imsis518-008

This post is in response to a question about the animalistic nature of men in society, and it expands on a comment I originally made on What Do Men Learn About Rape Growing Up?

Q: Are men as animalistic as society portrays them to be when it comes to self-control and sexuality?

There are animalistic men in society, but these men are not the barometer by which all men should be measured. Similar to the fact that the news does not cover stories about all the planes that land safely each day, while the majority of men practice self-control, there are few public accolades for doing what you are supposed to do. Rather than ignore the obvious, let’s focus on the most evident lack of self-control and sexuality when it comes to men and women…

As many of you have noticed, I do not talk about rape. I am not immune or blind to the echo-chambers in the blogosphere on the topic, but I have largely and purposefully chosen to remain on the sidelines. I am not positive the Internet is a place to have conducive, meaningful discussions about rape, rape prevention, and rape culture. There are (justifiably) too many raw emotions, and such discussions usually dissolve to finger-pointing and trolling rather than meaningful discussion or solutions. However, today I am going to do my best to respectfully provide my opinion on the subject.

One in three women will be raped, beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. I am not absolving men who perpetuate such crimes, and I am definitely not blaming their victims. However, this statistic shows that two in three women will not experience such unfortunate fates, so the majority of men in the world are in fact not committing such crimes. Sadly, some men are truly animalistic by their very nature, but some other men are the byproducts of the society in which they live. In my opinion, one of the overlooked issues when it comes to rape and rape culture is not that we have a rape culture (in America). The larger problem is that we encourage a culture of silence, in which rape-culture is a subset.

Read more at [MadameNoire.com]