Overlap of Rape Culture & Guy Culture

[Bloodmagic]

I was thinking today about why some men have a hard time understanding where the line is and what 'no' means, even when they seem to otherwise be decent people. How the heck does that happen? And why doesn't it seem to happen to women? Then it hit me;

What happens when a teenage guy falls asleep at a party? His friends draw a dick on his face to embarrass him and everyone laughs about how funny it is, cause if you don't want a dick on your face then you shouldn't fall asleep at a party, stupid!

So this person that they care about is unconscious and vulnerable, and as a group they take advantage of that to enjoy themselves at his expense, and we ALL laugh about it. Not just the guys, women don't tent to pull them up on this and say 'What are you doing? That's fucked up! Treat him with some respect, he's a human being, not an object for your entertainment." It's guy culture, and it's handed down from young guy to young guy, and reinforced by eeeeverything around them that tells them this is the way men/boys relate to each other.

Every single guy movie reinforces this violation of men's boundaries in some way or another. Think of American Pie and The Hangover for example, all the laughs are from men insulting and humiliating each other and violating boundaries [straight man: "Whatever you do, don't do X, it's really important to me", everyone else: immediately does X as soon as SM is out of the room], but it's OK because they care about each other and it's just a bit of fun, no big deal, don't be so sensitive.

It really shouldn't be shocking when they grow up and take the same attitude into their romantic relationships. Every single other close relationship they've had has been based on 'no doesn't really mean no' and 'boundaries don't matter if you care about each other' and 'fun is more important than feelings'.

People can't give what they don't have. If you don't teach young boys and teens that they can SET boundaries and demand to have them respected, you can't really expect them to respect boundaries in other people.

I think this 'guy culture' of repeated boundary violation and disrespect for the people you care about is the root of male socialization and toxic masculinity. Any thoughts?

Oh! I’ve got to go dig up an article I think you will enjoy (/be horrified by)...

www.cracked.com/blog/how-men-are-trained-to-think-sexual-assault-no-big-deal/

(The example from Ratatouille gets me every time I revisit it!)

Interesting. I agree that boys are taught 'you don't really feel that'. It's enacted in their relationships with each other and boys who assert that they don't like things are often picked on and seen as too sensitive, even by adults.

P.S. I work in a school and I absolutely see it as my mission to shine a light on teasing and bullying. To help children recognise their emotions and the behaviours they act out as a result. To help children assert themselves

I was recently at an event where 40-something proffesional men (Inc a teacher, a someone in a role relating to the police) spiked the drinks of one of their friends because it was his birthday but he said he didn't want to get drunk and stay out late as he wanted to get back to his kids (one of whom was only a few weeks old).

They justified their behaviour by saying that even though he had said no to getting drunk, if they forced it on him he would enjoy it. (I heard afterwards that he was pretty pissed of with them, but didn't end the friendships).

The male restaurant staff actually colluded in supplying the beers with spirits in.

Its pretty horrifying to extrapolate from that how they might treat women. I refuse to spend time around men like this as much as I possibly can.

I think you've stated the obvious there op

You say women go along with it but I don't think feminist women have ever endorsed that kind of lad culture between men, have they?

Yes, I think you have stated the obvious too but it is clear that lots of women, even women on this board, don’t understand that masculine culture is dominance training or what this actually means for everyone in society.

It should be obvious but it is so normalised it doesn’t register. Very interesting article Betty.

I’m thinking, yes of course I know that, but I know I’ve let these things go unchallenged far too often.

That's a good article Betty, but i was talking more about the ways that guys are taught to relate to eachother, which becomes the blueprint for other relationships. The way guys relate to eachother when there's no women around or even being thought about.

Hypothetical scenario: 5 young guys have lunch together and one says 'no chili on mine, thanks'. One of the others thinks it would be funny to put lots and lots of chili on it. The guy ends up having to run down to the corner store to chug a huge bottle of milk straight out of the fridge. Then he forgives them and they all tell the story later because it's "so funny". Later he 'gets them back' by doing something similar. All of those boys are learning that no doesn't really mean no, boundaries aren't important if you think you might be able to have fun, normal people will get over minor boundary violations.

In the guy friend group I know and grew up with, those patterns are repeated over and over for years before they even think about dating or sex. The patterns are already entrenched.

I don't think it's "obvious". It's certainly not widely discussed. Boys are still being raised and taught this way, to accept violation of their own boundaries in the context of healthy relationships.

TransplantsArePlants - its goes so much deeper than teasing and bullying. IMHO it's far more of a problem when it's within friend groups. When guys are drawing penises or their mates faces or spiking eachothers drinks as FlyingDandelionSeed said, they're not doing it to people they hate or even doing it as a dominance thing, that's just the way they've been taught relationships work. You ignore what they other person says and do what you think will be the most fun for the group, and then later on they do it back to you and it's all fine.

I get you, Bloodmagic. Boys are taught that violating other people's boundaries is OK as long as you don't mean any harm and that they'll laugh too later. It's a weird, messed up form of bonding for them. And then they take that attitude into relationships with women, and when we don't like what they're doing they think we're being poor sports and that's the problem rather than them having violated our boundaries.

(Used to work with group of lads, came very close to smacking most of them on multiple occasions.)

Oh yes, I agree. But I work with Primary-age children and see it in within friendship groups who aren't yet at the penis-drawing stage but aren't averse to pooh-poohing each others emotions or taking advantage of them.

Yes blood magic but it’s not really violating boundaries that’s the full problem. Violation of boundaries is one of the ways that masculine culture trains boys and men in dominance (and hierarchy). IMO it’s that the culture is about training in dominance and this involves violating boundaries, respect = fear, suppression of normal responses etc that is the problem IMO.

I remember reading that piece by David Wong about a year ago - it's very good. And that sort of cultural training affects all of us - two of the scenes he singles out - from Star Wars and from Indiana Jones - were ones I saw in the cinema as a teen, when I fancied the arse off Harrison Ford. It was almost like a society- wide, socially sanctioned form of grooming. I was told this was what romance and sexual attraction looked like, I was trained to find it sexy, I did find it sexy - and it isn't.

Sadly you can see this at work on here. There's a thread going at the moment where a woman who does find fantasies of being overpowered sexy now has a partner she's worried about because her instincts are screaming at her that he's interested in transgressing her boundaries for real, not as part of a kinky bedroom game. But because of this social grooming, she's struggling to articulate her unease and pin it down, and of course the inevitable cheerleaders for "submission is sexy and you mustn't kink-shame" have crawled out the woodwork and are muddying the waters even further.