Anti-rape Campaign #ThatsRape (3)
By Yi Jo
Published: March 1, 2016
Translated by Marilyn Hook
Editor’s note: The Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center
is leading a campaign against sexual assault committed with the help of alcohol
or drugs, called #ThatsRape. This series of articles explores the discussions
held by the campaign’s planning committee, as well as their questions and
recommendations for change.
“What kind of man doesn’t like sex?”
One day a musician friend of mine had a concert in
Hongdae, so I went to see it. When the concert finished, six of my friends and
I ended up hanging out in the Hongdae playground, drinking and talking.
I’m asexual. I’ve never felt sexually attracted to anyone.
I’m also genderqueer (a term referring to those whose identity is outside of
the male-female gender dichotomy), but my assigned gender is male and socially
I’m perceived as a man.
On that day in Hongdae, we started talking about
asexuality. A male stranger wandered up to us and said, suddenly, “I’m sorry to
interrupt, but did you say that you don’t like sex? Want to go to a massage
parlor? I’ll pay. What kind of man doesn’t like sex, you probably just haven’t
done it...” and watched me as if waiting for me to laugh along.
I was flabbergasted. I was beyond getting angry or
feeling upset; I couldn’t respond. There were a few LGBTQ people among the
friends I was with, and they knew how painful it was to have your identity
rejected. I felt that my friends were watching my reaction. My brain seemed
overloaded. Finally, I didn’t respond at all and just took a drink. So my
friends started to berate the man and told him to go away. He snarled one thing
at me before he left.
“Fucking eunuch.”
For a long time, I thought that I had been treated
this way because of my asexuality. But hearing “What kind of man doesn’t like
sex?” and “Fucking eunuch” made me wonder if it isn’t just because of my
asexuality but also because of the perception of me as male.
As I remembered the many other times I’ve been called
“eunuch” and how, when I went to clubs with my friends, people didn’t believe
me when I said I was asexual and one woman even invited me to a hotel because
she wanted to test me, I became quite sure that I am treated this way not
simply because I am asexual but because I am an asexual “man.”
Men with excess sexual desire
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| At the Valentine’s Day “Parade for Doing It with Consent.” The author is wearing a cape that says “Queer Revolution” ⓒ KSVRC |
For a long time, I was able to avoid these kinds of
thoughts. This was because there weren’t that many “normal” people among my
friends. After coming to identify as a sexual minority at a young age, I made
friends mostly with LGBTQ people - whether online or offline – and within
feminist communities. So I was able to avoid “normal” talk about sex and
especially talk about how people think about me with regards to sex.
But as I moved from high school to university and
university to the working world, my ability to limit the people around me to
those I chose waned. It became more common to hear conversations about
masculine sexuality. I got more used to that, and as I did so, I realized
something. It was that we men excessively assert our own sexuality. That is, we
brainwash both ourselves and others to believe that we are hypersexual.
“Men always like sex. They’re up for it at
any time. They can’t find it unpleasant or uncomfortable.” These are some of
the rules of male sexuality that we create and apply to ourselves and others.
After coming to understand this, I became better able to understand many of the
experiences I had had.
In university, I dated a foreigner. Once, on a date, I
ran into an older male student I knew. Even though my date was right there, he
said [in Korean], “Oh, your girlfriend has a killer body. Is it true that
foreign women give it up easily?” What I remember most is that when my
expression then darkened, he cursed at me.
I also thought about the customers I had seen while
working part-time in a bar. There was a group of men who seemed like they were
having an office dinner, and when the oldest of them said, “After this, we’re
going to a brothel,” there was a man who seemed uncomfortable but didn’t say
anything and tried to match the group mood. Later, he went outside and called
his partner to explain the situation and apologize [because he would have to go
along].
You’ll be an accomplice, right?
I can’t be the only man who’s aware of this
destructive and harmful male sexuality. In fact, I think I became aware of it
comparatively late, because I didn’t come into contact with it until recently.
I think that many men already know how much they have suffered by being held to
and holding themselves to this kind of standard. The problem lies in the fact
that they can’t say that this is uncomfortable, unpleasant, and painful, that
it hurts and they don’t like it.
I think the reason that the man in Hongdae waited for
my reaction and that the older student got mad and cursed my lack of response
is that they knew they had asked sexually abusive questions. Despite knowing
that, they were asking me, “You’ll be an accomplice, right?” And because I
didn’t join in their sexual violence as a bonding ritual between men, they were
ejecting me from their world with “eunuch” and other curses.
Somehow, we’ve shut ourselves up in this room and
locked the door. That’s may be why we just watch when men ogle, catcall, and
harass passing women, why we let it go when an older student casually says he
wants to get a woman drunk and “try something,” instead of telling him, “That’s
rape.”
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| A skirt performance during the “Parade for Doing It With Consent” ⓒ KSVRC |
The demand not to call the male world’s portrayal of
sex unpleasant or uncomfortable, no matter how abusive, destructive, and
painful it is – this demand functions as a code that goes beyond saying,
“You’re an accomplice, right?” to implying that you can only be a man if you
are an accomplice, and strengthens a sense of belonging between men.
And we, having grown up seeing the social power
afforded to those recognized as men and the exclusion faced by those stripped
of the title, say “Yes” to this demand and thus keep confining ourselves into
an unhealthy framework. We are both prisoners and prison guards.
Things that men don’t want to hear or say about rape
But this prison-like room has an exit. The door that
we’ve thought of as firmly locked has always been open. We just need to walk
out of it, and we’ve always had the chance to do that.
There’s a reason why I say that. People say we’re shut
up in a room without an exit, but that does not mean that we are victims of
larger forces and have no choice but to allow and participate in this harmful
sexual behavior. Rather, it’s the opposite. The door is always there and
unlocked; it’s just that we don’t open it. We are avoiding taking on the
responsibility of opening the door and walking out. I’m saying for our own
sakes, we should accept the responsibility and open the door.
There is something we must face if we want to get out
of this room. It is a kind of key that will unlock the door. Virginie
Despentes, feminist author of King Kong Theory [the Korean title translates to
“King Kong Girl: Feminism for Ugly Women], once said this in an interview.
“Rape, it’s always a women’s subject. I’m 45
years old and I think I’ve been here listening about women gathering about rape
for more than 30 years now and I’m tired. I want to see men, really, I want to
see men gathering and please, try to understand what is going on with you, how
can you be a rapist? How can you prevent it, because we can’t. Rape, it’s like
a dark place without language for women. It’s like night. If you bring some
light here, I think it could change things.”
In order to avoid responsibility for the violent
structure of male sexuality, men also avoid talking about sexual violence. When
a man is a victim, when a man is a perpetrator – no matter the situation, we
talk about sexual violence like it is not related to us.
When a man is the perpetrator, the first things we say
is not to generalize about all men, that it is not a male problem but a matter
of “a few crazy assholes,” and so on. Or we shift the responsibility to the
victim, saying, “Because you dressed that way,” “Because you got drunk,” “Because
you came onto him...” This is a desperate struggle to evade and conceal the
violence inherent in male sexuality.
And we avoid talking about male victims of sexual
violence.
When both the victim and perpetrator are men, we often
see people use that fact to justify their homophobia. But if you look at
research about sexual violence between men, you’ll see a different story.
According to a “Human Rights Watch” survey conducted in the United States about
rape between people of the same sex in prison, most perpetrators identify as
heterosexual. That is, even though they might be heterosexual, they express
their occupation of a powerful position through rape, but they don’t admit
that.
Many anti-feminists argue that by making rape into a
women’s issue, feminists ignore male victims of sexual violence, but actually,
even when the perpetrator is a woman and the victim is a man, men can often be
seen disregarding the voice of the survivor. You hear things that start from
“You had sex without having to work for it? You should be thankful,” and then
pass “If you got raped by a woman, are you really a man?” to reach “How can a
man be raped?”
This is how we avoid serious discussion of rape.
“Uprooting Masculinity”: an escape campaign
Violent sexuality has become a part of masculinity,
and we need to express the discomfort, displeasure, pain, and hurt that we’ve
felt about this. I think that’s the first step towards escape. We have to break
this promise of silence that men have made to each other. This is not a
sacrifice that needs to be made for others, but work that must be done for our
own sakes, for our survival.
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| “Uprooting Masculinity,” a discussion as part of the #ThatsRape campaign ⓒ KSVRC |
In order to do that, I think that discussion about
sexual violence is essential. Thinking and talking about the behavior that most
plainly reveals this violence is a way to open the door that will let us out of
this room.
While helping run the #ThatsRape campaign, which aims
to prevent rape committed with the help of alcohol and drugs, I am sometimes
asked, “Why is an asexual person interested in and participating in a campaign
that’s deeply connected with sex?” It’s because I believe that I could help
bring about discussion that unsettles everything, not just rape between men but
all of the uncomfortable, unpleasant, and painful parts of male sexuality.
The way we will go after opening the door and leaving
the room is not clear. Because it is a new path that we must walk after
rejecting everything we know, we might be afraid of opening the door. But
there’s no need for solitary fear or hesitation.
On January 15th, the campaign to prevent rape
committed with the use of alcohol and drugs held a discussion entitled
“Uprooting Masculinity.” Its purpose was to provide a place for the unearthing
and consideration of such thoughts. And we are planning follow-up gatherings in
order to find a new path. On Friday, March 4th, at 7:30 P.M., you can join us
to search for a way to escape from the prison of violent masculinity together.
Let’s throw open the door to this stifling room, and
walk out together.
* Original article:
http://ildaro.com/sub_read.html?uid=7389
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