How to Prevent Rape - TBK Podcast #14

http://thebeautifulkind.com - David Wraith and Kendra Holliday discuss what men and women can do to break the rape cycle.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• rape
• consent
• assault
• men
• women
• respect
• entitlement
• force
• sexual
• crime
• non-consensual

[TheRunSilentRunDeep]

One problem with passion is that our passion can make us passive in the face of strong desires that may seem to "take us over" -- desires that may feel all the more exhilarating if we *do* let them take us over and let them sweep us away. One (unintended) consequence of the feeling that you have a "free pass" is that you may feel free to be swept away -- and may feel free to ignore what other people might want. Both "passion" and the "free pass" can be dangerous. Hard to know how to handle them.

[TheRunSilentRunDeep]

so that example seems extreme/improbable. Yet, as David pointed out, we American men can find plenty of reasons to claim a "free pass:" a threatened masculinity (including "she dared me to"), or "she's just irresistible" (which means, literally, I cannot resist *her* force of attraction, so it's not my fault), or "she really wanted me" (both of these are especially relevant to Slut Walk, of course), among way too many others. I have felt the pull of them too.

[TheRunSilentRunDeep]

Oh. My. God. Thank you, Kendra, and thank you, David, for this candid and sobering episode. I think it is all-too-easy for men to feel they have a "free pass" about this. For example, in some societies (perhaps Cameroon??) "everyone knows" that a man and a woman alone in a room will "simply" break out in "uncontrollable" passion -- both of them. So it is "obvious" to "everyone" that a woman who resists is "only making a token effort." Of course, (most) Americans don't believe that (any more),

[AndyTehNerd]

I was about to say "not me!" and then I was like "oh wait, there was that one time..." Damnit! File me under genderqueers with bad experiences.