A thought on rape culture, and a question about language

[emanix]

Normally I don't pay much attention to uber-feminists who keep telling me we live in a 'rape culture'. Before anyone gets shouty at me, I am aware that there are men out there who think they have rights to womens bodies, just because they are men and we are women, and that they are very wrong. There are also people out there who think that if you are a man then it's fair game to beat the crap out of you for no reason*. There are shitty people out there, full stop, and pulling the 'I'm a better person than you because I do/don't do x' card that I've noted certain people doing in this context is unlikely to help. Leading by example works. Leading by shouting at people, unless you are in the army, or telling them that they should/shouldn't do xyz, generally does not.

However I just found myself wading into the comment thread of a sociology journal - I won't link unless anyone's really desperate to weigh in. The comment thread is long, full of unrelated crap, and I'm sure Godwin's law will be invoked at any moment.

Anyway... the bit that made me think, was one man, a self-defined 'nice guy', who gave the following response to being questioned (politely, if a bit self-righteously) about what he personally had done to stop rape - had he taken direct action?:

"All the fucking time, I don’t mean to flame but FUCK YOU of course I stand up against sexism, express ‘anti rape sentiments’ and don’t associate with people that have contrary opinions (Jesus what sort of people do you know? The kind of men I hang out with don’t need to be reminded of our anti-rape consensus)

Of course I do, fuck you you fucking bag of shit, and I don’t need some random website you just googled** to help me do it"

So, two things occurred to me on reading this.

Firstly, that ‘fuck you’ is a threat of non-consensual sex, which ought to be pretty inappropriate anywhere, but the fact that this was in a thread about an anti-rape campaign really brought home to me how awful that is as a thing to say. That it's thrown into a conversation casually is a clear demonstration of how ingrained the idea of rape is in our culture – because it’s deemed normal to use a phrase like that.
We're supposed to accept that someone saying 'fuck you' is not *actually* going to fuck us, that it's an expression of anger, but using it that way implies that it's okay to use 'fuck' as an expression of anger. Isn't that only a small step away from saying it's okay to actually fuck someone as an expression of anger? Words come with associations, and associations come with thought patterns, and... this is not okay.

The second thing that occurred to me was when I tried to respond to the inappropriateness of the comment by suggesting an alternative phrase that the commenter could have used. A phrase that sufficiently demonstrated the extremity of feeling, without implying rape. What made me shudder was that I couldn't. My mind threw up 'screw you', 'bugger that', 'fuck off' (which at least gives the recipient the option of choosing another partner to fuck off with, but still isn't great) - all still either implying rape or just plain sex-negative. Now perhaps I'm stuck in a rut because of the sheer power of association, so help me out here. (NB. I'm not too keen on references to Hell/Heaven/God/Devil etc. either, as a mostly-atheist, and would really rather steer clear of using religious words on principle.)
So without using religious or sex-related words, and other than resorting to a rather puny 'I'm offended by that' or similarly wussy phrasing, how would you suggest this guy gets his point across the next time he wants to rant at someone?

Do we really have no emotive language that doesn't resort to sex-negativity or God, or am I just too distracted to recall it?

---

*I don't have the figures, but I believe that statistically, on venturing into public, women are more likely to get raped, whereas men are more likely to get murdered. Neither is okay in any way, but if I had to choose, I'd choose to live.

**The linked website doesn't actually seem to exist, so I haven't included this either.

Comments

[xmakina.livejournal.com]

"Die in a fire" or "Take a long walk off a short pier" meet your criteria but bring in a (perhaps much to clear) message of violence, which is not necessarily what you're after here.

[tartful-dodger.livejournal.com]

I've never really thought of this and entirely take your point.

People can always entreat others to visit violence on themselves. Alternatively wishing a plague upon someone is illustrative of the full spectrum, frogs for mild annoyance, rabid wolverines with halitosis for the full on bile inducing. :)

"*I don't have the figures, but I believe that statistically, on venturing into public, women are more likely to get raped, whereas men are more likely to get murdered. Neither is okay in any way, but if I had to choose, I'd choose to live." I've seen arguments about how women are blamed for being complicit in their own sexual assault, but men are similarly blamed for 'getting into fights', or 'looking gay' or 'provoking' violence in a similar way. I personally think its as much to do with the way that we has human beings like to think that we have the ability to control and protect ourselves, by dismissing the instances where people can't as their own stupidity.

[hollykitten.livejournal.com]

Piss Off or Get Lost would do it IMO.

I remember a line from a movie where a woman says "Get lost, sad act" with such vitriol to an unwanted pervy guy that it would be hard to top, but one cannot extoll such feeling in a simple text post.

[awfulhorrid.livejournal.com]

I don't really have a viable alternative to offer either, despite the fact that I've pondered this one myself for quite some time now. I object to "fuck you" or other variations ("get fucked", etc.) on different grounds: I don't generally wish an act I associate with pleasure on those with whom I'm angry. (I guess I had never considered that the implication might be a non-consensual act.)

I similarly try to avoid calling unpleasant people 'assholes' on the grounds that I actually quite like assholes.

The only things I can come up with are variations on 'drop dead' or the like. Honestly I'm not sure how I feel about wishing the visitation of violence on random people with which I disagree. I do like trying to avoid sex-negative comments, though.

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

An old friend from college days would say "Sew buttons on ice cream!" as an alternative to sexual or scatological language. We adapted it to the slightly more unpleasant "Sew buttons on your nose!" as something the kids could say without getting in trouble anywhere. Plus it tends to confuse people who are expecting expletives.

I'm fond of "Go chase your own tail!" which does imply that the target might just be subhuman.

And best of all was a Quaker friend who could say "Thank you!" in a tone that clearly expressed Die In A Fire.

[cheshcat.livejournal.com]

Brilliant. I need to incorporate those... :D

[just-becky.livejournal.com]

And best of all was a Quaker friend who could say "Thank you!" in a tone that clearly expressed Die In A Fire.

Brilliant!
I also favour a patronising or dismissive "Indeed" in the style of Jeeves (or possibly Teal'C from Stargate :-D)

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

Yay Jeeves! There used to be a teacher in the local high school who could use the word "Indeed" like a scalpel. And one friend of ours uses the phrase "You're absolutely right!" to communicate "You're completely ignorant and wrong, but I'm not going to lower myself to argue with you."

[emanix.livejournal.com]

Oh that's awesome, thankyou!

[mair_in_grenderich]

... but what was the tone of that thankyou? ;-)

[emanix.livejournal.com]

LOL! Entirely un-sarcastic, that one. :)

Not seen you in ages, life good?

[mair_in_grenderich]

life is indeed good! currently staying on a enid blyton farm in the isles of scilly and baking lots of cake. not much to complain about there :)

[cheshcat.livejournal.com]

Excellent point about how we incorporate violence in 'everyday' language choices and how this particular example was especially inapropos. Fascinating.

I'm curious that the poster you quoted uses "fuck" 4x in any many sentences, as well as invoking Jesus (the epitome of the 'nice guy'!). I wonder -- either he's so upset at the perceived accusation that he cannot express himself more eloquently and is resorting to automated expressions of gut-level emotion... or maybe he just doesn't tend to seek more elaborate, eloquent expressions in the first place and is resorting to commonality because "fuck" is an all-purpose, albeit unimaginative, expletive. If so, this is very sad.

I didn't see the original discussion, so perhaps I'm missing something, but why does he need to attack the person who asked the question? And why with such vehemence? Not what I would expect from a "nice guy" and it certainly such anger alone is not rhetorically persuasive. Maybe there's a valid reason we don't know for his outburst, which you imply was not provoked, but his technique does raise the question of protesting too much...

I mean, the appropriate (and more eloquent) response would be, "How dare you presume to know anything about me and my life experiences, or how can you judge what adequately qualifies as 'direct action'? I'll have you know that I volunteer for a rape crisis clinic and actively confront rapist attitudes and statements when I see them in other men blah blah blah..." But that requires an active engagement in the argument, not just a burst of retaliation.

[just-becky.livejournal.com]

If I find myself in a situation where such expletives are appropriate I tend to prefer "Go fuck yourself" as it suggests a self directed violent act rather than something I will do to them, and it can also be followed up with "Because no one else will!" for a verbal one/two combo.