{"id":8117,"date":"2016-09-28T21:51:58","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T21:51:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=8117"},"modified":"2019-04-06T09:03:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-06T09:03:00","slug":"im-a-man-and-i-want-to-talk-about-rape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/im-a-man-and-i-want-to-talk-about-rape\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m a Man and I Want to Talk About Rape"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\u2018As a man\u2019 is not a confidence-inspiring start to a piece on rape culture, let me be the first to acknowledge that. Straight white men, as a demographic, don\u2019t have the best reputation for sensitivity in this area. Historically, we are more problem than solution. I\u2019m not even talking about the vile extremes of the \u2018meninists’, or the self-caricaturing alt-right<\/a> drivel that takes up far too much online airspace on this issue. Just your garden variety ignorance. An everyday lack of compassion and awareness. I\u2019ve been guilty of it. I\u2019ll get to that.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, as a man, I want to dislodge some of my own ignorance and start a conversation with my fellow fellas, however clumsily. And hopefully galvanize a few of you to do the same—because it\u2019s worrying how many of us appear to still be not fucking getting it. Even if we\u2019re fundamentally decent. And we are, aren\u2019t we? Like Brock Turner. \u201cA fundamentally good young man from a good family with a record of real accomplishment who made some bad choices,\u201d his lawyers said. Just kidding. Most of us are not Brock Turner, obviously. But it strikes me as a bit too easy to consolidate our outrage around the obvious villains. It is more difficult, and more necessary, to be honest and upfront about the ways in which we contribute to maintaining a culture in which sexual violence against women flourishes.<\/p>\n

The callous disregard exhibited for the victim by Turner, and subsequently his lawyers, father, and Judge Aaron Persky, was shocking—but if you ask any woman, all too familiar. And this is what we should all<\/em> be angry about. Not just women. Although, if anger is fear brought to the boil, as Caitlin Moran points out in 12 Things About Being a Woman that Women Won\u2019t Tell You<\/a><\/em> (which, by the way, should be compulsory reading), raw fury is inevitable. Rates of sexual assault<\/a> are harrowing. In the United States, one in five women will be raped at some point in their lives. Nearly one in ten women will be raped by an intimate partner. One in five women are sexually assaulted while in college, but more than 90% of victims on campus do not report the assault. 63% of all sexual assaults in the U.S. are not reported to authorities.<\/p>\n

Let that land on you.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get defensive. Don\u2019t reach for an excuse. Just absorb that brutal truth—that there is a pandemic of sexual violence towards women at the hands of men.<\/p>\n

And we are, as a gender, still woefully failing to listen to what women are telling us.<\/p>\n

Chloe is a friend of mine. Years ago, we were both part of a large group out drinking. Far too much. And as the end of the night approached, a handful of people came back to my place to crash. I passed out on the couch. So did another friend. One slept on the floor. Another made a nest in the wardrobe. The bed went to Jeff, another of the group out that night, who had hooked up with Chloe. I learned the next day that after we were all asleep, they had sex. We were young, Chloe was only 17. They were both single and it was a rowdy night. I never thought anything of it.<\/p>\n

Years later, I made a frivolous comment to Chloe about Jeff that night. A throwaway remark in intention, but it struck a nerve. Chloe revealed that she was never remotely interested in Jeff, and certainly not in having sex with him. Not in having sex at all. It wasn\u2019t the casual, free-spirited fling I had merely assumed it was—quite the opposite. When she told me, I was shocked. Sickened. How could I—how could all of us—have misread the situation so badly?<\/p>\n

I email Chloe and ask her if she would be willing to have another conversation about that night. I explain that I am trying to address some of my own blind spots about rape culture, and explore how consensual situations, though not technically criminal, might still be uncomfortable. Messy and ambiguous. She writes back. She is happy to be interviewed for the article, but disagrees with a couple of things in my email. We talk the next day and I begin by asking her what she disagreed with. \u201cMy response to what you were saying\u2026wording [of] things being messy and ambiguous, blurred lines\u2026 Well, whose experience has blurred lines? From my point of view, any ambiguity was only a lack of education about what consent actually was\u2026 It might have been messy, but with time to reflect, there was actually nothing ambiguous about what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Messy. Ambiguous. Not technically criminal. Uncomfortable. Words that I thought represented a sensitivity to the complexities of the issue, are perhaps merely a string of linguistic excuses. It reveals to me that I haven\u2019t tried hard enough to understand what this issue really means to women, and shake off the inertia of my straight-white-male background.<\/p>\n

“If you look at the actual definition of consent, if someone is intoxicated they cannot<\/em> consent. So even legally speaking, there\u2019s nothing ambiguous going on. It feels like it’s cutting the rapist some slack to be like, ‘oh, these blurred lines, it must have been so confusing for him.’ But it wasn\u2019t. To do what he did, there\u2019s nothing blurry in that, you know? So\u2026\u2018not technically criminal\u2019… Well, actually\u2026not prosecuted maybe, and not chargeable, but that doesn\u2019t mean not criminal.” Why, so often, do we receive accusations of assault with incredulity or denial, rather than instinctively starting from a place of belief, compassion or understanding?<\/p>\n

I was put in touch with Sarah, who at 22-years-old, was raped by two men while asleep in her bedroom towards the end of a party at her house. Eighteen months later the case went to trial. \u201cWhat it came down to is that in any kind of rape, or sexual assault, there\u2019s rarely ever a witness. It was my word against theirs. While there were other people at the party who were able to speak about their predatory behavior that night, no-one actually witnessed them raping me. Was it consensual? Was I awake? Or was what I was saying true? In the end it was a hung jury.\u201d Only three out of every hundred rapists will ever spend even a single day in prison, according to a 2012 analysis by RAINN of Justice Department data<\/a>. The other 97 will walk free, facing no consequences for the violent felony they have committed. Because rapists tend to be serial criminals, this leaves communities vulnerable to repeat attacks. Even within college statistics, 63.3% of men at one university who reported having committed acts qualifying as rape or attempted rape admitted to repeat offenses. (And this data only accounts for those men who had admitted<\/em> to such offenses…)<\/p>\n

After her case became public, Sarah was inundated with calls, messages, emails, even letters of support from women who had similar situations in their histories but had previously not spoken out. \u201cThe fear of speaking out is very common. We all have girlfriends who have been sexually assaulted and haven\u2019t spoken out, because of the fear or the shame, that this might reflect badly on me. Or that no-one will believe me.\u201d There were people on the other side,\u00a0for instance, lining up to deny her version of events—from the defendants, all the way down to comments from people she knew. \u201cI remember one of my girlfriends said to me afterwards, and this was one of my oldest friends, \u201cBut you know, Sarah, you are<\/em> a flirt…\u201d<\/p>\n

She also described how men she was close to in her life had been uncomfortable hearing about it. \u201cI think that it makes men very uncomfortable. Even male friends and boyfriends that I\u2019ve had, even my husband feels very uncomfortable hearing about what happened to me. To think that a woman they love so much has been raped or violated. They don\u2019t want to think about it. \u2018I can\u2019t think about it, it\u2019s too awful.\u2019 They don\u2019t want the details. And then the second part of it is, it\u2019s too close to home, because they\u2019re a man. And it reflects too badly on the male sex.\u201d I think about my own reaction to hearing the grim details of Sarah\u2019s story. I had closed my eyes, even though we were on the phone. I had winced. I had not wanted to imagine it too clearly. Is that just another form of denial?<\/p>\n

But look, you probably understand consent already. I get that. I get that you\u2019ve likely seen the Cup of Tea analogy<\/a>. I\u2019m sure you\u2019re not one of those heinous goblins muddying the conversation with justifications, denial, and counter-accusations of falsehood and misandry. (Yes, sometimes accusations of rape are false. Roughly between 2% and 10%, which means that as a man you\u2019re statistically as likely to be the victim of sexual assault than be falsely accused of one. It\u2019s not a useful contribution to the conversation. So let\u2019s stop making it.) And, as Chloe puts it, \u201cThere\u2019s a huge line that needs to be crossed to get to sexual assault. It\u2019s not a majority of guys [who think], oh, my bad, it\u2019s so confusing, it was so confusing when she was vomiting, I thought it meant put my dick in her, you know what I mean? A majority of people do enable that culture that allows it to happen, but there\u2019s only a few guys that, because of that enabling, go that far across the line.\u201d<\/p>\n

But fair enough, isn\u2019t it, to raise the complexities of subtle, nuanced, adult relationships? What about non-verbal consent, right? Implied consent? Cathy Young wrote an excellent piece<\/a> in response to the Cup of Tea analogy, arguing that the appropriate metaphor was not tea, but cake. \u201cIf someone offers you cake and you don\u2019t really feel like eating it but say, \u2018Sure, I\u2019d love some!\u2019, because you don\u2019t want to hurt their feelings, that\u2019s also consent. If you\u2019re drunk (but sufficiently in control of your faculties to eat cake\u2026), that\u2019s also consent. If you weren\u2019t thinking straight and ate so much cake you were sick the next day, chalk it up as a valuable learning experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

A learning experience, sure, but shouldn\u2019t we still be worried that there\u2019s an epidemic of people feeling pressured to eat fucking cake they don\u2019t actually want, even if they agree to eat it?<\/p>\n

If the argument is that sexual situations are often more complicated than not, rife with subtlety and nuance, then how about we apply a little more of it ourselves? If circumstances are ‘ambiguous,’ why can\u2019t that make us more likely to be careful, rather than less? Rachel, 33, described numerous situations in which she and her friends had found themselves and that she felt were ambiguous in terms of consent. \u201cI was a pretty free spirited party kid at times. If you infuse it with alcohol, it becomes very murky. There\u2019s a lot of shame involved. You also have that thing in dating culture, the expectation of women that they should be almost like men. They should be so empowered, that you\u2019re meant to be cool with everything as well. We\u2019re meant to think like a man in the dating culture. So you can feel shame for feeling vulnerable, and also for fearing that bravado. You can feel shame for saying no.\u201d<\/p>\n

She describes a date with a man which ended with them going back to his house, \u201ceven though I\u2019d made it clear I didn\u2019t want anything to happen. I kissed him, but that was it. He said he was too drunk to drive me home, but I could crash in his bed. This was pre-Uber. So I stayed, clothed, on top of the covers. He still tried to get his hands down my pants. And I still felt that even though I\u2019d said no, I must be in the wrong.\u201d Sarah relates to this: \u201cToo many of my girlfriends have this \u2018busy hands\u2019 story, of waking up to a guy trying to put his hands down our pants. We had a housewarming. I went to my bedroom, closed the door, and went to sleep. I woke up. One of my friends, in my bed, trying to finger me. This is a really, really, really, really<\/em> common story. And that\u2019s blurry because, well, it\u2019s not rape, but you\u2019re trying to\u2026what do you call it? You\u2019re violating me. While I\u2019m asleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another problem. In eight out of 10 cases of rape, the victim knew the person who sexually assaulted them. Are we listening, now? Sarah says, \u201cThere\u2019s this whole other thing. Telling your friends that something inappropriate happened with a guy, who might also be in the same friendship group. That\u2019s really difficult. The number of people I\u2019ve heard from, stories from girlfriends over the years about men that I\u2019ve known that have done this to them. The person who did that [‘busy hands’ while sleeping] to me, I know you know, for instance. And if I told you who he was, I\u2019m sure that you\u2019d be shocked.\u201d Chloe agrees: \u201cPeople like to think that rape is only this big scary thing, where someone grabs a woman in an alleyway or something, but it\u2019s not. It can be what your mate\u2019s doing to your other mate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps we need better, more specific language to discuss these different situations. But to get too caught up in splitting hairs misses the point. Across all the women I spoke with, the experience of being in a compromised situation with a man, or a circumstance in which they felt uncomfortable or coerced, was universal. Absorb that too, gentlemen. Universal<\/em>. Situations that, even if they didn\u2019t necessarily constitute as rape, were definitely not okay by any measure of basic human standards. Story after story. It was overwhelming. The first time I had properly understood that #yesallwomen is not a symbolic hashtag, but a literal truth. And a recurring theme in many of those situations was that they had not wanted to say \u2018no\u2019 any more vociferously because of fear of making the man angry, because they felt ashamed they may have led him on, or even that it was easier just to go along with it than risk violence.<\/p>\n

Jennifer, 30, said that there can be an idea underpinning the consent of \u201cthis is just easier. If I just\u2026 It\u2019s not that bad, let\u2019s just do it, I\u2019ve led him on this far, let\u2019s just\u2026 It\u2019s ten minutes, just go. That happens all the time. All the fucking time. And tied into that is an element of fear. What\u2019s going to happen if I don\u2019t? Which is potentially a lack of communication on both sides, let\u2019s be fair. But it\u2019s grey.\u201d There is a significant correlation between reasons why a woman might not feel able to say ‘no,’ and the reasons for which sexual assault is often not reported to authorities: fear of retaliation, uncertainty about whether a crime was committed, fear of disclosure or public shame, even loyalty to the offender.<\/p>\n

How often might a man walk away from a situation unaware of the turmoil or trauma he has inflicted on a woman? This leaves me asking myself some hard questions. Who out of my friends and family is capable of assault? Who might have placed a woman in a disquieting situation, or pressured her excessively? Or done so without even realizing it? Does everyone have it in them to do it? Do I? Have there been any situations in my own sexual history that may have felt problematic for my partner? I certainly hope not—but if this experience is ubiquitous for women, are we creating murky situations without even realizing it?<\/p>\n

Chloe links this lack of awareness to differences in sexual narratives between genders: \u201cI think women are a little culturally better at talking about this stuff than men—the sex discussion with men seems to be more framed in terms of \u2018yeah, awesome,’ whereas women talk more about the negative sexual experiences they\u2019ve had.\u201d<\/p>\n

I went to an all-male high school and two different universities, and at these institutions, the macho culture among male students, when it came to women, was very much about sexual conquest. The focus was not on the potential vulnerability of the partner. \u201cI think probably any time a woman has been described as some kind of conquest, I\u2019d say it\u2019s probably a pretty bad sign. It\u2019s a much bigger rape culture thing, where pop culture and porn and other dudes in the world teach you that women are not as valuable as other human beings\u2026 It\u2019s sexism in action. Everything teaches you that women aren\u2019t as smart, or as worthy and of course people end up acting that out. The narrative of every movie is that if a guy wants a girl, if he really wants to have her, then he\u2019s going to get her and he deserves that, and she\u2019s his prize, so of course guys then enact that in real life, and then the girl is like, ‘oh, no thank you, I\u2019m good.’ I think people don\u2019t hear that,\u201d Chloe adds.<\/p>\n

Jennifer brings up cat-calling as a contributing factor. \u201cI went to a meeting the other day. I parked my car two blocks from the place. It doesn\u2019t actually matter what I was wearing, but I was wearing black jeans, boots, a shirt buttoned up to the collar. You could literally see my head and my hands. Six times, I was cat-called. ‘Hey baby\u2026’ Between my car and the place. And I didn\u2019t think they were going to attack me, and I didn’t think that was going to happen, but I also didn\u2019t know. So you think, I\u2019m just not going to say anything, but then you think, fuck, if I don\u2019t respond, are they going to get angry?\u201d<\/p>\n

If you think Jennifer’s description of being cat-called is even remotely an exaggeration, take two minutes to watch that viral video out of New York, whereby a woman with a hidden camera in her backpack walks around the city for an entire day and is continuously cat-called<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One friend I spoke with pointed out that even if <\/em>the intention behind a comment, or a cat-call, or a shout of admiration from a passing car is, as is so often argued, harmless or even complimentary, it is still a visceral, gut-level reminder of the threat of sexual violence to women. \u201cThe scariest thing with cat-calling,\u201d said Jennifer, \u201cis that it\u2019s men saying, \u2018We claim this space, we own public space, and you are in it. We\u2019re going to let you go through, but only if you look good to us, and we\u2019ll let you know about it, and if you\u2019re not smiling we\u2019ll tell you to smile, because this is my zone, and you can come into it, but don\u2019t feel like it\u2019s yours. Don\u2019t get too comfortable. And that\u2019s kind of reinforced by everyone. You see it all the fucking time.\u201d Sarah agrees: \u201cFrom a very young age, we [girls] are socialized to role play along with misogynistic interactions. So when being cat-called, it\u2019s almost instinctive to politely oblige the attention—however uncomfortable it may make us feel. The same can be said for sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s consider that for a minute, too. Even within the confines of a loving relationship, can you say for certain that your wife or girlfriend\u00a0or partner hasn\u2019t had sex with you because she was sick of you pestering her for it? Or because she didn\u2019t want to offend you? Or make you angry? Can we all acknowledge the elephant in the room—that there are fundamental attitudes maintained by men, as a group, towards women, as a group, that underpin every single one of these situations?<\/p>\n

So, boys, where does all of this leave us? I\u2019ll tell you: If you don\u2019t believe that you hold these attitudes, if you don\u2019t believe that any of these situations apply to you, then speak up<\/em>. This conversation needs more from those of us who consider ourselves good men. Most of the women I spoke to said that it was something they had opened up about to other women, but not necessarily discussed with their male friends. When I asked Rachel, she said, \u201cI\u2019m kind of surprised to hear myself say no. Even guys I would sob to, and be specific about my relationship highs and lows. Even someone that I feel respected and loved by, like a brother\u2026.I had to play it cool, talking about anything that wasn\u2019t a deeper relationship, because I felt too vulnerable, because it is too muddy. Because if I felt like I\u2019ve been taken advantage of, maybe I deserved to feel like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jennifer feels that it is becoming easier to talk to her male friends about this, \u201cbut only kind of recently. I didn\u2019t realize it wasn\u2019t something that they knew. I just assumed that they would know. But people are not so afraid to talk about it any more. The Brock Turner case was a huge one. I think her victim statement was really effective to a lot of people, but I know for me, and the women I\u2019ve talked to, how could you think it was anything else? How could you assume someone who got raped, when she was passed out behind a dumpster, would be anything but that intense? It\u2019s not that hard to put two and two together. For most women anyway. Maybe not for guys?\u201d<\/p>\n

So how about it? Let\u2019s stop making excuses. Let\u2019s start being brave enough to call out misogynistic behavior when we see it, instead of excusing it just because we’ve got a dick between our legs too.<\/p>\n

And if you are reading any of this thinking that I\u2019m being anti-men, you are fucking kidding yourself. This is about being pro-woman. This is about being pro-human. I\u2019m not suggesting you never look at a woman again. Or never talk to a woman in a bar, or a cafe. Far from it. That would be an absurd interpretation of this article.\u00a0I\u2019m not suggesting that we stop being men. I\u2019m suggesting we can all be better ones. This is about how <\/em>we do things, not the things we do. Conversation, flirtation, sex, and love are among the best things in life. So why don\u2019t we raise the bar by caring more about the well being of our mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, girlfriends, and female friends,\u00a0and see that they are having as great a time as we are? If she makes it clear that she\u2019s not interested, take her at her word and move on. If she\u2019s wearing headphones and doesn\u2019t want to talk to you, don\u2019t keep trying. If you make a sexual overture and you\u2019re rejected, take it like a man and deal with it. Don\u2019t make it her problem, because for her, it’s a terrifying one. And if things appear ambiguous, better to interpret that as a hard ‘no’ than a ‘yes’. Don\u2019t hassle women. Don\u2019t objectify them. Don\u2019t assault them. Don\u2019t rape them. Don\u2019t abuse them. Don\u2019t coerce them. Don\u2019t pressure them into sex. (Is that really how you want to get it anyway?) Don\u2019t defend your right to be an asshole. Don\u2019t disbelieve them when they tell you what they are experiencing. Because a lot of these things are invisible in our world, but a constant threat in theirs.<\/p>\n

And if anything I\u2019ve said here is going to ruin your fun, you might just be part of the problem.<\/p>\n

Are we awake now, lads?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Feature image source: huffingtonpost.com<\/em><\/p>\n

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