“It’s ‘just’ rape.”
That’s what one of the first year students said in my class today. “It’s ‘just’ rape.”
Of course, this has a context, and in this context we were discussing Toni Morrison’s novel “Beloved.” Our professor asked us to think about the dehumanizing indignities that were inflicted on the African-American characters. Several examples were shouted out by my classmates, including one person who said, “Rape.”
To which one young man replied, “But I don’t think you can count that the same thing as something dehumanizing. It’s ‘just’ rape.”
Maybe he didn’t mean it to come off as flippantly as it did, but it did come off that way. I couldn’t contain myself (I rarely can), and I said, “Rape is inherently dehumanizing.”
This is an undergraduate course. As a graduate student I really shouldn’t be interjecting myself into their education. My heart pounded in my chest and the blood pumped so loudly I swear I could hear it. I bit my tongue, in a situation I would otherwise have lambasted the utterer of such a statement. (This is, I recognize, not the most effective method in getting my point across or in getting people to listen to me. I’m working on this.)
It’s “just” rape.
Doesn’t that get to the heart of the problem? Doesn’t that tell us how much work is left to do on this campus? Especially as this campus is supposed to be an island of enlightenment?
But, it’s “just” rape.
Rape is one person imposing their will upon another, and taking away that person’s power and autonomy*. To take away someone’s free will is to render them less than human. And if you are less than human, you are also not human. It is, as our professor noted, the difference between being object and subject.
de·hu·man·ized, de·hu·man·iz·ing, de·hu·man·iz·es 1. To deprive of human qualities such as individuality, compassion, or civility: slaves who had been dehumanized by their abysmal condition.
And so, I believe that rape is always indistinguishable from its dehumanizing properties. I also believe that it’s never “just” rape. Because to say that it’s “just” rape is to imply that it’s “just” about sex (and somehow in our society it’s accepted that men are unable to control their baser instincts… A bullshit notion that is as un-feminist a view as there is, and a post for another day.) As though somehow if it’s “just” about sex, it’s understandable.
It’s a little more uncomfortable for people to imagine that rape is about something else. Because if “just” rape is about “just” sex, then it’s easy to blame the victim, isn’t it? Because somehow she was asking for it, or leading him on, or… something. And the poor man “just” wasn’t able to control himself.
But if rape is not “just” rape and it’s instead about something else? Well then, that puts the responsibility on the perpetrator. And WHOA, does that make people uncomfortable. Because if it’s not something the victim can control or bring on through her/(his) action or inaction… then that means… it could happen to me.
Because that means it’s not really about me. Because rape is not really about sex.
Rape is a weapon of war, a mark of ownership, and act of colonization, a method of conquering someone who is “lesser-than.”
Rape is about power. And exerting that power over a fellow sentient, autonomous being. And forcing that sentient, autonomous, fellow being to do something that they do not wish to do. And that? That is dehumanizing.
So yeah. It’s never “just” rape.
~~~~~
(*Yes, there are “shades” of rape, and “not-rape”. For the best analysis of such that I’ve ever read, check out Latoya’s piece at Racialicious.)
Very well said. I can’t stop thinking about how Joan was raped by her fiance this season on Mad Men. I read an interview with Christina Hendricks somewhere in which she said, “Back then it was just considered a bad date.” Joan endured it, fixed her clothes, Don’s office and went on with it like nothing ever happened
I can’t stop thinking about it. Those words haunt me.
There’s no such thing as “just” any act of violence. Even when rapre iS about sex, I’ve never understood it at all – surely the excitement and much of the pleasure in sex is about sharing and the pleasure you give – at the very least as much as what you receive?
But “just” rape? NO. NO NO! Rape is abhorrent and right up there with murder, or at the very least attempted murder. In fact, it is in many ways akin to torture and equally disgusting.
If that’s what supposedly educated young men think these days, then I’m glad I’m getting on a bit and won’t see the results of where this generation, or at least the next, are heading.
Great post!
[...] yourself a favour and read the full post here at Hecate of the Crossroads because this young woman puts it far better than I [...]
Yes it does seem like we still have a long way to go. Just look at the incident last week where a 15 y.o. girl at Riverside H.S. in California was gang raped by 10 teenagers while 20 people looked on and not one intervened.