presenters explain again that a drunk person cannot give consent. His response:

"I don't give a SHIT about them, I don't give a fuck if a girl gets raped"

It was an instant reaction in the crowd. Every girl in the room turned and memorized his face, every guy quietly shook their heads in scorn.

The presenters try to save the moment, saying, "well what if it's your sister, mother or cousin? We here at UConn are a community and we need to protect each other."

"Well it's NOT my sister or mother. So I don't give a shit!"


Nobody likes Mac & Cheese Kid. He'll probably never be employable outside of family connections. What we need to do is to help cause a cultural shift in which being ignorant and belligerent about women and consent is seen as pathetic. Not manly, not "refreshingly un-PC," but as childish and disgusting and stupid as this boy, throwing a tantrum in a restaurant.

People managed to shift the cultural view of drunk-driving over a generation. Maybe, just maybe, we can do it with rape culture.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:13 PM on October 14, 2015 [17 favorites]


dbr, you come across some real gems of articles. Please keep them coming.

This was excellent, for all the reasons that people have already mentioned here. I'm glad to see that the idea that rapists = evil/monsters/not human is seeming to get called out more often these days as the nonsense that it is. Because it's a mindset that is so incredibly harmful in so many ways. This reminded me very much of an article that was the subject of an FPP a year and a half ago which was written by the husband of a woman who was raped and murdered in Australia. The Danger of the Monster Myth (which does not contain any upsetting details of the actual crime), and I'll post the same passage here that I posted in the earlier thread, because after reading the article again for the first time in over a year, it stood out to me once again:

What would make this tragedy even more tragic would be if we were to separate what happened to Jill from cases of violence against women where the victim knew, had a sexual past with, talked to the perpetrator in a bar, or went home with him. It would be tragic if we did not recognise that Bayley’s previous crimes were against prostitutes, and that the social normalisation of violence against a woman of a certain profession and our inability to deal with or talk about these issues, socially and legally, resulted in untold horror for those victims, and led to the brutal murder of my wife. We cannot separate these cases from one another because doing so allows us to ignore the fact that all these crimes have exactly the same cause – violent men, and the silence of non-violent men. We can only move past violence when we recognise how it is enabled, and by attributing it to the mental illness of a singular human being, we ignore its prevalence, it root causes, and the self-examination required to end the cycle. The paradox, of course is that in our current narrow framework of masculinity, self-examination is almost universally discouraged.
posted by triggerfinger at 5:00 PM on October 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


Here is a very good addendum that also came across my facebook feed today

This is great.
posted by triggerfinger at 5:12 PM on October 14, 2015


EXCELLENT!!!!!
posted by xarnop at 6:13 PM on October 14, 2015


Could somebody explain to me the use of "femmes" in this piece? I don't know how the author is using the term here, if it's a synonym for women or used in the queer sense, and it reads weirdly, especially with the now-redacted part about "masculine folks."
posted by thetortoise at 6:13 PM on October 14, 2015


My takeaway from the article: Every raped or assaulted parent who has children should tell them about that. I think that is how to change the culture.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 6:58 PM on October 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


Could somebody explain to me the use of "femmes" in this piece? I don't know how the author is using the term here, if it's a synonym for women or used in the queer sense, and it reads weirdly, especially with the now-redacted part about "masculine folks."

I read it as an extension of "women" to include femme gender-queer people, but I don't know if that read is accurate.

This was wonderful, as was the addendum.
posted by Deoridhe at 7:44 PM on October 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Could somebody explain to me the use of "femmes" in this piece? I don't know how the author is using the term here, if it's a synonym for women or used in the queer sense, and it reads weirdly, especially with the now-redacted part about "masculine folks."

My own take is that the "masculine folks" was changed to "cis dudes" (per the comment section of the piece) because masculine-presenting trans people have never been socialized to be complicit in rape culture in the way the author discusses. That's overwhelmingly been something that cis men have absorbed and been enculturated into from childhood on. However, when she talks about the emotional labor demanded of femmes, or the devaluing of the bodies of femmes, that is something that is received and forced upon you when you are feminine-presenting in this world, regardless of whether you are a cis lady or otherwise femme. So no contradiction.
posted by naju at 7:47 PM on October 14, 2015 [8 favorites]


Thanks, Deoridhe and naju. That makes more sense. The use of "masculine folks" there seemed egregious (masculine-presenting women are at elevated risk of sexual assault, though probably not to the extent that queer femme women are), so I'm really glad she corrected it. Good piece overall.
posted by thetortoise at 8:15 PM on October 14, 2015


The scene in Boyhood referenced in the article implies that the older boys are social outcasts who no one their age outside of their immediate peer group likes.
posted by brujita at 10:02 PM on October 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


Every single one of those things continues to exist, regardless of how much we "vilify" them.

But at the same time, it's rare to hear people say we condone genocide, or that we live in a genocide culture.
posted by pwnguin at 11:52 PM on October 14, 2015


But at the same time, it's rare to hear people say we condone genocide, or that we live in a genocide culture.

We kind of do, though. Colonialism is process of systemic murder-or-conversion and has occurred all over the world - including what we would now consider "white on white" colonialism. I'm only beginning to get educated on it, but conversations among Native Americans/First Nations, for example, often include a discussion of Settler Mindset and how it is warped by the need to justify past genocide and ongoing theft. I would imagine many native people in Africa, Asia, and Australia can relate to the conversation.

In the case of a lot of these sorts of cultural things - like racism, sexism, etc... - we kind of talk out of both sides of our mouth. There is always the "X is bad!" conversation, but it exists within a context of "political correctness run amok!" and "affirmative action is discriminatory!" and "undocumented people shouldn't break the law!". Often actions taken to try to redress imbalances result in vicious backlashes, like the one in the US right now as voters rights are dismantled as is people-with-uteruses access to abortion even if it means saving their lives (see also: third trimester abortions).

There is a disconnect between the abstract idea and practical reality, and even then backlashes can polarize people around lamenting when "speech was free" - meaning, ironically, people didn't talk publicly about how slurs and insults affect them.

Once you start to notice it, it becomes impossible to ignore how much of the cultural conversation is about ways to get away with being an asshole to other people on the basis of things outside of their control while still considering ourselves good people.
posted by Deoridhe at 1:38 AM on October 15, 2015 [18 favorites]


That's a good point, Deoridhe, and the tools are so similar. Genocide is done by bad people, monstrous people, so our assumption is that since we're not bad or monstrous, it doesn't touch us. We believe that, even though people who have been through it keep telling us it's not monsters, it's people, normal people, bureaucrats and citizens, people with just an ordinary amount of hate in their hearts, and an ordinary sense of obedience to authority.

But it's a hard lesson. My attacker still seems like a monster to me. I know, intellectually, that he's not. He's not an evil, malign inhuman. These days he's a middle-aged guy with a family and a regular job, smiling in his pictures on Facebook. But somewhere deep down, I am still convinced he is a monster. Rather than a man who grew up in a culture that devalued anything feminine, who had just an ordinary amount of hate in his heart, and an ordinary sense of obedience to his desire (to his libido? to his need for mastery, for control?).

It is important to unlink from that though. To generalize past the specific monstrosity, to not let one's traumatic nightmare vision align too closely with the culture's easy answer of oh, it's just a few bad apples. The theory of rape culture is powerful, in its ability to call out the pattern, to de-isolate you, to enable you to look at similarities between your experience and someone else's.

Because, among other problems, what do you teach kids about this? How do you protect them? You can't get too specific, you can't try to pass on too specific a lesson about your own experience. I try to imagine what that lesson would be if I tried to pass it on. Don't trust redneck guys? Don't trust guys who play D&D? Stay away from Baptists? What's the lesson? And even the idea of passing on a lesson puts too much responsibility on the shoulders of the kids, like they have control. Just teaching them ahead of time, "You can prevent this, so if it happens, it's a little bit your fault." There's so much sick about our culture, it's hard to figure out how to navigate the lesson. How do you tell a kid that she's growing up in a world that has always, forever, punished women, girls, anyone who partakes in anything feminine?

Maybe the lesson is just: If it happens, if you worry it's going to happen, if you have any discomfort at all about it, you're free to come to us to tell. Anyone who keeps after you when you haven't said yes, you can tell us. Even if you're not sure anything was happening or would've happened. Even if it was confusing. You can tell us about it, and you won't get in any trouble whatsoever, there's not going to be any stress added to you about it. It's bad enough to feel like a victim; no one should have to shoulder the burden of feeling like an accomplice in one's own trauma.
posted by mittens at 5:40 AM on October 15, 2015 [7 favorites]


My takeaway from the article: Every raped or assaulted parent who has children should tell them about that. I think that is how to change the culture.

I've only very recently (I'm 31 now) learned some things about my mom, and the conversation was kind of broached on accident while we talked about her family history. I now know she and her siblings were systematically abused as children by a stepfather, and her mom didn't believe them when they told her. I don't know the full extent of anything or how long it happened, but I don't need to. A lot of things make more sense now.

I haven't told her about my own experiences and I don't expect I ever will. It seems pointless because I've done what I can with it on my end and all it would do is kill her a little bit. She'd feel guilty for 'letting' it happen even though she didn't even know the people involved and maybe she'd feel like she should have talked about it more. As a kid, I am 99% sure we never got any talk specifically about sexual assault/rape, especially regarding acquaintances/family. We pretty much got the standard 'stranger danger' education and not being afraid to say 'no', but never specifically presented in the context of sexual assault, and that's not a connection I would've made automatically as a kid because I didn't even know that was a possibility . And yeah, that conversation with that specific focus should have happened.

I just don't think I could blame her for not telling me about her own experience, specifically. I'd imagine it's really hard for her generation of parents because I'd imagine there's could still be a lot of trauma involved. And also because the culture was different... I think even 10 years ago the conversation wouldn't have happened, even if I were the same age as I am now at the time. It seems like we can be more open now.

I'm not disagreeing. I'm just kind of ambivalent with how I feel about it. Transparency is important and it probably would have saved me from a lot, but I don't know if I necessarily think it's the responsibility of an abused parent to talk specifically about what happened to them. I do think it's probably ideal, but after talking to my mom about it... I just don't know, honestly. It would've been a huge burden for her because it still seems like it's a burden now, and it happened maybe 40 years ago.

Regardless, kids absolutely need to be given a general education on it, and I do think the impression is much stronger when they can have someone they trust who they know it happened to, and someone who will tell them it's not their fault, and who they absolutely know they can trust to take it seriously if it happens to them and they need to tell someone.
posted by nogoodverybad at 6:56 AM on October 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Hear you nogoodverybad. I was 23 when my mom got help and told me about the incest. I wish she'd told me when I was younger. Denial made her blind. I wish she had not let my sister go to a movie with a creep when she was 12. Totally fucked up my sister. She is cold and unemotional about her partners.

I talk to my son about these things. His mom won't. She still thinks it didn't affect her.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 3:00 AM on October 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


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