Rape Culture

I should warn you first that I'm not sure how much I can say about this topic that hasn't been said before. Mostly, in fact, I want to point everyone to a post on the blog Racialicious from a couple weeks ago (I've been a little behind on blog reading as well as blog writing): Latoya Peterson's essay "The Not Rape Epidemic," which is heart-wrenching and extremely thought-provoking.

However, I do want to share an experience that I had at the biannual extended family Christmas celebration this year. Now, for the record, my family's generally pretty hilarious. They also make a lot of (occasionally uncomfortable) off-color jokes, which, since I "came out" as a Women's Studies major, are frequently punctuated (especially by my uncles) with sly looks in my direction to see if they've succeeded in getting me riled up. Usually they fail, for three crucial reasons: 1) getting riled up is futile in this case, as no one's opinion will change, 2) the comments are usually of the generally harmless "Women belong in the kitchen" variety, and 3) arguing takes far too much energy and frankly, after hours of being around 25 family members, I'm usually a little concerned for my own sanity already.

So, with that background in mind, here's the situation. We're sitting around before dinner, my cousins' young kids are running around, and one of my uncles relates a story about one of his coworkers, a fine gentlemen who taught his toddler son the following dialogue:

Dad: "Who's Daddy?"
Little Joey: "The big boss!"
Dad: "Who's Joey?"
Little Joey: "The little boss!"
Dad: "Who's Mommy?"
Little Joey: "Our slave!"

My uncles all start laughing, my female cousins and I roll our eyes. Fine. I'm a little appalled; I could, of course, say a few words about entitlement or fathers intentionally linking masculinity to power over women and thus instilling in their sons a sense of male privilege that they'll inevitably attempt to lord over any unfortunate woman that crosses their path in the future. But you know, this is typical banter in my family, where one of the running jokes is that only "white, land-owning males" get to "vote" on family matters. Expected, just laugh and let it go.

But then my uncle says, "Of course, this is the same guy that taught his two-year-old son to chant 'NO MEANS YES! NO MEANS YES!'" My eyes must have gotten pretty wide as my stomach sank, because he looked at me and added, "Hey, it wasn't me! It was my coworker!" That reassurance didn't make me feel any less sick.

...Honestly, even now as I'm writing this, thinking about a two-year-old boy reciting this mantra makes me feel physically ill. In a country where, according to RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), a sexual assault occurs every two minutes, and one in six women will be sexually assualted in their lifetime, it's just. not. funny. And that's a kid. It's not a hilarious talking doll. It is a human being, who in not too long is going to grow up to be an adult man, who I sure as hell hope hasn't internalized the message that "No means yes." Seriously, what is funny about that? How is our culture so warped that that's funny? You've got to be fucking kidding me.