Rapey lyrics, Thicke and the dangers of oversimplifying

So, I hate pretty much everything about Robin Thicke's song and video, Blurred Lines. What feminist doesn't, right? I don't need to go into everything that's creepy, douchebaggy and borderline rapey about the song and video, because plenty of writers have already helpfully outlined it for me. I don't even need to bother satirising its tired, predictable retro-sexism and insidious endorsement of rape myths, because plenty of humourists have already created their own parody videos, and freakin' hilarious they are too. However, when I read this article, which draws links between the song lyrics and the words of actual rapists, I began to wonder if the Thicke-bashing has gotten a little out of hand.

 

Not that the twatty-sunglassed one doesn't deserve every term of abuse in the book every time he purrs 'I know you want it/But you're a good girl' and endorses the concept of 'blurred lines' that every vile git who claims women all mean 'yes' when they say 'no' uses to justify their misogynistic behaviour. But, I get a little uncomfortable when I read the following - "women, according to Blurred Lines, want to be treated badly.

Nothing like your last guy, he too square for you.
He don’t smack your ass and pull your hair like that.

In this misogynistic fantasy, a woman doesn’t want a “square” who’ll treat her like a human being and with respect. She would rather be degraded and abused for a man’s gratification and amusement."

Yes, I bridle at the notion that it's 'square' not to want to have rough sex - I've written extensively about how being 'vanilla' should not be a source of shame, mockery or used as evidence that you are somehow less sexually 'cool' than people who like it ker-razy in the bedroom. Shaming men who don't want to play rough with their female partners definitely seems to be part of a toxic cult of masculinity that defines manhood only in relation to violence. However, I object to the notion that a guy smacking a woman's backside and pulling her hair equals 'degradation and abuse'. I object to the notion that this could only be done 'for a man's gratification and amusement'. I object to the assumption that this is necessarily non-consensual. I object, overall, to the idea that rough sex is something that is degrading, only ever initiated by men, and only ever forced, non-consensually on female 'victims'. (And yes, I've written about that).

Now, I'd rather spend eternity chewing on broken glass than ever consider sex with a douchebag in Ray-bans who comes on to me by saying 'You're an animal, baby it's in your nature', but that doesn't mean that every single word that said douchebag sings must necessarily be sick, wrong and misogynistic. I also feel that to equate Thicke's lyrics with words that rape victims actually had to hear during their assault (even if some victims were happy to collaborate in this article) is to trivialise their ordeal somewhat. It's also just a bit meaningless. If I say 'I know you want it' next time I temptingly offer a spoonful of ice cream to a friend seated next to me at a restaurant table, am I also guilty of perpetuating rape culture? If one of my roller derby teammates calls me a 'good girl' when I finally get a skating move right after the 74th attempt, is that simply bolstering the 'Madonna/whore' divide? I'm being facetious of course, and I know that what happens in life and what happens in sex can't necessarily be conflated (I know also, of course, that rape is not 'sex'). But Thicke's video isn't sex, either. It's media. Dumbass, lowest-common-denominator media at that. It's three men and three scantily-clad women twatting around in a studio. And whatever terrible things we feel it may reflect or encourage in our society, it's not the worst, or the only perpetrator.

Just off the top of my head, I can straight away think of probably ten different lyrics from popular songs that contain potentially shitty attitudes to women. How's about "Turn around bitch, I got a use for you" from Guns n' Roses It's So Easy? Or the same band's Used to Love Her, subtitled But I Had to Kill Her? We could argue about whether the fact the latter song was apparently written not about a woman, but Axl Rose's pet dog, negates the fact it sounds like an endorsement for murdering your spouse, for as long as we can argue about whether the 'ass-smacking' in Thicke's lyrics is consensual or forced, and I guess we might not get very far. But if, like the author of the Sociological Images article seems to be saying, we're not going to give artists the benefit of the doubt, then I guess I'd better start deleting all my G n' R MP3s. By this logic, I guess we'd better ban Britney Spears' I Was Born To Make You Happy too, not just because it's a godawful song, but because of the female subservience that its title and lyrics are advocating. We should probably also go after Alice Cooper's big-haired, chains n' whips-themed 80s classic, Poison, for the lines "I wanna hurt you just to hear you screaming my name". And maybe we should also take to task Wham's Edge of Heaven for the moment where young George Michael trills, "I would strap you up, but don't worry baby - you know I wouldn't hurt you unless you wanted me to" although at least the violence there is premised on consent and desire.

Which makes me think, where do we draw the lines (and not fuckin' blurred lines, either)? If we're going to cite any song with remotely rapey lyrics as intricately bound up with the traumas of real live women who have been assaulted, it's going to be a very long and sickening journey. Jason DeRulo made the charts in 2010 with a song that contained the lyrics "You'll be screaming 'no'''. Not long after, Dizzee Rascal rapped "I'm not forceful but I'm still hardcore/You're gonna give me everything I ask for". And if we assume that the line "I'm gonna give you something to tear your ass in two" must necessarily refer to 'violent, non-consensual sodomy', then we're gonna have to retrospectively condemn pretty little Pharrell Williams for promising to 'tear your ass up', 10 years ago in his duet with Jay-Z 'Frontin'. Personally, I think this assumption says more about the author's determination to wring every last drop of rapey-ness out of Blurred Lines than it does the actual song. Taken in the context of all the other rapey lyrics, I can see why one would assign this meaning to that particular line, but I don't think the lyric refers to anal rape any more than I think the line 'Burn this woman down' in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest means that McMurphy is actually encouraging Billy Bibbit to set fire to his sexual partner.

 

It sometimes feels like feminists are required to take one of two very simplistic sides when it comes to sexist media - either condemning it utterly, as the SI article does, or jumping to its defence and claming that said media can somehow be twisted to be 'empowering', however much evidence there is to the contrary. I don't want to do either. I want to encourage people to see the utter pile of bollocks that is Robin Thicke, his songs and his videos, in a wider context. I don't think it's helpful or wise to employ the shock tactics of placing rape victims' real-life trauma alongside silly lyrics from a shitty song that is one shitty song amongst millions that will be infecting the airwaves this week. I also don't think it's helpful to anyone, male or female, who enjoys consensual BDSM and is tired of what they enjoy being immediately labelled abuse.

 

Pop culture is powerful, insidious and can influence us all in ways we may never be fully aware of. But like a short skirt or a flirtatious smile, it doesn't cause rape, and neither does a stupid hashtag or a douchebag in sunglasses.

Some sensible words on victim-blaming 'rape avoidance advice'

These comments were in response to Barbara Ellen's Guardian article on 'safety in numbers', which was in turn a response to Joanna Lumley's comments that girls can escape rape by not wearing the 'wrong clothes', getting drunk or looking 'like trash'.

"'Take care of yourself' as general advice is fine.

'Take care of yourself' as specific advice for dealing with rape is misleading and problematic. It implies that you can greatly lessen the chances of being raped by not making yourself 'vulnerable', so that the victim is left to feel that they were stupid, that they failed to take some precautionary measure.

Since (and I am getting tired of saying this) most rapes do not occur out in some dingy alley but in the warmth and safety of someone's house, and are carried out by someone known to the victim, it beggars belief that the constant advice from celebrities and politicians is to behave differently in some completely alternative situation, as if this is the scenario in which women are most vulnerable. The stats do not support it - if anything, you're most vulnerable at home with men you trust. And what can anyone reasonably do in that situation?

"Watch your drink" would be sensible advice. "Don't wear high heels" is just stupid.

--JT Stone

How many threads full of smug men telling women how to behave do we need, Guardian? Thank you Joanna Lumley, thank you Barbara Ellen, thank you every other tired, tired bore who think that this week its their turn to tell women to 'be more careful' and 'don't get raped'. Because it's not like most women don't spend their lives trying to balance living like 'normal' people (aka men) while looking over their shoulder all the time in case some man takes it into his head to subject them to sexual assault.

I'm still waiting for the Guardian article that covers basic material such as the ways that rapists deliberately use all this 'be more careful' crap to cover up their crimes, discredit their victims and play juries. Because that's what happens. Think about the rapists, Barbara Ellen, and stop with the boring, boring victim-blaming."

--Coffeetable

"Now women (and men) are faced with two choices. Restrict their life in a completely unfeasible way to avoid hypothetical risks - every time you get in a car you face possible death in an accident - or accept that risk is part of life and if you're unlucky enough to draw the short straw, well that is just bad luck.
It is impossible to keep yourself safe from rape, unless you lock yourself in a rapist proof box. "

--Pollystyrene

To all rape-deniers and victim-blamers....

...you're probably thinking 'I need read no further, that title surely doesn't apply to me!'. You're probably thinking 'I know rape is a serious and heinous crime, and the rapist is always the one to blame for it!'. You're probably thinking that I'm only talking to obvious misogynists, ones who walk around with a bell around their necks and a T-shirt saying 'Bitch asked for it' to warn right-thinking men and women away from their vileness. But have a gander at this morning's Independent, and then consider your reactions.

If your only thought is 'This is fucking SHAMEFUL evidence of how our society doesn't take sexual violence seriously, and needs to be rectified', then yep, you can stop reading now.

But if you had any of the following thoughts, then stay with me - I need to talk to you.

1) The conviction rate can't be that low for no reason. Some of those women must be lying.

2) If they didn't report it, then how can we know it really happened?

3) False rape reporting ruins so many men's lives, why aren't we talking about that?

4) Men get raped too, why aren't we talking about that?

5)Rape is awful and all, but the rate would be lower if women stopped dressing provocatively/drinking so much/walking alone late at night.

6) A lot of so-called 'rapes' are just a case of women regretting sex the next day. 

7)I'm not a rapist/most guys aren't rapists/it's unfair to men to focus on an evil minority who rape women.

And I know you folks, who think these things, are out there. Because you tweet at me every time I express despair over another police victim-blaming campaign, protesting that telling women not to drink/walk alone is surely 'just sensible advice'. You post comments on my piece about a judge telling a rape victim she 'let herself down badly', suggesting that it's fair to focus on rape victim's behaviour because we would do the same to someone who had their laptop stolen. You are the people who cannot let any discussion of rape go by without feeling the need to blame victims, shift the blame away from perpetrators, and derail discussions with your determination not to focus on the terrible crime that men commit against women all over the world, every day.

And maybe you do it because you flat-out hate women, in which case there's probably nothing I can do for you. If you believe women are evil, lying bitches who get what they deserve, that feminism and protesting against rape is some massive conspiracy to harm men and tip society in women's favour, then please jog on. Nothing for you here.

But I'm willing to believe that not everyone who parrots rape myths is an out-and-out misogynist. I think some are probably woefully uninformed, which is not a difficult thing to be considering how sexist swathes of our media are. Many people are unaware that only 9% of rapes are committed by strangers, and 54% by boyfriends, partners or husbands. Many people are unaware that it's the rapist who is more likely to have consumed alcohol than the victim. Many people are unaware that rape has no higher 'false reporting' rate than any other crime - or that there have been multiple cases of women jailed for false reports only to be later cleared as it was discovered they were telling the truth. Many people are unaware that the reasons many cases don't get to court are not because they are not strong cases, but rather due to police mishandling evidence, failing to properly investigate, treating victims with hostility/disbelief and pressuring victims to drop cases. I hold on to some hope, however insanely optimistic, that with some education, some confronting of real facts accompanied by a willingness to listen to real women's stories, some of the people who make excuses for rapists might actually start to wake up.

And I can understand why people don't want to confront the reality of rape, because it's bloody upsetting. It's easier to imagine that not walking down a dark alley is all a woman has to do to protect herself from rape, when the truth is that the only way women could truly 'avoid rape' is to sever all relationships with men and move to an uninhabited island. It's easier to blame rape on clothes and alcohol than it is to accept that it's much more commonly committed by husbands, boyfriends, ex-partners, friends and acquaintances than it is by strangers. And I'm by no means suggesting it's only men who persist in dodging the issue - I see women doing it all the time too. And I think I know why - because to acknowledge that simply being female is the only 'contributing factor' to rape would be to acknowledge our huge vulnerability as women. Statistically, the loved men in our lives are the ones most likely to turn on us and rape us. We are far less likely at risk from the stranger in the nightclub or the weird-looking guy we pass on the pavement. And it makes us feel like shit to have to acknowledge that, so instead we blame other women for their actions, imply that 'it wasn't really rape' and in so doing try to fool ourselves that 'It couldn't happen to me, because I would have done X Y and Z'.

But we've all got to acknowledge it - men and women - if we're ever going to change anything. Otherwise the vicious cycle will continue. Society, the judiciary and police will continue to be hostile towards rape victims, they will hide in silence and shame, and our conviction rate will remain shamefully low.

So do me a favour, all those who've ever made an excuse for rapists, who've ever said 'Rape is obviously terrible BUT...', who've ever met statistics about rape with hostility, scepticism or disbelief. Try and educate yourself. Do some reading. Think long and hard. Think about the women in your life you care about. Consider how comfortable they'd feel confessing to you that they'd been raped if they knew your first question was going to be 'Are you sure it was rape?' or 'How much had you been drinking?'. Consider how, if they're already aware of your attitude, there may well be women in your life who've long been hiding the fact they've been raped from you.

And take a long hard look at yourself, then make a change.

Recommended reading

The Stern Review - Baroness Stern
Common Myths About Rape - Rape Crisis
Statistics on Rape Reporting/Conviction Rates and Common Rape Myths - Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit
Shocking Low Conviction Rates Revealed - Independent
40 Years of Rape Crisis - Guardian
Women Are Not Wallets - Sian Norris
'Don't Be That Guy' Campaign Sees Rape Reports Fall by 10% - The Globe and Mail

Latest Posts by Me

One for The Independent (sound the 'my first piece for a new outlet, whom I've been wanting to get published by FOR YEARS!' klaxon), on West Mercia Police's victim-blaming anti-rape campaign.

And Bitch is keeping me busy with this week's posts on BDSM and abuse.

I'm appalled that Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a woman who has spent a great deal of time admirably taking to task Islamic fundamentalism and its shitty treatment of women, seems to be adopting the exact mindsets of those who believe sexual violence is - at least partly - the fault of the victim. But that's exactly what she seems to have done in her article in Monday's Independent, "How does dressing like a 'slut' help protect women?". It's the kind of knee-jerk victim-blaming and rape apologist tactics that I'd expect to find in The Daily Mail, and is therefore especially worrying when you consider that it's actually from a supposedly enlightened, liberal woman. Firstly, Alibhai-Brown lazily stereotypes and wilfully misunderstands the concept of Slutwalk, declaring that it consisted of women "dressed to pull...in uplifted bras, thongs, Playboy outfits", ignoring those who marched in jeans and jumpers, or those who held up signs saying that the latter is exactly what they were wearing when they were raped, and posing the question "...did I deserve it?". If you believe Alibhai-Brown, the answer goes something along the lines of "less than those naive tarts who wore miniskirts".

It's disconcerting to see an intelligent woman buy so thoroughly into the victim-blaming trend by not only equating 'provocative' dress with invitation to rape, but even going so far as to defend the Toronto policeman who inadvertently triggered the whole Slutwalk phenomenon with his comments. "Surely he was only saying women need to be sharp and savvy?". Um, no Yasmin. He wasn't saying that at all. He was perpetuating several gross, offensive and repeatedly disproved myths, those being that:

1) Rapists are not really responsible for their actions

2) Rape is just really sexual desire that gets out of control

3) Rape is only committed by strangers in dark alleys who leap upon scantily-clad women.

I've written about why those three statements don't stand up to scrutiny so much that I can barely be bothered to repeat myself, but it seems that the message still isn't getting through. How can Alibhai-Brown acknowledge that "women in burkas...are still as likely to be victims as the flesh-flashing demonstrators" in one breath, then go on to lay the blame for sexual violence solely at the feet of those very 'flesh flashers', in the next? How can she believe that rape is caused by the "flesh-baring daily dress...sex mime" if it happens just as much TO WOMEN WHO COVER EVERY INCH OF THEIR FLESH!?!?

She tries to dodge criticism by playing the class and race card, claiming that Slutwalk is the premise of pampered middle class ignoramuses with nothing better to do than patronise 'true' victims, and speculating that "there weren't many women on the march who have endured domestic rape or have been trafficked." Well Yasmin, how would any of us be able to find that out, considering one of the main problems surrounding rape is how its victims are forced into silence and shame by attitudes not dissimilar to your own? Bafflingly, she then brings in a story of an African cleaner being sexually abused by her British employer, as if to imply that Slutwalk is somehow an insult to 'real' rape victims, who presumably have to be poor, downtrodden, and definitely not wearing anything sexy, to qualify.

Although Alibhai-Brown claims to understand that rape is a heinous crime whether committed by Gaddafi's henchmen in Libya, "by soldiers in the Congo, [or] by civilian blokes in the home and on the streets", her words elsewhere in the article directly contradict this. In fact, it's less an article than an incoherent mish-mash of grotesque stereotypes and unsupported statements such as "there is more evidence that drunkenness among young women (and their revealing clothing in some cases) make them vulnerable to sexual assault". I'd really like to see the 'evidence' that supports that massively loaded statement - and I'd also like to hear what Alibhai-Brown thinks makes toddlers and grandmothers vulnerable to sexual assault, seeing as she seems to believe that rape victims are somehow guilty of collusion in their assault.

As I've said a wearisome number of times before, the blaming of a scrap of material or a glimpse of thigh for a man forcing his penis into a woman's vagina, anus or mouth, is not just bizarre and offensive because of what it says about women. It's also because of what it says about men. A-B seems content to believe that the modern world and all its provocative accoutrement has resulted in a society where "even more men seem to defile babies and toddlers, their own teenager children and partners, and violate innocent females, the elderly included" (ah. So there are SOME 'innocent' victims, are there Yasmin? How old, young or covered by cloth does one have to be to qualify exactly?). Her thinking seems to be that, as hemlines have shortened, men's brains have short-circuited, and rape and violence have increased because these middle class bitches just won't keep their cleavages covered. Wow. If men really are as basically-wired and easily provoked to violate a woman as Alibhai-Brown seems to think, isn't there a fairly strong argument for institutionalising, electronically tagging, blinding or at least castrating the lot of them?

But funnily enough, I'm not someone who wants to do that. I do believe the majority of men to be intelligent, logical and in possession of reason, and strangely enough, as a Slutwalker's placard pointed out, not compelled to commit rape by mere items of clothing (or lack thereof). Rape is entirely caused by the decision of vile, sadistic individuals, who are not just 'overly horny' or 'a bit too rough in the bedroom' or 'unable to control themselves'. Quite the opposite - they are calculating, cruel and determined to inflict pain and humiliation on a woman, and know that forcibly penetrating her body is an effective way to do it. No one rapes just because they got too aroused at the sight of an expanse of uncovered leg. They do it for the same reason they would defecate on a person - to shame, subordinate and silence them.

So Yasmin, please adopt some silence of your own until you can abandon your scarily right-wing woman-hating attitude, and consider that perhaps there is some truth to the statement that "rape predates miniskirts". None of us are naive enough to believe, or propagate the belief, that the world is safe for women. That was never the point of Slutwalk. The point was to say that the world SHOULD be safe for women, and no one should ever stop trying to make it that way, and a world in which rape is excused and accepted is a world which can never be excused and never be accepted. My last words to Yasmin, and your charming (interestingly all male) supporters who followed your article with letters to the Independent proclaiming that "The feelings aroused in men are something over which they have no control" and "If those women...don't want to be mistaken for prostitutes, they shouldn't wear the uniform" (because it's fine to rape prostitutes, isn't it chaps?) can only be another slogan from a Slutwalk placard: 100% OF RAPES ARE CAUSED BY RAPISTS.

ARRRRRRRRRRRGGHHHHH

Just when you thought things might be getting better, shit like this comes along to remind you that the powers that be remain utterly ignorant, and dangerously misguided, about pretty much anything to do with rape, sexual assault, or women's bodily autonomy in general.

I thought there might be some kind of turning point when I noticed the reporting over the sexual assault allegations against Dominique Strauss-Kahn wasn't the usual fest of victim-blaming misogyny that rape cases usually descend straight into. For once, the media seemed to be focusing on the behaviour of the accused, rather than the accuser, and suggesting that perhaps it's the (alleged) rapist's sexual history we should be examining when considering an allegation, rather than trying to undermine an already traumatised victim by trawling through their past and making them out to be a slut. Whilst headlines like 'PERV' aren't helping anyone, and not exactly upholding the whole 'innocent until proven guilty' thang, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't refreshing to see that instead of 'WHAT A LYING WHORE', which is what rape victims have had to put with since time immemorial.

But today Kenneth Clarke, the British 'Justice' Secretary, has caused my faith to plummet right back through the floor, with his proposal to halve convicted rapists' sentences if they plead guilty, and his comments by way of explanation that: "[Rape] includes date rape and 17 year-olds having intercourse. Serious rape, I don't think many judges give five years for a forcible rape, frankly, the tariff is longer for that and a serious rape where there's violence and an unwilling woman, the tariff's much longer than that."

I can't even begin to unravel the tangle of misunderstandings, misconceptions, and frankly outright falsehoods contained in this sentence. But let me take a few pot shots. Firstly, I'd be happy to see the phrase 'date rape' banished from the face of the earth forevermore. It's one of the most despicable, dishonest, misleading terms I've ever come across, precisely because of the implication it carries that there are 'different types' of rape, and therefore some must be worse than others. Like the term 'domestic violence', it gives this type of assault on women a cosy little niche of its own, lessening the impact of the words 'rape' and 'violence' by adding a qualifier to them, ergo 'Oh, she was raped, but it was only date rape, so not as bad'. Also, what the fuck exactly is date rape? Does it only count if you went for dinner and drinks beforehand? Or does there have to be a movie and dancing too? Basically, it's used to cover pretty much all forms of acquaintance rape, which is the most worrying part of the trend, because acquaintance rape is the most common kind, the most underreported, and the hardest kind of rape to obtain a conviction for. So, um, can someone explain to me why people feel the need to erode the seriousness of this crime even more?

Sure, people are gonna come back with the usual shite about 'Oh, if two drunk students fall into bed together and neither can remember what happened, that's not as bad as someone being dragged into a dark alley at knifepoint'. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't - I wouldn't know, being fortunate enough not to have ever had either happen to me. However, what most people forget is that the 'dark alley at knifepoint' scenario is RARE. Fucking rare. In the 2003 survey of thousands of women, conducted by the Home Office with a view to amending the Sexual Offences law, it was found that only 8% of rape victims reported being attacked by a complete stranger. EIGHT PER CENT. That leaves 92% of those cases as technical 'date rapes', or at least 'acquaintance rapes', because they were committed by male friends, neighbours, colleagues, family members and - in 45% of cases, by husbands or male partners. Are we really expected to agree that the 8% who were horribly violated by a stranger, suffered a more serious assault, than the 45% who were raped by the men they loved and presumably trusted the most, or the 37% who were attacked by men they thought they were safe with, in their own houses, workplaces or social spaces?

By conflating 'date rape' with statutory rape Clarke muddies the waters even more. No, of course statutory rape isn't always the same. It certainly can be - it can involve force, coercion, and a massive inequality of power. The law is there to protect children - if you fuck a 9 year-old, it doesn't matter if she was 'willing'. She's 9, and you're a rapist. Go straight to jail, do not pass Go. However, the oft-trotted out example of a 15 year old and a 16 year old having consensual sex? Yeah, OK, it's not the same, and few police in their right mind would waste their time seeking a prosecution. But to put that latter case in the same category of your husband, boyfriend, friend, neighbour, colleague or the guy in the local paper shop turning on you and violating your body in the most horrendous, degrading way possible? It's just fucking madness. And it's terrifying that any member of our government is making that comparison, let alone daring to do so publicly.

I can only hope that Clarke's words come from ignorance rather than true misogyny - sadly, I think in a lot of people's cases, and yes a lot of them do happen to be male, the ignorance comes from being in a position of total inexperience. If you've never lived your life under the threat of rape, you might not bother to try and understand the issues at work. I hope many men will prove me wrong by speaking out in the wake of Clarke's vile assertions, and yes I know women can be evil victim-blamers as well, although I think their mindset comes from a different, more understandable place (the 'it'll never happen to me' camp). But whether Clarke's just an ignorant old dickhead, or a foul misogynist, is not the issue. The issue is what he said, and what those words demonstrated about his attitude to women, rape and justice. He does not speak for us. He does not uphold justice for us. Therefore he has to go. NOW.