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Why men rape

Jill

1 in 3 men in South Africa admit to committing rape; 78 percent of men said they had committed some act of violence against women.

Two-thirds of the men surveyed in that study said they raped because of a sense of sexual entitlement. Other popular motivating factors included a desire to punish women who rejected or angered them, and raping out of boredom, Jewkes said.

It’s standard knowledge on a feminist blog that rape isn’t about sex; it’s about power, entitlement and violence. It’s about keeping women in their place, and keeping women as a class fearful. It’s at least a step forward that large media outlets are catching on, and aren’t characterizing rapists as simply sex-crazed maniacs.

89 thoughts on Why men rape

  1. I’m begining to wonder if we should just give up on this generation of men and keep them under perpetual house arrest. Even in the good ol’ USA, I don’t dare venture outside after dark most nights, and I always wonder if I’m going to have to ‘dispose’ of one of my little sister’s guy friend or boyfriend. Because if anything happened to her, my mom or my friends, I would find whoever hurt them and hunt those animals down. Heck, I don’t even dare show physical affection toward my male family members.
    In short, I wish men would stop being so rapey, ’cause this suit of armor chafes like a bitch.

  2. Politicalguineapig:
    I’m begining to wonder if we should just give up on this generation of men and keep them under perpetual house arrest. Even in the good ol’ USA, I don’t dare venture outside after dark most nights, and I always wonder if I’m going to have to ‘dispose’ of one of my little sister’s guy friend or boyfriend. Because if anything happened to her, my mom or my friends, I would find whoever hurt them and hunt those animals down. Heck, I don’t even dare show physical affection toward my male family members.
    In short, I wish men would stop being so rapey, ’cause this suit of armor chafes like a bitch.  

    Personally I think the answer would be nuclear holocaust. People would be too busy rotting from the inside from radiation poisoning to be able to want to, let alone actually rape anything.

  3. I’d be interested to see a study like this done on a larger scale. While I don’t doubt the high incidence of rape in South Africa, I don’t think we can conclusively state that “1 in 3 South African men have committed rape” – the survey only studied 487 men in a single province of the country. Given the population of South Africa, that’s not a very large sample. What’s more, the AP article doesn’t give enough information about the study itself to determine how it was conducted, who was surveyed, how the subjects were chosen, etc.

    I wish they could’ve at least linked to the survey itself so we could examine it further. Has anyone managed to dig up the survey somewhere?

    Not to be overly nitpicky or anything. I do understand the general point–the levels of rape in South Africa are out of control.

  4. Sorry–just realized that the Feministe and AP pieces only discuss how many men have admitted to committing rape, not how many have actually committed rape (I am sure the numbers are different). That changes my argument a little bit. Still, I’d like to see a larger/more thorough study, as well more information on the study in question.

  5. David: Ha-ha. The cure is much worse then the disease.
    But, seriously, I’m now wondering what the cause is. The rape rate in South Africa is ridiculously high. Are South African men unable to imagine that a woman could want to walk down the street without being raped? Is it anxiety about AIDS or the economy? Or just that they haven’t gotten the religion out yet?

  6. Politicalguineapig: I’m now wondering what the cause is. The rape rate in South Africa is ridiculously high.

    The article talked about the fall of apartheid, abuse and the lack of social controls as potential causes…which leads me back to my incredibly depressing thesis that in the absence of social conditioning people re-enact scripts of dominance over anyone that they perceive as weaker (in any sense). Intellectually, I know that many of these men are suffering from their own abuse and need help, but emotionally I wished they’d all disappear from the face of the earth.

    I think I’ll go find myself a nice little uninhabited island somewhere…non-rapey men and women can come join me. We’ll call it the Isle of Not Committing Atrocities. I’ll bring the sunblock, the hard limeades, and all seven seasons of DS9.

  7. Politicalguineapig, I get your frustration, but I trust my male family members and I don’t think “keep them under perpetual house arrest” is very productive or fair.

  8. Dang, CBS has really been doing some incredible reporting on the issue of rape for a while now! Remember their in-depth reporting project on the backlog of unexamined rape kits in the US? http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/10/cbsnews_investigates/main5605770.shtml A lot of the articles and videos associated with that project did a decent job of discussing acquaintance rape and how common it is. It’s pretty impressive to see a mainstream network challenging myths about rape head-on.

  9. I agree with Medea.

    I’m already deleted one comment advocating violence and forcible bodily modification as a solution. Let’s try and keep this conversation productive and me not throwing up, if you please.

  10. Woah.

    “Why Men Rape” is one of the most hateful, gendered titles I’ve come across in a long time.

    Not all men rape. Many men are victims of rape. Many women commit rape.

    Rape is a complex problem that doesn’t have a simple cause or a simple solution.

    It would be another step forward if boutique feminist outlets stopped characterizing “men” as the problem that feminism is attempting to solve.

    In short, if the policies feminists are proposing are continue to place blame for rape in masculine identity itself, advocate permanently imprisoning men or killing all men with nuclear weapons then very little, if any progress will be made on the salient issues.

    There is a complex matrix of race, class and gender issues involved in rape in South Africa and everywhere in the world. Let’s start to take that seriously, yeah?

  11. Spencer, two rules of commenting might be helpful to recall here: (1) don’t wildly misread what is written and (2) if it’s not about you, don’t make it about you.

    The title does not say “Why ALL men rape.” It says “why men rape.” Which men? Presumably, not ALL men: just those who are rapists.

    And going around saying “rape is more complicated than just men raping women,” especially in the context of South Africa, is not going to get you any points except in the “disingenuous trying to obfuscate the obvious issue” category.

    And anyone who uses the words “boutique feminist outlets” doesn’t deserve a response. But wev.

  13. South Africa has a painful history of violence and abusive power. If South Africa can succeed as a nation it will be against a world that liked it better as it was under Apartheid. White South Africans had a brutal, patriarchal culture, Black South Africans also subjugated women.
    It’s easier to destroy a nation from within than to invade it. Rape destroys trust and instills fear in the next generation.

  14. AIDS has quite a bit to do with it, as do some unusual beliefs about how AIDS is transmitted and also “cured.”

    Many SA men have AIDS. Many SA women will not–for obvious reasons–sleep with someone who is known to have AIDS. Similarly, many SA men–as with most people in the world–act of self interest: they only want to sleep with “clean” women, whether or not they have AIDS themselves.

    Adding to the mix is a set of strange assumptions, including some folks who believe that sleeping with (or raping) a virgin wlll cure aids, and similar sex-related things.

    In general, rape isn’t about sex per se. But of course rape is somewhat about sex, of course; there are reasons why people choose to rape rather than do other equally violent and horrible things, and some of those reasons are sexual in nature. In this case, the society and its mechanisms are really really different than the USian society in which the “not about sex” thing was written. In particular, the issues raised by AIDS and the availability of believed-clean sexual partners probably have quite a bit to do with it, as do many of the “normal’ things underlying rape.

  15. Spencer, are you familiar with the term “concern troll”? You’re sounding a bit like one.

    A significant fraction of the women who read this blog have been raped. Are you suggesting that they not vent their anger anywhere, or are you suggesting that you have some entitlement to dictate where it is they do that? Obviously, your attempt to dictate where expressions of frustration and anger are made is couched as concern that the readership here will alienate some folks and be counterproductive — and that’s virtually the dictionary definition of concern trolling.

  16. I am trying to think of this study as “even when lacking in social controls or negative consequences of rape, and with peer pressure to rape, the majority of men are not rapist bastards.”

    I am not succeeding.

  17. Kristen J: Throw in some Star Trek Voyager, and I’m in.
    Medea: So what’s the solution? Trust that they get that rape is bad? Because like I said, that doesn’t seem to be working very well.

  18. David:
    Personally I think the answer would be nuclear holocaust. People would be too busy rotting from the inside from radiation poisoning to be able to want to, let alone actually rape anything.  

    Are you laboring under the misapprehension that “people” = “men”? Or are you actually saying that *everyone* should be killed in order to stop rapists from raping? I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t really want to be killed for my own good. (Or maybe it was meant to be a joke? In which case, NOT FUNNY.)

  19. I worked in Johannesburg for three months and in fact it was the most sexual-harassment-free three months of my entire adult life.

    Which isn’t the same as a rape rate, and isn’t the same as other people’s experiences there, and is just anecdotal, but still worth pointing out. It was in fact dramatically different from most of my other experiences traveling or living abroad.

    However it’s also very relevant that I am white, and I imagine that an ingrained untouchableness of white women probably exists in South Africa. Not that there is no violence against them, but there could well be a strong current that the ‘entitlement’ mentioned above might apply to assaulting black women, but not white ones.

  20. I’ve actually done pretty extensive research on sexual offenders, and I kind of disagree with the statement that rape is not about sex. Rather, I disagree that it’s never about sex. A handful of offenders do not have the social skills necessary to recognize that what they are doing does not involve consent and is therefore not okay. Those offenders are legitimately looking for intimacy. More often than not, they’re mentally ill. While only a handful and probably not in the segment studied in South Africa, offenders who are actually after sex and closeness are, in fact, out there.

    Granted, I could be misinterpreting and the comment could have been meant solely for those studied in South Africa.

  21. Even though Spencer’s comments slid into concern troll land, I do think it could be relevant to consider raped men and raped trans folks, especially in terms of power dynamics. There is a GLBTQ community in South Africa, even if it’s more hidden, and much less accepted than in other places. And men and trans folks that are raped by other men are part of the overall pattern of rape there. I don’t think including these people diminishes the discussion. Because some of the reasons are probably similar to why men are raping women at such high rates in SA.

  23. U.L.: And some men may be deliberately transmitting it, as per the ‘AIDS Mary’ urban legend. (The woman was infected with AIDS by her last partner and deliberately spreads it to other men as revenge. I can see a gender swap version of the legend in this case.)

  24. A woman was sexually assaulted at gunpoint by a group of teenage boys in a park a few blocks from my house last Wednesday. The fact that I jog there every day when the weather permits really brings it home. I have never been raped, but I still walk through my daily life thinking that it’s just going to happen sooner or later.

    I often modify my behavior because of the constant threat of sexual assault. Personally, I’m beginning to think “perpetual house arrest” and “forcible body modification” are fucking good ideas, if only for the reason that it removes the onus of responsibility from the victim for once.

  25. @ Chuck:
    I really, really shouldn’t dignify your comment with a response, but here goes:

    If you look at any reputable source of statistics about rape, you will find that virtually all sexual assault is committed by men. And no, acknowledging this fact does not trivialize the experiences of male rape victims. If men want to stop being generalized as rapists, then maybe they should STOP RAPING PEOPLE.

  28. Kelsey: If you look at any reputable source of statistics about rape, you will find that virtually all sexual assault is committed by men. And no, acknowledging this fact does not trivialize the experiences of male rape victims. If men want to stop being generalized as rapists, then maybe they should STOP RAPING PEOPLE.

    It doesn’t trivialize it, it just erases it. A lot of those raped men were raped by women, although the law and the parody of a justice system we have doesn’t even recognize it as rape, or were raped as children by women, which is only recently getting any reaction other than laughter.

    Garbage data in, garbage conclusions out, so that ” reputable source of statistics about rape” is about as reliable as rape statisitcs from the Jim Crow South. Because white men never, ever raped black women, or white women never ever lied about sex with black men.

  29. For the love of….

    No, not all men rape. Yes, rape is a socialized tool of domination that is likely not intrinsic to men, but rather reflective of masculinity. Yes, women can and do rape men and boys which is under-reported for various reasons, which has anything to do with this post where the men and boys in SA are raping women and girls at an incredibly alarming rate.

    Why these men and boys are hurting others is relevant…whether women also commit rape is derailing.

  30. Jim, I’m assuming you have some sort of victim-report survey from which you can make some kind of estimate of the prevalence with which adult men are raped by women. Because otherwise you’d be making a big sociocultural generalization based only on anecdotes. You have one, right?

  31. And some men may be deliberately transmitting it, as per the ‘AIDS Mary’ urban legend. (The woman was infected with AIDS by her last partner and deliberately spreads it to other men as revenge. I can see a gender swap version of the legend in this case.)

    Forget about urban legends. I have been involved first-hand in a case of a man in Chicago intentionally and repeatedly lying about his HIV status in order to solicit unprotected sex with the goal of infecting others without their knowledge due to spite and misogyny. Its rare but it happens. Sometimes I really hate this place.

  32. William: I think I sort of remembered hearing about that case, and that’s why I posted that. Yeah, these past few years have really confirmed my tentative hypothesis that people suck.
    And would someone please show the MRAs the door?

  33. I think Kristin’s point of bringing it back to the article is helpful. The reason I brought up men and trans people being raped by men is because I think it adds to the nuance of the patterns being discussed. Some of the same men raping women are also raping men and trans folks, and in all those cases, there is a power-over dynamic at play. The men getting raped are usually marginalized in some way, and trans folks are just plain on the margins. So, it could be quite helpful to analyze these cases together with the women and girls cases, to figure out what’s going on overall.

    For those arguing to include women rapists in the discussion, I think that’s a different discussion. Women rapists don’t have the power and privilege that men do, so suggesting an equivalence here is not only false, but also derailing.

    As for house arrest, forcible body modification, and other practices, they’re already happening to some degree. Maybe not in South Africa, but certainly in parts of the U.S. and Canada at least. All of this kind of stuff is reactionary. It removes those who have already offended, but doesn’t get at the roots – which I think is more important. Longer jail sentences, house arrest policies, and perhaps body mod for serious offenders are probably useful responses for dealing with immediate threats, but if we want to live in a safer, healthier society, looking at the attitudes and patterns underlying, and then working to change them – through our education systems, and other cultural avenues – is vital.

  34. nathan, I just want to voice that I’m uncomfortable that the way you’re phrasing things, which is kind of putting “trans” in a separate category from “woman/girl” and “man/boy”. It’s reading like you think transness is a kind of third gender.

  35. Spencer:
    Woah.
    “Why Men Rape” is one of the most hateful, gendered titles I’ve come across in a long time.
    Not all men rape.Many men are victims of rape.Many women commit rape.
    Rape is a complex problem that doesn’t have a simple cause or a simple solution.
    It would be another step forward if boutique feminist outlets stopped characterizing “men” as the problem that feminism is attempting to solve.
    In short, if the policies feminists are proposing are continue to place blame for rape in masculine identity itself, advocate permanently imprisoning men or killing all men with nuclear weapons then very little, if any progress will be made on the salient issues.
    There is a complex matrix of race, class and gender issues involved in rape in South Africa and everywhere in the world.Let’s start to take that seriously, yeah?  

    Man, stuff like this ruins the fun. I was just making a joke about the extinction of the human race and you have to get all serious.

  36. Chally, if Nathan hadn’t mentioned trans people, then he would have been ignoring and erasing them. Better to include them in the discussion explicitly, I think.

  38. The title does not say “Why ALL men rape.” It says “why men rape.” Which men? Presumably, not ALL men: just those who are rapists.

    Generally speaking, when one cites a group that way, people are going to interpret the “all” as implied. Articles titled “Why women [do something]” where [do something] is a negative thing would, I suspect, get a similar response from women.

    Having said that, I do understand you’re point. I’m just saying, this is an expected and very human response to such a title, and a response that many people in the named group would have to consciously put effort into overcoming.

  39. Thomas MacAulay Millar: Jim, I’m assuming you have some sort of victim-report survey from which you can make some kind of estimate of the prevalence with which adult men are raped by women. Because otherwise you’d be making a big sociocultural generalization based only on anecdotes. You have one, right?

    No, and for the same reason there are not many records of black women raped in the South much before 1970. I thought I made that clear. Police don’t even take reports. The crime doesn’t exist.

    But you go right along with all your smug certainties of who is a victim and who victimizes. It’s curious how much your white knighting is tolerated here, Thomas.

  40. Gender isn’t binary in my view. And some trans people don’t identify as men or women. Many do, but some don’t. I felt it very important to include everyone in the conversation, but I also find that our language presses for binaries, which makes it hard to write in a way that represents everyone. I’ve known a few people that used the pronoun “zer” to address themselves, or others who don’t identify as men or women, but “zer” isn’t a commonplace term in English yet.

  41. Nathan, then, the word you are looking for is non-binary, not trans. As in men, women, and people with non-binary genders, not “men, women, and trans folks”.

  43. Yep, nathan, it isn’t binary in my view, either, and I know that not all trans people ID as men or women. You’re right, it is hard to write in a way that represents everyone, I just wanted to point out that the construction wasn’t representing everyone, clearly not through lack of effort!

  44. Jim, the term “white knighting” is an MRA term of dismissiveness. MRAs have a boys-against-girls mentality that is upset by the presence of men, particularly cis, het men, who see feminism as a positive contribution to the world and to our own ability to live as full people in the world. I don’t know that you mean by “tolerated” unless you’re implying that all the women in the Feministe readership hate men. That is clearly not the case.

    Second, you either misunderstood or dodged what I said. I said victim report surveys. Women, in victim report surveys, report the rates at which they have been victims of sexual assaults. It has nothing to do with whether the police will take the report, and your continued reference to the Jim Crow South is spurrious for that reason. There’s no dispute that there are male victims of rape. There are cis male victims of rape, as children and as adults, there are trans male victims of rape as children and adults, and there are men and women and probably even non-binary folks who have raped men. I know the mods here well enough to know that their experiences are welcome here. But you have not presented such an experience. You have made a claim about prevalence. Now, do you have a victim self-report study from which you can make claims about the prevalence of male rape survivors in the population, or not?

  45. RD: some people use it, there are lots of pronouns in the world. And it’s not like trans people of all genders don’t have a place in this discussion, a space nathan was trying to open up.

    I’m sorry to have derailed, Jill.

  46. Can we not engage in a bunch of demonising of people with HIV, please? Cases of deliberate transmission are extremely rare, and it implies otherwise to be all “I heard of this one time where this dude was giving HIV to people ON PURPOSE!” just because the discussion has touched on HIV/AIDS.

    I don’t think anyone here was demonizing people with HIV. While diliberate transmission is rare, its not unheard of and it is intimately tied into a discussion of rape because, of the dozen or so separate individuals I know who have engaged in that kind of behavior, all were men and all of them followed the basic motive pattern of a rapist. Criminal transmission is a form of rape. It is also one which, in my experience, is virtually never punished because the victims I know of have all been mentall ill women who consented to sex. Thats not demonizing everyone with HIV (hell, several of the victims I’ve worked with ended up with HIV as a result) but the people who use their HIV status to violate others. They are an absolute minority, yes, but they exist and they are only rarely spoken about.

  47. I’ll add that this has become the favorite tactic among MRAs — to argue, with thin or fabricated or no evidence, that whatever violence men commit against women, is matched by women’s violence against men. Not that they’re proposing change. The real goal is to argue that the status quo isn’t a problem and doesn’t need to change.

    Lately, wherever rape is discussed, MRAs show up to discuss prison rape — and it’s great that the issue is getting attention because all prison rape should be stopped. But I don’t see MRA organizations actually doing things like lobbying or protesting; just using the issue as a counterweight to feminist discussion of rape among adults in other contexts.

  48. I wasn’t meaning to demonize HIV- positive individuals. But can we please not pretend they’re all saints.
    Thomas: MRAs are as a rule, all whine, very little action. And since most of them have a rapist’s mindset, they actually care very little about stopping rape, no matter who’s the victim.

  49. Chally: RD: some people use it, there are lots of pronouns in the world. And it’s not like trans people of all genders don’t have a place in this discussion, a space nathan was trying to open up.I’m sorry to have derailed, Jill.  (Quote this comment?)

    Never said otherwise Chally. I actually think my comment was PRO-people who ID outside the binary.

  52. As any South African expat will tell you, that country has a horrific problem with violent crime, and a lot of people with the means to do so are getting the hell out. The problem with rape in South Africa mirrors that country’s problem with other violent crimes. One in three is a frightening statistic, but shouldn’t be extrapolated to the rest of the world, as South Africa is an unusual and very sad case. One of Dr. David Lisak’s study of rapists in the United States found that about six percent of men were rapists, which is still bad, of course, but not nearly as bad as thirty-three percent.

  53. Miguel, thanks for the facts. I don’t keep up with South African current affairs so it is eye opening at the least.

    Personally on the issue of rape the best prevention is multifold: Reducing general crime by improving the economic and social lot of the poor, and practicing more aggressive prosecution and policing of areas. Finally, making the community stand in solidarity against the criminals (and in this case) the rapist.

    If we’re talking about whether it is power dynamic or sexual appetite that motivates the rapist, I argue that it doesn’t really matter. I think its foolish to believe that either of these motivations don’t play some role and regardless, the rapist is still a rapist even without them.

  54. I just want to say this: as a woman who has survived rapes, dabbled in separatist notions of female victimhood and worked in anti-rape activism, I think it is incredibly important to be wary of vilifying and generalizing men when talking about rape. Although men might perpetrate the majority of the violence in this part of SA and where I am from in the states, they are also victims of rape. There are no statistics (in the U.S. at least) that accurately reflect the amount of men and boys who are victimized by sexual violence. We need to respect that fact and not use it against these survivor/victims. We (at least in the states I won’t prescribe things to foreign countries I’ve never set foot in) need to attack the structures and constructions that encourage rape, not men generally. We need to do so in a way that opens conversations by acknowledging male survivors/victims as well as the prevalence of sexual violence directed against transgendered persons.* If we fail to do this we will be denying justice and agency to our fellow survivors/victims. We will be complicit in their oppression.

    * could someone explain non-binary gendered? I’m not getting the politics of that phrase…

    Btw, Miguel, pretty sure it is 1/6 men are rapists in the states if each of them committed 60 rapes… not entirely plausible. check RAINN on that one.

  55. No offense, globalfeminism, but I’m going to give you the kneejerk response: Men don’t care about female victims of rape, so why should we care about male victims of rape? I realize that’s cold-hearted, but the fact is, we need to take care of our own first.

    If male victims are interested in advocating for themselves, I’d encourage it, but from what I’ve seen, some of the most vocal ones take refuge in the MRA movement. Which really doesn’t help anyone.

    And I’d like to point out that men created the cultural narratives and constructions that encourage rape, so I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say.

  56. Politicalguineapig: No offense, globalfeminism, but I’m going to give you the kneejerk response: Men don’t care about female victims of rape, so why should we care about male victims of rape? I realize that’s cold-hearted, but the fact is, we need to take care of our own first.
    If male victims are interested in advocating for themselves, I’d encourage it, but from what I’ve seen, some of the most vocal ones take refuge in the MRA movement. Which really doesn’t help anyone.And I’d like to point out that men created the cultural narratives and constructions that encourage rape, so I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say.  

    Ugh, ack, no. That is all I can muster as a response to that. To all of it – men not caring, male victims not advocating or mainly being MRAs, and men as a group of individuals (as opposed to privileged participants within a social culture) being creators of the cultural narratives around rape (not saying that men don’t have a lot of responsibility and complicity here, but that the way you have described it is absurd). Ugh, ack, no.

    globalfeminism=senselessliberalism: I just want to say this: as a woman who has survived rapes, dabbled in separatist notions of female victimhood and worked in anti-rape activism, I think it is incredibly important to be wary of vilifying and generalizing men when talking about rape. Although men might perpetrate the majority of the violence in this part of SA and where I am from in the states, they are also victims of rape. There are no statistics (in the U.S. at least) that accurately reflect the amount of men and boys who are victimized by sexual violence. We need to respect that fact and not use it against these survivor/victims. We (at least in the states I won’t prescribe things to foreign countries I’ve never set foot in) need to attack the structures and constructions that encourage rape, not men generally. We need to do so in a way that opens conversations by acknowledging male survivors/victims as well as the prevalence of sexual violence directed against transgendered persons.* If we fail to do this we will be denying justice and agency to our fellow survivors/victims. We will be complicit in their oppression.

    * could someone explain non-binary gendered? I’m not getting the politics of that phrase…

    Btw, Miguel, pretty sure it is 1/6 men are rapists in the states if each of them committed 60 rapes… not entirely plausible. check RAINN on that one. globalfeminism=senselessliberalism

    I agree with what you’re saying, but I think it’s still incredibly important to look at the role of men in perpetuating rape culture and that guys who want to help need to be able to accept that talking about rape is not going to be fun and daisies because they’re the “nice guys”, but that they’re going to need to deal with their complicity too and it’s going to be uncomfortable and angry-making, and learning to deal with that is vital. I absolutely think we need to create spaces for male victims as well, very much, but I understand wariness against the way that men’s victimization experiences can and have been used to bludgeon women trying to talk about theirs. This is also a problem.

    We especially need to make space for trans people of all genders to talk about and deal with rape, because they are forced out of spaces from all sides because of cissexism, and subjected to heinous amounts of violence, sexual and otherwise, because of transphobia.

    Being trans/cis and being binary/non-binary are different. Being binary identified means identifying within the binary structure of men/women. Non-binary means identifying outside of or in a different way within that structure (e.g., genderqueer, agender, third gender, bigender, multigender, genderfluid, neutrois, and other ways too). Generally most cis people are also binary-identified, but not all trans people are non-binary identified.

  57. I’m sorry you read mine and William’s posts as a slam to HIV+ people. I was suggesting a hypothesis, and William confirmed it. Most HIV+ people are living their lives as best they can, but they are people, so there are always going to be a few callous douchbags hiding in their midst.

  58. Is it possible that people can discuss a crime against women without derailing about…everyone else? Most victims of rape are women. It happens to other groups, but nowhere near the frequency that it happens to women. I mean, I’m sure a white guy somewhere has worried about being shot for no reason by the police, but I don’t think anyone would need to derail into that in a discussion about black men and police violence. FFS.

    I believe the point about HIV was raised because one theory is that HIV may be directly related to why some men rape. For instance, they believe sex with a virgin will cure them, or they don’t believe they can find a willing partner if their status is known. So, yes, HIV will be part of the discussion about rape, particularly in places with high incidences of rape and HIV.

    If rape is (mostly) about power, how can we counteract that? I do recall a reading in fem theory which explained that rape is less about physical power and more about theoretical and mental power and it also relies on the ‘feminine’ version of fear- freezing. It also pointed out that a lot of prevent rape posters and pamphlets advise women on what to do to avoid being in a position where rape is possible- watch your drink, don’t go to a guys apartment alone, etc. But very few advise women on what to do after someone has already attempted rape- fight back, don’t fight back etc.
    Apparently at some point in history, women were told to allow a man to do whatever he wanted, so they didn’t get ‘hurt.’ In other words, let him rape you, and he won’t break your arm. Now, (more or less) I think the general wisdom is to fight back. Could that be because people used to believe rape was only about sex, and now there Is understanding that it’s about power? This is why knowing why men rape is important, but it only helps on an individual level. How do we get men to stop raping on a societal level?
    What if there was a campaign involving different celebrities in different communities? I’m not very creative, but what if someone like JayZ spoke out about it? I doubt many posters here consider him a role model, but he has a lot of power over younger men. He also has a really powerful woman.
    Just tossing out ideas.

  59. Politicalguineapig: No offense, globalfeminism, but I’m going to give you the kneejerk response: Men don’t care about female victims of rape, so why should we care about male victims of rape? I realize that’s cold-hearted, but the fact is, we need to take care of our own first.

    Nooooooooooo [imagine with an echo].

    Kneejerk bad. Kneejerk means not reasoned. See up there where I was trying to be reasonable…it was so we could not have this argument about men, as a group, being the root of all evil. Now there will be five bizillion posts about men, as a group, not being evil and how patriarchy is constructed.

    It’ll be horribly depressing and undoubtedly painful for the mods who just wanted to point out the atrocities in SA and the reasons some rapists give for committing rape.

  61. I’ll point out that even with the six percent of men who are rapists, far more men tolerate it and excuse it. Their friend would never do such a thing, she was a slut, she’s crazy, she was asking for it, it was a miscommunication, she’s vindictive and looking for revenge. . .blah, blah, blah. These attitudes enable rapists, and you find out very quickly if a mutual male friend sexually assaults you how much credibility you have with your friends. Often it is none if you try to hold the guy accountable.

    It’s not demonizing men to point out that they have male privilege and that their privilege influences the way they look at things like rape, any more than it is demonizing White people that they have privilege and that privilege influences the way we look at, say, racial profiling or police brutality. It’s not embracing “victimhood” to acknowledge that this is a problem. (FFS. Drop that shit, it reeks. Shall we never ever talk about it?).

    I am bone-tired of these discussions getting derailed with a chorus of “what about the men” and “oh, you’re being unfair to men.” Yes, I know men who have been sexually assaulted (by men), and no one here has ever said that men and boys don’t get sexually assaulted. HOWEVER. Far more women have been sexually assaulted–the statistics bear that out, and yes, anectodally, the majority of my women friends have been sexually assaulted. By men.

  62. All right, here’s the reasoned answer: Having men involved in the movement against rape, except at the most peripheral level, would prove harmful to female survivors of rape.Not only do a lot of men fundamentally not get it, they might unknowingly trigger the people they’re trying to help, and some might use the opportunity to hunt for victims among already traumatized women. Also, they’ll talk past the survivors, who are the ones we ought to be hearing from.
    Now can we please get this thread back on track.

  63. I agree that men should be out of the spotlight, and not in leadership roles in any movement. But you know what, when I see comments like yours, it’s really difficult to not just throw my hands in the air and say “I give up.” Because really, there’s no way to transform this shit if we all stay locked in separate camps, deeply suspicious of everyone on the outside.

  64. Politicalguineapig…your comment really doesn’t acknowledge that there are male survivors of rape (yes, mostly by other men). I have at least one male friend who is a survivor so yes I think it is important to acknowledge them too.

    That said,

    and some [men] might use the opportunity to hunt for victims among already traumatized women

    This absolutely happens in “anti-rape” movements…it happens to a really disturbing degree. I think it is sickening.

  65. FYI both the 6% in the us and the 33.3% in SA are not the percentage of the population that are rapists, they are the percentage who ADMIT to being rapists on anonymous surveys. So the percentage is probably higher in both cases.

  67. Miss S…I believe the rape rate for trans people of ALL genders is over 50% in the US/UK. In any case trans people are raped at a higher rate than cis women, and trans women are raped more than other trans people and than cis women. Hopefully you were including trans women when you spoke of “women” but even if you were, it is true that not mentioning trans women specifically does erase the fact that they are raped at higher rates.

    I could not find that specific statistic but I did find this report from the UK on domestic violence (a victim-report survey) that includes these statistics:

    •47% of respondents had experienced some form of sexual abuse from a partner or ex-partner.
    •37% of respondents said that someone had forced, or tried to force them to have sex when they were under the age of 16.
    •46% of respondents said that someone had forced, or tried to force them to engage in some other form of sexual activity when under the age of 16.
    •10% of respondents stated that someone had forced, or tried to force them to engage in sexual activity for money.

  68. Those statistics are for trans people of all genders, not specifically trans women, and I have no doubt the rates are higher for specifically trans women.

  69. Question: My So was just reading over my shoulder and was surprised by something that likely isn’t a coincidence. He recalls that indicates that a third of men surveyed would commit rape if they believed they could escape detection. I think I’ve seen that statistic somewhere too but my googling skills are completely failing me right now. Anyone know of the top of their heads where we’re getting this?

  70. Re: the title: seriously, did no one else see it, read the post, and go, “Ah, a study about male rapists… why, that is talking about why men rape!” I meet the assertion that seeing that headline makes people unable to process anything other than “all men bad, all men rape” with incredulity, I really do. I’m sure there have been articles titled something along the lines of “Why [insert gender here] Murder” and no one ever thought that the article was claiming that every single member of that gender was a murderer.

    @Politicalguineapig: yes, there are a lot of men who don’t get it on a fundamental level. But that doesn’t mean that no man can possibly get it, nor does it mean they all talk past the survivors. I can’t even… arrrg. You know what, if you want to believe that for yourself, that’s fine. B you’re stereotyping SO. HORRIBLY. in a thread about rape that contains insightful comments by men, which is really several kinds of sad. (FYI, you might want to check out Thomas’ blog one of these days.)

  73. Rd I was mostly referring to the people who feel the need to point out, in a discussion of why men rape, that men also get raped or that some men don’t , blah blah blah.
    Men don’t receive advice on how
    not to get raped at a party. They don’t have to worry about what they wear or where their drink is at all times. Some people on this thread are acting like women just want to play the victim card and explain
    how that harms men as though the only concern is how to protect the feelings of men. Others want to give some rape apology bs about Howe those

  74. Rd I was mostly referring to the people who feel the need to point out, in a discussion of why men rape, that men also get raped or that some men don’t , blah blah blah.
    Men don’t receive advice on how
    not to get raped at a party. They don’t have to worry about what they wear or where their drink is at all times. Some people on this thread are acting like women just want to play the victim card and explain
    how that harms men as though the only concern is how to protect the feelings of men.

  76. Niveau: I have been reading Thomas’s comments, and R.D’s and Nathan’s. But they are the only men in this thread who do get it, and they are sadly, very much in the minority.
    R.D.: I mentioned male survivors of rape in the comment before my last comment. I support their advocacy, but not at the expense of women.
    Nathan: Thanks, but I’ll be keeping my prickles up. You must be one of those people who believes that deep down, people are fundamentally good.

  77. given the deluge of comments, I looked around to see if the author of the post had an email address that I could share my story but I’m not getting successful finding one.

    is there anyway to contact the author?

    A.L.

  78. Thomas MacAulay Millar: Jim, the term “white knighting” is an MRA term of dismissiveness.MRAs have a boys-against-girls mentality that is upset by the presence of men, particularly cis, het men, who see feminism as a positive contribution to the world and to our own ability to live as full people in the world.I don’t know that you mean by “tolerated” unless you’re implying that all the women in the Feministe readership hate men.That is clearly not the case.Second, you either misunderstood or dodged what I said.I said victim report surveys.Women, in victim report surveys, report the rates at which they have been victims of sexual assaults.It has nothing to do with whether the police will take the report, and your continued reference to the Jim Crow South is spurrious for that reason.There’s no dispute that there are male victims of rape.There are cis male victims of rape, as children and as adults, there are trans male victims of rape as children and adults, and there are men and women and probably even non-binary folks who have raped men.I know the mods here well enough to know that their experiences are welcome here.But you have not presented such an experience.You have made a claim about prevalence.Now, do you have a victim self-report study from which you can make claims about the prevalence of male rape survivors in the population, or not?  

    I don’t have stats about any of that, but I wanted to mention one thing, going back to one of Jim’s main points:

    No, and for the same reason there are not many records of black women raped in the South much before 1970. I thought I made that clear. Police don’t even take reports. The crime doesn’t exist.

    The crime doesn’t even exist. You may already be familiar with this, but the FBI doesn’t even recognize the fact that men can be raped. This makes accurate reporting of how many women rape men that much more difficult to obtain.

    That’s not to counter the fact that women are the primary victims of rape and sexual assault; I don’t question that. But in light of the discussion between you and Jim, I thought it would be important to point out that we’re not even dealing with a level playing field when it comes to gathering accurate statistics in the first place.

  81. this “concern troll” crap is not cool. It’s being used here as a tool to freeze debate and shut down positive avenues of discussion.

    To title the post “why men rape” clearly establishes men as the perpetrators of rape and women as victims of rape. Not only is this problematic for the reason that it trivializes the issue of male rape (not my main concern), but mostly because it totally displaces framing the issue as intersectional and multifaceted.

    Clearly there’s a problem with rape in South Africa and I’m not “concerned” that the rights of men are being ignored (as if), but that the way it’s being framed actively excludes men as agents of change and targets masculinity as an enemy.

    Trying to find a single cause of “why men rape” ignores the complicated and rich lives of men the world over. There’s no vast conspiracy of men who get together and decide to rape women, there are only individual men located in broader discourses who do so.

    I can understand why separatism is cool in some contexts, but to argue (as many here have) that men should be:
    -castrated
    -killed with nuclear weapons
    -removed from leadership positions
    -unable to participate in rape politics

    One person being raped is too many people. It only matters whether it’s a man or a woman to the extent that those identifications are relevant for dealing with the problem.

    Dealing with the problem of the permissibility of rape requires the concerted effort and focus of both men and women on a huge number of issues including the construction of the identities of masculinity and femininity.

    When people rape, it’s not because they’re evil, it’s because they are also victims of an unjust and unequal society. So the issue isn’t “why men rape” it’s “how does rape become permissible?”

  82. Spencer, to address a small point, as far as the title goes, just because the discussion is about men as the perpetrators of rape, it doesn’t mean that it logically follows the victims are all women. This particular article is talking about men, in South Africa, raping women, in South Africa. I don’t think it’s meant to represent every kind of sexual assault everywhere except as a microcosm to the narrative of rape as power.

    If you feel that rape is an individual and not a systemic problem, okay, but then I think you’d support breaking down rape discussions into men who rape women, men who rape men, adults who rape children, etc, in which case this article should be perfectly appropriate. Otherwise you’re kind of arguing it’s a systemic problem.

  83. You know what makes me throw up my hands? When some overly-defensive d00ds barge in, piss all over the comments threads, completely misconstrue the OP, and completely ignore the cultural, economic, and institutional power than men have. Especially given the fact that many of the women who write for, read, and comment on this blog are rape survivors–rape survivors who often get silencing and shaming lectures from folks who have decided that they must hate all men and the priority should be to work on that instead of heal from their trauma. Rape survivors whose lived experiences are often drowned out by a howling chorus of WHAT ABOUT THE MEN?? Rape survivors who get lectures on How Not To Be Raped. Rape survivors who were violated by friends, relatives, or lovers, who were told that the rapist is a nice guy and that she probably misconstrued it, or that it’s a miscommunication or that he would never do something like that. Rape survivors who have dealt with epic amounts of harassment after the assault if they said anything. Rape survivors who are triggered as all fuck and are lectured to by a bunch of privileged assholes in response–in a feminist space no less.

    Well, fuck right off.

    Yes, men get raped and sexually assaulted. No one said they didn’t. But it is populations with less power and privilege that tends to get targeted for rape. Women, trans people, prisoners (both male AND female), and children. Reporting the crime does not mean that it will be taken seriously, investigated, or successfully prosecuted. Again, see: people with less power and privilege tend to get targeted for rape.

    But hey! That’s just some weird coincidence! We must not ever, ever acknowledge that because it is horribly unfair to men!

    I am really, really tired of having to deal with this 101 bullshit in these threads here.

    1. What Sheelzebub said. The post wasn’t titled “All men are rapists.” It was about an article which demonstrated why men rape women. And lots of men rape women! “Why men rape” doesn’t mean that all men rape, any more than “why people are omnivores” mean that ALL people are omnivores. And you know, quibbling over the title really isn’t the point of this post. It doesn’t mean that men don’t get raped or sexually assaulted — they do, and often by other men. Yes, women certainly commit sexual assault and rape; no one denies that. But that’s not what this post is about. This post is about men who rape women in huge numbers, and it’s pretty shitty and self-centered to come in here all, “But I’m not a rapist! Look at me! I’m great! Not all men rape!” Sure, not all men rape, but all the men who bust into feminist blogs complaining to rape survivors about how it’s so unfair to recognize the fact that a lot of men do rape? I think it’s fair to say that all of those men are self-involved assholes.

      So, thread closed.

  85. Spencer, the first time around, I was entirely charitable. I didn’t even assert that you were a concern troll, just that you came across as one. You took my charitable benefit of the doubt, and decided to remove all doubt.

    I’ll ask you directly: do you believe that you have the authority to dictate to women when and how they may express their anger, fear and frustration over the high rates at which women are raped by men?

  86. This makes accurate reporting of how many women rape men that much more difficult to obtain.

    Oh for fucks sake…

    Look, I’m a male survivor. I’ve known quite a lot of other male survivors. I’m glad people are talking about men being able to be victims too. But lets be realistic here. There isn’t a hidden pandemic of women raping men. Most men who are raped are raped by other men. On the rare instances when that is not the case we’re talking about aberrations, unlikely but isolated events. It is not systematic, it is not part of a larger scheme of oppression, it is not reflective of a broader sociocultural narrative. Men raping women (or other men) is part of a broader system of oppression, abuse, and power. The opposite simply is not true.

  87. And as for your bullshit about how rape is just perpetrated by individual men and isn’t a societal problem, then why the hell is rape known as an unspoken (usually) tool of fucking war all over the world and throughout history? Really sounds like a bunch of isolated incidents right? or how about this quote from the original article that Jill linked to:

    “We need to start interventions in childhood, focusing on building a more empowering childhood environment in South Africa, especially for boys,” she said, “and we need to make it worth their while for women to report sexual violence.”

    Yep, just those pesky individual men doing the raping, it’s not condoned by the current society at all.

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