Nice Guys Rape, and other things we already know

So the second in this week’s series, so this is a thing now? I read this article, and all I could think was no shit. Nice Guys rape, and we’re going to talk about it. Now, many of you know how much I detest the phrase “Nice Guy.” Jezebel did a little post on dating Nice Guys this week, and this is the best part:

When using the phrase 'Nice Guys' with a capital NG, I don't mean a man who happens to be a genuinely kind person. Hooray for kind, caring, conscientious people! I mean the sort of Guy who has declared himself to be Nice, and thus deserving of positive (usually sexual) attention from the female of his choice, upon whom he has often projected an elaborate fantasy of perfection and willingness that rarely has anything to do with the subject's actual feelings or desires. When a Nice Guy is romantically rejected by a woman he wants, he lashes out at her, wondering why that dumb cunt won't go out with him. After all, he has been Nice!

Yeah, wrap your mind around that, but of course we’ve known this for years. When I was a sophomore in college there was a post going around from College Humor about the Nice Guys and how hard it is to be them. But this post isn’t actually about them. Though I did look up a few months ago the response I wrote to that…epic, and my voice mimics the original, which was cool for baby me.

So the article, Nice Guys Rape too, by Alyssa Royse and posted on the Good Men Project pretty much breaks down that some men commit rape and do not realize it. This was also a discussion on the Reddit thread a few months ago. I find this so interesting because a) duh and b) it borders on rape apology and holding rapists accountable. Royse is a sexual assault advocate, and after speaking at a Take Back the Night Rally she received a call from her male friend who said he was accused of rape. After a few awkward “am I really asking you this” minutes it was decided: he raped this girl. He penetrated her while she was passed out without her consent. He inferred consent, and he felt he had a right to her body.

Now, Royse takes on the term date rape as a way to make some rape sound less bad. But everyone reading this blog knows all rape regardless of what you call it is bad. Royse spends a lot of time talking about the mixed signals being sent and being received. She draws the conclusion that a lack of discussions about sexuality are the cause of this noting that it doesn’t absolve her  friend of committing a rape, but contextualizes it. Also, the lack of communication and miscommunication contributed to the rape. I disagree with this. People have the right not to be raped regardless of their actions. A lack of ‘no’ doesn’t mean ‘yes.’ But here is what Royse says:

The problem is that no one is taking responsibility for the mixed messages about sex and sexuality in which we are stewing. And no one is taking responsibility for teaching people how the messages we are sending are often being misunderstood.

However, the lack of communication is a problem, and that needs to be addressed. One of the more frustrating things about this article were the comments, because the Internet is where goodness goes to die. Now all of them weren’t bad, but there is a general lack of understanding of how rape works and rape apologizing going on.

But this is a really hard conversation to have, right? Asking someone if they have been sexually assaulted is hard enough, but asking a friend, ‘hey, did you victimize someone?’ is really bad. Because if the answer is yes, then they are the bad guy, and no one wants to be the bad guy. The post talks about what happened with the friend and the girl he raped. The girl writes Royse off for presumably taking his side, though that isn’t what she did. And the friend leaves town, but even afterwards, when someone would bring him up there was always the ‘oh, yeah’ whisper, whisper, whisper.

I believe we have to have these conversations. Some men commit rape and feel remorse and some don’t. But we have to engage in these conversations in order to understand how these things happen. How does a good guy rape someone? How does he ever know he’s done something wrong if we never say it?

Sometimes I deeply regret my awareness of language. I’ve never been one to use the term rape or any term with connotations like it lightly. To be raped is to be a victim/survivor, but it also makes someone a rapist. Language is powerful, which is why we need to employ it to get past situations like this one.