NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/talk/rape/3006

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-06 | 9.9 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!mintaka.lcs.mit.edu!ai-lab!zurich.ai.mit.edu!oaf
From: [e-mail] (Oded Feingold)
Newsgroups: talk.rape
Subject: blast from the past, gang-rapes, random musings
Date: 6 Jan 93 20:32:23
Organization: M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab.
Lines: 190
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
NNTP-Posting-Host: tissot.ai.mit.edu
Summary: We build societies this way, or do we?


PROLOGUE:

I retype a USEnet article from Connie Falk, sent to the old net.women
some 8-9 years ago.  It's quoted without permission, but because it
was posted, I assume it's in the public domain.

Nothing has been corrected, but I've double-spaced at the ends of
sentences The typography is far from perfect, but that's a topic for a
different newsgroup.  Also, the lexical inelegancies speak to the
intensity of Ms. Falk's feelings, despite her ostensibly clinical
presentation.  It struck me enough at the time that I retained the
posting.


    (Blast from the past)...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
:    Regarding the issue of the prevalence of gang rape on college campuses,
:    let me assure you that it does exist and it is a problem that is being
:    addressed - at least on some campuses.  I have been a member of the
:    Univ. of Illinois' Rape Awareness and Prevention committee for the
:    last 4 years, the last 2 of which we have been looking at the problem
:    of gang rape, primarily, but not exclusively, as it relates to
:    fraternities.
:     The scenario is as follows:  the fraternity will have a party and
:    invite freshman women, encourage them to drink (illegally, since the
:    drinking age in IL is 21) and the "show them the 2nd floor" (Where the
:    bedrooms are).  Up until now, this has been one man/ one woman so the
:    woman may not be too alarmed.  Once upstairs, he makes his move- she
:    may or may not resist him (she is already by this time confused,
:    perhaps drunk, overwhelmed, etc.).  The, either by prearrangement or
:    at the spur of the moment, he invites his buddys up to try her too.
:    Afterwards, she is hurt, shocked, violated and guilt-ridden.  She
:    shouldn't have been drinking in the first place, so maybe its "her
:    fault", she shouldn't have gone upstairs alone with him so maybe its
:    "her fault", she (maybe) agree to sex with one of them, so maybe its
:    "her fault" that the rest of them joined in.  In her mind, the entire
:    affair becomes "her fault" - she is the one who feels guilt ridden,
:    ashamed, violated and who thinks that other people will also think
:    that it is "her fault", so she doesn't report it to the authorities
:    (she will go to the health center to get the "morning after" pill -
:    this scenario was built upon "actual" reports of women who have talked
:    to counsellors there).
:    She also won't report it because she "doesn't want to cause trouble
:    for the fraternities" - well, of course, everyone knows that these are
:    really just "nice guys" and the just had a little fun one night and if
:    she can't take it she just shouldn't have gone to the party and...
:    So, *she* drops out of school (this is often the case) and *her*
:    life is ruined because she was gang raped by some guys who probably
:    don't give her a second thought.  Sound harsh?  It is- it is a
:    terrible situation for the woman.  And it does happen- we have talked
:    to guys from the fraternities who "knew about" the situation.
:    Freshmen women are specifically picked because of their naivete and
:    a willingness to go along with the situation.  It is treated like a
:    game for the men, and they suffer little, if any, remorse.  ("Boys
:    will be boys") The women, on the other hand, are devastated (a
:    female counsellor sits on the committee and has related actual cases
:    to us without disclosing the woman's identity).  ("what a tramp she
:    was, sleeping with all those guys").
:
:    So... what can be cone.  Our committee has concluded that an
:    information effort must be concentrated on the *men*.  There are more
:    than enough "rape avoidance" programs for women (which is probably why
:    the woman feels so guilty if she gets into a situation she can't
:    control), but if the men don't see this as a serious situation, it
:    will continue to happen.  There are two problems with this approach
:    that we are facing: the university doesn't want us to talk too much
:    about the problem, they don't want to scare away potential students or
:    have parents keep kids away from this "den of iniquity".  The 2nd
:    problem is the men don't want to hear this- voluntary programs don't
:    attract many men because they don't see it as a problem for them.
:    They either don't think that they raped the woman or, if they do, they
:    don't feel terribly guilty about it.  *They" blame the situation or the
:    booze or their peers... rarely themselves.  So we are between a rock
:    and a hard place and progress seems agonizingly slow.
:
:    I have gone on long enough; if anyone knows of any programs that other
:    universities have tried to combat this very real problem, I would be
:    interested in hearing about them.  We have trimmed hedges and improved
:    lighting and installed outside emergency phones to help keep people safe
:    from unknown assailants, now we would like to keep them safe from their
:    "friends".
:
:                Connie Falk
:
:    (Address information suppressed - it's all obsolete).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

This ancient posting, written before AIDS was hot stuff and before
some of you were born, opens many issues.  I'll list a few:

    Pack formation among young men.

    Fraternities as hunting packs and affinity groups.  Threat or
    menace?  (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

    Bonding rituals - sharing spoils of the hunt.

    Gang-rape as deliberately shared guilt and source of
    ostracism from larger society, hence as insurance against
    someone breaking from the pack.
        (Consider the analogy with gang rape in wartime - once
        the population abhors you, your safety depends on
        sticking with your buddies, no matter what outrages
        they commit).

    Need for young people to learn what being drunk feels like
        before they go off to college, so they can recognize
        danger signals, and are less prone to "accidental"
        excess alcohol consumption.

    Need for assertiveness training for women, in their younger
        years.

    Need for affinity-group formation for women, so less-drunk
        cohorts can perceive threats.


I wonder how much that still happens in the age of AIDS.  I suspect
it's a fair amount.  Only a minority of young hets practice safe sex.


EPILOGUE:

I took the trouble of retyping this message (I just had a paper copy)
because I believe rape is both an individual and a group phenomenon.
It is a method of establishing social structures and hierarchies.
Hence it is enshrined in tradition, with learnable techniques,
expected patterns (norms) and rewards for proper execution.

In this example, rape is part of the informal instruction that men (in
fraternities in college, gangs outside...) receive as they grow into
adulthood.  It is part of their armamentarium in bonding with other
men.

But the fundamental message is broader still.  Rape as an aspect of
structuring society applies across the range of human experience, and
extends to the animal world.  Gangs of young male ducks, not yet
paired up, will rape (and perhaps kill) females found alone.  Solitary
orangutans and social chimpanzees alike rape females from out-groups
(other tribes, almost a tautology for orangs).

In some cases, one can see survival utility in such behavior - a male
orang perpetuates his genes by screwing/raping whatever females he
encounters.

In other cases, it's less direct and perhaps harder to see.  The ducks
who gang-rape a female don't stick around and raise any offspring,
particularly if by doing so they kill her.  (Nor, if she survives, do
they have any way of identifying the offspring as "theirs.")  Nor do
the marauding commandoes of one ethnic/religious group, when they get
the upper hand over civilian populations.  In such cases, there is
probably the derivative survival utility of bonding with each other at
the same time they exclude themselves from integration (or
re-integration) with the victim population.

But I wonder whether such patterns, which developed over millions of
years of evolution and may have survival value, are inappropriate for
the present structure of society.

    Trivial example: as an American male serving in Vietnam, I can
    share a secret (or the spoils) of raping women with my
    buddies.  If by doing so I earn their loyalty in tough
    situations, it can save my life.  But once I return to the US
    and "normal" life, I can hardly expect to be bonded with any
    of the millions of men who've been to 'Nam.  I can be blown
    away by a vet who needs drug money, who by accident of
    assignment was inches away from being my lifelong pal.

    (Note - I personally was never in 'Nam;  I quote from
    _Casualties of War_ by Erickson, first published in the New
    Yorker, sometime in mid-1969, and made into a film 20 years
    later.)

IMHO, studying the social utility of rape both now and in the past,
perhaps the very distant past, can shed light on what (if anything)
can be done about it.  Unless an in-depth study is undertaken,
reactive measures and legalistic mumbo-jumbo are unlikely to change
behavior patterns.

In particular, talismanic shouts that it's a crime of violence, or
earnest attempts to define the limits of correct vs. incorrect
behavior, don't seem to me to have much utility.

If you read this far, thank you for your attention.


----
Oded Feingold  (guest at MIT)                    [e-mail]
428 Broadway,  Apt. 3   Somerville, Massachusetts 02145 [phone]