By Connie Chastain*
So, how long has rape culture been around? Has it always existed? If not, when did it start and under what circumstances? Did folks just wake up one morning and there it was?I surfed the net a bit trying to answer this question and finally found one post at a blog titled "Feminist Whore" (lovely) with a tad of information on the origins of the term, "rape culture."
It seems the phrase dates to a 1974 documentary film about ... prison rape.
There's a curious thing about this blog post, though. Feminist orthodoxy has claimed for decades that rape is not about sex, it's about power. The blog notes, however, that this was "the first documentary to establish the relationship between rape and our culture’s sexual fantatasies (sic)." How can that be, if rape is about power, not sex?
And besides, I'm looking for the origins of rape culture itself, not the terminology used to describe or identify it.
Thus far, it appears that the concept of rape culture did not exist before the 1970s. Its appearance coincides with the rise of second-wave feminism and begins to make itself known in the era of "Take Back the Night" extravaganzas.
Apparently, the idea behind "Take Back the Night" was that a woman alone cannot walk safely after dark. But I've always wondered -- take the night back .. where? When has the night ever been safe? Darkness has always been a cover for evil deeds, and it isn't just women who are menaced by the dangers lurking in the shadows. Nevertheless, these night-reclaiming organizations and activities assume the woman-as-perpetual-victim position that underlies feminism.
So did rape culture exist before second wave feminism and nobody realized it? Did it come into existence because women began to assert their independence about that time? Who created it? The patriarchy, which appears to be responsible for all that ails Planet Earth? Or have women themselves played a role in the creation and maintenance of said rape culture?
Tracking down the origins will comprise research for future essays. Interesting, though, that an idea so pervasive requires one to undertake research and inquiry in order to pinpoint its beginning. Considering the multitude of women's studies departments in academia, the feminist press and the influence of feminism on news and entertainment media, you'd think that the origins of something this important would be well-documented and easily located. A quick Google search should turn up everything you'd want to know about it.
Well, it doesn't.
By contrast, if false rape accusation can be termed a "culture", the first recorded instance of it can easily be traced to antiquity, to about 1500 BCE in Egypt. We all know the story that has come down to us, preserved in Scripture. Joseph, a good-looking young Hebrew slave in the service of Potiphar, officer of the Pharaoh, catches the eye of Mrs. Potiphar. She attempts to seduce him, he resists, she cries rape and Joseph gets thrown in prison....
It's a story as old as the sands of Egypt, as recent as today's news cycle. And Google will tell you all about it.
Links referred to in this post:
Feminist Whore: http://feministwhore.wordpress.com/2009/12/13/the-origin-of-the-term-rape-culture/
Joseph: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+39&version=NIV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_%28Biblical_figure)
*Connie is a regular contributor to FRS. Her principal blog is http://conniechastain.blogspot.com/
Posts
41 comments:
interesting...ive never been too clear on the idea of rape culture, no society has said all violence is unacceptable except for sexual violence
"And besides, I'm looking for the origins of rape culture itself, not the terminology used to describe or identify it."
Yup. That's because it does not exist outside of its own terminology. Or if you prefer, conceptualisation.
No one here will ever get it.
"Rape Culture" is a feminist construct used as a tactic for separation. I was inundated with it in college. In fact, the campus Rape Awareness Center lied to the student body and to the local community when they claimed that a woman would never ever lie about rape. Ever.
"Rape Culture" and "A woman is to be believed 100% of the time" are both lies.
Think Scientology and "auditing".
It's all just a big shit / gullibility test.
If you "fail" the test you're "fair game"
end of.
No one here will ever get it.
***
We all get it. "Rape culture" is Santa Claus for feminists, nothing more.
Anon @ 5:26,
The benefit (to its users) of a concept which is so undefined and undefinable, is that it is so malleable. Its content is no more than its theme, which is used for different purposes e.g. by separatist and non-separatist radical feminists.
To understand rape culture, you have to understand the definition of "almost raped." From The Urban Dictionary:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Almost%20Raped
"almost raped \ al*most raped \ ( awl-mohst reypt )
- adv, adj
A female's frequent or possibly perpetual state of existence, the onset of which is usually triggered when anything happens to her, and brings about feelings of unwarranted apprehension, self-importance, and self-pity. Specifically, the possible criteria to qualify as being almost raped include the female: being in public, being glanced at by a male, nearly being glanced at by a male, presiding within 100 feet of a male, conversing with one or more other females who are or were almost raped, or recalling anyone the female has previously dated and currently dislikes.
"That guy was totally eyeing me with his peripheral vision! Can you believe it? I was almost raped!"
"
If you want a less refined definition, google "almost raped" and take a look at the first linked entry that appears.
So, how long has rape culture been around? Has it always existed? If not, when did it start and under what circumstances? Did folks just wake up one morning and there it was?
It has existed as long as feminist propagandists have needed it to exist, and it will continue to exist as long as they need a way to denigrate men.
When did we begin using the term "rape culture" to define the epidemic of rape? Did we just wake up one day and discover we had an epidemic and it needed a "name"?
When did we begin using the term "rape culture" to define the phony epidemic of rape? Did we just wake up one day and discover we needed an epidemic and it needed a "name"?
That poses an even deeper question. If the rape epidemic is phony, how did such an absurd notion originate
The same way the myth about domestic violence and the Superbowl came about. Where there are lies, there are liars.
Indeed ... and the same way the myth around the phrase 'rule of thumb' came about.
Feminists have proven time and time again that they are LIARS, willing to lie, distort and outright invent if men can be punished in any way.
Every false rape accusation by a woman against a man is feminism in action.
Re: Anon@6:30, I recall reading and enjoying the definition of 'almost raped'.
Not long ago I was coming home on the bus. (Among the stupid and crazy-brave things I am known to do at times is use the socialist public transport system). Anyways, sitting behind me was a school girl talking to a young guy. She recounted that earlier that day at her school there had been an offender hanging around near the school. According to the girl, the offender had approached one girl (or lured her to his car, I can't recall the exact details), pulled a knife, and ...gulp.... drawing of breath.... "she was almost raped!".
Upon hearing the phrase "almost raped" I immediately recalled the dictionary definition of "almost raped", and feelings of ironical mirth came over me. Hey, I can't help being cynical and having a perverse sense of humor! And, to be honest, some girls and women seem to just love recounting gossipy, hysterical tales of this kind or things similar.
The point of all this is that, for all I know, it is entirely possible that this incident occurred exactly how this girl described it. And a dangerous offender may well have been apprehended or narrowly thwarted from carrying out a serious offense. But when one knows how common false rape claims are, what is one to make of an uncorroborated allegation of "almost rape"? It is as though others have cried wolf that many times, and then you hear a warning about an "almost wolf". At some point, it almost becomes second-nature to mock or ridicule such claims.
The point is that, if false allegations continue as they are, there may well come a time in future when it will be second-nature to ridicule any such claims of danger or abuse by women. If there are still going to be men around in future to look out for them, women and girls really need to stop crying wolf.
It's the same thing as one-in-four. In a world where people have written thick books about the most obscure and esoteric things, no one through out recorded history bothered to mention something as important as 25% of women are raped? Are we honestly supposed to believe that for thousands of years no one noticed that there was all this rape until Mary Koss did this lousy survey 25 years ago?
"That poses an even deeper question. If the rape epidemic is phony, how did such an absurd notion originate"
Ever hear of feminism?
I think there is also a mythical assault culture that feminists haveen keeping as a back up, in case their rape culture fails. Feminists hate DNA testing as it has proven to be useful in exonerating innocent men.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/
However assaults, because of the broad and vague defitions for such, are easy to falsely accuse someone of and, have them falsely imprisoned.
OT -- just when we think we've seen it all: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/37165527/ns/today-entertainment/
Gene Simmons -- yes, that Gene Simmons; the KISS rock star -- accused of grinding his crotch against his make-up artist, who wants two hundred thousand dollars.
A guy who has literally slept with thousands of women! Is there any man in America who is safe from false accusations?
Feminism 101
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
There is no such thing as false rape.
I am one who DOES believe there is some strange 'rape culture' going on, but not in the way the 'feminists' proclaim.
One only has to look a the Abu Griab photos of American service men and WOMEN to see that Americans are absolutely besotted by prison rape. Even the youngest children in this rape culture society know and understand prison rape jokes.
That IS something undeniably 'new'in our culture. Americans certainly didn't make such jokes in the Leave It To Beaver days.
I'm speculating here, but the rise of our prison culture has most definately given itself over to the mirth and merriment of prison rape jokes - not to mention the very grim reality and expectation.
You did not see American servicemen - or women- in WWII photos posing captured enemies in homosexual/rape positions. Not in Korea, not even in Viet Nam, although ugly weird stuff DID emerge out of that mess.
Maybe the 'rape culture' ideal for women has merit, and can be traced to the Barbie Doll Whore mentality.
School officials had to ban thong underwear for kindergartners - and now a swim suit company pulled it's line of padded bra tops swim suits for toddlers pretending to have breasts.
It's MOTHERS who buy their daughters junior sized thongs and padded tops, then shriek and gnash their teeth worrying about pedophiles.
As Charles Manson has so aptly observed, "Being crazy USED to be unique. Nowdays, EVERYbody is crazy."
TheZetaMale said...
interesting...ive never been too clear on the idea of rape culture, no society has said all violence is unacceptable except for sexual violence
Sexual violence against male prisoners is actually the exception.
Thoughts on Rape Culture
part 1 of 2
I like watching film adaptations of Shakespeare plays, so I recently picked up a copy of the 2004 film adaptation of The Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino as Shylock. If you've never seen or read this Shakespeare play, Al Pacino does a brilliant job:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGXUGhIYW-4&feature=related
What Shylock says about Jews and Christians in his speech, a falsely accused man could paraphrase about himself and his accuser, or the MRA's about gender feminists:
"She hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's her reason? I am a man. Hath not a man eyes? Hath not a man hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a woman is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a man wrong a woman, what is his humility? Revenge. If a woman wrong a man, what should her sufferance be by womens' example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."
The revenge thing didn't work out too well for Shylock. His punishment for being unwilling to compromise, and insisting on the letter of the law instead of cherishing the spirit of the law ("the quality of mercy is not strain'd"); forced him to forfeit all his assets, lose his family, and convert from Judaism to Christianity, which in Shakepeare's time meant that he would ultimately not be accepted by either group (the functional equivalent of a plea bargain and having to register as a sex offender in modern times).
It would be interesting to see a modern re-imagining of The Merchant of Venice that examines, as morality play, rape culture.
Rape culture operates as did the court in Shakespeare's Venice: the law is usurped by those who insist on justice being done by the letter of the law; women lie and deceive men (even in the courtroom as Portia impersonates a lawyer); and attempts at revenge eventually returns to destroy the vengeful.
Thoughts on Rape Culture
part 2 of 2
Of course, this reminds me of another Al Pacino film from 1979:
And Justice For All
Al Pacino plays an idealistic criminal defense lawyer, Arthur Kirkland in Baltimore, Maryland. Mr. Kirkland cares about his clients. Every week he visits his aging grandfather, who put him through law school. Things aren't going well for Arthur: two of his clients are increasingly desperate -- neither should be in prison; his partner is behaving bizarrely; he has begun an affair with an attorney who is on the bar's disciplinary committee; his favorite judge may have a death wish; and then, the judge he dislikes most, a by-the-book martinet, Judge Henry T. Fleming (played by John Forsythe) demands that Arthur defend him when he's accused of a brutal rape on a young woman. Kirkland faces a moral dilemma, especially when Judge Fleming privately admits to Kirkland that he's guilty of the rape.
Classic opening statement that would never happen in a real court room (but worth watching):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sOeY6ZVG2U
The heart of rape culture is about humiliation and the abrogation of
humiliation. If we want to understand rape culture, we must understand humiliation. Humiliation affected Shylock in the Merchant of Venice; and it affected Mr. Kirkland and Judge Fleming in "And Justice For All." Just as the gender feminists and those who enable and support the Rape Culture have a choice in responding to humiliation in all of its forms, so do we have similar choices as falsely accused in the face of injustice.
How we can choose to respond to humiliation has been covered previously here on FRS:
http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2010/01/mom-arrested-for-bogus-rape-allegations.html?showComment=1264964856904#c6832914630172738464
http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2010/03/horrendous-news-of-innocent-man-beaten.html?showComment=1269116858189#c7865211262586968386
http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2010/03/horrendous-news-of-innocent-man-beaten.html?showComment=1269116903811#c1951562170628694447
"It's MOTHERS who buy their daughters junior sized thongs and padded tops, then shriek and gnash their teeth worrying about pedophiles."
Which is silly, really, because this would make children look slightly more like adults, making them less attractive to pedophiles, who are by definition attracted to children.
Is there any valid reason that we find ourselves responding to recycled hash regarding 'rape culture'? The article here sheds no new perspective, just saying.
Actually, from what I've read about child pornography, that isn't entirely true. As young girls may wear make-up and be dressed up in adult outfits, including such sexually sophisticated costumes as a prostitute or dominatrix. While it might strain credibility that there is someone out there who would make a black leather outfit that could fit a six-year-old. Consider that there are about a quarter-million parents who pile make-up and put bizarre costumes on their own children, like they are little Vegas showgirls, for child beauty pageants.
Normally when we hear terms like "booze-culture" or "drug-culture", what's being talked about is a common social activity that a significant number of people indulge in, and which not too many of us take that seriously. We're not talking about something for which near capital penalties exist which are being applied every day, and ruthlessly.
So yes, we do live in a rape culture - but it's not the rape of women, it's the rape of men.
We know men are being raped every day in prisons, we make jokes about it, no-one takes it that seriously and prosecutions are extremely rare. There's no urgency to eliminate it, no official recognition that it even needs to be eliminated.
That is precisely what a "rape-culture" is.
"The article here sheds no new perspective, just saying."
Connie is asking the questions that make feminists go batshit crazy. That's good enough for me.
Anon @ 6:58, fair enough ... I had no idea.
"Anon @ 6:58, fair enough ... I had no idea."
The name "Jonbenet Ramsey" ring any bells?
Can't say that it does.
Chef Snark said...
Can't say that it does.
May 16, 2010 6:50:00 AM
http://ashleejones.com/412/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/pl_jonbenet_060817_ssv.jpg
http://karisable.com/jbr.htm
More About Feminist Rape Culture
http://antimisandry.com/counter-feminist/more-about-feminist-rape-culture-20236.html
For research purposes maybe the following reference might help.
"The Rape Culture" by Dianne F. Herman (from 'Women: A Feminist Perspective', Jo Freeman, ed. 1989 (4th edition) Mountain View, CA. Mayfield
The name JonBenet Ramsay rings many different bells.
1) Yes, she was tarted up and paraded about as a 'beauty queen' at age 6. Beauty pagents are still as popular as ever, if not more so since her murder.
2) You will recall her father AND young brother were relentlessly accused of sexual abuse and murder without a shred of evidence to back up those claims.
3) Her entire family was relentlessly accused of her murder, and there are web sites to this day STILL proclaiming their guilt, even though ta-da! THERE IS NOT ONE SHRED OF EVIDENCE.
This is a perfect case of 'guilty by public opinion".
Anonymous at 7:42:00 PM --
"We know men are being raped every day in prisons, we make jokes about it, no-one takes it that seriously and prosecutions are extremely rare. There's no urgency to eliminate it, no official recognition that it even needs to be eliminated."
That's not the only way men are raped, just the literal way. Figuratively, they're raped by ex-wives, divorce lawyers, family courts, educational institutions, the corporate establishment, government bureaucracies, the popular culture, and more.
I didn't know this until a few years ago when I discovered the MRM. It's appalling.
@Connie...
Boys are victims of half of child sexual abuse. Women commit about a quarter of child sex offences and are probably about a third of the offenders.
Nobody knows how many adult male victims there are nor how many adult rapes are committed by women.
Even young boys who are raped by women are treated with mirth. They are considered to have gotten "lucky". To have been "privileged" by the experience.
Oprah Winfrey has, on several occasions, presented to her audiences women whose only claim to fame is having had sex with a little boy. Those audiences reward those rapists with standing ovations. These are mass rallies supporting rapists which are packaged up and beamed to hundreds of millions of women for their "entertainment".
In my country, Australia, our leading womens' magazine New Idea paid travel and living costs for a US woman thus enabling her to consumate her internet grooming of a fourteen year old boy. It was treated as a cutesy romance under titles such as "Schoolboy Lover". The women of my country sponsor sex tourists!
There is a rape culture alright. A culture in which victims are mocked and denigrated. A culture in which rapists are lauded, applauded and rewarded financially. A culture in which victims are held responsible for their own experience of rape - and that of others - because of a mere coincidence of gender.
Anon said:
It's the same thing as one-in-four. In a world where people have written thick books about the most obscure and esoteric things, no one through out recorded history bothered to mention something as important as 25% of women are raped? Are we honestly supposed to believe that for thousands of years no one noticed that there was all this rape until Mary Koss did this lousy survey 25 years ago?
-------
A very good point. A very very good point.
Anonymous said...
I think there is also a mythical assault culture that feminists haveen keeping as a back up, in case their rape culture fails. Feminists hate DNA testing as it has proven to be useful in exonerating innocent men.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/
However assaults, because of the broad and vague defitions for such, are easy to falsely accuse someone of and, have them falsely imprisoned.
May 15, 2010 1:20:00 PM
What you say is both, in my honest opinion, true and very interesting.
Chef Snark said...
Indeed ... and the same way the myth around the phrase 'rule of thumb' came about.
Feminists have proven time and time again that they are LIARS, willing to lie, distort and outright invent if men can be punished in any way.
Every false rape accusation by a woman against a man is feminism in action.
May 15, 2010 4:51:00 AM
It is also misandry in action.
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