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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34932 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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You can "want" something on one level without actually wanting it. I "want" to eat 2 pounds of ice cream right now, but don't really want to because I don't want the consequences. Jail is one consequence, yes, but there are plenty of others, from social ramifications to the possibility that you lose the fight.

Fantasizing about something, and even wanting it on one level, doesn't mean that you actually want it.

So what is the “want X despite the real life consequence Y” for the fantasy of rape?

Well I think this is just normal cognition that can apply to anything. I don't understand your question though, are you asking what Y is if rape is X?

What are the elements of rape X: that are attractive in and Y: that are negative that cause people to “want something but not the consequences of it”. For ice cream it’s “tastes good” and “makes you fat”. What is is about rape that fantasizers actually want? Some people say it’s just the sex and others seem to think the coercion is the part that is desired.

Well IDK it's not a fantasy of mine. I don't see why it matters though. If X is coercion, then Y can still be "feeling unfaithful to spouse" or "risk of pregnancy" or "violation of bodily autonomy" or "feeling/being unsafe." Sometimes something can be both X and Y, and in fantasies you just ignore the bad parts and focus on the good parts.

Fantasy is a way of exploring the taboo and the transgressive. A rape fantasy enables someone to play around with the idea of being forced to do something they might want to do (e.g. have anonymous sex with a stranger) but would not do in reality (e.g. the old idea of "nice girls don't have casual sex", and don't tell me that one has gone away, what with the term "cock carousel") or of exploring kinks and fetishes. It's safe because you are in control, can set the parameters of the fantasy up however you want, and can end it at any time it becomes distressing or too real. You can create the rapist however you like - one guy, several guys, how forceful or violent it gets, and so on. And best of all there are no physical consequences like injury or disease.

There are people who participate in BDSM but that doesn't mean that they want to be mugged and beaten up in the streets in real life (or go out and beat someone up in real life). Same with porn - they set up unrealistic scenarios because people like the thrill of forbidden fruit or something spicier than vanilla sex, but that doesn't mean anyone thinks it could really happen (no your hot teen barely legal stepsister won't ask you to help her with her homework and somehow you both end up naked in the shower fucking).

Sex can be scary and troubling and something you need to grapple with, and using fantasy to explore extreme scenarios is one way of working through it all. Nancy Friday wrote a series of books about women's sexual fantasies (among other topics) and the famous one is from the late 60s/early 70s, My Secret Garden:

Need I add that we win in all of our fantasies? Yes, even those involving the so-called rapist, that deus ex machina we roll in to catapult us past a lifetime of women’s rules against sex. That fantasy is as popular today as ever. The women I interviewed don’t really want to be hurt or humiliated. His male presence, that effective battering ram, neatly “makes” her relax sufficiently to enjoy orgasm and then allows her to return to earth, her Nice Girl, Good Daughter self intact. The rape fantasy fools them into thinking the loss of control isn’t their fault.

What tribute to the power of the unconscious that in the day of the internet, of pornographic videos, not to mention of the erotic assaults on television, that with all this seeming permission, there is still a nay-saying voice that requires answering before we can reach orgasm.

Thanks for the effortful response,

A rape fantasy enables someone to play around with the idea of being forced to do something they might want to do

You know what else enables someone to play around with the idea of doing something they can’t do in reality? FANTASY! If a person wants to imagine having a particular sexual experience they can just do so in the privacy of their minds, there’s no need to additionally imagine themself forced. I can’t help but feel the coercive nature is not merely instrumental but rather the point of these fantasies.

What tribute to the power of the unconscious that in the day of the internet, of pornographic videos, not to mention of the erotic assaults on television, that with all this seeming permission, there is still a nay-saying voice that requires answering before we can reach orgasm.

Yeah I suppose “nay-saying voice” is a theory, but it’s somewhat unconvincing as the author inflates the power of the unconscious for every argument against it which she lists there.

I suppose knowing what these fantasies look like would be helpful. Do the women fantasize about special scenarios where the negative affects for some reason don’t exist? Because if a woman fantasizes about potentially being impregnated by a stranger, she is choosing to imagine a nightmarish scenario! I saw someone somewhere else here mention that they are typically handsome men they want to have sex with anyway, which would explain a lot… but something tells me women don’t say “I fantasize about rape” to researchers just so they dont seem like the kind of girl who enjoys sexual fantasies too much or something.

Actual rape results in a bad unjustified consequences for someone who was raped, for start.

(there is a good reason why writing or painting media showing or describing rape is considered as distinct from rape)

Ok you’ve as vaguely as possible gestured towards what Y is, but what about the X and if you’re feeling brave Y but more specifically? Up thread someone used “heroic John Wick power fantasy” but X and Y don’t seem to be the same.

I think it's not so much an event or experience that these women want to have. It's that the event proves something about the man, specifically that he is powerful.

So it's "I want to be taken by a powerful man, but I don't necessarily want to be hurt, or have a child, and I certainly don't want any social consequences." But there's a bit of a problem here, because the women wants the proof that the man is powerful and has power over her specifically, and so she needs either pain, her will violated, or some other consequence, to know that it is real.

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