Warning! Article Contains Adult/Sensitive Content!Â
Rapes of Wrath
Setting the role playing aside and inviting everyone into a self-actualized state, we can begin to discuss the heart of the matter. Within the rape culture conversation, we start to notice a build-up of titillating tidbits we all accept without even a cursory examination. The first strikes at the very nature of rape itself and what it says about who we believe ourselves to be.
The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing us that rape is sexual. Okay, maybe we can’t put all of this on him. We condemned ourselves to a never-ending hell loop the moment we accessorized rape in a sexual aesthetic. This didn’t just serve to cloud the issue that rape is simply a technique used to control by those who feel out of control, but it also created a whole mess of confusion regarding sexual interactions in already confusing intimate relationships. In order to define rape in sexual terms, we’d have to first agree on what constitutes sex. Again, looking just across the surface, this seems like an easy thing. However, research continues to illuminate that we have no shared construct because intimate relationships are highly personal and variable.
That conversation is an entire body of work unto itself, but the connection here is that the more rape continues to bleed over into pop culture and social streams guised as sexual interactions, the less viable it is as a metric for criminal activity. It doesn’t stop there. The stream flows both directions. Insecurity, dehumanization and control flavor our most intimate relationships when we can’t tell the difference between a criminal rape and a steamy sex scene. And all of this creates great confusion regarding the stereotypical rape weapons of choice and those who wield them. But for now, let’s entertain that control, not attraction, has played the undercover fluffer in the rape scenario for too long and it’s time we expose it to the light of day.
By placing definition back where it belongs, we start to see that rape occurs only when we’re able to see each other as the other. This is in-group/out-group dynamics 101. Nothing too earth shattering here. To attack, hurt, or destroy someone else, we must first dehumanize them, usually sprouting from roots deep within our own self-hatred and insecurity. Social science deconstructed intergroup relations eons ago and most scientists feel confident that we know how to raise and train people to interact in positive, respectful, uplifting, nourishing and considerate ways. So why don’t we?
The reasons why people feel out of control in their own lives, minds, bodies all come down to survival fears at rooted levels. The innate need to physically overpower someone else is not a disease, it is not an affliction, it is not karmic baggage, and it is not an excuse. It is an unevolved impulse unchecked by an undeveloped individual. If someone is incapable of managing their emotional reactions to the point that, in the heat of a moment, they cannot remember that violently attacking another person is unacceptable, that person is unfit for public interactions. It doesn’t really matter if their chosen weapon is a gun, a knife, a fist or a penis, they’re simply too dangerous to let run amok in society. We can label the crime, Inappropriate Emotional Discharge (IED), and we should gather the perpetrators up, transport them to an island and let them Lord-of-the-Flies it out for a bit.
Harsh, isn’t it?
Do we understand that by accepting as normal that an adult person may, at any moment, get triggered by someone or something to the point that they lose control over their person and become incapable of doing anything but violently reacting to a perceived threat, even when that perceived threat comes from another person, possibly a person they pledged to love or committed to care for, reduces our entire society to nothing more than animals?
Emotional reaction is never an excuse to attack. Never.
Or it is, right? Don’t we accept, and even welcome, the out-of-control male archetype? Blinded by rage. The portrayal of one so consumed by his anger, passion, revenge that he blindly maims, kills, rapes? How do we applaud it when it serves us and appall it when it doesn’t?
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And this is where things get really sticky. Uncontrollable urges make sex scenes super hot, right? The, typically, female is so attractive, so alluring, so inviting that the, typically, male simply doesn’t stand a chance and loses control, inevitably overpowering her. Which is all good, right? Because she asked for it, right? Because she wanted it, right?
Well, who the heck knows because, you see, when you lose control to a lower frequency aspect of yourself compelled by fear, you are no longer able to interpret subtle signals, hear requests, or perceive of anyone else involved in the situation. Consent is impossible once an otherwise fully functioning adult allows emotional or physical reaction to dictate behavior, blind them to higher perception and deafen them to cries of no.
Ugh, Tonya, what are you suggesting? Does this mean we’re all destined for lackluster, legal-ladened, sanitized, vanilla sex where we pause at every brush of the hand to ask permission?
Please. Let’s try to resist the either/or trap and elevate to a place where we can have conversations big enough to allow for both healthy societal conditions and ecstatic intimate relationships. Both are possible. But only if we traverse this very bumpy, very ugly, very broken path we carved out together, walking ourselves back to where we can build from love and respect. But, let’s not forget, rape has nothing to do with these things and disentangling our definitions is a must if we want to see our way through.
The penis is mightier than the sword
As promised, we must talk about the penis. You know, I half-heartedly thought about including some additional names commonly used instead of…(continue reading)
About the Author:Â Tonya Dawn Recla
