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

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think I had some knee-jerk negative reaction to that post because 1. it's very difficult for me to read something like that without seeing it as prescriptive for women, like "all men are (potential) rapists and if you disagree you're stupid and asking for it" - which at least partially comes from having read so many, many variations on the "If you don't do x or do y or associate with z then you're stupid and asking for it", and the whole goddamn blame the victim mentality; and 2. I forgot what else I was going to say. o.O

To me, the "all men are (potential) rapists" concept is inextricably linked with the secondary clause of "if you disagree you're stupid and asking for it." At this point I degenerate into incoherent handwaving because I've only had six hours of sleep and the words, they are not doing what I want them to do, also the thoughts, they are scattered. So, yeah, that.

[pgdudda.livejournal.com]

I think the thing that squicks me about "all women should fear and suspect all men" is that it feeds into and supports the patriarchal/kyriarchal paradigm, in ways I haven't yet figured out how to verbalize. The only way I can start to get at it, is to say that it is different from "all people should exercise caution and judgment over where they are and who they are with" in gendered ways that I find troublesome.

(Admittedly, my perceptions are skewed out-of-norm by both my sexual orientation and by my personal history in which my perpetrators-of-violence were not particularly distinguished by their gender. My personal experience is that women are just as violent as men; they are simply socialized to enact that violence in different ways.)

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Someone on my own post put it perfectly, or at least in a way that exactly explains my own feelings on the subject: It all stems back to this concept that men have a right to women's bodies regardless of their consent and so if he decides not to exercise that right, he's being incredibly considerate and deserves huge kudos. It's putting the emphasis on the woman's body as a sexual object, without any context about people on either side of the gender line.

[firecat]

it feeds into and supports the patriarchal/kyriarchal paradigm

If there is a "should" in it, it absolutely does.