Why do men still think that rape is ok?

I read this stat somewhere a few weeks ago:  in the U.S., being a victim of rape is now more common among women than the habit of smoking.  What the fuck.  There are more victims of rape than there are smokers.  Now, that could be because there are fewer smokers OR it could be because there are more rapes happening in the U.S.  Heck, I would even argue that it’s always been this way since most rapes go unreported.

Most of the women that I know have been raped.  And if you count sexual assault (non-rape) and harassment, then almost all of the women I know have been assaulted or harassed by men.. and in some cases, by other women.  It makes me sick to my stomach.

It makes me angry.

In this day and age, why are there still men out there that think that rape is ok?  Is it tolerated in circles of men or is it a little secret that they enjoy thinking about?  If your “bro” tells you that he raped a chick, would you smack him or would you give him a high five?  Would you report him?  What if he was your brother, your cousin, your father?  How on earth can someone be turned on by a woman who’s struggling to get away?  How drunk do you have to get to forget about right and wrong and at what point do you actually believe that it’s ok to forget your responsibilities if you have a few drinks?  Fuck you.

Rape, assault, harassment… none of it should be tolerated.  It’s never cute to tell a girl that you’d love to fuck her, especially after she’s told you that she’s not interested.  It’s never OK to put your arms around a woman you don’t know.  It’s not acceptable to grab a chick’s ass at the bar or to bump and grind against her.  And it’s never ever ever OK to force yourself on a woman.  Under any circumstance.  Married or not, boyfriend or girlfriend, even if she said “yes” first but then changed her mind.  It’s never ok.  So get it through your thick skull and then pass it on to your “bros”, your cousins, your sons and your daughters.

Getting men to stop raping women is going to take a whole lot of work and it’ll take a change of culture.  Part of me would love it if women fought back and cut off the penises of men who attacked them and hung them up as trophies but that’s just my anger talking.  ;)  What we need is a change of attitude among women – I’m guilty of this too – where we don’t tolerate little instances of harassment.  Zero tolerance shouldn’t be something that women say just to be politically correct.  It should have real meaning.  And that is, if you assault me, I’ll press charges right then and there.  We should pursue a desire to live a bullshit-free, violence-free life.  We can’t advocate against rape and then keep quiet when we’re assaulted or when we know that assault is happening.  And we have to stop drawing up lines between each other.  Gay, straight, christian, jewish, right, left, atheist, black, white, immigrant, etc.  We’re all women.  Rapists don’t give a fuck about what religion or colour or sexuality we are.  They want our vaginas.  That should be enough to unite us all.

And for the men, stop laughing.  It’s not funny.  It’s not cute.  I’m not a good sport for tolerating your bullshit.  I’m being stupid and you’re just lucky I haven’t reported your ass.  Many women feel that way – we’re scared to report you because we want to keep our jobs or keep our apartment or keep this secret from the family.  And many of you take advantage of this.  Many of us are still afraid to walk alone at night.  Many of us are scared of you but we pretend we’re not.  Women have to fight to be taken seriously at work, at school and often, in the home.  What you say and what you do can and will likely affect every woman around you.  You bear a huge responsibility and asking you not to rape us isn’t enough.  We need you to discourage your peers from doing it, too.  We need you to follow your drunk buddies around to make sure that we’re safe from their craziness.  We need you to protect us when we report that one of your colleagues has assaulted us.  We need you not to laugh at us when we tell you we’re scared.  We need you to stop making fucking jokes about assaulting women.

It is not funny.

What we don’t need from you is to pretend that there isn’t a problem.  It’s real and at some point, someone you know, someone you love will get raped.  And if you’re reading this and you go out and harm a woman, I hope that my fantasy vigilante cuts your dick off and hangs it up as a trophy.

I’m angry and I hope you are too.