Posted on 10/28/2009 6:51:38 PM PDT by libh8er
All men are potential rapists. Agree or disagree?
That's a claim by Aurea Flynn, speaking for Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter, in the wake of a brutal sex attack this weekend on a 24-year-old woman in Vancouver's upscale West Point Grey.
I spent about 20 minutes Monday talking to Flynn about rape, and agreed with nearly everything she said.
Rape is about power and control, domination by a man over a woman — check.
Sexual assault is so widespread that one in four Canadian women will experience it — check.
Men need to speak out against violence against women, because our gender is to blame — check.
But I am not a potential rapist, and I don't think Flynn's claim is in any way helpful.
Painting all men with the same brush greatly hampers the co-operation between genders that's needed to properly address our epidemic of sexual violence.
I get where Flynn is coming from. The fact that the threat of male violence restricts the freedom of women, and keeps them living with a constant undercurrent of fear, is profoundly unjust. Sexual attacks cause life-long damage. And far too many of my gender believe that women are lesser beings than men, that their rights in every area are somehow subservient to ours.
We should all be as angry as Flynn.
But the approach of Stephanie Reifferscheid, of Vancouver's Women Against Violence Against Women's rape crisis centre, makes a great deal more sense.
"All men have the capacity to be loving, caring, respectful human beings," Reifferscheid says.
Sadly, many men fail to exercise that capacity.
Rapes by acquaintances and sexual violence within relationships occur much more frequently than stranger attacks, such as the one Sunday in which a man repeatedly punched and then sexually assaulted a woman out walking. But all varieties of sexual violence reflect "a sense of entitlement towards women and women's bodies," Reifferscheid says.
It was only in the 1980s that it became illegal for Canadian men to rape their wives, she notes.
Sexualization of women in the media leads them to be valued as objects of male gratification, rather than for the intellectual and professional abilities they share equally with men.
Not only does this devaluation hinder social and economic equality, it helps turn women into potential victims of the ultimate male power trip: rape.
Reifferscheid points out that, while men commonly commit random physical, non-sexual attacks against other men, when a man is randomly attacking a woman, the violence is often sexual. The man is hitting her where, in his mind, her value rests: in her sexuality.
Men need to start paying more attention to the value we and our friends and associates put on women, and ensure that our words and actions do not reinforce the inequality between the sexes.
At a broader level, says Reifferscheid, politicians and policymakers must make women's equality a central focus of governance, to set societal standards that put women on the same level as men.
We men are not all potential rapists. But we owe it to women to give them the value that is their due, as equals to men in every way — except perhaps when it comes to arm-wrestling and peeing your name in the snow.
are all women potential whores?
If all men are potential rapists, they are.
They are all potential thieves and murderers also, women too. The capacity for evil is in each one of us.
The answer to both questions is “yes”, with a caveat. A man is a potential rapist only if he is functional sexually. Otherwise he is only a potential molester or batterer/assaulter.
What a dumb question.
People have potential. Some degenerate, most do not. Hence we are left with this thing called civilization.
>>But I am not a potential rapist...<<
He is if he has a functioning penis. However, although he is, by definition, a potential rapist, it may be highly unlikely that he would rape. Same goes for me.
All people are potential murderers by virtue of their God given ability to actually do it. The RELEVANT question is, how much of a risk are you to actually do it.
Pretty transparent, but it has had staying power in the rabbit warrens of academia.
I think that this article is very narrow minded, as it automatically assumes that all rape and sexual assault victims are female. Of course, it is abhorrent when a woman is violated sexually, but we have to keep in mind here that rape and sexual abuse can happen to anyone. The article mentions how the media is demeaning to women, implying that the issue is misogyny or degradation of the female, but it also says that rape is an act of violence, not passion or sexuality. Therefore, it would be wise to focus more on aggression in the rapist than on gender roles. The fact of the matter is that according to official statistics, at least 10% of all rape victims are male. Of course, the actual numbers are much probably much higher, as males a subjected to society’s stereotype that men are supposed to be strong and able to protect themselves. So when a guy is raped, he is most likely not going to come forward and admit it, because he will feel ashamed or that his masculinity has somehow been compromised. Let’s just try to see the broader picture, here.
Which one?
As I understand it, there are people in the Obama administration who think that all babies are potential humans (After a certain age of course)
>>Painting all men with the same brush greatly hampers the co-operation between genders that’s needed to properly address our epidemic of sexual violence.<<
To me, that is the relevant kernel to this. My ex-wife went to training at our church to become a counselor to abused women. In the process I watched her learn about all the different forms of abuse, right down to not taking out the trash when your wife asks you to.
I told her one day that they had so broadened the word as to make ALL husbands de-facto abusers of their wives. Instead of discussing it with me rationally, she really got angry and accused me of having an anger problem. ;)
It led to our divorce. Interestingly, the church (at my request) tried to bring us back together. In one meeting of four male elders and three women, she made her case against me, using notes from a notepad, line iteming my abuses. After the meeting one elder came to me and said that list pretty much applied to every man and woman in the room and made him and one woman specifically, very uncomfortable.
Long diatribe, but the bottom line is this stuff has to be treated in varyous levels, just as doing 71 in a 70 speed zone is different than doing 71 in a school zone.
The title of the thread. :)
There was guy who on G Gordon Liddy’s show about 10 years ago, I believe it was Randy THornhill who claimed all mammals used raped as a sexual strategy.
I agree. I think the other question is a reasonable comeback to that question.
yes
Yup!
1 in 4 women in Canada get raped? That’s a pretty large percentage. (so much for visiting Canada!) I don’t think ALL men are potential rapists...because rape is an act of agression and violence and realistically - the rapist is pathetic.
Not all men are violent, and some actually love women. No man with a good heart or solid morals would rape a woman.
What’s going on up there in Canada? Are men not charged and convicted with rape? What’s going on in the legal system?
A convicted male rapist in the US can look forward to a lovely stay (no matter how short a stay) in prison - where he becomes the rape victim (I understand there is a 100% chance of getting violently sodomized in prison). Same goes with child molesters.
Then when he gets out he’s on the sex offenders list and I would imagine, getting a job would be quite difficult. It’s hard enough to get a job with out the legal baggage!
All women are potential rapists too. And potential murderers, and potential everything else. We all are.
As long as each of us has a functioning brain and free will, we are all capable of every kind of evil. So from this FACT, we can extrapolate and say that smart people are capable of more evil than dumb people.
KILL ALL THE SMARTIES NOW! Our children won’t be safe as long as these sickos live.
And castrate all the men and spey all the women. make sure everyone wears a crash helmet and safety glasses and safety shoes. Otherwise WE SHALL ALL PERISH HORRIBLY AND UNIMAGINABLY!
AHHHHH! ITS THE END OF THE WOOOORLD!
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