Rape Culture and male entitlement to sex

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Lauredhel of Hoyden About Town has posted the image of a t-shirt on her Dreamwidth. This t-shirt is available for sale, and some of the profits will be donated to Wikileaks, which of course really, really needs the money (in some other dimension). The shirt says quite simply:

Free Assange

Lock up your daughters

Lauredhel details why the slogan is not subversive humor. She also explains how “Lock up your daughters” is “not a warning between women, it’s an oh-so-hilarious homosocial catchcry between men “on the prowl”.” Read her article for more details on why those excuses/explanations won’t wash in this case.

Additionally, “Lock up your daughters” is an inherently problematic phrase because:

• It implies a daughter’s sexuality is her father’s commodity to trade, as indeed it was throughout human history until just a few decades ago (and still is in many cultures). (This is why, quite frankly, men raping their daughters isn’t as rare as you’d like to believe.)
• It implies that male sexuality mustn’t be locked up, because it’s so very, very important, you see, so women/girls and their guardians must hide themselves away if they don’t want to take part in male sexual rampages.
• It suggests that men on the prowl must not be expected to exercise rational judgment, since that might get in the way of their sexual rampaging, therefore any woman not wanting to service them sexually should be kept well out of their way. This frees them up to assume any woman they encounter is theirs for the taking. Anyone who later claims she didn’t see it that way will be interrogated and humiliated on the subject of why she didn’t lock herself in a convent if she didn’t really want to service the men.

But combine this phrase with a call to free a charged rapist, and it sinks to a whole new level. Even when male “sexuality” is actually just a violent form of brutality that happens to resemble sex superficially, that important force must not be locked up. It must be allowed to roam free at any costs, so if you don’t want your daughters to be part of it, lock them up.

There are days when it seems to me our entire civilization was built for no reason other than to ensure that men feel entitled to unlimited indiscriminate sex with women, and that women not even feel entitled to the occasional orgasm from a long-time partner. Women are lectured to prevent their own potential rapes, and prevent their own pregnancies, and prevent their own stalkings and incidents of sexual harassment. We’re advised to take responsibility and manufacture our own orgasms instead of waiting for male partners to give a shit. We’re held entirely responsible for things that are so out of our control, it’s a bit like holding someone responsible for things that happened before he was born.

Meanwhile, men are taught such senseless levels of entitlement that it never even occurs to many man that the unwanted but natural consequences of sex were something he could’ve avoided by simply not having it or employing some precautions. No, if there’s an unwanted pregnancy, he has been mistreated! If there’s an abortion he doesn’t approve of, he has been mistreated! There was nothing he could do to prevent it! He couldn’t just be celibate, could he? Couldn’t bring a condom with him? Couldn’t avoid dating a woman he knew was after his money or wanted to hurt him in some way? Couldn’t get a vasectomy?

Oh, and let’s not forget the most tragic thing in the world: men who can’t get sex. Poor dears. All the rapes in the Congo pale next to the travesty that is not getting any if you’re a male, thirteen or older. He can’t possibly be expected to work on his looks or his charm. He just sits around whining about how he’s so nice and women don’t like nice guys. (Meanwhile, women who aren’t getting sex or dates are taught to question themselves and what they are doing wrong, until they are blue in the face. If they can’t find anything, they’re to assume it’s weight and go on a starvation diet. Yes, this applies even if they’re already 20 pounds underweight.)

No, men mustn’t pause to examine themselves, their motives or the likely consequences of their actions, ever, for if they do, it might distract them or even dissuade them from the quest society has handed them: the mindless screwing of everything in sight. Everything in the world, including the welfare of children (and even male happiness), must be sacrificed and is sacrificed daily to preserve the male entitlement (and requirement) to fuck the whole world. Hell, they don’t even limit themselves to human beings. They fuck animals, too. And metaphorically, they fuck the world over, because it would be so unhip to consider the well-being of some silly rain forest for five minutes when there’s fucking to be done!

And by “fucking”, what we really mean is consumption. The using, ruining and casting aside of everyone and everything. It’s just the manly thing to do!

Julian Assange’s entitlement to fuck everyone he’s ever met is more important than the rights of any woman in the world to decide who she will and will not have sex with. Also more important is his right to decide how to fuck them – say, without a condom. That’s what this t-shirt is saying.

That’s what rape culture has always been saying: neither a woman’s right to decide who she’ll have sex with nor her right not to be physically brutalized is as important as keeping the menz up to their chins in sexual access to everyone and everything. When this policy brings the human species to an end, I just hope it doesn’t take the rest of the planet with it.

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Related posts:

1. On rejecting men and rape culture
2. Ironic take on female privilege exposes male ignorance