RawStory has a piece up highlighting The top 5 rape apologist reactions to the Steubenville rape verdict. It’s well worth reading. As the author of the piece, Emily Mullen, notes:
The Steubenville guilty verdict spawned nearly as much rape apology as the original news of the case did, highlighting the point — made by feminists like Zerlina Maxwell and Jaclyn Friedman — that America has a long way to go before it gets past blaming victims and sympathizing with rapists.
I haven’t yet run across any reactions in the Manosphere to the verdicts, but I’m sure we’ll see some in the next few days. If you run across anything especially awful, in the Manosphere or outside of it, please let me know.
Men’s Rights Redditors, currently silent about the verdicts, were up in arms the other day because Reuters was identifying the accused — now the convicted — rapists, while not identifying the victim. Or, as MRAs prefer to put it, the “alleged victim.” Now, as RawStory points out, she is getting death threats.
EDITED TO ADD: More victim blaming online, as catalogued on the Public Shaming blog: First post, second post with more.
Below, Several examples borrowed from Public Shaming. TRIGGER WARNING for rape apology.
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@Sideliner
And even if the legal system decided to call it “sexual assault” or “molestation” or “battery”, we’re not just having a legal discussion. We’re talking about the phenomenon of rape and how to end it, and for THAT discussion it’s all rape and it’s all terrible no matter what divisions the legal system feels the need to draw. As far as I can tell, the legal distinctions have more to do with sentencing than with naming the crime – kind of like how manslaughter, murder and lesser-degree murder all carry different sentences, but all still boil down to “you killed someone”.
@Noadi
And isn’t it funny how rape is considered an appropriate punishment for women who drink, but not for men? It’s almost like it’s not the drinking itself that’s the problem here.
As for the rapists: as Titianblue said, they’re products of rape culture. They were taught that this was OK. Being caught this young and actually found guilty could be the best thing for them: they have a chance to learn better. And as long as we’re talking about futures ruined, let’s not forget that many rapists rape more than once, and I’m happy to trade these boys’ futures (ooh, two years of juvie and having to start college a little later, how terrible) for the futures of the women they might have gone on to rape.
@Falconer – you will sleep again! At least for us it got better at 6 weeks, then even better at 3 months, then a few weeks ago he decided to sleep all the way through (about 11 hours). It’s both felt like forever and like it’s all flown by. Now he’s getting mobile so we’ve got a whole new set off things to worry about!
@titianblue – I agree, society set them up for this in many ways. My dad’s an administrative judge who handles driver’s license suspensions, and he’s constantly stunned at how many high school athletes think he’ll be able to “cut them a deal” so they can keep playing their sport even after they’ve flagrantly broken every traffic law on the books…and he’s not even in a state that has any “big” high school sports programs.
Teaching kids that respect for others is negotiable doesn’t end well for anyone.
Absolutely….and my apologies if I implied otherwise. I just get really annoyed when people start trying to take it down the “legal definition” road when they’re not even correct. You’re right though, it would be awful and wrong no matter how it was classified in a book somewhere, because this is a real person who was really violated.
@Nitram With respect, please give some more consideration to the line of thought you are pursuing there.
The idea that there are “big bad rapists” and “ordinary people” who sometimes rape is itself a part of rape culture. You are trying to express yourself with a measure of grace and compassion, but this line of thought in fact only serves to perpetuate the false idea that there is “forcible rape” or “rape rape” and something else that we still call rape but hedge around suggesting that it deserves some other name.
Yes, these two internalized the message that other people exist to amuse and please them. Acting in keeping with this message, they abused a young woman, displaying a remarkable callousness and lack of basic humanity. Acting as predators, they selected a victim who was both personally vulnerable and in a position where the power imbalance would prevent anyone from standing up to help defend her. They chose to act because they expected no one around them would object (and sadly they were correct, which makes me wonder what their peers have let them get away with before this event).
They committed rape. This makes them rapists. To describe them as anything else suggests that there are somehow “degrees” of rape, that rape is anything but the decision of a predator to prey on someone they have identified as vulnerable. Trying to make a distinction between “big bad rapists” and “ordinary people” perpetuates rape culture by suggesting that only monstrous people commit rape, rather than ordinary people with monstrous ideas. We have to constantly reinforce the idea that it doesn’t matter how “promising” you might be, once you make the decision to prey on someone else you become a rapist. Only that decision is relevant to the discussion.
They committed rape. That makes them rapists.
Rape doesn’t have to involve physical violence or extreme physical harm to still be rape. One of the factors being held against Jane Doe here is that there seems to have been very little direct physical violence, and there is now quite a lot of quibbling about how exactly she was assaulted and whether this ‘qualifies’ as rape (see above in this very thread). All of this quibbling misses the point that the decision to prey on a vulnerable person is the act that makes this rape, not the level of direct physical violence used.
The point is well taken in some ways, as studies have shown that rape is committed by a relatively small number of people, though they do tend to commit multiple rapes (no doubt constantly telling themselves that whatever they may be doing, they aren’t “big bad rapists” but just “ordinary people”).
You need to be careful here, because while I agree that you don’t seem to want to excuse the predatory actions of these two rapists, you are skating very close to a line that we have to be sure to keep bright, despite the constant efforts of rape culture partisans to shade it. Seeking to make a false distinction between “big bad rapists” and “ordinary people” who are ‘duped’ by rape culture is only a slight shift from the false distinction between “big bad rapists” and ‘ordinary boys’ who were ‘duped’ by ‘bad’ girls.
There are a small number of people who rape, and a much larger number of people who are revolted by the very idea. In the middle there are too many people who excuse and apologize for rape. You should take care not to stray too close to that camp.
@Nitram-
I see what you mean, now. I can agree with that.
I want to clarify my above comment, a little. I don’t think the “rapist” label is a problem. But I do think that the way rape is talked about can be made-over in a way that doesn’t divide people into normal people and rapists – such as “Today, two Steubenville football players who raped a young woman were sentenced …” When I talk about rape, I try to incorporate other information about the rapist for the purpose of showing that rapist is one facet of their identity. One facet that was hidden from the view of the rapist’s victims, but was nonetheless there.
I ignored anything about this for the last few days and I wish I had ignored this as well. People suck so much.
Ok, for example if a guy takes me to his house when he is really drunk and passes out. While he is passed out I go through all his stuff, find his car keys and steal his car. He wakes up to find his car missing and calls the cops. Do you think the cops are going to tell him “well you we’re drunk and dumb so you deserve to have your car stolen”? I don’t think so. They are going to try to find me and his fucking car. * I am NOT equating stealing shit to rape, I’m jut trying to demonstrate the fucked up view some people have towards rape and towards this case.
Falconer, Those babies are still adorable; they and the kitty & puppy videos are a nice reminder that there are good things in the world.
That’s the crux of the issue. Making an arguably poor decision to drink to excess does not magically negate any crimes that are committed while you are drunk. That includes crimes that you commit, and crimes that are committed against you.
No worries, Sideliner. I was just taking your comment and running with it.
Unless you’re in possession of a vagina while drunk, in which case everything criminal that happens anywhere in the world during your intoxication is your fault.
@emilygoddess and @sideliner
I agree that discussion ot the legal minutiae is a rape apologists dodge. In the U.S. there are 50 state penal codes and therefore 50 separate definitions, making any internet discussion of the law an easy and very ignorant dodge.
The crux is that rape isn’t sex. The defendents own language on the recording showed that. There was never any discussion of sex, just humilation and degradation of another person as if that was their right. “Where did the rapists get that idea from?” is the question the apologists should be attempting to answer.
Ah crap! I didn’t close the italics block correctly…
And I failed to delete the words “on the recording”
@gillian
“They committed rape. This makes them rapists. To describe them as anything else suggests that there are somehow “degrees” of rape, that rape is anything but the decision of a predator to prey on someone they have identified as vulnerable”
Yes, I see what you’re saying and I do not mean to convey that there are degrees of rape. What I’m thinking is that the term rapist conjures up a mythical figure of the monster in the shadows, and I think that myth needs to shatter for any real change to occur. It just makes me uncomfortable because it feels oversimplified? Again, I’m having trouble explaining myself. I don’t even want to spend anymore time considering these guys. Too much of that going on as it is.
Unfortunately this young girl is getting repeatedly traumatized by all this victim blaming and hurling of degrading insults. The rapists are getting an overwhelming outpouring of sympathy and moral support that should be directed at the victim. How horrible.
@reginaldgriswold
“I don’t think the “rapist” label is a problem. But I do think that the way rape is talked about can be made-over in a way that doesn’t divide people into normal people and rapists ”
Yes, this.
@Nitram (and reginaldgriswold as well)
The key in exploding that myth is not to overcomplicate. Guy hanging out in the bushes = rapist, not because of where he was hiding or what he was wearing, but because he forced sexual activity onto someone. Football player in the backseat of his friend’s car = rapist, not because of what he does in his afterschool hours, but because he forced sexual activity onto someone.
The key in exploding that myth is to remind people that it is a myth. Rapists are predators who use the myth to excuse their own behavior, to argue that they couldn’t be a rapist because they are a “nice” person from a “nice” family and they don’t go around skulking in bushes.
@reginaldgriswold
I just don’t see your point. I’m not concerned with any other aspect of a person’s life when it comes to whether or not they committed rape, because in my experience the only intention behind bringing up other facts about them is to mitigate or explain away their choice to rape (but he was a “good” boy, a homecoming king, a quarterback, her husband, her father, her priest, blah, blah, blah). I do know that plenty of rapists who commit rape repeatedly (and admit it, so long as the word ‘rape’ isn’t used, see the above links) don’t consider and aren’t going to proudly ‘identify’ themselves as rapists to make you feel better about it all.
Part of fighting rape culture is refusing to allow the issue to be clouded. The way to avoid a specious distinction between “rapists” and “normal people” is not to make one. Committing rape makes a person a rapist. What justification they apply to it doesn’t matter.
It isn’t oversimplification, it just really is that simple.
@Gillian
Hear, hear!
Ugh. And I shouldn’t, in my anger and frustration, make the mistake to forget male rape victims, sorry.
@Gillian-
I think it’s important to bring up because people have this idea that a rapist is a slavering beast. That they have a scarlet R on their forehead; that you can see them a mile away.
This isn’t true, and it colors the way people talk about rape. Rapists are out there, in society, being fathers, waiters, and teachers. But how often do you read coverage of rape that says “Oh, well, he or she should have known better to be alone with that monster?” Perhaps you don’t, but I hear this very often on the news or the internet. I think it’s important to continually highlight that these aren’t people who are off somewhere else; they’re here, in your community. Someone can be a librarian and rape someone. Someone can work with your kids and still rape people. It’s not just monsters who are easily identified who are rapists. The only way to fight rape culture is to make it known that literally anyone, whether they’re an athlete or an accountant, can be a rapist.
@reginaldgriswold I know that message is everywhere and I’m sorry you hear it (by which I mean that I am sorry it exists), but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m explicitly agreeing with you that anyone can be a rapist, and I’m only disagreeing that the tactic is useful.
The “even a librarian can be a rapist” message is only going to aggravate librarians and get pushback from people who might otherwise be on your side even though it is actually and demonstrably true. Identity messages are structurally divisive and historically unproductive, and therefore rhetorically unhelpful, especially so because you have conceded to fight on, with respect, the wrong terms. If you go down that road, you’ll be fighting people’s self perceptions and defenses for long before you get to the individual rapist’s actions because no one wants to feel attacked and they will reflexively respond even if they might actually agree with you about the horrible crime of rape.
It is more productive and effective, in my experience, to sidestep the mythology and go directly to the point. “But he was an athlete and a good boy!” “Maybe so, but he picked up a girl and carried her from place to place, offering his friends the opportunity to assault her. He is a rapist and he needs to deal with the consequences of his actions.”
But I think we are talking at cross purposes even though we share some common ground, so we can leave it at that.
@Gillian, I think you put that very well.
@ Nitram
No. A rapist is a person who has raped someone. Referring to someone by a term that describes what they did in a very clear way is not the same thing as buying into the slavering beast myth. In fact, you’ve got things exactly backwards – refusing the label these boys as rapists supports the slavering beast myth, because part of what upholds that myth is the refusal to admit that rape is common and rapists are all around us, just walking around looking like everyone else.
Don’t really have much to contribute to the conversation, but seconding CassandraSays about a rapist is someone who has committed rape. And the whole not wanting to call people who commit rapists rape thing is making me very uncomfortable.