Wait, is "Escada, the struggling fashion house" the same Escada that makes perfumes? I had no idea they were in trouble. I hope they stay afloat, Escada is the only perfume I wear, I have about 5 different bottles of it at home, it smells heavenly.
The Marc Jacobs resort collection is seriously the shit.
I am so heading to eLuxury. Wasn't it the first "luxury" brand web retailer? I remember it being around before Net-A-Porter, I think. Kind of sad. But if it means I can get discounted stuff, also kind of awesome.
@Penny: call me a horrible vulture but the one good thing about our current economic disaster is all the discounts. also I guess you can call me cheap.
I'm interested in the idea that this only applies to men - Lindy England, for instance was involved in sexual abuse of prisoners. It's more likely that there is human appetite for atrocity (which includes rape) that is engaged in certain situations, which is to a large extent discrete from the factors that lead to the perpetration of rape in normal social conditions.
@BotOfLaws: That's because in normal society, it's men who have power over women. It's men that expect their story to be believed, who are taught to objectify women and that women were put on this earth for men's own gratification.
It's really not that they're hardwired to violate another person's body, and that women are hardwired to be passive. At Abu Ghiraib, Pvt. England was in a power position over male prisoners. Although it should be noted in her case that she was among many men who were also torturing prisoners, and that the orders to do so came from much higher up. Often as it happens with the military, one low-ranking soldier gets the book thrown at them.
But who created this society which discourages rape in the first place? It wasn't women, we weren't allowed to participate. That is where this loses me completely. Men made rape illegal. Men created marriage. Men championed romantic love and consensual sex. If they hadn't, those things wouldn't exist.
@SylvanSylph: It's only very recently in our society that rape has been viewed as a crime against the woman, as opposed to a property crime against her father or husband. It's still viewed entirely that way in some cultures and sometimes in our own. Think about how people think of date rape or marital rape as lesser rape, if they even consider it rape at all. Same with sex workers, there was an American judge not to long ago who declared that a prostitute couldn't have been raped, that it was merely theft.
You know, as a guy reading Jezebel, 99% of the articles feel like I'm doing something important by learning more about female culture. It's just that 1% that makes me feel like absolute crap for being a guy that gets you every time.
great article, but there isn't a whole lot of good evidence suggesting women's orgasms help conception. A good book on the subject is The Case of the Female Orgasm. Best guess is the female orgasm was a chance of evolution that turned out very well for us.
@G Gordon Liddy: But surely women being interested in sex is good for procreation? I'm sure we would be having much less sex if women weren't interested in it.
Of course this soldier could have been quite a lovely man before his tenure in Iraq. I remember hearing all of those sorts of things about the two acquaintances who raped my friends. Nice guys, no issues, until they raped someone. I think this philosophy does everyone a disservice. A simple "switch" can not make a person a rapist. A simple switch can not make a man find it possible to not hear screaming, crying, ignoring hitting and the word no over and over again. There is a bigger difference I think between war time rape, which has unfortunately been used as a power technique for ages, and a frat boy gone bad, but they all begin the same way - a dude who was once something becomes a rapist. How that happens I hope is much deeper than just a "switch".
Nearly all people are capable of violence, sexual desire, and thankfully, restraint.
His notion of a "trigger" or switch isn't new: One need only refer to The Manchurian Candidate. I'm sure there's an example in Greek mythology, too, but it escapes me. Point is, it's an interesting theory, but if such a "switch" existed, we'd have probably exploited it by now.
If you want to make a man a rapist, condition him to believe his victim is less than human and that rape is a normal way of interacting with said victim. Sounds simple, but people, and people in groups, do not always behave so simply. Especially if there is interaction from the outside of the man's core group that counteracts the group's perspective of the victims.
I've been reading through all the comments and I want to point out that most of the commenters are equating rape to violent ones that are the minority of all the rape cases. I'm interested in hearing what some of you will say about his theory with regard to date rape. Isn't that more in tune with his belief that rape is more about sexual gratification than an outlet for violence?
@MyNewJourney: I think most commenters are saying no matter the 'style' of rape it is inherently a violent act to impose part of your body into or onto another's without their consent.
There may or may not be violence aside from this, but the bottom line is that rape is violence.
@gherkinfiend: I agree. Inherently, rape, whether it be a husband fucking his wife as she lays there weeping or a stranger with a weapon brutally committing sodomy, IS VIOLENCE
violence is the will of one being being forced upon another person and that may be physical or psychological.
@MyNewJourney: Well, for one, his examples are actually of extremely violent rapes -- in war, in Darfur, etc.
But, also, I disagree. Acquaintance rape is not inherently less violent than stranger rape, and it doesn't resemble consensual sex more closely. The myth that it does is really damaging.
@MyNewJourney: At its core, I believe rape is about dominance, power, control, and forcing someone to submit to your will, humiliating them in a violent act. However, and this might be an unpopular opinion, but I DO think there CAN be a sexual component, and the rapist's sexual gratification can be sort of a "side benefit" to the activity, particularly in a war zone when, amongst dealing with other things, many are sexually frustrated. I just don't think the idea of sexual frustration can be completely ignored in the context of wartime rape. I'm not saying it's their MOTIVATION, it's just part of a whole mix of forces driving abnormal behavior.
@MyNewJourney: I've always found the "Rape isn't about sex, it's about power/violence" argument to be extremely problematic. It covers those cases where the man is aware he's engaging in sex against his partner's will, but there are a whole heap of rape cases out there that don't follow that formula. In those cases euphemistically termed "gray rape," where the man truly believes consent has been given but (due to alcohol or drug use, a lack of communication, et cetera) the woman does not, this isn't the case. Those cases are not about power, they're (at least mostly, if not entirely) about sex--and to say that rape is never about sex and always about power is akin to telling these women that they weren't raped, no matter how violated they feel. Defining rape as always & only about power takes the ability to define rape out of the woman's hands and puts it into the man's--it doesn't matter whether or not she feels violated by the act, it matters whether or not he intended for it to be violent.
Sometimes rape is about power. Sometimes it's about sex. Most of the time it's about both.
@nora charles: @PreposterousHypothesis: I think there definitely has to be a component of sexual gratification in most rapes, otherwise another form of degradation might be chosen.
I find it difficult to believe the average rapist isn't getting some sexual pleasure if he is able to achieve and maintain an erection during the rape. I think it needs to be considered as having many aspects...
@nora charles: I really, really hate the term "grey rape" but it still doesn't get rid of the power issue. The whole idea behind "grey rape" isn't that he thinks she consented, its that he doesn't care that she she can't consent, if she doesn't object, then its fine (rather than looking for enthusiastic consent).
Yes, rape has to do with sex. The sexual aspect is the reason someone would choose rape over beating someone up. But it isn't mostly about sex. You can buy sex, you don't have to go to the trouble of raping anyone.
@nora charles: I agree, and I would venture that a huge percentage of acquaintance rape cases are "gray rape". Those start off entirely about sex, and perhaps even end up about sex (and only later is it learned that she wouldn't have consented had she known better, been sober, etc). In others, maybe it becomes less clear that the woman is consenting fully in the process, and then it can become more about "I'll be done in a few minutes and what's the big deal anyways? Why else are we in bed?" And even then, I think to the guy, that's about sex. I think that women and therapists will say after the fact that those situations are about violence and seeing the victim as less than human, but I certainly don't think the perpetrator (if we care what he thinks, and I'm not saying we do) thinks it's about anything other than sex.
If rape were only about power, more men would simply mug you or shoot you. There is an element of sex -- though in many cases, it can just be a means to an end. Man thinks: I control or take power over a woman by forcing her to do something she doesn't want.
@kungfutoday: Most rapes are acquaintance/date rapes, that doesn't mean that the people are actually on a date. All it means is that they know each other.
I really don't think that the a genuine belief that the woman was consenting is that pervasive, but I do think discussions like this have a lot to do with society's discomfort about rape. There seems to be a desire to humanize the rapists as decent guys who just got their signals crossed rather than guys who didn't care if their sex partner was unwilling or unconscious.
If you look at the original articles, there are some really interesting comments. "Stephanie" describes having to basically fight a guy off- eventually he backed off but he ignored her when she said no and struggled against him. Another commentator "John" refers to this as "hugging against her will" and makes a big point that he eventually stopped, pretty much missing her point. I think this is a fair more common scenario and obviously non-consensual than she was too drunk to consent but he didn't know.
Well a couple of my cousins have served in the military, and before some raids and bombings pornography was shown to the soldiers and pilots to get them 'riled up'. For real. Maybe US soldiers would rape less if shit like this wasn't going on? I can only imagine what the female soldiers think, besides "Oh, shit."
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I am so heading to eLuxury. Wasn't it the first "luxury" brand web retailer? I remember it being around before Net-A-Porter, I think. Kind of sad. But if it means I can get discounted stuff, also kind of awesome.
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It's really not that they're hardwired to violate another person's body, and that women are hardwired to be passive. At Abu Ghiraib, Pvt. England was in a power position over male prisoners. Although it should be noted in her case that she was among many men who were also torturing prisoners, and that the orders to do so came from much higher up. Often as it happens with the military, one low-ranking soldier gets the book thrown at them.
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great article, but there isn't a whole lot of good evidence suggesting women's orgasms help conception. A good book on the subject is The Case of the Female Orgasm. Best guess is the female orgasm was a chance of evolution that turned out very well for us.
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His notion of a "trigger" or switch isn't new: One need only refer to The Manchurian Candidate. I'm sure there's an example in Greek mythology, too, but it escapes me. Point is, it's an interesting theory, but if such a "switch" existed, we'd have probably exploited it by now.
If you want to make a man a rapist, condition him to believe his victim is less than human and that rape is a normal way of interacting with said victim. Sounds simple, but people, and people in groups, do not always behave so simply. Especially if there is interaction from the outside of the man's core group that counteracts the group's perspective of the victims.
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There may or may not be violence aside from this, but the bottom line is that rape is violence.
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violence is the will of one being being forced upon another person and that may be physical or psychological.
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But, also, I disagree. Acquaintance rape is not inherently less violent than stranger rape, and it doesn't resemble consensual sex more closely. The myth that it does is really damaging.
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Sometimes rape is about power. Sometimes it's about sex. Most of the time it's about both.
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I find it difficult to believe the average rapist isn't getting some sexual pleasure if he is able to achieve and maintain an erection during the rape. I think it needs to be considered as having many aspects...
06/04/09
Yes, rape has to do with sex. The sexual aspect is the reason someone would choose rape over beating someone up. But it isn't mostly about sex. You can buy sex, you don't have to go to the trouble of raping anyone.
06/04/09
If rape were only about power, more men would simply mug you or shoot you. There is an element of sex -- though in many cases, it can just be a means to an end. Man thinks: I control or take power over a woman by forcing her to do something she doesn't want.
06/04/09
I really don't think that the a genuine belief that the woman was consenting is that pervasive, but I do think discussions like this have a lot to do with society's discomfort about rape. There seems to be a desire to humanize the rapists as decent guys who just got their signals crossed rather than guys who didn't care if their sex partner was unwilling or unconscious.
If you look at the original articles, there are some really interesting comments. "Stephanie" describes having to basically fight a guy off- eventually he backed off but he ignored her when she said no and struggled against him. Another commentator "John" refers to this as "hugging against her will" and makes a big point that he eventually stopped, pretty much missing her point. I think this is a fair more common scenario and obviously non-consensual than she was too drunk to consent but he didn't know.
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The problem is not men, it's the breeding of cultures like this.
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