![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dryadgrlI was over on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dawnd's page and she wrote about heteronormativity and supremacy.
I was eagerly reading it for those reasons when I came across some pieces that struck me pretty profoundly and made me think again about date rape culture and my place (or not) in it.
He's talking about the idea that these folks think that are better than LGBT folks and their marriage choices and he's naming that as supremacy (which I think is a reference to anti-racist work). Let's start with this bit:
Your letter shows:
1) An sense of comfort with yourself as an appropriate judge of my choices, ideas, or behaviors. You think you have to see my point of view or agree with me in order to support my equality. The fact is, you can support my equality under the law even if you disagree with me completely.
You can still get laid even if you don't agree with me stopping your advances. Maybe not by me, but it's still possible.
This way of thinking is the ultimate form of degradation in my opinion and exactly what rapists, date rapists and any one that doesn't support my choices. Rape, by definition, is where someone thinks that they are superior to me and my choices for my body. Their will, their desires supersede mine. And they have the ability to enforce that will. It's the enforcement that means that they can carry privilege and supremacy with impunity.
But it's not just rapists. It's men who don't hear no. And it's men who don't get enthusiastic, on-going consent.
2) An unwillingness to appreciate the inherent inequality in a debate where I have to ask you for equality. To you, even entertaining the idea of my equality is a gesture for which I should be grateful. To me, it’s an indignity that I even have to ask.
If you don't believe number one, you certainly don't believe that my opinion is as valuable as yours. And if you don't think my opinion has the same weight as yours, what conversation are we having exactly? It's not a conversation, it's you broadcasting your opinion. And broadcasting is a one way communication street.
But beyond that it's this idea of noblesse oblige all over again. The powerful, privileged authority suffering others to live. No wonder privileged men date rape or push boundaries! If they are allowing other's to exist then the "them," the "other" (eg women) don't really have any right to exist or have bodies or boundaries or....
3) An unwillingness to acknowledge the stake that you have have in your feeling of superiority rather than blame it on God.</> (Or male hormones or male desire or ideas like "her mouth said no, but her body said yes.")
This last piece is about taking responsibility for one and two. If you don't take responsibility for your sexuality you say stuff and and blame it elsewhere. It's only taking responsibility that changes the conversation at all. Because if you are using any one else's opinions as your own (god's, culture, whatever) then you are not connected to it and there is no discourse. The communication is hollow.
You also don't have to feel or think or really connect. People who cannot form connections to other humans are sociopaths. I guess I have to say here that I don't think all men are or all people who date rape are sociopaths. And I think what we're learning is that many men who do that once learn a lot about who they are and make different choices. Well, good for them. But I still think the cost of privilege is too high.
This is only one piece. But between this and the bit about date rape culture in community we have a bad system set up here. Because men think that it's ok and have the power to enforce whatever that opinion is(as seen above) combined with their communities reinforce that by not calling them on it equals a giant mess of date rape culture.
dawnd's page and she wrote about heteronormativity and supremacy. I was eagerly reading it for those reasons when I came across some pieces that struck me pretty profoundly and made me think again about date rape culture and my place (or not) in it.
He's talking about the idea that these folks think that are better than LGBT folks and their marriage choices and he's naming that as supremacy (which I think is a reference to anti-racist work). Let's start with this bit:
Your letter shows:
1) An sense of comfort with yourself as an appropriate judge of my choices, ideas, or behaviors. You think you have to see my point of view or agree with me in order to support my equality. The fact is, you can support my equality under the law even if you disagree with me completely.
You can still get laid even if you don't agree with me stopping your advances. Maybe not by me, but it's still possible.
This way of thinking is the ultimate form of degradation in my opinion and exactly what rapists, date rapists and any one that doesn't support my choices. Rape, by definition, is where someone thinks that they are superior to me and my choices for my body. Their will, their desires supersede mine. And they have the ability to enforce that will. It's the enforcement that means that they can carry privilege and supremacy with impunity.
But it's not just rapists. It's men who don't hear no. And it's men who don't get enthusiastic, on-going consent.
2) An unwillingness to appreciate the inherent inequality in a debate where I have to ask you for equality. To you, even entertaining the idea of my equality is a gesture for which I should be grateful. To me, it’s an indignity that I even have to ask.
If you don't believe number one, you certainly don't believe that my opinion is as valuable as yours. And if you don't think my opinion has the same weight as yours, what conversation are we having exactly? It's not a conversation, it's you broadcasting your opinion. And broadcasting is a one way communication street.
But beyond that it's this idea of noblesse oblige all over again. The powerful, privileged authority suffering others to live. No wonder privileged men date rape or push boundaries! If they are allowing other's to exist then the "them," the "other" (eg women) don't really have any right to exist or have bodies or boundaries or....
3) An unwillingness to acknowledge the stake that you have have in your feeling of superiority rather than blame it on God.</> (Or male hormones or male desire or ideas like "her mouth said no, but her body said yes.")
This last piece is about taking responsibility for one and two. If you don't take responsibility for your sexuality you say stuff and and blame it elsewhere. It's only taking responsibility that changes the conversation at all. Because if you are using any one else's opinions as your own (god's, culture, whatever) then you are not connected to it and there is no discourse. The communication is hollow.
You also don't have to feel or think or really connect. People who cannot form connections to other humans are sociopaths. I guess I have to say here that I don't think all men are or all people who date rape are sociopaths. And I think what we're learning is that many men who do that once learn a lot about who they are and make different choices. Well, good for them. But I still think the cost of privilege is too high.
This is only one piece. But between this and the bit about date rape culture in community we have a bad system set up here. Because men think that it's ok and have the power to enforce whatever that opinion is(as seen above) combined with their communities reinforce that by not calling them on it equals a giant mess of date rape culture.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-11 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-25 06:46 pm (UTC)And by the way: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/complete.html#butbut