About Rape Culture

Rape culture doesn’t exist. It is a convenient buzzword invented by radical feminists to justify their hatred towards men because they have penises.

False. Rape culture is not a buzzword. Rape culture was not invented by “radical feminists.” And it sure as shit exists, whether you like it or not.

I shouldn’t even have to write about rape culture. Society in no way shape or form should deny its existence. But yesterday, when a buddy of mine on my Facebook claimed something equivalent to the above statement, that was when the metaphorical straw broke the camels back for me. I decided then and there that I was going to write about rape culture, even though I shouldn’t even fucking have to.

Here’s the thing about rape culture. It has always existed. And, it is more than just one thing! It’s a whole slew of things. Stay with me, because I am about to give you a lesson about what exactly rape culture is.

Rape culture exists outside of the normative discussion of feminism in North America and the handling of rape cases and victim blaming. (I will discuss those things later.) Rape culture, in fact, is extremely prevalent in war time, often used to be psychologically damaging to an enemy side. An excellent example (and the only one I will discuss) of that is the Japanese treatment of women in Korea, Thailand, and China during the Sino-Japanese War and World War II.

Chinese and Malayan girls forcibly kidnapped by the Imperial Japanese army to be “comfort women” for Japanese soldiers. (image source: wikipedia)

During the Japanese occupation of Korea, Thailand, China, and other places in South East Asia, women were forcibly taken from their homes (this is not including the amount of rape and murder that happened outside of the kidnappings) and forced to be “comfort women” to soldiers. What does that mean? You could use your imagination, but I will explain it for you. It means that these women were repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers in war time. To “comfort” them when they were away from their own homes and families. Torture and beatings were common amongst the comfort women, and at the end of the war, only 1/4 of them had survived out of an estimated 20,000-400,000, however most were left infertile due to sexual trauma or sexually transmitted diseases.

Why am I telling you this? Because historically, this is classified as rape culture. This is a case in which rape was normalised in a society, merely because it was during war time, and the ideas of violence and “masculinity” were running rampant. It was normalised within the group at the time.

But, rape culture also exists outside of this ethos. Today, as we see it in North America, rape culture takes on a different form. In the case I listed above, most people would either be horrified to have learned about it, or argued that because it was during war time, the rules were different (hence making it rape culture)!

Horse shit like this ^ is problematic for for a lot of reasons. Rape culture, at least how we in the West understand it, is not the normalisation of raping – but, it can be. And, as I demonstrated during war time, it has been. Like I said, there are many different aspects to rape culture.

Rape culture as we see it in North America mostly exists with the handling and aftermath of rape cases. This is seen through the treatment of the victim. If the victim was a woman, often questions like “well, what were you wearing?” are asked, which is indicative of rape culture. Why? Because it takes the burden of blame off of the rapist, and puts it on the victim. They wouldn’t have been raped if they weren’t drunk. They wouldn’t have been raped if they weren’t wearing a skirt. They wouldn’t have been raped if they weren’t walking alone at night. I don’t think I need to tell you this, but…

THIS IS BULLSHIT.THIS IS RIDICULOUS. WHY ARE YOU BLAMING THE VICTIM? DO I NEED TO SHOUT THIS AT THE TOP OF A MOUNTAIN LIKE RON FUCKING BURGUNDY SO THAT YOU WILL GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK FUCKING SKULL THAT VICTIM BLAMING IS NOT OKAY AND IS, YES, PART OF RAPE CULTURE?!

I don’t usually use caps lock, ever. But today, I have made an exception. Because a lot of people do blame the victim. A lot of rape cases don’t get reported because the victim of said rape is afraid that they will be blamed for it, or shamed for it. And it is no way indicative to one gender. Male rape goes unreported more often than not because of the pressure society puts on victims! Oh, you got raped and you’re a man? You’re a pussy! You must be gay now! How can a girl rape a guy!? Isn’t victim blaming fun! Men – stop making us look stupid. We can get raped too, and we do. Because of victim blaming, it often goes unreported.

In North America, people are often confused with the term rape culture, thinking it means that society (i.e. you) or the culture we live in is the cause for rape. That is not true when we are discussing the handling of rape in North America. Unlike the example above of comfort women, where that behaviour was condoned, normalised and done in the open, this is done by society marginalising victims after they have been raped and brushing off rapists with shit like “boys will be boys.”

And of course, this is problematic. It is problematic for everyone, and for a lot of reasons. These kinds of reactions to rape cases, questions that marginalise victims and normalise rape, blame the victim for being a slut and the rapist for not being able to control themselves. She got raped because she was a drunk hussy, and he’s a boy, what could he possibly do? He can’t control himself. Some sort of leftover puritan guilt card played by idiots that don’t know any better, and an argument popular with seven year olds. I’m sorry, but I know for a fact that “boys will be boys” is a piss poor excuse – I’m not just going to go around raping someone because I am a guy.

Rape culture is a lot of things, and it exists in many different spheres. Through victim blaming, normalising rape, and using rape as a means of psychological damage to a society, rape culture continues to exist today. But, I’ll tell you what rape culture is not. It is not man hatred. It is not a buzzword invented by radical feminists who want to man bash. It is not fake.

Don’t let them trick you into thinking that rape culture isn’t real. We all need to stand together and tackle these issues.

– Jake