Even though the story broke a few weeks ago, the knowledge that three young women survived kidnapping, torture, brutal rape and forced miscarriage over the course of ten terrifying years continues to shock and obsess us. Glued to our screens, we absorb the nightmarish details as they unfold. But there is something still hidden in the shadows: the continuum from the Cleveland house of horrors to our own.
Where does an Ariel Castro come from? He is a sociopath, a psychopath, a deeply disturbed villain, an evil person if there ever was one (if the word “human” even applies here, I’m not sure.) What’s more insidious about this sick man’s brutality is this: the culture he inhabits tacitly endorses his beliefs about women — he’s just taken it to an unspeakable extreme. In Castro’s world, women are dirty animals, sexual slaves, property meant to be locked up and violently abused at will. But I can open a copy of Vogue right now to a perfume ad of a women’s headless torso, twisted just so, strongly suggesting subjugation as a sexy, come-hither ploy. Rape culture is everywhere you turn.
Why are there so many boys like the ones in Stubenville? Why is there an epidemic of sexual assault in our military? How can we parse the fact that the man in charge of dealing with said sexual assault was himself accused of assault, followed by another “sexual assault prevention officer”, this one from the Army, also accused of sexual assault? Why does rape and sexual assault in the military so often go unpunished? It’s not merely an American problem. What about the rampant cases of rape in Egypt after the revolution? The rash of gang rape in India? We are lucky to have the healing activism of Eve Ensler, but why, right now, do we need it so very much?
I’m not saying that most men are closet Castro’s that would kidnap young women if only it weren’t a crime — I’m not saying this kind of evil lives in the hearts of many. I am saying that some forms of everyday misogyny are a slippery slope to ten years in a vicious predator’s basement. I’m sure I’ll be called shrill for this, an Andrea Dworkin-acolyte, a porn-hating feminazi. The truth is that I’m totally pro-porn, and completely pro-pleasure. In fact, I believe that access to pleasure is one of the keys to killing rape culture.
Some Westerners believe the Middle Eastern veil is a symbol of a backward, anti-women culture. Allowing women to work, to speak openly, to drive cars and to wear what they want signals our superiority: we are a progressive society, way ahead of the curve. It’s easy to see the split in the Middle Eastern psyche because the veil shows us a very clear boundary between men and women. The assumption is that men cannot control themselves, that women must remain behind it lest their dangerous, habitually sexualized bodies tempt these men. Men are sexual: women are sexual objects.
In the West, we have slut-shaming. We’re ostensibly allowed to dress how we want to, but if we wear something too “tempting” and we are assaulted, we are responsible for our rape. (Discussions of women’s clothing at the time of their rape are routinely used in rape trials.) The literature handed out in the military’s rape prevention program suggested that women “walk with buddies”, that they drink less alcohol, dress less provocatively. These pamphlets said nothing about teaching men not to rape. Are we really so different from our friends in the Middle East? Women are still temptresses who must protect themselves from men, who will surely rape, given the chance.
We are going through a massive masculinity crisis, and I definitely don’t mean that the way that Hanna Rosin does. Gun culture and rape culture are birds of a very violent feather. But men aren’t raping and assaulting women because they’re unemployed and women are increasingly successful. Men and boys rape, assault, bully, shame and subjugate women because our society is doing a piss poor job of showing them that it’s wrong. Laws are not enough (even though we need stronger, better laws). There must be a sea change in the way men look at women, and the way that women see themselves. The masculinity crisis is embedded in patriarchy: the notion is that women are to be bought and men are to do the buying. This antiquated idea that women are less than human is finally disintegrating, and as it turns to dust and capitalism dies with it, men need to figure out how to share resources. So sure, men are probably stumbling — but they’re not stumbling into rape. Rape culture is perpetuated by a society that looks the other way — it is made worse when we pretend it’s someone else’s problem. It is YOUR problem. It is EVERYONE’S problem.
An Air Force General actually blamed the rise in military sexual assault on “hookup culture”. Way to blame the victim, General. That’s a prime example of the rank and willful inability to understand what rape actual IS. The General proves that the Madonna/Whore complex is alive and well in the armed forces and beyond: good girls don’t, and bad girls dress like they deserve it. They’re sluts — don’t they really want it anyway?
And here it is — the crux of the issue (at least in my humble opinion). Until women can be given full and unimpeded sexual agency, ownership of their own bodies in public space, in the media, and in their own lives — we will continue to live in a rape culture. Girls learn that they don’t own their own bodies soon after they learn to talk. We know that teaching girls to use their bodies in sports creates a healthy body image and higher self-esteem, but we must do more.
Even those girls who are lucky enough to get support, in school or at home, will at some point encounter the rough trade of sexualized relationships — even before they start to have sex. Why do we refuse to give them the tools they need to navigate this treacherous time? In addition to what’s obvious and MUST be legal: access to Plan B, mandated sex ed, condom distribution — we need to be okay with the fact that our kids won’t just HAVE sex — they will be sexual beings. And it means we need to get over our own hangups.
Educators, parents and guardians must confront the fact that when girls hit puberty, they will be just as sexual as boys. They are being flooded by hormones, they are curious, and yes — they will have sex. Elizabeth Smart movingly told us that abstinence education does not work, ironically during a week of anguish around sexual predators. She said that she felt like a used up “piece of gum” because one of her teachers told her that after having sex, that’s what she’d be — worthless. If we teach girls that wanting sex, wanting pleasure, being a sexual being is far from deviant — it is in fact divine — we can protect these girls from the perceived dangers of “hookup culture.” Instead of giving boys blowjobs under the bleachers in order to be liked, they’ll engage in healthy romantic/sexual relationships in which their self-esteem is not traded for a sexual favor. And they’ll demand parity, both sexual and otherwise.
Sex is the reason we’re here. Sex is all around us all the time, no matter how deeply psychologically split we are: we walk around with our sex — we can’t leave it at home in a paper bag. We are not madonnas nor are we whores, we are people. People are sexual: there is no shame in that. Girls are people, women are people, and they are people who want, need, and desire sex.That shouldn’t put us in danger — physical or emotional.
Until girls are are told that their bodies are theirs, that pleasure is theirs, and that their bodies are there FOR THEIR OWN PLEASURE, we will live with rape culture. Women and girls need to become the subjects of their own lives, no longer the objects of other people’s imaginations. Instead of waiting passively, instead of wanting to be wanted — we have to realize that we are the ones who can, who should — do the wanting.