There is no such thing as “rape rhetoric”: A deconstruction.

There is no such thing as “rape rhetoric”: A deconstruction.

Whilst preaching the virtues of anarcho-primitivism I encountered a contention from a good friend that in tribal suicides [sic; "societies." Pardon the slip.] rape happened very often. That this justifies cultural elitism I do not know; I am not a cultural relativist, but our notion of what rape is have become so absurd that per chance we might learn some thing from primitives.

Yet what is per chance the greatest danger in the lingering primitive psyche of man is this tendency to confuse symbol with substance, fantasy with reality (though admittedly where the ever shifting line rests at any given moment we do not know), and literal rhetoric from metaphor.

When Adam Levine sings “Baby I’m preying on you to-night,” I doubt that his referent is literally either to sexual predation or to ritual prayer. In fact, the latter is more likely, supposing he has ever practiced tantra. The former suggestion is not only cynical, but neurotic. It is not unlike the instance that that bastard – I should like to find him – destroyed that painting at S.D.S.U. of the ostensibly Native American man because the viewer did not take kindly to the CHOICE OF PAINT that the pain-staking and hope fully generous artist had used.

You know what? If there’s one thing that makes me happier than the presence of rapists on college campuses, it is the presence of vandals in the Speech and Debate community. I really can not decide which of the two I like more. One party is a set of libertarians and the other are total totalitarians. Hm. Choices…

If I had been led on by a girl for say all most five months, it would be an affront to my intelligence should I not be able to conclude how she feels about me. It would be an affront to her not to inform her of these findings, even if being held accountable for one’s behaviours can be punishing.

There are both a practical and a deontological dimension here. Pragmatically, the means of ignoring her for a week following the stated revelation would justify the ends of both proving my hypothesis accurate by my absence (because absence makes the heart grow blonder; I mean fonder) and corroborating my own findings by seeing the stream of letters that I receive. Even were these letters expressions of apathy, they would be expressions of caring; one does not walk up to a guy at a bar just to say: Hey. I really do not care about you. The response would of course be the childishly simple: Then why do you bother to tell me?

But supposing that she does not reply. Then the means justify the ends. In other words, I all ready have established that I am right. This is not patriarchal but masculine; if I cannot deduce what is up after five months, I cannot call my self a man. I would know regardless of what this other free agent does that she cares. If she with-draws totally it is into private guilt that I cannot assuage. She would not, as a pragmatist, totally sever ties with a good friend were it not out of some guilt. She could pretend towards “independence”, but she would be merely cutting her self off from a valuable an many times openly valued resource. Even when she denied my effectiveness she would still willingly take my advice in practical matters, some times with barely any hesitation, and were she to revoke this advice I know, with the same certainty that I had offered it, that it would be to her own detriment.

So what does the poet say? I have her cornered. If she tries to with-draw, I know that she does it out of shame. If she tries to deny, I know that she does it out of denial. If she owns up to it, I know she does so courageously and out of love. Yet no matter what I know that I am right, and she must own up to her own karma now.

And the feminist replies: Rape! To corner a woman, how dare you? We shall unabashedly burn all your paintings and destroy any text or video that brings this sick dream on the part of your unpardonable Soul to physical incarnation.

Well *that’s* a bit mean and proto-Fascist. After all: What have YOU done? Stirred up anti-pathy betwixt the genders to the point that one in four women on college campuses are totally paranoid and seventy-seven out of one hundred women in professions are totally cynical? Or did I read those statistics wrong? I guess that Art, even the most banal, truly is open to public and private interpretation.

Really, any attempt made to depict rape in Art is all ways going to be metaphorical. Any attempt to interpret Art will all ways be individually subjective; only through direct relationship with the Artist, as with the aforementioned lover, can any hope of objectivity be attained.

So have at it. I mean: May be I enjoy hearing rape stories because I KNOW the limits of my experience and I KNOW, just as readily as the fact that not a single person in Extemporaneous speaking knows what the hell she is talking about, that we look at these stories and, if we are so fortunate not to have personal experience, we project upon the Art our own difficulties with the opposite (or at times same) gender. If you enjoy these tales, there is nothing wrong with you; it just reflects the relationships of power that have scarred your psyche and those lingering energies. It says nothing of the “innate depravity of man”, and it must not be controlled. We must de-construct our fantasies in order to more clearly see reality.

This is the function of B.D.S.M. and risqué art. Where ever we see rape depicted in art, it says NOTHING of “actual sexual violence”, but it is all ways a poetic expression, even if it is intended to be objective. And if you disagree with this in a logocentric manner then you are a part of the problem. You see the physical, external world as just an expression of your own internal longings and drives, and I will bet that it is this same primitive tendency, which Jung calls participation mystique and that Derrida calls phallogocentrism, that is the mentality of the true rapist.

So have at it. Make art not war. Explore these dark aspects of life. Do not condemn Fifty Shades of Grey as abusive, Nine Inch Nails as patriarchal, or people who like bondage as creeps. And do not diss Maroon Five because of their lyrics. God and the Devil know there are other reasons to hate on Adam Levine. I mean: You saw him in that film “Begin Again” right? What a prick. Using his seduction to prey on all those young rocker chicks.

It’s a metaphor people. Check your self.

Dm.A.A.