User:Landmartian/Some thoughts on rape fantasies, victim blaming, etc. that seemed clever and profound at the time
I was wondering, what's the psychology behind women's rape fantasies? Normally, people fantasize about what they would actually want to experience in real life. For example, if you're poor, you may fantasize about having a million dollars. Or if you would like to have sex with a movie star, you might have a sexual fantasy about doing that. In both of these cases, the person fantasizing would prefer the actual experience to the fantasies. Normally fantasies are about having more power, which explains why kids like to pretend they're superheroes or whatever. When you have more power, more possibilities are open to you, and life is more interesting and fun.
Yet in the case of rape fantasies, people get turned on by pretending to have less power. This seems strange because everything you can do while being raped, you can also do while consenting. So, what possibilities does rape offer that consent doesn't?
Maybe the possibility it opens up is that of "losing" a fight for control. It reminds me of board games, which quickly become dull once it's evident that you have gained such an advantage that you can't lose. The excitement comes from the fact that it remains to be seen whether you'll experience the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. The roll of the dice, your diplomacy, your strategic and tactical skill, etc. determine whether you win. You accept a set of rules that has you surrender some of your power over the outcome of the game, in order for the experience to be more fun. Of course, the whole time, you reserve the right to quit the game, in the event you decide it's not fun anymore.
Rape play involves something similar, in that you agree to submit to a rule of being raped, and explore the possibilities that might come from being subjected to experiences you might otherwise feel inhibited about. So, for example, I had a girlfriend who said she was reluctant to do anilingus, but might be willing to do it if we worked it into a forced sex scenario. Maybe her normal distaste for that practice was overcome by her enjoyment of rapeplay (since she did, after all, prefer to do rapeplay every single time we had sex), or maybe the fact that it was a sexual practice she disliked helped enhance the excitement of rapeplay because of the very fact that it was not enjoyable to her under normal circumstances; the whole point of rapeplay is that you do stuff you're pretending you don't want to do, and so if you actually don't want to do the sexual practice in question, then it heightens the realism of the rapeplay if you include it in what the "rapist" is compelling you to do. Kind of like how it isn't all that fun to be stuck in jail in Monopoly, but including that sort of unpleasant experience in the game makes it more exciting.
Life is general would be boring if there were no challenges, and no way to lose. If there were no way to fail, what would be the joy in succeeding? It would be commonplace and taken for granted. Pleasures seem sweeter, perhaps, when they can be contrasted with pain, or when one has feared pain (much as the board game victories that stand out in memory are those in which one was about to lose, but found a way to win despite the odds).
What are the effects when people see in the newspaper, "A victim who carelessly walked down a dark alley without pepper spray got savagely raped"? In a culture that blames the perpetrator, people might get fearful, angry, etc. at the rapist's exercise of power. But in a culture that blames the victim, they might say instead, "How smart I am to avoid walking down dark alleys without pepper spray!" Thus, at the cost of one victim's being raped and blamed, millions (or however many read the article) get the opportunity to pat themselves on the back for being superior. We see in crime articles all the time that people ridicule stupid criminals, perhaps as a way of feeling better about themselves. What if another source of psychological comfort were made available, in which people felt better about themselves by ridiculing stupid victims?
People self-esteem often is affected by how many people they can feel superior to. There are comparatively few rapists, but comparatively many rape victims. Therefore, the self-esteem of the masses can only be raised so much by being able to blame rapists. By also blaming victims, it becomes possible to feel superior to a much larger number of people.
Also, in making comparisons that will determine their self-esteem, people tend to pay most attention to those they consider their peers — i.e. those they identify with. It's probably easier to identify with rape victims than rapists, which further enhances the self-esteem boost from victim blaming. In short, it appears that there may be a lot of foregone opportunities for social benefit that those who denounce of victim blaming have to answer for.