rape and murder

I feel the same, Anthony. I think there may be a couple of reasons, but I'm not convinced they explain it for me. One is familiarity - people occasionally come up with stats about seeing 84 million murders on TV before you're two or something, and it's certainly true that murder is commonplace entertainment, fine at any time of the day, whereas rape isn't.

Also there is a major history of a lot of kinds of rape not being taken seriously, and not being criminal at all. In the UK it's not at all long since a man could legally rape his wife - it was legally impossible to prosecute in this situation. It still happens - terms like 'date rape' are a way of diminishing its horror. And there's the way that the women are treated as if this has contaminated them, and the lingering implication that they somehow invited it - it makes it a crime like no other.

Maybe how it's depicted, too. A while ago, it might have been filmed in a titillating way. Now, to avoid that, it's generally shown as very harrowing, and the focus is on the suffering of the woman. The artists now want it to be bloody horrible to watch. It's hard to do that with murder, mostly.

Disagree with me and you are disagreeing with G*d.

Momus, thank you for proving my point that THERE IS sometimes a valid reason for MURDER!

ha! sorry, I couldn't resist :)

I will answer the actual question once I leave work.

and this is a BAD thing?

The rape in question would be 'justifiable' as an overriding of the woman's (in this case 'unreasonable') right to control her reproduction by refusing to continue the species in just the same way that (according to pro-lifers) it's 'justifiable' to take away a woman's right to control her reproduction by abortion.

So no football but a hair shirt for me.

And the trouble with that argument is that you're using a rapist (of sorts, er, sorry God) to justify a moral argument about rape. I mean, did God ask Mary before planting the seed of the Christchild in her? Did He woo her with candles and soft music? Did He screen any other candidates?

d00d's got a filofax the size of a ham, I'm sure he did.

(Also, there was an infinite age gap between Mary and G*d. It's spookily abusive.)

per Momus
humanity would die

and this is a BAD thing?

One could try to answer for you, Anthony. You're less troubled when sexual violence happens between men because you're a gay man. Your sexuality leads you to see sexual violence between men as 'sexy'. (There's also the fact that men are 'nasty' and 'violent' anyway and deserve what they get, and the fact that two men fighting are 'equal' in physical strength, most likely.) Because you're gay, your template for 'a (or the) woman' is more likely to be your mother than a sexual partner, so to you the onscreen violation of a woman conjurs horrifying images of an attack on 'the mother', whereas a straight man might tend to see it as a symbol of sexual predation and conquest of 'the lover'. (Sorry for any psychobabble cliches in there...)

BurmaKitty, in your universe we only live to say no? Humanity dies and you shrug, but a woman is violated and you scream? I can make no moral arguments which would convince a person without a picture of 'the good', even so basic a one as 'that there continues to be intelligent life in the universe'.

I was about to say.

I would think the term "date rape" is actually far more repulsive to folks who have given the distinction some thought or who have known one of its victims or heard a detailed account of an instance.

I have spoken to several rape victims at varying distances in time from their having been raped. Both victims I am close to (as a friend being told) and complete strangers (in the capacity of counsellor). The stunningly scary thing about "date rape" is the number of victims who attempt to justify the attacker's actions. There are a bunch of psychological reasons for it, but it's maddening to be on the listening end of and often quite hard to circumvent in the victim's mind.

It's apples and oranges, but you can't speak to the victim of a murder or watch them spend the next several years emotionally, psychologically and socially mangled. A murder victim may not have deserved what they got, but a rape victim continues to not deserve what they get every day after it.

Indeed I do. (Shrugs.) Why exactly is the existence of intelligent life in the universe so profound a good?

A while ago, it might have been filmed in a titillating way. Now, to avoid that, it's generally shown as very harrowing, and the focus is on the suffering of the woman.

Is it? Another thread (iltwee) had a photo of a girl being shot (courtesy Jody) in one of the most unapologetically violent films ever made, 'Battle Royale'. Then we had 'Irreversible', with a nine minute rape scene which, sure, was meant to be harrowing, but also may have been meant to titillate some and get the film talked about. Perhaps we now require to be harrowed in order to be titillated? Or is that moral titillation replacing sexual titillation as the main spectator sport?

I agree, and I'm straight. So there's all the bases covered.

And Momus, I thought the "a friend" joke was funny.

Yes, the 'friend' bit was very good.

If there was only one man left in the world, and only one woman. And she wasn't into it, but without intercourse humanity would die? Surely rape in that case would be better than murder, or genocide, which is what her continued and consistent refusal would be, possibly the extinction of all intelligent life in the universe?
-- Momus (nic...), April 26th, 2003

What if she kills herself after being subjected to continual rapes by Momus?

Would we want an entire population based on the genes of Momus?

Would it be a 1970 sci-fi futuristic Charlton Heston movie?

Isnt this like 'Swept Away'...or at least the premise of it?

Well, the general level of Photoshop skill would go up, for sure.

Thus...

ALL ISSUES SOLVED!

That's it! I will now campaign against sex, forced or otherwise. Sex only causes problems and hurts others and then we post funny crap on the board about it.

this is, oddly enough, the funniest thread i've read in awhile.

because he is a deranged maniac. As in HG Wells, he is obsessed with the idea that his invisibility gives him power over others, hence his tendency to treat them as sexual objects.

If rape were really more about sex, the bullshit "well, the way she was dressed looked like she was asking for it" argument would stand a better chance of even seeming logical. I'd think most intelligent people understand why it's not.

There are tons of explanations as to how sex and violence are related, some of them more sound psychological observations than others.

Anthony, I don't think heterosex (or any kind of sex) is combat if it's between partners who understand and trust each other. Even in BDSM (at least in the more ideal situations... correct me if I'm wrong), there is plenty of it between partners.

I agree with Maria too. It's much easier to identify with a rape victim than it is to identify with a murder victim. Unless you work in high crime or something and have to check your car for bombs before you go out.

The presentation of rape in film... well, this depends really. I've never been raped so what the fuck do I know?

I don't like it when a film uses a rape scene as an excuse to show some tits (I find this reprehensible). 'The Accused' was a very powerful film and I think Wes Craven's 'Last House on the Left' presented the act with a horrible atmosphere of grit and terror. I can't think of many others. I tend to avoid a movie if it has rape in it, I find the act ghastly and very unpleasant to sit through.

Murder may or may not be an objectification, but either way, the victim doesn't have to deal with the longterm consequences of it.

(And even the victim of an attempted and unsuccessful murder can feel some triumph at their survival -- the victim's survival means the murderer failed.)

To the extent that you're empathizing with the victim, then, I think it's natural to be more horrified at the idea of living with the knowledge of your victimhood than at the idea of simply being dead.

Ha! This Ameri-kitty thinks it's so cute when people sound like British people trying to sound angry!

calum is a moran.
-- RJG

No offense to calum, but since the BurmaKitty is a Moran by decent on her maternal side, SHE RESEMBLES THAT REMARK! and don't get BurmaKitty's Irish up...you DON'T want to go there!

Incidentally Momus in your Adam and Eve at the end of the world scenario it's not actually necessary for the couple to have sexual intercourse for them to conceive a child together. Plus I would think that having only two remaining members of any species left means that the species has very little chance of survival whatever the personal choices of the remaining members.

I can only look upon this with shock and awe.

I wasn't trying to sound angry, I wasn't remotely angry. The idea of anything on the internet annoying me in the slightest is faintly ridiculous.

like my moustache, etc. don't like the representation of kirsten, though. : //

Sorry. Except for Calum #4 the pictures were drawn (or rather, doodled) long before I read the thread, and the Eraserhead guy's expression matched Kirsten's text best. (Lynskey resembles my ex-gf btw.)

I dunno if I buy this as an argument here, but it does raise the point of context. Cowboy Bebop is also science fiction and animated. Both of those could certainly serve to distance the viewer from the perceived degree of "reality" involved. I can't think of any rape scenes in the Cowboy Bebop series (not the movie), but there are some pretty graphic murders, and I do think a lot of them are "artfully" rendered in spite of often being extremely violent.

I think Nathalie is OTM about Japan. They allow themselves the most extreme flights of imagination, and return to a highly controlled reality with little difficulty. (Picture them reading ultra-sexual, ultra-violent mangas on the way to work on the subway.) Hence there is little sense of films 'eroding public morals'. You can have a film like 'Battle Royale' in Japan, unthinkable in the US, because

a) Art, for the Japanese, does not 'corrupt and deprave'.

b) Real life is pretty safe in Japan. Columbines do not happen.

Also, fourth-wall realism was never very big in Japanese culture. Baroque fantasia is king. There's a lot of ultra-surreal violent imagery whose metaphorical sexual content is very plain for all to see, and seems to disturb no-one.

I think that's the way to go. Make the world safer, but let the imagination roam where it will.

A government funded project looks into using psychics to enter people's dreams, with some mechanical help. When a subject dies in his sleep from a heart attack Alex Gardner becomes suspicious that another of the psychics is killing people in the dreams somehow and that is causing them to die in real life. He must find a way to stop the abuse of the power to enter dreams.

Just think about that.

First of all, Momus, you are full of shit.
It is lame to nitpick something that you ultimately disregard -
in this case, Christianity. Once you've eschewed a system it
seems petty to constantly dog it's heels like a rabid smurf.

"[in Japan] art does not corrupt and deprave"

This is due to the fact that the Japanese public is already
corrupt and deprave. Insert statements about Nanking,
war atrocities, police brutality, lack of legal
due process, and suicide.

"columbines do not happen"

This is true. The crazed wackos don't have access to guns to kill students. So they _stab_ the schoolchildren.

I'm 1/8 Japanese and have researched their culture. I've
found many commendable qualities therein but it is not
heaven on earth as some would have it.

As for the Japanese stuff, a sweeping generalisation that the Japanese public is depraved and corrupt is clearly racism, and bringing in your own heritage doesn't hide that. Momus's absurd assertion that real life is safe in Japan obviously stands up to no serious scrutiny, but I think the greater distinction between art and life is very real - maybe the fact that realism has never been a big part of the Japanese arts (though it has come in some in the last century) is a big signifier, effect and cause there. And I think Japanese people perceive real life as pretty safe, to a degree that is significantly different from, say, the US, rightly or wrongly. I dare say someone could research relative rates of murder and rape and assault, and they might well be lower in Japan, but the point is the perception. Many Japanese can happily watch movies of mayhem (including sometimes extreme sexual violence) without linking it to their own very ordered, controlled lives that seem incommensurable with that world.

I did NOT SAY that
"anyone who rejects Christianity can't criticise it"

I did say
"It is lame to nitpick something that you ultimately disregard"

which means it seems petty to criticise something within it's
own framework when you consider that framework to be bollocks.
It's like joining an intense debate about which is your
favorite S Club 7 when you don't watch the show anyway.

And when I said Japan is depraved and corrupt, I thought
it went without saying that America is too - I almost mentioned
America's soaring murder rate, myself. Japanese trades
simply trades disorganized, messy, individualistic corruption for
more ordered and controllable corruption. Observe their
medieval legal system and laughably corrupt democratic
process.

I have a question about Japan. We all know that ultra violent comics and stuff are widely read there, including stuff with extreme sexual violence. Yet rates of sexual assault are apparently very low.

could it be, however, that Japanese society's rates of sexual violence are comparable to anywhere else, but are less reported (for various sociological reasons)?