A while back, I asked for a definition of “rape culture.” It wasn’t that I was being deliberately difficult, but it was one of the fuzzy phrases thrown back at anyone who questioned anything about the alleged epidemic of sexual assault and rape. If the reason was “rape culture,” then it was critical to know what that meant.
One reaction that comes with regularity, and the anger that suggests that anyone who doesn’t grasp and embrace it is, by definition, the scum of the earth, is the phrase “rape culture.” It’s a catch-all justification for feminists, and spit at people as if no further explanation is needed. If one doesn’t “get” rape culture, it’s proof of their misogyny. Not only do I not get it, but I didn’t really know what it meant as it was being thrown my way. I may be thick, but it wasn’t part of my worldview.
Unsurprisingly, there was no answer. There was no definition. It was two words, strung together, that conveyed some amorphous sense of terrible wrongfulness, rape being an extremely loaded word, without any parameters. People could give examples of what they deemed to be “rape culture,” but they were examples because they felt they were. Without a definition, examples are hollow.
That has not changed with news from the RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, an advocacy group in the strongest sense of the word, upon which activists have relied as the deepest well from which to draw statistics and claims that find no support anywhere else. RAINN is the motherlode for anti-rape activists. And it has repudiated the whole “rape culture” nonsense.
RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) is America’s largest and most influential anti-sexual-violence organization. It’s the leading voice for sexual-assault victim advocacy. Indeed, rape-culture activists routinely cite the authority of RAINN to make their case. But in RAINN’s recent recommendations to the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, it repudiates the rhetoric of the anti–“rape culture” movement:
In the last few years, there has been an unfortunate trend towards blaming “rape culture” for the extensive problem of sexual violence on campus. While it is helpful to point out the systemic barriers to addressing the problem, it is important not to lose sight of a simple fact: Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community, to commit a violent crime.
RAINN urges the White House to “remain focused on the true cause of the problem” and suggests a three-pronged approach for combating rape: empowering community members through bystander intervention education, using “risk-reduction messaging” to encourage students to increase their personal safety and promoting clearer education on “where the ‘consent line’ is.” It also asserts that we should treat rape like the serious crime it is by giving power to trained law enforcement rather than internal campus judicial boards.
While there may be significant disagreement about the scope of the problem, especially on college campuses where the hysteria is most severe and the definition of rape so broad as to include any feeling, before, during or after sex, that it’s been rendered meaningless, RAINN has brought a dose of serious reality back to the discussion: it’s not about regret or feelings, but a violent crime.
RAINN is especially critical of the idea that we need to focus on teaching men not to rape — the hallmark of rape-culture activism. Since rape exists because our culture condones and normalizes it, activists say, we can end the epidemic of sexual violence only by teaching boys not to rape.
But by and large, this is already happening. By the time men reach college, RAINN explains, “most students have been exposed to 18 years of prevention messages, in one form or another.” The vast majority of men absorb these messages and view rape as the horrific crime that it is. So efforts to address rape need to focus on the very small portion of the population that “has proven itself immune to years of prevention messages.” They should not vilify the average guy.
In other words, it’s not the generic “men” and “rape culture,” but rapists who commit rape.
By blaming so-called rape culture, we implicate all men in a social atrocity, trivialize the experiences of survivors, and deflect blame from the rapists truly responsible for sexual violence. RAINN explains that the trend of focusing on rape culture “has the paradoxical effect of making it harder to stop sexual violence, since it removes the focus from the individual at fault, and seemingly mitigates personal responsibility for his or her own actions.”
Putting aside its use of the word “survivors,” this is a crucial point: by blaming all men, by making all sexual conduct susceptible to post-hoc recharacterization, by chanting rape culture, the activists who are so mindlessly certain that they’re right are in actuality trivializing real rape, deflecting blame from real rapists, and diluting the seriousness of a violent crime.
So finally, RAINN provides the definition of rape culture that has been missing from this discussion. Rape culture is bullshit. Rape is not. Rape culture is a meaningless construct. Rape is a violent crime.
Moral panic over “rape culture” helps no one — least of all, survivors of sexual assault.
Maybe the time has come for activists to get off their emotional soapbox and focus on the real crime of rape rather than the hysteria and melodrama that’s captured campuses and legislatures nationwide.
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Dude, you are so, like, going to get BotBlocked (TM), its, like you know, going to be epic!
Isn’t that libelslander? Maybe not.
It’s such a shame nobody gave you the actual definition: the concept that society views male and female sexuality in a way that doesn’t encourage people to look for signs of active consent.
Society views female sexuality as more passive and in need of ‘persuasion’: if people feel that women need persuaded into having sex, then they see it as normal that a woman might just ‘give in’ rather than consenting enthusiastically with her actions or words.
Equally, rape culture affects men as it views male sexual desire as something permanent, something insatiable, something omnipresent: if people feel that men always want sex, they are not encouraged to check whether or not a man is providing unambiguous enthusiastic consent before having sex with him.
Does that make sense?
Sadly, no, it makes no sense at all. You’ve fallen into the black hole of meaningless rhetoric that provides no definition whatsoever. You attempt to frame it by desired outcomes and examples rather than definition. This is exactly the problem, and your attempt to define it is empty rhetoric.
I didn’t give examples, or use anything I can identify as rhetoric?
I think if you accept that society views male and female sexualities in those ways, then the rest follows logically I believe.
People are often blinded by the embrace of their own empty rhetoric. As meaningless as it may be, they feel it’s valid and can’t understand why others see it as substantively vapid. This is nothing new.
Can you help me see which bit of my rhetoric is meaningless please?
No, Fiona. This isn’t about you.
The part between the date and time stamp, and the “reply” link.
I tried to think deep. Couldn’t do it.
But maybe I’ll get a round tuit.
My rhetoric’s vapid,
But really quite rapid.
Disregard it! Discard it! Eschew it!
It’s mere bathos, this “culture of rape”.
I’ll leave deep thinkers’ jaws all agape:
Eating carrion’s culture,
If one is a vulture,
And with that I’ll now make my escape!
“Society views male and female sexuality in a way that doesn’t encourage people to look for signs of active consent.”
*How do you define “society”? Broadly? Narrowly? Whom does it include? Which places? What does it look like? How can it influence us?
*What is male sexuality? What is female sexuality?
*How does society do this thing, “viewing” male and female sexuality? What is the “way” in which it views?
*What is “active” consent? Is there “passive” consent? What might that be?
*What are “signs” of active consent?
*What does any of this have to do with rape, the violent crime?
Here’s an attempt to rephrase your question which eliminates most of those problems:
“Men are sexually aggressive.”
Now we’re left with only one problem: is being “sexually aggressive” the same as being a rapist? If yes, the final form is
“Men are rapists.”
which Andrea Dworkin might like, but even RAINN thinks is overblown.
If no, we’re left with three problems:
*What does being “sexually aggressive” mean? We know it doesn’t mean being a rapist.
*We’ve ended up with a lazy stereotype.
*What does any of this have to do with rape, the violent crime?
You’re trying too hard to make sense of the nonsensical. See this:
If it purported to be definitional, it would make clear the “in a way” piece that it glosses over in favor of its outcome, “encourage people to look for sings of active consent.” Sure, it’s replete with holes at every word, but it lacks any core meaning. Without any core meaning, screwing around the edges is a waste of time.
You’re right, of course. There’s no connection between rape and culture, and so no meaning to the phrase. I was just impressed with all the vagueness.
Nice; implying I said men are sexually aggressive when I didn’t.
Society is indeed hard to define – I’ll leave that to the experts, but perhaps for the sake of this discussion we can say it means “most people as seen in the media, popular culture and daily life”?
Female sexuality and male sexuality are the expressions of desire from people of these genders.
Society “views” these by commenting on them in daily life, in the media, etc etc.
Signs of active consent are indications that the person you want to have sex with wants to have sex with you. I’ll not patronise you by listing what these might be.
What has this got to do with rape, the violent crime? That’s the absolute key question. Rape is currently defined as sex in the presence of something that indicates no. It needs to be defined as sex in the absence of something that indicates yes. By telling people who are accusing somebody of rape that they need to provide evidence of the “no”, when really we should just be asking them for evidence that there was no “yes”, we don’t encourage looking for signs of active consent.
The term “rape culture” is not just referring to literal, legally defined rape. Theoretical terms are allowed to be metaphorical for brevity’s sake.
Fiona, first, this is not your blog. You can’t monopolize the comments because you aren’t receiving the adoration you feel your brilliance deserves. Second, this is a law blog; we don’t make up definitions of legal words (like rape) based on your personal feelings. Third, you’ve said your piece, expressed your “definition,” and now you’re done. You are not the center of the universe.
Scott,
Despite Fiona’s pretentiousness in relegating to herself the “actual definition,” I suggest that the problem is that you are asking the wrong question, which is why you are getting nonsensical answers.
Rape culture isn’t a thing to be defined, but an attitude that defies definition. It’s the sense that society hasn’t adequately conformed to their desire for feminist hegemony, even where that varies from person to person (as it obviously does). It refers to a society that meets every individual woman’s feelings of safety, secrutiy, happiness and control, and it is in constant flux to match her needs at any moment and under any situation.
It is not susceptible to definition because its only qualification is that it meets the needs and expectations, before, during and after, of every woman at any moment.
That wasn’t so hard, now was it?
Sigh.
That’s fascinating. In all the world,some pseudonymous day-tripper, Fiona, believes she has the definition of rape culture that the rest of the world has suffered without? Did all the women in the world elect Fiona as the spokesperson?
And yet, it’s nothing more than today’s flavor of gibberish. Well, glad Fiona cleared that up. I am off to alert my lean-in group that Fiona has made the world safe for feminism.
Seriously? Isn’t it obvious enough without you have to give her a smack?
not just me that uses that definition, it’s just the loudmouths on the internet don’t 🙂
And I really don’t presume to be able to make the world safe for anyone.
Thankfully, since rape is no longer a crime in Texas (former Sec. 21.02, Tex. Pen. Code Ann., repealed by Acts 1983, 68th Leg., ch. 977 (H.B. 2008), effective September 1, 1983), which means according to Fiona’s logic, there can no longer be a “rape culture” in Texas since 1983.
You’re welcome to move here Scott so you would never again have to worry about rape culture. I’ll even introduce you to real barbeque.
Why must you tease me so?
It’s in my nature. You’re perceptive, you should know this…LOL
Here’s a working definition of “rape culture” — When sexual intercourse happens between a male college student and a female college student, there is a rebuttable presumption that the female did not consent.
That’s what they really mean, don’t you know?
Welcome Lex. Your reputation precedes you.
Thank you, Scott.
Presumption, yes. Rebuttable? Maybe by the female herself, if you can prove she’s not being coerced into rebutting it.
Oh there’s a proper definition for rape culture. It is a culture where rape is expected as a normal consequence of life, where those who are raped are mocked and dismissed or “had it coming”, and the rapists by and large go unpunished or are sometimes encouraged to continue. It’s not specified because once you do, it becomes blazingly obvious that college campuses do not have a rape culture, but American prisons do. But SJWs don’t care about prisoners.
This is the sort of comment that reminds me why I really need to ban non-lawyers. This is not a post about prison rape, and you don’t get to turn it into one because you feel like it.
But if you disallow comments from non-lawyers, then somebody who really wants to comment will have to pretend to be one, and there are rules against that. When he gets shot, the blood will be on your hands…
I will be strong. I will survive. Thank you for your concern.
We had a legal workshop with Lawyers and everything at the school I teach at. So does that count? This was in regards to some recent rape cases and the issue of Title IX.
The question arose about “rape culture” and it was somehow aligned in a very generic sense to “sports culture”. This is where the idea that assault of a sexual nature was permitted if not encouraged to ensure domination and control over the larger community and boys being boys. We also have a problem with the Coaches as they may have been involved in the cover up or in the encouragement, as one had players texting him with chicks who they thought he should date. This is all being “investigated” and who the hell knows as they “lawyered up.”
At one point I assumed they were referring to to genocidal rape which has been seen in countries under conflct it became so convoluted and disturbing that many people just kept refilling their water glasses and getting up to go to the bathroom.
Then it deginerated into a discussion over white privilege. That was quite interesting given that everyone was white and the minorities at that point were also coughing and drinking water.
As we are a district under “investigation” by the DOJ for both Title IX and issues of discriminatory punishments I think they were trying to shove all of it in the obligatory 4 hours allotted and it in turn felt like a hostage situation. Which is another seminar no doubt.
I do think that the phrase “rape culture” has very little relevance to the issue of rape. There is however a problem communicating and I have 4 hours to validate that.
But as for any feminist or gender knowledge of such I cannot help you. So denigrate away its part of the appeal working in the public schools means one never gets enough of that!
Frankly, I have no clue what you’re talking about or how it relates to anything in this post.
It’s not hard to define “rape culture.” A rape culture is a culture in which rapists feel empowered to rape because they know, or believe, that they will not suffer significant social or legal consequences for doing so. E.g.: When women are randomly and publicly gang-raped on buses, that is evidence of a rape culture.
The definition is the easy part. The hard part is figuring out whether we HAVE a rape culture, and if so, what to do about it. We don’t tend to have anything so blindingly obvious as “random gang-rapes on buses” very often (yay?).
There is some irony here in that some of RAINN’s prescriptions, and particularly its promotion of “bystander intervention education,” are in fact just the sort of things that one would do if one wanted to change a rape culture. If bystanders routinely intervene to stop rapes and apprehend rapists, rapists will be less likely to act with impunity knowing or thinking that their friends and colleagues will acquiesce in their actions.
Maybe the term “rape culture” is too much of a buzzword to be of any use anymore. Like any buzzword, its content value is rapidly decaying as people misuse it. I think there’s still some utility to the term left, but YMMV.
Whether there is a rape culture depends on what rape culture is. You apparently like your definition, but it’s not much different from Fiona’s, defined by outcomes: Rape culture is any culture where rapists “will not suffer significant social or legal consequences” for raping.
Are you saying that if the sentence for the crime of rape is ten years or more, we’re not a rape culture, but if the sentence is less than ten years, we are?
Aside from that definition precluding our culture from possibly being “rape culture,” since we have huge social and legal consequences for rape, it still tells us nothing about what makes a culture “rape culture.” Which is the point: it is a meaningless trope used by people who lack the capacity to grasp the emptiness of their rhetoric to capture some amorphous, self-justifying, self-serving concept.
To answer the question in your second paragraph: No, I am not saying that. It’s not about outcomes, it’s about deterrence. A rape culture is one where rapists are not deterred. They might or might not GET punished, but they don’t THINK they’ll get punished. The Indian bus rapists actually did get punished, and with extreme prejudice– but obviously they didn’t see “death by hanging” coming, or they wouldn’t have been as brazen about what they did.
The deterrent value of a sentence is moderated by the likelihood of actually suffering such a sentence. (I’m tempted to rip off Learned Hand and insert a pithy mathematical formula, but that would be lame.) You could punish rape by drawing and quartering, or whatever–the worst punishment you can possibly imagine– and people would still do it if they felt the odds of conviction were low enough. Paper sanctions are worthless formalities if they are not enforced reliably enough in practice to where people actually fear such sanctions.
I want to (respectfully, very respectfully) disagree that there isn’t a concise definition of rape culture.
Rape culture is the set of socially permitted attitudes and behaviors that promote an acceptance of engaging in sexual contact without consent.
And rape culture does exist, although mostly not on US campuses. In Kenya, where the one in four statistic isn’t bullshit, there is a very real rape culture. In the US prison system, where violent rape is endemic, there is a true rape culture. In Thailand, where sexual trafficking in underaged girls is a reality, that’s a bona fide rape culture.
But RAINN, and you, are right, moral panics about “rape culture” as it’s understood is bullshit.
So rape culture is any culture that accepts rape as being ordinary, socially acceptable behavior?
Mom: Son, do you have plans for tonight?
Son: Yeah, Mom. Me and the guys are going to go out and rape some gals.
Mom: Well, have a nice time, and be home by midnight.
Son: Okay, Mom. Will do.
Mom: And drive safely. Don’t speed, or you’ll get a ticket.
Son: Yes, Mom.
Aunt Gertrude: Such a nice boy.
Your examples don’t quite bear this out, but that’s immaterial. Perhaps you’ve come closest to making some sense of it, though there is no culture in modern history that I’m aware of where rape wasn’t either a crime or the product of force (i.e., Kenya), but unaccepted by society as appropriate conduct.
But I wonder whether anyone else will agree with your definition, as it precludes any possibility that any culture ever was a “rape culture.”
I’d argue there is a bit more social acceptance or permissive attitudes regarding rape, in those examples, although I think we maybe disagreeing over what I meant by “promote acceptance”. I think very rarely will you find examples of active promotion of rape (Rwanda in 1994 is the only example I can think of at the top of my head), but there is as an alternative, behaviors and attitudes that serve as poor and inadequate deterrence for people who may not have been predisposed, but for those behaviors and attitudes. Plus, cultures are not monolithic, even if the general Kenyan/prison/Thai population finds rape abhorrent, if a sizable subset of that culture promotes a more permissive attitude regarding sexual assault, I would consider that a ” rape culture”
Also, I think you might be surprised by the support I receive on that definition; many of those people making claims of a “campus rape culture” believe wholeheartedly that boys and men are being taught rape is appropriate and acceptable, based on some frivolous theory or another, and against evidence that indicates a general sense of disgust and disapproval for rape and rapists, an annual decline in the number of rapes, and a fairly comprehensive effort to educate young men about consent.
This is where it fails, from my perspective. So it’s not cultural at all, as the general population finds rape abhorrent. So there are some who engage or acquiesce in crime? How does that differ from anywhere ever? But if it isn’t societally accepted, then it’s hardly cultural.
And as for your latent point, the notion that males must embrace feminist notions of consent or they’re permissive toward whatever flavor or “rape” is in fashion today (i.e., post-hoc regret, mutual intoxication), is political, not legal or cultural.
What we ultimately end up with regardless of the attempt at definition is “there are people out there who don’t do stuff the way we want them to, so we make up a name for it, redefine the words in the name it so they have no definition and can be used whenever it serves our purpose, blame a society that’s no better or worse than any other and demand everybody bend to our will to avoid being called rapists.
“This is where it fails, from my perspective. So it’s not cultural at all, as the general population finds rape abhorrent.”
I don’t think that necessarily follows. Sports cultureure, gaming culture, queer culture, as well neo-nazism/white supremacism, gang culture and “mob” culture are all considered valid, despite representing a portion of the greater culture which they are part of.
Also, you wound me in suggesting I have a latent point. Even if I do, I seriously doubt that forced sodomy among prisoners or violent rape among Kenyan ethnic groups require a flexible definition of rape or consent. I assure you, I have no interest in expanding the definition of rape, to mollify some third wave notion that rapes must be rampant. But just because I don’t support it, doesn’t mean that my definition of rape culture, which you did admit seems to come closest, will be whole heartedly endorsed by a person who is also convinced that campus micro-aggresions or bro-culture or whatever idiocy they embrace is proof of a campus rape culture.
I think what you’re trying to describe is a subculture.
The RAINN letter also recommends teaching about “risk reduction” and for reporting crimes to police. I am pretty sure the folks at RAINN wouldn’t put it this way, but the thrust of the recommendations appear to be, “don’t whine about ‘society,’ do something.”
Absolutely. Both are significant recommendations, and directly contrary to current ideological excuses. That’s the difference between serious concern for a serious offense and concern secondary to feelings.
Let’s not gang up on Fiona – I’m glad she respects your criticism enough to respond to it on this blog. Alot of people are just “talking about” those who don’t subscribe to the belief that there is “Rape Culture” in America.
Fiona, thanks for articulating the “Feministing” point of view. It helps me understand why I disagree. (Serious, not sarcastic)
I think everyone is missing an important point:
When guys go out to “have sex” with women at a party (and usually make love to their tonic and gin), he are looking for a woman who will allow her to have sex with him. He doesn’t care if she earnestly desires it, just that she’ll go along with it. And we (male and female) have been informed through sex education that we have the right to enjoy sex as a biological and recreational activity. To free us from constraints, no moral meaning is allowed to be tied to the sex act. So there are no moral qualifiers for one’s INTERNAL attitude towards the other person. You can see the other person as a piece of meet or a notch on your belt, as long as you don’t SHOW it. And we women are definitely discouraged from confining ourself to having sex with someone who shows that he cares about us as MORE than a piece of meat – and waiting to see some evidence of that. It’s considered traditional and puritanical and oppressive.
So we’ve all created our own rape culture – or rather, the theorists and experts and policy makers have. And we’ve gone and rune with it.
But we hate it. And we blame men for not caring about us more.
If affirmative consent is codified, in my opinion women will and should be held responsible for remaining sober enough to CLEARLY give affirmative consent. Otherwise, you are entrapping a man.
Exactly where in this is anything close to a definition?
You have the same problem that Fiona has, that you are defining “rape culture” with outcomes, not with words that have discernible meaning.
Scott writes a blawg on the law, and it is aimed towards those who understand the law. The problem that Fiona had with those commenting here is that her language was not precise and the logic behind the language was lacking. I’m sorry to say that yours is no better.
If you are going to define something, try using language that addresses something beside the outcomes involved.
I was unaware that this was a blog dedicated to securing a legal definition of something not conceptualized nor articulated as a legal term. I am not a lawyer, so I cannot contribute to that discussion. Owner of this blog – feel free to delete the post if YOU find it irrelevant to your aims.
Rape culture is not a term. It does not come with a legal definition easy to pinpoint because it is not even a word. It is a STATEMENT about the (as proponents and espousers of the term say) immoral and unjust social and cultural standard for engaging in sex. In short, it is considered skewered to give a man what he wants, to allow him to exploit circumstances in his favor for sex when he wants it. “Rape Culture” is a statement of commentary on our society. Accepting it means one thinks all standards (judicial and otherwise) must be altered to change this “Imbalance of power”. Hence the “Yes means Yes” instead of the “No means no” shift.
The last opinion I mention here is this: this shift is only necessary to allow for intoxicated sex to occur in which men are responsible (and therefore judged) for deciding whether a woman can’t consent to sex wtih him, instead of the woman be responsible for her role.
Owner of Blog: feel free to delete this entry too if I also fail to contribute anything meaningful to your goal. This is not said satirically. Nor facetiously.
Owner of blog sounds so official. I prefer Blog czar.
So rapists rape but in Florida hundreds of people stand around watching and nobody acts as if anything is wrong – [Ed. Note: Link deleted per rules]. If that’s not an example of rape culture, I don’t know what is.
I’m sorry to hear of your intellectual challenges. Perhaps, in time, medical science will come up with a cure.