From: jrm@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu
Newsgroups: talk.rape
Subject: Words of Weak - The Real Meaning
Date: 20 Dec 92 23:37:06 -0500

My previous essay entitled "Words of the Weak" seems to have upset a few
people, who subsequently sent me mail. The prose was not so much intended
to be inflamatory as it was to be educational. Allow me to elucidate ...

My trigger for this was the reports coming out of Bosnia involving
large-scale rape and pillage. 

A great deal of the discussion here in TR revolves around modifying
aspects of the current culture and its written laws as so to make
women safer from rape. Indeed, some of these suggestions border on
social engineering worthy of Big Brother himself. Debate over just
how much psychological tinkering should be allowed just so women can
be safer from rape is another entire issue though.

The Bosnian situation leads me to believe that many of you are on
the wrong track. Our culture, it's norms and mores, its philosophy
and its laws - they are ARTIFICIAL ... the product of our minds.
One spark and it can all fall down into anarchy and 'barbarism'.
In such a situation - the weak, the unempowered, the dull, the
un-aggressive do indeed become meat to satisfy the wants and 
hard-wired desires of the powerful. 

Is it wise to invest so much time and effort towards 'fixing' 
our culture when another Rodney King, another shot fired in
anger, another natural disaster can so easily disintegrate
this culture ? The situation is analoguous to certain animal
species that have over-specialized. Deprive them of that one
special food or that exact temperature - and they perish. 

At the best, reformers are shooting at a moving target. While
they 'fix' one thing, the culture changes and makes that fix
irrelevant. If things don't turn for the best - all the fixes
go down the drain. 

Those of you writing from the 'west', the USA, Canada, UK etc, 
complain of cultural problems of such minute detail, and make
plans to deal with these alleged defects, that no one from a
non-western culture would ever dream of. The current stability
of our culture deludes one into believing there is a chance
of social engineering. Well, western culture is not so stable
as we might like to believe. All those fine ideals about
individual 'rights' and personal dignity - the foundation for
justifying so much of whats said here on TR - can blow away
on the slightest breeze of discontent. Your arguments, your
plans - they are constructed on quicksand. 

If women want to avoid rape, they need to form a plan that can
survive cultural upheaval or even outright anarchy. Such plans
must be rooted in the real stuff of life instead of the transient
and artifical. Accept the push and shove, accept aggression, accept
a level of violence and form alliances - these are the stuff that
makes for power. To some degree, women have been brainwashed to
be more passive than is strictly good for them. It's not just the
males that have done this either ... agressive and powerful women
tend to steal away the mates of weaker women - and so other women
try and keep each other down to avoid this unpleasantry. While
I do not suggest that women transform themselves into 2.5 billion
'Rambo' clones ... I think that the best way to deal with nasty
and hostile males is to make them fear for their lives. That can
be accomplished either as an individual or as a collective or 
as some proportion of both. 

-- Jim Mason