Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site stolaf.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!stolaf!densinge
From: densinge@stolaf.UUCP (Charles W. Densinger)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Rape and Violence
Message-ID: <2090@stolaf.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Nov-84 14:41:39 EST
Article-I.D.: stolaf.2090
Posted: Mon Nov  5 14:41:39 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Nov-84 05:21:17 EST
Organization: St. Olaf College, Northfield MN
Lines: 36

Response to Lauri Rohn and others:

   I agree with you that rape is an issue of *control*.  In fact,
many feminists argue that rape is not a behavior which is considered
to be `abnormal' in our culture, but is the prototypical
relationship--at least traditionally--between men and women; i.e.,
men have all the control financially and politically and this
control is exercised through sex; women are supposed to provide
their husbands with sex whenever they want it and on their (the
husband's) terms, etc.  It is also, they argue, why our legal
system is reticent to punishing rapists.
   I dont't wholly agree with this analysis, but there is, I think,
a grain of truth to it.
   I must emphasize that in the article I posted, I did not mean to
suggest that sex is the motivator for violence.  Neither do I
believe that violence for violence's sake is a real phenomenon.  I
believe that violence is aberration in human behavior, not a part of
healthy human functioning.
   Why would someone rape to feel powerful, or in control?  I ask
this question because I believe that power, like violence, is not
something that humans want merely for its own sake.  I believe that
any person who seeks *coercive* power, power which usurps another's
sovereignty, does so out of fear (primarily--perhaps also out of
emotional need, which probably cannot exist in extreme without
fear.)  This is what I meant--albeit, I was not very clear in saying
it--when I suggested that one rapes not out of sexual desire itself,
not merely for the sake of violence, but out of profound distress.
   To Lauri and others, please read with care.  I think all but one
of the responses I've seen to the articles I've posted commented on
issues I'd dealt with in the article itself.  I think people often
want to argue and criticise merely for the sake of arguing and
criticizing.  (Or is there a deeper motivation...?)

        -Chuck Densinger @ St. Olaf
         {decvax|ihnp4}!stolaf!densinge