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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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I recently came across something while listening to a crime podcast that I have heard many times before. The adage that "rape is about power, not sex". I have literally heard this since teachers told me this in school. The most recent context as I mentioned was a crime podcast. Specifically the hosts were covering a case committed in Thailand I believe, and they were saying that the suspects favored by the police were likely wrongfully accused/targeted because they were illegal immigrants. As a point of evidence in favor of their innocence, the hosts remarked that the confession extracted by the police gave the motive as uncontrollable lust at seeing the victim behaving in a promiscuous way (making out with her boyfriend in public). The hosts pointed out that since science has proven that rape has nothing to do with sex, and only with power, this explanation was obviously false and the product of a coerced confession.

But upon thinking about this, how does this make any sense at all? If rape had nothing to do with sex, shouldn't we expect men and ninety year old women to be raped just as often as twenty year old women when attacked? After all, wouldn't it be an even greater assertion of power to assert your power over a male than over a female? Of course rapes of males by males happen, but to my knowledge generally in a prison or explicitly homosexual context, in either case where women are off the menu. I can't tell you how many cases I have heard where a couple is attacked, the man is killed and the woman is raped then killed. I don't know if I have ever heard of a case where a heterosexual couple is attacked, the woman killed (without assault) and the man raped then killed. Furthermore, doesn't rape require some level of sexual interest from the perpetrator (assuming he doesn't use an object or something else)?

I just can't believe how often this "fact" is trotted out as if it is completely proven. I can't even begin to imagine how such a thing could even theoretically be proven, except maybe by observing that heterosexual perpetrators were just as likely to rape men as women (which is not the case to my knowledge). How did such a fact come to be accepted without challenge? Is there some persuasive argument for this that I'm not aware of? What would the purpose of making this up be? Is it just to distance the woman's behavior/dress and general victim blaming from the crime?

I feel like the train of logic might be:

  1. Rape is bad,

  2. But sex is good, (at least, we can't say otherwise without sounding uncool, like old-fashioned prudes.)

  3. So rape must be rooted in something bad (power) instead of something good (sex.)

People will readily believe flimsy and implausible theories that make the world seem to work in a more just way. (See also: Todd Akin.)

The one could instead simply say, "sex is good, if its consensual" without resorting to sophistry like, "intercourse without consent isn't sex."

Now, there are very important aspects of sex where the consent and desire is important. For example, I would not expect incels to get off on rape for the same reason they don't get off on prostitutes: they wish to be desired. I don't think those are the kind of considerations feminists have in mind when they say "rape isn't sex."

Focusing on consent might be counterproductive though, if another goal is to e.g. taboo age-gap relationships between older men and younger women. "Power differential" discourse has all of the tools necessary to simply declare such relationships rape.

For example, I would not expect incels to get off on rape for the same reason they don't get off on prostitutes: they wish to be desired.

While we're at it with the whole "deflate common feminist talking points taken as fact" thing: I'm dubious about this as well. Obviously human connection matters to people, but I think this is emphasized for the same reason "rape is power" is - i.e. the ruling ideology prefers stories that downplay sex differences.

Here's another theory: incels are more likely to be less socially adroit, anxious, avoidant types who rationalize their general avoidance of risk via the most socially palatable (almost virtuous!) explanation.

If you've gone multiple decades without any sexual experience why be adamantly opposed to paying for it just to get the monkey of inexperience off your back? It makes much more sense if you're just scared.

If a man is reluctant to ask women out because they can't take the fear or risk of rejection, why would I need a separate explanation for why they don't take part in a likely illegal process that ends at the same place?

First, let me clarify my invocation of incels: I wasn't making an empirical claim about the real community. My sentence should be read as tautological: "There are some people who wish to be desired" and I used "incel" as the closest-match within inferential distance. I think enough incels fit this profile that I wasn't being dishonest. Since my post was arguing that "consent is not an important aspect of sex aka intercourse," I thought it honest to give a case where consent was the vital concern.

Now onto your reply: I think risk-aversion fits the incel profile exactly. What did you mean by virtuous? Normally, I consider "moral" and "virtuous" to be synonyms. I'm not sure if "I wish to be desired" is really moral, but I would say it is flattering, because it doesn't require admitting cowardice. I think most incels claim to be smart (forbidden knowledge, woke/redpilled, etc.), but do not claim to be moral.

I think you're right that incels don't take kindly to the idea that they are cowards, so I do feel a little confused. My current best-guess is that by calling incels cowardly, you are making empirical claims (for example: that they have agency and can change their lives), and so you are contradicting incel orthodoxy. I'm not sure if incels even can get offended, by anything.

I'm not sure if "I wish to be desired" is really moral

It's relative: "I don't go to prostitutes cause I wish to be authentically desired" comes across far better than "I'm too scared to ask out a woman so I'm probably going to be too scared to risk the illegal sex market and that's the only main reason I'm not objectifying someone".

One involves a positive (though not exceptional) trait and panders to the ideology of the biggest incel critics. The other is just - to use your word- cowardice.

My current best-guess is that by calling incels cowardly, you are making empirical claims (for example: that they have agency and can change their lives), and so you are contradicting incel orthodoxy.

TBH: I wasn't even aiming at "incel orthodoxy" so much as the mainstream orthodoxy that prefers and promotes this particular explanation. As I said: I think that orthodoxy is driven by the same thing behind the "rape is power": a refusal to reckon with sex differences and the messy issue of distributing sex.

"Incel orthodoxy" is quite rightly seen as the silly product of depressive and polarized thinking and ignored in other places (e.g. the idea that looks are all that matter or that average men have no hope in the sexual marketplace). I didn't even think I had to debunk it, since most people take it with a grain of salt.

My skepticism is precisely that we're being asked to take avoidants at their word that - conveniently- the risky thing they're too scared to do actually doesn't interest them at all and wouldn't help in the slightest. But only in this case.

When they say dating is hopeless cause women rate 80% of men as unattractive or their chins condemn them to genetic oblivion everyone suddenly agrees with me that maybe we can't just believe such people and they may be rationalizing their failure/avoidance.

Now I'm confused because you added objectification to the mix! Are you saying incels believe "we don't see prostitutes because objectification is wrong?" Because I certainly never have heard them say that. I think incels mostly say (a) "we don't see prostitutes because they aren't authentic." An alternative reasoning, (b) "we don't see prostitutes because objectification is wrong" seems mututally exclusive, completely incompatible. I do agree that (b) panders to their critics, but I've never seen it. And of course, professing (a) lets them hide from perhaps the true reason, the aptly-lettered (c) "we don't see prostitutes because we are cowards"

everyone suddenly agrees with me that maybe we can't just believe such people and they may be rationalizing their failure/avoidance.

Ah now I understand! You're saying that since mainstream orthodoxy is already in the business of calling incels deluded and (perhaps unconsciously) running from the truth in some cases (chins), why would we take them at their word for other cases (prostitutes)! That's a good insight I've never heard articulated before.

If I had to guess, it's because you're assessing incels from a descriptivist POV. You identify psychological factors (avoidance) and see how those cause the relevant behaviors.

The mainstream position is normative, saying, "incels deserve their lot in life." The easiest way to fit the chin issue into that narrative is to call them liars; but the prostitutes issue isn't really an issue. I don't think most people think about the nuanced beliefs of incels.

Maybe I'm wrong about the mainstream position and I've actually described an "anti incel" position -- I'm not sure.