).Sexual Assault in Equestria (Trigger Warning, I guess) · 5:07pm Jul 22nd, 2013
I started this spiel as part of a comment on a recent FLutterdash fic that handled this subject reasonably. So I'll put the transposed section in quotes because I can't be bothered altering it to fit.
"I'm physically ill as I write this, so I haven't got much else to do. (Err, I should specify, that's not your fault, I just happen to be sick.) Nonetheless I feel enough towards this story that it's worth writing some of it down.
Rape is a hairy subject. I honestly can't tell you if you've captured the thoughts of a victim, or caricatured the attacker because it's also a subject that hasn't touched me or anyone I know personally. It's nice to see a portrayal where the victim does more than curl up into a ball and cry, because we're all different and that portrayal to me always reflected some kind of vestigial sentiment that victim's never recover. Bullshit. It's a horrible thing to happen to anyone, but the best the people around a victim can do is encourage them to believe the future is bright (Oh and that it isn't their fault, that's the one that pisses me off but I'm not going to rant about it). I do take some issue with the rapist, which is, we don't really see him as anything more than the cartoon of a rapist. There's also a brief spiel to be inserted about how in some 70% of rapes the perpetrator and the victim (The statistic is something like this, I'm not checking it) know each other beforehand (which is irrelevant in this case because there's no canon character who'd do this). And also the fact that rape is a crime propagated by culture. In our world the big picture is that it only occurs because pretty much up until the end of the 19th Century an awful lot of men thought they could get away with it (and they did 
). And even then, they still did. It's been a long slow road to the progress we're making today. And we're still fighting off the vestiges of the old cultures, while trying to create a system of punishing perpetrators that isn't too susceptible to false claims (which do occur occasionally, but not half as often as those pricks in the Men's Rights movements would have us believe (douchebags)). My problem with rape in Equestria, beyond the sweet, idealistic nature of the show, is that it's not a society that could easily support the same propagation of rape as our society. Equestria, depending on your outlook, is either an ex-matriarchy or a society where legal equality has existed for many, many years. And this would change the nature of the crime, because rape is not a crime about sex, it's an opportunistic crime of power. And in either societal case, either the proportion of perpetrators would be roughly equal, or the majority of perpetrators would be mares.The fact is, people who rape rape because at the back of their minds they believe that they can get away with it, or it's their right. You cannot tell me that anypony in Equestria is going to take a mare's free agency lightly while Princesses sit on the thrones and have for thousands of years. Which cuts your list of perpetrators down to only the most damaged or depraved."
Rant continues post transposition.
You see I couldn't bring myself to post it to this guy's story (And I know it's a friggin man, not because I checked his profile but because of the way he dealt with the subject). He didn't deserve it. He tried, but like most people of my gender he has no idea how to deal with rape. The most most men know is either not to do it in the vaguest terms, or horrifically how to perpetrate it.
The estimate I hear quoted a lot is that it's close to 1 in 6 women that will experience this in their lifetime. Which makes me sick enough, but I recently had someone turn that statistic around. It means that even if we assume each rapist commits ten rapes, it still means one man in sixty is a rapist. And that makes me ashamed to possess a pair of testicles. That's a number pulled from the air, if you start getting into the fact that it's not likely that each rapist commits ten rapes in their lifetime then you don't sleep well.
Most men who haven't seen a loved one go through this, or have been through the victimization process do not understand this crime (me included) (Unless they're the perpetrator, in which case they have an entirely different understanding (May they burn)).
Rape pisses me off not only because I consider myself a decent human being but because it does terrible things to the mind, and the people around the individual. Reflect for the moment on the fact that we say "She was raped". Not "Someone raped her", "She was raped". That's generally the first phrase that comes to mind to explain a situation like this reflects the much wider problem of the treatment of victims in our society. Part of that is cognitive, according to my ongoing psych training. (I'm not hunting up sources, if you doubt my statistics don't quote them.) Did you know that prosecution lawyers prefer male jurors for rape cases, and defense lawyers prefer female jurors? The just world bias is a bitch. Females, are just as likely, if not more likely than males to engage in victim blaming during such a case. At the point they find out something terrible has happened to someone near them your average person will look for reasons that it was the victim's fault because most of us, want to on some level believe that the world is fair. Only after accept that the world is indeed, not fair, do they see clearly, but it is so hard to make a person do that. Because the logical process for someone accused of this bias is to defensively react, they feel like they're accused of not being a decent human being, when all that is being said is that they are human.
I think about this crime entirely too much, because I face a career where despite my interest and attempted compassion I may still not be able to help any victims at all because I was born a man. And rape victims are historically not too keen on men treating them. Being male still continues to niggle at me as the great annoyance of my existence. I don't fit into the schema. I have to fight hard to get people to perceive me for my strengths, not for the strengths they perceive I have. People, especially lone women still cross the street to avoid me. Most of the time I pre-empt it by crossing the street myself. Because until they know me, because I am male, I am Schrodinger's rapist, and they can't know whether I'm dangerous or not until they take the risk of getting to know me. That's just women. I can't even be seen near children without people assuming I have inappropriate intentions. I love children, but they're pretty much off limits until I have my own.I have even more trouble with men. I'm a weakling, overweight, and slow. I spend my life in fear that one of these days another man is going to pick up on this and decide that he can beat me for my wallet, or just because he can. That's actually a problem in my area. Drunken random violence, or death because you looked at someone wrong. Thankfully we don't have a problem with guns. I deliberately avoid men, especially in groups. All this isolates me, makes me feel like a freak when I walk down your average suburban street. People assume I'm dangerous and I'm terrified I'll run into someone who sees that I'm not.
And I blame, aside from myself, the crime of rape for this. That is why I despise rapists. Without ever touching me, I feel as though they have cast me out of a society I want to be a part of.
My point in all this is that rape is something that touches all of us in some small way. Maybe. Rape is bad mmmkay just doesn't cut it. To combat the crime, you need to combat the culture.
Rape culture is one of the most controversial things I've ever laid eyes on. If you try to explain it to anyone who's perpetrating the culture in which rape exists, they'll almost universally scoff unless they already know. This is the area I suggest you research. It's real. It works on us all in small ways, and until we're free of it, or we've equalized it, I will refuse to consider all claims of equality in society.
That wasn't the most coherent. I apologize to anyone who actually read it. It brings up an unpleasant subject without really arriving at any conclusions, but I've begun to accept that maybe there isn't really a conclusion with rape. It's a vicious cyclical disease on our humanity and we're stuck looking at it from the inside.
I started writing this to help some guy improve as a writer. I transposed it because I needed to talk about this in some way and hopefully I didn't too much wrong or hurt anyone. In the end, I just really needed to talk about how it makes me feel because I am just one of millions that rape hurts in minor ways without touching. But there isn't really a call for those millions to speak, so until now I haven't, but that it seems has just hurt me more. If any of this offended any of you, please, speak, I am aiming to correct the errors of my ways.
I totally agree with most of that. I'm not sure about rape as a cultural, rather than evolutionary force (I read a really fascinating book once, The Decent of Woman by Elaine Morgan, that makes a complicated argument for why humans rape that I find myself understanding.) To that end, I do feel that it's working against nature to prevent rape, but working against nature is called "civilization"- if we want one of those, we have to be good at it.
That said, rape culture is a thing. Whether it's the cause of rape, or just encouraging uncivilized behavior, it's something that more people need to understand. I've been trying to teach my younger brother about it, and I think it's getting through to him. I read a really good explanation once, that I tend to repeat when explaining it: even if a rape joke or comment isn't serious to you, the person you're talking to might be a rapist. And on hearing that, he might think that what he does is something people can joke about. You don't want to be making the world more comfortable for rapists.
Anyway, this makes me curious as to how you'd feel about my story To Tell the Truth, which deals with childhood sexual abuse. One of my main themes was the complicated emotions of victims- it's first person for that reason. Of course, it's AppleDash, and long unfinished, so I understand if you never feel like taking a look.
Schrodinger's rapist, hah. Just another reason not to go outside. I revel in the infinite connectivity the internet provides, and the safe environment to which I've grown so accustomed. Home security systems are a wonderful thing.
That being said, there's something I would like to mention. According to this article, rape is actually, overall, on the decline. Woo woman's rights and the demolishing of gender barriers. I'm all for it. And, unless someone released an aphrodisiac nuke that only affects dimwitted males in recent years, I believe the trend has largely continued to this date. There are some interesting notes I would like to point out, as well.
That's the kicker for me. I'll let you form your own opinion.
Makes sense. I mean, less police presence, more rowdy males, and less, y'know, stuff to do. Hard to scream for help and get results when the only friends that can hear you are the chickens.
I find this interesting, for it implies that 89% of rapes occur, essentially, with ze power of ze fists. Have ye a rebuttal to that? I mean, it's obvious that might makes wrong in a lot of cases, but that's a rather staggering majority if you ask me.
A brief summation of the factoids, according to bjs.gov:
-Rape afflicts most often minors
-Rape afflicts most often Native Americans (excluding latinos) and Native Alaskans
-Rape afflicts most often those who are single or divorced/separated, though does not often afflict widows
-Rape afflicts most often those with low income
-Rape afflicts most often rural women, though it afflicts suburban women the least often
-Rape occurs most often when at home (yikes)
-When the victim knows the offender, they are most likely a friend or good acquaintance
-Offenders are most likely to be over 30 years old
-Offenders are most likely to be white
-Offenders are most likely to be under the influence at the time of the act
So... if you're a sixteen-year-old Native Alaskan farm girl who isn't in a relationship and whose parents are tight on cash, and you hang out with a middle-aged white alcoholic every day after school, you should probably get a Life Alert button.
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Yes, in the first world at least, it is on the decline. Which gives me hope. Those stats are just America though. It's worse in most of the rest of the world.
Because most rapes aren't all that violent. If I've got my understanding of the situation right. There are all sorts of situations involving intoxicants and the victim. Then there's any situation in which the victim is under 18 in your stats. The lack of weapon is also partially accounted for by the situations where victim and perpetrator know each other. I'd estimate a fairly large chunk of that statistic never used physical force at all but I've got nothing to back that up with.
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I've read evolutionary arguments about the origins of rape before, especially evolutionary psychology, but I'll keep my eyes out for the Descent of Women. My personal response is that modern psych, as I've been repeatedly told, as a whole accepts humans as 30% nature and 70% nurture/social factors. There are of course a wide-range of perspectives and disagreements with that, but I've been told and I believe that the median point is the 30%/70% split. Which I've taken to mean that even if there's a reason the biological urge exists, and we accept that it's a crime rooted in biology, then the enabling factor is culture. Biologically we don't cook food either, but now it's hard to find a place in the world where we don't. The other reason I emphasise culture is that we can't change biology.
I don't know about your story. Appledash is a hard ask for me because I'm irrational. Last Appledash story I read left me upset for weeks. That's more on the particular story though. I'll try giving it a look though. I respect you enough to give it a shot. I don't know if I'll even be able to write about the attempt but I'll try.
You need to write a fanfic, immediately.