Baby, It's Cold Outside

The holiday season can bring our sexual etiquette into question. We all know potentially catastrophic results hover around the implied norm of drinking at holiday parties to the point of stupidity. Alcohol does in fact make us less responsive, less responsible. Some warn us to keep our heads on straight to avoid STDs and those awful, morning-after regrets. While some imply, in this hazardous world, it’s best to not take our boots off at all. As funny as the idea of drunk & lusty may be, some warnings evoke worse dangers. It brings to mind the recent controversies surrounding an ad created by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB). The one ad was part of an ad campaign which seemingly upheld the best of intentions: increasing public awareness regarding the negative effects of alcohol and binge drinking. Unfortunately, the one ad – specifically designed for women – only succeeded at playing another bad hand in the blame game of rape. The PLCB ad –which warned girlfriends to not let their girlfriends get raped while drunk – was another example of finger pointing at the victim, a major uncalled-for insult after the fact of a brutal attack and an obvious side-step to a massive problem. It was a finger NOT pointed at the rapist, and another finger NOT pointed at the rapist is like another rapist ignored or forgiven.

So I wonder: in our efforts to raise awareness, can we turn to call out the rapists? And what gender do we address THIS type ad to? Just as the female is precast as a victim, the anger, violence, mistrust and hate that often times leads to the violation of another human is readily accepted as given “symptoms” of the male species. Of course, women are raped by men - and the stats are staggering (in American and even more so worldwide). But when men are raped - especially by a woman - they rarely report it and for understandable reasons. Maybe here lies a little insight into the problem at its root.

How would the public have taken the PLCB ad if it was directed at a man? And what if it sought to go beyond a warning invoking the stereotype that lies behind the “typical rapist” (something like an image of a stout, drunken, cocky young man – similar to the one we see in movies set around frat houses?  – and the text reads: “Don’t get so drunk that you can’t control yourself and so end up raping nameless blond chic in the bathroom”? - Ugh - How many would THAT one offend?). What about informing a man that he too is in danger in the bathroom if he has dropped his Levis but is so drunk he can’t find the pot to piss in?  How offensive would an ad showing the man as sexually vulnerable be? Would the ad be laughed at? Which gender would laugh more? Would the ad be immediately pulled? Are such ads ever even considered?

Every human being is susceptible to physical and/or psychological force that can lead to sexual victimization. Every human being is capable of invoking such force. We are, however, often times taught (in all the ways we come to learn of gender stereotypes) to CARE LESS about a man’s openness to sexuality, to assume that any and every man would enjoy getting off at any place or time as long as the opportunity presents itself. If a man is taken sexually by a woman, he has been taught to define a sexually aggressive woman as an undeniable “blessing.” He is taught that he need only reach for the moral capacity to lie back and enjoy the moment. And he is taught that a “real man” would even rightly overpower such a woman and turn the tables (and she would love every minute of it - and maybe she would). But what of when he cannot overpower her and things turn from “sex game” to violation and domination? What if having sex with a woman at that moment is in fact the LAST thing he would ever choose to do? To refer to male rape by a woman lightly is just as offensive as what we walked for in the Slut Walk. The damage that can follow a man who claims to have been victimized by a woman is far beyond social expectations and stigmas and, thus, massively crushing, and there are very few avenues of healing for men given the little amount of attention – aside from humiliation – that the crime receives.

Physical sexual response (such as erection or orgasm/ejaculation) can be completely involuntary. Women have fought such reports of being “turned on” in rape cases before and such "behavior" has led to dropped charges and public insolence. Men have been taken sexually upon being drugged, having had their penises tied to maintain erection, or even in their sleep when the penis may become naturally erect. If a man is sexually assaulted without penetration, the issue may be minimized because the penis is so exterior and personal "space" is not so easily defined. Just as men, women are unpredictable when it comes to size and strength and are so capable of using physical brute force and threatening weapons, and they can also be inspired to master psychological force, i.e., the use of blackmail or manipulation that plays right into all angles of both gender stereotypes (e.g., “A real man would fuck me” or “If you don’t fuck me I’ll tell everyone your dick was too small.”).

We know to define rape as a violation of another person, a violent method through which one individual forces control over another individual. It is the absence of consent. Men are more likely to use aggressive sex as a tool to prove dominance and gain control because, by and large, society allows for such things and in many ways even (still) CALLS for such things. A step towards betterment is to allow “real men” to BE vulnerable and to not forget that women can BE sexually aggressive and violent. It wasn’t until recently in modern society that male rape was given even a shrug by law (it still isn't even acknowledged in many places) – and rape during which a man is victimized by a woman is hard to prove and very much still laughed at socially. If we continue to laugh at the notion of a man being sexually victimized by a woman (something both genders are guilty of in all cultures), we uphold a massive double standard and continue to detour potential change. Of course, we resort to fallacy if we interpret female sexual aggression as it leads to male violation as a forgivable spin-off of the anger in existence for so many centuries of the denigration of women.

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. ~ Ghandi

The blaming of the victim (or the one who was defeated in some challenge because he/she did not "try" hard enough) is a theory we use commonly to empower ourselves – and it can work if we have decided that empowerment IS a decent end goal. But a world where rape is at least given the attention it deserves as a punishable crime and where the victim is given the respect he/she deserves calls for a set of renewed, shared goals and redefinitions. It calls for a redefining of sex as we've known it as unbalanced for centuries (yes, women are capable of having orgasms for good reason). Out of respect for each other, our goals would rise above invoking more competition and even fear (consider, for example, the sad need for such a thing as the Rape Axe condom). And yet we tell ourselves it's crazy to reach for a cease in all wars – as rape is and always has been a profound tool of war. Let alone to reach for a cease in greed and lust for power and domination and therefore ownership. And no religion, too? Peace and Goodwill toward All Beings? Some great evolution of our minds in regards to enlightenment and self-control and earthly responsibility including for one another?  Do we worry that, in such a crazy world, we may lose our eggnog?  :(