Tom steps through some of the difficult narratives behind acting out darker sexual fantasies and the contradictory nature of the mind.
Last night I was thinking about the #metoo campaign and a certain subject that came up in regard to it. One of my friends had written about porn websites and the amount of real rape and abuse on them and that we need to educate and better inform young impressionable men and boys. Someone replied about fantasised rape and BDSM and how that shouldn’t be included within this, as it is between consenting adults.
I knew this was close to my line, I could feel it. There was something I needed to say about this, but I didn’t know what. After a while I started to work it out.
Fantasising rape might be exciting for some, but it is still a form of desensitising of aggression and abuse. The human brain has an odd quirk of miss identifying the sensations of excitement and danger; therefore, it is quite commonplace to find something dangerous, exciting. There is also a fair amount of psychological research on early development and experience being a coda for what you class as ‘sexually exciting’. If your mother told you off for doing something when you were a kid, and you subsequently felt bad about it, then you might fetishisise this later in life. If all this is new to you AND you are one of the ones immersing yourself in risky sexual practices, I suggest you go and read a book.
Fetishising rape is concerning on many levels to me. In my experience, this type of behaviour is frequently associated with people who have a history of sexual abuse. Are there any stats on this? I’d imagine not. How well do you know your partner when participating in these acts? By making such fantasies a reality are you healing them or making matters worse? I wouldn’t know the answer, but I would hope that those practicing it have had this discussion.
I have spoken to people that have put themselves in rooms with men they barely knew with the specific intent to act out abuse. I have seen the emails these men send and how they talk, and what I saw was aggression, disrespect and threat aimed at women. Those men have mental problems and difficult relationship histories with women (and have a shockingly low opinion of them too). They are simply not safe to be in this situation with, but that is where they are, under the shroud of supposed ‘consensual sex’, ‘acting out’ rape with vulnerable people, who can struggle to communicate and express themselves honestly and truthfully.
Part of the problem is the switchable nature of the mind. The ability to endorse and support women who have been abused and then wander off back to your phone and share videos of naked ex-girlfriends with your friends. Are you aware of your own two-sided nature? Dark/light/dark/light/light/dark/light/dark/light…..
Someone on Twitter I know has a male friend that likes all of their posts and all their other ‘liked’ posts are porn videos and sexual content. Is that not an indication of what the male mind can be like? Yeah, it could be harmless stuff they do in their spare time, but it is still a window into their mind, and sex seems to be high on the mental agenda, the sexual being hidden beneath the friendly face, and yes I am more cynical about this than, maybe some others would be.
Not long ago I was chatting with a guy who was having a bad day at work and was feeling angry and started talking about his overriding urge to ‘fuck someone’. He was spending a lot of his days with women and vulnerable people. I guess there is no problem with that urge, in itself, but the harm you may be causing by acting on that urge needs to be mitigated. I wonder if this guy’s mind in ‘angry-sex-urge’ mode was able to consider that respect requirement? He casually talked to me about it in a ‘you know what I mean, right?’ kind of way. Honestly, my reaction, was ‘no… I don’t really get what you mean’. He could, of course, just go off and have a wank somewhere and calm down his sexual urges. I don’t talk to him anymore.
Someone’s drive for sexual gratification can lead them to do strange things, to manipulate, to control. This can also include denial of sexual contact. The stories I have been told are shocking, but all have a scent of the very primal urges that procreation manifests, after all, we still jump if we hear a loud noise, as our senses are still prepared to defend us from other tribes and animals, even after all these thousands of years. Just because Neolithic man was more likely to rape women, or use his physical strength to control a physical encounter doesn’t mean 21st century-man should act on it.
If it is a subconscious sexual urge, then you may be totally negligent to its overriding drive in your life, but seriously… learn to know your own mind! What does it do? How does it react? Think about yourself, educate your head!
If you are man reading this, ask yourself: Do you find rape sexually exciting? Don’t get all bitter and twisted at yourself, just note that answer. Finding it exciting isn’t an an issue in itself, but how far you are willing to go to gratify your sexual urges most certainly IS!
So how far are you willing to go to get this sensation and how strongly does it control your day to day life? For the people who’s emails I saw, well… it looked like most of their days were occupied by such urges. If that is you… I think you need to go and get some help, as putting vulnerable women at risk, no matter how you choose to justify it, will never be okay. Never!
‘I CAN control how I feel, in the mind is all it is. It’s all this is’
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