Re: "How You Guys -- that's right, you GUYS -- Can Prevent Rape"

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.

From some college's first aid class; includes outline notes on legal stuff, how to treat a ___ wound, etc. Brief and to the point.

http://darwin.gborocollege.edu/departments/physed/Courses/PE_222/