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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Well, I’ll admit to having had some rape fantasies. Which is maybe weirder for me to have than for other folks, since I’m ace. I not only don’t want to be raped, I don’t want to have any sex with anyone either. So I don’t buy the “oh, it’s just a matter of wanting the sex but also having plausible deniability of being a “good” woman” reason as being the sole reason for those type of fantasies.
Personally, I find that I like the fantasies the same way that I like terrifying, gruesome horror stories. I don’t secretly want to be dismembered either, obviously, but there’s something thrilling about being completely safe and still being able to grab your lizard brain by the stem and give it a good rattle. Like being an adrenaline junkie, basically. I just sometimes want to be able to go “holy shit that was terrifying! Again!” without being in any kind of danger or serious discomfort.
I’ve always interpreted these feelings as the forbidden desire to be subject of someone’s primal passions without pretenses more than being assaulted.
But that’s just me.
Do women really have rape fantasies? I know a common trope in porn is “woman resists at first but then ‘realizes’ she loves it,” but that seems to be more for porn aimed at men. I can’t imagine a woman having fun with the idea of being forced into unwanted sex.
Thinking about this some more (and paralleling the conventional “rape fantasy” to the popularity of thrillers, i.e. most fans of “Die Hard” wouldn’t actually want their loved ones taken hostage, the fantasy is about getting to rescue them) — I’ve concluded that while I don’t have any rape fantasies, I do sometimes indulge in “Successful Self-defense” fantasies. When I’ve witnessed or been subject to micro-aggressions, sometimes I like to picture a scenario in which an aggressor is foolish enough to do something overt, in front of witnesses, who subsequently agree that I was quite right to punch him.
@moon_custafer
Hahahahaha
I am delighted to know I am not the only one who has the “successful self-defence” fantasy. I often imagine disarming a potential attacker in front of awestruck onlookers
(and then everyone in the Dr’s office stood up and clapped)
So umm, yeah, re: “rape fantasies”. Personal/TMI warning for stuff below… Also CW for references to child sexual abuse.
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I used to fantasize a lot about partners doing abusive/rapey things to me. Like, a LOT. I really badly wanted to be controlled, dominated, treated like a pet or an object.
My first serious partner, thank the gods, did not do that. She recognized this for what it was, a symptom of trauma and psychological brokenness, and was fanatically rigorous in asking my enthusiastic consent for everything, and in encouraging me to act as if my consent truly did matter.
As I got more comfortable in a healthy relationship and understood more about what biases I had internalized growing up, and what damage I’d suffered from early trauma, I began seeing my old fantasies as products of those things. Being controlled or forced into things no longer appealed, because all women were deserving of free agency, including myself. Like binding a demon by speaking its true name, seeing these things for what they were – the imprints of trauma – reduced their power over me.
This IMO is where most kink comes from: it’s a way of processing trauma. For me, sexually abused as a child and harassed constantly as a teenager, reliving some of that horror in my own head and under my own volition gave me a paradoxical feeling of control – I was taking that trauma and making it something *I* did, something I controlled, even if the way I did so damaged me further in the long run. Even if it resulted in me reinforcing for myself, over and over again, the idea that I couldn’t say no.
This society is a trauma factory for women. I have met zero women (and zero trans people) who don’t have some level of sexual trauma. That is a lot of shit that we have to deal with, and being humans we tend to get kinky about it, with very variable degrees of understanding or self-awareness about our kinks.
Ever notice how people’s kinks and triggers tend to be similar? This is why. Even when we appear to want abuse, what we truly want is to experience our lives – even the very worst, most damaging parts – on our own terms. Even those of us who, on a conscious level, don’t know that yet.
@Moon_custafer, @Violet
Oh gods, me three.
@ThatGuyWithThe3DS There are some that do. As Custafer mentioned above, it can be a way of assuaging guilt of one’s own desires by fantasizing that one didn’t have a choice. With the advent of sex positivity that particular reason for having such tends to dwindle. Though rape fantasies can also be a metaphor for something unrelated to sex – basically something that utterly overwhelms you. As with all fantasies, YMMV.
@ Weird Eddie
I think they understand the gist of what they are saying, but not necessarily now they dress it up. That’s largely parroting the language of legitimate academics in an effort to gain some of their respectability.
Gosh, is a troll talking to me? Directly?
o_O
That usually only happens when I’m about to rhetorically eviscerate them. Weird.
Far be it from me to buck tradition, though.
So, uh. I don’t need a citation, because I’m recapitulating the post in which my comment is embedded. So for my citation, uh, look up?
David provides a citation for you, it’s the second paragraph. Inline citations by way of hypertext are absolutely fine for informal papers, which this is.
You’ll notice that the source is actually a primary source too, which is the strongest form of citation.
So, if you are being critical about this blog post – which it seems you’re trying to be! – you now need to point out flaws in David’s argument. You can’t say “give me a citation” because there already is one. If your complaint is that David only has one citation, well, that’s not a flaw in his argument.
I really wish the dudes who waltzed in here with that STEM swagger could actually hold up the show. Would be nice to see for once.
#OP,
I gotta agree with WWTH on this one, I think most actual instances of rape fantasy are just playing out the “so desireable that he/she loses control” fantasy. The one that we’re told from birth is supposed to happen with “true love.” It’s just another aspect of the world we live in, written on our brains whether we want it there or not.
It’s also true that trauma can absolutely play a role in that, too! And that could be a large portion of the people who experience it. There can be more than one reason for a phenomenon.
Love and healing to all of you lovely people <3
Addenda to follow Eddie and Allandriel’s thread,
I think it’s sort of dangerous to go down the road of “are they just making understand’ey noises, but are actually just dummies?” That’s a cognitive shortcut that lets you disregard things you don’t like. And, well, there are all sorts of great reasons to dislike their argument, but you still gotta look at it.
(Fortunately they’re really easy to pull apart, since they’re made of marshmallow and all.)
I dunno, maybe it’s just me. I don’t like claiming people are stupid, even when they’re acting like utter bollards. Probably because people have called me stupid, and including these misogynistic pill-boxes; usually they’re doing so while i’m telling them something objectively true. Then I pull out the science and the citations and they’ll double on down instead of being critical.
Sorta like Nym Trollverson on comment 2. Shouting “cite your sources”, and then following by explaining how he’s going to disregard any sources that might be provided anyways. It’s stupid, yeah, but I don’t want to use the same behaviour as that with them.
It’s probably a personal hang-up of mine! Don’t give it too much thought. That’s just my opinion.
The illustration coupled with the OP reminded me of the classic “Gay, Bejeweled, Nazi Bikers of Gor.”
CW/TMI: back in my single days, I had some very enjoyable experiences with D/s scenes. In retrospect, I think being a good dom is like being a good Dungeon Master in D&D – you have to be willing to put a good deal of effort into somebody else’s good time. If you make it all about *your* good time, nobody will want to play with you.
@Scildfreja
I may be wrong, but I read Nym’s post as being addressed to the anonymous blogger and the commenter (J) in Dave’s post, rather than Dave’s post and your comment. It seems to make more sense that way, given that the anonymous blogger actually includes a couple of citations in the first bit Dave quotes.
That is one heck of a lot of words to say “look what you made me do”.
Women make people then spend the rest of their lives worrying for those people. And worrying for other people and hoping to change circumstances where people are not protected and looked after. They’re also people themselves. You get a better result for all people the more women are treated as people and not objects to be dominated and suppressed. You see what happens when women are excluded from organisations or society; bad organisations and horrid society.
Men can be jerks because we don’t make people in our bodies, we just have fun pulling the rip cord to start them off. Men need women with them as equals so they don’t be jerks and don’t ruin society.
Plus more women graduate from uni and so to exclude them is to waste their efforts in becoming better people. They already take a financial and career hit when they come around to making people because they reduce their personal finances through making then raising those people with time out of their career or inability to do things “expected” in the workplace even though they’ve made people and have to look after them.
The problem is not with women; it’s with men. Men set up their ideal of society with them as the focal point without the realisation that women are society; without them it does not exist. And without their equal participation then it’s a shit society.
All a man has to do to understand the pressures and barriers placed on women is to think “What if I was a woman?”
Also “what would mum think if she read that?” if they decide to write about women on the web. Can you defend what you said if you sat with your mum and she read it then asked questions about your views?
I’d like to see a show like that. Keyboard misogynists confronted by their mums.
@Mikey Sometimes that works, sometimes not – depends on how the guy feels about his mom. FWIW There’s a version of that show idea that was done with cat callers in Peru.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/jan/30/men-tricked-into-catcalling-their-own-mothers-the-video-that-went-viral
I’m with Sally Kohn — it is time to start labeling arguments like this as the hate crimes. They are not talking about sex. They are talking about a line of thinking which justifies violent actions toward a different group.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/12/11/sexual-harassment-should-be-treated-as-a-hate-crime
OT: I suspect this won’t come as a shock to anyone here, but it’s nice to have some proper evidence of the effect the 2016 election had on people’s brains: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/23/trump-clinton-2016-election-ptsd-students-stressful-experience-
@Fishy Goat, thanks for that link!
Cat calling your own mum; what a Freudian nightmare.
Confession, I cat called in high school. I was yanked out of a coed primary school, stuck in an all boys school until late high school, then went back to a coed school. I did not know how to relate to girls as peers. Last I had known if you liked a girl you were mean to them (year four).
So I was mean to them. And that is why I will never go to a school reunion. I cannot live that down.
At least I broke that cycle when I went to uni and finally had female friends that were friends and not just, for some, unrequited objects. It was insanely difficult though if I liked them that way because I’d had formative years away from females which warped my thinking. I also had to accept they couldn’t see me the way I saw them and to just suck that up.
Don’t send your boys to an all boys school; it will fuck them up.
Semi-OT for this post: today’s Ask Amy column has a letter from a guy who committed a sexual assault years ago, and wants to apologize to his victim. I _think_ her advice to the guy is decent, as nearly as I can judge such things.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/askamy/ct-ask-amy-ae-1023-story.html
She promises a follow-up column with reader responses sometime in the near future about whether a truly repentant guy should apologize to his victim, let alone the best way to do so.
@scildfreja
I hope it’s not too late for you to see this:
I think you may have misunderstood me.
I was saying the knucklehead blogger and his hanger on “J” that David was showing us needed to give citations.
Then I was saying that even if they did give citations they would probably be crap because internet misogynists seem to be universally scientifically illiterate.
I’m also not a dude.
@gaebolga,
Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt,
I did notice too late that the rape fantasy blogger gave some kind of citation but I didn’t look into that one because they are always nonsense or something the misogynist failed to understand
Oh lordy, it’s spreading. Yet another man using NPC to refer to people he disagreed with, in a completely different group on a completely different topic than the first man. I normally never see this crap until it’s filtered down to pretty much common parlance that ignores the disgusting origins. That I’m seeing it this quickly in more liberal, human rights type groups is deeply disturbing.
They were a lot more common decades ago but yes, some women still have rape fantasies. However, as someone else pointed out, they’re more about being so desirable someone can’t control themselves these days, while earlier rape fantasies were more about being “forced” to do something a woman wanted to do anyway, but was something “good girls” didn’t do. It can also be a way for some victims to try to work out their trauma in a totally safe arena where they are in complete control. Because really, it’s a fantasy, it’s going to go exactly the way you want it to no matter what it seems to be about.
Meanwhile, to the shock of absolutely no one, Richard Spencer is being accused of physically abusing his wife in her divorce filing: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/23/white-supremacist-richard-spencer-physical-abuse-divorce-filings
Mea culpa, @Nym! I’m terribly sorry. I’ll blame the misfire on not having my morning coffee at that point. Very sorry <3