(no subject)

[shadowkat]

1. Link to a NY Times article regarding the new Sundance documentary film The Hunting Game. This is a film about the current rape culture across US college campuses. Actually this is a problem that goes back to the 1980s, possibly further. I still have a black whistle on my key chain that I received in 1985 - in case of an assault. I keep it - to remember the issue. I'll remove it, when the issue is no longer present.

While I've never been raped, thankfully, I've known people who were. 3 out of 5 of the women I knew in college were date-raped at frat parties. Many were drunk, passed out in a dorm room, and had sex...with little memory of it and no consent. They remembered saying no, felt ashamed, and did not report it - because they feared no one would believe them and weren't sure it qualified as rape. I know I sat and listened to their stories.

Sexual violence is represented as almost a given in romance novels, action stories on television, paranormal series, and various detective procedurals. Name one procedural in which one of the lead female characters wasn't raped or an attempted rape - to further a male storyline. Just one. I can't think of one. For that matter - how many dramas can we name in which this hasn't happened? Historical and new adult contemporary romance novels - also either contain rape or rape disguised as forced seduction.

It's a problem. Recently it came out that not one, but two male actors/celebrities had raped or molested people. One of the two, recently joked about it and the audience laughed.

Awareness is key, I think. Realizing the pain and horror of it - and not excusing it.
I'm not sure how to punish someone for it - I'm thinking they need to be made aware of the horror of the crime, how disgusting it is, how shameful. Not the victim. The victim has nothing to be ashamed of, the perpetuator does. And maybe figure out why - why they do it. Is it power? Is it prestige? Is it rage? And how to counter act that as a society? Besides merely being a whistle blower. I've looked at the situation from multiple angles, and still don't know how best to resolve and end it.

2. Justified - it was good. But you can sense this is the end game. And I have a sinking feeling it is going to end in tragedy for all the main players.

Boyd Crowder is a sexy and deadly guy, well-played by Walter Goggins. His performance continues to blow me away. As does the former chief of police.

3. The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle Over James Joyce's Ulysses feels, oddly, like the perfect companion to my reading of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.
Both are about the beauty of the human body. Both are about advocacy. Both are poetic masterpieces. And both have fierce women behind their publication and production.
The Most Dangerous Book - is more about the fierce and courageous women who advocated that the book be published and more importantly they be allowed to read it - and men not be allowed to dictate what they should or should not read or how they should think. Just because you were born with a penis does not mean you are smarter or better or wiser or more mature than someone born with vagina. (I always found that view odd. Vagina's squeeze out a baby. It's an amazingly powerful muscle. A penis? Well, not all that powerful. It just plows in, plants it's seed in ten minutes, done.
Plus? Sort of vulnerable...I mean think about it? So is all this posturing and power-mongering a complicated defense mechanism built up over the ages to protect that vulnerability? I don't know. But it seems to me, if you have a sensitive body part exposed like that - you might not want to piss off people who don't have it well that exposed and can disable you with one quick kick to the gonads. I'm amazed to see that James Joyce more or less shares my point of view in this respect. Although we've come a long way since Joyce's time (1910-1920s), we really still have a long way to go regarding how we view gender as a culture, don't we? I mean it shouldn't matter whether you are born with a penis or a vagina, what you do or who you are. That shouldn't define you solely. Or dictate what you read, think or do or for that matter even who you love or who you have sex with. Why can't people get that? It's not exactly rocket science. Seems pretty frigging obvious to me.)

Comments

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

The terrible thing about date rape that we are just now starting to get past is that women are so conditioned to accept that men are entitled to sex and women are at fault for what happens--in my generation, we all definitely accepted that it was up to a woman to prevent date rape, not up to a man not to do it. This sounds crazy when you say it, but it's only now that it's even being questioned. When I was young, it was regarded as being like the laws of physics--not something that could be changed. So I doubt there will be statistics that mean anything before the late 70's and 80's when we finally began to look at the possibility that men were not so entitled, because we didn't even call it rape to ourselves, just thought of it as the penalty for making a mistake. So much that had to change...

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

but it's only now that it's even being questioned

I wouldn't say that. There were plenty of men back when I was in high school and college, who were telling younger guys not to treat women like that, and plenty of women telling younger women and men, whatever the guy wants is *not* okay.

It's never the woman's fault. But everybody needs to be aware that there are some pretty scummy human beings out there (male and female). And saying they shouldn't lie, steal, beat their spouse, rape and murder isn't going to faze them much.

People wonder why the recent tempest about under-inflated footballs by a league championship team is a big deal. Technically it's not. The team can't lose its championship. If they'd just admitted it, paid the small (in pro football terms) fine and gotten on with their lives, no one would have cared. But the fact that the team *expects* everyone else just to let them get away with it is a terrible sign. It shows just how many folks out there do think they should be able to do whatever, and unfortunately some of those folks are are a lot worse than petty sports cheats, included among them are rapists and potential rapists.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

The culture where I grew up took longer to reach that point, I think. Should have been more specific. I still have questions about a lot of southern guys, to tell the truth.

But you're right about the feeling of being entitled to do what you want being a scourge. Unfortunately, rampant also among politicians...

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

All too true.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I totally understand what you are getting at mamculuna. There was a bit of cultural shift in the late 1960s. But prior to that...there was a cultural view (generally speaking) that once a guy got started he couldn't stop.

Also, bear in mind in the 1960s- 1990s - many best-selling romance novelists (Rosemary Rodgers, Judith McNaught, Johanna Lindsey, Kathleen Woodliss, Fern Michaels, Laurie McBain) wrote bodice rippers - where the hero basically forced himself on the heroine, and it was shown as a "misunderstanding". This was also true of the noir genre, and various comic books - Frank Miller's Sin City and Alan Moore's novels had sexual violence suggested - in the 1980s and 1990s.

I remember my mother warning me to be careful, that when a guy got turned on or started, he wouldn't be able to stop - I repeated this view to my college boyfriend, who was appalled. He said - uh no, I have two hands, I can spank the monkey if required. That's so not true. We can stop. (I'm lucky, the only men I've dated are nice guys. I haven't dated any rapists or misogynists..)

But you are right about the culture though. As is cactuswatcher - yes there were plenty of men who were against it and found rape appalling. My father certainly did, as did my uncles. And most of the men I've met, felt this way online and off.

However - culturally, particularly in the previous centuries...there was a view that it was okay in certain scenarios. (Such as - if both people were drunk. Or if the girl slept in the guy's dorm room. Or wore clothing of a certain type. (The Accused - was a film that got that cultural stigma across.) )

These views have been challenged at various points.

We do still have a problem with people in power. In the last few years, various men in power have raped women -- and gotten away with it or were able to hide it and do it, because of their power, wealth or privilege. And what they don't appear to understand is it is an abuse of that power.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It's always droit du seigneur.

[djon-perrao.livejournal.com]

Индивидуальность - превыше всего. Мартин.