The Reality of Rape Culture

This article is a response to an article written by Sezin Koehler, on TheSocietyPages.org.  Warning: Censored language.

Rape Culture.  Sounds scary, doesn’t it?  It may not be a phrase you’ve heard before, but it is one that has been gaining momentum lately.  According to Marshall University: “Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture.”  Now, think about that definition and apply it to your current world.  It’s not even something we really think about or pay much attention to, is it?

In his latest comedy special (available for viewing only on Netflix), Aziz Ansari has a segment where he talks about his recent trip to India to visit family.  He describes the poor living conditions of his family there and the dichotomy between his life thus far, growing up in the United States, and his cousin’s, who is around his age and has grown up in India.  He then talks about the lack of sexual content present in India.  He says it did not hit him until he got back to New York that we as Americans are bombarded daily by sexual images, and it took him traveling to India and back to realize how desensitized he was to all of it.  

He describes an ad he saw in a magazine after returning from India that depicted a nearly naked woman straddling a man, who is also nearly naked.  Bet you’ll never guess what the ad was for.  (Spoiler:  It was for a gym.)  He turns it into a joke by saying that something like that would never work in India because they would say, “it has nothing to do with gyms!”  And we all laugh as we hear him say that, but don’t really think about the reality that sex is portrayed in all kinds of ways all around us in places where making something sexual doesn’t even make sense.

The idea that “sex sells” is certainly nothing new.  I can remember growing up in the 90’s and listening to pop stars like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, and the “scandal” when they went from being innocent little girls to wearing sexy lingerie on stage.  (Though technically, it was really a nod to Madonna and her “Like A Virgin” days.)  I have nothing against the exploration of sexuality, as long as it’s all consensual.  Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears kissed Madonna on stage at those infamous VMA’s both as a publicity stunt and as a way of showing the world that they were sexual beings.  That’s fine.  What bothers me is when sexuality gets twisted and turned into something dark and the lines become blurred.

Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” was a huge hit this past summer.  I’ll admit that when it first came out I found the beat catchy and kind of a happy, upbeat song.  It wasn’t until much later that I actually listened to the lyrics of the song and found out how awful and misogynistic it was.  “Blurred Lines” sounds a bit odd, but nothing too conspicuous, right?  Until you hear this line:  “I hate these blurred lines”.  It follows a few lines about how this girl is a “good girl”, but he knows she “wants it”.  

The verse then goes on later to say, “The way you grab me / Must wanna get nasty”.  So the “blurred lines” in question can then be inferred to mean the line of consent.  I don’t really know myself how consent can be blurry.  If one party says yes, that’s consent.  If one party says no, that is not consent.  If one party is unable to verbalize their consent due to heavy intoxication or something else, that is also not consent.  Even if the girl is rubbing up on you and dancing with you all night, that does not automatically mean sexual consent.  Ever.

It baffles me how someone can really not understand, or maybe just refuse to understand, that concept.  Recently, it was all over the news how a teenage girl from Steubenville, Ohio was raped by two teenage boys at a party, who happened as well to be star football players.  One of the scariest realities of the case is that the victim didn’t even know she had been raped until she saw videos and pictures of her with the boys.  She was intoxicated to the point of memory loss, couldn’t even stand on her own feet at some points, and the people around her merely took pictures and videos and sent them around the school.  It didn’t stop there however.  

Her peers took to social media after the rape case was made public, to blame the victim in any way they could conceive because rape is always the victim’s fault right?

There is an entire tumblr account dedicated to publicly shaming people who use social media to blame victims that I encourage all of my readers to look at (though I warn you, it may be hard to stomach).  In a post on Steubenville filled with tweets about the case, one in particular caught my eye and also made me fear for my generation.  The Twitter user, who I do not want to name here, tweeted:  “So you got drunk at a party and two people take advantage of you,that’s not rape you’re just a loose drunk slut #BiasedResults #Steubenville”.  

There are real people out there who think that alcohol implies consent.  In a way, Robin Thicke sounds like he is one of those people.  The line of consent becomes “blurred” for him when a girl dances with him and grabs him while they dance.  And if that’s not enough, complimenting her will make her sure to want sex right?  (Although being called, “the hottest b*tch in this place” isn’t exactly what I would have in mind for a ‘compliment’.)

So while some may argue that rape culture isn’t real (though the article in question is coming from a site called “A Voice for Men”, with the subtitle “Humanist Counter-Theory” and they obviously don’t see the irony in speaking to a select group and calling themselves Humanists), it’s hard to argue against without sounding like an ignorant jerk.  According to the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network, every 2 minutes, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted.  Of those assaults, only 60% are ever reported to the police.  And of that 60%, 97% of the perpetrators will not spend a single day in jail.  

These are real statistics and they make me absolutely frightened for the world that we live in.  (And, “A Voice for Men”:  notice how I said ‘someone’ in the U.S. is sexually assaulted, because men are sexually assaulted as well as women, but it’s people like you that make either sex afraid of reporting their assault for different reasons.)

I encourage all of my readers to check out Project Unbreakable as well.  It is a project striving to empower victims of sexual assault and make them feel not so alone.  People send in pictures of themselves holding a sign bearing the words their rapist or molester or whatever the case may be, said to them.  There are both men and women in these pictures, painting a vivid picture of the reality of sexual assault and giving faces to the statistics.  

It might be hard emotionally to read all of these people’s stories, but it’s also a great thing to try to give them some power over their situations.  Because ultimately, that’s what sexual assault is about:  power.

I’d love your feedback or stories or whatever you wish to share.  Thanks for reading, and until next time Divas, wear your heels well and don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself if you’ve been victimized, or for someone else if you witness them being victimized.