Personal Experiences with Rape Culture

an anonymous submission, TW - hardcore rape culture and rape apologism

I was talking to my mom about Paul Ryan, George Galloway, and Todd Akin. She told me that when I was upset that George Galloway said consent is not required prior to each insertion, that he was right. She then went on to tell me how in a marriage a woman is required to have sex with her husband, and it is a god given right, and further more that if she doesn’t, that he has every right to cheat on her. I just don’t even know what to say…on the “plus side(?): this rule applies to all partners of all genders. I can’t believe she honestly believes that marriage=free pass to sex or else. She asked me if my boyfriend waking me up by having sex with me would upset me. I said it would if he didn’t have my permission, but I had a discussion with him when we became sexually active on what was okay with me (such as waking me up with sex/eating out. I said I didn’t want oral or anal) It’s wrong to assume that someone’s okay with something, or worse feel entitled to whatever you want.

_____________My Comments________________

I think most of us know by now that any sort of relationship =/= consent just like previously giving consent doesn’t equal consent forever all the time no matter what.  But the thing is… we live in a society were a large amount of people not only believe this kind of stuff but are passing it on to other people.  Parents pass this stuff to their kids, kids pass it around to each other, people spread these ideas like wildfire so that we end up with an entire culture of people who truly believe that things that are absolutely rape/sexual assault are in fact consenting sexual experiences.  This is rape culture - this is a world where rapists don’t even know they’re rapists because they’ve been taught that what they did isn’t rape; this is a world where rape and assault victims don’t even know they’re victims because they’ve been taught to accept having their consent violated under certain circumstances, that such violations are normal and that they have no right to be upset over them.

TW - rape, rape culture, victim blaming, rape apologism

Somebody tried to “call me out” for not actively criticizing Fifty Shades of Grey.  I haven’t done that because I haven’t read it myself and I’m not going to criticize something based upon other people’s interpretations of it.  If I’m going to criticize something it needs to be based on my own opinions that I’ve formed through actually interacting with the material myself.  

That said, I will say that I absolutely have no problem believing all the criticism out there claiming that it’s all a bunch of rape culture bs.  I’ve read a few passages and I’ve read plenty of criticism and I’m willing to believe these people when they say the book absolutely destroys the concept of consent and does so in such a way that it actually romanticizes, glorifies, normalizes, and sexualizes abuse.  Make no mistake about it, the romanticizing of abuse is a serious problem within our culture an it’s something that actively contributes to rape culture.  Every time some shitty rom com portrays a man stalking a woman as “romantic” or tries to make the case that overriding a person’s consent is totally ok if eventually ze “gives in” because really, the person doing the overriding “knew” that ze “really wanted it all along” and the person doing the overriding was just “helping” abuse is normalized and we’re all told that it’s a good, positive, wonderful desirable thing when in reality it’s abuse, it’s assault, it’s in some cases even actual rape.  Putting that out into the culture is seriously not ok and has far reaching effects that are seriously damaging in a lot of ways.

Returning to Fifty Shades of Grey and the way it ruins the concept of consent… and again, I’ve not read it so my opinion here is based on reading passages out of context and what other people have said so please keep that in mind… I think the biggest issue in the whole damn book is the idea that physical desire = consent.  I’ve heard a lot about how when Ms. Steele complains about not wanting to do stuff, when she actually tries to stand up for herself Mr. Grey points out that she was cumming all over the place the entire time and/or that whatever she’s complaining about made her sopping wet therefore she must have “really” enjoyed it thus making her complaints invalid.  That is literally the kind of shit rapists AND rape apologists tell actual victims and that shit is seriously not ok!  That’s one of the most heinous and damaging things within rape culture and, frankly, it’s one of the things that keeps rapes from being prosecuted.  Rapists and rape apologists using the innate physical responses of victims to excuse and justify rape is one of the most deplorable, awful, not good, very bad things in the world we live in and that shit has seriously got to fucking stop!!!

There’s this idea out there that “you can’t rape the willing” which basically stems from the Medieval concept that if you’re physically aroused by whatever’s going on then you must “secretly” be enjoying it and your body’s response is proof of that.  This means that people equate a body’s physical arousal with consent which is just NOT fucking valid AT ALL!!!!  The fact of the matter is that we can get physically aroused by all sorts of things because our bodies have innate physical responses to certain stimuli.  For the most part these responses are utterly out of our control.  We can no more control physical arousal with our minds/force of will than we can control our heart rate, respiration, or the dilation/constriction of our pupils with our minds/force of will.  It’s an automatic response to stimuli, that’s it.  Arousal and desire are NOT the same thing.  We all have the physical capacity to be aroused by things we do not desire and as such consent can only be based off of desire, NOT physical arousal.  

If a person mentally wants the sexual interaction to happen then that’s consent and that’s the ONLY thing that can ever ever ever be consent.   A person getting an unwanted erection is NOT consent.  A person having an unwanted orgasm is NOT consent.  A person with a vulva and vagina getting physically aroused when ze doesn’t want to is NOT consent.  The only thing that’s consent is consent - actually wanting the sexual interaction and actually making that desire known.  A lack of “no” is also not consent, by the way, just in case you were wondering.  

this anonymous ask has been made rebloggable by request

I have something to say about your V-day comment. As a beleiver in sexual freedom I think that in a situation where everyone is celebrating and everyone is so incredibly happy, men and women of an color or status label should have every right to grab someone and kiss them and that’s what makes that image beautiful. It was happiness. If someone does not want to be kissed and they push away, then you should respect that, but you don’t know that whole story, no one really does expect for them.

TW - apologism, victim blaming, rape culture

You just trivialized abuse AND made excuses for it.  This, folks, is a prime example of what’s commonly known as rape apologism (yes, I know we’re not talking about rape here, we’re talking about sexual assault, it’s still apologism).  There are literally NO circumstances under which it is acceptable to grab a random stranger and kiss them or do anything else.  NONE.  It’s just not something that’s ever ok ever ever ever ever.  Simply put consent cannot possibly ever be the default assumption and by saying it’s ok because people are celebrating what you’re doing is assuming that because those people on that street on VDay were in a happy/celebratory mood that mood translates into an assumption of consent as the default for anything that happens.  People should not be required to make their non-consent known after it’s violated.  That’s not how consent works and that’s damn sure not how it “should” work.  People should be required to gain clear consent from their partners BEFORE engaging in any sort of behavior with them.  If you don’t have clear consent before you take an action then it’s a violation.  End of story, that’s all there is to it, plain and simple.  

It’s NEVER ok to just assume that you have consent and it’s really fucked up to put the burden of that responsibility on the people being violated.  People should not be required to bear the sole responsibility for defending themselves from violations - that’s victim blaming.  Instead people should be required to bear the sole responsibility for obtaining consent to ensure that they don’t violate anyone.  It’s pretty simple and it’s incredibly fucked up that you’re actually sitting here claiming that people should have the “right” to sexually assault random strangers on the street.  

I’m going to say this one last time just in case it’s not clear - doing something to someone without their consent is a violation, it’s abuse, it’s assault, it’s not ok.  You’re right, I don’t know the whole story but I’d much rather side with the victims than the abusers in something like this. Assuming that because those people didn’t actively try to fight their attacker they were consenting is ridiculous and that’s definitely a rape culture attitude - that there is only one correct way to be a victim, that only certain kinds of behaviors make a worthy victim and everyone else must not have been bothered enough so they’re not victims.  It’s much more reasonable to assume that nobody is going to consent to being groped and assaulted by a random stranger UNLESS they make it clear beforehand that they’re consenting to something like that.  You can NEVER assume consent and by doing so you’ve just given an out to abusers everywhere.  You have told them that under certain circumstances (like when people are celebrating) it’s acceptable to assume consent which means that under those circumstances abusers will not be held accountable or responsible for the violations they force onto others.  You’ve told rapists and harassers that they will receive no consequences if in a moment of celebration they choose to sexually assault random strangers on the street.  You’ve directly contributed to rape culture by making a specific kind of sexual assault easy under specific circumstances.  

EDIT - it was pointed out in one of the comments that the idea of “if you don’t like it push them away” is utterly ableist.  I didn’t think about that and I apologize for the oversight and wanted to add that in because that shit’s important!  There are millions of reasons a person couldn’t or wouldn’t push someone away during an attack/assault and some form of disability is absolutely one of those reasons (or more accurately various disabilities would account for millions of those reasons).  Assuming that people are even capable of “fighting back” during an attack/assault is heinously ableist and I should have caught that earlier and pointed it out myself.  Thanks for bringing that to our attention, chassisbird!