Quote:
Originally Posted by hamster-bamster
Rape is not a trauma of intrusive sexual attention but more a violent crime and a terrible abuse of power. Nor is it intrinsically shame-inducing - I have fought rape attempts, luckily and successfully, and I tell people about them without feeling any shame. Shame is an artifact of societal views and not inherent. There is no more shame in being a victim of rape than in being a victim of burglary. So there is intrinsic fear of the original event just as there is intrinsic fear in any event in which you are powerless, and there might be quite a bit on intrinsic disgust, but there is no intrinsic shame.
regarding the bold part in the quote:
Most people are able to draw the line between men who masturbate in the privacy of their homes quietly and peacefully and men who abuse their superior physical power to force unwanted sex on their victims, much as most people are not color-blind.
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hamster,
I regret phrasing my post as a flame, but let's look at a few things.
I agree that rape is not shameful, but I think that it's going to provoke shame in a lot of people, especially someone in a culture of shame around rape. I am super-glad for you that you fought back and escaped, but I really think that experience leaves a very different impression than a woman (or child, in my case) who loses control of her will and is violated against her will.
When you say rape is an abuse of power, you are describing it from a third-person, objective perspective. I'm describing it from a first-person experience. It's an massively intrusive experience that comes through the vehicle of sexuality. I know that people say it's not about sex, that it's violence. But it is also about sexuality. For example a raped person is going to be potentially triggered by sexual situations.
This has nothing to do with whether men masturbate privately. I'm glad you don't see anything wrong with that, but the question is whether you go up to a woman and tell her that you or someone else is going to masturbate to her photo. That is super-creepy even if the woman hasn't been raped, but for a woman who has been raped what you are doing is violating her sense of privacy and ability to control her thoughts around sexuality. It's like being raped all over again---in fact, coming from someone you thought was your friend! It's a betrayal.
Maybe you don't care if men say they masturbate to your photo. But that's you. I doubt that's the most common reaction. I guess we'd have to conduct a survey to find out.
Mike