Steubenville: Humiliation Was The Point Of The Exercise

[redqueen]

Trigger warning.

One thing we say sometimes, those of us who talk about Yes Means Yes, and enthusiastic consent or affirmative consent, is who wants to have sex with someone who isn’t enthusiastically participating? The implied answer is, “nobody!”

But that’s not a complete answer. The truth is that some people do want sex with someone who isn’t participating - who is actively resisting, or who is too out of it to respond. And who those people are tell us a lot about rape and why it happens. In particular, it tells us a lot about gang rape and why and how it happens.

...

Deliberate humiliation for the sake of spectacle, orchestrated by a guy who is really invested in making it happen, bringing the followers along with him down the road to depravity, not getting off on the sexual aspect so much as using the sexual aspect to get off on the victimization. That’s the grim reality of what happens, what these gang rapes by privileged man-children look like up close. It’s not succumbing to the urge to be sexual. It’s a ritual degradation.

(It’s “We saw your boobs” drawn to its logical conclusion. Rape culture has its towering peaks, and its little foothills.)

...

http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/steubenville-humiliation-was-the-point-of-the-exercise/

He focuses on privileged perpetrators here, but as we know from countless situations, all around the world, that isn't the only kind.

[In_The_Wind]

1. It is so wrong!

[siligut]

2. Looking into minds that we would rather not

Thomas describes the mentality of these privileged perpetrators in a way that we can understand. This is helpful because it is something so appalling that we don't let our own minds go there.

[Cha]

3. thanks for the link, redqueen!

[seabeyond]

4. it’s funny, it’s just so funny, it's just hilarious, side-splitting, riotous fun to sexually assault

Now think about this and the media narratives about boys, drinking, temptation and bright futures. Think about the kind of man or boy who goes out of his way to create a tableau of degrading and sexually victimizing a helpless girl, not to get off, but because it’s funny, it’s just so funny, it’s just hilarious, side-splitting, riotous fun to sexually assault the passed out girl, the stumbling drunk girl, the girl with the cognitive powers of a second grader. That guy … that’s not a nice young man who gave into temptation. That guy is an overgrown crab louse on Seth MacFarlane’s ball sack, perhaps so much that even MacFarlane himself would shiver and say, “dude, that’s not funny, she’s a human being.”

[talkingmime]

5. Rape isn't a sex act. It's an act of violence. There's no excuse for it.