Gisele Pelicot, utterly floored by this

[twoboystwodogs]

I am totally stunned by what happened to Gisele Pelicot, it is beyond horrific. The violation, the betrayal of trust, and that so many 'normal' men thought what they were doing was OK. I am struggling to find words. I'm not wanting to belittle all the other horrendous cases of violence against women. But to be drugged in your own bed by your husband and your husband allow other men to come in and rape you and he films it and he puts it on the Internet and encourages other men to do this to their wives. For over 10 years. What the actual f###? How much more of this abuse are women going to have to take before something is really done to stop it?

BBC News - Women moved by defiant Gisèle Pelicot in France mass rape trial
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg5g24rr6lo

This has to end NOW. It all has to end NOW. What do we do? I feel so helpless, but we have to find a way to make this all stop.

Everything I've seen and read on the news this month indicates that men hate women end of.

Porn is addictive with men needing more and more extreme versions to still get a hit. When your porn is misogynistic and violent, it gets more extreme by getting more violent.

Its common enough for the name of this style of porn and sexual practice to have made it into the Collins dictionary.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/bukovina

Well it is biology isn't it? The aggressive ones died....

I think there's a misunderstanding here.

The "it's just biology" argument posits that rates of sexual violence by males is innate and cannot be changed. It's inevitable.

The "it's cultural" argument posits that it's not determined by their biology, it's mostly cultural. And culture can change.

The baboon example shows for baboons it's cultural, it did change.

Pretty sure male human beings can change too.

Maybe. But if the aggressive ones died, they presumably had less chance to pass on their aggressive genes to offspring, and so there were fewer aggressive baboons? Maybe its a mix.

I think the nature/ nurture argument is largely settled with the answer being ' its both.'

The rates of male violence differ across countries so we know that culture and environment can increase or decrease rates of male violence. But nowhere is it eliminated.

I think male violence is innate and culture can act to inhibit it, or give it freer reign.

The violent baboons in your example surely did not change but rather died, leading to a change in the troop? Admittedly I did not read the article, so maybe should do that now!

Ok, I read the article. Apparently in baboon troops, the lower down the ranking you are, the more other baboons beat you up. So in this case, all the bullies left, the lower ranking males liked not being beaten up anymore, and stopped new bullies from joining the pack, so they didn't spend their lives getting beaten up again.

For this to apply to human society we would need males to see violence against women as disadvantageous to themselves so that they shut it down in other males.

Fact is, most men give very little shits about other men being arsey to women. And as a previous poster on here has pointed out, all men benefit from the behaviour of violent men. I am not optimistic, sorry.

Rum, was that case Lisa Montgomery? That case is truly sickening. Honestly it makes me laugh if I read that feminists turn women Against men. Bad men do a good enough job of that! Goid men shouldn't blame women for being scared. That's the fault of the vile men out there, & there are sadly far too many of those.
I'm a history student & I focus on feminist history. I've done some work on rape in WW2 & it was gut-wrenching. What I find worst is: how many soldiers raped women & then went home to have children & grandchildren, who have no idea that their beloved family member did unimaginably horrible things? I don't see war as a driver so much as a safe outlet for taking violent sexual impulses out. Yes, being in a brutal environment will make it more likely, but look at csa & these kinds of cases in peacetime. Some women in violent porn may consent & enjoy, but I doubt v many. So many men just have these impulses. I don't want to think it's innate, many don't, but as a society we're nurturing the bad kind w violent porn.

I've heard of bukakke- wish I hadn't. I assumed most of the time the actresses were probs pressured. I didn't realise ordinary men were called in.

I think this is the bukakke case Silkinside mentioned? https://tnp.straitstimes.com/news/world/french-police-arrest-3-over-online-porn-violence
Grim - the women involved were vulnerable & lied to about where the videos would be viewed. France has always seemed more misogynistic to m3 than England, but now it seems Frenchwomen are leading the fight against the worst forms of misogyny.

I'm not aware of any human societies on earth, past or present, where there was no male-on-female violence.

I also think that the argument that porn has created deviant desires that weren't common in men before is wrong. Yes, it's def amplified them & caused them to seek more extreme stuff. But in Victorian times you had traffic in v unpleasant bks etc & worse, in young girls & even children. That's not new. I would argue that violent, degrading porn wouldn't be popular if the desire for it weren't already present. I don't want to believe that male sexuality is inherently about domination & humiliation (at least when directed at women , I don't know what m/m sexuality is like in comparison). I'm sure for plenty of men it's not. Maybe some men are inherently predisposed to this kind of sexuality? I hope not, but either way, society needs to make encouraging healthy male sexuality a top priority. Men need to sort this out, rather than making it our problem.

it wasn't just the absence of the bullies, it was how everyone else changed after they left

baboons leave their troupe when they reach adolescence and join a new troupe

so this troupe had new baboons joining it from other troupes that had the usual violent culture

those baboons would come in and be belligerent and would get calmed down not only by males in the troupe, but by the whole troupe

I do agree with you that to change the culture of our society would be very difficult unless the most violent males were removed, but isn't that supposed to be one function of prison? We need to put men who commit sexual crimes in prison for a long time, and we need to have a high rate of certainty over being caught and convicted for sexual crimes.

Isn't Kier Starmer onto that? To reduce VAWAG by half? /sarc

no, nor am I, not sure it exists

but we do have different rates in different times and places

I've always wondered if the rates of male violence would be far less in a matriarchy, but they are few and far between and I've found a dearth of information on them in regards to... everything about them actually

except most of the males in a baboon troupe come from outside the troupe

as most males leave their troupe when they reach adolescence

Can you share your data about different rates in different times and places? I'd be very interested to see what kind of culture has resulted in low rates of male on female violence in humans. I don't think the baboon example is relevant.

Maybe women should start sedating men without their knowledge. Then at least women could go out safely at night and sleep safely in their own homes.

Clearly I’m joking but we need a solution.

@AliasGrace47 Yes, thank you. I couldn't remember her name. What she did was atrocious but what she went through as a child, including the brain damage she suffered, was absolutely shocking. I just can't comprehend how so many men (and the mother!) were complicit in the abuse and no one doing anything to stop it.

I think the baboon example is highly relevant. After the dominant males died the gender balance returned to normal with new males arriving from other troupes yet the new culture of less violence was maintained for 7 years. That's extremely significant, pointing to levels of violence being more cultural than innate biology (obviously it's both, but this example indicates culture may be more important). I refuse to believe that baboons are better than human males, and if I were a man I'd find that suggestion to be highly offensive.

But anyway, you're obviously free to disagree with me and I'm fine with that.

An example of a country with relatively low levels of sexual violence would be Japan. This may be due to strict laws which are (relatively) more consistently enforced and cultural norms emphasising harmony and social order. Although, I do think the rates of sexual violence are changing and getting worse and I strongly suspect this may be driven by increasing violent online porn.

When I say relative low rates I mean when compared to a country like South Africa. A country not currently at war with weak and ineffective laws and a relatively recent history of apartheid. Those factors are cultural, not biological. Again, pointing to cultural differences making a difference in levels of sexual violence.

IMO porn has been weaponised to train men to act out their aggression on women.

He has admitted it.
"They all knew, they cannot say the contrary," he said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2kdd3n7yqo

An example of a country with relatively low levels of sexual violence would be Japan.

Anecdote alert: I used to work with a rotation of Japanese colleagues for some time. In the same way as people usually plead guilty for crimes in Japan (99% conviction rate), the women said that the official numbers for sexual violence (rape, assault, battering) bear no relation to women's lives in Japan. There have been substantial family and social deterrents to reporting.

Johnson DT. Is rape a crime in Japan? International Journal of Asian Studies. Published online 2024:1-16. doi:10.1017/S1479591423000554

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-asian-studies/article/is-rape-a-crime-in-japan/E5A43CF9D262C99C350C557A8419EB3B

I remember hearing decades ago about Japanese manga and one title in particular called 'Rapeman'. Iirc he would sweep into action whenever men cried out that their women were being uppity. Apparently, he solved their relationship problems in his titular style. I'm not into manga or anime, I've heard nothing of the title since, I don't want to google it. I don't know what the Japanese thought of it but just the fact that it existed...! That someones wrote, illustrated and published it, they obviously thought there was a market...