rape, men as potential rapists, fear of

[firecat]

There's an Internet conversation about rape, one post about which is here.

After reading that post, I saw several posts in which a woman said although she intellectually understands that many women fear men as potential rapists, she doesn't have that fear, and she has never been sexually assaulted, either because no one tried or because she defended herself with words or weapons.

I'm really glad that these women haven't suffered sexual assault or fear of sexual assault.

But I don't understand why a number of women are apparently responding to this conversation by saying that they aren't afraid of rape and don't have a general fear of men as potential rapists. Do they feel they should be afraid? I'm getting the impression that they feel not being afraid of rape makes them weird. Maybe that it makes them unfeminine somehow? Is this because our culture sends the message that all women should be afraid of rape?

I'm also not sure what I think about the suggestion that a certain attitude or body language -- specifically, attitude/body language that shows a lack of fear -- can prevent an assault from happening. I think it can make a difference in some situations--maybe a lot of situations. (I gather that it's part of what's taught at self-defense classes.) But I don't think it's any kind of guarantee. I know plenty of people who have a "don't mess with me" attitude/body language who have been assaulted.

(For the record, I haven't experienced sexual assault either. I have feared it in a few specific situations.)

Comments

bah humbug

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

oh, HERE it is what went wrong. ok.

listen: it is NOT derailing when you ponder in your own journal, away from the mainstream of the conversation. it's ridiculous to define that as derailing; that takes all meaning away from the word. the general conversation does not stop flowing because you say something contrary in your own space.

pondering in one's own journal is a good thing. other people can opt in (or not). you're not inserting your musings into somebody else's discussion, you're taking it elsewhere, which is precisely what should happen (and what unfortunately usenet didn't facilitate). and if that bothers somebody, then frankly, they can get stuffed.

i value your ponderings. don't you stop! (yeah, i know that's selfish, but it sounds like you'd be stopping for the wrong reasons.) definitely breathe. *walks off to start making something pretty for you*.

i'm on another train heading south

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

it is most definitely NOT derailing if you riff off somebody else's post and ponder it in your own journal. going off on a tangent is derailing if you do it in the same conversation. but if you're not inserting your comments in the original conversation, you're no longer on the same train; you switched at the last station. you're not derailing anything.

of course if you leave the comment _and_ make it a post in your journal, yeah, then you are derailing. but just taking it elsewhere? hell, no.

people might still get hurt, of course. but that has nothing to do with derailing.

Re: i'm on another train heading south

[snippy]

Well, I obviously don't understand what derailing means, then. The last time I saw it come up, it was about exactly what happened here: making posts in your own journal about an ongoing subject of conversation, the content of which, if considered as part of the original conversation (in situ) would be considered derailing.

So I've been told I was derailing a conversation when I responded to it in my own journal, and now I have other people (not the same as the first set) telling me that it's not derailing at all when people in their conversations do it.

The thing is, I think we're all in agreement that people have the right to do it in their own private spaces (be that their own journals or offline conversation with a friend). It's just that I'm calling it derailing (in line with how my behavior was labeled when I did it) and you're not.

Can derailing only be bad, then?

Re: i'm on another train heading south

[elynne.livejournal.com]

of course if you leave the comment _and_ make it a post in your journal, yeah, then you are derailing.

So what I did - posting a comment, and reposting that same comment in my LJ - is derailing? Or does derailment imply intent? My intention was not to redirect the conversation in another direction, though apparantly I did, because I did not correctly understand the original statement. Derailment by accident (ignorance) is still derailment, yes?

Orrrrr, is it automatically derailing if you respond to the subject at hand and disagree?

I'm wordnoodling, by the way; not upset or offended or anything, just curious, kind of tired, and - curious. And words words words.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Is this because our culture sends the message that all women should be afraid of rape?

In a word, yes. Not as a universal, of course, but that meme is extremely active, and sometimes among the most surprising people.

Try a little experiment sometime. When you're chatting casually with a bunch of mainstream people (as opposed to fannish and/or feminist friends), mention something you did that involved being out by yourself late at night. See how many people will immediately say that you should be more careful, that it's not safe for you to do that, etc.

This is also part of the rape-victim-blaming meme. How many times have you heard the argument that women who go somewhere unaccompanied, especially after dark, should expect to be sexually assaulted? "What was she doing there by herself?" is one of the most common victim-blaming statements.

Variations on this are all thru the culture.

Re: i'm on another train heading south

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

my definition of derailing is to deviate the communal discussion from a set course, direction; to undermine, weaken, divert, sabotage the focus into something one would rather talk about for one's own selfish reasons.

i don't think of derailing as something good for the original train of thought, no (an actual train derailing has no good side effects, unless we're talking about, uh, "freedom fighters", and let's not :). on usenet occasionally a sidetrack would also be useful, but however much i enjoyed some thread drift, if it occurred too early, it usually put the kibosh on the original subject, and that's a pity. however, usenet readers are better software than most web forum software and LJ/DW, so one could at least try to stick with the original subject even if others wandered off. i think derailing is much worse on LD/DW and blogs that don't even have threads.

i can see certain circumstances under which i would say talking about a tangent in your journal after it started elsewhere is derailing -- if you leave a comment there with a linkback, for example. or if you continue to reply in the first place with feedback from what's going on in your journal discussion.

but in general, taking a tangent to your own journal is the very opposite of derailing. derailing means to distract the conversation from its focus. leaving the discussion to talk about related things in your own space instead of insisting that you must insert those 2 cents in some other space is a _good_ thing.

i wonder what odd definition these other people used, or whether it was totally self-serving.

Re: i'm on another train heading south

[firecat]

For me "derailing" has negative connotations at the moment. Something like this quote from http://www.derailingfordummies.com/:

By simply derailing the conversation, dismissing their opinion as false and ridiculing their experience you can be sure that they continue to be marginalised and unheard and you can continue to look like the expert you know you really are, deep down inside!

I don't think anyone posting in their own journal about not having been raped was intending to dismiss, ridicule, marginalize, or silence anyone.

Re: i'm on another train heading south

[firecat]

Disagreeing is not automatically derailing, IMO. You have to be shifting the ground of discussion in some way.

[firecat]

See how many people will immediately say that you should be more careful, that it's not safe for you to do that, etc.

I'll try that sometime. The only time I remember something like that happening is when I went on a long hike by myself once. (Prior to the era of GPSs and cell phones.) Several people I encountered on the hike told me I shouldn't hike alone. I think some of them were clearly thinking about sexual assault, but some might have been thinking of stuff like falling and getting injured.

Re: i'm on another train heading south

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i don't know; i don't remember your comment because i have been up all day and night and half day. :)

if the comment was at a clearly divergent tangent to the focus, then probably, yes. the derailment isn't the part where you post it in YOUR journal, it's the part where you post it in the other journal. if you only post your tangent in your own journal without mentioning it in the original discussion space, it's not derailment IMO.

example derailment:

person A starts talking about genital mutilation in african girls, and about how to raise awareness of it. several people chime in and discuss why this is a problem, how to inform others, what actions to take. then person B says in person A's journal: "well, a lot more little boys get mutilated by circumcision each year, isn't that a bigger problem?". that's derailment.

if person B instead started a post in zir own journal launching into an impassionated plea to stop male circumcision, that's not derailment.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Riffing on what you said here. I miss a lot of these conversations, or see them only in bits and pieces, because apparently there's quite a large group of posters who are all on each others' friendslists, to which I am only connected via a few people. But your paragraph about "the inverse of consciousness-raising" made something go off in my own brain.

Just in the past 6 months or so, I've seen the OSBP flap, the RaceFail flap, and at least 2 others of roughly the same order of magnitude go by. I'm starting to wonder (not as a rhetorical device, but in the "hmmm..." sense) whether this largish subgroup on LJ might be suffering from a sort of collective PTSD, brought on by too many stressful conversations in too short a time period.

I saw something like that happen in an APA once -- there was one HUGE flap that got everybody wrought up, and then only an issue or two after that had mostly died down, there was a second equally-divisive one, and the APA never recovered from that one-two punch; a year later, it was effectively dead. LJ seems (to me) to share a lot of the social dynamics of APAs, so it wouldn't surprise me to find something similar happening here.

there be monsters

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i got this all the time when i was travelling cross country by myself. and it was mostly about assault (though maybe not solely sexual assault). the vast majority of the people concerned were women, then some elderly or particularly conservative men; very few younger men.

Re: i'm on another train heading south

[elynne.livejournal.com]

My comment was exactly the same as what I posted in my LJ. And wow, you're a lot more coherent than I am on less sleep. O.O I get six hours and I'm all *flail*; you've been up far longer and you're much clearer. Heh. ;)

I don't think my comment was derailing, then. I think I did specifically address what I thought was the main point of the original post, and if it isn't actually the main post, it is at least part of the point, enough so that I've seen several comments along similar lines. Duck, rabbit, duck, rabbit, alligator.

[firecat]

whether this largish subgroup on LJ might be suffering from a sort of collective PTSD, brought on by too many stressful conversations in too short a time period.

You know what, this is a REALLY good point. I don't know if the subgroup per se is suffering, but I know that some individuals are.

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

But I don't understand why a number of women are apparently responding to this conversation by saying that they aren't afraid of rape and don't have a general fear of men as potential rapists. Do they feel they should be afraid? I'm getting the impression that they feel not being afraid of rape makes them weird. Maybe that it makes them unfeminine somehow? Is this because our culture sends the message that all women should be afraid of rape?

I think that, in my case, I needed to explore my own feelings about the potential for rape. I would definitely say that I feel that not being afraid of rape makes me feel weird. My feelings make me feel like I should just shut up and not be part of the discussion.

I can't remember ever thinking that rape was about sexual attraction. I feel impatient with the argument that men rape because they feel they have the right to have sex with women because that's not how I understand rape. I understand rape as a power thing, a predator-prey thing, and something that just incidentally has something to do with sex.

I'm not saying that how I understand rape is the reality of rape -- it's just how I understand it. I can't imagine a guy wanting to have sex with me because he thinks he is entitled if I was trying to kill him. I'm not saying that rape in that situation doesn't or can't or wouldn't happen, I'm just saying that I can't imagine it.

I can't imagine letting myself become insensate in the company of someone who'd rape me. I *have* been insensate and had guys fuck me, but I was there by choice and I knew that it'd happen; I trusted the guys and I knew that I was safe.

All of this, all of these personal feelings and emotions and not being able to get my head around rape doesn't negate the reality of rape. I wrote about rape in my journal because I was trying to figure out why I feel like I shouldn't talk about how I don't get it; why if feels like not only do I not have anything important to say, but anything I say will derail the discussion, or hurt someone that I care about, or support someone who really is *trying* to derail the conversation, and so I should just shut up.

[firecat]

Thanks for commenting.

[19-crows.livejournal.com]

This. Some of us ponder better out loud.

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

I hope this doesn't derail the conversation, but I've found that I am less afraid of rape than I used to be as a child, teenager and young woman.

Part of this is just a benefit of middle age, but also I've gained 40 pounds since then and I think that helps!

I also belatedly took a self-defense class.

And the DNA technology is reassuring. Now they can often tell who the perp is. If not today, then eventually, and you'll have the real badguy, and not some innocent schmoe who looks like him.

I get way, way less street harassment than I did back then, and I don't know why that is. Our world has changed, but so have I.

I'm still afraid of rape and very wary in some ways that might look like a phobia (enclosed places, not being able to see an exit to a room or building and easily get there). But it isn't like it was.

[firecat]

I'm glad you are less afraid.

When you mention gaining weight, does that help because you feel you are less attractive to potential rapists or because you feel you are better equipped to resist?

(As someone else mentioned, I used to think that being fat reduced my chance of being raped because it made me unattractive. But I don't think that any more.)

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

Years ago, when I first ran into the fact that most women are socialized into avoiding things like walking places alone at night because of the fear of rape, I commented that I did a bunch of the things on the list and wasn't much afraid of rape. (Hey, look, here's (http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2004/05/05/how-many-men-are-rapists/) the comment thread. I guess that wasn't all that many years ago. Feels longer.)

Yes, I felt that it made me weird. Or -- hm. I guess I more feel that now. At the time it struck me as very odd that other women were that scared about the possibility, and I didn't really see where that was coming from, because I hadn't gotten quite the same socialization. I theorized about my attitude / body language as a factor, too, in hopes that it could be useful to some of the women who were scared.

The culture definitely does send the message that women should fear rape and curtail their activities to avoid situations that are perceived as particularly dangerous, and I have seen more examples of it doing that now than I had at the time, so I am less confused about why other women experience that fear and therefore less inclined to examine why I don't and what the differences might possibly be.

I have been sexually assaulted. Kind of. I should tell that story sometime.

[firecat]

Thanks for commenting. If you want to tell your story I would be interested to read it.

[beaq.livejournal.com]

I, too, have noticed a sharp decline in casual harassment as I've gotten older. I'd like to attribute it to an increase in perceived authority, but sometimes I wonder if I haven't simply learned what to avoid doing and where to avoid going. I know people who stick out as unusual in some way tend to attract attention, and thus harassment, so it might just be that older = less interesting, too.

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

I think the weight gain makes me feel more confident about being able to resist. I started exercising and working out and discovered that I had some strength, and the weight gain came with this. It isn't all muscle, for sure, but the fat also makes me feel bigger and stronger.

But, being bigger and stronger would make me less attractive to rapists who like to prey on the people they perceive as less able to resist. It's different from bar fighters who often pick on the biggest and strongest-looking man they can find to prove how big and strong they are themselves. (Big men have told me about this problem in bars.)

So both!

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I call it "middle aged invisibility" and this is the really nice benefit. The bad side is that people will try to sit on you or otherwise invade your space without noticing because they don't see you.

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I thought about this some more and realized I'm afraid of rape, but not of burglary or even robbery. (Although I am afraid of home-invasion style robberies because you hear stories about those leading to rape and murder.)

I haven't ever been robbed, so I might sing a different tune if I were, but I have had more than one burglary, including one where I was at home! Those were unpleasant, but nothing like sexual assault.

I think the difference is that a burglar or robber just wants property, but the point of a rapist is to harm *you*.

Still, I take reasonable precautions against burglars and robbers, but I don't really fret about them that much.