A cliche that you’ll often see in the regular public service announcements regarding rape and sexual assault is the idea that “rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power”. And, despite my derisive tone in the first sentence, I feel that this is basically true.
Sex certainly isn’t difficult to get whether it’s free or purchased—while that easily obtained sex may be uninviting and somewhat mortifying for one or both parties, the fact remains that should you want to have le petit mort with a partner, it’s remarkably easy to do so. Combined with the fact that rape is a recognized tactic of irregular warfare/terrorism (as seen in numerous African conflicts), and it’s hard to argue that rape is not at least partially motivated by the desire for political and social power. In fact, I would go as far as to say that human sexuality, on the whole, is, to some extent, motivated by ideas of domination and subjugation—bodices are ripped, rather than asked politely if they can be unlaced. And thus, I feel that all the talk of rape culture, a sexual obsession that is devoid of anything remotely sexy, is also motivated primarily by power.
I realize, of course, that I am not the first person to make this point, but in regards to recent events, I think it bears repeating:
In 2015, Amherst College had an incident in which a male student, hereafter referred to under the pseudonym “John Doe” was accused of sexual assault and expelled from the school, despite the fact that Mr. Doe testified that he was blacked out during the incident and claims that the girl had, in fact, taken advantage of him during his state of inebriation. This is admittedly unusual (men do commit the majority of sexual crimes) but certainly not impossible, especially when investigation revealed that the girl texted a friend admitting that she had performed oral sex on the drunken young man—texts that can be shown to have been sent before the first public accusation of sexual assault was made.
So far, a fairly typical legal boondoggle that should be resolved quickly in a court of law upon a review of all the evidence. But herein lies the kicker: the court is actively refusing to even consider the evidence! A second suit was thrown out of court on the grounds that re-litigation would cause psychological harm to the accuser. In other words, the accuser’s feelings are considered more important than the matter of justice being served. Or, more sinisterly, the desire for vengeance in retaliation for perceived slights by Professional Women (TM) is more important than justice being served.
I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to say that the talk of “Rape Culture” is predominantly intended to keep young men afraid of women, afraid of their own sexuality, and, most importantly, keeping natural masculine urges (not just sexual ones, but the kind that lead to protest, rebellion and/or change) safely controlled and pointed in society-approved directions. It’s a lie for the women and nu-males in power to hold onto their power, comparable to how up until the last 100 years or so, powerful men made up lies about chastity to keep women under control.
Am I just a conspiracy theorist? Maybe, but this article explicitly states that Title IX had its threshold lowered to “provide the foundation for a likely outcome of responsibility”, after years of being amended from a necessary statute to prevent discrimination in college admissions, to something that polices student sexuality.
This article shows how the self-appointed experts on women and sexuality overwhelmingly agree that the solution to “rape culture” is to change masculinity and male behavior rather than teach women how to resist rape. All in all, it does seem to fit the feminist pattern of “weaponized weakness” that I discussed in this article.
As a side note, I feel that this desire to enforce the “Rape culture” dogma is why the Brock Turner incident became such a scandal (click here for more details than I cannot fit into this article). Just to make it perfectly clear, I certainly do not condone his actions, and I feel some punishment was in order. However, I feel that the expulsion from Stanford, the short prison term, and forever being placed on a sex offender registry (and thus having to essentially announce himself as “Brock Turner, The Rapist” to every person he meets for the rest of his life) is a fitting and legitimate punishment (if not slightly overzealous, really) for a crime that was more a drunken bout of idiocy and shortsightedness, and not the violent rape that was reported.
The media, however, was so ecstatic that they finally got their privileged white boy rapist (after the Duke Lacrosse case, Tawana Brawley, the University of Virginia hoax, and all the other times they tried and failed to push this angle), that they pounced upon it and took every opportunity to lecture us about the dangers of “Toxic masculinity” and “white privilege” and etcetera. Frankly, to take it back to my original thesis, I don’t see how you can argue that the “rape culture” hysteria isn’t, partially, about hamstringing the sexuality and masculinity of Western man.
So what is to be done about this alleged campus “rape culture”? Personally, I think there’s more than enough laws on the books prohibiting all the many types of sexual assault, to say nothing of the omnipresent seminars and lectures on the matter—and I’m certainly not demanding more sexual assaults. All I’m saying is, maybe we should stop teaching teenage girls and young women to be afraid of everything, and maybe the infamously cloddish American sexuality can become akin to something grown-ups do. And as luck would have it, a dashing Youtube reviewer happened to review and amend an instructional video on women’s rape defense.
