Just go read this whole post that Cara wrote and was reposted on Racialicious about Lil' Wayne discussing on Jimmy Kimmel how he "lost his virginity" or rather was raped, when he was 11 years old.
*trigger warning*
This leaves me speechless, but to be honest I have hated Jimmy Kimmel since the Man Show, but Cara gives more analysis then my stumped ass can do at this point.
I do not know what Lil' Wayne would call his own experience, but though he does not use the word, the admittedly few details he provides do indeed portray this quite clearly as rape, for reasons that I hope are obvious to most readers here, and which will be delved into in more detail below. Lil' Wayne seems to me to be uncomfortable with the line of questioning, and yet Jimmy Kimmel and the other man on the show continue to laugh and joke around about it, even after Lil' Wayne says very clearly that the experience was harmful to him.(emphasis mine).It seems like a reasonable question, to ask what the hell is wrong with Jimmy Kimmel. But the problem is, while not excusing his actions for a single second, that he has a whole culture (and audience) backing him up.
In the majority of sexual assault cases, where a woman is the victim of a man's violence, rape apology is rooted primarily not in the denial that male violence exists, but in the denial that male violence means something and needs to be stopped. Conversely, in cases where a man is the victim of a woman's violence, rape apologism is strongly rooted in the denial that women's actions can count as violence at all -- and especially that their actions can count as sexual violence against men, who are routinely construed as incapable of being victims.
When I really started to think more about this, the question of race kept coming up for me. Would Kimmel have asked him about his virginity had he not been a black male rapper that is already considered a sexually promiscuous always consenting vessel?
Cara touches on that as well,
The final consideration in analyzing the reaction to this story is the question of race. Again, Sociological Images asserts that the reason people do not see this as rape is because Lil' Wayne is not only male, but a black male.It's certainly true that black men are hyper-sexualized, and that anyone who is hyper-sexualized is instantly construed as unrapeable, all other considerations becoming irrelevant. But at the same time, while Lil' Wayne's race surely plays a part not only in the failure to interpret his "virginity loss" as rape but also the prodding by the while males for him to brag about the assault he endured, I'm unsure that this would necessarily be interpreted as rape if a white male was the victim. For an example of why, you can again see above.
Just go read the whole piece.
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Speaking as a male victim of childhood sexual assault (my mother was my assailant, when I was very young) - I'm very aware that many male survivors of sexual assault by a woman feel the need to claim their attack was actually some kind of macho triumph.
This is even more true with African American men, because we're supposed to be super macho sex machines.
One of my friends grew up in a house of prostitution (his mother worked there) and he was raped by one of his' mother's co-workers (of course, in his recounting of the encounter 40 years later, he was a 5 year old macho man "scoring" with a 30 year old woman).
So it doesn't surprise me that a condescending racist misogynist like Jimmy Kimmel would make light of Lil' Wayne's suffering.
As for Lil' Wayne, I notice that he seemed really uncomfortable with Kimmel's questioning, and he didn't start bragging about his rape as if it was some kind of great macho victory.
Still, Kimmel is a total asshole to even ask that question!
And, as a survivor myself, I really feel for Wayne - because I have an all too personal understanding of what happened to him!
Thank you for sharing this.
I have a male friend, now 22, who was sexually molested at age 7 by his teenaged female babysitter and when he recounts the story it is not as one of abuse, but of experimentation and sexual prowess on his part. I've never discussed it more in-depth with him, but I have an extremely difficult time that it has not negatively affected him.
You're very welcome!
That is terrible - I am so sorry to hear it. It always makes me so sad when I see that men who suffer from sexual assault are not treated with respect. Every person deserves respect, and there are so many issues tied up in the concept of male victimhood and what that means for his identity (throw in some ethnic or racial issues, and you have an entirely new set of problems of identity crisis).
I'm glad you had the courage to speak out about it. It's a hard road for anyone to take, and you sound like you're healing. I hope you're all right.
Thanks to 22 years of therapy, I'm alright now - thanks for asking!
Re-watching the video again, I kind of want to give Jimmy some credit- I think it could have been handled worse.
I mean, the mood is considerably heavy when he comments "That's intense.", and the fact that he managed to mention that it might have had a negative effect, instead of going the route of "Well, what a stud you were!", is the saving grace. They quickly move onto another topic, and even though in poor taste, I really think the joke about his son's virginity was an attempt to lighten the mood.
I'm not saying it's right by any means, but I guess I just felt a shift, like Jimmy realized that this was actually the story of an eleven year-old boys being taken advantage of sexually.
Am I alone?
I agree with this. It's a light chat show. I think Kimmel acknowledged it as negative and moved on as gracefully as possible - with an obviously ridiculous hyperbole.
However, why ask it on a light show? How could the answer be that it wasn't damaging? I guess it's a ratings moment.
I don't know. The fact that he followed with a joke about whether or not Lil Wayne's infant son was a virgin seems to indicate otherwise.
My disgust overwhelms me.
I think Feministing has eaten my other comment. If not, I'll just have one that is generally the same:
On the topic of the joke about Wayne's son, if the show is 'heavy', 'edgy' and 'adult' enough to make a joke about someone having sex with a baby, is it really too light of a show for the host to show more sympathy, or, at the very least, acknowledge that this type of situation is not okay? Jokes about babies having sex are not light, family oriented fare. It says something if jokes about baby rape (there can't be any debate about that one, right?) are light but going ahead and saying rape is considered crossing some line.
Food for thought: what if Kimmel had made the same joke about Lil Wayne's very young daughter not being a virgin? I imagine the audience reaction would have been quite different, and Wayne would have been seen as more justified if he reacted negatively. That in and of itself says a lot about perspectives on gender and rape.
I don't know . . . I have a feeling that Jimmy originally planned it out like this: ask Lil Wayne about his virginity because it's so shocking and will make for interesting TV, he'll tell us about his stud status, but then I need a way to lead us into talking about his family/children's birth- ah, I could do it by throwing in a joke about whether or not his kid is following in his footsteps- it'll be the perfect segue and get a laugh.
And then, things obviously went completely opposite, and suddenly there he is left with this joke. I get the sense that it was hasty and thrown in there as a last resort, kind of.
Or I could be wrong and just apologizing for him, who knows.
"Food for thought: what if Kimmel had made the same joke about Lil Wayne's very young daughter not being a virgin? I imagine the audience reaction would have been quite different, and Wayne would have been seen as more justified if he reacted negatively. That in and of itself says a lot about perspectives on gender and rape."
EXACTLY. I couldn't begin to imagine the hush that would fall over the crowd if he had replaced "son" with "daughter".
It is very much rape, no doubt.
It's sickening that people think that males CANNOT be raped by females, because of course, guys MUST love it! People won't take male rape seriously-- unless he was raped by a dude.
How pathetic.
Also, it's ironic that U.S pop culture (most especially music) celebrates boys' crushes on older women (Stacy's Mom, Hots for the Teacher, etc), but if it was the other way around, with little girls drooling over older married male teachers, people would find it creepy and wrong.
I think lots of high school girls have crushes on their teachers, and its not considered especially creepy or wrong as long as the teacher doesn't act on it. That is, its not considered wrong at all from the girls' side of it, its only considered wrong if the teacher reciprocates.
This double standard is, I think, rooted in the approval of virility in young men; it's a sign of 'manhood' to have what it takes to please an older woman. (Who is, what, sitting around eyeing the pool boy?) But then younger girls should be innocent. They're not supposed to desire older men; they're supposed to be desired BY them.
For both, the sexualization of young people (as pool boy or innocent virgin) is incredibly objectifying... not to mention damaging, especially when it moves from fantasy to assault.
"People won't take male rape seriously-- unless he was raped by a dude."
Then of course if a man is raped by another man, people think he's gay (the victim not the rapist.)
that is fuuuucked up. i am seriously sick to my stomach. he was so clearly uncomfortable and the fucking audience CLAPPED? WTF. he even said that it affected him negatively throughout his life! and they fucking clap and whistle and shit? ughhhhhh. jimmy kimmel is a asshole and thats really all the insight that i can give right now. i am just so disgusted.
That was very strange. On the other hand, the audience also clapped and cheered when he said he uses Colgate. I don't think they're thinking very hard, they're probably told as a studio audience to cheer a lot.
I thank people for their comments in support of male victims. I was also sexually assaulted - by a random grown man. It messed up my sexual identity for years, and 20 years later, I am still distrustful in groups of men if I feel physically vulnerable.
My ex-boyfriend lost his virginity by being raped by a girl he knew. He was really drunk and it she just kind of climbed on top while they were fooling around. He was too drunk to really resist or know what was happening at the time. He still won't call it rape though. He just describes it as "being taken advantage of." For some men it's just really hard for them to say those words out loud. And I know guys that know his story and say that he couldn't have been raped because he was hard so he obviously wanted it. Actually, I know girls that say the same thing. It makes me sick.
great post Samhita. This video made me sick.
One of the worst parts about our rape culture is the assumption that when a man is raped by a woman he is somehow lucky, or that the whole incident is trivial and humorous.
I was date-raped in college by my then-girlfriend, and yet, when I tried to confide in male friends about it, the typical reaction I received was congratulations or "That's AWESOME! HIGH FIVE!". I was devastated, and ended up taking most of my emotional support from my rapist because she was the only person that acknowledged that something really bad had happened. It took me four years to admit it to anyone else.
This has to stop. It affects men that get raped. It also affects how men in general disassociate ourselves with the rapes of women, and contributes to that problem, which is even more common, as well.
My best friend's husband "lost his virginity" to his babysitter. He was 11, and in fifth grade. She was 16 and a junior in high school. Both my friend and I were completely squicked out by it; we think it was rape, at the very least gross molestation. He doesn't see it that way, mostly because he has likely bought the whole myth that the person who does the penetrating always has the power. His biggest beef with her is that she ignored him later when she was hanging around with her age-appropriate friends. He also said she may not have realized how young he was, because he had a little mustache. I call bullshit. If a kid is young enough to need a babysitter, he is likely not in junior high yet. And don't most parents tell sitters how old the kids are?
They now have sons, and my friend is determined to make sure history doesn't repeat itself.
"He doesn't see it that way, mostly because he has likely bought the whole myth that the person who does the penetrating always has the power."
Hey, wait a minute. That's not fair. On the one hand, you're saying he's a victim, and on the other, you're blaming him for allegedly buying into a myth, without any evidence of why he thinks what he does.
I was in a somewhat similar situation, though I was slightly older - I was 15, she was 30 - and I don't see it as rape. Though I was legally incapable of consent when utilizing a bright-line "under 18" rule, by any reasonable measure, I consented. Looking back on it now 15 years later, I view the situation as an unhealthy relationship, but not one without full consent.
Furthermore, I have not "bought into" any myths that the person penetrating always has the power, and I would not make blanket statements regarding all similar situations. In my particular situation, I consented. Your best friend's husband may have, too - I think it's unfair to dismiss his opinions and blame him for having an adverse one than yours, particularly without him available to present his view.
I'm not blaming him for anything. I am trying to wrap my mind around why he feels the way he feels, and the "the one who penetrates is in power" is a common idea in our society, as well as a way to discount female on male sexual violence.
This man is a good friend of mine, and I've known him for many years, but he and I (and he and his wife) don't always agree on sexual politics. He has a pretty patriarchal and old-fashioned view of women's sexuality. We all went to see "Eyes Wide Shut," and my friends were laughing about the conversation Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman have about women not being able to separate love from sex, because they had been discussing the exact same thing just a week before. And he still refused to believe me or my friend when we assured him that yes, women sometimes just want to get laid, not have a relationship.
I understand. I mention my story not as a way of discounting female of male sexual violence, but as distinguishing harmful situations from ones that may be unfortunate in retrospect, but weren't harmful. I'm sure there are similar situations to mine with the genders reversed that were equally consensual.
30 year olds who have sex with 15 year olds are statutory rapists, pure and simple.
Gender doesn't matter - nor does the personal opinion of the 15 year old.
It's still rape, and it's still a felony in every state of the union.
... which is why I drew a distinction between legal capacity to consent and a reasonable person's definition of consent. By all reasonable measures, I consented. I think it diminishes cases where there isn't consent to lump my experience in with them, and also furthers the prudish notion that "kids under 18 shouldn't be having sex, but once they turn 18, they're magically adults and have full capacity that they didn't have the previous day".
I mean, I'm all in favor of teenagers having (safe, considerate, healthy) sex *with other teenagers.* But, as cheesy as it is, I think the "half your age plus seven" rule pretty much nails the point at which I personally start really wondering about whether what's going on is okay.
But, for what it's worth, I've started thinking that it might be more productive to view the law about this sort of thing not as what defines whether or not a crime occurred, but as something that imbues a complaining victim with the legal power to prosecute. If you're confident that you're okay with what happened, then I don't see any real point to delving into it much deeper, you know?
See, while I can't see how a grown-up having sex with an 11 year old can *not* be a rape, a 15 year old is a completely different thing. Where I live, legal consent is set at 15, not 18, so the situation in question would have been perfectly legal provided of course both parties were consenting. If you ask me, a normal 15 year old (male or female) is physically, and emotionally able of legal consent, not an 11 year old.
being 15 and not 11 is not *slightly older*
those four years mean a huge psychosexual development
I'm not sure what is harder to accept for our culture; that males are incapeable of being victims of female violence, or females are incapeable of perpetrating violence. Both concepts are harmful because not only do they rob the victim of a support network (unless you count high-fives), they empower the perpetrator and give her an avenue to continue the behavior, that there is nothing wrong with it.
As a survivor of female sexual violence, it was almost impossible for me to find a sympathetic ear at first. Seeing this kind of douchebaggery makes me furious.
I've always heard that rape is more about power rather than sexuality and I think this is at the heart of why men are unable to come to similar terms with rape. So much of male self-esteem and image is based on the possession and assertion of power and admitting to rape is admitting that vulnerability and powerlessness. When women are the people inflicting the domination and power robbery, it must be doubly hard for most men to admit. Maybe at the heart of why there is denial that women's actions can count as violence is the implicit assumption that women can't possess the power to inflict such dominance on men. Also that men can never be on the low end of the disparity with women and therefore can't become victims of women.
Racially, I thought that Jimmy Kimmel did come across as patronizing. Although, Lil' Wayne is a little over the top with the teeth and the facial tattoos. It pretty obvious that he was shocked that Kimmel would bring up the virginity topic and the other guest I think was surprised also. He changed the subject fairly quickly but it was a really stupid move on his part. He probably got a lot of calls about it and he needs to drop the kind of attitude which led him into the whole "losing your virginity at 11 is awesome and manly" which led him to even ask the question in the first place. He probably thought Wayne would be all smiles and high fives.
I can't believe Kimmel asked if Lil Wayne's 4 month old son was a virgin. Way to stoop even lower with the already disgusting joke.
Agreed. Any shred of sincerity ("Man that's an intense thing. Do you feel like that affected you negatively?") was undercut with the baby comment.
Bringing Lil' Wayne's baby into the discussion was a very bad move on JK's part. Joking about the sexuality of infants isn't funny-- it's just disgusting.
I admit I could not bring myself to view the clip beyond a certain part and so did not even get to the issue under discussion. It seems pretty clear that Carter was more of an exotic exhibit than a fellow human beings. All the focus on his teeth and tattoos--even the other guest helping himself to Carter's hat (??) demonstrated this.
It is clear that Carter is attempting to expand his artistic output and perhaps his image more generally. In fact, he has always seemed more open than many rap artists in exploring new ground as evidenced, for example, by some of his quirky collaborations. He will have to overcome a lot more of this kind of attitude if he wants to continue along this path.
I admit I could not bring myself to view the clip beyond a certain part and so did not even get to the issue under discussion. It seems pretty clear that Carter was more of an exotic exhibit than a fellow human being. All the focus on his teeth and tattoos--even the other guest helping himself to Carter's hat (??) demonstrated this.
It is clear that Carter is attempting to expand his artistic output and perhaps his image more generally. In fact, he has always seemed more open than many rap artists in exploring new ground as evidenced, for example, by some of his quirky collaborations. He will have to overcome a lot more of this kind of attitude if he wants to continue along this path.
Lil Wayne seemed uncomfortable and degraded by Kimmel's comments as well. You could tell that he felt like Kimmel was treating him like a spectacle.
OK, I can't even think straight because Cara's writing is so hard to read. All of her sentences are huge run-ons with a billion commas.
Way to derail the thread with random criticisms instead of focusing on a serious issue.
You're being passive aggressive here - this is not a college English class, this is a blog!
The issue at hand is intense - do you have an actual opinion on the question?
Or do you just want to complain about the writing skills of others?
Passive Aggressive? What?
It might be a blog, but it looks like a rather popular blog and I'm amazed because the writing is terrible.
If you want my opinion, I think it's ridiculous that people here are getting upset on behalf of Lil Wayne when he isn't upset about it.
This is what he said about it in Playboy, "I was 11 and the girl was 13. She had every board game you could imagine. I liked board games. We was playing Win Lose or Draw and on the board she wrote, “F*ck me.” Now I was 11, and I didn’t even know it meant “intercourse.” I just knew it was a cuss word, so I was like, “Why is she cussing herself out?” She said, “Do you want to play ‘Press Your Luck’? Well, the game is in my closet.” She had a walk-in closet, so she said, “Go get it, it’s right to the right….” When I walk to the closet she came in and cut the lights off and took off my pants, and I remember my ass was cold up against the wall. I was like, “What the hell!?” When I tried to push her off me, I felt that she was naked also, so I just stepped back and let her do what she do."
It seems to me like he didn't know what they were doing in the closet, then when he realized she was naked he was into it.
"I think it's ridiculous that people here are getting upset on behalf of Lil Wayne when he isn't upset about it."
People are getting upset because it is a serious issue that doesn't get taken seriously, and that clip was an example of it not being taken seriously.
And if you made a comment complaining about grammar when what you meant was that we are being ridiculous for having a conversation about this, then yes, you are being passive aggressive.
Actually, I made that comment with the intent to go back and read the full article, watch the clip and come back and comment about it. My internet went down and that is why I didn't get back to anyone until today.
I agree that it is a HUGE issue that doesn't get taken seriously. I was repeatedly raped by a family member from the time I was 5 to 13 years old and the ways that it has negatively affected my life are immense. My heart goes out to the people that feel that pain and know it all too well. I'm sorry, but I can't find it in me to get upset on behalf of someone that jokes about it themselves then goes on to reply to a disgusting and tasteless joke by saying that their 4 month old son isn't a virgin either. Lil Wayne does not seem to view this as rape, and it's really not my job to take a situation which he seems to brag about in Playboy and convince him that what happened to him was a horrible case of rape.
Most people that view rape for the horrible offense that it is often believe that we should lock up all rapists and leave them to rot forever and I agree with this. What do people feel should happen to this 13/14 year old girl? Does everyone that views this as rape believe that she should be locked away forever? In the vast majority of states someone that young is not even seen as being able to consent to sex themselves so this would not be a case of rape.
Your post quite literally made me sick.
After I was sexually assaulted at a party during my first year away from home, the MAJORITY of the people who found out about it thought it was HILARIOUS, especially since I was too drunk to remember it. People would openly joke about it, even with me there. And you know what? I didn't say, "Hey, that's insensitive. Someone used my body when I clearly couldn't consent." It didn't matter that I had tried to keep my pants pulled up, and it didn't matter that I was so intoxicated that I vomited and couldn't stand. I didn't want to be the uncool one that had to start something over it, especially when everyone else thought it was so funny. I mean, I didn't even remember it, right? It wasn't such a big deal. So I let those jokes slide until everyone had moved on from it.
But I cried a LOT. For the first couple weeks, daily. For months afterward, at least twice a week. And even when I thought I was over it, little reminders seemed to pop up everywhere, and it was torture. I hated myself.
And yet, if some asshole were insensitive enough to bring it up during a widely televised interview - even today - I don't know if I would do myself justice. I don't know what I would do. If I had a career that basically depended on my widespread popularity, I think it would make it even more difficult to say how I really felt. It's easy to convince yourself that your feelings about it are misinformed, especially when the general public doesn't think what you went through qualifies as 'rape.'
1) You can not tell body language and tone of voice in a transcribed interview, as you can here on video. It is obvious he is uncomfortable on this video, whereas the interview's "..do what she do.." really could carry so many inflections and meanings.
2)Perhaps telling his story in Playboy, that universal celebrator of male conquest over the inert female form, got him (re-)thinking about what the whole incident meant. Who knows?
I agree that he seems uncomfortable, but that doesn't mean that he is uncomfortable because he believes he was raped. He could be uncomfortable because he was completely caught off guard by being asked about losing his virginity in front of a huge audience. I think that alone would make most people uncomfortable.
He said that the experience affected him negatively. I don't see how you can interpret that (his own words) as him just being uncomfortable because he was caught off guard in an interview. He said the sexual experience was negative.
Yeah, I saw that part and it seemed to me that he didn't understand the question or he just responded without listening. The whole exchange was just incredibly weird. I would like to hear more of his thoughts on it because it seemed to me he didn't even hear the question and was just like, "Yeah." Even when he said his son isn't a virgin I'm not sure if he was trying to make a gross joke or if he just said, "No." and wasn't thinking about the question before he replied.
If he meant to say "Yeah" when Kimmel asked him if it negatively affected him then I will definitely eat my words and I'm wrong here, but I didn't take it that way.
He repeated that it affected him negatively after he just answered yes. He totally seemed to understand the question.
Honestly, I don't see what you're seeing at all and I think you're giving Lil Wayne far too little credit here. He was visably uncomfortable talking about this but he fully admitted that the situation affected him negatively.
You're right. I watched it again and he actually pauses for a minute before answering like he is really thinking about it.
The first time I watched it I THOUGHT Kimmel had said "Do you think this affected you..... negatively?" and Lil Wayne responded before he had really heard Kimmel throw in the "negatively" part. Kimmel actually does stretch the question out and throws in the "negatively" afterwards, but Lil Wayne hears the entire thing and even pauses before he responds.
Sorry, I was wrong.
Ummm, did Jimmy really think he lost his virginity at 11 or did he know Lil Wayne was raped??
That clip was so uncomfortable to watch and not in a good way. Props to Lil Wayne to admit the experience affected him negatively and not gloss over it.
Yeah, you could tell Lil Wayne was visably uncomfortable when Kimmel asked him about that.
And who asks that kind of thing on tv anyway? How is that considered okay or at all appropriate? I can understand *maybe* if it kind of came up in the conversation but Lil Wayne was talking about his teeth or something and then Kimmel was just like "So I hear you lost your virginity at age 11." WTF?
The clip was bothersome and it shows how society will do anything to not call rape by it's name. He was raped. And it wasn't cool. Or funny.
so, storytime:
a few years ago, at a party, a woman i know got VERY drunk. this party took place next door to my place. the very drunk woman (VDW) decided she wanted to have sex, and started hitting on my drunk male friend (DMF). VDW literally dragged DMF to my house; i followed, trying to figure out what was going on - DMF is married. DMF is so drunk that he thinks the VDW is his *wife*. i eventually give up on stopping them, as they didn't care i was there, i wasn't about to try and physically restrain anyone (i am physically disabled) and i really didn't want to *watch* them have sex on my couch. i yelled a bit, tried to tell DMF that this was not his wife, told VDW that she *was* very drunk and probably didn't want to do this, gave up and left. (i still feel kinda guilty for leaving...)
next day, VDW calls me to ask me to collaborate with the police that she had been raped.
i was shocked, because as i far as i was concerned, *she* had raped *HIM*. they were both BEYOND falling down drunk, but she initiated, she laughed when he called her by his wifes name and answered to it, she told me to go to hell when i tried to stop them (he didn't seem to even *understand* what i was saying). and because earlier that morning, DMF's wife had called me asking to corraborate *his* story that he had been raped.
i ended up telling the police that they were both too drunk to consent, but that she had started it, and as far as i was concerned they had raped each other.
i don't know. the only people who believed DMF were me and his wife - everyone else just seemed to accept that a guy who was too drunk to tell the difference between women raped VDW. because *obviously* she could not have raped him.
i guess i should have been happy that anyone was willing to think it was a rape at all, considering how drunk *she* was...
i still don't know totally how to think about the whole thing.
Wait a sec, I can't characterize this as rape since at all: 1) he was 11 & the girl was 14; 2) he didn't try to stop her; and 3) in fact he sounded as if he was excited by the girl's aggressiveness. If this had been a 17yo girl, I would at least understand the argument. In most states this would fall under the "Romeo & Juliet" exclusion to statutory rape.
He said he put his hands in front of him to push her away and then felt he was naked and moved his hands. His tone and body language, to me, implied that he was confused and scared by her being naked and that he definitely didn't want it. And how many young children have you heard about being raped that don't actually say no or forcibly try to get away because they are too young to actually understand that what is going on is wrong or bad?
The three things you list don't make any sense. I disagree that he seemed excited; he seemed uncomfortable and awkward when the conversation shifted to the topic of this assault. To say that this doesn't qualify as rape because "he didn't try to stop her" is incredibly offensive. First, you have no idea if he tried to stop her. Also, many victims of sexual assault are unable to stop their assailants. Does this mean they weren't raped? Your comment really bothers me.
I'm sorry for offending you ecj. I'm certainly not saying victims have to "stop" their assailants, a "No" would suffice. But really, LW's comments sounded to me as if he enjoyed it. I just interpret his comments differently.
Some victims are not able to even say No. It's still rape.
how about you think about how ineffective a "simple NO" is in stopping most rapists!?!? if that was the case, probably no one would be assaulted.
i'm sorry to tell you, but your rigid definition of rape is pretty much off the mark.
1) 3 years older is still 3 years older. i think in a lot of states, sexual assault perpetrated by someone 3 or more years older is considered sexual assault, not "experimentation" or whatever.
2) many victims don't "try to stop" their aggressors for a number of reasons. they are in shock that they are being assaulted, they feel coerced and/or manipulated by the perpetrator, they are too young to understand what is happening. lil wayne said he tried to push her off of him and realized that she was naked. she might have been physically stronger than him and he might have been afraid of her becoming even more physically violent with him - he looks to be a pretty small guy even as an adult. but just because you "don't stop" the perpetrator doesn't mean that you WANT to be raped or you WANT to have "sex" with that person.
4) our society is fucked up and blames victims not only for the crime committed against them, but for THEIR REACTION to the assault they have endured. my impression of lil wayne's reaction is that he a) did not want to discuss it on national television with jimmy kimmel and b) is probably STILL processing and making sense of what happened to him. many survivors of rape/molestation tell themselves, for YEARS, that they wanted it, that they brought it on themselves, or any number of things in order to cope with the sense of pain, loss, and isolation they feel as a result of being raped. as was stated in the original post, we have to consider how fucked up our society is that we blame people for how they react to sexual assault of any kind. men are especially vulnerable to being blamed for not being "man enough" to stop an assault (even when they are 11 YEARS OLD) or for being made to feel as though they really wanted to be raped, because who wouldn't "want" the "advances" of an "older woman."
also, it's possible/probable that his perpetrator was also the victim of sexual assault at some point in her life.
whether or not you, sly, consider this to be rape, lil wayne was clearly uncomfortable with the subject and says that it has had a negative effect on his life. if his personal and physical boundaries were violated when he was 11, is it up to US to determine what constitutes a violation for him? that's his call to make. certainly legal and psychiatric definitions of child sexual abuse confirm that he was a victim.
it would be great if he was able to speak out publicly about what happened to him, but that's his call. kimmel at least had the common sense to not press the issue or continue his jokes about this. but still, kimmel FAIL.
Yes, 14 is young, but the 14 year old is obviously the one at fault. In Canada, there is no way this would be treated like a 'Romeo and Juliette' case, as it would most definitely be treated as statutory rape under our Criminal Code as, though still a youth, the 14 year old would be at fault (in Canada the victim would have to be within at least 2 years of age of the accused for the case to not automatically be considered rape.) It is very clear that this would be a rape case (in Canada at least - I am not completely clear on the laws in the states!)
Furthermore, my guess is that most people would consider a 14 year old boy forcing an 11 year old girl to have sex with him rape. Most would also probably consider a 14 year old boy forcing an 11 year old boy to have sex with him rape.
Rape is rape, despite the gender of the parties involved.
Well its clear that this interview is a Rohrschach test. I think Lil' Wayne was visibly nervous from the very beginning of the interview. If you follow his music he depicts himself as a sensitive rapper and this interview proves the point...I think the racial lens is the more perceptive one here. While Lil' Wayne is exotic, Kimmel was a little too eager to point it out. The laughter was more at him, than with him--did he really ask if LW's 4month old son was a virgin??? (And why did LW respond "No"?)
The interesting thing here is that 20 years ago, statutory rape was handled quietly, usually without serious repercussions. Times have changed...Outside of cases like incest or pedophilia though, and despite the posts above, I don't think its *generally* possible for a woman to rape a man.
Why do you think it's not possible for a woman to rape a man? That kind of comment is exactly why men who have been raped don't admit what has happened to them. There have been several men on this post who have commented that they were raped.
You don't think it's generally possible for a woman to rape a man?
That is horribly offensive.
http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/3148/79/
If you need some kind of personal story to understand, this is something I read recently.
I forgot! TRIGGER WARNING on the above link.
Sly - It is not possible for a woman to rape a man? Tell that to the hundreds of male child sexual abuse surviors I have worked with over the past ten years!! Some of their attackers were older men....and some women.
You seem to have this strange patriarchial idea that women are the submissive one's who get raped and men are not.
From my work in child protection...I can tell you this is bull. And at least the men that I have worked with are being upfront and honest enough with themselves to admit that they HAVE been raped - not somehow "got lucky" by being
attacked.
'The laughter was more at him, than with him--did he really ask if LW's 4month old son was a virgin??? (And why did LW respond "No"?)'
He responded 'No' because the interviewer was making a mockery of him having been abused and he just said it out of shock like everyone else would.
Jimmy Kimmel = Bigot. Pure and Simple.
(And I'm not just saying that in relation to this episode.)
I'm not sure about any other evidence you have to call Jimmy a bigot but this episode is not one of them. Mr. Wanye did a documentary where he talked about losing his virginity in which I believed he said he enjoyed it, although he was high on drugs at the time, but he also tells a 15 year old boy on his tour that he going to try and help him pop his cherry with one of the groupies. So this is why Kimmel asked him the question. I viewed the clip on a website that is no longer available but I'm sure you can find it somewhere on the web.
I'm 100% sure that if a white celebrity had made a documentary, wrote a book, or even made comments to the press about losing his virginity at 11 Kimmel would've asked. And to prove my point I give you the women of The View.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLXcsny2zWI
First time poster, long time reader and fan.
I want to really thank Samhita for posting this and linking to it in a number of places today. In the past year I have been really beginning to deal with my own sexual assault. I was assaulted multiple times as a teenager by another boy. Over the years I have had psychological issues, sexual problems, and numerous relationships collapse at the intersection of both.
The past year I have been writing about my assaults. Currently I identify as asexual as well because it is the best way to describe how the tramua of my childhood affected me.
It is so great to know others understand and don't mock or understate male rape.
Dale Nixon
dalenixonisasexual.wordpress.com
dalenixonasxual on Twitter
A guy friend of mine said that women can't rape men because a man has to become hard for any sex to occur. I told him this wasn't the case, because someone can get aroused without wanting to.
I realize that it's probably different in my case, but when I was sexually abused, the actual actions felt good. I still consider it abuse because I didn't want to do it and was too scared to say no, so I think it's the same with men.
You are absolutely correct the body reacts on it's own and that does not imply consent. A woman can be raped and have an orgasm. It's still every bit rape, every bit unwanted but the body has reactions. A lot of rape survivors who have experienced beat themselves up wrongly over that and it even worsens their trama.
Thanks a lot for your comment! I wasn't raped, because we didn't have intercourse, and it wasn't violent either, because he was able to do what he wanted since he started doing it when I was young and I didn't realize it was wrong until I got a little older.
The worst part was that it was my brother, so that extra guilt made it worse for me.
I realize I'm going off on a tangent, but this discussion reminded me of what happened to me and I feel better being able to talk about it.
No one is more innocent than a child and beyond that we are never responsible for the wrongs others do to us. Then guilt comes in and double victimizes us which is why its so important to not give over to it. And I know you realize you have done nothing wrong.
Even though I recognize that we are ALL soaking in rape culture and believe a whole host of rape myths re: men and women, it surprises me that men - who've been through puberty - would make a claim like that? Do they not remember all those involuntary boners they got in math class, for example?
Tell your friend that when men rape women, often times her vagina will lube itself up. If a woman can involuntarily prepare herself for sex, why can't a man?
I think your friend's statement is a bit off, because it assumes that rape = PIV . One does not need to have PIV for it to be rape, or is there something in the US's law that equates rape with PIV ?
"is there something in the US's law that equates rape with PIV ?"
I think there might be a few states that require it, or penetration at least, though not necessarily PIV. Anything else would be sexual assault, but not rape. Old laws definitely required it, but most (possibly all?) have been modernized.
You're right. You can get aroused without wanting to. If you couldn't, how can you explain boys getting hard in class and trying to hide it?
I think it really shows what our ideas about sex, gender, and power are.
Rape is about power, whether people admit it or not. People think of men as powerful and women as weak. So whenever a man (or boy) has sex with a woman, he has power over her. If a man gets raped by a woman? "What? Admit that a woman took power away from a man sexually? No way."
That's how I see it. Though it isn't as clear in text as it is in my head...
This is something I think we all need to come to terms with:
1. To the best of our knowledge, the majority of rape victims are women, and the majority of perpetrators are men.
2. Male victims need and deserve the same level of support and validation.
This is why I get so nervous when a troll inevitably comes into any given rape thread and posts something along the lines of "well, men get raped, too!" That statement is true, although more often than not, it's used only to deflect from the point of the discussion. Usually, someone takes the bait and responds with something along the lines of "But there a lot more female victims!" This is also true, but it's all to easy to infer from that statement that male victims matter less than female victims because there are fewer of them, even though the poster usually doesn't mean that at all.
One of the things that really helped me pull through after I was sexually assaulted was the support I received from one close friend who'd gone through the same thing. I can't imagine what it would have been like to not have that, and yet, I'm sure many male victims don't.
My boyfriend was raped by his older brother multiple times. I'm the only person he ever told.
Hi Sarah, thanks for sharing. Your comment really hit me as I have also been the sole person a rape victim has confided in. It is very distressing seeing someone you love carry so much pain. I hope your boyfriend manages to heal and I hope everything is OK for you as well.
Hum. Never thought I would cry over Lil
Wayne. And in a secondary way, for all three of those men sitting there on stage, trapped in a kind of surreal, horrifying stage event about patriarchy and its effects on men.
How bizarre.
Women are definitely capable of raping men, especially when alcohol is involved or there is an age difference. It's probably less likely to be a violent rape (for many different reasons), but it can happen.
This idea that men cannot be victims and women cannot be perpetrators is one of the most harmful ones in our society.
I recall another example of how harmful this can be for a male child, which is something our society and even our courts seem to just not understand. It's a fascinating story in it's own right; "The Jet-Propelled Couch" in Fifty Minute Hour. Well worth a read if you're interested in psychology or delusions.
While we're on the topic - "The Little Coochie-Snorcher that Could," a section from Vagina Monologues which positively portrays a 24-year old woman raping a 13-year old girl (it was changed to 16 in revised editions, but it was most definitely 13 originally). The first time I saw the play performed, it had this entire part unedited. I was pretty stunned about this, and wound up getting into several arguments. I was amazed at how many people defended the rape, and I thought a lot of it was tied up in the misconception that women cannot commit rape. Again, there have been numerous instances of pretty blatant rape of young girls by adult women that got brushed under the rug and the rapist given a slap on the wrist: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23972522-2,00.html for example.
Anyways, I just wanted to point out that the "women cannot be perpetrators" myth is just as deep as the "men cannot be victims" myth, and that both of them need to be forgotten.
What is this?
http://www.thundersquee.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/ts-lil_wayne_carter.jpg
Read the belt buckle.
His belt buckle says BAPE, it's a japanese line of clothing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bathing_Ape
Thank you! I was really wondering about that, and if it was related to this discussion.
I actually thought it was a photoshop at first, but you aren't the only one to wonder what his belt buckle said.
Samhita, thanks for this post. And appreciation to all the men here who've shared their version of the horror story of a rape men don't believe possible. I don't really have anything much to add that hasn't already been said more eloquently by other commenters here, except for this:
Another problem with the issue of female-on-male rape is that it can be very, very difficult for feminist women (or at least this feminist woman) to discuss with men.
I've tried before with several male friends, and every time my comments have gotten shut down with a simple, "Oh, you're a woman, so you don't know what you're talking about; we're men, and trust us, all men would love to have had a woman initiate sex when he was that age."
(They also pull the but-he-got-a-hard-on-so-he-wanted-it argument, which of course doesn't fly because it implies that if a woman gets wet while being raped she has consented.)
If anybody has any recommendations for ways feminist women can approach this in conversation with men, I'd love to hear them. I hardly think that I have to swallow the machismo-based claim that all twelve-year-old boys want to get coercively fucked just because I never was one.
Maybe make the damages argument? There was a Yale study (which I can't find) which stated that young men who were raped(I believe by same-age female partners) due to verbal coercion exhibited the same symptoms as female rape victims, including the victims of physically coercive rape.
Also, perhaps talk about younger victims, or tell other people's stories. If you can say, well, I read X about Y, and his reaction was Z. Or ask them why they think woman-on-boy rape is different than man-on-boy rape, which in my experience is roundly condemned.
This question came up on a boy scout campout I was at. The conversation was between two scouts, one older and one much younger.
Younger: "How can a man get raped by a woman? Why doesn't he just enjoy it and have it be just sex? Where is the downside?"
Older: *Staring at the other like he was an idiot* "Because when a person is that crazy you don't know what they are going to do, what they are going to inject into you or what you are going to get. They can cut you, anything. You're tied up in the back of a van driven by a rapist"
Younger: "Oh" *Silence*
That was about the only time the younger scout ceased talking during the entire trip.
Speaking someone who spends a lot of time talking about female sexual violence against males, I have to say that I am as impressed by the responses here as I was Cara's post (which I noted on her blog, although she banned me for questioning some of her notions). Quite often male rape, particularly at the hands of females, is not taken seriously and not acknowledged, particularly by feminists, so it is great to see that some of the advocacy of men's groups and people like Glenn Sacks is starting to be taken seriously.
Male victims face many stigmas and stereotypes, and unfortunately Kimmel's behavior is reinforced not only by society's general ambivalence and bizarre assumption that boys and men can never be victimized (as being a victim demonstrates that one is not a man), but also by the failure of the support community to acknowledge and reach out to male victims. This is something that just is not talked about, and when it is Kimmel's response is what one typically hears, even from prominent victim's advocates.
There definitely needs to more discussions like what happened here, particularly without any rhetoric or political slant. I have had and know far too many boys and men who have had such experiences and it is time to start calling those experiences what they are, even if the male victims themselves will not use that word.
For anyone interested, there is a new site called 1in6 that has great information about male rape and sexual abuse, both for male survivors and their allies. MaleSurvivor is also another great site and it has forums for male survivors and their families and quite a few working therapists who can help anyone looking for local support groups or therapists who treat male victims.
It's a shame people like Glenn Sacks and his followers don't take male-on-female rape seriously, though.
Also, feminists are among the only people who acknowledge that women can rape men.
But don't let reality get in the way of Sack's anti-feminism propaganda campaign.
You cannot be serious.
SarahMC's experience has been mine as well, that any time a discussion of female-on-male sexual assault has come about IRL, I or another feminist has started the conversation.
The problem with Glenn Sacks and the other MRAs is not that they want to draw attention to problems that face men, and discuss male experience, it is that frequently they focus solely on denying that problems that face women are serious. And instead of seeking changes which will help men with these problems, they seek to undermine the changes made to help women with these problems.
And just about every single time that women start a discussion of rape and how it harms women, they deny, detract, and act disrespectfully. Toy soldier's comment here is more respectful than his comments at Cara's place were, but there is still this bullshit argument that feminists don't care about male victims of sexual assault. Male rape is not acknowledged "particularly by feminists"? I mean, what the hell is that? It isn't even true. On a post discussing how society ignores the rape of men.
I cannot fathom what his motives are in slamming people who are bringing attention to an important cause about how they don't . . . bring attention to that cause enough. And frankly, I don't care what they are.
I have seen the ACLU stand up for equal sentencing between men and women in these cases, I've also seen them stand up for the rights of victims*. By contrast I've seen feminist groups push for even more beneficial treatment of women in the legal system. I've also seen many of the groups you malign fight for the inclusion of men in support systems and fight for their recognition. But I have not always seen the same care provided by feminists.
Nominally, yes I'd agree with you, most feminists will generally acknowledge the existence of male victims and (sometimes) of female perpetrators. This nominal support is very quick to evaporate when the male victims request equal support as female victims, or when it comes to treating female perpetrators the same as male perpetrators. Quote from the XX factor justifying a discrepancy between 9 months for the female and 40 years for the male in virtually identical cases:
"But maybe that's as it should be. Yes, a 17-year-old female is capable of causing harm to an innocent 14-year-old with her sexuality...But men tend to be bigger, stronger, and have more parts that they can force into you...that explains to some extent why rape laws would (and should) treat the sexes differently."
Now in all fairness I've seen this attitude expressed in non-feminists as well, but there are other more uniquely feminist tactics including claiming that it isn't as damaging for a man because he has "societal power". I've never been sure how a victim is supposed to comfort himself after the fact because of the gender ratios in congress. (For example of this argument see the letter to the editor written by Jessica Monthony here)
I could continue with examples but to put it simply, feminism is hardly the uniformly benevolent monolith you portray it as. Some feminists are genuinely interested in seeing injustices ended, but the same goes for some non-feminists. By contrast some feminists will fight tooth and nail to prevent male victims from receiving acknowledgment out of the fear that it would imply they require equal support. And again the same thing goes for some non-feminists who will make many of the same arguments to protect their own sensibilities. This isn't a case where feminism is the only voice of reason, or even a case where it can be said to have a singular voice.
*You could argue the ACLU is a feminist organization, however, considering their frequent clashes with many branches of feminism, 'civil libertarian' is a more apt description imo.
Is the XX factor a feminist blog? I know they are 'the women of slate' or something, but I didn't know they all identified as feminist.
As for whether more feminists acknowledge that there can be woman on male rape than other groups of people, I have no statistics or anything, but most of the people I know who acknowledge the issue are feminists, and that is most likely because, on average, feminists are more likely than the average non-feminist identified person to think deeply about issues involving rape. If people have never really thought about it, it seems like they are more likely to have knee-jerk reactions that it isn't possible or it isn't a problem.
I'd agree with you that they are more likely to consider the issue, and this results in a larger percentage of them acknowledging the issue. But this doesn't result in them all coming down on the same side. At the same time as there are more feminists who acknowledge it there are also more feminists who campaign against its acknowledgment (or its logical conclusions such as equal support for male victims)
Great post
I'm confused. The article from the independent UK you linked to had pretty solid evidence to support that men and women have different patterns of criminality. If resources are scarce and if women commit less violent crimes and are less likely to re-offend then why should they be treated the same?
"Women, representing only 5.4 per cent of the prison population, break the law much less often than men. Those who do are more likely to be guilty of theft and fraud and less likely to be involved in violence, criminal damage and organised crime. The evidence suggests that when women fall foul of the criminal justice system they will be harshly treated by a system designed for men. More than one-third of those behind bars have no previous convictions, double the proportion of men."
It seems logical that most resources be directed toward violent offenders in society, especially since they tend to repeat: where are all of the female Lovell Mixons hiding, for example.
I actually do think gender specific prevention of violence is a good idea for similar reasons--that in general men and women have different motives (even when committing similar crimes) and different societal scripts. Meanwhile, single moms have been demonized as being a root cause of criminality even though the data doesn't quite support that (the data supports that a good indicator of criminality is having close relatives who are criminals, and sadly this relative is often one or more of the parents). In light of these things it's reasonable for feminism to have a certain focus.
I think it's valid to discuss the ways in which feminism can be more inclusive of male victims. But so far I'm unimpressed by the claims that *some* feminist are misguided (the jail article for example) when often there is pretty good data backing them up. (And if the data is flawed, of course that's a valid point to argue).
"I actually do think gender specific prevention of violence is a good idea for similar reasons--that in general men and women have different motives (even when committing similar crimes) and different societal scripts."
But the law was not offering the motives as mitigating factors, nor was it distinguishing between the female criminals who had these mitigating circumstances from the female criminals who did not. It sought to treat all women regardless of their motives or actions in a superior way to men regardless of those mens' motivations.
What the feminists in this case were suggesting was that in the case where a man and woman committed the same crime with the same motives, the man would invariably be treated more harshly. If as the report argued theft to protect your children is less serious and is why society should treat some of these female offenders more lightly, then a man who committed the same crime for the same reason should be treated equally as lightly. A woman who stole for unacceptable reasons should not benefit because of some other woman's mitigating circumstances.
If these societal scripts are important to determining punishments then they should be codified as mitigating factors which can be used to by both men and women and they should be required to be proven in a court of law. Not simply assumed because one perpetrator was male and the other was female, as it was in the case in Wisconsin.
What the feminists in this case were suggesting was that in the case where a man and woman committed the same crime with the same motives, the man would invariably be treated more harshly. If as the report argued theft to protect your children is less serious and is why society should treat some of these female offenders more lightly, then a man who committed the same crime for the same reason should be treated equally as lightly. A woman who stole for unacceptable reasons should not benefit because of some other woman's mitigating circumstances.
Whoa. Where did it say that in the independent UK article? First of all the article you referred to admitted that women are treated more harshly in terms of first time offenses. What continues to be a concern for most citizenry and what continues to take up disproportionate resources is violent crime.
I do agree that some of the laws regarding statutory rape are indeed unfair. But again to paint this as being something that feminists as a whole are fighting for is inaccurate. Energy would be much better spent challenging the role of women as sole sexual gatekeepers, fighting for comprehensive sex ed in schools, dismantling rape culture, and challenging and speaking out against these unfair laws as many feminists did with the Gnarlow Wilson case for example.
The prisons are considered to inhumane to jail women in them, so they are going to use them to jail men instead (not sure if the independent went into depth on that point, other British Newspapers did). Meanwhile any woman who does commit a violent crime will be instead be jailed in far more hospitable circumstances than a man regardless of circumstances, motives, or crime. Doesn't speak of equality under the law to me.
"I do agree that some of the laws regarding statutory rape are indeed unfair. But again to paint this as being something that feminists as a whole are fighting for is inaccurate."
Read my first post, I went to great length to acknowledge that there were differences of opinion among feminism on this issue. In fact you could say that was my entire point, to point out that there are differences of opinion, and there is not a unified "feminist" perspective on this.
I think people are getting defensive with you TD because you've come on a feminist blog full of feminists who ARE taking this issue seriously and discussing that it is a problem that society needs to focus on, to complain about some feminists we don't know about who AREN'T. And I'm not sure why.
If your complaint was that feminists all too often ignore issues which don't directly affect middle class white women and only occasionally pay lip service to other problems of social equality, I'd agree with you. (see the comments in an earlier post on transwomen for example of this problem). And it would make sense to complain about such a thing in this forum because that is something we can do something about.
But we aren't in control of some feminist somewhere else, so I don't really see your purpose with these comments. They would make sense if they focused on the inequalities you are talking about, but instead they are focused on some evil feminists somewhere else.
There's a huge and quite blatant bias in the police and criminal justice system against arresting, charging, and incarcerating women for crimes. It's even more pronounced for gender than for race. Just to give an example:
http://www.nyclu.org/files/MARIJUANA-ARREST-CRUSADE_Final.pdf
The relevant information is on page 17. Men are slightly more likely to commit the crime, and yet 91% of those arrested are men. This study isn't unique, I just picked it because I could find it online quickly, and because one of the authors (Levine) has pretty unquestionable credentials.
Oh I agree that all kinds of biases exist in the criminal justice system. I just take issue with anti-feminist claims being made, and the misrepresentation of the root causes of some of the gender bias.
For example: according to the study regarding marijuana arrests for example, the following comment appeared along with the stats regarding the gender bias:
"The New York Police Department has long preferred to arrest men for misdemeanors. Most New York police officers are still men and the city’s jails can accommodate far more men than women."
This is the classic example why gender diversity is important. It would be nice if they just changed the drug laws and policies, but that doesn't seem on the horizon. But the irony is that a possible short-term solution (in addition to creating more jail space for women) would be to simply hire more female arresting officers; yet that action would likely be met with resistance, claims of anti-male discrimination and general feminist bashing.
I've downloaded your other pdf and I will definitely check it out. And I will very carefully scrutinize the authors data and conclusions and hopefully I'll be able to find some outside sources as well who reference this data. I'm interested in tangible factors and decisions that contribute to the biases and what some possible solutions are. I do hope the study addresses prostitution arrests and sentencing gender biases.
Marijuana arrests aren't really the best example since a lot of the people who care about sentencing disparities are also the sort of people who think arresting people for marijuana possession is a bad idea anyways. The PDF I linked from the PA courts report is a much better source since it breaks down by type of crime and has such a large amount of data and statistics.
Another interesting thing it turns up is that gender disparity in sentencing acts to cover up racial disparity. Black and Hispanic women get less and lighter sentences than white women for the same crimes, whereas black and Hispanic men get more and heavier sentences than white men. So if you just look at race without gender, the gap looks smaller than it is.
Addendum: just a few specific examples I dug up.
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/17188351/detail.html
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,25107727-5001021,00.html
http://news.aol.com/article/dani-raised-like-an-animal/367749
Okay, one more citation. This one's much better. The relevant information is in chapter 4, and the actual statistics start on page 134. It's pretty conclusive.
Bleh, I missed the link. http://www.friendsfw.org/PA_Courts/Race_Gender_Report.pdf
Yeah, I'm serious. Just this week there was this @ Shakesville (an actual feminist blog - which links to yet another one - as opposed to the XX factor).
Then there's, y'know, the blog you're on right now. Keep painting feminist women as the enemy whilst ignoring the elephant in the room and you'll get nowhere.
"Quite often male rape, particularly at the hands of females, is not taken seriously and not acknowledged, particularly by feminists, so it is great to see that some of the advocacy of men's groups and people like Glenn Sacks is starting to be taken seriously."
A couple of thoughts, here:
1. I think, as someone noted earlier, there is some cultural hesitation to admit that women can be the perpetrators of rape, but this is something that feminists acknowledge at far greater rates than the general population. We don't see women universally as delicate, innocent beings, and we therefore can accept that there are individuals of both genders who seek pleasure from control and violence.
2. On a related note, I think the general population is far more likely to acknowledge that a boy raped by a man was actually raped than a boy raped by a woman. As evidenced here, feminists are actively combating these myths.
3. What Glenn Sacks (and you, by association) does not seem to understand is that female victims DO outnumber male victims, and the vast majority of perpetrators ARE male. This doesn't mean that male victims don't deserve the same level of support as female victims, and it certainly doesn't mean that female offenders should be let off the hook, but it doesn't do anyone any good to pretend that the statistics don't have something very powerful to say about the cultural landscape of gender and rape. We have to be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater on this issue, which is exactly what the general public seems to have done - and the result is this disgusting Kimmel piece.
Those points you made are why I really liked this point made in Cara's post:
"In the majority of sexual assault cases, where a woman is the victim of a man's violence, rape apology is rooted primarily not in the denial that male violence exists, but in the denial that male violence MEANS SOMETHING and needs to be stopped. Conversely, in cases where a man is the victim of a woman's violence, rape apologism is strongly rooted in the denial that women's actions can count as violence at all"
How far into the video is this comment? I don't want to watch 8 mins of lil wayne. :)
I was under the impression that people should be able to decide for themselves if what happened was rape.
Well, maybe to a certain extent, but you can't base law and criminal punishment solely off of that, there have to be clear standards.
They should of course be able to decide what to do about whatever happens to them, and how they feel about it--but we cannot unrape, unmug, unbatter, and unmurder ourselves. Like Pantheon points out, you don't base law on whether the victim identifies themself as a crime victim.
Have you read the comments in this thread regarding why it is so difficult for men to actually comes to terms with their own rape and call it that out loud?
I know I take it too personally, but I get really offended and hurt by ignorance.
Like an earlier poster pointed out, people should acknowledge that women are victims more often than men AND that male victims deserve the same respect and support as female victims.
Over on wired, some poster (that's super insulting and aggressive) is insisting that women are more often the perpetrator. He says that some of the women he knows have been raped, but that MOST of the men he knows have been raped by women. Like what? What exactly are you calling rape?
It's ignorant to dismiss men as victims; it's equally ignorant to argue that men are more often victims.
Probably if your standard for rape included being drunk (as compared to incapacitated). Then it's not inconceivable that most of the men he knows have had sex while drunk, and hence were "raped." Of course, they're probably all "rapists" by that definition too. Or if he's just trolling.
I talked about this with some male coworkers today and their first reaction was "That's not rape, that's awesome." I said "ok, let's reverse the roles. An eleven-year-old is led into a dark room by a fourteen-year-old boy, her pants are pulled down and she goes to push him, she finds he is naked. One thing leads to another and IT happens. What do we call that?" They both said "Well, that girl was raped." So I said "What's the difference then?"
A moment of revelation for my coworkers.
We were later talking and one of my coworkers said his sister gave oral for the first time when she was 14, but only because her boyfriend forced her too. She was waiting until marriage, but he forced that on her too, so he took it upon himself to get her on the pill. I told him his sister was raped...I suppose he has no idea what rape consists of beyond a woman being violently assaulted by an unknown assailant. He later went to defend the rape scene in "Observe and Report."...I really think people in this country NEED to learn what rape actually is.