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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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I think what most women want is to be enraptured by a powerful, handsome, high-status man and "it just happened."

This is exactly what is portrayed in one of the most famous romantic scenes in motion picture history, a scene long renowned by women for how "hot" and "sexy" it was:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=l0976pL8iTw&themeRefresh=1

What this scene portrays is by modern standards sexual assault. She tells him to stop, never gives consent, and he kisses her anyway.

Another example of this is the Suits Matt and Rachel file room sex scene -- no consent, he yanks her toward him, they have sex. That's rape by college campus standards, but again, it's considered one of the hottest scenes in TV history by women.

Now, when things end badly, two sayings come to mind: "hell has no fury like a woman scorned." "What women hate, hate, hate with the passion of the thousand suns is finding out the man they had sex with is not actually as high status as they thought." So if he is a chad but he scorns her, or it turns out in the light of day all her friends think he is a total dork, or a few weeks later it turns out her husband is a more powerful force in her life than her adultery partner -- then "it just happened" gets retconned as rape. In some of metoo stories there are admissions that the women only changed their mind about the incident days or years later after "reflection." I also think people, and especially many women, have an incredible ability to self-modify their own feelings and so they will actually believe that it was "rape."

I think the archetype sexy rape fantasy is the following scenario: woman is already very attracted to man, but refuses sex because of some powerful societal force or other reluctance unrelated to attraction ("my parents won't let me" "we are out in public" "you are too much of a rogue" "I'm holding out for a nice guy" "You just sacked my entire village and kidnapped me") but the man overpowers her anyways, thus showing that he is more powerful than all the things that she feared or worried about. And I would wager that most women would get turned on by this kind of fantasy.

Now in the case of ambush rape by a hobo, I suspect the woman understands that this man is, despite his temporary physical domination, low status and thus she is not actually all that aroused by him. Perhaps there is some pleasure in the middle of the act, but it is quickly erased in the clarity of the aftermath. The trauma still exists in the idea that she had forcible sex with a low-status man.

It's also interesting that historically under the oldest laws "rape" was considered a crime against the woman's owner -- her father or her husband. There wasn't really a distinction made between ambush rape and rakish seduction. Under more recent laws, mostly obsolete, it was only rape if she screamed and tried to fight, otherwise the woman is liable for severe punishment of committing adultery. It's possible that some kinds or rape would be enjoyable for many women, but are also terrible for society to allow. Imagine there was a law that rape was legal "if she enjoys it" or "rape is legal for 6' professional athlete chads because on average women will enjoy it." It might actually be the case that women would get some pleasure from such a law -- but it would be an absolute disaster for society. So in this case society has two choices 1) admit the real crime is against the father or husband -- which is not possible under feminism or 2) force women to act as if they were traumatized them and treat them as damaged if they admit enjoying it. Personally, as a man, if my wife was ambush raped, I would not want society telling her, "actually tell your husband how much you enjoyed it, it's ok, drop the stigma." Society should be telling women "your husband or future husband is higher status than the guy who raped you, you should be ashamed and disgusted by the sex with that low status guy."

Imagine there was a law that rape was legal "if she enjoys it"

This is exactly how "the law" already works. You really think the judicial system magically detect the small bursts of XXX-radiation emitted every time a penis contacts a vagina (or whatever) like some sort of BBC TV-detecting van?

It's all dealing with what happens after the fact; the risk you take when you break the law like this is that the viewpoint of the aggrieved never changes their mind in a way that's hostile to you- this is usually done through blackmail [or if this is legal-but-frowned-upon, hush money] since it's more lucrative to the aggrieved, but can happen for moral/religious shifts too. Rape allegations correlate with moral/religious revivals and declines in a man's status [as the "nobody would ever believe you" effect wears off]; that's the lesson of #metoo.

rape is a property crime

Seeing you write this, and the fact you phrased it in this way, has illuminated something very important for me: traditionalist sexual ethics in a context where sex and pregnancy are divorced coalesce to reveal that this is just the male version of the need to play status games with sex, in bitter conflict with progressive sexual ethics where it's the female version of the exact same thing.

I guess that's why sexual ethics that don't account for, or de-prioritize, status are so different and unnatural-feeling.