Rape Culture Does Not Exist

One of the tenets of third-wave feminism that I find particularly objectionable is rape culture. Unless you are totally unacquainted with feminism’s current form (in which case I envy you) then you are likely familiar with it. The Women against Violence against Women website describes rape culture as “jokes, TV, music, advertising, legal jargon, laws, words and imagery that make violence against women and sexual coercion seem so normal that people believe that rape is inevitable.” Those who advocate the existence of rape culture believe that there is a concerted effort made by men to justify rape and violence against women. These feminists will have you believe that everything from the daily news to the nutritional information on the back of cereal boxes conveys implicit justifications for men to abuse women with impunity. I came across this article written by Zaron Burnett entitled A Gentleman’s Guide to Rape Culture. He makes some arguments about rape culture that I believe to be incorrect. In this post, I wish to address this article and explain why Burnett’s point of view is mistaken, as well as dispel the myth of rape culture in general.

Burnett begins his article by stating that all men are part of rape culture and perpetuate it with their mere existence. It doesn’t matter if you actually are a rapist or not. He claims that men commit ninety-nine percent of rapes, and thus it is largely men who “are the primary agents and sustainers of rape culture.” He then argues that because men do so much raping, women see all men as potential rapists, so men should take extra precautions around women to make them feel safe and secure. In elevators, stairways, or parking lots, men have a duty, according to Burnett, to make their presence known and to show that they are not rapists. What a load of bollocks this is. This mentality only goes to show the double standards inherent to feminist ideology. If men have an obligation to show women that they are not rapists, then it lowers them to the standard of rapists by default. Demanding that men have to accommodate the needs and vulnerabilities of women in this respect only perpetuates the notion that men are rapists.

Consider if you were to make a similar argument regarding Muslims as suicide bombers. Given that Muslims commit the majority of suicide bombings, one could argue that Muslims have the obligation to show that they pose no threat when they associate with non-Muslims in public. The reasoning follows that if men have to go out of their way to use submissive behaviour to show that they do not intend on raping women, Muslims have to let others frisk them to prove they are not wearing vests of dynamite. If women feel vulnerable around strange men, some non-Muslims may feel unsafe around those of middle-eastern descent, but if anybody should argue that the Muslims have an obligation to make others feel safe in their presence, then such a person would a racist. Given that a minority of Muslims happen to be terrorists, this should not entail any guilt or obligation on the part of Muslim people. Even if Muslims committed 100 percent of suicide bombings and men committed 100 percent of rapes, it does entail that non-rapists and non-bombers should carry any of that guilt. Teaching men that they are threatening to women and that they should make efforts to avoid women in order to make them feel safe will only perpetuate the notion of men as rapists. Such thinking only encourages an irrational fear of men by women and the notion that men are inherently sinful in their own minds. It is insane to hold an entire demographic of people responsible for the crimes of a select few.

Another point in Burnett’s article that I find objectionable is that he reduces all the complexities and nuances of human relationships down to broad-sweeping generalizations about men supporting rape culture and women being victims. Burnett writes “If you think that sort of stereotyping is bullshit, how do you treat a snake you come across in the wild? You treat it like a snake right? That’s not stereotyping, that’s acknowledging an animal for what it’s capable of doing and the harm it can inflict.” Get a fucking grip, buddy. There are 3.5 billion men in the world—all with different backgrounds, measurements, temperaments, interests, and values. How can the burden of rape culture, assuming it exists at all, rest uniformly upon a twenty year-old white frat-boy and a celibate nonagenarian monk from Tibet? For Burnett to reduce the condition of every single man on the planet to the level of some reptile you find in the forest makes me wonder whether the feminists haven’t already tied him up in the basement and castrated him. 

You can still hear the screams.

Later in the article, Burnett offers a list of examples of rape culture. A few of these examples include “Sexually explicit jokes”, “Publicly scrutinizing a victim’s dress”, defining manhood as “dominant and sexually aggressive”, as well as gendered violence in movies and television. He also makes the grandiose claim that rape culture plays a central role in all the social dynamics of our time. Rape culture, according to Burnett is “part of all our social, societal, and environmental struggles.”

Human beings have been raping each other for a really long time. From the rape of Lucretia, which indirectly led to the formation of the Roman Republic in 509 BCE, to the rape of Rindr in Norse mythology, to Tamar from the Book of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible, history is abound with rapes both ancient and modern, real and fictional. Rape, just like any other crime like thievery, murder, or arson has existed since time immemorial and I suspect that rapists, for reasons known only to themselves, will carry on raping until the sun swallows up the earth. Well before the existence of violent music and television shows, filthy jokes, and slut-shaming, there has been rape. Feminists are hard-pressed to demonstrate a correlation between the emergence of violent movies and the frequency of rape. I hope nobody will dispute the fact that rape is a particularly horrific crime and I support any measures that attempt to mitigate its occurrence. If we wish to stop rape or sexual abuse then I believe scientific research is necessary to determine the real causes and motivations for rape. The theory of rape culture does not offer any satisfactory explanations in this respect and amounts to little more than an elaborate feminist conspiracy theory. To believe that rape is the result of certain kinds of entertainment, or dirty jokes demonstrates a very narrow understanding of human motivations. 

Although, the feminist depiction of our world would suggest otherwise, few people in our culture today seriously advocate rape. Rape culture conjectures not only that things like sexual jokes and violent movies normalize rape, but that they were conceived by men for that very purpose. In this way, rape culture resembles a tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory. There is no substantial evidence to suggest that men are conspiring to create entertainment or are disseminating ideas for the purpose of raping women. I am a man. Based on my experiences with others throughout my life, I can say with honesty that we are not conspiring to rape women. Most men, including myself, believe that rape and domestic violence are terrible. Wife-beaters and rapists are cowards. Only a minority of extraordinarily twisted individuals believe that raping or abusing women is a good thing. Thankfully, few people lend these views sympathy when they are expressed in public.  The belief that men are all secretly perpetuating sexist norms for the sake of abusing women is absurd and stands testament to the paranoid and unscientific tendencies of feminist ideology.

I can already tell the feminists will be quick to counter my point by claiming that sexism is being conveyed to us implicitly through entertainment. Feminists like Anita Sarkeesian and Suey Park are always analyzing entertainment through a feminist perspective, revealing messages or “tropes” which they claim instil sexist attitudes into our minds. I have heard them claim that the shitty Robin Thicke song Blurred Lines justifies rape if you interpret the lyrics a certain way. I have heard them claim that the so-called Bechdel test reveals the poor representation of women in films. There are countless other examples of things feminists believe to be encouraging rape—from Twitter hashtags to photo memes. The problem with ascribing all these things to rape culture is that the attitudes which feminists find so offensive are the product of sexual dimorphism and not some patriarchal conspiracy. When a man portrays women as an object of his attraction and sexual desire, it is not because he was conditioned by some TV show he saw, but because of innate biological imperatives urging him to get laid. Men want to have sex with women. You don’t need some elaborate feminist doctrine to explain why men want to get their dicks wet. It’s just human nature. Sexually suggestive songs don’t explain why men objectify women any more than an advertisement for McDonalds explains why humans ingest food. I am afraid that if you actually believe Robin Thicke is a harbinger of unquenchable male lust, you may need to revise your calculations.

These women are clearly rape culture shills.

Then from whence cometh rape culture? If the tenets of rape culture do not stand up to serious analysis, then why do so many feminists and people like Zaron Burnett keep propagating it? As I have already argued in a previous post, many feminist doctrines such as privilege and rape culture are mechanisms by which to impose guilt on men. In this way, it is similar to the Catholic doctrine of original sin. If you can make someone feel guilty for something, you can bend that person to your whim if they believe it will absolve their guilt. You may or may not have actually eaten the forbidden fruit, but you still suffer the consequences of Adam and Eve. You may or may not actually be a rapist, but you should think of yourself as one. Just like receiving the Eucharist will keep you in the Pope’s good books, submitting oneself to the feminists will lessen one’s culpability in regards to rape. I can safely say that anyone who tries to make you feel guilty for something you have not done is not looking out for your best interests. Men like Zaron Burnett who willingly accept the guilt that feminists impose upon them are enlisting themselves for a perpetual and thankless servitude as sexually-emaciated peons. Rape culture is male guilt. Seeing as though feminists do not take kindly to men who dare question the existence of rape culture, this purpose should be clear. 

Rape culture is not a reliable framework for understanding or dealing with rape. Its premises are not corroborated by evidence apart from the narrow feminist worldview and it imposes guilt on all men for their sexual desires. Rape culture does not attempt to mitigate the occurrence of rape at all, since those individuals who commit most of the rapes are not likely to be persuaded by feminist theory. Sexual assaults should be investigated and prosecuted like any other crime, instead of attributing their occurrence to vague patriarchal power structures. To those women whose opinion of men has been warped by the notion of rape culture or by feminism in general has my sincere apologies.