Rape Culture and Toxic Masculinity Hurt Everyone. Learn the Terms.

We are at war — until we know the lyrics to love one another

The term, “toxic masculinity” is often dismissed, because the natural position for all human beings is to be defensive about identity. To protect oneself.

This is also true for women, of course, who have much more experience with harassment and non-consensual sex, than men.

Let us get the facts out first. The word “toxic” is an adjective that describes behaviors and not individuals. Like the word “red” in “red pill,” one would never assume that all pills are red. Some are blue. This is just an indisputable fact of language, and our human nature is an indisputable fact of all people. We all are social creatures who want to be accepted as good. Right. Polite.

A behavior can be red, or blue, or purple, or pink! Most often, the fact is that it depends upon the moment, the context, and the insight of the speaker.

Be an ally, not a victim

“Rape culture”, also brings on defensiveness. That is because most men who pressure women to have sex, especially in youth and early dating years, do not realize that when a woman “gives in,” whether under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or just pressure, that she is, in fact, a rape victim.

I did not even know this until public campaigns began on the topic. Even today, few teens are educated well in school, church, or home, about consent.

Anyone can ask their mother, aunt, or grandmother about this and find confirmation that such coercion used to be called, “dating,” or in the romantic fog of the old days: “seduction.”

Add to the mix, that most such rapes are never, ever reported, (the victim almost always knows her partner) and that women are also defensive about being called “a victim.” All of this complicates a woman’s relationship with her “rapist,” so of course she is not going to take the many risks of accusation which include slut-shaming, hate mail, shame, and vulnerability.

Here, in a nutshell, you have the problems of how all people are hurt by misunderstanding, misinformation, and missed opportunity.

The important takeaway is not that men want rape culture, but that they do push for non-consensual sex far, far, more frequently than is known. And, that false accusations cover only reported, and brought to trial cases, which are incredibly rare.

How do we fix it?

There is a tremendous uproar right now about women’s rights. However, the correct, factual way to address reproductive, and even dating “rights” is to realize, and term rights, as human rights.

Many, many men, and even a large number of women do not identify as feminist. “Feminist” has become the new “F-word,” and is not used with as much frequency due to fears of being identified with negative stereotypes. It is considered, by most of us, impolite to brag about being for human equality — feminism — because the meaning has become so distorted.

The takeaway here, is that most women, love, and even bond with men. Most men, love and bond with women. A few bond with same sex partners. We just don’t realize that most of us are strong believers in human rights, and equality, who are likely to have been given conflicting messages, and misinformation, from day one.

Both rape culture and toxic masculinity have their roots in well-ingrained misogyny. Homophobia too, has shared roots. Fear of men penetrating men (dishonorable, according to much religious teaching) is the basis.

Men, naturally wanting to feel masculine, good, and accepted, internalize these messages, constantly having to prove outdated stereotypes about men as being strong, silent, stoic, and even aggressive, — assertive in dating, for example — and that is how we get to the idea that scoring, or “making it” displays manhood.

Women, obviously, also internalize social gender messages.

It culminates in people being afraid to name the problem, and address it.

My name is Jane/Joe, and I am a sexist

Try saying the above sentence, and your brain will rebel.

It is very much the same as systemic racism. We don’t want to admit it is systemic, wide-spread, and the status quo. We have culture wars, instead.

We want to believe we are all on the cutting edge of improving the status quo. This makes us unwilling to see our own empowerment by seeing our socialized, internalized belief systems.

When talking about any of these issues, then, recognize our own language.

Language and attitude are powerful. Use them to fight for human rights.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:

White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism

Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box

The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer

What We Talk About When We Talk About Men

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Photo credit: Harli Marten on Unsplash