A Parade Of Fools

There's a long thread over at Dr. Helen's column asking whether men can be raped by women.

In between the typical parsing of Internet arguments (the definition or rape, legally versus how real people use it), there's a (to me) fascinating array of sentiment that can be summed up as "No, and he deserved it anyway." That's on one particular case.

And by "fascinating", I mean "repulsive".

I'm willing to accept the notion that guys are indiscriminate. Or marginally discriminating. Personally, I'm not. Interestingly, at least one poster would consider that pathological.

A digression: I don't spank my children. I do physically control them as needed (somewhat at two, rarely by the time they reach five). I also don't take an authoritarian approach to education or discipline, give or take the occasional need to put the foot down about something.

I do this for the reason that I think it's primary that a child understands he is sovereign over his own body. Children are born knowing this, I think, or at least learn it as soon as they can move away from Mother. I think this is the best way to protect the child. (My children all know martial arts, to the degree they're able.) In the early years, your concern is perhaps pedophiles, bullies and assorted other creeps. In later years, it's the many tinpot dictators for whom bossing others around is the best part of their day, and assorted other creeps. (Creeps are there at every age.)

I mention this only because when I say I am sovereign over my body, I include in that whatever baser instincts my body may have. I don't kill someone just because I might get stuff from it, or even if I'd enjoy it a whole lot. I don't have sex with someone just because they're willing and I'm a guy. I don't confuse my body's reactions with my own. (And I don't see how any sane guy could, if we all go through that period of near constant arousal.)

But there's just no point in having sovereignty over something that nobody values, including yourself.

This probably makes me on the "uptight" side as far as modern mores are concerned.

Another downside is that it makes it possible to rape me, unlike a few robust fellows who apparently view their own consent to the use of their body as mere formality. Er, as long as it's a chick at the other end, I guess. I don't actually see the difference. We're not talking about procreation, after all, nor even consciousness. If you don't care who's using your body, you don't care, right?

And I can see a particular stickiness to a trauma like that, wherein the guy is wondering "Was I supposed to like that? Was that okay?" when obviously it wasn't, at least for him.

Back in the '70s, ABC ran an "edgy" (I suppose) movie about a man being raped by a woman. It was played as comedy, though, at least from the bits I saw, with the man running around in trying to cover his nudity with traffic cones or something. Can you imagine that being reversed? I mean, playing off a woman's rape as comedy like that?

Then there was "Hill Street Blues". There was an episode where a rookie killed himself. He was a socially awkward guy whose "buddies" had hazed him by tying him up and having a prostitute rape him. They thought they were doing him a favor, at some level.

Russ Meyer was no stranger to coerced sex (in his movies, I mean) but whatever happened was played for laughs, or occasionally avenged with bloody retribution.

When she gets old enough, I'm thinking I'll have The Flower watch a parade of teen sex movies, from the '80s to the current Judd Apatow stuff. Vulgar though it is, I can think of few better ways to say, "Hey, this is what guys are like. At least some guys. You might want to play it safe."

But what do I show The Boy to demonstrate the perfidy that women are capable of? Fatal Attraction?

The funny thing is, I wouldn't have even considered the topic interesting. Women have their own unique ways of abusing men that are typically less violent (though I've only ever known women to engage in domestic violence) but no less foul, and whether or not the coercion they use to get what they want constitutes "rape" would seem to be splitting hairs.

But that's what we do on this her intartube.