Why do men rape/harass/like woman-degrading porn?

[WindyPudding]

I wondered if we could discuss this or if there's anyone on MN who's studied it.

I don't mean to sound naive - I know rape is about power and control, I know misogyny is universal. But I still don't really understand why it's so normal for men to want to dominate, hurt or control women.

Even in the current "moment" of violence against women being in the spotlight, people don't really seem to be asking this question. Even when they see that it's men who should not do this, and not women who are responsible. Where does it come from to start with? It could be evolutionary but early humans needed to function and support each other in mixed-sex groups, so you'd think it would not be advantageous for one group to fundamentally want to harm the other.

Also like many women I've been in various relationships with men, and while I've been treated badly in various ways (as well as childhood sexual abuse and had one experience of attempted rape as an adult), I've also had relationships and sex with men who were (or at least seemed) really gently and respectful and showed no sign of wanting to dominate or hurt. So I'm wondering where it comes from, how much it has to do with being a man physically, how much culturally, and what the point of it is?

I cannot imagine enjoying in any way forcing someone else to have sex or sexually groping someone without their consent - or enjoying porn that degrades women (or anyone). It would feel so awful, miserable and guilt-inducing. I'm fascinated to know why it's something men want to do.

Especially porn – was it always about hurting and degrading women? If as people discussing this often say, porn is "not like real sex" and that's why it's so harmful to boys, why do boys / men want porn that is not like real sex?

Also if we could understand what this is all about, could it be changed? On the porn discussion on WH yesterday, Emma Barnett said (twice) that "porn isn't going anywhere" as if the existence of it cannot be challenged. But why not?

Lack of empathy? Something that is mostly learnt through being shown care whilst growing up.
Doesn’t explain all, obviously. But I suspect is one part of the jigsaw.

I agree lack of empathy seems to be a thing among a lot of men, but male babies / children don't get less care - in fact they're often prioritised.

@WindyPudding

I agree lack of empathy seems to be a thing among a lot of men, but male babies / children don't get less care - in fact they're often prioritised.

That may be part of the problem. It's hard to see the unprioritised as similarly human. They're less than. The support humans.

Also if we could understand what this is all about, could it be changed? On the porn discussion on WH yesterday, Emma Barnett said (twice) that "porn isn't going anywhere" as if the existence of it cannot be challenged. But why not?
Because the internet is so vast that it would be impossible to enforce. Images of CSA have long been banned but they're certainly accessible to those prepared to look in the right place.

I agree op I find it baffling. Why would you want to hurt the person you are having sex with? If you love each other the whole point of the exercise is to both feel good.

Also never understood the hate some men show towards women who do things to them sexually they enjoy. Why the word “slag” and other abusive words? You would think they would like the women who are doing this stuff to them that is pleasurable but they don’t they seem to really hate them? And the accepted narrative is that say women are complicated and men straightforward actually the opposite is true...

I'm interested to know this too.

Porn/paid/live streaming sites are an absolute deal breaker for me in a relationship. I guess that means I shall remain single for the forseeable.

I have very few men as friends toonand with good reason. Sad reality is the majority don't really support women's autonomy, respect boundaries or value/care enough about the women in their lives. I don't feel that's an over generalisation.

Because the internet is so vast that it would be impossible to enforce. Images of CSA have long been banned but they're certainly accessible to those prepared to look in the right place.

Oh yes I totally agree you couldn't enforce a ban. I was more thinking along the lines of societal change and culture - moving towards a situation where the way we bring up boys (and girls) means this violence and disrespect towards women could become a thing of the past and so porn wouldn't be like that.

Obviously that would be a massive task, but theoretically is it possible? Given that there are men who aren't like that, therefor it's possible for them not to be like that – for them to genuinely see women as people and as their equals.

(or is that a delusion? - I do think I've known men who genuinely aren't like that, but I've also known men who I thought were nice and respectful but turned out not to be. So I'm not sure if we can say this is some kind of ingrained male thing...)

After all, although things have got worse in terms of porn and gender stereotyping, they have also got better long-term and we've moved on a lot over the long term, in terms of women's rights and equality. Things have changed, in many societies, from when women couldn't own property, get a divorce, go to university etc and men's attitudes overall have changed.

But then I think maybe the abuse, aggression and pornification is some form of societal backlash, involving anger against women for gaining ground IYSWIM.

@WindyPudding - I mean, it’s more the quality of care. The emotional kind of support and care, that results in one ending up with a secure attachment. Lots of people don’t get this, but on the surface things looked like all was fine.

Obviously the opposite is true, plenty of people fall into that group who don’t grow up to be abusers. So it’s more than just that. But a good starting point perhaps.

The foundation for misogyny is anger and fear at the power of women.

The first expression of this anger is for the hormonal attraction that is experienced by young men and teens. This happens without their volition, without perhaps any warning. It really undermines their sense of a being in control of themselves and their lives. Instead of understanding this attraction as a natural phenomenon, and developing mechanisms to recognise, subvert or ignore it, men have turned their impulsiveness on its head and blame women for making them feel this way.

The responsiveness or lack of it from women only exacerbates this fear and anger, it is not the primary cause. Porn is a self-indulgent way to accommodate the feeling without acknowledging their own natural feelings. Porn allows men to outsource responsibility for managing their hormonal moods.

The next life changing realisation of women's difference is at their ability to bear children. Again, resentment at this superior and inimitable power causes fear and resentment. Instead of understanding women's strength and vulnerability in bearing and raising children, this ability is mocked, degraded and used to control women.

Another female transition, menopause, which was probably associated with the end of childbearing responsibilities, would normally position women as wise and capable people who would be natural leaders. Just as men are regarded as they attain this age, say after mid-40. Rather than older women being utilised for this capacity, they are dismissed as unworthy of male sexual attention.

Men fear women and their power: to attract, to reproduce, to lead. Instead of understanding the root of this fear as pointing to feelings of their own inadequacy, they turn upon what they see as the source of their fear and shame, and attack. All attacks come from a place of weakness. If all women understood this, they would rightly be completely contemptuous of men. Because all behavior is projection, they assume we would express the same contempt towards them they do towards us. To prevent us from feeling and perhaps expressing this contempt, they have us occupied by being afraid of them instead.

Yes I do smirk at most men, at least within the cover of my mind. They entirely deserve it.

Caesars me too. I've been single for 5 years now and while I kind of think I'd like love and companionship, and even sex, at the same time I just can't face dealing with men. I'd have to magically bump into the one in a million who I'd actually like and who would like me, and even then I think my trust has been damaged too much. And there are so many pluses to being single.

Dextrous that all makes a lot of sense, but why do you think they don't go down the more positive routes of understanding and acknowledging? Maybe that's just human nature for all of us but the outcome for the male side of the equation is more anger and aggression.

Someone on twitter said something like the world could do with more goddess-worshipping at the moment. And I've been surprised by how moved I am by some of the things Hibo Wardere says, when she says Women are a force of nature, or "the power of the universe". I have a sense that I shouldn't feel that because it's hubristic or unfair, but at the same time I feel it deeply and that women are a mazing, and society in general should be in awe of that amazingness just as it credits men with certain abilities.

why do you think they don't go down the more positive routes of understanding and acknowledging?
Because men are short term thinkers. They are impulsive, poorly regulated and undergo limited social engagement. All of human culture is constructed to let men be men and there is literally no immediate benefit to self-reflection and self growth.

Women are raised from girlhood to be mindful of others. This has become a liability because men exploit it. But really this is how everyone should be raised. To always consider how my actions will affect others. If women had been in power the inhumane industrial revolution would never have taken over the world as it has. The first question would have been WHY do we want to make cloth faster? The second, what are all the weavers going to do instead? We would have considered ramifications before plunging ahead. We know the cost of impulsiveness, men don't care about it.

Dextrous that's a brilliant analysis - thank you.

WindyPudding you ask why do you think they don't go down the more positive routes of understanding and acknowledging?
To Dextrous's suggestion that it's because they're short term thinkers, I'd tentatively add: religion. Or, specifically, Abrahamic religions that have made people feel so guilty and ashamed about sex, sexual longing, promiscuity and so on. So because people are ashamed they have to bury the shame, or project it onto someone else. It was Eve who led Adam into temptation (having herself been tempted by the serpent). Or so the Bible says, no doubt written by men. Things have got worse ever since.

I think some men don't see women as actual humans with feelings, just as items that exist in the world for their pleasure.

If I eat food, I don't always worry about how I handle it and I don't wonder about whether the plant that I am eating wanted to be eaten, it whether I am hurting it by ripping it apart on my mouth and digesting it.

I think some men see women in the same way. They feel sexually aroused by seeing a woman, or part of her body. They want to experience the sexual pleasure of climax while using that body, and they reach out to take and consume what they desire.

We talk about women being seen as support humans a lot, but the follow through of being seen as less than really human by men is that women are treated as items for men to use, not as individual souls in our own right.

Also never understood the hate some men show towards women who do things to them sexually they enjoy. Why the word “slag” and other abusive words? You would think they would like the women who are doing this stuff to them that is pleasurable but they don’t they seem to really hate them?

That's a really interesting and I think, fundamental point. It ties into all that nonsense about stripping and prostitution being "empowering"

I listened to a Moral Maze once where they were considering this. One of the witnesses was a stripper who as expected came out with the "empowering " argument. Melanie Phillips (yes, I know, but bear with me) came to the conclusion from the witness' answers it had nothing to do with empowering- far from it.

The empowerment was all in the hands of the men who were paying not terribly much to make a woman perform a humiliating act which most women wouldn't do. So far as the stripper it's a shaming act- not an empowering act.

Orlando Figes touches briefly on the power of shaming in A People' Tragedy in relation to the paid humiliations homeless children were forced into after the Russian Revolution. So called "Bum Fighting" is the same.

I think some men see women in the same way. They feel sexually aroused by seeing a woman, or part of her body. They want to experience the sexual pleasure of climax while using that body, and they reach out to take and consume what they desire

But that only explains indifference, lack of care- not active despising of the women providing these services.

But that only explains indifference, lack of care- not active despising of the women providing these services.

Yes and this brings me back to the porn question again - why is it all about women being deliberately hurt and humiliated? (From what I hear - never watched any.) And the thing that was discussed on here recently, about men following women just to enjoy scaring them. It is like a need for power and control because they don't feel they really have it? Or they don't have it over themselves, so they want to have it over us?

And maybe the same drive has something to do with many men's behaviour domestically, whether it's PA refusal to pull their weight or active controlling behaviour and violence.

Someone on twitter said something like the world could do with more goddess-worshipping at the moment.

I've seen this a in a few other places as well...that if we shared a matriarchal goddess religion, it would be interesting if misogyny would ebb. Currently, Abrahamic patriarchal religions dominate many cultures today.

Not entirely sure why I felt compelled to add some of my experiences, as someone who is relatively young and identifies as Male. (Sorry if you didn't want any Males in this topic).

I completely agree with a lot of sentiments you've shared and am, myself, constantly horrified with these behaviours - to be thought of as that kind of man would be deeply and fundamentally challenging to my soul.

But I think everyone would be surprised at the numbers of people who willingly engage in these behaviours or act them out on each other. Not that I'm ascribing blame to anyone (after all, it starts as a Male problem) it just seems to be a very common sexual preference among Men and Women. I also know that my experiences aren't indicative of everyone's but it seems to be very pervasive to me.

A few years ago, I met someone who I was absolutely besotted with. She was a Feminist and a really smart and accomplished person; and in a non-sexual context, we really clicked and I thought that this could be someone I ended up spending the rest of my life with.

However, while we had good, caring, respectful sex, I could tell something wasn't right. When I asked her about it, she told me that she needed something closer to the stuff mentioned above (not the R-Word necessarily, but certainly rough and degrading stuff).

It broke my heart. It became clear that I wasn't enough to satisfy this, and it started to make me feel confused about my own masculinity (I'd always grown up thinking Sex was a 50/50 Thing). We stopped seeing each other. I don't blame or shame her for this but it ended up having a big effect on me - and furthermore I've encountered the same thing in my personal life again a few times since. It just seems to me like there are a lot of people who are into it. Again, not ascribing blame to anyone.

I guess I'm posting to reassure both you guys and myself that this interest in rough and degrading stuff is not universally shared by all Men. And in fact I'm sure that a lot of men, like me see it as a fundamental challenge to their own masculinity when either Society, Other Men or indeed their own partners expect a higher and higher degree of physical domination. I hate it.

I rememer reading once that the logic is that just watching people have sex gets boring after a minuite or so.
Basically it needs a narative hook. And that narative is power over women expressed in abuse (which seems true to me, if you take out the dominance element its not very exciting)
Men have been socialised to find domance sexually arrousing.

Inadequacy

That’s it really, IMO

Its othering.

Mens wants/needs and masculinity is at the top of the "food chain".
Women are by far the greater sex simply because we can grow the next generation and men cannot I live in hope that their required inputwill soon be provided in a test tube no males involved.

What better way to feel or be seen as a man than beating your biggest opponent? It can be verbally, physically in a work setting or sports setting. Christ mansplaining is a thing and it exists because men only feel superior when a women is beneath them.

But I am a bitter old hag who's now barren and no further use to the male population

It's very naïve to look at sex as being connected to love at all.
Look at prostitution.
It's a billion upon billion pound industry, and these men aren't paying for prostitutes because they love them.

It took me a rather long time to realise that men can actually stick their dick into a woman they don't actually like in the slightest.

I think women are wired differently, in the sense that we feel sexual desire for a man if we trust them, feel safe with then, properly like them and are physically attracted to them etc, but we then project that onto men so we assume the same thing about people who really don't seem to care about anything apart from getting their dick wet

A lot of time it's also very competitive and basically showing off to other men that they got so-and-so into bed.

Because a long long time ago men figured out that women are the ones growing and nurturing the human race with their own bodies and only need a few minutes input from men and they sought to subjugate that power in every way possible because is it mind blowing isn't it that women can do that and men can't.

@HaveANiceDay1

speculating on your experiances I wonder if its a combination of the fact that
a) women can only orgasm through relatively specific stimulation of the clitoris
b) we live in a society where sex that pleases women is still taboo, depections of sex with clitoral stimulation to orgasm are rare, women coming (I mean for real, not fake) is actually awkward for some men (see the Scenfeld sketch) and women are still very inhibited about it.
There for I wonder if these women are thinking being thrown about and choked is at least some kind of physical experiance, maybe they think they can translate that in to some kind of sexual pleasure through imagining porn they have seen? god knows
It gives them some kind of physical satisfaction, not an orgasm, but something.