sethg: picture of me with a fedora and a "PRESS: Daily Planet" card in the hat band (0)
sethg ([personal profile] sethg) wrote in [personal profile] rax 2009-08-18 12:55 pm (UTC)

I think one reason it's hard to have a "normal" conversation about rape is that the norms surrounding rape are still up in the air. So if there's a discussion of someone's personal experience with rape, that larger controversy casts a pall over the conversation.

I mean, if I tell people about my house being broken into and I mention that we have conventional door locks--the kind that an MIT alum with a little spring steel could pick in about thirty seconds--I don't think many people would tell me "not to excuse what the burglar did, which of course was a crime, but dude, you should have had better locks".

"Men are potential rapists" is badly phrased, I think, but true in the sense that "cars have the potential to crash" and "buildings have the potential to burn while occupied" are true, and I can't think of a better concise phrasing right now.

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