Letters to the Editor
-
but....but....
Men rape because they don't get enough sex, rape is about getting sexual satisfaction....it must be true because the keyboard crusaders on Salon say so....
How can it be that the rapists in the Congo didn't mention needing sex even ONE time? How could it possibly be that they said it was about violence and rage and anger and hurting their perceived enemies? How is that?
Oh, my poor head. This is so unexpected.
-
superstition
To be fair, men aren't having a great time of it in the Congo right now either. And there are women in that part of the world killing their own babies for being born with teeth or other "unlucky" marks.
I have a feeling the superstition given as a reason by these soldiers is just a cover for getting a kick out of raping women. Human beings are able to come up with this kind of horrific meanness without having to blame it on any magic potion. These women were gang-raped in the Congo by soldiers; my best friend in high school was gang-raped in the parking lot of Skateland by a bunch of boys from a private school. If you could get those kids to talk about their reasons for raping, what would they say? Would there be any common ground? The only common ground I see, looking at both groups, is that the law is suspended. Juvenile rich kids and Congolese, they rape because they can get away with it. They don't need a reason.
-
Blood Money
Almost 20 years of unremitting, catastrophic warfare has brutalized the population, whatever is left of it anyway, there have been something like 5,000,000 deaths (there are still over 1,000,000 million internally displaced Congolese). The country has been ruled by brutal dictatorships, foreign invaders, and ongoing ethnic rebels, for well over a century. Possibly the bleakest period was under the rule of Belgian King Leopold, when about half the population, 10,000,000 died and the atrocities caused even all the old racist imperial nations to blanch.
You know what has driven the last two decades of conflict? Blood diamonds and coltan (a tantalum ore, vital in making electronics, especially cell-phones; 80% of world's reserves are in Congo). It is the western demand for diamonds and coltan that has driven the conflict-- every time you put that cell phone next to your diamond earringed ear, if you listen closely, you might hear the screams of all those women being raped.
-
maybe tina there is a difference between jumping on a womans stomach and forcing her to drink the resulting abortion and a guy cumming on a drunk girls leg after she says no or maybe or somehting while they are doing it
or maybe it means a woman who is paid for sex but doesn't like her job, or maybe it means a woman who feels she was subjected to some sort of emotional of social pressure etc. which is what a lot of broadsheet feminists like you are referring to when they talk about rape. Maybe the difficult to grasp distinction between these two gradations of rape accounts for the fact that different causes might be believed to be behind them.
-
Holy Shit!
What kind of backwards bullshit is that?
I know it's not your intention, Allie, but I feel like with your anecdote about the rich kids raping your friend, your trying to say, men rape, oh well. I think you want to be careful not to sound racist or something.
Look, these men are pretty much the textbook definition of the banality of evil. This is different than a bunch of rich kids gang raping a girl in the parking lot; this is terrorism. This is rape as a tool of war. Sure they are comprable, and their might be a component of mob mentality behind their behavior, but this rape isn't about breaking a single woman's spirit because the abuser is a sexual sadist or serial rapist or a bunch of kids who get egged on by their peers. I don't think any of these guys get "off" on it. I bet you that when this war is over, all of these rape gangs will go back to their lives and probably never rape another woman. That's because this is about breaking an enemy's spirit. All of them, the men, the women and children. Awful, just awful.
-
The Greatest Silence?
Anyone else think that's a pretty odd title for a movie about men who seem to be anything BUT silent about their horrible crimes?
-
Is this something we don't know?
I actually don't find the question of why these men rape compelling. It is pure violence in the context of war. It is simple to understand how raping all the women in an enemy village effectively demoralizes and thus weakens the enemy. That is not a groundbreaking discovery- it's been happening since time immemorial. The "magic potion" reason, which on the surface sounds like odd superstition to Western ears is merely euphemistic for something akin to warrior mojo, a systematic desensitization toward harrowing acts of violence. That fact that we might even wonder that there is another reason stretches the boundaries of common sense. Do we really think that the current warfare in the Congo is so vastly different from the manner in which other wars have been waged and that these men have unique or obscure reasons for violently raping woman after woman?
-
Tina...
"It's hard to keep record of the number of women that I've raped. The thing to keep in mind is the fact that we have stayed too long in the bush, and that induced us to rape."
If I'm interpreting this quote correctly, it would appear that, in this one case, rape was viewed as a means of sexual gratification - because he had "stayed too long in the bush".
Not to discredit what you saying. In war zones, rape is often used as a tool of terror. Or worse, as a means of genocide.
-
You're kdding, right?
This post is so unbelievably dense, matched only by the even more impressive density of the response. Do any of you actually visit the real world from time to time?
We're talking here about civil war in the Congo, one of the worst hellholes on the planet. The soldiers enlisted either because the alternative was death, because they needed the money, or simply because they enjoy killing.
These are men who have been up to their knees in death for years. What they do is visit as much destruction and suffering as possible on their enemies, and in so doing, seize as much for themselves as they can.
There is no law. There is no such thing as justice, or some kind of higher authority. The only person you have to obey is either someone who has a gun on you, or who pays you. Killing other men, women, children, sheep -- all the same. Rape is just another version of the same activity. The idea that it has anything to do with sex is actually kind of funny.
There are lots of people in the world who are extremely dangerous, who will think nothing of hurting you or killing you or stealing from you, and who have no conscience at all. Guess what? Men have a dark side, and some men have a very, very dark side.
I have only met a few guys in my life who are versions of this, albeit in a different context. You think it's macho chest-beating, but you're wrong. The really, really dangerous guys are the ones who look at you like you're food. You look into their eyes, and you know, immediately, that they absolutely could not care less what happens to you, at all. If you have something they want, they'll cooperate, but other than that, you don't exist. Period. They are very, very scary.
Further, I think all men, on some level, understand this. Every single one of us has had, at some point, the experience of another male beating us up just because he can. The lesson you learn, instantly, is that it's not personal. He could not care less what you want or feel. For some reason women don't understand this.
It's incredible to me that a female reporter was dumb enough to track down guys like this and ask them this question. What the hell does she expect them to say? Are they going to talk about their relationships with their mothers?