Rape culture, then and now
Commenter “Lizzy” writes:
I’m thinking it’s no coincidence that women have recently expanded their definition of sexual assault and out-of-bounds male behavior to include things like morning after regret, the unwelcome male gaze, and “slut-shaming.” So women still expect expressions of respect and recognition of their control within the relationship (as was previously demonstrated through chivalry), it’s just been twisted into bizarre expectations in an age of nearly no-strings sex.
When I was in college, curfews were in effect. Freshman women had to sign in and out of the dorm, and on weekdays we had to be back by 11 PM and on weekends 12:30 AM. We could sign out overnight on weekends, too, if we put the name and address and phone number of the people with whom we were staying. For upperclasswomen it was more lax, but I don’t remember the details because by the time I got to that point the rules had simply evaporated, abolished by the administration. Even the rule against boys visiting girls’ dorms and girls visiting boys’ dorms (and I use the terms “boys” and “girls” because that’s what we called ourselves back then) were pretty much finito, all in the space of two short years.
I’m not sure what the rules had been for men when I first entered college, but they had them. I’m pretty sure they were allowed to stay out later than women, but not indefinitely.
The end of the rules occurred because of a combination of pressure from the late-1960s student body and a lack of commitment on the part of those enforcing the rules. Simply put, the administration didn’t seem to care, and one by one the rules fell in record time at college after college across the country. As I remember it (and this description of what happened at a single university bears me out if it’s at all typical), universities became tired of standing in loco parentis and washed their hands of the whole affair once the demand ceased.
Fast forward to now, and the effort by school administrators, egged on by the Obama administration and politically correct thinking, to put new rules of behavior into place for how the sexes ought to relate to each other now that the old rules are a distant memory. Discussions of a supposed campus “rape culture” and what to do about it—including whether it actually exists and what constitutes an objectionable sexual assault—are legion.
One way to conceptualize the whole thing is with an analogy to an endoskeleton versus an exoskeleton, an inner support structure versus an outer one. When I was in school we had both: the university rules were the exoskeleton, and our own personal rules for behavior were an endoskeleton. When the campus rules got jettisoned so precipitously at the same time the sexual revolution was happening, the whole thing turned to a sea of endoplasm for young people of the time, who were left without much guidance, either internal or external, for their sexual behavior. Some people (the religious, for example) retained their previous internal standards as well as the external ones provided by their religious subgroups. But many of the rest became lost, although they probably would not have described it that way—they would have described it as “free.”
But other problems crept in. Morning-after guilt. Women feeling pressured to have more sex than they were comfortable with, either by mores or by men or by their own idea of what their own sexiness should be. Men feeling pressured in other ways, including the perception that they weren’t getting as much sex as other men. Confused communication, misunderstandings.
In recent years all of this has led universities to institute a new exoskeleton, a set of guidelines that are somewhat different than they used to be but that attempt to make explicit the restrictions within the generalized freedom: for example, “yes means yes” laws, rampant “rape culture” fears, and the burgeoning practice of judging men’s behavior without traditional due process protections.
As commenter “mizpants” put it, some of this is a “reaction to the vulnerability of women after the breakdown of traditional social constraints on sexuality.” And it ends up making men more vulnerable, too, particularly to false accusations.
The moral of the story? Societies have always had rules about sexual behavior, and sex among young people who are thrown together at an age when the drive is particularly high and the pressures particularly intense cries out for external and internal rules to assist in dealing with the complexities and temptations of it all.
You left out the part about the Feminists declaring that every woman has the RIGHT (and the ‘duty’) to have sex whenever and wherever she wants, just like a man.
Feminism has two end games: 1) expand as much as possible the consequence-free zone of female sexuality and 2) restrict as much as possible male sexuality from unwanted sources (ie, ≤ beta males). Once you understand that, you’re halfway home.
Separate but equal is becoming equal but separate, not only for blacks but also for women. I sense the end of affirmative action is near. Good riddance.
The moral of the story? Societies have always had rules about behavior, not just sexual behavior. These rules or moral tenets are part of a religion (i.e. moral philosophy). Basically, the generational liberals deposed the state-established religion: Judeo-Christian, and faith: God, and established their own religion: libertinism, and faith: atheism (which is as a matter of principle narcissistic). If there is a “rape culture” it was sponsored by progressive morality that includes denigration of individual dignity and devaluation of human life. The normalization of premeditated abortion of wholly innocent human lives (i.e. collateral damage) rationalized by an individual’s sincerely held belief only served to exacerbate the libertine state-established religion and narcissistic attributes engendered by an atheist (or ego-centric) faith.
Here’s another explanation for the renewed interest in pro-choice or selective policies. As men and women increasingly question the morality of premeditated abortion of wholly innocent human lives, and reject its rationalization under the fairytale of spontaneous conception, FEMENists are motivated to exploit the moral-ambiguous rape loophole to preserve their sacrificial rites. The Democrat’s compelling interest is to secure democratic leverage through sustained class (e.g. male-female) conflict. The state’s compelling interest is, of course, to secure taxable assets (i.e. women) and reduce the problem set (i.e. Americans).
Back in the 1963 in college where I went in Fulton MO the girls were locked up early on weekdays, supervised study halls in the library or in rooms until 9:30 and then locked up by 10. On weekends it was midnight and the only PDA’s were on the doorstep of the girls dorms, we were allowed a goodnight kiss which could be kind of a strange standup wrestling match.
The girls, like Neo said they were girls were mostly girded in panty girdles which held up their hose and those were latex chastity belts because your were never going to get through one of those things without permission from the young ladies wearing them, at least that was my experience.
Most all of the women I came in contact with did not want to trade much affection with any boy they did not consider marriage material and I think that changed a few years later by the mid 60’s when I was engaged to a beautiful young lady, ballerina major, who I ended up marrying.
I am not sure if the way we chose partners and ended up being serious was the right way to do things but I do know that women sold their favors dearly and carefully.
The sexual revolution has been a disaster for many. I too attended college in the mid-seventies, and had long since shucked off my Catholic upbringing. It didn’t jibe with my attractions for drinking and drugging and extra-marital sex.
In my mid-twenties, I was able to sober up from substance abuse, but continued the promiscuity right into my fifties, to the point that it ruined my ability to form a normal relationship with the opposite sex, and never married. And I never understood what the problem was until I returned to the practice of my faith and thru much effort finally stopped the behavior. I now understand the wisdom behind the moral teachings of our Judeo-Christian heritage. So-called “freedom” turned into enslavement.
I started college in 1984. That college had non-mixed dorms. The mens’ dorms were open to all- you didn’t need a key to get into them, though there were posted limits at which time women had to leave (11 p.m. is my memory). The women’s dorms were only accessible via key, though they had the same posted limits. Though, I admit, these time limits were unenforced by basically anyone.
As a society, we are playing towards disaster as sex and reproduction becomes costless for men. As a man, I can tell you without hesitation, the primary disciplinarian we have- that which drives us towards good behavior and hard work- is the need to acquire a mate. Absent that, I think most of us would sit on our asses, drink, play games, and get our booty calls on a regular basis. I am not joking.
Read the great Tom Wolfe’s “I am Charlotte Simons” if you want a good sense of what is going on a colleges today.
Girls and boys share the same bathrooms; showers and all.
I wrote then Rep. Tom Osborne to propose a bill mandating separate but equal bathrooms on campus. I named it the “Charlotte Simons” Act.
Tom wrote back a nice letter and rejected the idea.
The World Turned Upside Down. Not only do we live in the age of self-obsession, but ANBODY’s Group can be GASP Victims. 45-years after Woodstock and bra burning, women are po’wittle victims. PaaaaTooooey!!
Looking at the current pallid, scrawny, spikey haired, skinny jeaned pathetic embarrassment that passes for American Males, it’s quintupuly a joke.
Neo
I am reminded of reading James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On the Mountain in a book club several years ago.
The adolescent protagonist, like James Baldwin, is the stepson of a minister. The church has all sorts of rules regulating the behavior of its adolescent members towards peers of the opposite sex, rules which the protagonist, not surprisingly, found rather restrictive.
Most of the book club members, having had little contact with churches and even less contact with black churches, viewed the book as an indictment of black churches. I saw the book as an indirect indictment of the minister who was Baldwin’s stepfather. And having seen the positive influence of black churches at a school where I once taught, I was not about to put down black churches.
To those who condemned all the restrictive rules that the church imposed on its adolescent members, I replied that correctly or incorrectly, the church was trying to positively channel the powerful drive of adolescent sexuality. Given the high illegitimacy rates we have today, I didn’t see that nowadays we have a better solution for dealing with adolescent sexuality than did the highly restrictive church that Baldwin depicted.
I spent only one year in a dorm, in the final years of the restrictive environment that Neo describes. In some ways, that may have been a fairer system.
The sexual interaction has always been complex. I do believe that the signals that the pop culture in general, and the female gender specifically, frequently send these day is much more ambiguous than in my day.
Hormones have not changed. The manner in which they are harnessed, or not, has become much more complex.
Yes, the curfews were different, because the guy would escort his date to her dorm, try for the good-night kiss, and then he had those extra minutes to get home before they locked him out. If he did not make it, he went to the all-night coffee shop and studied, drank coffee and smoked until dawn.
I’m sure we went to college at the same time. By the time I graduated, on time, everything was different. I remember thinking that my generation must have been the biggest deal, ever, because we were able to throw out just about everything. Very disorienting. At UC Berkeley, where I was, my girlfriend lived in a dorm with a majority ethnic Chinese (all girls, of course) who voted in more restrictive visiting hours for the boys – 11 am to noon on Sundays, thats all, earning the rebuke of The Daily Cal. I also recall that it was totally cool for professors to have sex with the students.
No wonder Japanese gender restrictions at high school and other parts of life were a cultural shock. It was like 1950s America except with 21st century technology and political changes.
OldTexan, when were you at Westminster, where Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech?
I was catching up with an old friend who was in town for Christmas. She works in residential housing at a university and we were talking about college and the sexual assault environment. Interesting conversation as one of the friends present is a jaded major metropolitan cop.
Anyway – there’s a new initiative from Obama that’s called “It’s On Us” – here’s an announcement I just found: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/09/19/president-obama-launches-its-us-campaign-end-sexual-assault-campus
It’s a way to end sexual assault, but as all things liberal, it doesn’t address the basic causes but instead makes everybody into busybodies with no authority. I listened, but made no comments to my old friend. She’s very much a leftist so I doubt she could even understand my arguments.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings will not long allow women to be disrespected, not even by themselves.
Neo, as a woman how do you feel about “slut shaming”?