“The Culture” on Trial: Rape in Modern Society

“The Culture” on Trial: Rape in Modern Society

By: Ethan Brisby 

@ethanbrisby 

DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING POST IS RATED PG-13 FOR LANGUAGE NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL AUDIENCES

November 13, 2017

I have a friend. She visits me at my house. Every time, she come up with a reason for us to make it my bedroom. Eventually, we get to touching and feeling. But she always says, “no” just before I am about to put it in. This has happened multiple times, and each time I stop, because that’s what she ask me to do.

This is not the case many times for young men and women. Especially when you have two bare naked bodies next to each other. The perception is that each person is prepared to consent to sexual intercourse. Here’s some background for you; I have and continue to practice abstinence for multiple extended periods of time. My longest stent being six years prior to my most recent relationship. But when a woman I am secure with insinuates she want the D, I do not mind obliging.

It just seems my friend can’t make up her mind if she wants to stand on the side of history that says, I controlled the situation or fuck it, this won’t hurt our friendship. Either way, the way I handle her and her empty advances is how I was raised to handle women. My mother encouraged me to wait until I married to have sex. While I did not climb that mountain, I can easily make a very short list of the women I have taken it there with. Recently that list has been empty, because sex heading into 2020 is egregious, and loaded with the perception of acceptable problematic behavior.

With that I present to you Exhibit A: the hashtag #weknowwhatyoudid. Over the weekend, I learned about protests at my alma mater, Morehouse College and the surrounding Atlanta University Colleges including Spelman and Clark Atlanta University. Initially, I was disgusted, I started having thoughts of slut shaming and wondering why brothers would put such a black eye on women and our college. Then I started really considering, how do we get better? How did we get here? I had to begin with the evolution of gender roles among popular culture.

The Evolution of the Modern Woman as it relates to rape culture

Popular shows within the culture like HBO’s Insecure, Being Mary Jane, and Scandal all feature sexually liberated women who engage in casual sexual intercourse. Issa, the star of Insecure goes as far as to announce, “I just wanna fuck,” and proceeds to go out seeking men she can fuck and move with. 

So then, how do men tell the difference between women who just want to fuck and those who don’t? Typically within the areas where #rapeculture is most prevalent; night life, college campus, and corporate America the women dress very similar, are overly flirtatious and flaunt their bodies to men who are high on pride and courage, low on dignity and self-control, and ready to provide a double dose of the D.

In the case of Women versus the Atlanta University Center, I know for sure many times woman live for hanging out at Morehouse campus. These 18, 19, and 20 something year olds love nothing more than to be in their “homeboy’s” dorm room when they aren’t studying. With the lack of true blue adult supervision, it is often free game to fuck around all over the AUC and all college campuses for that matter. So I ask, is there EVER a situation where a woman could do more to protect herself?

Like my friend, I believe sometimes there is this illusion of power that fools women into thinking they can place themselves right smack in the middle of an otherwise unsafe situation and still walk away unharmed. I liken it to a gazelle having lunch with lions. 

Similarly, the term savage has become more and more popular among “The Culture.” We know what a savage is right? But that’s what men and women both facetiously call themselves in many situations these days. And yes, a savage will rape you if given the opportunity.

We have to be conscientious about the things we say about ourselves. The Word of God says, “The power of life and death is in the tongue.” On that note, we have experienced a complete shift in the ideologies of how men and women handle each other over the past generation or two. Primarily this is a spillover effect of woman taking more control of their lives. Whereas the traditional woman of yesterday was submissive and took a back seat to men. Even to the point that if a man handled a woman a certain way, it was just how things were or a part of her elevating in her career, etc.

Not so much today. The women of today are savages. They are no longer content to take a back seat to men or the shortcomings of men. Hence we have #weknowwhatyoudid. Women are speaking up. Now the question becomes, what then is the new role for men as it relates to the evolution of women and how they want to be treated?

Back to the idea of savage versus submissive. There is a saying that goes, “you are what you eat.” This means if you consuming green vegetables and have an efficient water intake, get adequate sleep, you are likely to experience sound health, all things remaining constant. Likewise, in popular culture we consume an enormous amount of seductive women, men and women both high on drugs, sex glorification in our music and chemically laced foods.

What comes with that? I’ll tell you, what comes with that is the advancement of rape culture. What comes with that is women who just want to fuck and men ready to go round after round with them rather they like it or not. Leaving liberated people like my friend who don’t really want no part of it as victims. Be clear, if she tried the games with some other guys that she’s tried with me, she too would become a hashtag. How do we get better?  

We are spiritual beings and what I believe we have is a sin problem. A problem that is rooted in untamed fleshly desires. We fall prey to the desire to get naked and fuck versus drop to our knees and pray. Now listen, what this isn’t is a sermon, but what we have to realize is that there is a foundation in place to help us alleviate some of the victimization and rape culture that is so prevalent.

As we see more and more women coming forward expressing discontentment with situations from 10, 20, and 30 years ago. We have a chance to improve upon these relations by slowing our roll. As it is, it seems, The Culture is lost in the sauce of ‘going out and getting holla’d at.’

Rape Culture as it relates to Institutional Racism

I liken rape culture to institutional racism. Often times the only people that understand it are the victims. Whereas the rapist or the racist is able to rationalize his or her behavior. We see black people discriminated against all of the time, but it’s so difficult to pinpoint it and prove it, because the oppressors control the conversation. This is how rape culture evolved. Very few men relate to being raped or told to stay silent about being afflicted.

Let’s take this a step further and consider a black man in a hoodie with a doo-rag or dreadlocks. Many times this man is labelled. We know the labels. While this is common attire and look within the Culture, many black men switch it up when they go into corporate America or situations involving other races as to be well dressed or in many cases fit in to command the respect we deserve. 

So then, I see a stark similarity among woman who perpetuate the casual sex lifestyle by how they dress and act around men. She gets labeled as a freak, but hell, we know famous women who have turned their hoe stage into millions. Some, not all, women glorify this, and as a result one thing that comes with that is increased number of rapes. Here I am rationalizing it. I gotta do better.

What’s the fix, do we ask our women to cover up? Of course this is not the popular answer, because we need to find some accountability and responsibility for the men. Just like the racist white person though, you can’t control his thoughts or what he does, so what do you do when you hear about a racism business owner? You boycott. What is the equivalent of a boycott when it comes to wanting to teach men a lesson about respecting women’s space and right to dress and act how they please? These are the tough questions we must answer to meet this rape culture epidemic head on.

We know many times if you see a black person in a high ranking or well-paid position that person has worked “twice as hard as his or her peers.” How do we transpose this logic to women? Women we know who have embraced liberation but balanced it with avoidance of situations that even have the stench of problematic sexual occurrences.

As a man writing this, I notice I am continuing to seek answers for how we can alter the woman’s behavior. My prayer is that I can begin to open my eyes to how more men can hear “no” even though their eyes see “yes.” This isn’t easy ya’ll, but even these introductory thoughts I am sharing are needed, so I can move past what woman can do and entertain the man in the mirror, my homeboys, my brothers, and my love for my sisters.

Another example where rape culture is paralleling institutional racism is that in a court of law. In the court of law, the only thing that matters is what you can prove. Often times these incidents of sexual assault happen behind closed doors or in dark places where there’s only two people. Then the issue becomes he said versus she said. I believe many of my thoughts are geared toward how we can help women because women are the gender that has evolved the most over the past century.

Men have ruled the world for thousands of years. Its women who are new to the jungle in many cases. As someone who cares, the dominating thought is how do we prepare women for the savagery in the mainstream culture? But men, yes men, we have to alter our behavior. Women, yes women, the illusion of intellectual power and curvasious ways being stronger than brute force is a misconception.

We need less woman moving toward the point of insertion and saying no, and more men willing to understand the plight of the modern liberated woman. Where do we go from here?

The jury is still out.