Anyone who’s ever been seduced by a jerk has been seduced by a jerk. It sucks, but neither it is rape, unless other elements are present. I’ve desired older, powerful men before and I resent being told that this desire was automatically screwy and wrong, or that I didn’t know what I actually wanted at the time. People can be attracted to someone else’s maturity, life experience, wisdom… And there’s nothing wrong with that, in essence. Now, those that use positions of power against someone who may be vulnerable are, at best, skeevy as hell. In many circumstances, it is, indeed plainly criminal and what they are doing is rape. But you can’t lump everyone together and declare them all as “rapists” and “victims of rape.” Life is a little bit more complicated than that.

And can I just say that this is a pretty big trivialization of date rape? Because that’s what it reads like to me. Plenty of women stay with their rapists, but their rapists are not seducing them. They are raping them. And placating them with the usual – “look what you made me do,” “you’ll never find anyone else anyway,” etc.

Also, I am severely uncomfortable with the use of the word “innocent.” Trusting the wrong person has nothing to do with any metaphoric innocence. Men end up as victims of seduction all the time as well, and I don’t see anyone rushing to protect their supposed “purity.” Honestly, this reads like something I’d read in a handbook for Victorian century nuns.

I’m tired of the dichotomy of “pure, sweet, naive women” & “evil, barbarous, lust-driven men.” It’s SO annoying and SO essentialist.

It is a sad statistical fact that most vicrtims of sexual predation never reconcile their emotions associated with the act because they commonly feel blameworthy themselves, whether the act was a forced rape or a seduction — as in the case of a professor taking advantage of star struck co-eds or a senior executive exploiting naive and gullable young staffers with suasions of senioral charm and appobation, mentorship or (if the staffer/victim is experiencing personal distress) the demeanor of avunculor compassion and counseling.

The typical reaction of the victim to these forms of preditor victimization is to try to bury it from sight and mind, as in the “past”. In effect, like the rapist who goes scott free for not being reported by his victim (because she wants not to face her sense of public shame), the seducer escapes judgement too in the mind of his victim because of her own misplaced sense of complicity to the act, compelling burying the episode from memory, thereby removing it from the rhetrospect analysis that would characterized it for what it was, a rape of the innocent by a predator.

Not seen for the rape it was the preditor remains in the mind of the victim as just another charming guy — even held in fond memory for the attention given — while the victim faults herself for “foolish gullibilty”, implying “self seduction”. Studies of college date rape victims show that those who did not report (acknowledge) the rape usually retain a relationship with the rapist, while those who did report it are better able to put the act in proper perspective, and subsequently avoid further contact.

Though methods are different between the physical force rapist and the seducer rapist their mindset is the same; assess the intended victim’s vulnerability and strategize accordingly. In the former case its a matter of learning the intended victim’s schedule of movements and habits, while in the latter its determining the psychological vulnerability of the intended victim (such as collapsing relationships and loneliness). Theory is that there’s a “cross over” point when the difference between the two types of rapists dissolves: if the seducer is not successful with the guile of flattery and false pledges of sincere “love” physical force often comes into play, as studies in college “date rape” cases demonstrate.

The seduction rapist’s flattery is typically charged with claim that his attraction to the victim is like none other he’s ever felt, causing the victim to feel appreciated (“finally”!) for her “unique self”.

Rapist of both types hold the same self exculpatory belief about their victims’ “secret desires”, a belief that contrast strikingly to that of the victims who so often blame themselves. Rapist exempt themself from blame with the excuse that they are simply facilitating the unconscious desires of their victiims.

My thoughts being, “…No one actually said something like this, right?”

–Jordi

(Getting a bit off-topic.)

Eh, that’s a matter of historical debate, with the book Hitler’s Willing Executioners making a strong case that the German people both knew what the regime was doing and approved, and in many cases, were quite willing to lend a hand. The book was controversial, and I suppose there’s a case to be made against it as well.

And while, I agree, people are ultimately individuals and not mere subsets of their culture (one reason I have big problems with identity politics, because it is often guilty of reducing individuals to precisely that), national/ethnic culture is a very real thing and certainly leaves its mark on people who grow up within it. For example, my German grandmother, while being somebody who escaped from Nazi Germany, was unmistakeably the product of classical authoritarian German culture nevertheless and it colored her personality in a lot of ways. So I think you can make certain generalizations about the German culture of the time.

I can not help but ask were you sexually abused as a child or as a young adult? This question is not to be seen as a means of belittlement or condemnation of anyone’s choices or how they may deal with the anger that life’s choices may present, it is not up to me to morally judge anyone else only to try and understand myself and others though compassion and acceptance, it is just a question out of curiosity