The Rape of Men

Some really good posts in reply to their apology, found here.

One excerpt:
COMPASSION is currently the most significant gender gap in western cultures. It may very well be the final frontier, the event horizon if you like, in gender equality. My challenge to feminists has this at it’s core. If you are truly devoted to gender equality your real test lies in your ability to be as compassionate towards men and boys as you so easily can towards women and girls. Not just in words but in actions. For it is only beyond that horizon that true equality lies.
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rustypouch said:
I concur. Many issues affecting men are just ignored, and they should just 'suck it up.' Or when it's pointed out that men have it worse is some areas, accusations of misogyny start. Things that come to mind off the top of my head include suicide rates, workplace injuries and fatalities, post-secondary graduation rates, homelessness...
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And violence. Most violence is man-on-man, and the last time I looked at the national statistics in Finland, the portion of victims of violence that are female was within a point or two of the portion of perpetrators that were female. Yet it seems like violence against women is the only truly condemnable kind.

It's at least occasionally the only kind that is even recognized. On April 30th, 1999 -- the eve of the First of May, our Labor Day and student festival, sort of a national carnival day when people gather outside for drinks and picknicks to welcome the coming spring -- a bunch of youngsters (both male and female; the main perpetrator was a 16-year-old boy) went on a rampage in my home town, stabbing 13 people of whom one died and 3 or 4 spent some serious time in intensive care. It was reported that the group selected its victims randomly; it wasn't until a couple of months after the events that I learned that of those 13 victims, 13 were male. In other words, they stabbed only men (and neither gender is obviously over-represented in our 1st of May crowds). Could you imagine it reported as 'random' if someone running amok in a crowd attacked 13 women?
 
Dancing David said:
It happens more often than men will admit, especially in families, Brother on brother and perpetuated along long family lines...
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At least three of my brothers were assaulted by brothers from another family. One of my brothers told my dad, and dad said it was his fault. I never knew until recently.
 
Well, it's like racism, I suppose. Racist violence and discrimnation against "whites" is tolerated far more than violence and discrimnination against coloured people. I suppose in both cases of violence and racism, it's because society so powerfully has ingrained in us that one gender/ethnic group is the "attackers"/"bad guys" and that the others are the "victims" or "good guys".
 
Safe-Keeper said:
Well, it's like racism, I suppose. Racist violence and discrimnation against "whites" is tolerated far more than violence and discrimnination against coloured people. I suppose in both cases of violence and racism, it's because society so powerfully has ingrained in us that one gender/ethnic group is the "attackers"/"bad guys" and that the others are the "victims" or "good guys".
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I think it is more discomfort and shame, along with the american homophobia, now prison rape is some sort of justice for many.

I think that it is just shocking for many
 
As a forum phenomenon, I think the reason this story doesn't get much attention is that there is nobody to argue with.

In threads about the rape of women there is grounds for an interesting argument as to whether the feminist rhetoric about the threat of rape matches the criminological reality, whether feminist rhetoric about the rate of false rape complaints being near-zero matches criminological reality, whether feminist rhetoric about the psychology of rape matches criminological reality, whether it does or does not constitute blaming the victim to encourage women to avoid situations where the criminological reality is that rapes are more likely to happen, and so on at great length. There's lots of great material there for skeptical analysis.

Nobody's making any arguments like that in this case, they're just agreeing that it's terrible, so there's nothing to argue about. What we really need is for a few people to make it a part of their self-image as a virtuous person to put forward a particular set of rhetorical points about the matter that might or might not be evidence-based as opposed to being ideological dogma, and then we'd have a twenty page thread.
 
Wildy said:
We need someone who believes that men can't be raped.
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Oh no, not that again... Kevin's idea sounds more interesting, honestly (as well as both of you being pretty right about the idea).

Yes, the subject of this thread is a horrible, terrible, and sad thing. I don't have much more to say other than that.

I know these things happen. I have more than one male friend who has suffered sexual abuse and rape. And yeah, it's just as big a deal as with women. If not moreso, because of the cultural biases towards men, and how they should "suck things up" or "be a man about it" or what have you. As hard as it is for a woman to come forward about sexual abuse or rape, it's just that much harder for a man to do so.

Inherent sexism at it's best, right? :(
 
tesscaline said:
Oh no, not that again... Kevin's idea sounds more interesting, honestly (as well as both of you being pretty right about the idea).

Yes, the subject of this thread is a horrible, terrible, and sad thing. I don't have much more to say other than that.

I know these things happen. I have more than one male friend who has suffered sexual abuse and rape. And yeah, it's just as big a deal as with women. If not moreso, because of the cultural biases towards men, and how they should "suck things up" or "be a man about it" or what have you. As hard as it is for a woman to come forward about sexual abuse or rape, it's just that much harder for a man to do so.

Inherent sexism at it's best, right? :(
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And it is a form of sexism that receives little formal challenge. The dominant political narrative is all about how sexism hurts women and not men.
 
tesscaline said:
I know these things happen. I have more than one male friend who has suffered sexual abuse and rape. And yeah, it's just as big a deal as with women. If not moreso, because of the cultural biases towards men, and how they should "suck things up" or "be a man about it" or what have you.
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The "suck things up" or "be a man" memes are probably the most pervasive for men in society since it applies to so many different problems. You can use it for nearly any issue. Raped? Suck it up. Depressed? Suck it up. Abused by your wife? Suck it up. It's like a catch all way to de-legitimise problems.

As hard as it is for a woman to come forward about sexual abuse or rape, it's just that much harder for a man to do so.
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That is very true. I can't imagine how hard it would be for a man who has gone through that to see such things used as jokes (Safe-Keeper linked to the tropes) and seeing that society will basically belittle them if they come forward.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
There's also the Rape is OK when it's Female on Male and Rape is Funny When it's Man on Man cultural beliefs.
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I wouldn't take literary and movie tropes as an indication of what a society considers ok. Often the comedic effect is precisely because it's a reversal of expectations, i.e., oversimplifying it: because it's not ok. I mean, as a trivial example, we find the Three Stooges funny, but if you actually poked someone in the eyes because they said something stupid, you'd find your ass in court in a jiffy and discover that it's not really OK.

Mind you, I do think that it's unfortunate that society and assigned gender roles do tend to blame some victims, but learning about society from movie tropes is a bit silly in any case.
 
Wildy said:
That is very true. I can't imagine how hard it would be for a man who has gone through that to see such things used as jokes (Safe-Keeper linked to the tropes) and seeing that society will basically belittle them if they come forward.
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It sucks.
 
ponderingturtle said:
And it is a form of sexism that receives little formal challenge. The dominant political narrative is all about how sexism hurts women and not men.
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"Stop violence against women," gained so much momentum because there are women's groups scanning media for any instance of promoting or accepting violence against women and calling it out. There simply needs to be more attention called to the complete and total acceptance of violence against men. Yeah, gangsta rap does appear to be promoting violence against women, but it's riddled with violence against men and I rarely hear anyone calling this out. A man says something really stupid in a TV program or a movie and the woman reacts by slapping him; she's justified because she's angry. A man slaps a woman for the same reason and he is an abuser. A woman is attempting to seduce a man and he says, "No, stop," ten times before the act is finished and he's a bad guy for cheating on his partner. A woman says, "No, stop," once before the act is complete and it is unquestionably rape.
 
It's probably actually unfortunate to both genders that Hollywood has gone with the stereotype of violent women.

Unfortunately that gets into the domain of something IIRC we already disagreed before: the unfortunate rise of the "anti-hero", sometimes to the extreme of making him/her the actual villain of the story, in the name of making things interesting. Because God knows that the only way to make someone interesting is to make them a psycho ;) It's been a bit of a spiral to the drain for some decades now.

I'm guessing there must not be much of a market for serial-killer women, or women who go on a cop-shooting spree. Or rather: not while still counting as the heroine. So the "making them interesting" part is kinda stuck at the stage where she has to kick a stranger in the nuts for looking at her, to show that she's a "complex" character. (Before proceeding to be at best as two-dimensional as a cardboard cutout and as predictable as the next full moon for the rest of the movie.)
 
When Florida put together one of the first non-sexist laws in 1973, they deliberately removed the word "rape" from Florida law altogether, replacing it with "sexual assault" and "sexual battery." This was to avoid traditional, common-law assumptions about rape, such as that it could only happen to women. The redoubtable Anita Bryant was a critical opponent, but she didn't have enough clout to prevent the new law from going into effect.
 
Or it's belittled like in this subterfuge article. (Why through the web archive? Because the article is gone.)
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Wow. So the best way to get us guys to care is to... have us rape each others. I actually feel like taking a shower now.

I would elaborate, but I don't feel like it. Article's gone, everyone seems to feel as I do.
 
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