by liberal japonicus
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrested and in custody on suspicion of misconduct in public office
"This is the Voice of Moderation. I wouldn't go so far as to say we've actually SEIZED the radio station . . . "
"This is the Voice of Moderation. I wouldn't go so far as to say we've actually SEIZED the radio station . . . "
I’m constantly surprised and repulsed by the number of classic rock and pop songs I hear still being played today that are about jailbait (even on the satellite feed in Trader Joe’s).
It is perhaps less surprising (but no less repulsive) for those of us who were teens in the 60s and remember.
Or, although not jail bait, considered something like Surf City: “Two girls for every boy!” Even as a teenager when this came out, my first thought was “Doesn’t really sound all that great for the girls”. Even if you don’t classify that as misogyny, it seems remarkably tone deaf.
“Several classic pop and rock songs from the 1960s–1980s contain lyrics that reference “jailbait” (a slang term for someone under the legal age of consent) or imply romantic/sexual interest in young or underage females.”
Classic Pop Songs Referencing Jailbait
GftNC, if you are saying that older men regularly slept with teenagers back then, I literally have no knowledge of that ever happening in the circles I grew up in. And I think that’s perfectly compatible with your experience, since you seemingly grew up in a very different environment.
If you are saying that the representation of this power dynamic in the culture industry was more supportive and permissive then, you won’t get any argument from me.
In this regard,
Coed Revolution: The Female Student in the Japanese New Left
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1fcf87c
is an interesting read, pointing out how women were often relegated to support roles in these movements while simultaneously being demonized by the media.
About jailbait in pop, you also have to take into account the whole structure of the industry, where bands do concerts and groupies flock backstage. My backstage adventures have been with classical music, a bit more sedate, but I remember that I had a 1st year student who was a huge fan of some relatively famous heavy metal band and she missed classes to attend multiple concerts on their Japan tour and she had been befriended by one of the guys in the band and was getting backstage. When she came back from the last concert, she had pictures of her, dressed like a demure Japanese uni student and the musician. Given that this was Japan, there were no drugs, but I didn’t really ask what she actually did backstage, though she was clearly smitten. Multiply that by multiple groups and multiple concerts, mix in drugs, and it’s probably a feature for a lot of groups.
novakant, I’m saying that older men wanted to sleep with young girls (newsflash: very many still do), and if they were anywhere in life which facilitated that they took full advantage (cults, the music business, rock bands, revolutionary groups which attracted idealistic young people who were easy to manipulate, etc etc). And they regularly expounded on how it was the natural order of things, as many rich and powerful men still do today (you’d be amazed how often I have been given this talk in my life, and not only when I was young but also as an explanation of the “sense” it makes in evolutionary and biological terms). They don’t, however, always treat the girls as disposable products like Epstein did.
The representation of this power dynamic was everywhere, in music, in literature, in films, in history lessons, in politics, and on and on -everywhere. And to a considerably lesser extent, it still is. Hartmut’s quotation made me smile in recognition, it was so on the money. I’d be surprised if Chomsky wasn’t steeped in it; almost everybody was in those days, even (and maybe especially in some ways) the counter-culture, the revolutionary groups, “free thinkers”, “non-conformists”, controversial academics etc etc.
If, as it seems, all of the regular male participants on ObWi find this a foreign concept, it makes them a rather unusual group. Who knows about the lurkers, however.
Nice as it is to be seen as special, I’m not entirely convinced that we are that anomalous. Not the pretend that there are not an appallingly large number of scum out there. But I think that, exactly because they are so horrid, they appear more numerous, more usual, than they actually are.
I recall a couple of social circles/groups I was in back in the 60s and 70s and 80s. Both included some high profile males (I decline to style them men) for whom “sexist” or “predatory” are mild adjectives. But, looking over the whole group, there were a host of men, from teenagers to elderly, whose behavior and language wouldn’t distress anyone here. But we didn’t stand out like the lowlifes did.
Animal House is honored in the Library of Congress, the National Film Registry, and the American Film Institute’s 100 best comedies. Everyone I knew in the ’80s thought it was funny, but watching it now makes me squirm because it is so deeply embedded in rape culture. My squeamishness now is a good sign for mainstream culture, maybe, but I think its presence on these lists needs to be given some serious critical re-examination, especially in the light of all of the manosphere influencers trying to tell their confused adolescent viewers that this behavior is natural, manly, and nothing to be ashamed of. Nope. These views and behaviors are toxic to everyone.
I hardly even know where to begin with my male first-year students. There’s so much online misogyny bullshit to cut through. They aren’t bad at heart, but they are so misled and so heavily propagandized by the toxic grifters who can monetize their young viewers’ insecurities.
Not a lurker but FWIW I completely co-sign GFTNC’s observations about older guys and underage women back in the day. And general lack of basic respect for women as people, regardless of age. And most definitely to include leftish and hippie types. Late 60’s through the 70’s.
Not discounting novakant’s experience, just sharing my own
I’m 73. I was a teen in the 1967 to 1971 era. A college student attempted to seduce me when I was about 15. I shudder to think now of all the trouble he could have gotten himself into if I hadn’t been well trained in setting limitations. Statutory rape for starters and possibly paying child support instead of finishing his degree.
He’s the only example of a toxic male that I have directly experienced myself. Sure, I’ve met guys who had some underlying attitudes about roles and expectations, but not to the point that it interfered with me being able to be myself. Sometimes a little assertiveness has been needed on my part, but I’ve never experienced anything that rose to the level of toxic.
I know the predators are there. I just haven’t met them at anti-war protests or later as a public-school teacher or later yet as an in-home care provider. I haven’t met any truly toxic men in my current life as a committee warrior in a HOA, either. Toxic people, sure. But not specifically toxic due to being male.
Most guys at this HOA seem to be aware that they don’t want to be mansplainers or condescendingly superior assholes due to their gender, (Many are condescendingly superior assholes due to being Formerly Important People, but that’s a different phenomenon). When I watched Mad Men, I was really shocked and I thought, “My god, my mother grew up with that as the norm. No wonder she was an alcoholic.”
Of course, Mad Men assholery and toxic maleness are on a continuum, though it seems logical to me that a lot of one being present will enable some of the other. Both could be norm in social milieus that I have never experienced.
And general lack of basic respect for women as people, regardless of age.
When I was 26 or 27, I dropped out of a Bell Labs racquetball league because I couldn’t stand listening to the locker room verbal mistreatment highly-educated men aimed at their female colleagues. Women with MS and PhD degrees, some of whom significantly outperformed** those same men in technical jobs, were spoken about as if they were subhuman.
** I had already been put into a mentor position, and had limited access to people’s performance reviews.
OK, by complete coincidence this landed in my inbox from someone whose substack I don’t subscribe to. It says a lot of important things, most of which I agree with, so I have tried to eliminate the hundreds of links, and am going to post it in two parts hoping that’s good enough to get it through (when I tried to post the whole thing, it went into moderation – if this works, please don’t rescue it):
Part One
There is one word that explains how so many men can be in the Epstein files. So why is no one saying it?
We talk endlessly about the factors that make rape easier, but never about the factors that cause rape in the first place.
Celeste Davis
Feb 22, 2026
Unless you’ve been enjoying life under a rock, the past few weeks have likely involved a relentless scroll of names once spoken with reverence now tied to the words “Epstein files.”
The list of people wheeling and dealing with Epstein after he went to jail for pedophilia is mind-numbing:
No sector of society is safe.
Leaders from each and every one of the institutions that run our world—politics, business, tech, academia, wellness, philanthropy, entertainment, spirituality—are all over these files.
It’s gross. It’s everywhere. It’s destabilizing.
Leaving us asking… how? How could this happen? How could so many people let this happen? In plain sight? For so long?
Mainstream media is focused on four answers:
1. Wealth
2. Elite Networks
3. Institutional Failure
4. Blackmail
A deep frustration has arisen within me around the press and discussions around the Epstein files.
The bulk of the attention is converged around figuring out who and what exactly enabled Epstein’s rampant sexual abuse—wealth, elite networks, institutional failure and blackmail.
Everyone is asking how did these men get away with so much rape?
No one is asking what would cause so many to want to rape so much in the first place?
It’s as if the Epstein files have exposed an entire field being taken over by noxious weeds—miles and miles of weeds—and then instead of digging to the root to eradicate the weeds’ seed, we are hyper-focused on what exact water and fertilizer enabled the weeds to grow so high.
We’re acting as if weeds/rapists are just a given.
Well, of course men want to rape! It’s just most men can’t rape because there are rules, but the rules don’t apply to billionaries so they get to rape. The problem isn’t the rape, it’s that billionaires can get away with rape.
I’m sorry what?
Why aren’t we talking about why so many men when given power continually choose to use that power to rape women?
WHY AREN’T WE TALKING ABOUT THAT?!
Money and corrupt elite networks of billionaires are certainly not off the hook here. Those are important conversations to have.
But while money may have enabled Epstein’s sexual abuse, it didn’t create it.
One in four women have experienced sexual abuse. Billionaires seem to do a lot of raping, but they can’t do THAT much raping.
This week I came across the following Substack note from Melina Magdelenat about the Gisele Pelicot trials where 90 men in a small French town raped one woman, and thought, oh this needs to be brought into the Epstein files discourse immediately.
Here’s what Magdelenat said:
“There’s an interaction I think back to every time we are collectively confronted with the utterly habitual nature of male violence against women. It was at a conference a year or so ago by Le Monde journalist Lorraine de Foucher, who won a Pulitzer for her coverage of the porn industry, child prostitution and sex trafficking in France.
The Pelicot trials came up during the Q&A, and a seventy-something man in the front row timidly raised his hand. You could tell he was carefully phrasing his question and choosing his words as he was saying them.
He said: « So, let me get this right. In the fairly small town of Mazan, Dominique Pélicot easily found 90+ men willing to rape his wife while she was drugged and unconscious. Hundreds more saw the messages on the forum and not one decided to tell the police about it. »
At that point, a lot of us were kind of bracing for either a dismissal of the facts, or some convoluted explanation for how those men were unique. But no. He continued:
« So, does that mean that in every town, every village in our country, there are just as many men willing to rape an unconscious woman? »
Lorraine de Foucher replied, « Yes. »
« But then that means that there are thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands! » (You could hear at that point the wheels turning in his head).
« Yes », she nodded again.
« But… that’s abominable! It’s a catastrophe! It’s a national emergency! »
« …… Yes. It is. » – Melina Magdelenat
Yes. It is.
Part Two:
The 90+ men who raped Gisele Pelicot were not billionaires.
They were nurses, teachers, firefighters, fathers, grandfathers, councillors, farm workers.
We cannot blame money or elite networks for what they did.
However, we can ask what exactly is the seed that was planted in these average men that would make them want to rape a woman when an opportunity presented itself?
For it’s the same seed that was planted in Epstein. In Bill Clinton, P. Diddy, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and so very many others.
Different elements may have enabled the different rapes, but something they all had in common was the desire to rape.
At some point we have to acknowledge that the world is not divided into good men and monster men
The other frustrating thing about the Epstein files discourse is the common reaction of, “Whoa! I thought that was a good man, but turns out he is a monster?! Ah man!”
The world is not divided into monster men and good men.
Rather, the world we live in seems to plant a seed in the minds of men, that when watered with enough power, opportunity or anonymity this seed so very, very often blooms into rape.
Not every seed blooms into a weed. Not every man rapes. But they all exist in the same fertile soil for it to be possible.
Believing that rapists are monsterous, abnormal, one-off bad apples keeps us relentlessly weed-whacking these “abnormalities” instead of ever digging up the root and making the soil less conducive to weeds.
What was planted in little Bill Gates’s mind that lie dormant until one day when watered with enough power, money and impunity would cause him to befriend a pedophile, cheat on his wife and then secretly give his wife STD medication so she wouldn’t know (allegedly)?
If you trace it to its root— before the 3400+ mentions in the Epstein files— what was the seed planted in little Deepak Chopra’s mind or heart that when eventually watered with status, money and anonymity would cause him to invite a pedophile on a trip and say “bring your girls”?
What is it that was planted in the minds and hearts of that firefighter, teacher and nurse in Mazan, France that when told of the opportunity to rape a drugged woman online they would drive right over and do it?
What is the root of the weed?
Let’s start with what it’s not.
Because I know someone is about to chime in that men want to rape because they are just naturally sexual and aggressive. Nothing to be done, it’s just biology. Testosterone makes men want to rape. Sorry.
Let’s address that from the jump.2
If testosterone were the cause of rape, then men with higher levels of testosterone would rape more than men with low levels.
But scientists have measured testosterone levels and disproven this theory.
The National Library of Medicine found that sex offenders do not have higher testosterone than non-sex offenders.
Trans men who increase their testosterone do not become more abusive or start raping.
When scientists decreased the testosterone in domestic violence perpetrators they did not find it to be an effective solution to curbing the abusers’ behavior.
But do you know what they did find was effective in curbing domestic abusers’ behavior?
“Changing their deeply held beliefs about their sense of entitlement.”
(Now we are getting to the root of things.)
If men can’t help the urge to rape because of their biology, then rape statistics would hold steady across all cultures, but that is not true at all.
And what makes the difference between cultures with higher rates of sexual abuse and those with lower?
The World Health Organization has concluded that “Violence against women is rooted in and perpetuated by gender inequalities.”
The UN also came out with a report linking rape with gender inequality that said, “As gender equality improves, the prevalence of violence against women is lower… This is borne out for both physical and sexual forms of abuse. As seen in the graph, countries with greater equality between women and men have lower levels of violence against women.”
A CDC report studying US States found the exact same thing: “States with a high degree of gender inequality also report higher prevalence estimates among women for completed or attempted rape using physical force.”
Now we are digging at the root. What other factors have scientists found leads to sexual assault?
“Evidence suggests that it is not innate aggression that makes men violent, but the internalized belief that they fall short of society’s perceived standards for masculinity. Psychologists call this phenomenon, “masculine discrepancy stress” and research shows that the more acutely a man suffers from this, the more likely he is to commit almost every type of violence, including sexual assault, intimate partner violence and assault with a weapon.” – Ruth Whippman
Ah yes masculinity – that North Star our society hands men that says the worst thing you can do isn’t cruelty, the worst thing you can do is act like a girl.
Ok. So entitlement, gender inequality and masculine discrepancy stress4 have all been correlated with rape.
If only we had a name for this…
And what is this system called that perpetuates gender inequality, and dominance and entitlement among men?
Patriarchy.
The word for that system is called patriarchy.
If you could zoom in on that seed planted in those boys who would eventually become men who rape—that seed would be labeled “patriarchy.”
Where being emasculated is far more embarrassing and destabilizing than being immoral.
The Epstein rapes were aided by money, elite networks and institutional corruption, but at their core, they are explained by patriarchy.
Perhaps you are thinking, well duh, that’s obvious.
I think so too.
And yet guess how many times the word patriarchy is used in those 12 articles up there? The ones where the New York Times, the BBC, PBS and TIME try to explain the Epstein files?
Zero.
Zero times.
Ok fine, but patriarchy is an unpopular word. Guess how many times gender inequality comes up?
Also zero!
Part Three:
Patriarchy holds both the explanation and the remedy for the Epstein scandals and yet is almost never brought up in Epstein discussions.
Instead again and again we talk about how we could better punish rape instead of how we could prevent it.
Here’s a chart from a recent Reuter’s poll showing people’s concerns about the Epstein files:
69% of Americans said that the files show that powerful people are rarely held accountable. 53% of Americans said that the files have lowered their trust in political and business leaders.
All valid concerns. But how many said that the files show that we have a big problem with gender inequality, male entitlement or patriarchy?
I don’t know, they were not asked. Those things never seem to be brought up.
(I do know that 22% of American men said they believe that gender inequality doesn’t really exist, and a third of American men believe feminism is making things worse.)
And again, let me be clear that powerful people not being held accountable is certainly a problem worth discussing.
But when patriarchy is never brought up when we are discussing how to prevent massive sexual abuse epidemics???
THAT’S A PROBLEM!
That ensures we keep whacking weeds (things that make rape easier), without ever whacking the root of rape itself (patriarchy).
To quote that UN report: “Violence against women is a global pandemic: Between 15 and 76 per cent of women experience it at some point in their lifetime. Violence against women is deeply rooted in discrimination and inequality between men and women. Ending it requires investments in women’s empowerment and gender equality, particularly in education, reproductive health and rights, and economic and political empowerment.”
So that’s how to prevent violence against women, but guess how often women’s educational, financial, political and reproductive equality come up as either solutions to or explanations for the Epstein files?
Poke around the major news stories and see for yourself (but I have some bad news for you).
But there are some people pointing to patriarchy
I’m three days into writing this article, and this afternoon I decided to poke around Substack to see what people are writing about the Epstein files.
And lo and behold, I quickly discovered I am not the only person asking, “why the hell are we not talking about patriarchy when we talk about Epstein?”
I actually had to laugh that I thought I had an original observation while reading the news because it turns out lots of other women noticed the exact same omission and wrote about it:
Jude Doyle wrote an article called, “You know You Can Just Say ‘Patriarchy’: These analyses of the Epstein case are… missing something.”
Linda Caroll wrote, “Everyone wants to know which people were so despicable that they raped little girls. So many little girls. Over 1200…You want to know who the men are that abused little children? Look around you.”
Liz Plank wrote, “what’s landing so hard is realizing we weren’t exaggerating patriarchy’s harm at all, in fact we were underestimating it…”
Kara Post-Kennedy at The Good Men Project wrote, “One of the big problems we are having as a society right now is the way the Epstein files are being handled (or ignored). It isn’t just that we are not actively investigating and prosecuting the men who were involved in this criminal and abhorrent and abusive enterprise. It is the framing of this criminal, abhorrent and abusive behavior as “other”. As the outlier behavior of some spoiled rich jerks who ran out of other things to amuse themselves with. Not something that regula’ folk need trouble themselves with at all.”
Jo-Ann Finkelstein, PhD wrote, “Epstein is the patriarchy’s logical conclusion. We do ourselves a disservice when we call Epstein and his ilk monsters or a bizarre glitch of elite decadence.”
Kristen Shelt said, “All men does not mean all men rape or assault or harm women, it means all men are raised inside the same system that teaches male entitlement… And that conditioning exists whether or not its acted on… Every man who is raised in patriarchy is handed the same basic operating system.”
Lane Anderson of Matriarchy Report wrote “the Epstein files peel back the mask of American patriarchal power structures.” “For 249 years, she argues, we’ve celebrated that a nation that left women and girls outside of the definition of humanity, and erased us. What we are experiencing now is the logical conclusion of that legacy.”
Tracy Clark-Flory and Amanda Montei say, “The files are telling us what we already know: the conspiracy of patriarchy. Sexual violence isn’t just a problem of the global elite.”
Women of Substack are linking patriarchy with the Epstein files.
Unfortunately, women of Substack are not oft asked to chime in on global conversations.
Academics and experts on wealth and corruption are given quotes in those mainstream articles above. They are regularly consulted to explain this whole how-billionaires-get-away-with-rape phenomenon.
Academics and experts on patriarchy on the other hand? Well, usually they are called crazy bitches and their writings relegated to thought pieces read almost exclusively by other women.
Why men rape seems to be a niche topic of interest reserved for women.
Why men do or don’t get caught raping however, now that’s a universal interest. Call in the experts.
It’s time to choke out the root
Jonah Mix’s excellent quote on pornography comes to mind here:
“I’m not interested in a world where men really want to watch porn but resist because they’ve been shamed. I’m interested in a world where men are raised from birth with such an unshakable understanding of women as living human beings that they’re incapable of being aroused by their exploitation.” – Jonah Mix
Yessssss Jonah! Preach!
I’m not interested in a world where men want to rape, but don’t because they aren’t super wealthy and powerful.
I’m not interested in a world where the only thing keeping men from raping is not having an elite cabal to keep their secrets.
I’m interested in a world where MEN DON’T WANT TO RAPE FULL STOP!!
I’m interested in a world where men are not aroused by the exploitation of women.
I’m interested in a world where a man’s sense of worth has nothing whatsoever to do with domination.
But if we keep only talking about all the things that make rape easier (money, power, elite networks, anonymity) and never talk about the things that actually cause the desire to rape in the first place (entitlement, domination, patriarchy), then we will continue on our insane, unending weed whacking quest without ever pulling up the root.
Sorry, it was 3 parts! Definitely do not rescue the original one – it probably also had some links remaining!
I want to let this percolate before I comment on some of the comments others have made here. But for now, it’s important for me to say that I completely agree this:
At some point we have to acknowledge that the world is not divided into good men and monster menThe other frustrating thing about the Epstein files discourse is the common reaction of, “Whoa! I thought that was a good man, but turns out he is a monster?! Ah man!”
The world is not divided into monster men and good men.
>At some point we have to acknowledge that the world is not
>divided into good men and monster men
>Rather, the world we live in seems to plant a seed in the minds of
>men, that when watered with enough power, opportunity or anonymity
>this seed so very, very often blooms into rape.
so i’m a rapist who is just awaiting my opportunity. pre-crime has my address and has cops stationed around the corner. great.
put that on the pile of shit i need to worry about.
Yep, patriarchy. And also, yep, it’s not about sex, but rather about status and power and hierarchy within the patriarchal structure.
This dynamic is also of a piece with our decline into authoritarianism, and it’s a force in the conservative Christian subcultures. Patriarchy puts men under psychological pressure to seek status through extreme means
This study is about authoritarianism, but I think there is enough overlap with what we have been discussing (especially given the context of the Orange Julius administration) to put it in the discussion:
https://politicalscience.ku.dk/about/news/2026/banal-but-brutal
I’d not be surprised to find that this sort of behavior has some genetic elements, but my experience suggests that these elements are not deterministic and inescapable. Patriarchy is just a particularly nasty environment in terms of how it interacts with those traits to create systems of violence, insecurity, and inequality.
“In sum, the article offers a coherent, evidence-informed provocation that usefully redirects attention from symptoms to cultural roots. Its strengths lie in synthesizing public-health data with high-profile cases and amplifying survivor-centered prevention. Limitations stem from ideological commitment that may undervalue complexity, yet it contributes meaningfully to ongoing debates about accountability, entitlement, and systemic reform in the wake of the Epstein disclosures.”
Epstein Files: Patriarchy as Root Cause
There is one word that explains how so many men can be in the Epstein files. So why is no one saying it?: We talk endlessly about the factors that make rape easier, but never about the factors that cause rape in the first place.
“Ah, yes, masculinity – that North Star our society hands men that says the worst thing you can do isn’t cruelty, the worst thing you can do is act like a girl.”
And yet, in Western societies, boys are often expected to act like girls. Starting in school, where they’re expected to sit down, be still, be quiet, and pay attention. If they don’t, there’s something wrong with them.
Yeah, and girls brush their teeth. Why is my dentist trying to feminize me?
Ah yes, those halcyon days of my youth, when boys were allowed to run wild in the classroom, fidget, yell, and ignore the teacher.
But remember to also leave room for “Kids these days have no discipline and teachers need to crack down on these spoiled brats.”
…and also “How dare these teachers present any material to my child that is not pre-authorized by me, the parent.”
cleek, I don’t think the world we live in plants the same seed in all men that certain conditions (wealth, power etc) allow to bloom into rape. I think that the world we live in provides for men, from birth, the warm, enabling environment (patriarchy) that encourages them, mostly unconsciously, to feel that their desires are justifiable, and more important than those of women. And for those who have the seed of e.g rape within them, that propitious environment allows it to bloom.
(By the way, most of the accused in the Pelicot case said that they were not rapists, because her husband had given consent. Leaving French culture aside, what the patriarchy enables in some men is the unconscious assumption that women do not have agency over themselves.)
Anyway, for these reasons among others I have been aware during this discussion that I was not entirely comfortable with calling all the men we have specifically been discussing (older men having sex with young girls/women) scum or predators. Some are, of course, where there is any force or other coercion involved, but some are acting in a way they have been encouraged to think is natural, and often with willing partners. Because they too have grown up under the influence of the patriarchy, many women have acted on the same assumptions, particularly where there is fame, charisma, power, or money involved.
It took second wave feminism for the first cracks in the monumental structure of patriarchy to appear, and that monumental structure is still cracking but far from fallen. The men of ObWi seem a good example of people who have been very influenced by the cracks, and certainly more and more women are, but there is still a long way to go.
This I think, speaks (unconsciously?) to the root of the problem of rape. It’s not patriarchy per se; that’s just a particularly prevalent environment for it. It occurs when someone (the rapist) feels the need to demonstrate his power and status. Often to others, both the victim and the audience. But also sometimes just to himself.**
For a test case, consider prisons. Rape among inmates is pretty much never about sex. It about establishing and demonstrating who is more powerful.
Getting rid of patriarchy, while desirable in itself, won’t address the problem of rape. At most, it will shift the mix of who gets raped.
To actually deal with the problem of rape, we need to consider how to reduce the enormous pressure to achieve status and dominance. Or change the way status and dominance are demonstrated. Get us to the point where the reaction of people who know a rapist is “What a pathetic loser! Can’t even [however status is demonstrated in that culture].”
** “himself” because most rapists are male. How much of that is because men are more often in higher status/more powerful positions in our culture, and how much is simply mechanical, is a different discussion.
wj – For a test case, consider prisons. Rape among inmates is pretty much never about sex. It about establishing and demonstrating who is more powerful.
Getting rid of patriarchy, while desirable in itself, won’t address the problem of rape. At most, it will shift the mix of who gets raped.
I’m not sure that I’m following your line of thinking as you intend it. Are you trying to use prisons as an example of a non-patriarchal culture or is the connection you are working from here something else? I’m trying to understand where you draw the line between patriarchy and “men seeking status and dominance.”
My (attempted) point is that rape isn’t just about men showing how they are more powerful / higher status than women. (Which is my understanding of how patriarchy is being used.) It’s about an individual showing that relative to another individual. Gender isn’t really a necessary component.
Thanks, wj, that is what I thought you meant to argue. Glad I was following you correctly.
When I (and I assume GftNC, though she can confirm this herself or qualify it if assume incorrectly) talk about patriarchy, I’m not assuming that it only governs relationships between men and women; I’m talking about a system in which masculine men are afforded more status and power than less masculine men, women, and children. An all-male prison is, by that way of figuring, still a patriarchal society, as is an all-female prison because the larger society in which they exist is patriarchal in structure.
Keeping this in mind will help you to understand where I am coming from with my comments.
CharlesWT recited, from his gonadal reserve:
“And yet, in Western societies, boys are often expected to act like girls. Starting in school, where they’re expected to sit down, be still, be quiet, and pay attention. If they don’t, there’s something wrong with them.”
Boys and girls alike are also expected to leave the guns and ammo at home in this western society, where they can used against the neighbors and Census workers, as God the Gunrunner intended, rather than bringing them into the schools to shoot teachers and fellow students dead.
Yet, only one of those sexual persuasions* seem to ignore that rule, along with those other shut-up-and-learn inconveniences mentioned heretofore.
A libertarian on these very pages years ago, in a fit of drollery, once said that what really bothered him about weaponry near at hand was how bothersomely noisy gunfire can be to innocent bystanders; it hurts HIS ears!
Which seems kind of feminine in its delicacy, ya know, in the generalizing course of things. I would think your normal Texas hombre would wave off hails of deafening gunfire like Colonel Kilgore on the beach in ‘Apocalypse Now’ unflinchingly, but wistfully citing his love of the smell of Napalm in the morning as ordnance goes Ka-plow! mere yards from him and his surfboard.**
And, is a little like the Yiddish lady complaining about the atrociously bland food served in her nursing home ….. “AND, such small portions!”
*OK, in the abiding interests of both sides do it, I concede there are way too many MAGA conservative Mar-A-Lago-faced gunslinging, gorgons and harridans like the Greenes, the Boeberts, with big swinging testicles who do not demur at a little fully automatic gunfire in the school cafeteria or the U.S. Capitol or even in an otherwise peaceful Minneapolis neighborhood.
** I must mention I personally witnessed that scene being filmed while “performing” as a movie extra (army ranger grunt) in the Philippines while temporarily on “leave” from the Peace Corps there back in the late 1970’s.
It was a movie being filmed, but in that and other scenes, it was as deafening, disorienting and dangerously violent as one might imagine real war to be. The ordnance was real and way to close. If not for the blanks in my M-16, I’d have shot most of fellow extras and maybe a star or two. If not for Coppola yelling “Cut”, I’d have spent some time in a VA wing stateside entitled “Ward for The Cinematically Shell-Shocked”
Back to Lurking.
when wonkie posted, I was tempted to post, but I realized that what I was writing was just me happy to, as they say in the commons, ‘attach myself to the statements’. I was born in 61, so the 70’s and 80’s were my cultural memories, so discussions, like the famous bear example, seem a bit overblown. I do think that there were mechanisms to protect women, but those mechanisms were also to keep women in line and there was an implicit bargain that if you don’t rock the boat, you won’t get thrown to the sharks. What underlies that is power relationships, and I think you can’t erase those relationships or declare them out of existence, you can only be truthful about their existence and make sure that they aren’t being exploited to do something they aren’t supposed it.
As an example, in my FB feed, I’ve recently had a bunch of people talking about the French figure skater Suraly Bonaly, who was the first person to do a backflip in competition and she did it in 1998. The only problem was that it was an illegal move and she was penalized. However, in these Olympics, it was allowed in 2024 and included in the programs this time. So, just going by the fb posts, this was a female skater (who was also black) being mistreated while the two male skaters were allowed to do it.
None of these posts told the story of Bonaly doing the backflip in the warmups, inches from Midori Ito’s head, in 1992, during her warmup just before the short program. This apparently got into Ito’s head, because she subsequently missed her triple lutz in the short program and was only able to get the silver by making a comeback in the last program.
It seems indicative of something that it ended up with a black skater trying to throw an Asian skater off her game. In the Rodney King riots, it was Korean stores that took the brunt of protester’s rage, and the whole ‘Natural Conservative’ push (Reagan said something like ‘Latinos are Republicans, they just don’t know it yet’) tells me that the pressure is going to be exhibited more in the groups oppressed. Hurt people hurt people.
So I’d argue that the ‘there are no women in the Epstein files’ is reflection of a collection of power, not of some unavoidable darkness in the souls of all men. Next to the substack GftNC posts, I’d suggest reading Amelia Gentleman’s Guardian piece Sex and snacks, but no seat at the table: the role of women in Epstein’s sordid men’s club. Setting aside the irony of the writer’s last name, she points out that Epstein’s whole enterprise was on the backs of women who booked tickets, organized plans, etc etc. Wonkie’s mention of Mad Men is interesting, because while the series revolves around the men being assholes, another important thread is how the women, in the background but vital to keep the machinery running, slowly begin to assert their own power.
While the apparent absence of asian and black victims in the case of Epstein can probably be traced to his own bent, which then gets passed thru his whole enterprise, I also wonder if the absence of asian or black men in the Epstein files might also suggest that minorities are more attuned to the transactional nature of ALL things, and therefore avoided being drawn into it.
An all-male prison is, by that way of figuring, still a patriarchal society, as is an all-female prison because the larger society in which they exist is patriarchal in structure.
This surprised me: “Inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization: 4% men vs. 21% women (mostly abusive sexual contact).”
“Research suggests male prisons in the US tend to feature more rigid, hierarchical gangs focused on protection, status, and black-market governance, while female prisons more commonly involve pseudo-family or kinship-style groups that emphasize emotional support and relational bonds.”
Gendered Social Dynamics in US Prisons
A libertarian on these very pages years ago, in a fit of drollery, once said that what really bothered him about weaponry near at hand was how bothersomely noisy gunfire can be to innocent bystanders; it hurts HIS ears!
Perhaps I’m somewhere on the spectrum, but loud noises of all kinds have always been a problem for me.
Grok clearly doesn’t search out all the sources
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2438589/
Research suggests that rates of sexual victimization in prison may be as high as 41% or as low as less than 1%.12 A recent meta-analysis estimates a conservative “average” prevalence estimate of prison sexual assault at 1.9%. While the estimated rate of victimization varies significantly across studies, the characteristics of the victims reported in these studies are more similar. First, rates of sexual coercion are higher than rates of sexual assault or rape, independent of gender. More specifically, unwanted and sexually suggestive touching of breasts, genitals, or buttocks is more typical inside prison than the act of rape itself. Second, in the vast majority of studies, male facilities have been found to have higher rates of sexual assault compared to female facilities. Yet the perpetrators of sexual assaults against female inmates, compared to male inmates, are less likely to involve staff. Third, younger inmates are at greater risk of sexual victimization, particularly if they are new arrivals to a facility and are serving their first convictions. This may explain in part why rates of sexual victimizations vary across facilities within the same prison system. Facilities with a younger population would be expected to have higher rates of victimization than those facilities with a more mature and acculturated prison population. Fourth, inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization has an interracial bias, with victims most likely being White and sexual aggressors most likely being Black. This interracial pattern of victimization has been attributed to revenge for historical oppression and the reversal of racial dominance inside prison.
I also looked at your Grok summary and your takeaway seems to be remarkably narrowly focussed. I’ll leave it to others to point out how your takeaway points are misleading.