# What's the cause of victim blaming with rape?



## ironpony (Nov 2, 2019)

My story deals with that theme, but in order for me to write it better, what is the route cause of victim blaming or why do people do it psychologically?  I've always been the type to blame the perpetrator most often, so what is it about a lot of people that causes victim blaming?


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## Squalid Glass (Nov 2, 2019)

Misogyny


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## luckyscars (Nov 2, 2019)

The kind of people that blame women for being raped are the exact same people who are anti-abortion, anti-birth control, anti-LGBTQ, anti-pornography, and so on. They are the kind of people who talk about promiscuous women as 'used goods', often with various references to loose vaginas and other fascinating biological beliefs.

You don't have to think very hard to see the common theme. These people don't like the idea of women having sex. More specifically, they don't like the idea of women being in control of their sexuality.


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## ironpony (Nov 2, 2019)

Oh ok thanks. One of the victims in my story is a man though as well.  What would be the causes of victim blaming for a man?


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## Sustrai (Nov 2, 2019)

So, you can see ignorance is a significant factor.  The root for ignorance is _ignore_.  Unfortunately, there are people who don't need to investigate further, they already know all they need to.  Some uncle, or cousin may have informed them once, so they're all filled-in.  They choose to ignore the fact they're operating with a serious lack of information.

A lot of this had to do with small towns, which were more significant to U.S. culture (anyway) pre-WWII.  At one time in the U.S. rape was a capital crime.  People would pull together to save junior from the gallows, and swear stories that at the root of them endeavored to assert no crime was commited.  All the victim blame scenarios are intended to achieve that:  It wasn't rape at all!  "Why let an occasion of youthful indiscretion ruin young So And So's life?"

Of course, we like to think things were more bucolic in those days.  It wasn't until rape was seen more as a crime of power, rather than lust, that alarm bells began to go off and the specter of repeat offenders appeared.  As serial killers such as Ted Bundy began to be revealed society recoiled and has since been trying to undo the habits it picked up centuries ago.  However, uncovering Ted raised the questions:  Has this been going on all along?  Have we been covering for monsters the entire time?

Tragically, the entire population hasn't gotten the message.  The Christian Right is overtly trying to erase rape as a justification for abortion, as well.  And, since the majority of rape cases are male on female, it is the woman who is getting the brunt of the brutality still...all these centuries later.  There are of course more localized, and specific conditions in each specific case, so my response has to do with some of the features of the societal dysfunction on this matter.

Insofar as male rape victims, the macho concept of maleness comes into play.  It's difficult for other men, like those manly law enforcement officers, to believe a guy couldn't overpower a girl and prevent her from victimizing him in a crime of power.  Also, it's difficult to imagine a guy not _wanting _to have sex with a female, rape being sex without consent.  It's easier to believe the man is vindictive and wants to punish a female for something...personal.  Along these lines, male rape victims are reluctant to report such things for the sheer embarrassment they see will accompany this, so the actual statistics on this sort of crime aren't really known.  And, therefore, law enforcement isn't fully apprised of the nature of this particular version of the crime of rape.


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## ironpony (Nov 2, 2019)

Oh ok.  Well in my story, i want the victim blamer to have no connections to the rapist though.


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## ironpony (Nov 3, 2019)

Oh okay but what is it about society at large that would be blaming male victims though?


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## ironpony (Nov 3, 2019)

Yep that makes, but why is it easier for people to believe that or where does that come from that guys want to have sex with every woman on the planet, especially when guys turn propositions for sex down from women they are not attracted to at all?


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## luckyscars (Nov 3, 2019)

Sustrai said:


> Guys are genetically predisposed to spreading their seed around as widely as possible.  It goes back to the caveman days when Mr. Troglodyte first beaned Bertha Butt with a large club.  (Here's an instructive video from YouTube.)  Females, on the other hand, must deal with the nine months following such encounters under increasingly more trying circumstances.  So, traditionally they weren't as blithe about circulating among those of the opposite sex.



Ah, I hate this argument.

I don't know of any scientific discovery that has determined men are 'genetically predisposed to spreading their seed around as much as possible'. Like, have they found that gene? The one that supposedly makes virtually all men unwilling horn-dogs who will have sex with anything?

 I do know that _statistically_ men are more likely to cheat on their partner and have more casual sexual encounters generally and, yes, they are the vast majority of rapists. Wouldn't dispute that. However tying it to genetics seems...a leap. It also doesn't make sense with your argument, which begins by talking about genetics and ends with talking about 'attitudes and beliefs that are centuries in the making'. Attitudes and beliefs are not genetic. They are cultural, and the reasons for their existence is far more complicated than biology.

The 'culture' is that of misogyny. Almost every culture has been patriarchal, most of them at some point oppressive against women. Some of that culture does originate from genetics. A really obvious example is that men are usually physically stronger than women, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that stronger people tend to wield more power, power that ultimately leads to dictating the sexual behavior of the other: The male Neanderthal, being stronger than the female (and not shackled to the responsibility of having to birth and raise a baby, another genetic difference) had the ability to control the woman's access to the mammoth meat he brought back. That ability to control her food meant he got to decide what she had to do to be fed. That pattern has continued in some form to relatively modern times. That pattern is the patriarchy. That pattern is misogyny. 

But men don't necessarily want sex more than women. They are not genetically conditioned to have sex more (women and men actually have surprisingly similar notches, according to a lot of studies). What men have is a million years of social evolution that has rendered women's sexuality often being reduced to that of victims or sellers or both, which has virtually never been the case for men's sexuality. Explaining men's tendency to be the ones to rape and/or blame women for their own rape is not something that can be explained by simply saying 'boys will be boys...will fuck anything' and using this argument of men being the victims of their own biology on the subject of something like sexual assault I find rather problematic.


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## ironpony (Nov 3, 2019)

Oh okay.  Well I have to characters that I want to be blaming towards the male victim.  But how do you write it so that they are?  Like would they blame the guy for how he dresses or acts, as to why it was his fault?


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## luckyscars (Nov 8, 2019)

ironpony said:


> Oh okay.  Well I have to characters that I want to be blaming towards the male victim.  But how do you write it so that they are?  Like would they blame the guy for how he dresses or acts, as to why it was his fault?



Wait, a guy gets raped? Who by - another guy I assume?

I don't know how victim blaming would work in that context. I actually doubt it would be anywhere near the same, because of the lack of a misogynistic context. 

I'm trying to recall some of my experiences visiting clients in jail and listening to their 'stories'. A lot of the time when prison rape happens it tends to be a show of masculine superiority, of power, not sexual desire. The rapist(s) view the male victim as being a 'bitch' or otherwise something weak and worthless. A lot of the time the victim is a homosexual or, more often still, a trans-woman (born male, and considered male by the penal system) so are essentially considered female-substitutes. 

But MM rape isn't something that gets talked about much.


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## seigfried007 (Nov 8, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> Wait, a guy gets raped? Who by - another guy I assume?
> 
> I don't know how victim blaming would work in that context. I actually doubt it would be anywhere near the same, because of the lack of a misogynistic context.
> 
> ...




Yes, victim blaming can happen with male victims, but more often, I've seen the abuser blame the victim, and the victim be so ashamed that he won't tell anyone for fear of social ostracism, "losing his man card," or otherwise being thought of as less manly/competent/able to take care of himself/gay/etc. There are tremendous social pressures to keep make victims silent. In general, they do not have anywhere near the social support that female victims might receive. 

For instance, male rape can be viewed as part of a joke--particularly regarding prison rape. Women don't get that treatment (at least, not as much, and certainly not so much in public). There's also the lack of places male victims of rape and domestic assault can go to flee the abuse. Many shelters designed to service and aid victims of such crimes will not accept a man into their program because they only service women (who might be uncomfortable with a man around). 

That said, outside of a prison context, I don't believe I've heard someone blame a male victim for being raped. Part of this is because of the misogynistic culture which assumes many things about what women want or "are asking for," but the bulk is possibly because men simply don't talk about being raped. Especially after they see how female victims are blamed for it and dragged through the mud, why would any of them feel safe in coming out about it? And what good does coming out with it even do if the crime is not some chronic, ongoing thing? Try to get into the victim's head (it's a terrible place to be, but the logic does make a terrible sense).   

I don't think you should go the victim-blaming route with this project, however. You've got enough other stuff going on that you should really just focus on getting it written.  

WIP deals a lot of with male victims of rape (throughout the lifespan). Victim-blaming does occur, but not how ironpony is writing about it. I'm attempting to portray it as realistically as possible for the circumstances in the WIP, so the victim is blamed by his abusers as opposed to outside forces (and thus internalizes the abuse as his fault). The only other case of pseudo-victim-blaming I can recall in the book is a gaggle of old ladies talking to a male prostitute who's been bashed in by his pimp, but in this case, while one recognizes he may be a prostitute and therefore someone perhaps less worthy of inviting to a Christmas dinner and bringing home to the family, the entire gaggle of old ladies in said group recognize that he is a young man in need of aid and go o lengths to make certain he receives care. This is a more realistic outcome imho than mass victim-blaming. 

I'm not as certain of how men view the victims of male rape (they seem relatively split with most being entirely sympathetic and cringing in response to stories, but a handful being likely to blame or otherwise think less of the victim). I don't believe I've ever met a woman, however, who was not entirely sympathetic to male victims of rape (how to put this... we've been there).


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## Ma'am (Nov 9, 2019)

I agree. Female victims frequently don't come forward due to realistic fear that they'll just be revictimized for it, whether socially, from the legal system, or both. And male victims frequently don't come forward due to realistic, slightly different but no less toxic, victim-blaming ideas that our society sadly still holds. 

I've known so many people who have been sexually assaulted. It's wonderful that the slime balls who do it are starting to be called out and held accountable more often. Especially since they tend to have many victims.


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## ironpony (Nov 11, 2019)

Oh okay, why would people in society have these victim blaming views though, or where they stem from?


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## Amnesiac (Nov 11, 2019)

That hot little midget was just asking for it!


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## CyberWar (Nov 16, 2019)

ironpony said:


> Oh okay, why would people in society have these victim blaming views though, or where they stem from?




The short answer is religion and historical social structure. 

In a traditional patriarchal society where men are expected to be the heads and breadwinners of the family, women of breeding age are generally kept on a short leash because they represent the family's reproductive assets, to be married away in order to secure alliances with other families and tribes. In such societies, female virginity is valued highly because it guarantees that the prospective husband of the woman will be the father of her children. A non-virgin is essentially damaged goods because the prospective buyer has no way of being sure if any of her children are his, which is especially important with the firstborn son who would traditionally inherit the family estate. Consequently, various customs, laws and religious norms were adopted to enforce female chastity - a logical step from the men's perspective, considering how they had to be certain that their time and efforts were invested into rearing their own offspring.

A raped woman reflected badly on her extended family by highlighting the failure of her kinsmen to protect her honour, a dangerous implication of weakness in an age of endemic tribal warfare and family feuds. Women in societies where this was especially problematic were consequently expected to take their own lives if raped in order to demonstrate their good virtue. Since women in traditional societies were expected to stay close to home and under protection of their men at all times, failure to preserve their chastity implied some degree of consent, making the woman equally guilty in the community's eyes.

So long story short, these ancient norms and conventions have carried over to the present day (not surprising, considering how even in the most progressive nations women have only been emancipated for little more than 100 years) and are what lead to victim-blaming.

As for male rape, it's even simpler than with women - a man who submits to sexual penetration in the manner of a woman rather than fights any unwanted advances to the death if neccessary is regarded as weak and pathetic. In the majority of male-on-male rapes, the idea isn't to obtain sexual gratification, but rather to humiliate the victim and brand him as effete and unmanly. In criminal subcultures which tend to place an extreme emphasis on manliness and toughness, feminization through rape is a form of punishment. Curiously enough, a similar notion was historically familiar in various warrior cultures where the receptive role in sex was deemed unbecoming of a man.


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## andrewclunn (Nov 16, 2019)

The motivation is the same as fat shaming: to use the failures of others as a life lesson to learn from.  Oh you were drinking at a party and went off alone with somebody?  Stupid move.  You hung out with trash and bad shit happened?  Who would have thought...

People tgen scream about victim blaming because they want to feel morally superior and signal that they're not bigots.  But if you care more about raising your kid(s) so that they can avoid bad situations than the approval of a hysterical public, then you'll "victim blame" too.

There, a REAL answer to your question.


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## Moose.H (Jan 28, 2020)

Stepping back from political views.  Rape is plainly wrong and those who take advantage of a situation and get arraigned use this as a ploy to avoid jail time or a reduction in the sentence.  The perp ignored the basics of good sex being consent. Otherwise it's the excitement of taking what is not yours. 

Even if a girl is out to bait men to feel good is not asking for it. A damaged person would then take advantage.


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## Moose.H (Jan 28, 2020)

Two questions :

Is refusing to pay a prostitute Rape?

Is having unconsensual sex with a prostitute shoplifting?


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## CyberWar (Jan 28, 2020)

Moose.H said:


> Two questions :
> 
> Is refusing to pay a prostitute Rape?
> 
> Is having unconsensual sex with a prostitute shoplifting?



Since payment is usually expected after sex, which occurs consensually, failure to pay a prostitute would legally constitute a breach of contract, a tort prosecutable in a civil lawsuit at least in jurisdictions where prostitution is legal - much the same way as failing to pay for any other service. In jurisdictions where prostitution is outlawed it would not be so, since the prostitutes are committing a crime and have no legal recourse to extract payment for what is legally a criminal activity. As for jurisdictions that criminalize the buying of prostitute services, the non-payer would probably still be prosecuted under the same clause despite theoretical defense that he refused to pay for the act and hence technically didn't buy sexual favours.

As for unconsensual sex, that would qualify as rape regardless of the victim's professional affiliation by virtue of being unconsensual. Granted, many jurisdictions would be reluctant to prosecute such claims from prostitutes by reason of the afore-discussed victim blaming.


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## Moose.H (Jan 28, 2020)

Thanks


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## Phil Istine (Jan 29, 2020)

CyberWar said:


> Since payment is usually expected after sex, which occurs consensually, failure to pay a prostitute would legally constitute a breach of contract,



Pay first is usual.  It's the way of the world.


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