I read Eileen’s post first, then Calico’s, then College Callgirl’s. I quite agree that rape isn’t the most cheerful subject to be dwelling on for a sunny Saturday, but then, there isn’t really any time when it’s all that welcome. And seeing as I’ve thought them, you may as well read my musings on the matter.
Rape fantasies hold no allure for me. Obviously I know that they hold great appeal for women who have absolutely no wish to be maltreated in real life, but, as I have noted before, my fantasies have to be firmly rooted in reality, right down to the location of the condoms. I’ve got too close to the real thing for it to work as a fantasy for me. But tease and denial, the no that means yes… those I can play with. I can flirt on the sidelines of rape fantasies.
Rape realities don’t have those fun, sexy, bits, though. What they do have is lots of blame-y bits, along with the pain. Leaving aside situations where minors are concerned, there is a dichotomy at work here in women’s heads, as well as the “she was asking for it/it’s doubly bad because she was a virgin” thing that goes on in the world in general.
We are taught, and we teach our daughters, strategies to avoid rape and sexual assault. So when we are assaulted, especially as a result of a sexually-charged situation going too far, or by someone we trust, we blame ourselves automatically. Even if we accept that the other person behaved in a reprehensible manner, we still think that, conditioned as we are, we should have been more responsible for reading the early signs. We may not blame ourselves for the rape or the assault, but we blame ourselves for being irresponsible, and this is why it is so easy for a case to fall apart in the notoriously intrusive investigation process, and why so many assaults go unreported.
We are told that rape isn’t sex, it’s violence. So when rape occurs in a situation where sex is customary, or implied, or possible, rather than in a dark alley with a knife held to our neck by a stranger in a raincoat, we question whether it really was rape. We want to give the benefit of the doubt, because we don’t want to think that someone we know is capable of rape, and we don’t want to admit that we put ourselves in a position where we were able to be taken advantage of. If nothing else, it challenges our perception of ourselves as independent beings, able to take care of ourselves, and to live without fear.
Rape and assault and reluctantly consensual sex are degrees of the same thing, with vast areas of grey in between at some points, and not enough space to insert a splinter at others. The difference matters in law, but not always to the psyche. The wife of an acquaintance was attacked in her apartment for hours, and brutally and repeatedly raped and beaten by a knife wielding stranger. I can’t compare her experience to mine, but at the same time, it would belittle the scars I have to say that mine don’t count.
The sad thing is that every woman I know has stories to tell. The good thing is that we tell them. Men, very often, don’t have that freedom and automatic support network, and we don’t train our sons to watch their backs all the time the way we do with our daughters. Progress is being made, both in how rape is viewed, and how much more often it is reported. But it’s still too easy to trivialize and dismiss it. Political correctness, too much crying wolf over sexual harassment - women, whether in their high heels and short skirts sashaying tipsily home in the dark, or in their business suits in the office, or their sweatpants at home, are always an easy target for the nay-sayers.
October 14, 2007 at 6:38 am
Z,
it is indeed a severe issue, and one I think that also has its roots deeply embedded in human psyche, to why cruelty exists, and why people enjoy to bully, or harm each other for ends only that are destructive but then also it is such a tangled web, and we are perversely curious about our own misgivings, and everything has some relation to the other … and see now I get all muddled in thoughts … but as far as rape fantasy is concerned is it the same cogs that go around for those who seek thrills that set off emotive responses in relation to death or fear - immersive simulations that invoke such feelings.
Rups
October 14, 2007 at 8:04 am
Concisely written. Thank you.
The two paragraphs you wrote about what we are taught really codify the issue for me.
I’m the hypocritical poster child for this. I know all these things, and it doesn’t help me a whit. I was still talking about this tonight at a playparty, and told a friend: I’m not ready to accuse or admit. I don’t do what I preach. If these things happened to me again, tomorrow, I am not sure I would press charges.
This stuff is hard, goddamnit. Okay, it’s four in the morning and I’m going to bed.
October 14, 2007 at 12:09 pm
There is the shade of grey. The legal realm differs with the psyche, and it may be different to the cultural aspect as well.
In situations where stuff has happened, I’d sure enough stop to consider the legal aspects (pressing charges) afterward, and then I’d ask myself why, what would that prove or what would it really do (for me), when legal eagles or defenders of rapists (in any way or form), have the capacity to make things worse for the female (I don’t want to use the word victim, because there are plenty women who aren’t technically victims, they just don’t stand a physical chance to overpower a male).
Mind you, if it was a case of outright violence, then I would, definitely, but those situations that aren’t this or that, are mind benders. Sometimes it’s difficult to slot some events into the rape category. Whichever way, it’s horrible.
October 14, 2007 at 12:18 pm
on rape fantasies (I forgot): I have to admit I’ve been intrigued as to why some women have them, and I think it’s a social thing, or something that’s close to some form of conditioning or stimulus that’s registered early on in life. The best personal example I can give is my memory of seeing a scene (walking in on it or whatever) where a woman was accosted on a beach by a masked man (who wore one of those traditional leather hoods). The scene basically showed her struggling on the sand, him pulling his mask off, for her to continue to struggle, and for him to force himself on her, as he slapped her about the face with the leather mask. When I saw that, I was shocked, but at the same time, I must have somehow associated it with something sexual (because it was the only thing that I saw at that time, associated with men & women). Children may be aware, but the first images are processed and filed in a primitive manner. Kids don’t process social guidelines, and because sex is more or less forbidden to young children (detailed discussions, etc), then the path is open to all sorts of things.
Right now, here where I live, there’s been controversy about women teaching female children pole dancing (no joke, we have pole dancing classes here for little girls). In the US it’s the thing with kiddie pageants, depicting girls in a near adult way (painted, groomed like an adult), every part of the world is steadily sexualizing young females, as it always has (except now it’s a different form, perhaps more salient?), and children innocently take it on board, their perceptions already shaped before adulthood.
So my conclusion (to my own experience with non consensual sex) I can only base on that early period of my life, that subtle association that some form of ‘force’ was natural. I must have thought that not to actually do anything about what unfolded later on.
October 14, 2007 at 1:49 pm
I think what you have said about the degrees of the same thing, and the vast areas of grey, is really important here. I don’t think that it’s that difficult to “slot things some things into the rape category” (as per above comment), at least from a compassionate external point of view. From the point of the view of the one who has been raped, the scars are there, the damage is done, so for society to shy away because of difficulty of definition is cowardly. She is already doubting herself and what happened to her… having that confirmed from outside is cruel.
October 14, 2007 at 5:39 pm
I was once on a jury faced with the decision of what sentence to recommend for a rapist.
There had been no question he was guilty, the trial occurring some years after the crime as a result of a “cold” DNA hit. In a state that had no official guidelines — we could have given anything up to life — and no parole for those under 65, it was quite the quandary. Rape is horrible, but just how horrible is it compared to other violent crimes?
The rapist was a stranger to the victim who had happened into her open door. He was in his early thirties at the time of trial. If he wasn’t technically retarded, it was clear he was “slow.” The defense, who despite not really contesting his guilt must have demanded a trial — forcing the victim to testify — in order get a jury to decide the sentence, trotted out the defendant’s parents, pastor, best friend and the defendant himself to say how sorry he was, how he knew it was wrong and how he had changed his life (and remember, this conviction came about because his DNA was registered due to some other crime he had committed).
On first poll, most of the jury said 25 years. One person said life. One guy thought that was outrageous and said 5 years. After all, he just raped her and didn’t hit or knife her. Because of that one guy, the best we could compromise on was 15 years — it took a lot of talking to get him to agree to that. This still haunts me. And that victim was incredibly brave on the stand. I can only imagine, years after the event, how it must feel. She recounted the rape in extreme detail.
I was one who favored 25 years because I wanted this guy off the street for as long as possible but felt a life sentence would have been over the top in this instance.
Now back to your point: I have engaged in rape fantasy and with the right partner I could see doing it again. It’s not big on my list and came about because it was the girlfriend’s fantasy. It was very stylized and unrealistic, and I guess that’s what made it palatable for me. I don’t try to delve into the psychology of why some women would want to enage in this fantasy, just as I don’t try to do so as regards any fantasy. I think any fantasy that two or more people want to realize safely is fine. And in the case of a rape fantasy, it does not necessarily blur the very hard line between consensual experimentation and unacceptable behavior. But I would say that enacting a rape fantasy should never be suggested first by a man.
October 14, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Rups, your thoughts are muddled? Hah! Nothing to what mine are.
I think that perhaps rape fantasies are also to do with the idea of passion, and being carried away: “He wanted me so much he just couldn’t help himself”.
Calico, this stuff is indeed very hard to figure out. Part of it is what we internalise from a young age about the fact that men do touch women inappropriately - and part of how that is dealt with, I now see as a parent, is an attempt to not alarm or traumatise girls. When I was at school, it was accepted that one teacher had a penchant for adolescent girls, and the school doctor was such an acknowledged groper that girls were required to be accompanied by someone else if they had to see him. As a seven or eight year old, my daughter saw a man masturbate in public while watching her on the beach (I was sitting where I could see her, but not him). These experiences are not unique. Somewhere deep down we accept both the fact that men are not all rapists, and that some men are brutes. It’s therefore not a huge shock to us when the brutishness emerges, and we think we should have known better.
Anastasia, I agree - reporting a rape or assault is designed to be as difficult as possible, and sometimes seems hardly worth it. Rightly so, to an extent - being convicted of rape carries a stigma that should not be attached to someone who did NOT commit the crime. What is not right is that the person reporting the crime feels stigmatised, or dismissed, or that reliving the experience is pointless because everyone knows it’s a difficult thing to prosecute. Completely agree about the mindbenders.
As I said above, I think that the prevalance of violence in fantasies is somehow related to uncontrollable passion in our minds, and in general our minds manage to separate the two without any difficulty. Rough sex, pain… these are part of mainstream fantasy. We are given the freedom to experience the endorphin rush of fear within safely defined boundaries (which then relates back to Eileen’s post - the boundaries are sometimes less well defined than we imagine them to be).
As for the sexualisation of young girls, it is completely idiotic. They are taught to be sexual before they are taught what the ramifications of showing their sexuality are.
LFM, yes, but the greyness starts to slide to one end of the scale or the other when equal emphasis is put on all the shades of grey. There should be acknowledgment and support for those who are often profoundly disturbed by what is seen as a lesser offense, without then tipping the scales too far in the other direction. Because it is so much a psychological crime as much as a physical one, it is hard to determine the damage unless it is assessed on an individual basis.
Al, what you had to say about your jury duty was very interesting - as is your assertion that it should never be the man to suggest a rape scenario. That had never occurred to me.
What you said about the trail made me remember this quote from College Callgirl’s post, which made my blood run cold when I read it:
Afterward he told me, “The fear in your eyes made me want to cum and cry at the same time.”
I doubt that once would be enough for that man.
October 15, 2007 at 4:22 pm
“We blame ourselves for being irresponsible…(and) we question whether it really was rape.”
so much of this has to do w/ the fact that we inhabit such a murky, idealized, shame-based culture, in which so many “if, then” statements are construed in such a way as to equate responsibility w/ blame. we are responsible for caring for ourselves; however, we are not to blame when we’re harmed.
we are all diminished in a culture that refuses to acknowledge and to respond honestly, courageously, and openly to instances of one individual or group inflicting harm or violence upon another.
thank you for posting this, z.
October 15, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Women are taught they should not like sex, or at least not like it too much, and not outside some normal “relationship,” so that invites power exchanges that involve “making” her do things she really wants to do anyway.
“The devil made me do it.”
“I was drunk.”
“I didn’t come.”
And because men and women have distinctly mixed feelings about what constitutes “yes,” and because men know women have rape fantasies, it complicates this all inordinately.
None of which should be confused with the sociopaths who violate the unwilling.
October 16, 2007 at 1:44 am
Tom, I don’t think women are so much “taught that they should not like sex” as object to the idea that men, women or children are blank slates unproblematically socially inscribed upon. People, not abstractions, have sex and I would argue for a sort of Augustinian plea to “meet one another where we are” rather than complaining about which of the laws of whatever lands finally dictates “yes”.
October 16, 2007 at 3:07 am
I disagree with Anon - My father was constantly badgering me, harrassing me, telling me I was preoccupied with sex and that was a bad thing. He BURNED a book on puberty because my younger brother was masturbating to the pictures of the young girl (showing the changes through puberty) to 18ish with full breasts and pubic hair. Seriously, WTF???? Can you scar your kids just a tad more? It’s taken 20 some years for me to even REALLY enjoy sex…add that shit, to having been raped (or boyfriend raped/date raped whatever you want to call it)…no wonder I was fucked up for so long.
Anyways, I digress. I have 4 young boys 12 and down. My 12 year old has been told over and over about respecting women/girls and how no is NO regardless of what mixed signals are being sent out. I will continue to emphasize these things to them because I don’t ever want them to think that no is yes.
… course then there is the whole rape fantasy concept…and that can be a risky endeavor as well, because if you and your partner plan to act such a thing out, you’d need to have some kind of safe word (obviously OTHER than no)…
October 18, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Tara - “we inhabit such a murky, idealized, shame-based culture”. Yes. And so we can be made to feel guilty that we drew that unwelcome attention.
Tom, that’s exactly it. Those kinds of power games are both dangerous and inevitable.
Anonymous, isn’t that the norm and the ideal, though? Unfortunately we sometimes think we can trust people to know where we are, or what we mean, but it sometimes turns out that we are over-optimistic.
Musns, I’m sorry you had those experiences, and I understand you insisting that your sons respect “no”. I can’t help feeling that that will put some burden on their partners to be very communicative, though