Whatever Reddit is, recently there was a thread started on it about sexual assault. Not too unusual, except that it featured the POV of the people doing the raping (warning--that link contains some excerpts that might be triggering or just unsettling).
There were lots of (often gross, misogynistic, creepy) perspectives shared, and a weird level of insight into the way that these men thought about the act. But most of them really just saw it as sex. Not as a power play (though several did mention the fact that men generally have superiod physical strength), not as an act of patriarchy, but as sex. Sex gone awry, perhaps. But sex nonetheless.
I found it startling how a few of them noted that they wanted to rape but couldn't go through with it once they looked the woman in the face; once faced by the fact that this was an actual person that they were about to violate, they stopped. The detail with which they were able to account these incidents was also startling.
But most startling is to be able to read these accounts that confirm, from the rapist's perspective, that rape happens usually not because of a stranger in the bushes with a knife, but generally because of a friend who got too drunk and stopped listening to protests or treating women like people or chose to hear his/her hormones instead of her (perhaps audible, perhaps not) protestations.
We need to have more open conversations about rape, yes. But bigger than that, we need to work to see women as people, truly as people, not as objects for sexual conquest or social advancement. We need to train people to see sex not as a sport or competition, but as an act mutually enjoyed between two people in which consent is actively pronounced through language or the body, not just assumed.
Readers--what do you think of this thread? Can we learn something from it, or is just a chance for rapists to feel better about what they did by knowing they're not alone?
Much love,
The Sheriff
