By David Futrelle
In the hands of a skilled obfuscater, academic jargon can make even the most ridiculous arguments seem almost reasonable. When the obfuscater in question isn’t quite so skilled, you get something like this pretentious bit of pseudo-academic bullshit I recently found via a link on the Men’s Rights subreddit.
The post in question, by an anonymous contributor to a blog called “Cultural Analysis & Philosophy,” purports to explain “Why Feminists Enjoy Rape Fantasies.”
As it turns out, the title of the blog post is pretty much the only part of it that is written in clear, comprehensible English. The body of the post is basically a congealed mass of pseudoacademic drivel that seems deliberately designed to obscure just how completely ridiculous its central premise is.
What is that central premise? The author takes a whack at a thesis statement in the first paragraph. After asserting that feminist women are REALLY REALLY into rape fantasies, our anonymous author says that he (or she, but I’m guessing he) will
evaluate the hypothesis that rape fantasies and feminism are causally connected unconscious compensatory responses of the female psyche to the conflict between the Enlightenment ideal of human equality irrespective of gender and the primordial domination/submission schema of sexual reproduction that pervades the animal world (Janicke 2016; Terranova 2016).
In plain English, what the author is suggesting is that women pretty much all want to be dominated, but can’t admit this to themselves because they mostly also purport to believe that men and women are equal. So their deep, dark desires to be dominated slip out in their sexual fantasies.
But the post actually gets much worse than that. The author implies, without every quite saying so explicitly, that female rape fantasies only arose after the advent of feminism, declaring that “[n]o practitioner or researcher has reported such fantasies prior to 1940s.” Never mind that “scientific” sex research is a relatively new phenomenon and that women may have been reticent in talking about these fantasies with dudes in white coats — if these dudes even asked the right questions to begin with
No, as the author sees it, female rape fantasies happen because of the alleged conflict between women’s desire to be dominated and a world in which women aren’t being dominated as much as they secretly need to be. Because of the Enlightenment and all that equality stuff that came along with it.
A plausible explanation could be that the biological predisposition of females to surrender produces rape fantasies only under certain conditions, for example, if a relevant set of biologically conditioned needs of a female are not satisfied in a given social-environment.
It may be hypothesised that the high prevalence of eroticised rape fantasies is the result of cultural changes that originated in the Age of Enlightenment: the idea of universal value of humanity and the essential equality of sexes.
Eventually, after taking the Enlightenment Pill, societies even start to question “the culture of male dominance and aggression,”ultimately leading “to the rapidly declining testosterone levels in the male population.” Which is the polite way of saying that the Enlightenment made the real men who built Western Civilization into a bunch of soyboy cucks.
And so women not only turned to rape fantasies; they also conjured up feminism, not because they wanted more equality but because they wanted less of it. Feminism, the author suggests, is basically a convoluted (and mostly unconscious) strategy to provoke real men into taking charge again.
Naturally, the blog’s author eases us into this incredibly dumb argument slowly, using bland and evasive academic jargon to try to disguise what exactly they’re doing.
The conflict between the conscious ideology of female empowerment and the unconscious libidinal predisposition to select for a dominant sexual partner may have prevented conscious realisation of the problem. On this picture, contemporary feminism could have evolved not because women were excessively dominated but because in some critical respect they were not dominated enough.
So how do these secretly domination-desiring women get the amount of domination they really secretly want? With some “unconscious libidinal provocation.”
In other words:
The female psyche may have driven those women who are the most psychically conflicted about dominance/submission to continuously escalate the feminist rhetoric, making increasingly bold and even unjust demands in order to elicit a corrective response from the opposite sex.
So there you go: our anonymous author is seriously suggesting that feminism pushes ridiculous “and even unjust demands” that are designed to “provoke” men into a backlash that will put women back in their place, which is where they really want to be anyway. Even if feminists are too confused to realize that this is what they’re doing.
After this assertion, the author backs up a little and spurts forth several paragraphs of evasive academic jargon that seem to be designed to give them wiggle room if anyone ever wants to challenge their ridiculous “hypothesis.”
I don’t think they deserve any wiggle room whatsoever. If you’re going to say something this stupid, own it outright, and say it in clear English. No amount of academic jargon is going to make what you said any less ludicrous.
The “Cultural Analysis & Philosophy” blog claims, amazingly, to be an “ideology-free zone” devoted to “objectivity” and “scholarship” and “non-partisan political analysis.” But if you want to see the sort of person that this kind of “philosophy” appeals to, all you need to do is to read the comments — all two of them — that have been left in response to the post so far. One of the commenters simply jokes that they would have expected a post with this title to have gotten more pageviews.
The other, well, let’s just say he doesn’t hide the true nature of his opinions in academic jargon. “I think you’re over shooting,” writes J.
I’ve dated feminists, and all of them had rape kinks, but I think it’s more just an issue of narcissism. Women hate men because men accomplish more than women can. It’s that simple.
Come on, J, tell us what you really think!
Women hate that men are more than them, so they invent fantasies about “glass ceilings” and female oppression to explain why women cannot match men in most fields of human endeavour. And the result is that women learn to enjoy hating and abusing men as a way of compensating for their feelings of inferiority. Those feelings will never abate, since they come from within, not without. Therefore until humanity is willing to be honest about the fact women are not equal to men, the whole thing will go on until we are all completely destroyed.
J may be an altogether reprehensible human being. But at least he’s not trying to disguise his hate in pseudo-academic doubletalk.
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Gosh, you mean women secretly *want* to be raped?
Golly, science-dudes, I ain’t ever heard that one before.
Sure ain’t a thing what a rapist would say!
Citations needed for both blogger and commentor.
I like it when these types actually do give citations though because when you look into them they are
A -crap sources with credibility
B -actual peer reviewed primary sources that say absolutely nothing that corroborates their claims but they have no scientific literacy and completely bungled comprehension of the articles
As a feminist who’s actually BEEN raped, and who is not “psychically conflicted” in the least, and has done nothing to “elicit a corrective response” from the guy who assaulted me, I can confidently state that the above is pure assfax. 180º removed from the truth. In short, BULLSHIT.
And no, I’ve never fantasized about rape, either. Because the real thing wasn’t atavistic fun, it was a “WTF, dude?” moment that I’ve been working damn hard to make sure is NEVER repeated. Thanks to the fact that I’ve BEEN raped, I know damn well that I do NOT want to be dominated sexually, EVER. Not even in a thoroughly scripted role-play scenario. Nope, nope, nopity nope, NOPE.
Is that clear enough for our assfaxing misodge?
So, someone tried to asassainate George Soros with a mail bomb and Cheeto Benito just called himself a nationalist. What a great day in a day country.
Hello, huge assumption stated as a fact!
First of all, “pervades” isn’t the best word for this argument. The author wants to argue that male domination is the majority situation. I could say truthfully that the letter “m” pervades the English language, but it’s not the most common letter.
Second, and more crucially, “domination/submission scheme” isn’t defined. Does it refer to which animal appears to be in charge socially? You can find lots of examples where the male is the “dominant” one, as in lions, but not every animal follows this pattern. Or is it animals’ roles in raising children? You could say that, for many animals, the mother is the “dominant” parent.
Meh, could just mean sex positions. There are human cultural tropes that associate being “on top” (in general) as being more powerful. But what evidence do we have that animals think that way? And not all animals mate the same way. Sometimes they don’t even touch – one deposits eggs and the other fertilizes them. Who’s the dominant one in that scenario?? How can you tell???
Also, the trope that associates penis/vagina with active/passive is another cultural one. You could easily find reasons to reverse it. That’s been done, too. One example: in the story “Erostratus” by Sartre, a man is afraid of sex with women because he sees the vagina as something that dominates the penis by enveloping it. (And then the guy threatens a prostitute and finally kills a random stranger. Clearly he’s acting out so that women can retaliate by dominating him as nature dictates. (/s))
…And there’s a whole lot more wrong with the argument, but I’m tired.
Meant to write “schema” not “scheme.”
While we’re at it, a Very Silly Music Joke in the key of F:
Q: What did the B flat say to the C?
A: “I’m not into the whole dominant/subdominant scene.”
You missed a trick there with the speech bubble, David!
You could have put in ‘Please mansplain feminism at me again, alpha man’.
That would have been awesome.
And is it just me, or is the whole ‘women are icky and have cooties’* thing a bit sour grapey?
*That’s the politely worded version of what members of the manuresphere actually say!
It’s kind of funny how my rape fantasies slowly disappeared as I became more of a feminist, then. They were never really serious to begin with, and I was always really the one in charge in them, it was always just the illusion of rape. Which is what studies of those kind of fantasies have shown is true for the majority….. What can I say, I read all 3 books by Nancy Friday on women’s fantasies. Which, surprise surprise, also showed rape fantasies becoming rarer with gains in feminism.
Also OT again, but I just saw someone seriously using NPC to refer to other posters in a post on Humans of New York on FB highlighting people who were part of the genocide in Rwanda.
Clearly, this diatribe is simply an attempt to invite a corrective response from decent people. This guy desperately wants to be called a vicious, dirtbag rapist. I for one will be happy to accommodate him.
Yes, what really scares me about guys like this is their complete failure to understand the separation of fantasy and reality. A rape fantasy (which is a not uncommon thing to have) is very far removed from a desire actually to be raped and anyone who isn’t aware of that is a potentially very dangerous individual.
Also, the contention that “no practitioner or researcher has reported such fantasies prior to 1940s” is extremely suspect. Yes, as the above points out, scientific sex research didn’t really exist before then, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no source material. The pre-twentieth century era was never lacking in huge amounts of erotic art and literature (including a reasonable amount produced by women). Could you really look at the content of all of that and say that it contained no suggestions that rape fantasies were popular in past centuries? The general perception seems to be more that, in published erotic romance novels, rape and dubious consent stories have become less popular over the years as society has become more equal.
the author isn’t smart enough to differentiate between fantasies dreams/ nightmares, and seeking to be an actual victim of sexual assault in real life- incredibly dim.
the levels of self-deception reaches into uncharted dimensions. His clumsy obfuscations show that he already knows how weak his crap-fu is. however he’s dull and somehow has fooled himself that he has the chops needed to sell this unmitigated garbage.
This shit just pissed me off- or was that the authors secret motive the whole time? Get the bore worms!
So much projection; so little time to clean up this patriarchal mess
I’ve dated men’s “rights” “activists” (MRAs) (what was I thinking!), and all of them had rape kinks, but I think it’s more just an issue of narcissism. MRAs hate women because women accomplish more than MRAs can, and they do it while raising children, looking after their elderly parents, whipping up gourmet meals from leftovers, and knitting birthday presents on their lunch hour. It’s that simple.
MRAs hate that women are more than them, so they invent fantasies about how women’s shelf life expires at 25 (or is it 15?) and how men are oppressed to explain why MRAs cannot match women in any field of human endeavor. And the result is that MRAs learn to enjoy hating and abusing women as a way of compensating for their feelings of inferiority. Those feelings will never abate, since they come from within, not without. Therefore until humanity is willing to be honest about the fact that MRAs are not equal with women, the whole thing will go on until we are all completely destroyed.
Or until feminists seize the reins of power and end the politics of patriarchal insecurity and greed. In this way we will ensure that life on Earth continues and flourishes.
I can see a number of flaws in this
1) people were incredibly sexist and rapey before the rise of feminism, so if we liked it so much why didn’t we just stick with it?
2) I am a feminist who is also into being dominated in the bedroom and I have absolutely no problem reconciling those two things. It is perfectly possible to live out a sexual fantasy with someone and then go back to being total equals two hours later. What happens during sex doesn’t have to mean anything about how you treat someone the rest of the time.
3) “Domination” does not equate “rape” and I find it interesting that this guy thinks it does. I have no interest at all in pretending to be raped, never have done, I’ve been raped and it was not at all sexy. I just like being ordered around.
I lamost laughed at how horribly out of context (saying the opposite usually) and/or stupidly outdated, ridiculous or irrelevant those ‘references’ were. Someone clearly not the best student, if they ever were/are one.
Where did the notion that feminists are more likely to have rape fantasies even come from? I do think it’s possible that we’re more likely to admit to it than more conservative women, but other than that, it seems like an assfax to me.
Also, I don’t know if research backs me up, but I think a good number of rape fantasies are less about dominated than they are about being so desirable that the man can’t help or stop himself. The myth that rape is the result of a man’s uncontrollable lust is drilled into us from a young age. As is the message that women’s worth is tied in with our looks and desirability. Is it any wonder that so many women are drawn to romance books and movies that feature a male lead being overcome with desire for a female lead? This is the type of rape fantasy that sells to women, not men jumping out of dark alleyways. Not men slipping roofies to women or getting them passed out drunk. Not men whining about blue balls until the women just give in to shut him up. Not male bosses making female employees feel like there job is threatened if they don’t go along with sexual harassment. The Gone with the Wind type stuff is highly problematic, but it’s not what the sadist fantasies of these virulent misogynists probably looks like.
^
A lot of the Harlequin/Mills and Boone ones also strike me as “plausible excuse” fantasies, i.e. someone who harbours guilt about their desires might need their fantasy to include a framework of “I had no choice but to do it.” Similar to the “characters are trapped together in a cold environment and must cuddle for warmth” fantasy, or (substituting violence for sex), the “zombies/aliens/terrorists attacked and I had to defend myself” shooting fantasy.
Hi, everyone. Long-time reader, first-time commenter. J’s little theory at the end there is just so goddamned ignorant that I couldn’t help but chime in.
My first boyfriend – who I dated when we were teenagers – is a supergenius. He’s exactly the kind of person (and maybe literally one of the actual people) that people like J like to point to when they say that everything worthwhile in the world has been done by men. His whole life, from 20+ years ago when I knew him until today, has been a long string of high-profile achievements, awards, and accolades. He’s a prominent academic who’s revolutionizing his field.
He’s also a very bad man. I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately (because indelible in the hippocampus and all that). And among a whole raft of complicated emotions that I won’t go into, I do kind of envy him. I do kind of hate that he’s accomplished more than I have, that he’s achieved a level of recognition that I never will.
But here’s the thing. There was a time in my life when I did have the potential to achieve that – maybe not quite what he’s done, but close. But genius-level achievement takes an enormous amount of self-esteem and confidence: You need to believe that you have it in you to do the genius thing before you actually set out to do it. And he took that from me. Not permanently, thankfully, but for long enough to really throw all my big plans for myself off the rails. (Don’t feel too bad for me. I did turn out all right.)
I mean, J’s theory is goddamned ignorant for all kinds of reasons. You only get to say that everything worthwhile has been done by men when you define everything women have done to be not-worthwhile, and when you ignore all the ways men exclude women from the supposedly worthwhile endeavors. I guess my story is just another one of those ways that doesn’t get a whole lot of attention.
Yes and that’s why they’re actually less and less popular in Harlequin type romances than they used to be, because women feel less need for an excuse for their desires in a more liberated age. The literal opposite of this guy’s nuts (and unsupported by evidence) thesis.
Of course you still get stories like that, but part of that is that these tropes are kind of baked into the genre by now and some people enjoy them as fantasies because they’ve been enjoying these genre books for years.
And, equally, the tropes of paranormal/supernatural stories with mind control/suggestion, hypnosis, love potions etc. None of this means that the person who enjoys those fantasies wants to have something slipped into their drink to make them suggestible in real life!
I think feminist women might be more likely to identify their fantasies as rape/nonconsensual?
Anyway, it’s not clear whether the author has based this on more than vague conflation between “only modern women have rape fantasies”(a dubious claim as such) and “modern women tend to be more feminist”(hardly true, compared to their own contemporary status quo).
Even if rape victim/submissive fantasies and feminism were both expressions of some subconscious limit seeking, I’m not sure they’d necessarily manifest in the same individuals.
I know little about psychology and don’t really understand the concept of subconscious limit seeking, but the idea that this would mostly manifest as feminism in women seems far-fetched. Wouldn’t you rather expect women to engage in personal conflict with authority? Like picking fights with men, or perhaps with random people.
@ Nym;
here ya go:
“Everyone knows…”
“Nuh uh!”
citations given (apply as needed)
In more local (ish) news:
https://www.kansas.com/news/business/article220286260.html
What this fool (and so many others) fail to grasp is that no living human being is as utterly compliant as an imaginary male in a ‘rape fantasy’. Tell the dude to jump out at you from behind a bush and he says ‘How high and btw, what color would you like my hair on this fine evening?’
Anyway, what exactly is the aspect of traditional patriarchy that satisfied women’s supposed need of being dominated? Are there specific aspects of patriarchy that would suppress either feminism or rape fantasies or both?
In other words, what response exactly do women (subconsciously) want when they engage in feminism? What mostly happens in practice seems to be that you get called a humorless bitch and a man hater. I understand women don’t usually fantasize about that.
And how about those rape fantasies? Being usually rather private, it doesn’t seem like limit seeking or rape seeking behavior at all. At most, when these fantasies enter popular culture, they obfuscate our ideas about consent and promote rape culture. Not very goal oriented behavior, if we assume that women subconsciously want to be raped.
Do women behave sexually in a way that obfuscates their personal consent and sexual agency and invites rape on them personally? Stereotypically they often do, but feminism in particular has called this stereotype mostly unfounded (as well as the stereotype on how common and realistic women’s rape fantasies actually are), while pushing back against rape culture in other ways.
The pseudo-academic jargon reminds me of the lengthy and incomprehensible “feminist theory” stuff that TERFs put out to cloak their transphobia.
There always seems to be a correlation between how incomprehensible someone makes their argument and how bullshit the argument is revealed to be when put in plain language.
@ Allandrel;
https://www.marketplace.org/2014/04/30/education/computer-program-write-your-essays
from Wikipoedia “Chinese Rooms”;
Corespondingly, does the O.P. really understand their argument (and argumentation in general), or are they merely simulating understanding of their argument (and of argumentation in general)??
I make the point facetiously, but the question IS valid, do these people really understand what they are saying, or are they merely “parroting” words which simulate understanding…???
@wwth
I think there’s a couple tropes that lead to this idea. Been watching some Bond films lately and Goldfinger was definitely leaning on the “Pussy Galore == lesbian” trope without outright saying it the way Fleming did in the book. As such, it was on Bond to “convert” her to straightness via flat-out sexual assault… which she then enjoyed and became Bond’s ally.
“Lesbian == man-hating feminist until converted” is a well-worn device from some of the ugliest exploitation films of the 70s and 80s to even the prejudices of characters in the 90s (thinking Chasing Amy’s Banky Edwards). Weirdly enough, I also saw this trope on display watching the Cinema Snob review a porno spoof of Friday the 13th Part V, where Nina Hartley is a stereotypical “man/porn-hating feminazi” who wears librarian glasses and derisively says “MAAAAN” to the male actor until sex breaks out and she goes from staunch feminist to a willing prostitute complete with stereotypical pimp. Seriously.
There’s always been a desire to “bring women down a peg or two” if they become too “uppity.” If in portrayals of this trope, the woman is shown to “enjoy” it during and after the fact, it allows the audience an out to still consider the perpetrator a “hero” or at the very least not look at him as a rapist.
@Kerith of Makor
First off, welcome! 🙂 I just wanted to highlight this particular sentence because I’ve seen this phenomenon everywhere. If it’s not mammoth hunting, it’s “we built civilization.” By which they mean literally “men built all the structures that we see today.” But then the question becomes “what do you mean by ‘built’?” The workers? The designer? The funder? It’s an obnoxious rhetorical trick they use to reduce the credit for achievements to one or two people, usually at the top of the hierarchy, which is likely to be a man in a patriarchal society.