Sunday, July 30, 2006

Fears

Span has written a fantastic post about knowing men who have raped:

But I can think of two men that I have been friends with over the years who I know for sure either raped or had to be stopped from raping. One started penetrating his girlfriend after she said no. When she protested further he did stop, but he never should have started. The other told me himself that he had to be pulled off a young woman once when he was drunk. In both of these cases never were the words rape uttered between us.

The first of these incidents (amongst other things) soured the friendship slowly but surely and I no longer see this man, and have no desire to. It wasn't really until a few years later, when I was running date-rape awareness seminars in hostels, that I put the pieces together and recognised his act as what it was - rape.

In the case of the second we are still friends. I turn my brain away from it as it is too horrible to think about, that he might have raped if he hadn't been stopped. And that he has never thought about it as attempted rape. And that there are probably many many other men I know who have similar stories to these two, in their sexual histories somewhere.
I've known men that I knew had raped women, and men that I suspected. Every story I've heard involved the word 'rape' and most of them came second hand - and I'm graetful for that (I think that's somewhere near the definition of a small mercy). Because I don't particularly want to have a conversation where I tell a man I know that I think they raped someone, and I would hate to be the person who didn't say anything.

I'm not naieve enough to believe that the men that I know have raped someone are the only rapists among my friends and acquaitances. When the verdict came in from the police rape case one of my friends was told by a man she knew that he was scared of what she was doing, because he'd had a lot of drunken sex when he was at high school - and he was worried that a woman would say that he raped her. I'm terrified of men who are scared of women accusing them of rape. I think it's an acknowledgement that they're aware that not all the sex they've had was consensual.

I can imagine having some sympathy for young men, in theory. They're told that women's wants, women's needs don't matter, they're told that no means yes, they're told that rape is a stranger in a dark ally, and they're told they're entitled to sex. It shouldn't be surprising that some men believe this. Obviously that doesn't make them any less responsible for their actions, but I do hope that some men come back from that. That some men come to care that women are people. I think men who did that could be useful in the fight against rape. I imagine that many teenage boys would listen to men more than they'd listen to women.

It's just that I've never known any men like that. The men I've known who have had it pointed out to them that they had raped a woman have reacted with entitlement, and attacked the woman they raped. Everything they did made it clear to me that they had raped women and would do it again. I think the minimum starting point to stop being a rapist and start being a person is admitting that you had raped women and taking responsibility for the harm that they'd caused.

I've been able to cut contact with all the men I've known who have raped women. I don't know under what circumstances I wouldn't do that. I suspect it probably would have more to do with the ease with which they could be excised from my life, than anything that they'd done, which isn't a particularly comforting realisation.

5 comments:

  1. I can imagine having some sympathy for young men, in theory.

    I can understand how it is hard for men to understand rape, but I absolutely do not sympathise. The guys I know don't want to face up to their actions.
    Our culture may teach them not to empathise with women, but the guys who choose to believe the rot are fooling themselves, and the majority of them know it.

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  2. Sophie - that's kind of what I meant. IN theory I think it could be possible for a man to rape a woman, because he didn't care whether or not she consented, realise what he's done, and change. But every man I've ever seen in that situation has refused to do that.

    I'd like to think that guys can change from being someone who believes the culture to someone who doesn't - but again I haven't seen it.

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  3. "They're told that women's wants, women's needs don't matter, they're told that no means yes, they're told that rape is a stranger in a dark ally, and they're told they're entitled to sex"

    Well hold on "they" are not. "Some" are. I was not, my male cousin was not, I have friends who were not. I know men who have.

    I was raised and it seems second nature to me that sex is about people revelling in each other - and the thrill I get is driven by the thrill the woman gets, and it is symbiotic. I don't know how it can be exciting any other way. There are men who deliver the message you say (even a handful of women - who get angry when a man she wants DOESN'T just "take her" without question), and many men are now used to sexually aggressive women approaching them.

    I knew one man who eventually admitted to me he raped a woman who I knew - I talked to her about it - she said the "I deserved it" line and went back to him. Before she moved away she told me how much she enjoyed being with him. I was utterly horrified, ended contact with him - impossible to do anything legally because she wanted to do nothing, Police aren't interested and you can hardly publish his name without facing defamation.

    I think it is possible to inculcate teenage boys (adolescent ones even) into treating sexuality as something that is about mutual consent, even that the more desire the woman has the more exciting it is. However we have a culture where education about sex that is about positive messages - anything other than "it gets a girl pregnant, spreads disease and sometimes people get abused" - is simply denied.

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  4. Liberty Scott you may not have believed the message that you heard - but that doesn't mean it wasn't there.

    I absolutely agree that it's possible to create a different culture. Part of that is acknowledging exactly how fucked the current culture is.

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  5. > had a lot of drunken sex when he was at high school - and he was worried that a woman would say that he raped her

    Can we say the public policy solution is prohibition (as opposed to having a lot of rapes and puting lots of men in jail).

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