I'm an occasional participant in the popular "Wise Guys" feature at Em & Lo. This week the question was "You often hear how the rape fantasy is common in the minds of many women. Do men have this fantasy, too?" Here's how I answered.
First of all, I don’t know who actually has them more often, but I get the impression that more women than men seem willing to disclose their rape fantasies. Based on my own experience, though, I think it’s important to mention that the term “rape fantasy” covers an awful lot of different ideas. So when you say “rape fantasy” you could be talking about Rhett Butler sweeping Scarlett O’Hara up the grand staircase or something that might scare Ted Bundy. And both men and women’s fantasies cover the whole range. One more good reminder why communication and negotiation are important when translating fantasy into roleplaying.
In my teens I had a lot of fairly vanilla rape fantasies, inspired in part by “bodice ripper” romance novels and in part by the much more direct Victorian BDSM novel A Man With a Maid. This was furthered by two of my earliest girlfriends who shared the fantasies (and their romance novels) with me. Roleplaying was lots of fun — but not for everyone, as I pretty quickly figured out with the next couple of partners.
Years later I was involved with someone whose ideas of roleplaying were so dark I felt a little uncomfortable — and even more so when she mentioned what she really fantasized about when I was trying my best. And that’s a great reminder that what we fantasize about and what we actually want to do in real life can be very different things.
Of course reading that now I'm doinking myself on the head for missing what should have been an obvious chance to add to the bogus Two Rules of Desire. If it's both intolerable and inconceivable for women to express sexual desire, and for men to be sexually desired, then "he made her do it" types of fantasies make a lot more sense. Even more so considering that, unlike real-life date rape and criminal sexual assault, in most fantasies both parties enjoying themselves.
While the fantasies themselves are pretty harmless the implications of this are not amusing. At all. Because I'm pretty sure that the fantasy that overcomes those two really bad rules creates real misunderstanding when it comes time to cope, socially and legally, with the actual crimes of rape.
Weirdly, I think the two rules might help account for social intolerance of consensual BDSM. Which for a lot of non-practitioners seems a little too intentional and voluntary and thus not in keeping with the "propriety" of the rules.
Hmm... I'm going to have to think about this a little more.
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I still can't figure out
Submitted by jfpbookworm (not verified) on Tue, 2011-03-15 15:06.I still can't figure out whether the original question was about men fantasizing about raping or being raped. I think it's telling that only the gay respondent explicitly acknowledged the latter.
I have to ask, it seems like
Submitted by Laura Fox (not verified) on Tue, 2011-03-15 15:26.I have to ask, it seems like there's an assumption that the rape being fantasized about is one of a man raping a woman (except Derfner, who I assume was talking man-on-man)? I imagine that is the most common, or even moreso, to the most commonly disclosed---it's hard to imagine a lot of men admitting to a fantasy of being raped by a woman, although the frankly-disturbing "that lucky dog!" reactions often seen to the idea of female-on-male rape (see for example the MST3K episode "The Violent Years" if you can find it) suggest that there might be something going on there. It just made me curious about other possible pemutations.
Responding to the previous
Submitted by SnowdropExplodes (not verified) on Tue, 2011-03-15 17:37.Responding to the previous two commenters:
I also thought about "men fantasising about being raped" when I first read the question. I can't recall (or find right now) where I read it, but I think I recall there was a survey a few years back that reported about 4% of heterosexual men reported having fantasies of being forced (i.e. raped).
I don't have time right now
Submitted by Sungold (not verified) on Tue, 2011-03-15 19:15.I don't have time right now to reflect on this in any detail, but I wanted to mention a couple of posts that Hugh Ristik wrote a few months back at Feminist Critics. He reported on a study that found men and women both fantasized more about being submissive than about dominating a partner - and in some respects, men were more intensely drawn to submission fantasies than women were. Men also were more attracted to fantasy scenarios in which they were dominant. (Follow that link and you'll also find a link to Hugh's first post on the topic.)
Obviously submissive fantasies ≠ rape fantasies, and I personally would put "bodice ripper" scenes pretty firmly into the submissive category. I wouldn't too quickly equate them with rape fantasies. But I would also be cautious about applying your "two rules of desire," figleaf. I think it's more likely that both men and women enjoy fantasies where the focus of pleasure is mainly on oneself - where one's partner simply intuits our needs and desires, and accommodates them. (I'm not sure that would be so fun in the real world, but I guess it also should be obvious that fantasy ≠ reality!)
"...submissive fantasies ≠
Submitted by figleaf on Wed, 2011-03-16 10:12."...submissive fantasies ≠ rape fantasies"
I think that might be a reverse blind spot for me. They seem almost completely different. To me, I mean, with the result that I recognize I should probably adjust my understanding rather than ask anyone else to adjust to mine.
I'm comfortable applying the two rules here because I earnestly believe that when it comes to the crunch of managing and, especially, enforcing both law and social expectation more people identify with the (self-indulgent and desire-fulfilling) fantasy of "rape" to the reality. And the fantasy of "breaking down" reluctance, resistance, stubbornness, or disinterest (or having it broken down for you) is deeply mired in the same assumptions that fuel the two rules.
Thanks, Sungold,
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I think you are right about
Submitted by Pepper Lee Hales (not verified) on Thu, 2011-03-17 18:35.I think you are right about the roots of the "rape" fantasy. It's really not necessarily about "rape," as it happen in real life, but (from the perspective of a lady feminist with no submissive/rape fantasies at all so I could be wrong FWIW), but about non-responsibility, and about being desired. I can't speak to the BDSM aspects, but we also have a cultural trope about spontaneous sex being the best most transcendent sex, which could play a role in the fantasy as well. I think that the tropes about resistance and capitulation are really about guilt avoidance, but certainly it's all tied up in a big ball with ideas about gender, dominance, submission and so on.
The dynamic could well be different for men, but I suspect that it might be very attractive for men to fantasize about bot not being responsible for initating sex, and being profoundly desired, since men are often coded as desirerers rather than desirees.
Since the fallout of real rape in the real world is that women (and men) are consistently blamed (though in different ways), I have a hard time with the term "rape fantasy," because I'm not sure that the victim blaming (and outright hatred) is probably a big part of the fantasy (obviously people come in all flavors). Of course, English being what it is, I don't know a better term either, but rape is always, of course nonconsensual, and fanatasy is always completely consensual so they seem far apart to me.
"I suspect that it might be
Submitted by figleaf on Thu, 2011-03-17 20:40."I suspect that it might be very attractive for men to fantasize about bot not being responsible for initating sex..."
Interesting point, Pepper Lee. In gendered terms the interesting thing about "rape" fantasies is it lets women off the hook for the responsibility of consent. And people being people, shucking responsibility is something we fantasize about even if we'd never do it in real life. (Trivial example: I'm pretty sure that at some point everyone's fantasized about parking in front of a fire hydrant or in a disabled-person parking spot... even though most people also are responsibile enough never to do such a thing.)
Anyway, it occurred to me that in gendered terms, anyway, straight men aren't conditioned to think of surrendering responsibility for initiating sex... but we are conditioned to be responsible for getting consent. Rape fantasies let us off the hook for that. Even though, again, in real life that's a responsibility most men take very seriously.
Again, the consequences of those constructions are harmless in themselves, but they hint at yet deeper reasons why it might be so hard to get people to take actual criminal rape as seriously as it really ought to be taken.
Thanks!
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