As a man who already thinks like this I feel like I'm stuck inside some kind of limbo where I'm complicit because I'm a man but expected to be silent because I'm not the type of man they're referring to.
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2026
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Even more fun, I was sexually abused by a guy as a kid, but I get to be constantly assumed and treated as the abuser rather than the victim.
It's absolutely not the goal, but I've just tuned completely out of any gender discourse online, because it feels like it's only ever shitty.
You're not complicit just for being a man. You're complicit if you allow the behaviour in your presence. When dudes make offhand comments, call them out, even if it's your buddy and there's plausible deniability (which they use to avoid repercussions, social or otherwise).
Make your buddies feel shame for toeing the line or making shit jokes. If you surround yourself with so many people who don't do that that you don't even have the opportunity to call anyone out, you're already doing a good job.
I voiced my displeasure, unfortunately, no one gives a shit what I think.
On top of that, I got rape threats against me as well, so yee.
Going for the endgame instead.
Keep doing it.
You think no one gives a shit what you think? They care more what you think than what women think, so push through the discomfort and keep doing it.
I don't know what the "endgame" is, but that discomfort is literally how rape culture is perpetuated. It's too uncomfy to call them out so they think nobody minds, and if you keep associating with them and not calling them out, they'll think you agree with them. Do you want that?
They dig their heels in when called out because they feel uncomfortable when called out, and they fucking should feel uncomfortable, so keep doing it.
You're not complicit just because you're a man. You can't take responsibility for billions of men.
You could like, make sure you challenge other men. That's kind of the issue, it's not that there's too many men who do this to require this response, but that the vast majority of men are more afraid of confronting other men than they are being silent about something they're morally apprehensive about.
Pretty sure that's the like, one of the main things that sexual violence prevention education and research targets is that men are overwhelmingly complicit in rape culture.
This is what is really needed. Calling out others for bad or unhealthy behavior when it’s seen but don’t go looking for it.
I lost a former good friend because he violated his wife and separately cheated on her. All of our friend group kept being friends with him even after he admitted to the allegations.
I get forgiveness, but he doesn’t learn if he faces no consequences and no one is even willing to say “that’s fucked up man” or “I won’t be friends with someone like you”.
For lesser things, a “dude, that’s gross” or “wtf is wrong with you” goes a really long way.
We also know that men who are more likely to be perpetrators of sexual violence are typically more misogynistic and anxious about their position in a perceived hierarchy (rape is not about sex, it's about power). So, yes, being perceived as less of a man for perpetrating or at the very least, not challenging sexual violence, is actually an effective deterrent.
A major problem is what you just described, which is that most men are actually quite insecure about challenging other men, and therefore often participate in social groups where that kind of deterrent is punished. There's two men in this thread already who were angered by the suggestion that they have to risk their social standing to contribute to sexual violence prevention, when they thought not being rapists themselves was all they had to do. It's also important to remember that this doesn't mean they haven't also committed some form of gender based and sexual violence, since they typically don't know what qualifies as that beyond overt sexual assault.
Like the above comment I am also a man who already finds the idea of rape abhorrent, and always did. This is also true, as far as I am able to discern, of all my friends and people I regularly associate with.
But I'm still in the described situation, where the prevalent messaging implies that I am somehow complicit and not doing enough. Am I expected to interrogate my coworkers and people on the street just in case, so I can confront them on these opinions if they happen to have them? Clearly not, but there's still this unspoken pressure that I should be doing more, and I have no idea what that looks like.
edit: Making this comment was a mistake.
A great place to start is recognizing your own responsibility and recognizing that despite the fact that you find rape abhorrent, you have likely done it without knowing.
Recognizing that is a good first step.
I remember having this same conversation with my husband years ago and seeing how disgusted he felt with himself when he realized that pestering his highschool girlfriend until her "not right now" turned into a "sure okay" was, in fact, rape.
Realizing that good people are capable of rape, and that we are human, and that consent matters above all else is a place to start.
Realizing that even when a woman says "asking for consent ruins the mood" that she is internalizing rape culture and that it doesn't mean you should stop asking tor consent is a place to start.
Fuck, I used to say that when I was young and stupid, and I realize now that I was wrong and absolutely internalized rape culture. I now think asking for consent is very sexy now that it's recontextualized.
A good place to start is reflecting and recognizing all the ways you have perpetuated rape culture in your life.
Do not assume that you haven't, because you have. You may not have intended to, but we all have perpetuated it.
You are not exempt from this and assuming we are innocent is what keeps us from progress.
Don't engage, the guy is a "woe-is-me" who is playing stupid about the topic.
Clearly!
Starting a post with an accusation of rape isn't really a great starting position, and frankly I find it disturbing that the default assumption is that it is likely I have pressured someone for sex at some point in my life. I have accepted a "not right now" as a no for as long as I can recall, and the idea that someone might actually suggest that "asking for consent ruins the mood" is, frankly, insane to me.
I did take a moment to reflect, and came up with nothing. I can think of one instance where I tried to initiate, but I felt my partner tense up before anything really happened. What happened next was I immediately stopped. She didn't even say no, but I knew she didn't want to continue.
I'm sorry your husband committed rape, and that you have apparently internalized the idea that all men are probably rapists to perhaps help accept that fact. I am not.
I get the idea you're not even buying what you're selling here with how defensive you got. I don't believe that you even believe you've never broken a boundary.
Truly, I don't give a fuck if you have, because I don't think fucking up when you're young makes you a bad person. You asked what else you can do, I said self-reflect. Maybe do that in private for more than 5 minutes. Don't report back.
Yeah dude, "you're projecting trauma" as a response to someone pointing out that these are values that are dominant in our society -- as I have said multiple times -- really shows how open you are to thinking about how your internalized values effects your participation in the reproduction of rape culture.
You know you are using the exact talking points we use to teach teens about rape culture, right? Like, word for word in some instances. Red flags all around for not an "aggressive" person, but more of a coercive, manipulative kind of perpetrator (something you see with a lot of "socialist" men who don't do the dishes). At this point, there's a high chance you've committed gender based or sexual violence with how you've been talking, because our culture literally socialized you to do it without even thinking and you're proudly saying "No, I think enough and have determined for myself that I'm not a problem." If you don't want to seem like the kind of person we teach people to look out for, maybe shut the fuck up and learn something.
I'm fairly certain you're disingenous, but I wanted to make sure this was here in case others followed the thread above and don't see someone else point out the issues here.
Those values are dominant in our society! If anything I've said has been construed in such a way that you think I believe otherwise then I apologise.
To be clear, rape culture is a real problem, and I do see evidence of that in society at large. I have no idea what I can do about it, as my own social circles are non-representative.
edit: Oh, and I do, in fact, do the dishes.
Cool, refer to the sources I listed above. Yes, you are expected to fucking confront other men when you see them contributing to rape culture. If you're so disgusted by sexual violence, that should not be an issue for you.
I have to confront them all the time just to defend myself, I'm sure you could handle it.
Edit: Refer below, this guy kindly volunteered to demonstrate the exact kind of problematic behaviour I've spoken about. This is what dangerous men sound like, so be conscious that even people who are saying they don't want to do harm -- whether they mean that or not -- are still fully capable of doing harm. If someone's main concern is dissuading any liability, they're likely not very concerned about the fact that they've harmed someone.
when you see them contributing to rape culture
What, the grand total of zero times? I don't go to bars or clubs, I don't go to parties where there are an appreciable number of people I don't know. The social contexts in which I do interact with people I'm not close to are either in-passing where there's no way to make that assessment, or professional, in which case we're both under considerable social constraints and such behaviour is not likely to arise even from someone with such predilections. Yes, I realise that last sentence is spoken from a position of privilege, and that behaviour does arise and is a problem for those targeted by it, but it's outside my scope of awareness and I'm not going to interrogate my coworkers on the off chance it has happened.
I'm willing to accept that maybe back in highschool I wasn't as aware of these issues and may have let an instance slide here or there, but even if I did recall such an event that was more than two decades ago, and I'm not going to hunt down someone I haven't seen in twenty years to admonish them after the fact.
Though come to think of it, there was one instance of it in an online chat within the past few years, and I did say something, which led to them basically flying off the handle and getting kicked from the server, so there's that at least. I guess I'm one for one?
D'ja read'em?
I looked at your links. No, obviously I didn't read three entire books in a couple of hours.
I'm also not saying it's not a real problem that exists, which seems to be the point you're trying to make. If it makes you feel any better I am willing to call out such behaviour if I see it happen. I just don't see it happen, because the people I regularly socialize with aren't assholes.
See, the thing is, you obviously didn't even look up "rape culture," or fully read my previous comments, because you'd know that rn you're trying to claim that you never see dominant values in society through your interactions with other men (apparently, you don't have any family).
I don't give a shit about the people who are more interested in maintaining their moral purity than actually participating in positive social change. You are primarily concerned with asserting that you're not a bad person for being complicit. Despite finding sexual violence "abhorrent," you're now actively engaging with rape culture by pretending that literally no men in your life say misogynistic shit ever or even misinformation they may genuinely not understand is harmful and are pretending that I've in any way said you have to approach random men with a prepared gotcha interview to challenge rape culture.
Yeah dude, totally, you seem like the kind of guy who is really willing to live up to his morals. Would you shut up now? I don't care about what you have to say besides, "sorry, I'll try to learn more about this."
I am asking, in good faith, what extra steps I am expected to be taking here, because yes, I am claiming that I don't associate with misogynists or people who promote such misinformation. If the actual answer is "read a bunch of books on the subject" then maybe that's what I need to do? But I find it extraordinarily unlikely that it will reveal that people I interact with are secretly misogynist in ways that I can actionably address.
So if someone says "hey, we should rape some women" you think most (the vast majority in your words) men that don't consider raping women would stay silent? Like we don't have wives, mothers and daughters?
What a bullshit strawman.
Refer to comment above, shut up otherwise.
Pretty sure that's the like, one of the main things that sexual violence prevention education and research targets is that men are overwhelmingly complicit in rape culture.
This is shocking if true with any kind of recent data.
Don't get me wrong I believe there was time this may have been true. Growing up in the 70s/80s there were definitely men that thought grabbing women's asses was funny and treated drunk women as consenting... the movies "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Pretty in Pink" have some terrible examples of what some of the norms were. But is this true today? I feel like things are much better now but perhaps I'm just naive.
My brother in Christ, the President of the United States of America is a convicted rapist pedophile part of an international human trafficking ring. Rape culture is not just a term that refers to "when you rape someone and other men don't stop you," it describes cultural norms that facilitate gender based and sexual violence, like slut-shaming, victim blaming, objectifying women at all, devaluing women's sexual pleasure. It also includes what is recognized as sexual violence. So, you mentioned someone grabbing a woman's ass, which positions sexual assault in a workplace; probably the most common setting in our cultural imagination besides somewhere random by a stranger. Sexual violence is more likely to come from someone you know closely, like a friend, family member, or romantic/sexual partner. Your assumption of what rape culture is is itself an example of how it contributes to misunderstandings of what sexual violence is and therefore helps facilitate it through that misunderstanding. I think it'd be a tremendous lapse in awareness to suggest those are not normal things in this culture just because a handful of libs say they don't like it that much anymore without doing anything to actually change that. Did you forget about fuggin' Gamergate?
Since a lot of sexual violence prevention curricula are designed with student bodies in mind, as in a high school or university setting, much of the research conducted to educate on sexual violence prevention is therefore dedicated to getting men to fucking stop doing it, because they are overwhelmingly responsible for perpetration of sexual violence and reproduction of that culture.
Some basic sources to educate yourself and any others who come across this:
Sills, Sophie, Chelsea Pickens, Karishma Beach, et al. 2016. “Rape Culture and Social Media: Young Critics and a Feminist Counterpublic.” Feminist Media Studies (Abingdon) 16 (6): 935–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2015.1137962.
Henry, Nicola, and Anastasia Powell, eds. 2014. Preventing Sexual Violence : Interdisciplinary Approaches to Overcoming a Rape Culture. Palgrave Macmillan.
Fanghanel, Alexandra, and Alexandra Fanghanel. 2018. “How to Break a Rape Culture: Gendered Fear of Crime and the Myth of the Stranger-Rapist.” In The Routledge International Handbook on Fear of Crime, 1st ed., edited by Murray Lee and Gabe Mythen. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315651781-29.
You need to understand just how pervasive it is, to the point that most men you know over a certain age (let's say 25) have absolutely raped someone by accident, with the word rape being defined as sex without explicit and enthusiastic consent.
Most rape is not ugly, most rape is not violent, most rape is clumsy and grey-area because someone pushed boundaries and the other person didn't communicate them or didn't feel safe saying "stop". Most men who have raped are not bad men, they were not properly educated on consent, hence the huuuge focus on teaching people about consent at a very young age. When everyone understands consent, we are able to prevent these situations.
Like fuck, there are still so many people out there who will say asking for consent "ruins the mood", which is something they were taught to feel by popular culture (movies, etc.), and this is how rape culture is perpetuated. We are all complicit until we are all serious about learning about rape culture and how it invades our media, and calling out our friends when they make stupid jokes that also perpetuate rape culture. Treating rape like it's all violent is also perpetuating rape culture, because it ignores all the times it is not violent, which is most rapes.
Rape culture is so much less obvious than the examples you've listed.
You aren't complicit because you're a man, not to belittle your feelings though. I get uncomfortable around generalised terms in regards to gender issues, because I was always told never to do that, but it's something I similarly have to deal with.
Sometimes the conversation doesn't require your voice, and that's okay. Ideal even. If there are people with more skin in the game, they're more than welcome to have their say in my eyes.
Great, now the manosphere is going to start advocating for cannibalism
Hey, hey, hey. Don't equate cannibalism with that heinous shit
The problem with both is consent.
Not necessarily. One can consent to both. Moreso, there are edge cases. You get abandoned on an island with a dead stranger, I can find moral permissibility in eating them to survive; I wpuld want them to eat my body if reversed. I cannot think of a single edge case where raping a living or dead person is morally permissible. Like, this is basic philosophy; thinking. You didn't think. You just regurgitated an opinion. You're still a child. Fucking work on yourself!
If the files told anything, it's that eating human flesh is one of the gazillionaire's delicacies.
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