No one's talking about Steubenville?

I was barely a teenager when it happened, so I didn't seek counseling. In my very naive 13 year old brain, I didn't want my mom knowing the crowd I was hanging around with, so I couldn't think of a way to tell her (I ran with older kids and I knew she wouldn't approve). Plus, I was (and still am) stubborn as hell so I figured "I can handle this". Right or wrong, that was my thinking back then.

At this point, I'm 31 and I think I've done a damn good job of dealing with the rape. It's something that happened to me, but it doesn't define who I am.

 

So...what do we do since it's our friends, lovers and acquaintances who are doing the majority of rapes, and 40% of them happen in our own homes (btw you did make the frat party comment)? We can't stay in, that puts us in danger, we can't go out, that puts us in danger? Rape happens to women who are dressed provocatively and women who are dressed in a burqa. So all that advice about trying to stay safe isnt worth shit, because it's the people we know who are the danger. You keep missing that.

 

You're all missing what rape culture means, exactly as some folk miss what white privilege means. It's an academic phrase, for which I posted a good article simplifying if. If a black person said they felt no discrimination, that wouldn't mean white privilege doesn't exist. If a white person said they weren't racist, that wouldn't have anything to do with the concept of white privilege. Just so with rape culture. Racism isn't openly approved of in most places today, but that doesn't mean white privilege isn't still at work. Same thing with rape culture. It's as academic a term as white privilege.

 

No. I didn't need it. I wasn't broken. I was raped. I understood even at 14, budding feminist and lover of fairness that I was, that it wasnt my fault, no matter what the culture said. In 1973, it was always the girls fault unless she was dead. Even then what she wore and where she was, and whether or not she was a 'slut' was an issue.

 

damn...he caught on. thank G-d

 

GL you are a very jealous and petty little man sir

 

Live in women only colonies and always travel in groups of three with pwpper spray and knives? What do you think you should do?

 

thanks. love you too. I knew you had a heart somewhere I mean damn dude .

 

Yeah, I didn't realize it until about a day before the semester started. I thought I had signed up for a weekend class and an online class. Imagine my surprise when I saw my schedule. LOL. I miss TVD and Elementary.

TVD is such a great show. I love it. Did you hear they're starting a Klaus spinoff?

 

Oh wow really? I don't know how I feel about it. Hope Elijah is in it. I'm done with the Rebecca and Cole characters

 

I hope Elijah is in it, too.

I'm surprised about the Rebecca character. My one friend wants to marry her. LOL.

 

Obviously, be a feminist. Teach young men not to use violence, including sexual violence, as a way to dominate other human beings. Raise awareness by having this kind of discussion where appropriate.

I like men. I don't want to have to live separately from them. Would you want to live in a gender segregated world? If not, what's your solution?

 

Every time you use the word teach it makes me cringe. In all honesty just being around everyday men do you think they don't sexual violence is bad?
My God what kind of men have you been around? I'm sorry for your experience but apparently men aren't vastly sexually violent since such a small percent of us actually are.
I don't feel the need to live in a gender segregated world but I am not the one who feels my safety is constantly in danger from the opposite sex. Maybe my sanity but thats a different conversation altogether lol.
My solution is don't be alone with men at anytime if you can avoid it. If the fear is that at any of us at any given time will snap and start raping then don't be around us or don't be alone with us and always keep a weapon in your hand.

 

A young man can either be taught to respect a woman, or to disrespect her.
It doesn't always have to be an obvious statement by a parent, since kids learn anyway through their environment in the home.

So if a father figure is repeatedly suggesting women are emotionally and intellectually inferior, that shit seeps into a boy's psyche.

It's really no different IMO in teaching a child to either be ethnically and culturally tolerant, or to be a racist.

It's not just about telling a young boy, 'don't rape'.
My mother didn't ever tell me not to rape.

But she did plant a bug in my ear about the importance of communication during intimate encounters with women and listening to what a woman SAYS more than what she DOES when it comes to sex.

I was told if a woman says NO, leave it at that. If that's not what a woman 'really' meant when she said NO, make her be accountable for her own words.
Guys who assume they know what a random woman wants to do sexually no matter what she says are swimming in dangerous waters.

When you suggest to a young boy there are times when it's okay to hit a woman, not beat her up but just to put 'her in her place', or when you call a woman out of her name and belittle her in public and private, you're actively teaching that child that women are less than men.

Once a child internalizes this lesson, when that young boy becomes a man IMO he's liable to believe his interests ALWAYS come before what a woman wants. Whether that's during a small argument on the phone, or in the bedroom.

I personally think most rapists are made not born. Young boys need to be taught what behavior is appropriate in male/female relationships and what isn't.

BTW I think this statement was said to be sarcastic;

My solution is don't be alone with men at anytime if you can avoid it. If the fear is that at any of us at any given time will snap and start raping then don't be around us or don't be alone with us and always keep a weapon in your hand.

The fact is that ALL women especially when they're out alone think about their personal safety in a way that most men never have to do. It's not that all men are potentially rapists, the point is a woman is trying to avoid those handful a guys who might be.

That's part of the reason why IMO women are constantly 'reading' guys and trying to subconsciously identify those men with the huge question marks over their heads.

I've never decided against asking a woman on the street for directions when I was driving, or help in general, because that woman looked very 'sketchy'.

I've never not gone into a bar because the women inside looked like they were 'up to no good'.

I've never noticed or cared if I thought a woman was following me on the sidewalk at night. Or if a creepy chick wouldn't stop staring at me.

I've never google searched a chick to see if she had a criminal history.
I've never thought it was a bad idea to give a lady directions to my house.

It's not about a woman being paranoid about her safety, it's about preventing a situation from getting to the point where she is actually worried about her safety, because by that point many times it's too late.

When you aren't big enough or strong enough to fight your way out of a room, you need to be shrewd and cunning enough not to get cornered in the first place.

 

This is what I have been generally saying, maybe I needed to spell it out like you did. But this is in the realm of personal safety in general and I think all people should do this not just women. And thanks for catching the sarcasm btw, we seriously need an emoticon for that lol.
To your earlier points about young boys needing to be taught how to treat women and the effect culture and home life can play on that. I've admitted that I do agree that our society teaches us to objectify women. Both men and women are considered to very disposable, its easy to replace someone with someone better. At least that seems to be the dominate attitude.
You and I are around the same age and grew up when hip hop was at its most mysoganistic point. You rarely ever heard a song where a woman was described as a hoe, a trick, a jump off or any other number of derogatory names. While many young men and women started to play into these roles of faster sex and less relationships no one made the leap to think you force yourself on someone. Raping women did not become the acceptable way to handle interactions with them. No one was high fiving and recalling scenarios where they "put a chick in her place" and abused her. Even if young boys were being taught that women were nothing more than a source to get your rocks off it was never a widely accepted concept to force them.

And since you bring it up, what exactly is an appropriate relationship these days anyway? I feel like that's constantly being reinvented especially depending on the couple.

 

The change in hip hop music is one of those signs there's been a shift in the culture. A playa back in the day was someone who was so smooth with his game he could romance a woman out of her panties before she knew she had taken them off.lol

But nowadays it's all bitches and hoes and materialism, until women become just another commodity than men pay for the right to own and discard.

Rap didn't used to be centered around life at the strip club.
If most the women you see are females on a pole getting $5s stuffed in their G-string, how could you have a positive opinion about them??

Think about it, when you were growing up, did anyone you knew even know what 'running a train' on a chick meant??

I would bet most 12-13 year old boys nowadays do.

If I had a teenage daughter I think I'd be on prescription antidepressants.

 

lmao. Thats my point though it started with the Snoop Dogs, Eminems, and Biggies and no one made the leap that it was ok to just force themselves on women. Its a far cry from the LL Cool J says of I Need Love and Hey Lover.
I actually had a conversation with friends the other day about this. What the fuck happened to R&B? Does anyone make it anymore? And DRAKE DOES NOT COUNT lol

 

Are you serious? LOL, a male relative who grew up in OZ and before HIP-HOP existed at 15 not only knew what running a train meant, but partook. It was just called a gang-bang back then. :smt005 It's the same thing. Tween males have always known about that shit because certain type of sluts have been letting a line of men do them for multi-decades.

 

Biggie and Emimen just aired the dirty laundry of women. LL might have been churning love raps, meanwhile while he was married, he fucked a pregnant groupie chick in a sink in his dressing room after a concert. He said he had so much easy pussy thrown at him, he was losing it.

 

Damn you're brutal lol