Why do some men commit rape?

The Black Oil

Tasden wrote: »

In every case of rape that I personally know, not just read in the paper or heard from a friend of a friend, but I actually know the details of, it was a close friend or a boyfriend and in two cases their father/stepdad. Those girls needn't have worried about all the nights out or the clothes she was wearing or carried her key in her hand while walking home late because it was just on run of the mill days with someone she trusted. And that isn't fear mongering. And acknowledging it doesn't "do" anything. It is simply acknowledging a truth. It is not asking that women be suspicious of every man they trust in their life. Just like we shouldn't be fearful of every stranger we encounter on the street.

I have found the same. It's an absolute breach of trust, not just through the act itself. I don't really know what to say to that, it's basically impossible for me to comprehend someone undertaking the choice to behave that way. And perhaps that's partly why the Stanford case has lit up the web in the way it has, not just due to how Turner's parents have reacted. Joe Biden's open letter response pretty much floored me too.

So now I'm wondering if that's fixable at some level - the trust aspect. Maybe it needs to be more than just consent in consent classes, but warning signs of an abusive relationship around behaviours before they might escalate. For instance, in Niamh Ni Dhomhnaill's case she found the relationship "became abusive, slowly but surely". You couldn't hold different opinion to her partner "without incurring his full wrath", she was upset by his aggression because she simply expressed a different view, or said everyone was entitled to one. Her friends didn't like him (and they didn't know how to raise it with her), he masturbated to porn whilst she slept, in the same bed. He threatened suicide when she wanted to leave.

Rather than just having consent classes that are 'well, 17 is the legal age and consent is _____' why not take real life examples of what people have been through, as in the possible secondary behaviours? I'm not blaming Niamh at all. It's often only in the aftermath of something significant that people have the ability to look back on the 7-8 things that might have come before. If we want to give people the tools of empowerment on this sort of issue (not stranger danger) then that must that involve facilitating them to feel emotionally safe in relationships, and surely that is the responsibility of men and women.

Lemming

BlackOil, I'm not suggesting that 'stranger danger' is a tool of empowerment in itself; more that the idiom that we've all learned as kids equally applies to adults. Children know that some adults might try to take advantage of them for bad reasons, but children are also taught that that's not true of most adults. Compare and contrast that with the message being sold to women by the modern feminist movement.

Not a tool of empowerment, more a means of applying some introspective common-sense thinking.

The Black Oil

Oh yeah, I agree. What I meant was we really have to up our game on the empowerment side and get beyond the 'don't wear or drink XYZ' stuff.

Thinking of 'rape culture', again. Does this phrase primarily apply to cases where younger, college going women have been assaulted? There was that horrific case in Athlone a few years ago where a man raped two 10 year old girls. I don't recall any columns about rape culture there.