Put simply Rape culture is the trivialization of rape, and it permeates our society to an alarming extent.
People tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to the term rape culture. They think that it’s a way of saying that all men are rapists, or all women are victims. When in reality it's not like that at all, and the sad truth is far more complex than that.
It's basically our duty to make those people understand that we are not fear-mongering, nor are we being misandrists who think that all men are responsible for rape culture. Far from it, many women can be responsible for rape culture too!
Do allow me to explain.
Let’s start out with a definition:
Rape culture is a system that everyone, men and women, unconsciously participate in. It’s a system that promotes the normalization and trivialization of rape. It’s a system that encourages the idea that male sexual aggression is the norm, and that violence and aggression are themselves sexy.
Three questions that frequently come up are:
1.Does rape culture really exist?
2.How can rape culture exist when penalties for rape are so heavy?
3. How can it exist when people clearly think that rape is such a heinous crime?
Okay, I'm not going to answer those questions in order so bear with me. Number 3 brings up a very good point.... everyone seems to agree that rape is a very bad thing. That is, on paper.
They seem to have this idea of some creepy, random stranger dragging a helpless woman into a dark alleyway to do the dirty deed right there. Maybe even holding a dangerous weapon as to coerce her into doing it!
That is almost the only definition and idea of rape that some people have. They don't seem to realize that there are many various types of rape, and all of them perfectly legitimate regardless of what anybody says.
And what's more not all of the victims are female! There seems to be an amazingly lack of support for male victims which makes them less likely to report the crime than female victims. Yes, rape culture negatively impacts men just as much as women when they experience sexual assault. So you see, rape culture isn't something that a bunch of misandrists made up.
With number 3, we've talked about the preconceived notions that people seem to have... like there's only one type of rape and that nothing else exists. That a rape has to be super-violent, and taking place in a dark alleyway by some seedy stranger. That it couldn't possibly happen if a woman and a man was.... say, married or something like that. Or even more ridiculous, that it only counts as rape if it was forced vaginal intercourse and not anal.
Which, by the way, is one of the problems that men face when reporting that they were sexually assaulted by another man. Despite the fact that in many places, Men are ten times more likely to be sexually assaulted than women, the law in some places just plain refuses to recognize that sexual assault and rape isn't just about sex... it can be a psychological torture where the predator exerts power over the victim.
That often leads up to question two on the list. Some of the severe penalties for sex offenders exist only on paper. Otherwise how do you explain the priest who raped several young boys in an attempt to "cure" their homosexuality, will not face jail time?
If a sick pedophile got off free for sexually assaulting children, imagine what happens when a highly influential man sexually assaults a woman?
So to address question number 1...If you want evidence of rape culture, I can give you plenty:
Rape culture is the fact that 1 in 6 women have been sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, and it’s also the fact that 1 in 33 men have also been sexually assaulted.
Rape culture is the fact that, when reporting the gang rape of an 11 year old girl, the New York Times chose to quote residents on how badly this event would affect the lives of the perpetrators of the crime. It’s the fact that the New York Times chose to print that the victim wore “makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s.” It’s the fact that the article wonders, “how could [the] young men have been drawn into such an act?” as if repeatedly raping a young girl was an accident, instead of a choice that they had made.
Rape culture is blaming the victim, saying that they incited sexual assault by what they wore, how they acted, or where they were. It’s saying that an unconscious woman was sending “mixed signals” to her rapist. It’s telling victims that if only they’d been more careful, more thoughtful, or less vulnerable they wouldn’t have been raped.
And on top of it, male-on-male and even female-on-male rape is outright ignored, because hey... a guy who "let" himself be in such situation must had not been that much of a man to start with. At least, I assume that's the logic behind why they seem to treat male victims even more harshly than they do female victims.
See, one of the main messages that our culture sends us is that men are naturally sexually aggressive and women are not; our culture also teaches us that men are sex-obsessed and will sleep with just about any willing woman. This idea is pretty well-established as a way to explain and excuse many rapes and assaults on women, but right now I want to look at the hurt this concept does to men. What it means is that at best we ridicule a man who claims to have been raped by a woman, and at worst we totally disbelieve him. There’s this bizarre idea that having an erection means consent, which is just so mind-blowingly wrong and ridiculous that I barely know where to start.
I mean, how does it make sense to say that because you have a physical reaction, you are consenting? Don’t we understand enough about biology to know that that’s just not true?
This idea that men always want sex is the reason why we are dismissive of female teachers who rape male students. We make jokes like, “You can’t rape the willing!”, and talk about how the victim was living out every schoolboy’s wet dream. We don’t say those types of things when young girls are raped by their teachers, do we? So why the double standard?
Because of rape culture. That’s why.
Never mind that we are all very different people from all walks of life. There can be a woman who happens to be much stronger than a man, and vice versa. We have to accept the fact that not all men can be raging action heroes as depicted in the movies, and thus may have moments where they lowered their guard around the wrong person. THIS DOES NOT MAKE THEM LESS OF A MAN. They were men who were targeted by predators who posed as their friend, etc.
Likewise with a woman. As a woman, do you know how utterly tiring it is to be told that we always have to be on our guard around all men, because we are ultimately always responsible for what happens to us if we made the mistake of trusting the wrong person? I imagine it's also not very fair to most men we interact with, neither.
Rape culture isn't an conspiracy to paint all men as evil and all women as helpless victims of patriarchy. So maybe it's time to stop having such a knee-jerk reaction to the label, and start doing something about it.