LIVING IN A RAPE CULTURE

The incessant attack on the female gender by the domineering male category with regards sexual violence have become rampant. Sexual violence, particularly rape, is an offence against the integrity of a person that tends to humiliate the charisma and personality of the victim in a dehumanizing way. What is the reason behind rape? Can it be said to be the advent of technology whereby people try to put in practice their sexual urge from the viewing of pornography on the media? Or can it be traced to poor parental education and defective upbringing? More recently, it has been attributed to the exposure of sensitive body parts by the females thereby arousing the sexual urge of the males which results in them satisfying such desire by all means. A close study of these possible reasons cannot humanly justify the offence of rape. What then, can literally, be ascribed as the reason for the commission of rape?

Rape has been adjudged by most jurisdictions around the world as a punishable offence against the sexual rights of a person. The Criminal Code of Nigeria sufficiently described rape as an unlawful act. Rape, as defined by Section 357 of the Criminal Code is the unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman or girl, without her consent. The term ‘unlawful carnal knowledge’ being an archaic word means sexual intercourse and has been defined by Section 6 to be carnal connection which takes place otherwise than between husband and wife. The offence is punished by Section 358 with a life imprisonment. The Nigerian Criminal only recognizes females to be the victims of rape, which has called for questioning by many Scholars and authors on this core. Personally, I will like to criticize the Nigerian Criminal Code for subjecting Rape to being an offence done to females alone (but that is a topic of further discuss). This is because rape victims are both males and females. In this study, I will illuminate on the possible causes of rape and how it can be curtailed and eventually stopped.

The inception of technology brought with it good tidings. Man’s life became easier as he began to acquire machines and electronics like television set, fly on an airplane, own a smartphone, communicate with someone in a farther region, and all other good things ascribed to the advent of technology. These things were good in essence and as the saying goes “everything that is good also has its bad effects”. Man then began using it for negative purposes and achieving illegal means. Online fraud, hacking, pornography etc. became the other of the day, eroding man from his senses and imprison him to technology. Youths engage in the voracious streaming of pornography via the internet just to satisfy sexual desires. When they don’t feel satisfied, they turn to their fellow human and forcefully try to have sexual intercourse with the victim, thereby leading to rape. Most rape victims are girls and women within the ages of 16 and 30. Why girls? This is because the female genders have been considered to be helpless and fragile and so are susceptible to the vagaries and overwhelming strength of men.

Study has revealed that sexual violence offenders are persons known to the rape victims. They are no distant strangers. The question then becomes, ‘Why will someone I know, rape me?’ A plethora of rape scenarios have been linked with acquaintances or relations of the rape victims. Analysis gotten from a poll in the United States of America has revealed that 3 out of 4 rapes are committed by someone known to the victim. The majority of children and teen victims know the perpetrators. A whopping 59% of the perpetrators are acquaintances, 34% are family members and 7% were strangers to the victim. Also I have gotten to find out that victims of sexual violence who are incarcerated are most likely to be assaulted by jail or prison staff. On a scale of 100%, half of the perpetrators are 30 years old or older,  25% are between 21-29 years, 9% are 18-20 and 15% are 17 years or younger. It should be noted that perpetrators of sexual violence often have criminal histories. Perpetrators use different forms of violence to commit sexual assault.

RAPE CULTURE

In feminist theory, RAPE CULTURE is a setting in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality. The sociology of rape culture is studied academically by feminists. Behaviors often associated with rape culture include victim blaming, sexual objectification, trivializing rape, and denial of widespread rape, refusing to acknowledge the harm caused by some forms of sexual violence or some combination of these. Countries that have been described of having “rape cultures” include but are not limited to, Pakistan, India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and South Africa. In September 2015, a study done by the American Association of Universities consisting a response of 80,000 students, found that 26 percent of women reported forced sexual contact on college campuses while 7 percent reported full penetrative rape. 7 percent of men reported forced sexual contact on college campuses while 2 percent reported full penetrative rape.

Rape culture has been ascribed as detrimental to both women and men. Some writers and speakers have said that it is intrinsically linked to gender roles that limit male self-expression and cause psychological harm to men. According to a political scientist, victims in rape cultures live in fear of random acts of oppressive sexual violence that are intended to damage or humiliate the victim. Others link rape culture to modernization and industrialization, arguing that pre-industrial societies tend to be “rape free” cultures, since the lower status of women in these societies gives them some immunity from sexual violence. The term used to define what men undergo in rape culture is ‘toxic masculinity.’ This is gender stereotype burdening the men in society, depicting men as sexual driven violent beings. The consequence of toxic masculinity is that most male rape victims would not come forward to the police or in a survey, out feelings of shame.

To dismantle rape culture would require the undoing of more than just the normalization and tolerance of sexual assault and rape. It would require addressing gender stereotypes in a patriarchal (male-dominated) society and relieving both genders from their pressures. In a patriarchal society, men are expected to be strong, violent, sexual and controlling. Women are expected to be submissive: weak, passive, decorative and controllable. Emma Watson, the UN Goodwill Ambassador for Women, said at the launch of HeForShe that enabling women to be control and be strong will allow men to relieve themselves of that responsibility, imposed on them by the toxic masculinity in the rape culture. Filmmaker Thomas Keith explained his thoughts on this in his film The Bro Code: How Contemporary Culture Creates Sexist Men. Keith focuses on the sexual objectification of women that has occurred in America for decades. He states that American male culture teaches boys and men to dehumanize and disrespect women. Keith addresses several different forms of contemporary media, mainly focusing on movies and music videos that show womanizing as positive and acceptable behavior. Pornography that glamorizes the brutalization of women, comedians who make jokes about rape and other forms of sexual assault, and a plethora of men’s magazines, books, TV shows that portray their archaic view of American masculinity and manhood. Keith posits that men’s level of violence towards women has reached epidemic levels, and the media coverage and advertising suggest that it is not only normal, but it’s cool for boys and men to control and humiliate women.

VICTIM BLAMING

Victim blaming is the phenomenon in which a victim of a crime is partially or entirely attributed as responsible for the transgressions committed against them. For instance, a victim of a crime (in this case rape or sexual assault), is asked questions by the police, in an emergency room, in a court room or even by the victims’ family members, that suggest that the victim was doing something, acting in a certain way, or wearing clothes that may be have provoked the perpetrator, thereby making the transgressions against the victim his or her own fault. Victim blaming may also occur among a victim’s peers, and college students have reported being ostracized if they report a rape against them, particularly if the alleged perpetrator is a popular figure or noted athlete. Also, while there is generally not much general discussions of rape facilitated in the home, schools, or government agencies, such conversations may perpetuate rape culture by focusing on techniques of “how not to be raped” (as if it were provoked), vs. “how not to rape.” This is problematic due to the stigma created and transgressed against the already victimized individuals rather than stigmatizing the aggressive actions of rape and the rapists. It is also commonly viewed that prisoners deserve to be raped and is a reasonable form of punishment for the crimes they committed.

An interesting case to note is that of 79 year old comedian Bill Cosby. Cosby has been the subject of publicized sexual assault allegations. With the earliest alleged incidents allegedly taking place in the mid-1960s, Cosby has been accused by more than 50 women for either rape, drug facilitated sexual assault, sexual battery, child sexual abuse and sexual misconduct. Cosby had repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and had not been charged with a crime prior to December 30, 2015. The question then becomes, where have all these victims been and why have they been silent for so many years only to resurface now? The only reasonable answer to that question is that they could not come forward to file a suit against Cosby because of the stigmatization and possible disbelief of the incidence. Bill Cosby is a popular figure around the world and could easily suppress their anger with monetary awards and they will be silent.

Rape culture exists because we don’t believe it does. From tacit acceptance of misogyny in everything from casual conversations with our peers to the media we consume, we accept the degradation of women and posit uncontrollable hyper-sexuality of men as the norm. Rape is endemic to our culture, even in Nigeria, because there’s no widely accepted cultural definition of what it actually is.

1: Name the real problem: Violent masculinity and victim-blaming. These are the cornerstone of rape culture and go hand in hand. When an instance of sexual assault makes the news and the first questions the media asks are about the victim’s sobriety, or clothes, or sexuality. We should all be pivot to ask, instead, what messages the perpetrators received over their lifetime about rape and about ‘being a man.’ The right question is not, “what was she doing/wearing/saying when she was raped?” The right question is, ‘What made him think this is acceptable?’ sexual violence is a pervasive problem that cannot be solved by analyzing an individual situation.

2: Re-examine and re-imagine masculinity: Once we name violent masculinity as a root cause of violence against women, we have to ask: is masculinity inherently violent? How can you be a man/masculine without being violent? Understand that rape is not a normal or natural masculine urge. Join organizations working to redefine masculinity and participate in the global conversations on the topic.

3: Get enthusiastic about enthusiastic consent: Rape culture relies on our collective inclination to blame the victim and find excuses for the rapist. Enthusiastic consent – the idea that we’re all responsible to make sure that our partners are actively into whatever’s going down between us sexually – takes a lot of those excuses away. If you adopt enthusiastic consent yourself, and then teach it to those around you, it can soon become a community value.

4: Get media literate: Media, like everything else we consume, is a product; someone imagined, created and implanted it. Feed your mind and heart with media that portrays women as full human beings with the right to bodily autonomy.

5: Globalize your awareness of rape culture: Yes, different societies have peculiarities when it comes to gender based violence, but it is counterproductive to make essential entire nations/cultures and races.

6: Know your history: In Nigeria, and I think, Africa generally, we must acknowledge and learn from our long history of state sanctioned violence. Consider the genocide, slave trade, civil war, apartheid, the lackadaisical relationship we have with due process and the gendered nature of all this. There are no quick links for this one: you will have to read some big books.

Most people aren’t rapists. But most rapists believe everyone does it. DON’T LAUGH AT RAPE. TELL YOUR STORY.