By This
essay is in response to current “Male Vilification Culture” sweeping
college campuses that aims to remove due process rights from men.
I am not trivializing the act of rape. Rather, I intend to discuss aspects of why men talk about it a certain way (through indifference, jokes, web postings, or other forms of mockery); and only sometimes, at that (for all facets of this issue are worth discussing – even separately). These modes of communication are, at times, immature but not necessarily evil. I expect maturity and intelligence on the part of the reader and the ability to avoid a suffocating black and white view of the world.
Feminists would like to lump everything from jokes, to a flirtation, to an unwanted kiss, to a slap on the ass, to a violent act all beneath one umbrella of rape culture. Let me be clear: I am talking about jokes, not actions; jokes from hormone riddled young men who have been bashed by the umbrella of a feminism that sees them as evil; jokes that are often a stunted and simplistic response to a male vilification culture that pervades our campuses. Jokes no different from the words of Hanna Rosin who said:
In a male culture, men sometimes (not always) view their body’s penis as an external object with a mind of its own (much like the construction of this sentence’s possessive form). Possibly, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the concept of the penis as a machine emerged: men will sometimes (often with self-deprecating humor) view their organ as a machine with a switch that operates masculinity. We might sometimes see our own bodies as an appendage to erections.
Despite the brilliant advances men and male culture have made – we would all be living in grass huts without men – we are, to one extent (but not all) a life support system to the penis, the testicles and the prostate. We service our organs for the sake of reproduction; and the hormones from these organs drive our desires. Yes, we have made jokes that a woman is a life support system for a vagina. But don’t you get it? We think that’s funny because it reflects how we feel about ourselves sometimes. Yes, it is part of our humorous world view of women, but only because it is primarily a view of ourselves (that’s the hidden humor in the joke).
Some of the greatest sex I have ever had was with a woman who took control and, through her own actions, relegated my own body as subservient to what would become “her” cock. Such women controlled the act, the desires and my male body; and it was wonderful. Not only was it physically exciting to be serviced, but even more than that, it was emotionally exciting to be desired. It was wonderful to relegate my consciousness to the universe, not have any worries for a while, and leave my body in the hands of its female protector while my orgasm propelled my soul to kiss the face of God. At those times, I would say to myself…
I don’t care if I never get back.
Yes, immature frat boys may make light of rape sometimes: but when they do, in many cases, it reflects a view men have of ourselves, not a desire to harm women. Men sometimes want to be taken (and with testosterone infused men, this can appear violent). Yes, there are times we desire the role of the penetrator. At those times, we approach a woman’s mound and stand firm, ready to hit the home run. And there are times when sex is mutually orgasmic and loses all sense of power.
But then there are those other times. At its extreme, those times could manifest itself as a desire to be taken, owned, and yes, brace yourself, (you damsels at Wellesley who faint when seeing a statue of naked man) dominated. You feminists want us to relax and release the stereotypes of masculinity-in-charge? But how are we going to do that if you never take charge?
When the discourse (the jokes, the humor, the snide comments, etc.) about rape are considered from the feminist perspective, men are evil. But it is sexist when women control the interpretation of male language: men control the interpretation of our language. We do not always see all aspects of that language as bad. We distill the violence: we do that, we can do that; men can disintegrate things from their surroundings – that is how male physicists created free body diagrams. It is natural and easy for us. Also, it is possible that this is because we see the act in terms of what we desire from women. Our jokes may be about rape, but they reveal a hunger on our parts to step back from dominance. The jokes may be a reaction to a culture that continues to view men as active and women as passive (and we men are tired of the active role). The jokes may be a stress release from a world in which women say they reject male dominance but never have the courage to rise and take control.
Feminist culture first conveys the image of the penis as a weapon: and some of you have bought into this, sadly. Then it naturally moves to a view that the penis does the penetration at the will of the man. This is how feminists dominate women. Those feminists try to stamp out every manifestation of male culture. They remind me of children at state fairs who try to hammer the mole (that mushroom head) as he randomly appears from each opening in the arcade game.
Meanwhile, we men sit back and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait for women to take agency. We wait for women to reveal their desires and take control of the cock. Our jokes play off our impatience, centered on how we, ourselves, wish to be abused: yes, abused.
There is now a culture of Chippendales where women express their desire for the male body. There are all sorts of media images where men are secondary to a woman’s desire. This is a start, and this is good. But feminism continues to infantize women. It continues to hold them in fear of the penis – as Wesleyan damsels in distress.
We men know that a tiny percentage of women sexually assault men, and certain percentage of women aggressively rape men, too. (Yes, Annie Oakley, you can do anything we can do.) But let’s take caution to be mature about this: seriously, in the U.S. how many men rape? (And please do not throw that ridiculous “25% of all women are raped” statistic at me, or that quote “all men are rapists and that is all they are.”). Brothers, as we men suffer the infantile view that current feminist discourse wages about men and sexual desire, let’s not go down a black-and-white path in retaliation and hold women to a ridiculous Wellesleyan standard in return and squeeze our nipples when feminists do the same thing they complain we do.
The point, ladies, is that we really do want you to take charge: this thing between our legs has too much control over us and has given us grief sometimes, so please take it and do something with it. Most men would gladly relinquish control when their bodies are held in the arms of a woman who respects and loves men. And until you do, the less mature among us might make jokes about such “taking.” Just realize that it is immaturity, it’s not misogyny, so don’t kick such young guys off campus.
To the women who are reading: take control of our bodies. Objectify us. Mount us. Ride us: ride us like Annie Oakley – you can do anything we can do, better: oh yes you can. Give in to the fever, just like Katie Casey. Use us for your pleasure. Treat us like meat.
Forgive some of us for making jokes about rape and understand that we are mature enough to distinguish the acts of violence from the cultural words of desire (that sometimes we stutter this in reaction to feminist hyperbolic and unjustified rage: it is just a joke, not a culture). Maybe if you start taking agency with your desires, we’d no longer see our jokes as funny. Fire your coach: the feminist is a terrible coach. Step up to the plate.
Seriously, we’ll gladly position ourselves on your mound at home base if you grab that bat with both hands and knock a couple of balls out of the park. Open your umbrella wide, though; you might get wet.
And in respect of those women who know how to take charge and not fear the male orgasm, or the penis or male jokes (they’re not weapons either), let me close with the lyrics from the first two stanzas of the 1908 version:
1908 Version
Katie Casey was baseball mad,
Had the fever and had it bad.
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev’ry cent Katie blew.
On a Saturday her young beau
Called to see if she’d like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said “No,
I’ll tell you what you can do…
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don’t care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don’t win, it’s a shame.
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don’t care if I never get back.
A person who sexually assaults another person for the sake of
gratification, anger, or any other reason should be prosecuted to the
fullest extent of the law. Rape is a violent act. Thankfully, rape
incidents have been decreasing every year. Commensurate with this,
however, is an increase in Male Vilification Culture.Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don’t care if I never get back.
I am not trivializing the act of rape. Rather, I intend to discuss aspects of why men talk about it a certain way (through indifference, jokes, web postings, or other forms of mockery); and only sometimes, at that (for all facets of this issue are worth discussing – even separately). These modes of communication are, at times, immature but not necessarily evil. I expect maturity and intelligence on the part of the reader and the ability to avoid a suffocating black and white view of the world.
Feminists would like to lump everything from jokes, to a flirtation, to an unwanted kiss, to a slap on the ass, to a violent act all beneath one umbrella of rape culture. Let me be clear: I am talking about jokes, not actions; jokes from hormone riddled young men who have been bashed by the umbrella of a feminism that sees them as evil; jokes that are often a stunted and simplistic response to a male vilification culture that pervades our campuses. Jokes no different from the words of Hanna Rosin who said:
So, yes, I am about to defend some rape jokes the way Hanna Rosin would defend murder jokes and jokes about the rape of men. I know you will excuse me the way you excused her rape and murder joke.“We haven’t figured out a way to harvest sperm without [men] being, you know, alive.”
Hanna Rosin, The Monk Debates
*
In Plato’s Republic (or the Symposium
– I no longer remember which one and do not care to look it up) the
Greek generals were talking about their own penises. One general made a
comment to the effect that when he was in his younger years, he wanted
to cut it off so he could spend just one day thinking about things other
than sex. (No, he was not transgender, nor did he despise masculinity:
he was joking; men do that.)In a male culture, men sometimes (not always) view their body’s penis as an external object with a mind of its own (much like the construction of this sentence’s possessive form). Possibly, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the concept of the penis as a machine emerged: men will sometimes (often with self-deprecating humor) view their organ as a machine with a switch that operates masculinity. We might sometimes see our own bodies as an appendage to erections.
Despite the brilliant advances men and male culture have made – we would all be living in grass huts without men – we are, to one extent (but not all) a life support system to the penis, the testicles and the prostate. We service our organs for the sake of reproduction; and the hormones from these organs drive our desires. Yes, we have made jokes that a woman is a life support system for a vagina. But don’t you get it? We think that’s funny because it reflects how we feel about ourselves sometimes. Yes, it is part of our humorous world view of women, but only because it is primarily a view of ourselves (that’s the hidden humor in the joke).
Some of the greatest sex I have ever had was with a woman who took control and, through her own actions, relegated my own body as subservient to what would become “her” cock. Such women controlled the act, the desires and my male body; and it was wonderful. Not only was it physically exciting to be serviced, but even more than that, it was emotionally exciting to be desired. It was wonderful to relegate my consciousness to the universe, not have any worries for a while, and leave my body in the hands of its female protector while my orgasm propelled my soul to kiss the face of God. At those times, I would say to myself…
I don’t care if I never get back.
Yes, immature frat boys may make light of rape sometimes: but when they do, in many cases, it reflects a view men have of ourselves, not a desire to harm women. Men sometimes want to be taken (and with testosterone infused men, this can appear violent). Yes, there are times we desire the role of the penetrator. At those times, we approach a woman’s mound and stand firm, ready to hit the home run. And there are times when sex is mutually orgasmic and loses all sense of power.
But then there are those other times. At its extreme, those times could manifest itself as a desire to be taken, owned, and yes, brace yourself, (you damsels at Wellesley who faint when seeing a statue of naked man) dominated. You feminists want us to relax and release the stereotypes of masculinity-in-charge? But how are we going to do that if you never take charge?
When the discourse (the jokes, the humor, the snide comments, etc.) about rape are considered from the feminist perspective, men are evil. But it is sexist when women control the interpretation of male language: men control the interpretation of our language. We do not always see all aspects of that language as bad. We distill the violence: we do that, we can do that; men can disintegrate things from their surroundings – that is how male physicists created free body diagrams. It is natural and easy for us. Also, it is possible that this is because we see the act in terms of what we desire from women. Our jokes may be about rape, but they reveal a hunger on our parts to step back from dominance. The jokes may be a reaction to a culture that continues to view men as active and women as passive (and we men are tired of the active role). The jokes may be a stress release from a world in which women say they reject male dominance but never have the courage to rise and take control.
Feminist culture first conveys the image of the penis as a weapon: and some of you have bought into this, sadly. Then it naturally moves to a view that the penis does the penetration at the will of the man. This is how feminists dominate women. Those feminists try to stamp out every manifestation of male culture. They remind me of children at state fairs who try to hammer the mole (that mushroom head) as he randomly appears from each opening in the arcade game.
Meanwhile, we men sit back and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait for women to take agency. We wait for women to reveal their desires and take control of the cock. Our jokes play off our impatience, centered on how we, ourselves, wish to be abused: yes, abused.
There is now a culture of Chippendales where women express their desire for the male body. There are all sorts of media images where men are secondary to a woman’s desire. This is a start, and this is good. But feminism continues to infantize women. It continues to hold them in fear of the penis – as Wesleyan damsels in distress.
We men know that a tiny percentage of women sexually assault men, and certain percentage of women aggressively rape men, too. (Yes, Annie Oakley, you can do anything we can do.) But let’s take caution to be mature about this: seriously, in the U.S. how many men rape? (And please do not throw that ridiculous “25% of all women are raped” statistic at me, or that quote “all men are rapists and that is all they are.”). Brothers, as we men suffer the infantile view that current feminist discourse wages about men and sexual desire, let’s not go down a black-and-white path in retaliation and hold women to a ridiculous Wellesleyan standard in return and squeeze our nipples when feminists do the same thing they complain we do.
The point, ladies, is that we really do want you to take charge: this thing between our legs has too much control over us and has given us grief sometimes, so please take it and do something with it. Most men would gladly relinquish control when their bodies are held in the arms of a woman who respects and loves men. And until you do, the less mature among us might make jokes about such “taking.” Just realize that it is immaturity, it’s not misogyny, so don’t kick such young guys off campus.
To the women who are reading: take control of our bodies. Objectify us. Mount us. Ride us: ride us like Annie Oakley – you can do anything we can do, better: oh yes you can. Give in to the fever, just like Katie Casey. Use us for your pleasure. Treat us like meat.
Forgive some of us for making jokes about rape and understand that we are mature enough to distinguish the acts of violence from the cultural words of desire (that sometimes we stutter this in reaction to feminist hyperbolic and unjustified rage: it is just a joke, not a culture). Maybe if you start taking agency with your desires, we’d no longer see our jokes as funny. Fire your coach: the feminist is a terrible coach. Step up to the plate.
Seriously, we’ll gladly position ourselves on your mound at home base if you grab that bat with both hands and knock a couple of balls out of the park. Open your umbrella wide, though; you might get wet.
And in respect of those women who know how to take charge and not fear the male orgasm, or the penis or male jokes (they’re not weapons either), let me close with the lyrics from the first two stanzas of the 1908 version:
1908 Version
Katie Casey was baseball mad,
Had the fever and had it bad.
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev’ry cent Katie blew.
On a Saturday her young beau
Called to see if she’d like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said “No,
I’ll tell you what you can do…
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don’t care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don’t win, it’s a shame.
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
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