NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/alt/feminism/4552

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-17 | 3.7 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Mr J S Graley)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Elle MacPherson causes rape?
Date: 16 Nov 1992 21:04:21 -0000
Organization: Computing Services, University of Warwick, UK
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References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Trish Turliuk) writes:
>[e-mail] (Richard Lynch) writes:
>>Seriously, though, what's the big deal.  Just ignore the ads.  If you're
>>mature enough and strong enough to care as much as you seem to, you ought to
>>be able to just ignore the ads without all that fuss.
>
>I'm in agreement with Axel, I see advertising (esp. the ones which depict
>unreal women) as mind rape.

Mind Rape!?!?!?
'Rape' is the unwanted and forceful penetration of a woman. It is a serious
criminal act. The victim of Rape is affected for years afterwards, suffering
from post-traumatic stress disorder. She runs the risk of an unwanted
pregnancy. She has a chance of catching a fatal or disfiguring sexually
transmitted disese. Suicidal tendancies can result from being raped. Rape
is considered second only to Murder in terms of main-stream crimes by the
laws of most countries. To commit a Rape requires a serious imbalance in the
mind of the attacker - most men are not even _capable_ of it not due to a
lack of red blood but because it is _evil_. Rape undermines the fabric of
society, indeed of the very fundemental reproductive mechanisms of the human
race. Its consequences affect the victim, the friends and family of the
victim, it affects the child if the victim becomes pregnant. More indirectly,
it harms men as the victim (justifiably) may never trust a man again. It also
costs the government money; it takes police time to eliminate; it takes courts
time to prosocute. Rape also hapens to be an atrocity which actually
_happens_ in modern society. It happens often enough to be something worth
worrying about.

 I would accept that sexual harassment has some comparable, if much scaled
down, consequences for the victim, and that permitting sexual harassment
makes it a smaller step for the man to commit rape.

 But as for 'mind rape' being the consequence of seeing other women appear
willingly in the media doing nothing other than being attractive can only
be:
(1) A sick joke or
(2) Very stupid.

 And if you think Im trying to contract the definition of rape to obscure
other supposedly 'rape like' things which feminists view as important, I
would point out now that this is not the reason. The reason, simply put,
is that as a man I have a natural repulsion to the idea of rape. Rape makes
me feel sick and angry, just like Murder and other atrocities.
 So it is rather insulting to hear _women_, of all people, using the term
as and when they please, making use of this natural repulsion to make
harmless things seem disproportionately evil.

I'll give you an example:
Suppose you are unlucky and married to an old git of a bloke, and he is being
lazy, sitting in front of the telly or something. You have been busy all day
(doing non-gender specific tasks, of course) and you think its time he chipped
in. You ask politely for him to do so, and he accuses you of 'nagging'

Bloody annoying when strong words are used in innapropriate contexts isn't
it? Now multiply your annoyance by the seriousness of Rape, and you will see
what I mean.

>
>Trish

~Morley