Rape logic
I woke up this morning as usual to NPR (National Public Radio, or Nice Polite Republicans, as the liberal blogosphere has been calling it), but I heard a piece of news that seemed to come from an alternate reality. It was a BBC report about how the Pakistani parliament was reforming the law that required women to produce four sworn male witnesses before they could proceed with a rape accusation. The reforms, however, did not guarantee that the accuser, the raped woman, would not still be charged with the crime of adultery herself. In my coddled and sheltered little nook of the world, the idea that rape is still regarded in many places as a kind of property crime by men against other men was a little bit shocking. (It certainly puts Borat’s admonitions to the “village rapist” in a different perspective.)
This reminded me of a recent Slate article by economist (and frequently smug contrarian) Steven Landsburg crowing about a study that correlates Internet access and its corresponding distribution of pornography to teens leads to a decrease of the incidence of rape. Landsburg seems pleased because this shows up psychologists and their silly, well-intentioned studies:
Psychologists have found that male subjects, immediately after watching pornography, are more likely to express misogynistic attitudes. But as professor Kendall points out, we need to be clear on what those experiments are testing: They are testing the effects of watching pornography in a controlled laboratory setting under the eyes of a researcher. The experience of viewing porn on the Internet, in the privacy of one’s own room, typically culminates in a slightly messier but far more satisfying experience—an experience that could plausibly tamp down some of the same aggressions that the pornus interruptus of the laboratory tends to stir up. In other words, if you want to understand the effects of on-screen sex and violence outside the laboratory, psych experiments don’t tell you very much. Sooner or later, you’ve got to look at the data.
As Amanda Marcotte points out, Landsburg and the researcher he cites blithely assume that rape is a crime commited out of sexual frustration, from an inability to find a lawful receptacle for lusty impulses, just as public urination is a crime caused by the unlucky perpetrator’s inability to find a suitable bathroom. They don’t recognize the view that rape is first and foremost a hate crime and has little to do with sexual desire—instead it expresses contempt for the victim and a desire to see them suffer and be put in their place. A reason why patriarchal societies are hesitant to criminalize it, then, is because it’s an enforcement tool (think of prisons) for assuring subordination. It reminds victims that not even their bodies belong to them. As Marcotte asks, ” if rape is motivated by sexual frustration, why do rapists so often brutalize their victims more than is ‘necessary’ to subdue them? And if it’s about getting off, why do rapists do things like throw their victims out to walk home in a humiliating state of undress, if they aren’t enjoying the suffering?”
But if Landsburg’s assumptions are correct, and porn can be substituted for rape, that might actually be worse, because then the implication would be all men who look at porn (i.e. pretty much all men) are basically would-be rapists, and that looking at sexualized women is tantamount to raping them (as antiporn feminists have claimed all along). Marcotte asks
So is porn a way to release sexual tension so men don’t rape? Or are the defenders of porn-as-a-crime-preventative saying that porn is a substitute for rape itself, the urge to violently hurt and humiliate women? If porn is basically rape-by-proxy, then are they implying that all men who look at porn want to hurt women?
Is that assumption so much of a stretch in a society dependent on female subordination? In such a society, all men are supposed to want to hurt women, to its structure apparent to all. Pornography then would have to be considered a product to accomodate men whose culture encourages them to think of rape as their natural hierarchical right but can’t bring themselves to actually enact the droit du seigneur. They are supposed to be raping, to demonstrate their rightful place in patriarchal society, and reinforce the rules of that society, but instead take the cowardly way out and merely “rape” women by consuming them in pictures or videos. These pictures and videos then stand in for all the consequently uncommitted rapes as the evidence patriarchy requires to show that it still adheres. Thus the creepy subtext of Landsburg’s article: “These women are lucky there’s Internet porn around, or else more of us would have to resort to harsher measures to show them their place.” Let’s just hope Marcotte’s right (that rape may be diminishing because patriarchy is waning and feminism has reeducated society), and that this study merely amounts to evidence of how some people strongly wish this link between rape and pornography existed, so that pornography could continue to be a proxy for the fear women are supposed to feel, but are hopefully feeling less and less (outside of places like Pakistan, that is). If the massive mountain of Internet porn is a pile of possible rapes (throw into this the frequent assumption that women are coerced, literally or economically or psychologically into appearing in pornography), then it can be lorded over women as so many cautionary tales—a gendered take on that moment in Do the Right Thing: No matter how nice the men in your life seem to be, here’s what they think about you.
Not that pornography isn’t ever a tool of oppression and exploitation, but as I’ve written before, I think pornography serrves primarily as a model for commmercializing natural experience—the leading edge in making all experience subject to mediation, packaging, impusle buying, etc.—all the hallmarks of quotidian life in consumer society. An interesting question is to what degree pornography’s position in consumer society suggests that such a society must also be patriarchal/sexist.
Comments
From the evolutionist corner :
Rape has the same result as consensual sex : offspring. This is an opportunistic strategy, as is murder. Men are murderous, violent and rapist.
Rape is a common male fantasy (if you look at porn, the themes are very common). But the fantasy is domination and having sex with anyone. The motivation is not hate or destruction, but reproduction. Getting the inaccessible girl.
This is not to minimize rape. It is a crime, comparable to murder. The psychological effect is devastating, for the same evolutionist reasons : the risk of bearing an unwanted child, without support, without choosing the best possible father. Very bad prospects for the mother’s genes transmission.
So if porn permits to lower the incidence of rate, be it catharsis, release of sexual tension, or killing desire, that’s a good thing, no ? If you can keep all the crazy perverts wanking instead of stalking and raping women, it’s all good.
On porn and coercion :
The thesis that porn actresses are forced to do what they do is a bit over the top. If any real coertion into porn happened, it would be all over the media. The moral majority would dream of finding such examples to put pornographers in jail, but they do not exist in safe Western countries.
Comment by Colt — November 15, 2006 @ 8:44 am
Actually, that does minimize rape, because you’re saying EXACTLY what Landsburg, etc. are saying, which is rape is sex, there is no difference from a male-urge perspective. Throwing a layer of evo psych nonsense on it doesn’t answer the basic question of why so hateful and violent and moreover, it certainly doesn’t answer the question of why rapists kill their victims at times.
Comment by Amanda Marcotte — November 15, 2006 @ 11:48 am
To call rape strictly a violent act leaves out the fact that men are in a state of sexual excitement when they commit this crime. Since women do not get erections, they need to listen to the men’s POV on this.
As any man will tell you, it takes very little negative stimuli to lose an erection (hence the many anti-impotency pills on the market). Most men can’t get it up when a woman is complaining, much less screaming for mercy. In fact, the male body is designed to “shut down” when frightful stimuli happens during intercourse (otr during any state of sexual excitement).
Therefore, it must be concluded that men who rape SPECIFICALLY are turned on by causing women (or men) pain. And those that kill their victims likely get even more excitement inflicting fatal pain.
This is not the majority of men. The majority of men tend to HELP women in a state of crisis. This is why the majority of men can watch porn all day, then go about their business.
Women should not tell men what their bodies are doing any more than man should tell women about their bodies. There is sex in rape no matter what the party line is. Heck, most men, I bet, have a hard time getting an erection after ever discussing such a vile subject.
Finally, if there were a connection between internet porn and rape, then rape stats would have gone through the roof in the past five years, because such porn is now almost impossible to avoid. I see no correlction either way.
Comment by Dennis B — November 15, 2006 @ 12:40 pm
<i>Since women do not get erections, they need to listen to the men’s POV on this.</i>
So you’re saying women don’t know what sexual excitement feels like? I wouldn’t say that out loud, because the logical conclusion is that’s just your experience with women talking.
Comment by Amanda Marcotte — November 15, 2006 @ 1:22 pm
There’s another problem with all of this. Most studies of assailants have shown that the offender doesn’t have an orgasm when he (most studies only talk about male-on-female violence) rapes. Some folks like cops and rape crisis workers take that fact to mean that rape might be about power and not sex. Besides, we do know that it’s rare that the assailant is a stranger to the victim. It’s not about getting the inaccessible girl—it’s about taking advantage of the nearest one. The person most likely to rape you—male or female—is the person closest to you, usually within your household. We also know that the closer the assailant is to the victim, the less likely that person is to report it. We know that the people most often victimized aren’t of the sort represented in the Lifetime movie of the week; rather, they’re children, the elderly, the homeless, people in group homes, the disabled, and other folk who people are less likely to believe if they ever report.
We do know that the prison population is exploding, that rape is endemic to that environment, and that the government pretty much refuses to collect data on it. The latest DOJ stats show that rape is going down but is incredibly sly about not having to talk about prison rape, which most would assume is going up. But, if you want to talk about cultural ideas of ownership, power, and using sex to demonstrate it, you can’t ignore prison rape. Add bizarro cultural fantasies—why is “don’t drop the soap” still a joke?—and you have a fun little mix.
Oh and the thesis about porn actresses isn’t about mainstream porn stars. It’s about your everyday prostitute, who can’t resist the whims of her pimp. Women in the sex industry rarely report, and when they do, it doesn’t make the news. Chicago is now famous for having a serial killer who raped, mutiliated, and murdered prostitutes for years before it made the news. For the record, the offender was never found.
The thesis is also about the fact that the average age of entering the sex industry—whether working for a massage parlor or being a streetwalker—is fourteen, nationwide. And it’s about the fact that 80% of women in the sex industry were raped at least once before entering it. That’s pretty high representation from the pre-teen and under set, a group whom we often question its members’ ability to make adult decisions such as believing one is in love, picking a future career, or you know, becoming a hooker.
Comment by knf — November 15, 2006 @ 4:07 pm
Good ad hominem, Amanda, that’s the way to answer someone who took the time to present a point of view.
knf: “Besides, we do know that it’s rare that the assailant is a stranger to the victim. It’s not about getting the inaccessible girl—it’s about taking advantage of the nearest one.”
Is that really true? I’m not familiar with any evidence, but basic logic seems to suggest that plays into a twisted, disturbed mindset (much like most murder victims know their killer), rather than a simple argument of proximity convenience.
Comment by dm — November 16, 2006 @ 2:03 am
Yep, acquaintance rape accounts for about 80% of all sexual-assault and sexual-abuse cases.
Comment by knf — November 16, 2006 @ 4:12 am
>The thesis that porn actresses are forced to do what they do is a bit over the top.<
For the majority of porn actresses, I’m sure it is a choice (even if that choice is somewhat negated by the circumstances that drive women into porn—that is, money for essentially unskilled labor). But there are porn actresses who have come out with horrifying tales of exactly that happening; Linda Lovelace is the most known of these.
And backing up KNF’s comment: A National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that 76% of women over 18 who had been raped were raped by a partner or date. The stranger in the bushes theory serves to keep women in our place, and lets men think of rapists as some faceless creep who can’t get it any other way.
>some people strongly wish this link between rape and pornography existed, so that pornography could continue to be a proxy for the fear women are supposed to feel<
Exactly. It’s a bait-and-switch theory, a trump card.
I’ve come at the porn issue from a million different angles and walk away from every brainstorm with a different conclusion. I give up. I think it’s a bull theory that porn decreases the incidence of rape, but that doesn’t mean that the inverse is true (that no would-be rapists could be averted from raping by pornography). Really, the porn issue is too vast and personal to have any sweeping judgments made about it. Rape, however, is much less subjective (there’s no “good, feminist” rape; there’s no rape that can be enjoyed by couples), so conflating the two topics will likely lead to a false conclusion, in whatever direction.
Comment by autumn from NYC — November 16, 2006 @ 7:58 am
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>Rape, however, is much less subjective (there’s no >“good, feminist” rape; there’s no rape that can be >enjoyed by couples)
Sure there is, you mentioned Linda Lovelace and many couples enjoyed and continue to enjoy watching her be raped.
Comment by Juliette from Western US — November 16, 2006 @ 6:10 pm
Hey Dennis—in Darfur, there are reports of girls as young as five being raped by government supported Janjaweed (the Arab terrorists of Sudan). Do you think those guys are all in a state of sexual excitement? Why don’t the jostling and terror of battle cause the rapists to lose their erections?
In 2001, as part of the propaganda supporting the overthrow of the Taliban, stories circulated of rape and domestic abuse the likes of which I shall not type here because they sicken me. When women are treated like property instead of people, sex is not about pleasure, it’s about power, and is used as a sickening punishment.
When I was in college, an 18-year-old girl reported that she went to a fraternity party, had a couple of drinks and blacked out. When she regained consciousness, three frat boys were taking turns having sex with her. When she woke up, instead of stopping, they held her down and prodded each other to hurry up. We got all the lurid details in our campus paper. The girl who was raped was maligned by a whole bunch of people who basically blamed her for being drunk. Perhaps those rapists would have been deterred by porn. I doubt it, but maybe you can call what they were experiencing “sexual excitement.” That’s a pretty limited experience, though. I doubt porn would deter rape as a weapon of war, rape as domestic violence, or rape as punishment (a la Brandon Teena before she was murdered).
In Canada, Muslims have asked to be able to use sharia to settle matters of family law (marriage, divorce, custody, inheritance, domestic violence). This came about because Muslims who were charged with spousal battery and child abuse felt their behavior was acceptable and that the charges arose as a matter of cultural difference and misunderstanding. Fortunately, the courts in Canada said no.
The matter of rape in Pakistan gives us the opportunity to talk about what constitute western values and human rights. Let’s not get all confused about whether women understand male erectile function.
Comment by a.b. — November 20, 2006 @ 10:19 am