And rape is again in the global agenda...
by João Lopes Marques (Eesti keeles)
Genghis Khan. The first man I thought about when I heard the news was Genghis Khan. Could it be otherwise? Even if the “h” of Dominique Strauss-Kahn is after the “a” vowel, it must be tough to sport such a surname. Yes, I am writing about former IMF general-director, the Frenchman accused of raping a Guinean chambermaid in a New York hotel last week.
This kind of news deserve always my interest. Not rape neither the rapist himself, but the psychological and social mechanisms behind the contemporary definition of rape and forced mating. Do you remember Julian Assange case last year? When WikiLeaks founder was accused in Sweden of abusing two different women?
Of course, there is giant nuance that separates rape from sexual abuse. This is a scientific field in itself — and perhaps much more delicate than rocket science. I myself remember what happened with my first girlfriend in Portugal, still a close friend more than two decades later: after spliting, she insinuated to our common friends we both had lost virginity because I forced her.
The word she used was a definitely crueler. Guess which one? “Rape”, exactly.
Truth be told, it’s symptomatic Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal is in the global agenda. Some puritan societies tend to judge imediately the alleged rapist. Two examples? Sweden and USA. Justice is still gathering information but the man is already crucified, as if contemporary societies feel this urge of revenge against machos.
Ah, and the more powerful they are, the faster they are aniquilated in the public arena.
Being a man, sorry, but I’m very sad. Not about Mr. Strauss-Kahn who I never met in my life, but about such a primitive behaviour. Mechanism. There was no contradictory in this story, just the chambermaid version so far. One can kill somebody, can trigger a huge financial crisis, can be a lethal terrorist, but a virtual rapist is still the worst enemy of Mankind before any kind of physical evidence.
It’s a too strong image not to sentence: “He destroyed her life!”; “What if she got HIV?”; “Is she bearing an undesired child?”
Speculation is legitimate, although there are two facts few people know: a) retrospective rape is a classical behaviour and means that a woman who initially gave her consent later on claims she had been raped instead; b) the rape fantasy is more common in women than men.
OK, I bet you are slightly shocked with the author of this text. Me too every time I reflect about such topic. “He’s just writing this because he is a man”, the reader may correctly wonder. Once again I confirm. However, it’s also netto for me that we have to put an end to such maximalism.
Manichaism.
Inquisition.
Knowing Mr. Strauss-Kahn womanizing past and exceptional libido, I even believe this soap opera is as humiliating as possible. Moreover, experts underline powerful men tend to be the most unreasonable. They feel a thrill of impunity and über-self-confidence. More than an accute self-perpetuating instinct and unreasonable sense of grandiosity they assume their targets bow — or kneel, for instance — at the click of a finger.
Some Psychologists call this permanent priapism “The Caligula Effect”, after the most obsessive Roman emperors in History.
Now I bet you are thinking about politicians like Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger, movie makers like Roman Polanski, artists, footballers, pop singers... Yet my focus is still on Strauss-Kahn... sorry, Genghis Khan: I admit the instantaneous punishment we are watching is partly related to past traumas and genetic information.
As geneticists proved eight years ago, one in every 200 men alive today is a relative of Genghis Khan (they have the same male Y chromosome as the Mongolian warlord who lived between 1162 and 1227). With his extravagant male habits Khan fathered something like 20,000 children; as of today his descendants make 8 percent of men in Central Asia.
Too much is an euphemism. That represents a kind of genetical holocaust. But please don’t demonize men just because of that: dealing with old traumas is also part of our — male and female — common evolution. Responsability.
Punishment should be always exemplar. No doubt about that. But just after 100 percent confirmed. Otherwise: are you able to ressurect a innocent person (man)?
Genghis Khan. The first man I thought about when I heard the news was Genghis Khan. Could it be otherwise? Even if the “h” of Dominique Strauss-Kahn is after the “a” vowel, it must be tough to sport such a surname. Yes, I am writing about former IMF general-director, the Frenchman accused of raping a Guinean chambermaid in a New York hotel last week.
This kind of news deserve always my interest. Not rape neither the rapist himself, but the psychological and social mechanisms behind the contemporary definition of rape and forced mating. Do you remember Julian Assange case last year? When WikiLeaks founder was accused in Sweden of abusing two different women?
Of course, there is giant nuance that separates rape from sexual abuse. This is a scientific field in itself — and perhaps much more delicate than rocket science. I myself remember what happened with my first girlfriend in Portugal, still a close friend more than two decades later: after spliting, she insinuated to our common friends we both had lost virginity because I forced her.
The word she used was a definitely crueler. Guess which one? “Rape”, exactly.
Truth be told, it’s symptomatic Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal is in the global agenda. Some puritan societies tend to judge imediately the alleged rapist. Two examples? Sweden and USA. Justice is still gathering information but the man is already crucified, as if contemporary societies feel this urge of revenge against machos.
Ah, and the more powerful they are, the faster they are aniquilated in the public arena.
Being a man, sorry, but I’m very sad. Not about Mr. Strauss-Kahn who I never met in my life, but about such a primitive behaviour. Mechanism. There was no contradictory in this story, just the chambermaid version so far. One can kill somebody, can trigger a huge financial crisis, can be a lethal terrorist, but a virtual rapist is still the worst enemy of Mankind before any kind of physical evidence.
It’s a too strong image not to sentence: “He destroyed her life!”; “What if she got HIV?”; “Is she bearing an undesired child?”
Speculation is legitimate, although there are two facts few people know: a) retrospective rape is a classical behaviour and means that a woman who initially gave her consent later on claims she had been raped instead; b) the rape fantasy is more common in women than men.
OK, I bet you are slightly shocked with the author of this text. Me too every time I reflect about such topic. “He’s just writing this because he is a man”, the reader may correctly wonder. Once again I confirm. However, it’s also netto for me that we have to put an end to such maximalism.
Manichaism.
Inquisition.
Knowing Mr. Strauss-Kahn womanizing past and exceptional libido, I even believe this soap opera is as humiliating as possible. Moreover, experts underline powerful men tend to be the most unreasonable. They feel a thrill of impunity and über-self-confidence. More than an accute self-perpetuating instinct and unreasonable sense of grandiosity they assume their targets bow — or kneel, for instance — at the click of a finger.
Some Psychologists call this permanent priapism “The Caligula Effect”, after the most obsessive Roman emperors in History.
Now I bet you are thinking about politicians like Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger, movie makers like Roman Polanski, artists, footballers, pop singers... Yet my focus is still on Strauss-Kahn... sorry, Genghis Khan: I admit the instantaneous punishment we are watching is partly related to past traumas and genetic information.
As geneticists proved eight years ago, one in every 200 men alive today is a relative of Genghis Khan (they have the same male Y chromosome as the Mongolian warlord who lived between 1162 and 1227). With his extravagant male habits Khan fathered something like 20,000 children; as of today his descendants make 8 percent of men in Central Asia.
Too much is an euphemism. That represents a kind of genetical holocaust. But please don’t demonize men just because of that: dealing with old traumas is also part of our — male and female — common evolution. Responsability.
Punishment should be always exemplar. No doubt about that. But just after 100 percent confirmed. Otherwise: are you able to ressurect a innocent person (man)?
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