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Rape, domination and sexuality
Matt Ruben wrote a good op-ed in the Daily News today that points out that rape is a crime of violence against women and that calls for making the hate crimes law apply to such violence. I agree with this conclusion. But in the course of making the argument, Matt repeats a staple of feminist thought when he says that “research has demolished the myth that rape is a crime of lust or passion. It’s a crime of power: Men rape women because they seek to dominate and brutalize them.” That I don’t think is quite right. Rape is a sexual act as well as an act of domination. And we won’t understand rape, or the other ways both vile and much more innocuous, in which men dominate women unless we grasp that. Continue reading