Tag Archives: rape culture

Gender and Sexuality, Politics, Rants, Sexuality

Yes, men CAN control themselves. Men like me have been proving it for decades.

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[Content Warning: Rape culture, anti-LGBT violence]

Hello dear readers. I’m about to go on a rant. Strap in and enjoy, because there is a bit of bullshit that I am phenomenally tired of hearing and I need to go off.  What’s that bullshit? It can be summed up in a simple statement.

Men cannot control themselves.

It’s an underlying belief in our society that crops up everywhere. It’s a great it of rape apologia. Men can’t control themselves, that’s why they violate boundaries. How dare you shame them for it. You hear it in the modesty movement: Men can’t control their sexual thoughts and urges. That’s why women need to dress in a way that doesn’t cause them to have such thoughts in the first place.

And it is bullshit, dear reader. Men can control themselves. How do I know this? Because I’m a man and I control myself. In fact, the vast majority of LGBT men have spent our lives reeling in our sexual thoughts and urges whenever it was appropriate — and maybe even at times when we could have been more free with our thoughts and urges. We’ve done this not only because it’s the right thing to do, but for our own freaking survival.

Here’s the thing: If I stared at my male coworkers the way some men stare at their female coworkers, there’d be hell to pay. If I make an unwanted advance on a guy, it could get me into a lot of trouble — in some cases, it could result in violence. (And half our society would actually take the side of the other guy even if he hospitalized me!

Now, I’m not saying I should be allowed to do anything of the sort. I actually like being a decent guy. I don’t want to be some entitled asshole who gets away with preying on uninterested and unwilling guys. I think consent in sex is a huge part of what makes sex worth it and want everyone involved to be a willing, contributing participant who is also getting something they want out of it. But the fact that society expects me an men like me to respect other men’s boundaries and treat them like humans rather than slabs of meat is relevant here.

Because it means that everyone knows men really can control themselves. It proves any claim to the contrary and absolute lie. It demonstrates that what people who say “men can’t control themselves” really mean that they believe men shouldn’t have to control themselves around women.

But if they came right out and said that, they’d have to accept just how monstrous their point of view really is. And they should have to own that, so I’m calling them on it.

Gender and Sexuality, Society

Spam for Entitled Heterosexual Men

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[Content Note: Rape Culture, Misogyny, Male Entitlement, Sexually Explicit Language]

On a lark, I went through my email’s trash folder the other day. For Saturday (Valentine’s Day) alone, I found four pieces of spam with a common theme: Get the woman (or women) of your dreams. See them for yourself (separated by lines of asterisks):

This shocking video is going to blow your mind and let you discover:

-Magic innocent phrases to make her horny in seconds;

-Simple questions to make any pussy wet;

-Couple of gestures to instantly take her down!

And much more for a full makeover of your life.

No practice, no efforts, no hard work!

***********

Tired of being in a friend zone and constantly feeling unable to put her to your bed? Your life needs a makeover!

It’s the very lucky day when you may learn the genius way to make any girl want you without any efforts!

Tested on thousands of them! And they still want more…

***********

I hardly believe it myself but I’ve tried more than 20 sex positions last week with 5 different girls.

This technique is a huge sex cake that has changed my life the way I had never even dreamt of.

You may carry on being just a jerk for hot babes or watch this video and let the science do the best for you!

Good luck!

***********

You know I feel like a love boner king lately!
And it seems I almost forgot how I pleased myself with a night porn and relationship with a girl I didn’t like very much…

Today the situation is 100% different.
I can swear this technique is the most useful finding for an average man like me.

If you want to take the lead and be the one to choose, not be chosen by them, this great video is a must-see for you!

There’s a lot of wrong that I could cover in this. I doubt I’ll manage to spot everything, but I want to list some of the assumptions that these messages continue to support and encourage men to hold:

Women are there for their needs, especially their sexual needs.

The way to get any woman they want is simply to say or do the right things.

Women’s sexuality and sexuality exists solely to aid the men in getting the sex they want.

Getting the woman they want can and should be effortless.

There is nothing worse than having a woman decide a man is good enough to be a friend, but not good enough to be a sexual partner.*

What a woman wants and who she wants it with doesn’t matter.

These are just four examples of this kind of mentality that landed in my email on one day out of the year.  These same messages are pushed explicitly by books an websites every day. They are pushed implicitly in other forms of media. (Think of all the “hero gets the girl” themes in just about every genre of movie.)

It’s these kinds of messages that deny the humanity and agency of women. It’s these kinds of messages that encourage and enable men to think that they deserve the attentions and sexual favors of women — and not just any women, but the specific women they want — sometimes to the extreme point that they react like Elliot Rodger or Ben Moynihan (just to pick two examples).

These messages are toxic and they need to stop. They need to be challenged and discussed. They cannot be ignored. They cannot be shrugged off as something “no one really believes or listens too” because the evidence to the contrary is stark.

Further Reading: A Culture of Violent Entitlement, and the Culture of Silence Surrounding It via Shakesville

Note: I am indebted to Melissa McEwan at Shakesville, whose extensive blogging about men like Rodgers and Moynihan provided me with the links to news articles about them.

Gender and Sexuality, Rants

Today on Rape Culture FM

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[Content Note:  Rape Culture]

I’ve done a couple of posts that I’ve titled “Today on Sexist Morning Radio” after listening to the morning show on 98PXY on the way to work.  To be honest, I think I could probably write a minimum of one such post a week if I had more time or remembered the incidents by the time I have a chance to do any blogging.

Today’s gem, spoken by Duffy[1], however, goes far beyond sexism.  That’s why I’ve chosen what I consider a far more appropriate title.  After all, I can think of few statements that embody rape culture better than the following:[2]

She’s my wife.  She’s supposed to give me sex anyway.

To be honest, Duffy’s statement doesn’t really surprise me.  After all, he has in the pas indicated that he used to feel that the women he dated owed him sex if he paid for the date.

Now, I’m not saying that Duffy would actually have sex with his wife without her consent (but given that, statement, wow).  But at the very least, he’s reinforcing the idea that men are entitled to have sex with at least some women.  And that’s the kind of idea that emboldens and shields those who would take what they want regardless of consent.  And he used a radio station with a large audience to reinforce that idea.  At best, that’s irresponsible.

So to Duffy (and those like him), I would like to send out this reminder:

You are not entitled to sex from anyone at any time.  Not your spouse.  Not your significant other.  Not the person you bought a nice dinner for.  Not the person you keep doing dozens of favors for in hopes that you’ll hit the sexual jackpot in time.  And I’m disgusted that I actually have to tell you this.

—

[1]  I should note that while I’m focusing on Duffy’s
particularly horrible statement, his co-hosts should not get a complete
pass on contributing to rape culture.  After all, they tried to present the
idea that Duffy should try to make up with the argument he had with his
wife so that he’ll “get to have sex” later tonight.  (It’s their
suggestion that caused him to make that awful statement.)  It seems to
me, at least, that even they are turning sex into something Duffy gets
from his wife rather than an mutually fulfilling experience that they
share.  That’s a problematic understanding of sex at best.

[2]  This is not a verbatim quote.  However, Duffy’s exact words stated the same sentiment and equally as explicitly.

Books, Gender and Sexuality, Politics, Society

Raised Right: False Equivalence

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Trigger Warning:  Brief mentions of homophobia, transphobia, racism, misogyny, and rape culture.

There’s a lot of good material to discuss in chapter seven of “Raised Right:  How I Untangled my Faith from Politics” by Alisa Harris.  However, for today’s post, I want to focus on the following statement, made toward the end of the chapter:

Our gayness, blackness, whiteness, femaleness are not parts of a complete identity but our whole identity, elevated from an accident of birth to a political credo.  We become misshapen when all the spiritual and intellectual parts of our identity become merely political.

There have been a number of instances in the book so far where Ms. Harris has offered some wonderful and self-reflective insights into her experiences with conservative Christianity, only to incorrectly — in my opinion at least — projects those insights onto liberals, feminists, QUILTBAG people, and others.  As this particular instance is especially egregious in my mind, I want to take the time to draw attention to it.

There may be some truth, at least in some instances, to Ms. Harris’s suggestion that one’s race, gender identity, sexual orientation, or some other aspect of one’s life that tends to take central stage, possibly to the exclusion of others.  As a gay man, I am particularly fond of the following line spoken by John Mahoney’s character in “The Broken Hearts Club:”

Sometimes I wonder what you boys would do if you weren’t gay. You’d have no identity. It was easy when you couldn’t talk about it. Now it’s all you talk about. You talk about it so much that you forget about all the other things that you are.

However, I think it’s important to understand why this is often the case, which Timothy Olyphant’s character in the same movie explains so well.  To paraphrase[1], he suggests that a lot of gay guys tend to spend so much time hiding, denying, and even trying to change who they are that when they finally come to accept their orientation, they feel like they “have a lot of catching up to do.”

I think we can expand on that sentiment by considering the way in which people are marginalized, repressed, and dehumanized for being gay, female, trans* or a racial minority.  Whether we look at racism, transphobia, homophobia, or misogyny, the message that many in our society — and the system itself — sends to many such people is clear:  “You are not fully human because of who you are.”

When someone’s basic humanity is constantly[2] diminished, challenged, and denied because of some aspect of zirself then it is perfectly reasonable that defending zir humanity from those attacks, which means focusing on that aspect of zirself.  For women, racial minorities, and QUILTBAG people, defending their rights and devoting significant amounts of time is a matter of self-respect and even survival.  Comparing the amount of time that such marginalized people spend on those endeavors to the endeavors of the conservative political efforts — efforts that often translate to the continuing marginalization of other people, is dubious at best.

I am thankful that Ms. Harris has rethought many of her previously held positions and untangled her faith from her politics.  However, when it comes to considering the plight of marginalized people and how they choose to handle that plight, I think she needs to think things through a bit more.

Notes:
[1]  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an exact quote online.

[2]  And the constant presence of such othering of various groups is something that people who do not belong to those groups[3] often miss.

[3]  And this is true among the various marginalized groups, even.  For example, I’m constantly amazed at just how pervasive the rape culture and other forms of misogyny is as I read feminist blogs.  Being gay does not automatically sensitize me to the struggles others face.