http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/01/04/purity-culture-is-rape-culture Comments On: Purity Culture Is Rape Culture by Dan Savage en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Wed, 22 May 2013 20:30:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
How PURITY works where society gives no shit about it :
Religious : "Wah wah wah... Purity... Rings... Bears..."
Males and Females : "Yeah, whatever, having sex before marriage is better than marrying someone sexually incompatible ! Gross he's so focused on fucking, he an OB-GYN ?"

How PURITY works where society gives a huge shit about it :
Religious : "I'm your specialist in sexual moral matters ! Remember purity : the lesser, the better ! And put your Modesty Attire on, you impure whores !"
Female to religious : "Someone raped me, even though I had my Modesty Attire on !"
Religious : "Oh, no, a peen went in your poon and I hadn't married those sexual organs together yet ! Now you're impure ! If you get married to any other man that will make another, different peen get into your poon ! Further impurity ! We can't allow that ! Only way now to become pure again : marry your rapist !"
Male rapist to religious : "hey, thanks, buddy ! Couldn't talk any female into marrying me, but now things are so looking up for me ! Hey, when I'm bored with her, can I say she's taken a lover, and then we'll stone her, and then I rape another one and marry her ?"
Religious : "Sure, son. Purity applies to living poons only, dead poons don't count. Don't go rape two girls in a row, though, that would be tricky for our PURITY business."

Wake up from purity, DRF. Look around. You might learn a thing or two.
Posted by sissoucat]]> Sat, 12 Jan 2013 07:35:15 -0800 The Stranger
What you seem to be saying is that you don't like or approve of the concepts of purity and chastity. That's valid. The fact that a sensible person can believe this is not in question. The issue at hand is whether or not it's valid to claim that valuing purity and chastity causes horrible events like what happened to Ms. Panday. It isn't.
Posted by DRF]]> Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:26:55 -0800 The Stranger Posted by curtisp]]> Tue, 08 Jan 2013 21:19:59 -0800 The Stranger Even the choice of the word "purity" is a problem.

Pure = clean; that means: not pure = dirty, contaminated

Why can someone who chooses to have sex outside of marriage not be "pure"? She has to be "dirty"?

There is nothing wrong with wanting to have only a limited number of sexual partners during one's lifetime. But there is a lot wrong with letting everyone know that this is the morally superior choice and calling everyone who makes a different choice in effect "dirty".


Posted by migrationist]]> Tue, 08 Jan 2013 21:05:00 -0800 The Stranger Posted by DRF]]> Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:25:38 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:37:28 -0800 The Stranger
@124 Contraception has nothing to do with whether a focus on chastity causes rape. I concur that access to contraception is a good thing for women and for society at large.
Posted by DRF]]> Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:05:11 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Tue, 08 Jan 2013 14:58:12 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Tue, 08 Jan 2013 14:49:02 -0800 The Stranger for themselves are not putting others in danger. People who value those things for everyone else, through what we are calling "purity culture," may be.

And while it may be true that it isn't the focus on "purity" as much as it is all the misogynist baggage that goes with it that is the real issue, the fact is that it practice the two are damned hard to disentangle a lot of the time. The existence of some ideals of chastity that are not inherently misogynist does not negate the existence of a whole lot more which are.
Posted by Backyard Bombardier]]> Tue, 08 Jan 2013 13:30:58 -0800 The Stranger
I also concur that there is a correlation here. Cultures that view women as objects are more likely to think of purity/chastity as important, and they are more likely to have problems with rape. However, it is these misguided views that create a culture of rape, not the focus on purity. It is entirely possible to value purity without creating an environment that excuses or misplaces the blame for rape.

By choosing the title "Purity Culture Is Rape Culture," Mr. Savage is saying that valuing purity is what is to blame for these crimes, and it's not. It implies "sexual restraint isn't just not fun; it's going to get people RAPED!" "people who value purity aren't just prudes with whom I happen to disagree; they're putting others in danger!" and that's not true.
Posted by DRF]]> Mon, 07 Jan 2013 20:58:34 -0800 The Stranger There are so many of us.....

I wish I could hug you both and tell you that it'll be ok.
Posted by Lissa]]> Mon, 07 Jan 2013 20:42:13 -0800 The Stranger
I'm so sorry to read that, Ricardo. You are corageous to share. Rape is a terrible thing for all who have experienced it. And, I hope you are far along on your journey of healing.

Take care,
k
Posted by kim in portland]]> Mon, 07 Jan 2013 20:10:48 -0800 The Stranger
Maybe there is a hypothetical way in which purity, if applied universally, wouldn't be sexist or dehumanizing and wouldn't be connected to rape culture. But we're not talking about hypotheticals. The egalitarian purity culture you describe doesn't exist, which is telling.

In reality, purity cultures apply this value system specifically to women- this is not a coincidence, and it's completely irrelevant whether or not it theoretically could be in some alternative world. Assigning "worth" to a woman based on her sexual experience (which is exactly what 'purity' hangups do) is dehumanizing: by default, it makes them less than human; it makes them a commodity rather than a person. A person's worth doesn't lower after having been "used," but a thing's worth does.

Also don't confuse "rape culture" with "rape incidents." A rapist might not be motivated by notions of purity. An incident of rape, by itself, may have little to do with whether women are dehumanized by social convention or not. But a "rape culture," where rape is normalized, over-rationalized, oddly common, and where responsibility is pinned on the victims, has everything to do with whether or not women are dehumanized in that culture.

Women are dehumanized in purity cultures and their worth is connected too specifically to their sexual experience. As a result their rapes are taken less seriously than they should be and are often seen as having something to do with the character of the woman rather than simply being seen as a violent crime.
Posted by Bonefish]]> Mon, 07 Jan 2013 15:14:51 -0800 The Stranger Posted by scary tyler moore]]> Mon, 07 Jan 2013 15:02:38 -0800 The Stranger
I believe that the real cause is gender inequality. Believing that women have to be pure but men don't is the cause. Believing that women are there to be, as the article says, objects of pleasure and reproduction is the cause. Believing that men's sexual needs are just like hunger and thirst and must be met and that men cannot or should not be expected to control these needs is the cause.

The belief that having few, carefully chosen sexual partners throughout one's life is good, however, had nothing to do with Ms. Pandey getting attacked. That belief is harmless by itself. It is only when people say "She got raped because she's impure" or "she was asking for it; look how she's dressed" that there's trouble.
Posted by DRF]]> Mon, 07 Jan 2013 14:07:33 -0800 The Stranger

Posted by Backyard Bombardier]]> Mon, 07 Jan 2013 11:04:57 -0800 The Stranger
I am a man, and I have been raped. YOU don't know what you're talking about, so SHUT THE FUCK UP.
Posted by Ricardo]]> Mon, 07 Jan 2013 11:02:33 -0800 The Stranger
Something that's unquestionably bad, rape, has been associated with something that you happen to disapprove of, a focus on chastity, and you're jumping to the conclusion that the second causes the first.

Look at it this way: Back in the 1980s, a lot of gay men had AIDS. AIDS is unquestionably bad. Homosexuality was just something that most people back then happened to disapprove of. But homosexuality doesn't cause AIDS. Yes, refraining from homosexual sexual activity among men put people at less risk for contracting HIV, but that has nothing to do with whether homosexuality in itself is good or bad.

But that didn't stop homophobes from blaming the gays for spreading disease and claiming that it was God's punishment for their unenlightened ways. That's just what you guys are doing now: Something you don't like is associated with something that's bad, and you're claiming that it's caused by their unenlightened focus on sexual restraint rather than on the real cause.
Posted by DRF]]> Mon, 07 Jan 2013 08:29:35 -0800 The Stranger
"other than unregistered homophobes"

Should that really be plural? I thought it was just the same obsessed weirdo over and over. Certainly all the comments have the same writing style (bad ranty poetry)...

Posted by Whoop Di Doo]]> Mon, 07 Jan 2013 02:48:49 -0800 The Stranger If two adults and consenting, there is no valid reason for sexual restraint.

You've never been tied up? Good thing dolphins lack opposable thumbs.
Posted by Mister G]]> Mon, 07 Jan 2013 00:13:54 -0800 The Stranger Posted by sissoucat]]> Sun, 06 Jan 2013 23:51:34 -0800 The Stranger
I clearly stated that "purity" and "modesty" ARE the problem.

I also stated that telling youngsters to wait until adulthood for sex was good. This is the only kind of sexual restraint that can be considered good.

Other types of society-enforced sexual restraint are worthless : If two adults and consenting, there is no valid reason for sexual restraint.

If one is cheating by doing so (I mean breaking an agrement of exclusivity with his/her SO) then that one will have to bear the consequences, such as a broken relationship. Just like there are consequences in breaking any type of clauses in a contract.

But sex is not a special dangerous act that needs to be handled with kid gloves, and where society must get involved and enforce "sexual restraint" to override individual responsability, as if individuals were too weak to have sex by themselves. Sex is not a separate, sacred act from other human acts, such as washing one's hands before meals.

Making sex sacred through "purity" and "modesty" legitimates violence in sex against non-conformers, and any female can be considered a non-conformer by a rapist.
Posted by sissoucat]]> Sun, 06 Jan 2013 23:10:07 -0800 The Stranger
I have read post 87, and the problem is not valuing purity or valuing modesty. The problem is holding women responsible for men's sexual choices.

You guys are jumping to the conclusion "This culture 1. values purity and 2. has too much rape so it must be valuing purity that causes too much rape!" I'm saying that these things, while not necessarily completely independent, are not necessarily causative either. It is possible to have #1 without #2. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Posted by DRF]]> Sun, 06 Jan 2013 19:28:39 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Mister G]]> Sun, 06 Jan 2013 18:45:08 -0800 The Stranger