Rape. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!

A few years ago, I don’t believe I’d even heard the term “rape
culture.” Now it seems to come up daily in my newspaper, social media and general conversations. And it’s not just coming up in reference to foreign lands known for lacking respect for women. It’s everywhere. 
    India has had a few high profile gang rape cases that have
shocked the world with their brutality this year. A Swedish (I
think) woman was being sent to trial in a Muslim country after reporting that she’d been raped by a co-worker. She was charged with having sexual relations with the man to whom she wasn’t married. Gang rapes and drugged rapes are common news items in Canada and the States. What has happened to bring on
all this sexual violence? 
    Some claim that we just hear more about these things due to
internet and more reporting, but I don’t believe that’s the whole picture. Because along with the steady stream of rape news, there also seems to be an increase in rape glorification in the media. Songs have come out recently extolling the joys of rape and sexual abuse. Recently more than one university group has had large participation in chanting about raping underage girls during frosh week. (and to make matters worse, in the two Canadian instances, young women were chanting and singing along with the guys! How sick is that?) 
    Do the male youths listening and participating in this group
hatred of women not understand just how vile their behavior is? Do the young women feel, oh well it’s not me they’re wanting to abuse? (or do they hope that by aligning with the jerks wanting to traumatize young females, that somehow they won’t be on the victim side of the equation?) I don’t get it. 
    Perhaps this is the youth’s form of rebellion since tattoos,
piercings, rock bands and what not are now mainstream. But the glorification and then normalization of rape has far worse consequences. This rape culture seems to say, well rape isn’t that bad. Maybe she likes it. And often after a rape has occurred many people jump into slut-shaming mode. (another term I was blissfully ignorant of until recently. Slut-shaming is where a woman
is harassed or bullied for not behaving or dressing the way someone else deems appropriate. Often along the lines of, she deserved to be raped because of the clothes she was wearing, or she’d flirted, or she’d previously had sex with someone inappropriate.)
   What these slut-shamers and rapist protectors seem to believe is
that if a woman is not a “good” girl, then she somehow deserves to be raped. (or, God forbid, even wants to be raped) Or that guys are so weak that when they see a “slut” they cannot help but attack
her. And then the poor male “victims” are being charged for a rape that was really not their fault.
   Is this desire to sexually violate women caused by exposure to
the rape for entertainment seen regularly on television and in movies? Is it a by-product of an escalating violent world populated by the disenfranchised and disillusioned?  And most importantly, is there some way we can counteract this “rape culture” and instill the obviously lacking empathy in many people? Something needs to be done and fast because a world where rape is normal and everyone will have to increasingly arm themselves just to survive is not a world that most of us would choose to live in.
    It’s not enough for men to say, “I don’t rape.” They also need to say that they will stop rape and discourage it in any form. And women need to learn to take responsibility for their participation and enabling of this rape culture, too. Don't buy, watch, listen to people selling rape as entertainment. And, by al means, stop with the slut-shaming and support each other. If you are not part of the solution…