Feminist Blogs Respond to Club Culture and Rape Article

AlterNet: MediaCulture:

At the above link, there are several wonderfully pithy responses by the elite blog Uterati (I mean that as a compliment, obviously) to an article by self-proclaimed but not really feminist Liz Funk in which she basically blames young women for getting themselves raped.

Huh. I thought rapists did the raping... anyway, let me make a few observations.

1) SOME clubs are meat markets. Everybody knows what they're getting and most people who go to a particular club want whatever said club is known for. I used to hang in rock/metal/grunge venues, and believe me, the guys in the bands were every bit the bait that "ladies' night" might be in a dance club and the women were every bit as aggressive as the guys.

2) WOMEN like sex, too. Yep, guys, some of us just want to get laid. Deal with it.

3) Some guys don't want to marry the girls but they expect the girls to want to marry them. When they find out she was just in it for the night, they immediately label her a slut because they can't deal with the fact that they got played. How's that for a stereotype?

Note to the guys: If you sleep with a girl who likes you and treat her like a slut because she slept with you, you're a self-loathing pig and an idiot. She didn't lose her dignity - you did. If you go to a club looking for a "slut," you're a predator and you don't like women. Go to a brothel and leave the humans alone. You're making the rest of the guys look bad.

4) Sexual stereotypes and elaborate mating rituals in America are stupid, hurtful, and do more to get in the way of having sex than actually having sex - but that's another article.

5) We live in a rape culture where men make sport of lying to women for sex. Wedding Crashers, anyone? Lying to obtain sex isn't as bad as a violent rape, but it IS deception and such behavior is not acceptable in reasonable adults. If it were up to me, "Male Fraud" would be punishable by fines and imprisonment.

HOWEVER

6) We also live in a culture with general feminist awareness which means most of us know what does and doesn't constitute rape, in spite of our sick media. You don't have to have a college education to have heard the phrase "no means no."
Doesn't matter who says it, either. If you've ever seen the movie Forty Days, you saw the Josh Hartnett character get raped by his ex and then blamed for it by the new girl in his life. Women can be assholes, too, though you must admit, guys account for most of the statistics. You might disagree with 'no means no', but the law is quite clear and law trumps your humble opinions, boys - you wrote the laws, you live with them.

7) Rape is not about sex, so let's not mix them up.
*Rape is about dominance, hate, entitlement, and humiliation. It doesn't happen because a man is overcome by lust. It happens because a man hates women.
*Sex, on the other hand, is a delightful interaction between one or more consenting adults enjoying each other openly and everybody leaves happy. It's lots of fun. If it's not fun, you ain't doing it right...

8) If this society really wanted to cut down on the rapes, it would ban fraternities on college campuses. Don't hold your breath.

9) Any woman can be raped. They aren't always young and cute. Some of them are elderly. Some are disabled. Some are at home, minding their own business. Most of them will know their attacker. Not one of them "asked for it."

10) Rapists rarely rape once. This is why I say we need special legislation to address serial rape and child molestation, preferably making them capital crimes. That's the only way to keep a serial offender from repeating his crimes, and these crimes have a multi-generational effect on society. They have to be stopped cold.