Let's have a calm, polite and substantial discussion about gender and sex

[bedstuy]

Apology accepted. If you actually read my previous posts, you will find bits where I speculate about what may be the roots of some of my subconscious takes on gender issues. You could contribute to this thread by giving your thoughts on them. Or sharing your own personal take on gender issues.

I'm gay so I don't really deal with these issues as acutely.  And, gender is too broad a topic for me to address with clarity.

But, generally, from liberal/left leaning people I think there's way too much hand-wringing about how misogynistic our society is.  On college campuses in America, there is a lot of vague talk about "rape culture" from the left and academics that is essentially nonsense in my opinion.  At least, that sort of lefty rhetoric is a distraction from the actual issues facing women like domestic violence, childcare benefits, reproductive rights, etc.

[DC Al Fine]

Could you give me your working definition of patriarchy?  I'm getting the feeling that it goes beyond the traditional "man runs the family" stuff of old.

Patriarchy, in a nutshell, is the set of societal norms which govern the way individuals are supposed to act and behave based on their gender. It's basically a giant, systematic form of double standards. It operates primarily through stereotypes ("men are like this, women are like that"), which it assumes have a natural/biological origins. An individual's actions are then judged through the lens of these stereotypes, and if a man or a woman acts in a way that contradicts said stereotype, they are condemned by society. Patriarchy's assumptions touch a wide range of topics and sometimes are even contradictory (see the Madonna/Whore dichotomy), but they are largely invisible to those who don't want to see it (this is true of men and women alike - the only ones who can see it more easily than others are probably transgenders).

Yeah that's my belief more or less. Regardless of you're view of gender roles, it pays little to be super concerned about something you can't really control. To use an example from the other side of the spectrum; my dating life became a lot more successful when I realised I wasn't going to turn most girls into religious social conservatives and adjusted my expectations/strategy.

Most girls are into assertive guys and that's not going to change. However, they aren't uniformly like that. If you boost your assertiveness somewhat and narrow your search to girls that are less into assertive guys, your odds of success will go up dramatically. If you aren't working out already, go to the gym and lift heavy weights, I've found it bumps up one's assertiveness without them having to do much conscious thinking about it.

I once took a girl out on a date and I asked her where she wanted to go. Her answer amounted to "you're the man; you decide". I'll admit, I really did not expect that sort of a response.

Sounds like my fiance

[Antonio the Sixth]

I once took a girl out on a date and I asked her where she wanted to go. Her answer amounted to "you're the man; you decide". I'll admit, I really did not expect that sort of a response.

I have a hard time imagining that a relationship with a girl like that would ever work for me (at least not in the long run and if the comment was not at least partly humorous). Not because of personal dislike but because our characters would be incompatible on all respects. I am ready to great sacrifices in the name of love, but even if I wanted I am probably unable to change something so ingrained in my nature. Imagine a guy telling "I'm the man; I decide" to an assertive girlfriend. Would that have any chance to work?

Also, I think that a situation like this is unlikely to occur in the first place, because I have a hard time imagining myself falling in love with a woman who doesn't have a strong personality. I think this is among the few requisites I have in that regard (though of course I can never know for sure since love is unpredictable).

Ultimately, the importance of communication is key, but people are oftentimes ineffective at communicating themselves properly. If you are really serious about making it work with a particular woman, I'd suggest trying to assert yourself in different ways and gauging her reaction. Getting a feel for what she wants is key.

This is a very good advice, actually not only for romantic relationships as much as for any kind of social interaction. I think I have (timidly and to a limited extent) started to follow it recently, and I will certainly try to do this more often.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Apology accepted. If you actually read my previous posts, you will find bits where I speculate about what may be the roots of some of my subconscious takes on gender issues. You could contribute to this thread by giving your thoughts on them. Or sharing your own personal take on gender issues.

I'm gay so I don't really deal with these issues as acutely.  And, gender is too broad a topic for me to address with clarity.

But, generally, from liberal/left leaning people I think there's way too much hand-wringing about how misogynistic our society is.  On college campuses in America, there is a lot of vague talk about "rape culture" from the left and academics that is essentially nonsense in my opinion.  At least, that sort of lefty rhetoric is a distraction from the actual issues facing women like domestic violence, childcare benefits, reproductive rights, etc.

Please elaborate. Personally, I'm actually surprised every day to realize how rape culture is more ingrained in western societies than I ever could have imagined. Have you heard about the Steubenville case? Or about the assault threats in videogaming?

Being gay doesn't disqualify your opinions, obviously. Gender regards all of us in some way.


Also, as a general note, can we please avoid turning this into an "help Antonio get girls thread"? I know that's my fault for touching on the issue through such a personal lens, but this really wasn't my goal. I have no problem discussing this issue at length (in fact, now that it's started, let's pursue it) but I just wouldn't want the whole thread to revolve around this.

[DC Al Fine]

Also, as a general note, can we please avoid turning this into an "help Antonio get girls thread"? I know that's my fault for touching on the issue through such a personal lens, but this really wasn't my goal. I have no problem discussing this issue at length (in fact, now that it's started, let's pursue it) but I just wouldn't want the whole thread to revolve around this.

Fair enough.

But, generally, from liberal/left leaning people I think there's way too much hand-wringing about how misogynistic our society is.  On college campuses in America, there is a lot of vague talk about "rape culture" from the left and academics that is essentially nonsense in my opinion.  At least, that sort of lefty rhetoric is a distraction from the actual issues facing women like domestic violence, childcare benefits, reproductive rights, etc.

Please elaborate. Personally, I'm actually surprised every day to realize how rape culture is more ingrained in western societies than I ever could have imagined. Have you heard about the Steubenville case? Or about the assault threats in videogaming?

The whole "rape culture" issue illustrates a very interesting difference in liberal and conservative psyches*.

There is a major conflict between the liberal emphasis on autonomy and the conservative view of human nature. "Rape culture", biological or not, hasn't really subsided since the 1950's, but female autonomy has increased drastically. There is less chaperoning, girls drink/party more (I recall a study that college girls are more likely to binge drink than guys now) and generally engage in more risky behaviour than their grandmothers. Consequently things like date rape appear to be on the rise. The problem is that while patriarchy has built in safeguards like chaperones and meeting boys via social groups where the man can be easily found/ostracized/beat up, liberalism hasn't quite came up with equivalent social structures.

This is ultimately my problem with the liberal view of sexual issues. Liberals seem to have a much more positive view of human nature than conservatives and therefore do not believe that there is an inherent trade off between safety and autonomy. Witness 20RP12's recent comments about rape, sexual harassment etc. This trade off and it's underlying view of human nature is ultimately what the sexual/gender issues are all about.

*I don't mean liberal or conservative in the political sense. When I talk about autonomy/restrictions, I'm referring to family/culture, not politics.

[bedstuy]

But, generally, from liberal/left leaning people I think there's way too much hand-wringing about how misogynistic our society is.  On college campuses in America, there is a lot of vague talk about "rape culture" from the left and academics that is essentially nonsense in my opinion.  At least, that sort of lefty rhetoric is a distraction from the actual issues facing women like domestic violence, childcare benefits, reproductive rights, etc.

Please elaborate. Personally, I'm actually surprised every day to realize how rape culture is more ingrained in western societies than I ever could have imagined. Have you heard about the Steubenville case? Or about the assault threats in videogaming?

The whole "rape culture" issue illustrates a very interesting difference in liberal and conservative psyches*.

There is a major conflict between the liberal emphasis on autonomy and the conservative view of human nature. "Rape culture", biological or not, hasn't really subsided since the 1950's, but female autonomy has increased drastically. There is less chaperoning, girls drink/party more (I recall a study that college girls are more likely to binge drink than guys now) and generally engage in more risky behaviour than their grandmothers. Consequently things like date rape appear to be on the rise. The problem is that while patriarchy has built in safeguards like chaperones and meeting boys via social groups where the man can be easily found/ostracized/beat up, liberalism hasn't quite came up with equivalent social structures.

This is ultimately my problem with the liberal view of sexual issues. Liberals seem to have a much more positive view of human nature than conservatives and therefore do not believe that there is an inherent trade off between safety and autonomy. Witness 20RP12's recent comments about rape, sexual harassment etc. This trade off and it's underlying view of human nature is ultimately what the sexual/gender issues are all about.

*I don't mean liberal or conservative in the political sense. When I talk about autonomy/restrictions, I'm referring to family/culture, not politics.

Here's what bothers me about the whole '"rape culture" argument. 

If a woman drinks so much that she blacks out, she made a deliberate choice in the first instance.  If she decides to eat too much because she's drunk, she was not therefore forced to eat too much.  If she doesn't remember eating a Big Mac, she was not therefore forced to eat a Big Mac.  By the same token, if a woman has consensual sex and doesn't remember it, it is therefore not rape.  If she has consensual sex while drunk and regrets it, it is not therefore rape.

The other thing is that men cannot by their decisions and actions make sex and relationships a guilt-free, emotional-risk free area of life.  You can tell men to never hit a woman, never rape a woman, etc.  You can't tell men not to want to have sex with women, including women who don't want to have sex with them.  You can't tell men to create a feminist utopia by changing how they think.  That's not how the world works. 

[Associate Justice PiT]

I once took a girl out on a date and I asked her where she wanted to go. Her answer amounted to "you're the man; you decide". I'll admit, I really did not expect that sort of a response.

I have a hard time imagining that a relationship with a girl like that would ever work for me (at least not in the long run and if the comment was not at least partly humorous). Not because of personal dislike but because our characters would be incompatible on all respects. I am ready to great sacrifices in the name of love, but even if I wanted I am probably unable to change something so ingrained in my nature. Imagine a guy telling "I'm the man; I decide" to an assertive girlfriend. Would that have any chance to work?

Also, I think that a situation like this is unlikely to occur in the first place, because I have a hard time imagining myself falling in love with a woman who doesn't have a strong personality. I think this is among the few requisites I have in that regard (though of course I can never know for sure since love is unpredictable).

     Deference endears one better than arrogance. People can get away with more audacious things when they are doing so in the name of giving up control. A woman saying "I'm the woman; I decide" would be met about as poorly as the gender-flipped version, though granted it would be far less likely for anyone to say that.

     The woman I was referring to is actually someone with a very strong personality. In my experience, there is actually very little connection between the strength of a woman and her interest in strong men. I don't understand women all that well; I just know what I do from my interactions with them.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Here's what bothers me about the whole '"rape culture" argument. 

If a woman drinks so much that she blacks out, she made a deliberate choice in the first instance.  If she decides to eat too much because she's drunk, she was not therefore forced to eat too much.  If she doesn't remember eating a Big Mac, she was not therefore forced to eat a Big Mac.  By the same token, if a woman has consensual sex and doesn't remember it, it is therefore not rape.  If she has consensual sex while drunk and regrets it, it is not therefore rape.

The other thing is that men cannot by their decisions and actions make sex and relationships a guilt-free, emotional-risk free area of life.  You can tell men to never hit a woman, never rape a woman, etc.  You can't tell men not to want to have sex with women, including women who don't want to have sex with them.  You can't tell men to create a feminist utopia by changing how they think.  That's not how the world works. 

You don't share the understanding that intoxication inhibits one's ability to think freely, or that most sexual decisions are a lot more fraught and consequential and worthy of considered care than most decisions about food?

A sober person can and in my view has the responsibility to deny an intoxicated person sex. A sober Big Mac cannot deny an intoxicated person eating it. As far as the people selling it go, if you don't have an intuitive sense of the difference between somebody selling one food and a sexual partner, I'm not sure how I can communicate it to you.

[bedstuy]

Here's what bothers me about the whole '"rape culture" argument. 

If a woman drinks so much that she blacks out, she made a deliberate choice in the first instance.  If she decides to eat too much because she's drunk, she was not therefore forced to eat too much.  If she doesn't remember eating a Big Mac, she was not therefore forced to eat a Big Mac.  By the same token, if a woman has consensual sex and doesn't remember it, it is therefore not rape.  If she has consensual sex while drunk and regrets it, it is not therefore rape.

The other thing is that men cannot by their decisions and actions make sex and relationships a guilt-free, emotional-risk free area of life.  You can tell men to never hit a woman, never rape a woman, etc.  You can't tell men not to want to have sex with women, including women who don't want to have sex with them.  You can't tell men to create a feminist utopia by changing how they think.  That's not how the world works. 

You don't share the understanding that intoxication inhibits one's ability to think freely, or that most sexual decisions are a lot more fraught and consequential and worthy of considered care than most decisions about food?

A sober person can and in my view has the responsibility to deny an intoxicated person sex. A sober Big Mac cannot deny an intoxicated person eating it. As far as the people selling it go, if you don't have an intuitive sense of the difference between somebody selling one food and a sexual partner, I'm not sure how I can communicate it to you.

You're completely distorting what I said.  Consensual sex implies a level of intoxication where consent is possible.  However, sex between a sober person and a person who had one glass of wine, is that non-consensual by definition? Certainly not.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Here's what bothers me about the whole '"rape culture" argument. 

If a woman drinks so much that she blacks out, she made a deliberate choice in the first instance.  If she decides to eat too much because she's drunk, she was not therefore forced to eat too much.  If she doesn't remember eating a Big Mac, she was not therefore forced to eat a Big Mac.  By the same token, if a woman has consensual sex and doesn't remember it, it is therefore not rape.  If she has consensual sex while drunk and regrets it, it is not therefore rape.

The other thing is that men cannot by their decisions and actions make sex and relationships a guilt-free, emotional-risk free area of life.  You can tell men to never hit a woman, never rape a woman, etc.  You can't tell men not to want to have sex with women, including women who don't want to have sex with them.  You can't tell men to create a feminist utopia by changing how they think.  That's not how the world works. 

You don't share the understanding that intoxication inhibits one's ability to think freely, or that most sexual decisions are a lot more fraught and consequential and worthy of considered care than most decisions about food?

A sober person can and in my view has the responsibility to deny an intoxicated person sex. A sober Big Mac cannot deny an intoxicated person eating it. As far as the people selling it go, if you don't have an intuitive sense of the difference between somebody selling one food and a sexual partner, I'm not sure how I can communicate it to you.

You're completely distorting what I said.  Consensual sex implies a level of intoxication where consent is possible.  However, sex between a sober person and a person who had one glass of wine, is that non-consensual by definition? Certainly not.

I'm not distorting anything, and although I'll concede the possibility that I in some way am failing to understand what you initially said or what you meant by it, 'if a woman has consensual sex and doesn't remember it, it is therefore not rape' sounds pretty bad in this context.

[bedstuy]

Here's what bothers me about the whole '"rape culture" argument. 

If a woman drinks so much that she blacks out, she made a deliberate choice in the first instance.  If she decides to eat too much because she's drunk, she was not therefore forced to eat too much.  If she doesn't remember eating a Big Mac, she was not therefore forced to eat a Big Mac.  By the same token, if a woman has consensual sex and doesn't remember it, it is therefore not rape.  If she has consensual sex while drunk and regrets it, it is not therefore rape.

The other thing is that men cannot by their decisions and actions make sex and relationships a guilt-free, emotional-risk free area of life.  You can tell men to never hit a woman, never rape a woman, etc.  You can't tell men not to want to have sex with women, including women who don't want to have sex with them.  You can't tell men to create a feminist utopia by changing how they think.  That's not how the world works. 

You don't share the understanding that intoxication inhibits one's ability to think freely, or that most sexual decisions are a lot more fraught and consequential and worthy of considered care than most decisions about food?

A sober person can and in my view has the responsibility to deny an intoxicated person sex. A sober Big Mac cannot deny an intoxicated person eating it. As far as the people selling it go, if you don't have an intuitive sense of the difference between somebody selling one food and a sexual partner, I'm not sure how I can communicate it to you.

You're completely distorting what I said.  Consensual sex implies a level of intoxication where consent is possible.  However, sex between a sober person and a person who had one glass of wine, is that non-consensual by definition? Certainly not.

I'm not distorting anything, and although I'll concede the possibility that I in some way am failing to understand what you initially said or what you meant by it, 'if a woman has consensual sex and doesn't remember it, it is therefore not rape' sounds pretty bad in this context.

I don't see anything wrong with that statement.  Is it rape if both people are sober and an hour later one of them gets a concussion?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Here's what bothers me about the whole '"rape culture" argument. 

If a woman drinks so much that she blacks out, she made a deliberate choice in the first instance.  If she decides to eat too much because she's drunk, she was not therefore forced to eat too much.  If she doesn't remember eating a Big Mac, she was not therefore forced to eat a Big Mac.  By the same token, if a woman has consensual sex and doesn't remember it, it is therefore not rape.  If she has consensual sex while drunk and regrets it, it is not therefore rape.

The other thing is that men cannot by their decisions and actions make sex and relationships a guilt-free, emotional-risk free area of life.  You can tell men to never hit a woman, never rape a woman, etc.  You can't tell men not to want to have sex with women, including women who don't want to have sex with them.  You can't tell men to create a feminist utopia by changing how they think.  That's not how the world works. 

You don't share the understanding that intoxication inhibits one's ability to think freely, or that most sexual decisions are a lot more fraught and consequential and worthy of considered care than most decisions about food?

A sober person can and in my view has the responsibility to deny an intoxicated person sex. A sober Big Mac cannot deny an intoxicated person eating it. As far as the people selling it go, if you don't have an intuitive sense of the difference between somebody selling one food and a sexual partner, I'm not sure how I can communicate it to you.

You're completely distorting what I said.  Consensual sex implies a level of intoxication where consent is possible.  However, sex between a sober person and a person who had one glass of wine, is that non-consensual by definition? Certainly not.

I'm not distorting anything, and although I'll concede the possibility that I in some way am failing to understand what you initially said or what you meant by it, 'if a woman has consensual sex and doesn't remember it, it is therefore not rape' sounds pretty bad in this context.

I don't see anything wrong with that statement.  Is it rape if both people are sober and an hour later one of them gets a concussion?

I'm going to have to beg out here because I've lost all track of what you're talking about or what idea you're trying to communicate. I might be able to follow it better once I've slept.

[Beet]

Antonio,
I feel the same as you in a lot of respects. At one point I was going to say that I'm a 30 year old version of yourself, but there are some critical differences.

Al,
If your claim is that women's autonomy is inherently incompatibile with human nature, then yes, this is where we disagree. ( And this is not some deep disagreement over the inner bowels of evo pysch either, it's pretty prima facie in the sense that women should have autonomy regardless of what you think about human nature. ) However, if you read up on the leading critics of rape culture, you will find that it is precisely the building up of social norms that would ensure the date rapist is "found/ostracized/beat up" that we are concerned with. In fact, this is the whole basis behind the critique of rape culture to begin with. The insight of the rape culture critics, from the standpoint of your argument is that women's autonomy has not changed the fact that most interactions that lead to sexual encounters happen in social groups, or that the participants behavior is shaped by what they think society will let them get away with. I mean just look at Steubenville. The kids thought they were doing something they could get away with, and in fact they would have if not for the cameras. But the problem was not that all the kids at the party were evil, irredeemable rapusts whose collective nature dooms them as rapists for life, it was that they were in a social culture that told them what was happening was basically okay, or at least close enough to being okay. That is what we can, and must change.

However, while you think you are 'protecting' women from one danger by denying them autonomy, you are actually subjecting them to the equally bad, while definitely more mundane but in some ways even more oppressive ( because it's inescapable, day in and day out ) danger of losing ones freedom to live life as one chooses. And even if that could free a woman from the risk of rape it might be worth it, but it cannot, particularly if those who are supposed to be the protectors turn out to be the rapists. And further, under such norms any woman who deviates from the behavior required to be 'protected' is faced with accusations that she played a role in her own rape. Or even those who did not in truth deviate, must have somehow deviated in the popular mind, because the 'good' woman is supposed to be safe. This is the problem with trying to replace one oppression with another- oppressions tend to reinforce one another. The feminist response is the correct one- maximal increase of women's claims to both freedom and respect across the dimensions of 'society' until hegemonic masculinity is overthrown

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

My puny little thoughts:

Do whatever the  you want - just don't treat other people like sh**t. Doing sex things with people without their full, informed consent is a big no-no. We all need to calm down about this gender role stuff as a society and stop putting people into tiny, misshapen boxes into which many of them won't fit in one way or another and then cutting off the bits that don't fit.

I'll let you guys get back to your effortposts now.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Antonio,
I feel the same as you in a lot of respects. At one point I was going to say that I'm a 30 year old version of yourself, but there are some critical differences.

You can't say this and then not elaborate.


Bedstuy, I'm not sure what point you are exactly trying to make. I don't think any feminist has even argued that a girl who has drank a bit but is nonetheless capable of giving full consent can sue for rape if she regrets it. However, isn't it obvious that drinking a significant amount of alcohol can impair a person's ability to make informed decisions? When this happens, it is up to the person who is sober to show some sense of responsibility and avoid taking advantage of the situation. This applies to men and women alike, but the main problem is that, patriarchy being what it is, men still aren't sufficiently educated to take consent seriously.


DC, I think Beet said everything that needed to be said. I just can't help but add that your notion that modern permissiveness has increased the prevalence of rape strikes me as absolutely mind-boggling. As vicious as it might be now, rape culture was infinitely worse in "traditional" societies.

[DC Al Fine]

DC, I think Beet said everything that needed to be said. I just can't help but add that your notion that modern permissiveness has increased the prevalence of rape strikes me as absolutely mind-boggling. As vicious as it might be now, rape culture was infinitely worse in "traditional" societies.

Antonio, that's simply not true as this chart I made from UCR data shows.



There are two factors in the risk of any crime. There is the general risk of crime happening and the steps you take to modify that risk. For example, the general risk of mugging might have gone down drastically since last year, but if we all started hanging out in bad neighbourhoods at night, of course the mugging rate would increase regardless of culture.

[opebo]

As vicious as it might be now, rape culture was infinitely worse in "traditional" societies.

Antonio, that's simply not true as this chart I made from UCR data shows.



There are two factors in the risk of any crime. There is the general risk of crime happening and the steps you take to modify that risk.

You forgot the most important factor - the reporting of the crime, and in fact even its definition as a 'crime'.  In traditional society rape was only very rarely if ever reported, and even in some societies it wouldn't even be defined as a 'crime' in the same sense as we do now.

[memphis]

As vicious as it might be now, rape culture was infinitely worse in "traditional" societies.

Antonio, that's simply not true as this chart I made from UCR data shows.



There are two factors in the risk of any crime. There is the general risk of crime happening and the steps you take to modify that risk.

You forgot the most important factor - the reporting of the crime, and in fact even its definition as a 'crime'.  In traditional society rape was only very rarely if ever reported, and even in some societies it wouldn't even be defined as a 'crime' in the same sense as we do now.

Traditionally (and before my words get twisted, this is not something I would advocate), rape of an unmarried woman was a crime against a woman's father. He would never be able to unload the damaged goods, and, so, you have the Biblical mandate for a rapist to marry the victim, which makes all things "right" in the world by ensuring that she does not end up a helpless Old Maid. Of course, even today, a lot of rapes go unreported. Better to sweep it under the rug than let the world find out what has happened.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wow, Memphis and Opebo actually making good points. See that this thread was a good idea.

(I would have mentioned the issue of reporting, but I never would have expected DC to overlook it so grossly).

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Nathan, I understand your reticence toward the way modern society treats sexual and romantic relationships (I admit I've had a hard time following you through the entirety of your post, so pardon me if I misunderstand or leave out parts of your argument). Indeed I share your concerns with regard to the commodification, not only of sex, but indeed even of romantic sentiments themselves. This to me is more of a societal than a moral reflection though. People who engage in casual sex don't deserve to be shamed (unless such casual sex is adulterous, obtained through deception, or anything of this sort), in much the same way as "slutty" girls don't deserve to be shamed even though the hypersexualization of female bodies is a problem. Ultimately, this is an area where individuals should be free to make their choices without any societal pressure. The problem is that, nowadays, the societal pressure seems to be toward causal sex. And that's terrible.

Also, I have always wondered how you manage to reconcile your traditionalist outlook with such a full-fledged feminist and queer critique of traditional gender identity. Certainly there are a few points of convergence (at least with the sort of "prude" feminism which we both lean towards). But overall, feminism and LGBT activism strike me as the most glaring demonstration that humanity needs to move away from its dark past and break with abhorrent traditions. At least over the past 500 years, you can't deny that patriarchy has consistently seen its grip on society weaken. And it seems reasonable to hope that the next 500 years will see furthers blows on it and further acceptance of various forms of gender identity and sexual orientation. How to call this other than progress?

To a large degree you're of course entirely right. This is indeed a very good example of an area in which things are substantially and obviously better at this point than they have been at most points in the past. I admitted in my first post in this thread that this is something that stymies my traditionalism quite a bit. All that remains after admitting that is a point of clarification and a point of concern.

1. Prior to the past five hundred years the status of women was not ‘linear’ in any way, and varied between groups in a society as much as between societies or between stages in a society’s development, just as now. In most societies historically, the ruling classes (who are the ones who, primarily, write history) have been markedly more woman-hating than the working classes (who are the ones who, primarily, have to live history). For example (and I'm going to be talking about this example for a while, so be warned): For a long time it was thought that the practice of marrying a girl in her mid-teens to a much older man was endemic in medieval Europe; now, what's thought is that if you were a peasant girl as opposed to one of the Important People, assuming you didn't die a horrible death of some childhood ailment (medicine, too, is manifestly a lot better now than it was in the Middle Ages), you could reasonably expect to grow up internalizing certainly sexist but also baseline-level respectful or at least not completely dehumanizing notions about yourself, marry a boy from your village of roughly your own age group at about the age of twenty, and expect several obviously fraught but perhaps not entirely godawful decades having and rearing children and maybe working as a spinning-maid or some sort of brewer. (More decades during the High Middle Ages as the life-expectancy-once-one-survived-childhood rose.) Clearly this was still a pretty damn tenuous (the part about 'having and rearing children', especially, being of course extremely risky for both you and the children) and by later standards unhappy existence and not one we as moderns (or postmoderns) should want to emulate, and the specifics of this changed many times in the Middle Ages and were different in different parts of Europe (I'm referring here mostly to England, Germany, and other such parts of Northern Europe in the last hundred years or so before the Reformation, but a lot of it also applies to the last hundred years or so before the Black Death, or in the case of the spinning and brewing thing even significantly earlier), but it wasn't the sort of nightmare that so many women of the upper classes experienced, except insofar as being a peasant was unenviable in general.
1a. Of course the best chances a noblewoman had were still better than the best chances a peasant woman had, by far. History shouldn't work with reference primarily to exemplary cases, but we should admit at least that much.
1b. Again, this is obviously not an experience of life people should be subjected to reliving.
1c. We also should remember that current flashpoints in perception of gender, sex, and women didn't spring fully-formed from the heads of the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment like Athena. A friend of mine once had to write a paper looking at the Canterbury Tales as an anti-feminist text. In fact the Canterbury Tales contains the germs of both feminist and anti-feminist notions within its, admittedly, generally pretty unfortunate framework.
1d. I reiterate: Interest in this sort of history and even desire to take from it what it's worth rather than nothing (it's not worth nothing) should not extend to wanting women to emulate the lives of medieval peasant women. Or men to emulate the lives of medieval peasant men. Or anybody to emulate the lives of medieval nobles. I'm sorry I keep saying this over and over again but it's something of which I have been accused in the past and it's actually something that a lot of medievalists, particularly ones of self-admittedly socialist and/or conservative political and cultural leanings, find themselves having to defend themselves from charges of.
1di. This is particularly the case for medievalists who work primarily with the medieval periods of non-European countries (Japan, in my case) because it can be handily combined with accusations of Orientalism, which is why I'm using medieval Europe for this example even though I'm not really quite as familiar with it.
1e. Ideas on this sort of thing also changed repeatedly within the thousand years that constituted the Middle Ages. The Renaissance was actually something of a nadir in a lot of ways as far as women were concerned.
1f. Time periods that were relatively decent for women were sometimes absolutely horrible for 'sodomites', and vice-versa. These issues didn't behave as part of the same complex until very recently. (Not that we oughtn't see them as part of the same complex now--within the terms that we use, they absolutely are--but this is useful to remember when looking at the history.)
1g. They also had enchantment to keep them company, for, you know, whatever one thinks that's worth.
1h. Droit du seigneur, at least as an institutionalized practice, was something you claimed about those people in that other country to make them look like barbarians.
2. So these things fluctuate, a lot of the time. In the past four or five hundred years, in the Western world, things have changed for the better. I see no reason to expect that they automatically should change for the better within the next four or five hundred years. What if they do continue changing, but into some new perversity and horrid expectation that simply isn't one we've seen before (the expectation of casual sex becoming pervasive and universal, for example, or, I don't know, some new kaleidoscope of twisted gender roles we can't even envision yet)? What if they go through some sort of atavism and we wake up one day and find that we're on a crippled starship with a culture based on the Joseon Dynasty or something? And so on.

[DC Al Fine]

Wow, Memphis and Opebo actually making good points. See that this thread was a good idea.

(I would have mentioned the issue of reporting, but I never would have expected DC to overlook it so grossly).

I thought of adding a paragraph about that but didn't. Wrong choice obviously.

Quick answer: I can't find any studies about changes in reporting rates. The only way to compare I can think of is comparing studies which sample different populations, have different methodologies etc, which makes for a terrible comparison. As of right now, Opebo's assertion rests on idle speculation.

Actually that's another annoying thing about this issue. Methodology makes a HUGE difference in a study's results.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wow, Memphis and Opebo actually making good points. See that this thread was a good idea.

(I would have mentioned the issue of reporting, but I never would have expected DC to overlook it so grossly).

I thought of adding a paragraph about that but didn't. Wrong choice obviously.

Quick answer: I can't find any studies about changes in reporting rates. The only way to compare I can think of is comparing studies which sample different populations, have different methodologies etc, which makes for a terrible comparison. As of right now, Opebo's assertion rests on idle speculation.

Actually that's another annoying thing about this issue. Methodology makes a HUGE difference in a study's results.

Considering the lack of data, both mine and yours were mere assumptions which can't really be backed. Still, I see plenty of good reasons to believe rape was much more prevalent in the past than it is today.

[Beet]

Antonio,
I feel the same as you in a lot of respects. At one point I was going to say that I'm a 30 year old version of yourself, but there are some critical differences.

You can't say this and then not elaborate.

Well broadly, we both have, I think, a particular interest in gender and specifically feminist issues for much the same reasons. I too loathe the role of hegemonic masculinity that men are supposed to be in. One of the differences though, for me it's even more fundamental on account of my place on the asexual spectrum.

Thinking further about some of the themes discussed here, I would push back against the notion of there being some sort of binary between the aggressive male stereotype vs. the male who "lacks confidence." I am pretty confident; however what I "lack" is the intersection of my personal traits and likes vs. what mainstream society suggests people should be like. Sometimes in mainstream settings I will be disengaged and this will present itself such that some people will mistake it for lack of confidence. But in a setting where I'm comfortable, those others who falsely believe I lack confidence will themselves exhibit the same behaviors as I do. In other words, it is all about context. The presence or lack of "confidence" isn't always some fixed character trait of me, rather my rationality and sensitivity to the world around me is what is fixed. My level of apparent confidence in any given situation I think, is  not a personal failing or triumph personality, but a rational response to objective conditions.

What disattracts me about the woman who wants to be dominated by her man, is not so much that she is weak minded, for many strong women want to be traditional in bed, even fantasize about being "ravaged." Nor is it that I would not enjoy playing the dominant, for I would. It is rather the possibility that this desire indicates an incompatibility between our ideological outlooks on gender issues, that I will feel pressure from her to conform to hegemonic masculinity, that is my fear.

[DC Al Fine]

Al,
If your claim is that women's autonomy is inherently incompatibile with human nature, then yes, this is where we disagree. ( And this is not some deep disagreement over the inner bowels of evo pysch either, it's pretty prima facie in the sense that women should have autonomy regardless of what you think about human nature. ) However, if you read up on the leading critics of rape culture, you will find that it is precisely the building up of social norms that would ensure the date rapist is "found/ostracized/beat up" that we are concerned with. In fact, this is the whole basis behind the critique of rape culture to begin with. The insight of the rape culture critics, from the standpoint of your argument is that women's autonomy has not changed the fact that most interactions that lead to sexual encounters happen in social groups, or that the participants behavior is shaped by what they think society will let them get away with. I mean just look at Steubenville. The kids thought they were doing something they could get away with, and in fact they would have if not for the cameras. But the problem was not that all the kids at the party were evil, irredeemable rapusts whose collective nature dooms them as rapists for life, it was that they were in a social culture that told them what was happening was basically okay, or at least close enough to being okay. That is what we can, and must change.

However, while you think you are 'protecting' women from one danger by denying them autonomy, you are actually subjecting them to the equally bad, while definitely more mundane but in some ways even more oppressive ( because it's inescapable, day in and day out ) danger of losing ones freedom to live life as one chooses. And even if that could free a woman from the risk of rape it might be worth it, but it cannot, particularly if those who are supposed to be the protectors turn out to be the rapists. And further, under such norms any woman who deviates from the behavior required to be 'protected' is faced with accusations that she played a role in her own rape. Or even those who did not in truth deviate, must have somehow deviated in the popular mind, because the 'good' woman is supposed to be safe. This is the problem with trying to replace one oppression with another- oppressions tend to reinforce one another. The feminist response is the correct one- maximal increase of women's claims to both freedom and respect across the dimensions of 'society' until hegemonic masculinity is overthrown

Beet, before I respond, are you equivocating rape with not going out to bars & chaperones or am I misunderstanding you?

[Beet]

Beet, before I respond, are you equivocating rape with not going out to bars & chaperones or am I misunderstanding you?

I am saying that telling women "don't go out to bars OR ELSE you'll get raped" isn't much better than excusing or denying rape in the first place. It's like the government telling us they have to repeal the Bill of Rights to "keep us safe from terrorists" nonsense. There are also usually (not saying YOU) ulterior motives there that are disguising themselves as concern for womens' well being, which is pretty much a staple of conservative discourse on women.