Now, let me say at the start that I understand where the author is coming from. I've more friends than I would like who've been raped, some on a regular basis. I'm very well aware of how it can mess someone up. So please put aside the "oh noes he's attacking the rape victim" shtick.
The author, however, completely does not seem to grok the raper's perspective here. She tries, really, but all it amounts to is a emphatically third-party, analytic, "these things happen from other people" sense. Classifying rapists by motive: anger, power, or sadism. Seriously, wtf - do you think ANYONE reading this is going to say "oh right, I'm a sadist, that's why I'm likely to rape someone; I should stop that"?
The rest of it is equally either preachy (rape is bad! [norly?]) or otherwise unempathic (describing the "false" masculinity of machismo purely on a "my values are better than yours" level).
I have two simple suggestions that might actually work. For males.
1. Make consent, in the form of active participation, emphatically macho, and the lack of it ridiculous.
AKA "If you couldn't make your partner BEG you to fuck them, you're not a real man."
2. Practice (solo or with a partner) backing off from horny mindstate.
This is somewhat of an extension of the tradition Masters & Johnson type technique. Essentially, males more than females (me included) can get very single-minded once in a horny mindstate. With low enough inhibitions, and a lack of expectation / need of partner's active participation, that can lead to rape - i.e. where you just want to have sex, and you literally can't stop thinking about it, things start to cloud up in the drive towards climax.
Practicing getting horny and then just doing something else entirely helps with that, and can make hearing "no" or any variant thereof (e.g. anything that's not "YES PLEASE NOW") a lot easier to take and act on. It also has the major fringe benefit of making for more controllable, longer-lasting, more enjoyable sex for both partners.
FWIW, these are both things that I practice.
Sorry that it's not quite as neo-feminist as the original article, but I think it's a lot more realistic.
And as a side note: why is it that these things are always written by female rape victims, and not male ex-rapists... yet claim to be aimed at helping potential rapists avoid it? This seems utterly ludicrous to me.
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Dude. Former rape crisis counselor here....
Rape is not about sex. It's about violence and control. Even date rape or acquaintance rape. It's about power. Not horny.
And why are books trying to get men to stop rape written by female rape victims? Are you seriously asking that? And not male ex-rapists? (once you rape someone you are forever a rapist - no such thing as ex).... I can't see that most rapists be they male or female really care about stopping rape or openly outing themselves as rapists...
Your idea on making consent a macho mark of distinction is hot though. Sounds like the grounds for a good campaign.
Some of this one is a bit off the mark imho... but I mos def enjoyed the touch book review.
From the victim's perspective, yes it's about power and violence and control, because for them it's not sex.
But for the other person, it can be. And I think that that kind of not-quite-intentional rape is more frobbable (in the ways I described), whereas random violence kind is not. (And, as you would surely know, date/acquaintance rape is by far the majority case.)
And sex/power aren't really total distinctions, either. They blend a lot, especially for machismo-ish mindsets. Making someone beg you is also a kind of power/control, it's just one that we condone as consensual.
I can't see that most rapists be they male or female really care about stopping rape or openly outing themselves as rapists..
Well, that happens to be the scope of the article anyway, and the only thing I tried to address here.
FWIW, in nearly all the cases I know of of friends being raped, the person raping them did not see it the same way. I think my characterization - being in a particular horny* mindstate plus low inhibition plus low caring about the other's participation - was the precipitating factor in them.
* Please note that "horny" here may not necessarily mean what you think it does, and I suspect that this is the case. I mean to point at the state which is almost the mental equivalent of a point of (almost) no return, past which one only thinks about what's currently happening, and which is sexual. This also happens with lots of other things - fights for example - and as I said I don't think this is entirely distinguishable. But it is definitely NOT horny as in the 'would-be-nice' sense.
On top of that, when discussing any sexual relationship, there are two people involved. There's still a lot of stigma for rape victims (btw, did you see that study on perceptions of masculinity and male rape victims?), and they may be unwilling to have their rapist discuss what happened publicly, for fear their identities may be deduced.
I'm mostly discussing rapists who didn't see it as rape, for what that's worth. They (unscientifically) seem to be the majority... which is part of the reason it's such a pervasive issue, I think.
I don't understand how what you said applies to that context; could you rephrase?
I'm responding to this. There's my theory for why we don't see ex-rapists publicly telling others how to avoid doing what they did.
Your points are completely valid, but ... well, the same is true of drunkenness, right? One doesn't have how-to books on recovery written by abused wives or drunk-driving accident victims, they're written by ex-drunks. Or at least people who study ex-drunks - in any case, someone who would have cause to know about what stops people from doing X, not just who has cause to care that they stop doing X.
It's an objection to logic, not to the pragmatics of the situation. :-P
As an objection to logic, it makes perfect sense. I agree with the point. Unfortunately, logic doesn't always go so far when dealing with society.
This doesn't sound all that different from "If you can't get sex, you're not a real man." Either way, holding a knife to someone's throat will still get you your proof o' masculinity.
Attack men's masculinity is a dangerous proposition. It tends to make them angry and angry men (Angry people. Angry animals... Whatever) get stupid and are dangerous.
And the point is to make *that* the focus of the machismo, not the sex per se. Yes, it still requires the sex, but one can couple it with the opposite message (anything less than total being-into-it from your partner makes you less of a man).
Not saying it's ideal, but that I think it's a viable, more positive subversion of the current system.
"It’s a bit like if all the warnings we see about driving drunk were aimed at people hit by drunk drivers ..."
Actually, it's more like if all the warnings we see about driving drunk were aimed at the people who might find themselves in the situation where they might put themselves in a car with a drunk driver (or between the two) and therefore might have some say in the matter. OH WAIT THEY ARE.
This now makes me curious about a topic unrelated to the original post, which is: I wonder what the statistical comparison is between people killed by being hit by a drunk driver and people killed by being in a car with a drunk driver, because I would think there would be more of the latter.
Then again, those drivers and passengers are not restricted to those in a car with an inebriated driver, but neither are the nonmotorists, so... who knows.
Thanks, though : D
It is logically probable that a significant portion of rapists have or will rape more than one woman, so unless there is a significant overlap in their targets (which would severely hurt the main argument of the article, that rape is not an issue about women), it is much less likely that rapists comprise a similar proportion of the male population as rape victims comprise in the female population.
It seems there must be a fair amount, actually. Given that there are people (Like the author of these piece) who have been raped or attempted raped several times while there are other people (Like, say, me) who have never been even remotely sexually threatened.
I'm still inclined to agree with you that it is likely that rapists comprise a smaller portion of the population than rape victims, though.
It could be argued.
However, because it is a biological imperative doesn't mean it's the best or even a good choice. One of the most basic (and related) biological imperatives, to have unprotected sex frequently and with as many partners as possible, is probably one of the worst things we could be doing for our species right now.
These things can't both be true. Pick one.
The thing is that people can (and very often do) have RADICALLY different perceptions of the same events. And this concept seems completely overlooked by the author, probably because for her it is so strongly personally relevant that she can't easily see it from any other perspective.
Which is perfectly understandable, but then she oughtn't be writing something claiming to be addressing the other perspective.