Rape Culture is a Myth; Both Men & Women Rape
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Rape Culture. We’ve all heard the term tossed around. The left leaning media frequently goes into overdrive accusing anybody with just an ounce of testosterone of contributing to Rape Culture. The media-hype was ever present with the Brett Kavanaugh debacle, the 2016 Presidential election, surprisingly enough with Bill Clinton, and the developing situation with Democratic front runner Joe Biden.
Men, you’re the heirs of Rape Culture. You’re the heirs just for being men; for having a penis even though the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s definition of rape states that rape can happen with the “penetration . . . with any body part or object.” In today’s society it’s politically incorrect to say real women don’t have penis’ so women, you’re part of the problem also. I go deeper into it if you continue to read this post.
I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them. Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor
What is it? The term was first used by feminists in the 1970s which points to anything which allows, normalizes, or enables the practice of rape. This can include toxic masculinity, movies and television, print media such as and especially paperbacks, music videos, advertisements, the fashion industry, and lately it’s been a war on video games which pushes Rape Culture to its edge. Rape Culture, like the wage gap is a myth. It’s a fairy tale. It’s a fiction. It’s wishful thinking.
What isn’t rape? Crude jokes isn’t rape. They are crude, off color jokes men make with other men. Some think they’re funny, some not so funny. Calendars with naked or half naked women isn’t rape. It’s a calendar with naked women on it. Yes, it might be distasteful to have a calendar of that sort around when there’re women in the office but if it bothers you just ask the owner — not the boss — if they mind removing it. Whistling at a woman isn’t rape. It’s a crude, out dated way some men (and I emphasize some men) use to show approval of what they see.
What is rape? According to the FBI it’s, “The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” No jokes. No whistling. No cat calls. No unwanted compliments.
This isn’t to say rape doesn’t exist. Nobody’s saying that. On average, there are 433,648 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year in the United States.1 As of 1998, an estimated 17.7 million American women had been victims of attempted or completed rape.2 1 out of every 10 rape victims are male.3
Rape Culture is the brain child of second-wave feminists, academics, and to a lesser extent women in general. Academics and feminists developed these theories but it’s the politicians, the Hollywood elite, and the media which spreads the vile message to the masses. “To a lesser extent women,” I use the language of “a lesser extent” because the 2016 election of Donald Trump over the left’s candidate of Hillary Clinton shows a big flaw in the left’s message. In the election, it was estimated 52% of white women voted for Trump. This statistic became such a big thorn in the side of the left, the media stepped in and tried to debunk it. The problem is, they couldn’t. The best the media could do was from Time magazine, “There’s just one problem with this statistic: It’s probably not true.”
Note, Time didn’t say it isn’t true. The magazine said “it was probably not true.” They couldn’t deny the overwhelmingly percentage of women who voted for Trump, and these were white women, the core of academics and feminists. The 52% estimate came from exit polls. If that makes you uncomfortable, what about this stat.
According to a later analysis experts consider more reliable, a study published by the Pew Research Center, the percentage of white women who voted for Trump was actually 47%, not 52% compared to 45% for Clinton. Whether it’s 47% or 53%, it sends a clear message that many women don’t believe in Rape Culture just by the fact they voted for Trump and not Hillary.
Funny how the left supported polling prior to the election when every poll had Clinton as the next President of the United States but then did a 360 when the polls showed white women probably gave Trump his victory. So I’m not so sure all women believe in rape culture.
Never the less, Rape Culture is claimed to be a by-product of the patriarchy and a millennia or so of male dominance over women. The male dominance could be keeping women safe in their homes; protecting women; providing for them; men putting themselves in harm’s way such as fighting in wars instead of women, hunting wild game where death of the hunter sometimes happens, and working dangerous jobs which sometimes ends in death (oil refineries, oil platforms, linemen, policing).
Politically, I call it rape whenever a woman has sex and feels violated. Catherine MacKinnon
But there’s a dark side to Rape Culture. A deep dark secret that feminists don’t want you to know about. Feminists are part of Rape Culture. They don’t care about rape against males or third genders and they say “men can’t get raped;” feminists allow female rapists to get away with rape and don’t serve anytime or very little time at all compared to males who do YEARS. We live in a Rape Culture which allows rape and sexual violence against men, not women.
Galyon allegedly began sending "flirtatious and sexual messages" to the boy last August. He told the janitor her advances were "unsolicited, unwanted and unwelcome."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention seems to support a radical feminist narrative which has been gaining mainstream attention recently: modern America is a “Rape Culture” saturated with misogynistic violence. The CDC posted these articles, “CDC: Nearly 1 in 5 Women Raped” (Published Sep 7, 2014) and “One in Five U.S. Women Has Been Raped: CDC Survey” (Published Sep 5, 2014 in Bloomberg).
These alarming headlines were typical of the coverage of last week’s CDC’s report on sexual and intimate violence in the United States. However, if the CDC figures are to be taken at face value, then we must also conclude that, far from being a product of patriarchal violence against women, “Rape Culture” is a two-way street, with plenty of female perpetrators and male victims.
And now the real surprise: when asked about experiences in the last 12 months, men reported being “made to penetrate” — either by physical force or due to intoxication — at virtually the same rates as women reported rape (both 1.1 percent in 2010, and 1.7 and 1.6 respectively in 2011).4
In other words, if being made to penetrate someone was counted as rape — and why shouldn’t it be? — then the headlines could have focused on a truly sensational CDC finding: women rape men as often as men rape women. Instead, the CDC’s public presentation of these data emphasized female sexual victimization, thereby confirming gender stereotypes about victimization.
The first headline of the fact sheet which tried to summarize the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) findings the CDC wrote, “Women are disproportionally affected by sexual violence.” The fact sheet’s first bullet point stated, “1.3 million women were raped during the year preceding the survey.” The fact sheet emphasized women’s ordeals with rape whilst ignoring or burying men’s struggle with rape deep in the text. The fact sheet failed to note that a similar number of men reported non-consensual sex, being forced to penetrate.5
Other left leaning media outlets such as the The New York Times ran the headline which read, “Nearly 1 in 5 Women in U.S. Survey Say They Have Been Sexually Assaulted.”6
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Little things, like asking a woman if she was drunk when she reports a rape, or scrutinizing the way she was dressed at a party, all contribute to rape culture. Even quotes like “she was asking for it,” and “boys will be boys!” which have now become so prevalent in today’s society fall under rape culture.
The CDC also reports men account for over a third of those experiencing another form of sexual violence — “sexual coercion.” Sexual coercion was defined as being pressured into sexual activity by psychological means: lies or false promises, threats to end a relationship or spread negative gossip, or “making repeated requests” for sex and expressing unhappiness at being turned down.
You don’t like that perspective?
Then surely you must agree with the famous Campus Sexual Assault Study 7. which alleges one in five college women will be raped. This is gold standard when arguing Rape Culture; politicians, the Hollywood elites, the media all agree with the findings so surely you must.
If you deep enough in the survey you will find men don’t report sexual misconduct because “my body showed involuntary arousal.” And 30% of men who said they didn’t report an offense said it was “because of the person’s gender, I thought it would be minimized or misunderstood.”
According to a study by the CDC, of 5,000 college students at over 130 colleges, one in 25 men answered “yes” to the question “In your lifetime have you been forced to submit to sexual intercourse against your will?” Organizations, such as 1in6, an advocacy group for male survivors, put the estimate much higher, at one in six males before the age of 18.
Steve LaPore, founder and director of 1in6, believes male sexual assaults are underreported because the issue is still taboo. There’s a heightened awareness about sexual assault against women, but the awareness doesn’t include men as victims, he said. “Culturally we still don’t want to see men as vulnerable or hurt. We tell little boys and men to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”
Not only does the traditional sexual victimization paradigm masks male victimization, it can obscure sexual abuse perpetrated by women as well as same-sex victimization. When the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began tracking violent crime in 1930, the rape of men was excluded. We offer a few counter paradigmatic examples. One multiyear analysis of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) household survey found that 46% of male victims reported a female perpetrator. 8 Of juveniles reporting staff sexual misconduct, 89% were boys reporting abuse by female staff.9 In lifetime reports of nonrape sexual victimization, the NISVS found that 79% of self-reported gay male victims identified same-sex perpetrators.10
- Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, 2018 (2019).
- National Institute of Justice & Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence Against Women Survey (1998). (Statistic presents information on the total number of male and female victims in the United States, using a study from 1998. Because the U.S. population has increased substantially since then, it is probable that the number of victims has, as well. RAINN presents this data for educational purposes only, and strongly recommends using the citations to review any and all sources for more information and detail.)
- Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Female Victims of Sexual Violence, 1994–2010 (2013).
- https://time.com/3393442/cdc-rape-numbers/
- National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. The National Inmate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: fact sheet. 2011. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_FactSheet-a.pdf. Accessed September 28, 2012. [Ref list]
- Rabin RC. Nearly 1 in 5 women in US survey say they have been sexually assaulted. 2011. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/health/nearly 1-in-5-women-in-us-survey-report-sexual-assault.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=centers%20for%20disease%20control%20and%20prevention%20rape&st=cse. Accessed September 28, 2012. [Ref list]
- https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/221153.pdf
- Weiss KG. Male sexual victimization: examining men’s experiences of rape and sexual assault. Men Masc. 2010;12(3):275–298. [Google Scholar]
- Beck AJ, Cantor D, Hartge J, Smith T. Sexual victimization in juvenile facilities reported by youth, 2012. Available at: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/svjfry12.pdf. Accessed December 18, 2013
- National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. The National Inmate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2010. Findings on victimization by sexual orientation. 2013. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs_sofindings.pdf. Accessed August 28, 2013.
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