Imagination and Reality: Keep Rape in its Place
November 7, 2009
by Karen
|In the piece below, the author expresses her opinions and conclusions. These do not necessarily reflect opinions and conclusions of The New Agenda.
I never thought that a feminist’s understanding of rape would be a controversial issue, especially within the feminist community. However, the misguided concept that rape fantasies are “empowering” has clearly demonstrated that rape is controversial even within the feminist community.
Rape fantasies are dangerous to feminism because they validate the misogynistic beliefs that all women wish to be raped and that women deserve to be raped.
Why do women have rape fantasies? I have two basic explanations, both delving into psychology and both equally valid. A rape fantasy can be symbolic of a psychological rape or spiritual loss of innocence – someone from a broken home, for instance with verbally abusive parents and a violently negative attitude toward both the self and the world. Rape fantasies can also stem from a woman’s own internalization of the misogynistic culture around her; if internalization is the cause, then she needs to adjust the media around her and to retrain her mind whenever a fantasy starts to occur.
Writing this and reading my sources make me cringe, but I believe this must be said. I see the sentences that declare a woman likes rape fantasies because they “offer a chance to flip the script of domination, abuse, and silencing. Rape fantasies turn a normally horrific encounter into a sexual experience that the fantasy “victim” can control and orchestrate herself. She’s into rape fantasies because they allow her to convert her fears and weaknesses into sexual power.” Whenever I read something like that, I think: Please, let’s keep rape in its place – as an evil violation and never something to be glorified, even in fantasy.
Those sentences I quoted demonstrate a poor understanding of the human imagination. It might seem like empowerment because the person’s imagination is in control of both the rapist and the victim, but you need to look at the real reasons up above. Her fantasy is about the absence of her body’s sanctity, but a genuine empowering sexual fantasy would be consensual and passionate. There is nothing powerful about being a rape victim except PTSD. Also, trumping it up as a positive causes rape to lose its place in society and in people’s minds. The best statement to describe the sick and disgusting conundrum is:
[Her boyfriend raping her] was, in part, a result of an “unfortunate miscommunication.” It was, in part, a result of the couple’s failure to discuss boundaries and expectations at an earlier stage. But it was also a result of her boyfriend laying claim to her body without bothering to ascertain her consent. Isn’t that what rape is?
The victim in this case expressed a rape fantasy and a wish to be raped, but she wanted “consensual rape” whereas he wanted real rape. Because the real thing is so horrific, does it really deserve to be glorified in the imagination? Does glorifying it in the imagination devalue the real nightmare?
People are ultimately products of their society and their culture. We need to contemplate rape and its rightful place, which is an evil violation. We also need to contemplate what the prevalence of rape fantasies and the acceptance of rape fantasies can say about our culture.
Please, people, let’s keep rape in its place and condemn it in every area of our lives.
I used to have rape fantasies as a teen because it was the only way I was allowed to feel sexual. I grew up in a very strict, fundamentalist home where women were to remain pure and sexless until marriage when they would be under their husband’s leadership. I think that’s a reason, too. In our culture, women often aren’t allowed to feel sexual. Rape is a way to have sex that they can’t help. It’s not their fault if they’re raped. It becomes acceptable.
Embracing your sexuality is much healthier.
Well done Karen. Rape and sex are one and the same in this culture, and until we decide to forcibly disconnect the two women will never be free.
Porn today is so much different than it used to be. So much of what is easily accessible to young men and women are nothing but rape and gang rape scenarios. So I imagine that many men and women today have sexual fantasies based on what they see on the internet and the media. This is both sad and dangerous.
Most of men’s sexual fantasies is a rape fantasy. I think the idea of women’s rape fantasies is something that men make up, because the fact of the matter is, the only sexual exploration available to women is rape.
Just look at the whole obsession with anal sex. Men have gotten used to, and exhausted the number of ways that vaginal “sex” (rape) appeals to them, via degrading, force, control, etc, so anal sex is the new rave for them. I wonder what’s next? Men will stick their dicks in anything. It’s the psychological aspects of precisely rape, that turns them on, to sex with women.
these phantasies have nothing to do with rape. fantasies can turn anything upside down. the problem I see is, that kids learn very early that sex is fun. there is little information about the violent side, which is linked do male dominance. girls think fun and that they are suspected to have this fun in our over the top sexualized society. for boys it is competition with their male peers. no relationship expectation for the most part and of course no sensitive human interaction. the competition within a group of males to prove their dominance leads right into this violence.
If these fantasies have nothing to do with real rape, then why are they all about the women being on the receiving end?
When you can show me statistics that demonstrate that half of all women’s rape fantasies involve them doing the raping of a man, then I’ll believe that rape fantasies have nothing to do with the reality of real rape, and real women being subjugated.
*crickets*
Thought so.
Wow, evidently anyone can just say the word ‘psychology’ and instantly expect to be believed.
Well, I actually do psychoanalyze people of all walks, and I’ve worked extensively with women who have been raped, to help them understand the nature of why they think the things that they do. Anyone with a simple grasp of psychology understands the Defense Mechanism, something that the mind does to cope with trauma. In the case of fetishes, they are an attempt by the mind to turn what is painful into something pleasant, in order to help the person in question to recover from it.
Women can have these for any number of reasons, and those reasons can be anything from actual real rape to verbal abuse to even something seemingly innocuous that occurred in their early life. Men also have these fantasies, and for a number of reasons as well. What binds these two together? Most of the people who have these fantasies are ashamed of them. Women believe they are glorifying something that exploits and hurts their fellow woman, and men are terrified that they’re some type of monster. People like the author- while well meaning- vilify the concept so thoroughly that they believe even fantasies thereof MUST be bad, right?
The problem is that nobody considers the real -function- of these things. Your mind can only take so many stressors, and if you leave them unchecked for the sake of intangible moral standards, you can actually develop even -worse- problems. To be sure, they’re not pretty concepts, but this is how the mind deals with things like this. Don’t needlessly cause people to hate themselves for having psychological functions outside of their conscious control, PLEASE.
Where in the article am I villifying the individuals for having these “fantasies”? How is my article going to convince people to hate themselves? Please point it out.
I am not certain where you are coming from or what your background is. You use the term “psychoanalyze” Are you following Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic model of therapy? I prefer the cognitive-behavioral approach. I am not certain where you are coming from or what your background is, particularly in your statements of coping with trauma and defense mechanisms. I also know the effects of rape, so it is possible we might have a misunderstanding or we might be on opposite sides. Would you care to explain further?
Rape victims relive the experience through PTSD; the whole point of therapy – CBT in particular – is to help them recover from the trauma and to enable them to stop reliving those experiences. Once they recovered from the trauma, they stop thinking about rape, and they can think about enjoying healthy, consensual sex. CBT never teaches the victims to enjoy thoughts of rape. Rather, CBT helps to teach the victims to place the horrific experience in the past and to release it into the past.
Fetishes are caused by what people learn to associate with sex. There are all types of fetishes from shoes/feet to nearly everything imaginable. Fetishes have nothing to do with turning the painful into the pleasant. If I am wrong, please provide evidence to the contrary.
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