A rant about 'rape'

Earlier today I posted a status update on the Book of Face which was a mini rant about being shoved on the train during my commute to work. It was quite amusing really. This small, Chinese lady dressed all in pink battery-rammed me out of the way with her stupidly large pink handbag, and all because the girls in front of me didn’t move into the carriage fast enough. (Dawdlers are a common source of rage to me in this city, but it’s fun ‘cos I get to mine the comic potential from the rage that festers deep within my soul.) Anyway, a friend then replied saying that being at Admiralty station during rush hour is how they ‘imagine it feels to be gang-raped’.

My response was something along the lines of: o.0

We then exchanged a couple of additional comments where he apologised for going too far and I apologised for my sense of humour fail. No hard feelings, and all was well again. But it got me thinking. This isn’t the first time I’ve felt uncomfortable or even disapproved of a male (and I've found it usually is a male, not a female) using the word ‘rape’ in an unexpected context. You know, like, “I got totally ass-raped at work today”. Mostly though, I’ve noticed, it comes up in relation to gaming. A synonym could perhaps be ‘owned’, or ‘pwned’, or ‘destroyed’.

I guess the main point of this post is to help me unpick just why this bothers me so much. Firstly, ‘rape’ is one of those words which kinda gives me the heebie jeebies. The connotations for me (arising from its actual, primary meaning) are fear, horror, pity, revulsion. So first, what is rape? Without looking up a formal definition, I would probably say that rape is primarily a form of sexualised violence. It happens to both men and women but I don’t think I need to look up any statistics to back up the assumption that it happens mostly to women. It is not only a sexual act but an act of power, of dominance, of subjugation, of humiliation. Besides murder and child abuse, it is also theft of the most invasive, psychologically damaging kind. The rapist takes what he or she wants from their victim, and then leaves. If someone breaks into your house and steals your shit, you might feel sad, angry, shaken up, scared. But eventually you move on. You install some new locks. You grieve the old shit. You possibly buy new shit to replace the old shit. But rape? God forbid, but if it were ever to happen to me, then it might take me a lifetime re-learning how to ever trust another human being again.

There are other forms of horrendous violence and violent acts committed by those with power against those who have little, or none. But we don’t hear those appropriated for the sake of jokey lad banter. People don’t go around saying, “Aw man, did you see that? I got totally gas-chambered.” Or, “Dude, that was the worst exam I’ve ever done, it molested the child out of me.” Or, “Shit man, you fucking KKK’d my black ass.”

And maybe that’s why it pisses me off so much. Because for a guy to use the word ‘rape’ in a stupid, jokey, gaming context, whether that’s in reference to football or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 or whatever (which is a GAME and therefore in the realm of FANTASY and therefore NOT REAL) is like me wandering into Bangladesh during the middle of a famine complaining about how I was totally FOIE-GRAS’ED in First Class on the plane journey on the way there. “Oh God, yeah, the food just kept coming, it was MENTAL. How many courses was it? 4? No, it was 5, or 8 if you include all the littleamuse bouches… and the champagne! There were positively rivers of it, seriously. Oh my GOD I think I need to undo my trousers, I’m not sure I can ever eat again. If someone were to put a gun to my head right now and tell me that if I didn’t eat a plate of steak or roast dinner or my mum’s lamb biriyani or whatever I think I’d just ask them to shoot me.”

What a wanker! :P But yeah, it’s that kind of nonsensical, ridiculous, insensitive, knobby ignorance of privilege – the boys who talk flippantly about ‘being raped’ probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking or worrying about being actually raped in real life, just as both the fictional, obnoxious version, and the real version of me don’t spend a lot of time thinking or worrying about how famine would affect me in real life. I’m privileged enough not to have to worry about it, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t. Real people do suffer from famine. And real people get raped.

These jokey-lad-banter-boys probably don’t wonder whether they should pop that rape alarm their dad gave them in their pocket before they go on a night out in case they need it on the way home, or worry about what randoms might try to approach them or follow them or harass them as they try to walk down the street, wishing that they could disappear into themselves or somehow become invisible. I feel my heart rate rise every time I see an Indian man in the street, or in a shop, or in a bar, because I don’t want to have to deal with their unwanted stares, or whistles, or leery hellos, or feeble attempts to make conversation, or thinly-veiled attempts to connect with ‘another fellow Asian’. Mostly because I can’t be arsed with the annoyance, but a lot because I’ve had so many bad experiences before that it just becomes utterly disheartening and demoralising to have these encounters, however brief, with these men who give you every signal imaginable to indicate that you are merely there, that you exist, purely for their diversion/enjoyment/pleasure, and that whether you actually want their attention or not is completely irrelevant, because you are a woman, and your job is to look pretty and make them happy and do what they want you to do, and you could not possibly have thoughts or feelings or opinions of your own that do not align with that narrow, pathetic world-view. Or if you do, they just don’t give a fuck. You say no, you say you’re not interested, you say you already have a boyfriend, you even say ‘Look, you are making me feel very uncomfortable,’ but the advances still keep coming. Because secretly the answer is yes, they just have to be patient enough for you to say it. Newsflash, morons: the answer is always, and will always be, no. But every time you keep asking you demean me and belittle me and ruin my day/evening/night. So thanks for that.

And for anyone who is thinking at this point (and I genuinely hope no-one reading this does) that I ought to ‘loosen up’ and ‘get a sense of humour’ I’d kindly request you punch yourself in the face so I don’t have to. Go join those Indian men in the corner, I’m sure you’ll get on handsomely (or greasily, rather).

Wow, that became a completely different rant! Or did it…?

Oh dear. I did not intend this to be a man-hating rant. Nor am I pointing fingers at those jokey-bantery-boys… well, I am a bit, but not in a jabby eye-stabby sort of way. I’m sure many of my male friends, who I love and respect, are guilty of questionable rape similes just as much as I and some of my girl friends are guilty of questionable gay similes (e.g. “Twilight is so gay” i.e. lame). I do that. But I guess the point is I/we should know better.