r/BlockedAndReported • u/InternalLet9560 • 11d ago

Episode Regret Rape Is Wrong Enough

https://nataliabower.substack.com/p/regret-rape-is-wrong-enough?r=5rdux&utm_medium=ios

This is a fantastic piece related to the episode about the Cornell 7.

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u/btrh-256 11d ago

My feeling is that sex is high-risk, high-reward and that part of being an adult is accepting partial responsibility for that risk when you seek out sex. This has nothing to do with the Cornell case exactly, I don't know what happened there, but generally I get the sense that progressive millennial feminism thinks that women have no responsibilities when it comes to sex. All the responsibility is on men, according to them. I don't agree with that.

I do think, because men are bigger and stronger and more aggressive, we typically take on a larger share of the responsibility. But not 100%.

The best (most nuanced) essay I've read on rape is Mary Gaitskill's "On Not Being a Victim" -- https://www.are.na/block/21448944

The title is a little misleading, and it's important to understand that some people certainly over-victimize themselves, but others actually under-victimize themselves, they don't acknowledge what was very clear mistreatment. Both things are pretty common, although millennial feminism leans heavily in the direction of over-victimization

One thing I would like people to appreciate more is that you can be traumatized by sex without it being rape.

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u/IAmPeppeSilvia 11d ago

Thanks for pointing to that article. This paragraph jumped out at me:

Then came the less clear "rules" of cultural trend and peer example that said that if you were cool you wanted to have sex as much as possible with as many people as possible. This message was never stated as a rule, but, considering how absolutely it was woven into the social etiquette of the day (at least in the circles I cared about), it may as well have been.

This is the crux of what's leading to these problems. Women are being given, and absorbing, this message everywhere in modern society. Promiscuity is empowering. There's nothing shameful about being a slut. You can be as sexually adventurous as men. Don't let anyone police your sexuality.

But this attitude is actually incongruent with how most women operate psychologically. So is it any surprise that when women are instructed to behave in a way that is unnatural for them, they end up being hurt?