Catholic Online Forum

Barb,

As I was reading your response to David I was thinking, "I'm so glad Barb is posting again" and then I read

and you lost me and quite frankly, infuriated me and it's beyond the scope of this thread to discuss it but rape is as old as man and has nothing to do with modern day feminism, nor I suspect, pornography though the men who raped me had the most vile pictures on their wall that you could ever imagine....they were there because it fed their sinfulness, not because it created it.

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Valerie Garcia
vals1990@yahoo.com

"Listen, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou mayest return to Him ....." St. Benedict

I had trouble finding statistics by year from the DOJ or FBI lists but Wiki has this to say:



The reference they use is ^ Anthony D'Amato. Porn Up, Rape Down. Northwestern Public Law Research Paper No.

So, according to his reference, the opposite is true that porn is increasing but rape decreasing though I see no reason to assume there is a correlation.

The FBI statistics I did see also showed a decline between 2011 from 2010 and further decline in earlier years. Unfortunately, my research skills aren't the greatest and I can't seem to find that second figure.

In any case, I can't imagine how modern feminism could possibly be linked to increases in rape and since "modern feminism" has only increased in influence in America, then there should be an increase in rape and there is not. I was a stocky, muscular 16 year old when I was raped by those two men and was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. I wasn't dressed immodestly and though modern feminism may have loosened the bounds of decency in dress, I think it's more a matter of a decrease in general morality. I only mention this in case you think immodesty has something to do with rape but I don't think that is true. Perhaps in cases of "date rape" but I consider the definition of date rape to be so lose that I'm not even sure anymore what it means since on some college campuses the definition is rape even if both parties were intoxicated.

The pornography on the walls of the room where I was raped was of such an extreme nature that I don't think it was of the ordinary sort viewed online nowadays...hopefully I'm wrong but these were images of women being very violently assaulted.

I suppose you may think this is all emotionalism because of my experiences but it isn't. It is partly my own experience and the experience of women I've come into contact with through recovery programs and the fact that none of them had particularly attractive looks or bodies but it's more because I'm interested in the mentality of the rapist and feminism has never come up in any of my reading.

_________________
Valerie Garcia
vals1990@yahoo.com

"Listen, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou mayest return to Him ....." St. Benedict

Val,



I tread very lightly here because my knowledge is limited.

As I understand it Rape can be classified several was. The violent sexual assault that you experienced, the date rape(or acquaintance rape) which while it is certainly still rape may more easily easily be traced to feminism, dress etc, and then Statutory rape which is defined by law and is determined by age.

The last two, I would suspect are on the increase, but that which you experienced is as you said always have been with us.

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Bob C

Hi Val,

I agree that there has always been and will always be the horrendous crime of rape. At least on this fallen earth, with us fallen creatures. Feminism has nothing to do with the kind of rape you endured, nor with the kind I endured as a child, but there are some kinds of rape that are very much connected with the lifestyles and attitudes young men and women have adopted as a result of the way feminism has developed over the last forty years.

I know from the Survivors Group I was in that most rapes are not reported and many of those are not reported because of the situation in which they occurred, situations in which few women would have found themselves sixty years ago.

To say that is not to say that I believe in any way whatsoever that the women in those cases were responsible for what happened to them. A passenger killed in a car that crashes isn't the one who caused the crash, but had there been no car and had he not been in it, he wouldn't have been injured.

I view modern feminism (at least those aspects of it that have encouraged the so-called "sexual revolution" among women) like the car - it is putting an entire generation of young women into situations that make them easy targets. Had there been no "car" - they wouldn't have been there.

God bless,
Barb

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"Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic." Pope Benedict XVI

For me at least pornography creates a wrong image of women.I do feel sorry for the victims.I like to keep my mind pure towards women but porn does the opposite.
Porn creates sinfulness.If I go for Mass my mind is pure,If I meditate on evil I become evil.



There is a lot of this type of porn ,the perpetrators seem to glorify in causing pain specially when the victims are children.
I am really grateful for Gods Grace to avoid immodesty in real life and online


Ted Bundy it seems watched a lot of porn .Have rapists a lot of anger towards women?Is humiliating women a part of the reward?
Why rape and then murder?Why serial rape?

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Simon

Simon,



I was once reading from a law enforcement official that there are different kinds of rapists and one can successfully fight back one sort but the other sort will simply murder them and intended to murder them all along. I think some rapists have anger towards women and humiliating women, at least in my case, seems to be a part of it. There are cases of orderlies raping elderly women in nursing homes and I can't begin to imagine the mentality of such an act. Women are more vulnerable than men and I suppose if one has violent tendencies they're simply easier to target by rape but I think there is more to it than that.

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Valerie Garcia
vals1990@yahoo.com

"Listen, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou mayest return to Him ....." St. Benedict

Barb,

I still don't understand what you mean. There will always be violent assaults; we seem to agree on that, but I don't understand how feminism results in women putting themselves in situations where they will be raped. Are you speaking of date rape situations? Even then, it simply seems the result of men and women no longer living by the standards of fifty years ago.

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Valerie Garcia
vals1990@yahoo.com

"Listen, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou mayest return to Him ....." St. Benedict

Hi Val,

You wrote:

I would argue that one cause of the decline in standards has been what we can call "modern" feminism. It was the feminist movement more than anything else, in my opinion, that drove what has been called the "sexual revolution" or sometimes the "sexual emancipation" movement in America. The idea that women should be "allowed" to view our sexuality as "freely" as men view theirs, the idea that women should be "allowed" to be as promiscuous as men, as "sexual" as men - all of that was part and parcel of the women's movement, as was Roe v Wade and the "right" to abortion on demand.

The result of all that has been the extreme objectification of women. The result of all that has been pregnancy outside of marriage and the decline of marriage itself. Women have gone from being wives and mothers to being what? The live in sex partner? The woman who aborted the kid? The hook-up?

I saw a cartoon about modern day "dating" the other day that went something like this: first base - kissing. Second base - foreplay. Third base - going all the way. Home plate? Learning each others' names. There's no such thing as dating on college campuses anymore. Now, it's just "hooking up."

At the pregnancy center where I was trained to help women dealing with crisis pregnancies, one of our trainers also did abstinence training at local schools. He said the thing that shocked him the most was the amazement on the part of the young girls that they could actually say no. There was an assumption on their part that doing what boys want is just what they have to do.

"Modern" Feminism has created a culture in which both girls and boys view themselves as nothing more than sexual creatures. Girls are just objects to most boys today. And yes, that has led to an epidemic of date rapes. Do you have a daughter in college? A major part of today's orientation for young women going to college is how to prevent date rape and what to do when it happens to you.

But I believe it goes further than that. When men see women as nothing more than sexual objects, how is an increase in non-date rape also not inevitable? (And not just rape of women. There is also an epidemic of male rape going on today, but most men won't report it.)

That's how I see it, Val. And it was that to which I was referring in my post that angered you. There is a world of difference between the sin committed by a man who rapes a woman and the sin committed by the person who doesn't speak out against the objectification of women going on in our society today. There is no question about that. My point was addressing the question posed in that thread, re: why God would make all Americans suffer for the sins of some Americans. And my point is that we are all to some degree complicit in what is going on in our country. What we who consider ourselves Catholics are tolerating, every day, all around us, floors me. And I include myself in that.

Why am I not out there proclaiming the Gospel from the rooftops? Why do I go to work every morning rather than manning a line of offense against this vile culture I travel through to get there? Why do I accept that which none of us should be accepting? We Catholics should be calling for a spiritual revolution in this country - THAT is what, in answer to David's question, I was trying to point out "accepting God's punishment" means. Or what it should mean. Accepting God's punishment for what this country has become means we ALL accept responsibility for what it has become and we ALL accept responsibility for making it right. We are all of us sinners. And all of us are responsible for all of us.

That was the point I was trying to make.

God bless,
Barb

_________________
"Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic." Pope Benedict XVI

Barb,



I understood that point and completely agree with you. I'm not sure the "sexual revolution" was purely a product of feminism or the reason for the objectification of women. It seems to me that in the 60's the idea that sex should be confined to marriage was considered a part of an establishment that young people were rejecting as outdated but then again, I was born in 1960 so maybe not one to talk about what was going on.

I recall reading "Our Bodies, Ourselves" and realizing how feminist it's orientation and it basically was encouraging women to "embrace" their sexuality and that included having sex under any circumstances. So, I see where you're coming from that point of view but I think men were being encouraged in the same way and when I hear young people talk, men are being objectified in the same way women are. Up until September of last year, I worked with people who were mostly in their twenties and there was only one person there who was older than I. I didn't see any difference in the way the women talked compared to the way the men talked. The women were always going on websites and ogling celebrities or making their desktops half naked young men. I still think it's the decline of morality in general and not just a feminist thing.

_________________
Valerie Garcia
vals1990@yahoo.com

"Listen, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou mayest return to Him ....." St. Benedict

Feminist have been among the strongest opponents of pornography.

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David L (CA)
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” - Groucho Marx

David L,



Very good point.

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Valerie Garcia
vals1990@yahoo.com

"Listen, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou mayest return to Him ....." St. Benedict

Hi David,

You wrote:

I think the correct way to say that is this: "Some feminists have been among the strongest opponents of pornography."

Because it is also true that some feminists, especially the most modern ones, are among the strongest defenders of pornography.

See: A Feminist Defense of Pornography

God bless,
Barb

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"Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic." Pope Benedict XVI

My dear friend Val, I am so sorry this happened to you. I didn't know. I will pray for your healing.

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Pax et Bonum


Schultzz

Hi Val,

Let me ask you something. When you think of the 50s in America, what do you think of?

God bless,
Barb

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"Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic." Pope Benedict XVI

The author herself characterizes her book as "...a more extreme defense of pornography than most feminists are comfortable with."

Further she summarized feminist positions on pornography saying, "The most common one - at least, in academia - is that pornography is an expression of male culture through which women are commodified and exploited."

So her position is definitely a minority one among feminists.

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David L (CA)
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” - Groucho Marx

Yes. As I said, "some feminists..."

Not sure what your point is but it does seem to me a bit off the topic.

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"Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic." Pope Benedict XVI

Dick Clark, American Bandstand, Good Music, The birth of Rock and Roll, Folk Music. a much happier time.

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Bob C

Well, don't forget the Korean War, the Cold War, Jim Crow, McCarthyism, and anti-Catholicism.

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David L (CA)
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” - Groucho Marx

I took the question as to what do you first think of when you think of the 50's.

In addition to what you listed lets not forget the Cuban Revolution and the rise of the Communist Nation, 90 miles from US Shores.

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Bob C

Barb,



More stable families, racism, black listing, meddling in Latin America, the Korean war, a lot of white people in suburban neighborhoods that were springing up after the war. A variety of things but I wasn't there so my picture is mostly gleaned from what I observe in my parents generation. Very good people with their flaws but very hard working and respectful to others and involved with their families and churches. My own parents were good people but we were a little wild and chaotic.

_________________
Valerie Garcia
vals1990@yahoo.com

"Listen, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou mayest return to Him ....." St. Benedict

Schultzz,



Thank you so much. I think I'm mostly healed but was never the same afterwards. It was a hard time, my father was critically ill and I therefore, I had no one to tell except a priest in a confessional (not that I was confessing it but needed to talk) and he tried to help me but I knew about reporting laws and wouldn't let him because I was sixteen.

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Valerie Garcia
vals1990@yahoo.com

"Listen, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou mayest return to Him ....." St. Benedict

Hi Val,

The reason I asked about the 50s was to give you some insight into what happened in the 60s. The post WWII period, from 1945 to 1960, was a time of great economic growth in the U.S. Think of what happened during that time. A literal explosion in consumer goods. TV took off, with all the advertising and marketing that came with it. Homes were filled with TVs, people were buying cars, appliances, homes - indeed, a virtual revolution in home ownership took place in the 50s. Everyone was buying up all the new stuff that was suddenly available and more than making up for the tough times experienced during the war.

That was what the generation that came of age in the 1960s had grown up in. Everybody was jumping on the bandwagon; everybody had to get all the same stuff everybody else was getting. It was a time of "keeping up with the Joneses."

And coincident with the material excess was the rejection of spiritual things. The War had left its scars. In the face of the images coming out of Hitler's Genocide, many asked "How could there be a God?"

It was no surprise that the 50s led to the 60s, including Vatican II.

Yes, there were many different movements going on at the same time. But most of the "general rebellion" was against what the generation that had grown up in the 50s saw as the excessive materialism of their parents. There was a reason why "the Graduate" was so popular. College kids especially were asking themselves "what is the meaning of life"? What had their parents given them in their coming of age years? A rejection of Faith. An embracing of the material. A determination to find happiness in acquiring more stuff - partly to make up for the deprivation and horror of the War years.

Most of the "hippies" weren't about the sexual revolution. Few people really moved to communes. And most people weren't at Woodstock. For most, it was about rejecting the materialism of the new consumer culture they found their parents so obsessed with. "Peasant" shirts, making one's own clothes, growing one's own vegetables, returning to "the earth" - that was all about rejecting not our parents' bourgeoisness, but rather their materialism.

But that was a separate movement from either the women's liberation movement or the Marxist movements. Those were fringe outgrowths of the more general rejection of the status quo.

Most women weren't interested in the 60s with rejecting marriage or motherhood or hating men or marrying women. Most women in the 60s wanted to return to what they saw as the more natural world their grandmothers had lived in. They wanted to go back to farms, tend their own gardens, jar their own jellies...

The radical feminism wasn't there in the 60s. Women wanted opportunities to go to college, to pursue careers and get paid equally for equal work. But they didn't reject families or monogamy. They wanted it all.

The radical feminism grew along a separate path and really didn't take off until the 80s.

Back in the 60s, even in the 70s, women did not view ourselves the way the radical feminists would have women view themselves by the turn of the century.

God bless,
Barb

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"Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic." Pope Benedict XVI

Was it the start of the Slippery Slope in your opinion?

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Bob C

Hi Bob,

You asked:


You know, that's so hard to say. For every event that appears to be the start of a downhill descent, one can step back and find yet another, and another. The 60s can be directly traced to the 50s, but they can be directly traced to the events in the 40s and on and on.

I think any event in history holds the promise of helping us ascend to something higher or descend to something lower. It all depends on what our reaction to it is. And by that, I mean our reaction as the Church. As His people. As His earthly Arms and Legs and Heart.

Do we react to events as His Followers or do we react to events as the fallen earthly creatures we are? There were many women in the 60s who did not turn their back on the Church and on Her Teachings, His Teachings, when they sought greater opportunities as women. There were also many who did.

I like something Peter Kreeft once said, in one of his books. I'm sure C.S. Lewis said it before him (most of Kreeft is a lighter modernized version of Lewis!). He was talking about how much time people waste reading the news. He said there is not one political event we can impact that will have as great an impact on Eternity as the impact we have on the person sitting next to us. He pointed out that every person we encounter is going to end up in one of two places: Heaven or Hell. And we have the power to impact which one of those it will be. Yet, most of us are too distracted by "world" events to even notice.

I think it was like that in the 60s. I think it's like that today. Every moment is a slippery slope upon which we can slip into Hell. Every moment is a ladder with which we can climb into Heaven.

God bless!
Barb

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"Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic." Pope Benedict XVI

Barb,



As always your posts give me food to think about. As I look to my past life, I can see events where I went either way often almost at the same time.

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Bob C

I grew up in the fifties. As I recall, the Christian preachers at that time viewed the ascendance of rock n roll as clear evidence that American society was going to hell in the proverbial handbasket.

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David L (CA)
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” - Groucho Marx

And what did they say in the Flapper era?

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Bob C

Well, about 2300 years before the Flapper era, Socrates said:

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

Or as an Israeli Prophet of God said some 600 years before that:

"What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun."
(Eccelesiates 1:9: New American Bible, Catholic Version)

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In Christ,

Jim B

I will consider your position if stated with firm, well-thought-out, quiet reasoning. Hateful diatribe, ad hominem attacks and shouted rhetoric don't impress.

Val,



Yes. On the subject of modern-day feminism:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_feminism

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James Daly

"It is the Lord." (Jn 21:7)

One aspect of feminism comprises the false premise that both sexes are equal -they are not.

It is women and children first to the lifeboats NOT first come first serve...

IF suddenly there was as well a children's equality movement that as a tenet held that children were equal to adults in all regards I suggest that with all things being equal that more children would be sexually assaulted, sexually abused, and sexually taken advantage of as a result...

It would be 'fair' to assume that the rationally concocted, centrally planned, and government imposed fairness that leftists promote contrary to cultural norms centuries in the making would, giving the benefit of the doubt to those promoting such, as an unintended consequence increase disorder, diminish civil society, and negatively impact upon the common good.

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Daniel

"Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division." -- Luke 12:51

And what of "just discrimination"? Not all discrimination is 'bad' -as such, there is at a minimum some context implied with this.

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Daniel

"Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division." -- Luke 12:51

Daniel,



Are you quite sure of that? Are you sure that is quite what the Church teaches?

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James Daly

"It is the Lord." (Jn 21:7)

My commentary on that regard was directed at the leftist feminist movement. The Church of course employs the 'complementary' qualifier which at the very least implies there are differences even if such differences may never be fully identified and or understood.

The main point of my commentary was that society (through evolved and proven cultural norms) as well as individual efforts had prior to feminism 'protected' women in ways quite evident and as well in way that maybe are or were not so evident...

Abandoning women and children to the state -all, to be 'fair' is what leftism accomplishes. The feminism I refer to is but one flavor of this leftism...

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Daniel

"Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division." -- Luke 12:51

Ask Jim. That was before my time.

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David L (CA)
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” - Groucho Marx

Well, there were those cute dresses . . .

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In Christ,

Jim B

I will consider your position if stated with firm, well-thought-out, quiet reasoning. Hateful diatribe, ad hominem attacks and shouted rhetoric don't impress.

Now we see more leftist progress with allowing as a matter of policy and planning rather than as an unavoidable exception --military women in combat roles. Another camel's nose in the tent...

I wonder when children in combat will happen?

I await the USCCB statement that opposes this latest 'progress' -- I am sure one follows soon.

_________________
Daniel

"Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division." -- Luke 12:51