12/14/2006

More about male rape.

I don't think I explained my point too well in the last post, I was sort of asking what, on a practical level, feminists can really do extra with regard to male rape above and beyond what we were already doing - I should have noted that I was sort of attacking the MRA use of male rape as a way to imply that feminists are misandrists who discriminate against men in favor of women more by pointing out, Hey, wait asecond there, we do this this and this, and we don't actually say "man rape = good thing" or actually declare that male rape doesn't exist (which I think, quite neatly puts us head and shoulders above most MRAs and their false rape accusation obsessions).

Well okay, some radfems might, but meh, People-B-Crazee, you know?

What I found fascinating though (and I'll write more about this when I have the time) is something Figleaf whipped out in reply to my post, and it summarises a theoretical aspect that I hadn't noticed before with regard to social conceptions of rape, irregardless of gender, namely the way that rape is defined into non-existence, and how that, if we're going to deal with rape at all, we need to attack society's conceptions that A) rape is somehow okay when it occurs within certain situations and B) Rape does not really occur when it occurs within certain situations, two idea that are interconnected and interlinked to the point where they're interchangable to a certain degree.

The money quote from Figleaf:

I'm sorry to report from personal experience, the unattentive mind easily conflates the accurate "the majority of victims are women" with the inaccurate "only women are victims." Consequently it wasn't recognized in my neighborhood that the bully who forced boys and young men to put their mouths on his genitals was raping them instead of just bullying them in a particularly humiliating fashion. I say I'm sorry to report this because *I* didn't recognize it either until decades later.


I've got much to more to say, but I'll leave you with this for now.

1 comment:

figleaf said...

You summarized that key concern better than I could. Thanks.

figleaf