Body language

[MinDonner]

But that's just the thing, a "clear" signal is never a clear signal because that same clear signal isn't even a signal at all with another woman.

Speaking as a lady who's asked out (and been turned down by) many more men than have actually tried hitting on her, I can confirm that "mixed signals" is categorically not exclusive to females. It's just a basic fact of life that everyone has different thresholds of where friendliness becomes flirting, and that's a much more useful lesson to get across than some nebulous generalisations about feet.

[Noontidal]

Speaking as a lady who's asked out (and been turned down by) many more men than have actually tried hitting on her,

Unicorn. Now I am curious.

[moirne]

AOL posts ignorant articles like that all the time. I can't stand them. Until I started reading crap about body language, it was never something I even thought about. Now practically everything we do is some sort of subconcious Freudian bullshit. To answer the OP, I don't know if America is a rape culture or rather just a sexual one.

I read an article on MSN the other day where married women admitted some extremely embarrassing and disgusting things. I wish I would have saved the article because it made me so angry. But here's a few things they confessed to:

-sexual favors for the husband in exchange for handiwork around the house (whore)

-taking a shower with her husband and peeing in there (filthy)

-taking the man's last name in exchange for his promise that she could name all their future kids (hypocritical)

It seems like I am always reading articles where women are portrayed in this light. It's humiliating and makes me really ashamed that women keep giving themselves such a bad name.

[Shemy]

Wouldn't it be so much simpler if people mean what they said instead of dropping hints all the time ;p.

[TrueMetis]

Wouldn't it be so much simpler if people mean what they said instead of dropping hints all the time ;p.

It would also be kind of boring, and make rejection really painful.

[turinturambar]

Speaking as a lady who's asked out (and been turned down by) many more men than have actually tried hitting on her, I can confirm that "mixed signals" is categorically not exclusive to females. It's just a basic fact of life that everyone has different thresholds of where friendliness becomes flirting, and that's a much more useful lesson to get across than some nebulous generalisations about feet.

Truth. And I say this as a guy who doesn't really flirt. I'm good at reading whether or not a woman's interested, but I'm a terrible flirt...mostly because I usually act the same whether I'm interested or not interested. Women can almost never tell that I'm interested in them because I don't act in the ways most men act.

[Ken Stone]

What the hell does "America is a rape culture" mean? That sort of analysis seems about as useful and insightful as the body language analysis that was in that article.

[ohmahgaw]

What the hell does "America is a rape culture" mean? That sort of analysis seems about as useful and insightful as the body language analysis that was in that article.

I didn't invent that phrase. I sort of assumed everyone knew what a "rape culture" was, but if you need an explanation, here is the wiki definition:

Rape culture is a term used within women's studies and feminism, describing a culture in which rape and other sexual violence (usually against women) are common and in which prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media condone, normalize, excuse, or encourage sexualized violence.

Within the paradigm, acts of sexism are commonly employed to validate and rationalize normative misogynistic practices; for instance, sexist jokes may be told to foster disrespect for women and an accompanying disregard for their well-being, which ultimately make their rape and abuse seem "acceptable". Examples of behaviors said to typify rape culture include victim blaming, trivializing prison rape, and sexual objectification.

In a 1992 paper in the Journal of Social Issues entitled "A Feminist Redefinition of Rape and Sexual Assault: Historical Foundations and Change," Patricia Donat and John D'Emilio suggested that the term originated as "rape-supportive culture"[1] in Susan Brownmiller's 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape.

In addition to its use as a theory to explain the occurrence of rape and domestic violence, rape culture has been described as detrimental to men as well as women. Some writers and speakers, such as Jackson Katz, Michael Kimmel, and Don McPherson, have said that it is intrinsically linked to gender roles that limit male self-expression and cause psychological harm to men.[2]

Researchers such as Philip Rumney and Martin Morgan-Taylor have used the rape culture paradigm to explain differences in how people perceive and treat male versus female victims of sexual assault.[3]

[Eurytus]

Within the paradigm, acts of sexism are commonly employed to validate and rationalize normative misogynistic practices; for instance, sexist jokes may be told to foster disrespect for women and an accompanying disregard for their well-being, which ultimately make their rape and abuse seem "acceptable". Examples of behaviors said to typify rape culture include victim blaming, trivializing prison rape, and sexual objectification.

Amazingly I have never met anyone, anyone at all, who considered rape or abuse to be acceptable.

[Kat]

Amazingly I have never met anyone, anyone at all, who considered rape or abuse to be acceptable.

Excepting in the case of male prisoners/pedophiles/etc., who deserve what they have coming to them, amirite?

This is not to say you are one of the people who gleefully comments on someone's future cellmate and rape, because I seem to remember you have commented against it in the past. But that does not mean that the idea of rape being used as punishment is not very common out there. See also: jokes about Catholic priests and choirboys. I have no idea why this shit is considered acceptable.

[Eurytus]

Excepting in the case of male prisoners/pedophiles/etc., who deserve what they have coming to them, amirite?

This is not to say you are one of the people who gleefully comments on someone's future cellmate and rape, because I seem to remember you have commented against it in the past. But that does not mean that the idea of rape being used as punishment is not very common out there. See also: jokes about Catholic priests and choirboys. I have no idea why this shit is considered acceptable.

Again I have never encountered, aside from anonymous goons on the internet or idiotic media pundits, anyone excuse rape or say its acceptable, even when talking about criminal or paedophiles.

I have however heard people say that rapists should be chemically (or even more brutally) castrated. Which I don't think tends to lend itself to a "rape society".

[moirne]

Rape culture is a term used within women's studies and feminism, describing a culture in which rape and other sexual violence (usually against women) are common and in which prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media condone, normalize, excuse, or encourage sexualized violence.

Within the paradigm, acts of sexism are commonly employed to validate and rationalize normative misogynistic practices; for instance, sexist jokes may be told to foster disrespect for women and an accompanying disregard for their well-being, which ultimately make their rape and abuse seem "acceptable". Examples of behaviors said to typify rape culture include victim blaming, trivializing prison rape, and sexual objectification.

This is common in American society. Look at athletes who get off all the time for sexual assault. The women get torn apart for being sluts and liars. How many times have people said that women "have been asking for it" if they dress a certain way or if they are flirty? That's definitely victim blaming. Everyone seems to make jokes about prison rape even though it isn't funny at all. Sexual objectification? Just look how the media portrays men and women both. So perhaps America is a rape culture.

[ohmahgaw]

Again I have never encountered, aside from anonymous goons on the internet or idiotic media pundits, anyone excuse rape or say its acceptable, even when talking about criminal or paedophiles.

I have however heard people say that rapists should be chemically (or even more brutally) castrated. Which I don't think tends to lend itself to a "rape society".

My interpretation is more that, sexist attitudes can lead to men de-humananizing women to the point where rape becomes acceptable or trivial. Sort of like, soldiers de-humanizing the enemy so that killing them doesn't seem like a big deal. Once again, on an individual level, men may not feel that they participate in this, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

[Shryke]

Amazingly I have never met anyone, anyone at all, who considered rape or abuse to be acceptable.

It turns out this all depends on how you define "rape".

As to flirting, I thought this was interesting from a few pages bacj:

I'm not trying to paint the male population as knuckle dragging over sexed neanderthals. Obviously not ALL men are driven solely by sex, but biologically, yes in general their sex drive is much greater.

Not sure how reliable WebMD is, but here's just the first link that showed up when I did some brief research

sex drive men vs. women

The thing that this "expert" int he AOL article lacks is a feminine perspective. How can a man, who so obviously only thinks about sex (or at least only every 15 seconds) even ATTEMPT to see social situations from the perspective of someone who may not think about it all day? When women flirt, they're not always thinking about sex. I could alter my body language to try to make myself more attractive to the person I am trying to impress or even just to anyone I am talking to, male or female, but that in no way is me hinting that I "want it bad"

I may not even be trying to impress anyone at all.

Men are confused by women because they don't even attempt to think about the world from a female's perspective. To them, women who flirt are thinking about fucking because that's all they themselves are thinking about. Projection.

To be blunt: Maybe you need to think about this a bit more. From, perhaps, a male perspective.

You admit that women flirt (ie - present themselves in some fashion or other as sexual available to one degree or another) to get what they want.

And then you are surprised when they "misinterpret" this as you wanting them sexual? Despite the fact that the flirting in this case is deliberately done to illicit this reaction? Seriously?

This isn't misinterpretation. This isn't "not thinking of it from a women's perspective". This is the other party taking you at face value.

[Kat]

Again I have never encountered, aside from anonymous goons on the internet or idiotic media pundits, anyone excuse rape or say its acceptable, even when talking about criminal or paedophiles.

I have however heard people say that rapists should be chemically (or even more brutally) castrated. Which I don't think tends to lend itself to a "rape society".

Wait, do people commenting on the internet and idiotic media pundits not count as being part of culture? :unsure:

[Eurytus]

Wait, do people commenting on the internet and idiotic media pundits not count as being part of culture?

No. They do not.

If you wish to believe the type of comments left on a YouTube thread are indicative of how people behave in the real world then that is up to you. But lets face it, its not.

And a few outlier media pundits is no more indicative of a culture than saying that Osama Bin Laden is indicative of Muslim culture.

[Eurytus]

It turns out this all depends on how you define "rape".

Well yeah, if you deem it as per Dworkin then it all changes.

[ohmahgaw]

This is common in American society. Look at athletes who get off all the time for sexual assault. The women get torn apart for being sluts and liars. How many times have people said that women "have been asking for it" if they dress a certain way or if they are flirty? That's definitely victim blaming. Everyone seems to make jokes about prison rape even though it isn't funny at all. Sexual objectification? Just look how the media portrays men and women both. So perhaps America is a rape culture.

Exactly. Also, the media constantly re-enforces the idea that "rape is shameful" by not reporting it, keeping details to a minimum or not releasing a victims name out of "courtesy," because they don't want "attention brought to the victim" even when the victim wants to speak out. This is NEVER done with murder, but with sexual assault it's almost a given. The very fact that the average jail time for rapists is under 5 years demonstrates how our culture feels about rape.

[Noontidal]

This thread is no longer fun.

[ohmahgaw]

It turns out this all depends on how you define "rape".

You admit that women flirt (ie - present themselves in some fashion or other as sexual available to one degree or another) to get what they want.

And then you are surprised when they "misinterpret" this as you wanting them sexual? Despite the fact that the flirting in this case is deliberately done to illicit this reaction? Seriously?

This isn't misinterpretation. This isn't "not thinking of it from a women's perspective". This is the other party taking you at face value.

No I was saying that women do not always flirt because they are thinking about sex. In a society that pushes for women to be desirable to anyone and everyone ALL THE TIME, women are constantly "putting on a show" regardless of whether they want someone or not. In the mind of a woman it's NOT always done to illicit sex, which is something not many men understand. I'm done trying to explain this. I'm sorry that I can't explain further.