Why Dudes Ought To Just Shut The Hell Up About Rape
I haven't written anything about the Republican Party's view on rape (clearly this isn't just Todd Akin going rogue) for no other reason than I'm a dude, and there's been enough writing on the subject (from all sides) by dudes. As a dude, no, let me be more specific, as an upper-middle-class white dude, I have absolutely no freaking idea what it's like to live with the fear that stopping to offer assistance to someone in a parking lot or going for a jog along a heavily traveled street or sitting in my kitchen with the light on at 3am or simply going out on a date could get me raped and/or murdered, yet that has happened to friends or fellow Chapel Hillians (all women of course) in the past few years. It's not that any of those things couldn't happen to me as a white dude, but the chances that they will are so exceedingly remote as long as I'm not being stupid that I just don't think about it. Yet I have to believe that every woman and girl has to at least think about that possibility every day. I suspect that some decide to ignore it and hope for the best, some arm themselves with mace or handguns, some are in denial and some have trouble leaving the house alone - whatever way they choose to deal with it, the reality of the threat can't help but weigh on a person in a way that as a white dude, I just don't experience. It's a reality that I understand I can't really comprehend.
Ok, I know that you don't have to be a woman to write rationally about things that primarily affect women just as you don't have to be black or Hispanic to write rationally about issues that primarily affect non-whites but there's something about this topic in particular and the way it is being discussed (mostly by dudes) that just feels so removed from the real world that women live in that it feels different.
So when Todd Akin and Paul Ryan and Tom Smith and Mike Huckabee talk about rape, ask them how many times it has happened to them. Then tell them to shut the hell up.
Labels: Politics
7 Comments:
Keep writing. You might even convince yourself that part in () is true if you keep repeating it. Thanks for the laugh.
Didn't realize I was being funny, but okay - I count at least four sets of parentheses so which one are referring to? My comment that there's more to this than just Akin being an idiot? I can point to lots of evidence that he's repeating the party line. Look no further than the bill he co-sponsored with Paul Ryan referring to "forcible rape" as if there is any other kind. So yes, it is clear that there's more here than just a brain fart from one dillweed. "Enough writing (from all sides) by dudes" - subjective certainly, mostly a comment on the impression that there are a lot of guys talking about this. Not all that important to the larger thought. "all women of course" - sad statement of fact. "Mostly by dudes" - again, admittedly subjective, but so what?
So tell me again what you find amusing about rape?
Well done, Tony. Reminds me of a comment I heard from the teenaged daughter of a friend. She'd just had a 16th birthday sleepover, during which an African-American friend revealed, "I wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and know that I'm black." Our friend's daughter told us how profoundly that had affected her. She said, "I DON'T wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and know that I'm white."
I was referring to "(clearly this isn't just Todd Akin going rogue)". The evidence you site on this point is incorrect. There's forcible rape and statutory rape which does not depend on the resistance of the victim. I don't disagree with your larger point, so don't get defensive. If you look, there's a lot of crap on both sides, but 2 or 3 dudes on the fringe doesn't paint the whole side with that brush. I'm a conservative and I've NEVER heard another person say what Akin said, so it isn't a conservative view or the Republican Party's view on rape any more than it's the democratic party's view that abortion should be available at any time for any reason (they limit it consistent with Roe v Wade), but I could find a few libs that have written so. You are just wrong and in a really ugly and mean way. I know that because I know you are too smart to not know these things. I think your ignorance is purposeful which makes it worst than ignorance from stupidity. You repeat the process in your reply as you know it isn't rape I find amusing. -CK
Wow, Curtis, what a load of crap! NO rape depends on the "resistance" of the victim, no matter how old she is. Attempts to parse that by adding modifiers to the language is an attempt to limit the definition of rape. "Forcible" rape tries to take us back to the days where if a woman wasn't bruised and battered, it wasn't considered rape. If she didn't fight back (despite the fact someone might have been holding a gun on her or she was passed out or any number of reasons), it wasn't rape? I hope you don't really believe that.
As for your last comment - you didn't initial your first comment so I had no way of knowing it was you. So, no, I knew nothing of the sort.
You wrote "as if there is any other kind [of rape]."
From Sexlaws.com: "statutory rape is characterized as non-forcible sexual intercourse with a person who is younger than the statutory age of consent." This was actually the first site I found. Honest.
So you were wrong again. No biggie. It is not the party line. -CK
I may have put that a bit inelegantly, but I also wrote: "NO rape depends on the "resistance" of the victim, no matter how old she is." Hopefully that was a little clearer for you.
You don't seem to agree with that: "There's forcible rape and statutory rape which does not depend on the resistance of the victim". That sentence could be taken a couple of different ways but the way I read it is if she's old enough, she'd better be battered or it isn't rape.
So is that what you believe? It does seem consonant with the Republican party line, which I find repugnant.
As for the "it is not the party line" - fuck you.
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