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

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I got the impression that a lot of the "I'm not afraid of rape" posts were asking the question, "So, what's different between women who are afraid of rape and women who aren't -- and can something useful be learned and gained by studying this difference? Can women in either group make their lives in some way better by adoping things from the other group?"

[mama-hogswatch.livejournal.com]

I'm not particularly afraid of rape. Why? I know what situations one can put oneself in that (statistically) are opportune moments, AND I can fight like an angry buzzsaw.

But it's the awareness of fringe zones, the understanding of social behaviors that indicate a tendency to ignore female consent, and the avoidance of situations in which judgement and consent barriers are impaired or broken that give me this confidence. (If you think this means I only drink around people I would trust with a gun to my head, you're right).

This doesn't stop me from telling my son, "Don't fuck drunk people. They CANT give consent."

[tylik.livejournal.com]

I'm generally not particularly afraid of rape. Being almost six feet tall, muscular, and a martial artist helps, I'm sure, but mostly it's just not something that I tend to worry about. (I also don't really drink, and tend to be careful about putting myself in positions where people have power over me.)

I also have been raped. And while if everything were completely different then everything would have been completely different... it wasn't on the surface a high risk situation. (Ah, that would be the most recent time. Which was still half my life ago.)

[elisem.livejournal.com]

I just read a post that said,

"
Over the years I have tried to discuss this, with varying success (usually not much). People tend to hear "it doesn't happen to me" as "it doesn't happen," which is NEVER what I mean. But it seems to me that if there is a bad thing that happens to some people in a category and not to others, it might be useful to try to discover what makes the difference--NOT with an eye toward blaming the victims for not being different than they are, but for the possibility of understanding more about the pathology of the perpetrators. (That is, what does the fact that the perpetrator chose as a potential victim this person rather than that person tell us about how we can help keep people from becoming perpetrators?)"

[firecat]

I agree with the general usefulness of figuring out the pathology of the perpetrators, but it seems to me that a person who (a) isn't the perpetrators and (b) hasn't personally encountered the perpetrators is going to have less insight into the issue than other people.

rape happens to those who're scared -- and those who're not

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

if the post had stopped there, that would have been nice.

since it didn't, and it also didn't sound like it was gonna find out anything about the perpetrators because it was all about how this person hadn't ever encountered any of them, and wasn't scared, and also, had this fighty aura and intuition, yay!

if you're neither a perpetrator, don't know one, nor are you a person who has been raped, or even been scared of rape, that sort of reasoning feels... skeevy to me. and i can well see why prior discussions didn't have much success -- i walked away from it after my response got the usual non-reponsive reply. *shrug*.