[Content Note: Rape]
Here is a horrific article that is very long and is in places written from a place hostile to feminism, so I don't really recommend reading it, but there it is for a leaping-off point.
The short version of the story is that it is absolutely possible to abuse and rape an unconscious girl, in front of dozens of witnesses at multiple parties, to have the abuse captured in photographs, video, and confessional tweets posted to the abusers' accounts, to have the story popularized by a nationally-recognized feminist blogger, and to still walk off without a jail sentence and have the larger surrounding community rally around you because that unconscious slut was asking for it, really.
There's a lot to say about this story and not a whole lot that I know how to put into words. I guess, for starters, Rape Culture exists. A lot of people still struggle with that term, as though it means some kind of Plant of the Rapes where Steely Men of Gor wander the earth ravishing every woman who crosses their path, or something equally unreal.
That's not what rape culture means. Rape culture means, at least in part, that it is common for an unconscious girl to be blamed for her own rape, and that it is common for the people who literally witnessed and recorded said rape to continue to be friends with and supporters of the rapists who committed the rape. That shit happens so often that it's not even news -- and every single one of us knows or has encountered someone in our life who would hear a story like this and say something like, "well, they were wrong to rape her, but she still should have..." Because that is what rape culture does: it infests otherwise seemingly nice and pleasant people with horrific victim blaming attitudes.
Then, too, it needs to be said that rapists are not nice people. Can we put that meme to rest? We do need to talk about the fact that rapists are not all Scary Men In Bushes and that a lot of seemingly nice men commit rape and that this is in fact a very big problem and feeds into a lot of attitudes about why rape victims are totes lying bitches but THAT conversation is not the same as THIS one that keeps coming up about these boys being basically decent folks once you get past the whole "rapes unconscious girls" thing. Rape is a not a minor character flaw on the level of picking one's nose in public. Rapists are not nice. Even if they seem like it.
And if you, personally, think a rapist is a nice person, then congratulations: you are imperfect like everyone else on earth and you were fooled into thinking this person was nice when they really aren't. We've all been there. Deal with the revelation in some way other than digging deeper and deeper to insist that no, really, they really are nice because that shit is not cool and denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Lastly, on a side tangent, this is one of the many, many reasons why it is racist fuckwittery to pretend that "this sort of thing" only happens in those OTHER countries where feminism isn't as much of a thing. Because while I'm sure it's very reassuring for a Privileged Person to tell themselves how amazingly advanced and awesome we are in the U.S. of A., the reality is that we frequently fail to send to prison people for whom there is video evidence of raping an unconscious girl. This isn't the first time this has happened here, and it won't be the last, and no amount of shuffling the blame onto stereotypes about Small Town People or Southerners or Sports Teams or whatever seems convenient to hand can erase that. We have a rape culture problem in America. It's as simple as that.
4 comments:
A.
I think lots of people on this thread are onto something which I've noticed many times. I also think the pattern you're all exploring works out into a kind of one-two punch, like so:
1) You'd better show us that you're a nice victim, because the nice victims are the ones we want to help. They're the only kind who deserve to demand that payback be exacted on their behalf.
2) But then, if you really are a nice victim, you wouldn't be so uncouth as to demand a vulgar thing like payback. Would you? We all want to stay high-minded here. Don't we? When we get to the point where even the victims won't act saintly, we'll know that the barbarians are at the gates and that society is doomed. You don't want to be responsible for a bad outcome like that one. Right?
(See also: "deserving poor", circa about 1850.)
B.
I'm really, really, really, really trying not to be nasty. But honest to God, I despise people like these football players and their coach; I don't hate them, because they aren't worth it. But more than that I despise the system of which they are a part. The fact that so many of these guys are in on it together disproves the "one bad apple" theory, and it also throws a shadow over the "but my kid was just at the wrong place at the wrong time" claim. Here you have a case where, obviously, it didn't matter where any one individual person did or did not happen to be. The whole set-up was primed to produce a desired effect. The effect desired was the one which was in fact produced. None of this business was a mistake, and everybody knows that. If Girl A had failed to show up suitably drunk and stoned, or had failed to ingest the rufies pressed upon her, or whatever, a Girl B or Girl C would have been hunted up and slotted into the self-same role. (Similarly, the fact that some of the football players didn't participate failed stop what was going on.) The Steubenville police chief has expressed surprise that nobody stepped in and tried to stop the festivities which were in progress. Well, I'm less surprised than the Steubenville police chief is; I think that the reason nobody tried to call a halt to the proceedings was that what was happening was what was supposed to happen. If not on that night, then on some other night, if not to that girl, then to some other girl, and if not by those exact same footballers, then by other guys on the same team.
Tell me I'm wrong.
A.
I think lots of people on this thread are onto something which I've noticed many times. I also think the pattern you're all exploring works out into a kind of one-two punch, like so:
1) You'd better show us that you're a nice victim, because the nice victims are the ones we want to help. They're the only kind who deserve to demand that payback be exacted on their behalf.
2) But then, if you really are a nice victim, you wouldn't be so uncouth as to demand a vulgar thing like payback. Would you? We all want to stay high-minded here. Don't we? When we get to the point where even the victims won't act saintly, we'll know that the barbarians are at the gates and that society is doomed. You don't want to be responsible for a bad outcome like that one. Right?
(See also: "deserving poor", circa about 1850.)
B.
I'm really, really, really, really trying not to be nasty. But honest to God, I despise people like these football players and their coach; I don't hate them, because they aren't worth it. But more than that I despise the system of which they are a part. The fact that so many of these guys are in on it together disproves the "one bad apple" theory, and it also throws a shadow over the "but my kid was just at the wrong place at the wrong time" claim. Here you have a case where, obviously, it didn't matter where any one individual person did or did not happen to be. The whole set-up was primed to produce a desired effect. The effect desired was the one which was in fact produced. None of this business was a mistake, and everybody knows that. If Girl A had failed to show up suitably drunk and stoned, or had failed to ingest the rufies pressed upon her, or whatever, a Girl B or Girl C would have been hunted up and slotted into the self-same role. (Similarly, the fact that some of the football players didn't participate failed stop what was going on.) The Steubenville police chief has expressed surprise that nobody stepped in and tried to stop the festivities which were in progress. Well, I'm less surprised than the Steubenville police chief is; I think that the reason nobody tried to call a halt to the proceedings was that what was happening was what was supposed to happen. If not on that night, then on some other night, if not to that girl, then to some other girl, and if not by those exact same footballers, then by other guys on the same team.
Tell me I'm wrong.
I'm never sure what "nice" means in this context, anyway.
It seems like one of those social constructs, which aren't precisely meaningless, but don't really mean anything. I think of niceness as being not an inherent quality (though some people are better at it or more naturally inclined to it than others) but a . . . skill? Behavior? Like manners.
Niceness, like politeness, is not an inherent good, but a general catchall for some behaviors which overall can make your life and the lives of people around you better. But I think of these as being mostly social things, and the times in which you use niceness or politeness are highly dependent on the circumstances. (And rape culture is also about the pressuring of women to be NICE and POLITE all the time, and to forgive other people because that's NICE, even if they've done something horrific like rape you while you were sleeping because they've followed the social norms otherwise. Fuck that.)
I'm perfectly willing to believe that most rapists, like most people, are able to muster up enough of the generally acceptable behavior to be perceived as nice. I'm perceived that way, even though I have horrible impulses and thoughts all the time. And that day-to-day effort isn't meaningless, but it doesn't *mean* anything with regard to any awful thing I might do. Being nice makes me a better coworker and friend, makes everyone more socially comfortable, and smooths my interactions with other people. Which is good - social comfort is *often* a good thing. But it's not just a way to make others feel good, but a powerful personal tool. People treat me better because I'm nice. It's not an ulterior motive - I'm not nice solely because people treat me better - but there's reinforcement there. Clearly it's working for this vast contingent of misunderstood rapists, who get people going to bat for them, even people who should know better.
But as far as I'm concerned, rapists can harvest the benefits of their social skill set by being nice to their fellow inmates and wardens.
I'm never sure what "nice" means in this context, anyway.
It seems like one of those social constructs, which aren't precisely meaningless, but don't really mean anything. I think of niceness as being not an inherent quality (though some people are better at it or more naturally inclined to it than others) but a . . . skill? Behavior? Like manners.
Niceness, like politeness, is not an inherent good, but a general catchall for some behaviors which overall can make your life and the lives of people around you better. But I think of these as being mostly social things, and the times in which you use niceness or politeness are highly dependent on the circumstances. (And rape culture is also about the pressuring of women to be NICE and POLITE all the time, and to forgive other people because that's NICE, even if they've done something horrific like rape you while you were sleeping because they've followed the social norms otherwise. Fuck that.)
I'm perfectly willing to believe that most rapists, like most people, are able to muster up enough of the generally acceptable behavior to be perceived as nice. I'm perceived that way, even though I have horrible impulses and thoughts all the time. And that day-to-day effort isn't meaningless, but it doesn't *mean* anything with regard to any awful thing I might do. Being nice makes me a better coworker and friend, makes everyone more socially comfortable, and smooths my interactions with other people. Which is good - social comfort is *often* a good thing. But it's not just a way to make others feel good, but a powerful personal tool. People treat me better because I'm nice. It's not an ulterior motive - I'm not nice solely because people treat me better - but there's reinforcement there. Clearly it's working for this vast contingent of misunderstood rapists, who get people going to bat for them, even people who should know better.
But as far as I'm concerned, rapists can harvest the benefits of their social skill set by being nice to their fellow inmates and wardens.
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