>You fear that Left men aren't being sincere when they talk about rape in
>Afghanistan, since we have our own rape problem in the USA.
perhaps i assumed a knowledge of the feminist analysis of rape on your part that i shouldn't have assumed.
chris's comment was a form of sexism that contributes to the constellation of habits, practices, and norms that lead to rape in this country. we usually call this social dynamic "oppression".
chris's comment seems normal. and, of course, when his comment was challenged, the objection was ridiculed, as you do below.
chris judges a girl "slow" because she does not meet his desire for sex. however, there is no _objective_ gauge against which one can measure his girlfriend's "speed". the only gauge is chris's desire. compared to him, she's "slow". her speed is problematized, while chris's is not. she is "slow" whereas chris is "normal". he is the gauage against which she is measured, except a realization of that is erased (hidden) by the very taken-for-grantedness of his discourse.
but imagine that chris had said that he was "fast".he could have. there is no reason not to. however, chris judges his girlfriend slow, instead of himself as fast. nowhere in any of it, is an interest in what her desires are. her desires are erased, his become normal.
that's what we mean by the normalization of sexist practices, discourses, language. the male becomes the normal, against which a woman is gauged either fast or slow.
the acceptance of that kind of attitude--the failure to see anything unusual about it other than something Oblate might worry about--is part of the confluence of beliefs, ideas, attitudes that constitute gender oppression. they work together to provide the seedbed within which rape flourishes in our society. that doesn't mean chris will rape, of course. i'm talking about something called structural gender oppression. see, http://nuance.dhs.org/lbo-talk/0103/0530.html
it should surprise no one, then, that the weight of all those kinds of comments going by day in and day out, along with the media representations, the practices, the norms, etc. etc, that even something like 38% of 12 yo boys believe that a girl should put out after he's bought her dinner. contained in 12 yo boys attitudes is the attitude that the man should get what he desires simply for the price of dinner, regardless of whether a woman desires him or not. her desires are erased; his are normal.
when these kinds of comments (and associated images, dicsources, practices, etc) occur day in and day out, it is not surprising that date rape happens. or, it is not surprising that women feel pressured to have sex before they want to, because they know, from venues like this, that young men will talk badly about them to other men and women.
now, if left men are concerned about rape as a form of gendered violence in our country, then they should be concerned about why rape happens. rape happens, spec. date rape, because men's desires are normalized while women's desire is erased.
i've offered one materialist feminist argument. there are others: some say its natural; some say rape is a psychological problem associated with sexist child0rearing practices. they are all debatable. but i personally don't think it's a leftist's option to dismiss them, particularly if he claims he cares about gender oppression in Afghanistan.
so, AFAIAC, it's _your_ (generic) job as leftist men to learn about gender issues and things like how and why rape occurs in this country, if you care about gender oppression. that is the _only_ thing that will distinguish you from republican men who cynically use gender oppression to advance their ideological goals.
>Also, I missed it when the guy said he was cranky because he wasn't
>getting laid. People shouldn't be so cranky, really.
kelley