Presented the opportunity....

[00Syd]

This is a good thread.

I don't see it being much more heinous than watching a youtube video of an A-10 blowing an Afghan town to smithereens.

And, yeah.

Watching some of the footage that's played on cable news sometimes, I'm surprised that they don't just go ahead and show security footage of rape while reporting on it. I mean, with all of the other deplorable violence that they show, its almost like they might as well.

 

[rosco rathbone]

This is a good thread.



And, yeah.

Watching some of the footage that's played on cable news sometimes, I'm surprised that they don't just go ahead and show security footage of rape while reporting on it. I mean, with all of the other deplorable violence that they show, its almost like they might as well.

But the Taliban was, you know, asking for it. (via blame the victim)

 

[eastern sun]

To me this whole questions is about choice. Thats what draws the line between people like me and others here and active rapists and paedophiles, who use the arguments that they cant help doing it, its just an automatic biological reaction that they cant control.

Surely its about knowing boundaries??
. . . .

That responsibility has to start with us.

If we cant draw the line who can.

I want to echo your comments on choice. But add a bit more . . .

My husband and I both have many, many desires that we do not act on. Sometimes because we recognize the potential negative impact on the people involved (including ourselves). Sometimes because we're scared of the legal consequences.

We also have many desires that we act on, and then regret, because the chaos introduced into our lives wasn't worth it.

We've had some fairly outrageous desires that we have acted on, with negative consequences to ourselves, and will nonetheless be glad we had the experience.

And we've also walked the straight and narrow line of acceptable sexual behavior on the kinky end of the scale.

Life is about making choices. In your career, in your relationships, in your parenting, in the journey of your psyche. Not every choice you make will be a good one. And no one will be spared the consequences of the choices they make.

But I like that there's a place where this discussion can take place. Moral outrage among the deviant (on both sides of the argument) opens some interesting cognitive doors.

 

[eastern sun]

Watching some of the footage that's played on cable news sometimes, I'm surprised that they don't just go ahead and show security footage of rape while reporting on it. I mean, with all of the other deplorable violence that they show, its almost like they might as well.

The trajectory seems to be pointing in that direction.

Look at the "entertainment" choices prior to the fall of the Roman Empire. Twenty-five years ago, my college professors were suggesting we were in a similar historical pattern.

 

[ownedsubgal]

But the Taliban was, you know, asking for it. (via blame the victim)

if i recall didn't they show the footage of Saddam's hanging on primetime (so the kids can enjoy too)?

 

[rosco rathbone]

if i recall didn't they show the footage of Saddam's hanging on primetime (so the kids can enjoy too)?

And people have the audacity to call US sick.

 

[ownedsubgal]

Let's play follow the reasoning for a second:

1) You live in a world where refusing sexual advances is not an option that exists for you.
2) For an act to become rape, one partner has to refuse the advances of the other.
3) As a result, you cannot be raped.

Given that, is it starting to get through to you that other people may think your views on the matter are sufficiently skewed to become excusable? It's not difficult logic. No uses of the phrase "sick perv" have been recorded but those put into my mouth. Jesus, you make an effort to be inoffensive and people jump down your throat, I'm never doing that again.

Additional: I am quite aware that the hypothetical scenario involved watching a video, and I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that I don't from.

let's take a look at your little list there. i'll go ahead and give you number 1, although it's not exactly on the money. but your 2 and 3 define your own personal standards/perceptions of rape, not anything universally (or even legally) accepted. "well she didn't tell me no" is the Rapist's oldest and lamest excuse in the book. she does not have to say no, she does not have to fight, that is not what defines a rape. so yes i, like yourself or anyone else on this planet, can be raped. i have been raped, many times. because i am wired to submit/give in rather than scream or fight does not make the rape and the subsequent psychological and emotional trauma any less real or significant.

of course, i cannot be raped by the One who owns me. many other slaves would say the same.

 

[SimonBrooke]

OK, I'm probably going to regret ever getting involved in this thread. None of this is comfortable. In fact, this is very uncomfortable - which is why it's such a good question. My instinctive answer was 'No! No! No!' Methinks the man doeth protest too much.

I like violent sex where the boundaries between consent and non-consent are blurred.

Yes.

I'm not surprised. In the 80's, we travelled to Scotland to visit and perform in the gallery founded by a notorious murderer who had become a celebrated sculptor in prison.

Friend of my mothers (true).

That fact is another reason (maybe the main reason) I would never watch a real rape video. For that video to have existed someone would have had to be holding a camera and doing nothing to help or participating. To then watch that video I feel would be condoning or even encouraging rape.

what pisses me off about rape videos is that by watching the video, you essentially rape the victim again and again. in the vast majority of cases, the victim does NOT put the video out for consumption. in my opinion, by watching it, the viewer participates in the further dehumanization and abuse of the rape victim.

This.

When we post stories to Literotica no-one pays us to, but we get an audience for our work, and we relish that audience. By watching film of real rape you are giving the maker of the film - who must, inevitably, have been complicit in the rape or why was the rape not stopped? - an audience. This is similar to arguments about viewing child pornography. It is not victimless. You are providing an audience for the perpetrators, and in doing so you are providing a motivation to repeat the offence.

There are people that cross those boundaries because they have trouble seeing the difference. And then they hurt someone badly with their arousal.
That is the kind I was referring to. Blurring the boundaries can lead to crossing them.

Kat, the boundaries are blurred. They always are, always have been, always will be. Consent is actually a hugely difficult concept - it seems not to be, but it is. Coercion can take so many forms. People have sex for so many reasons - loneliness, low self esteem, fear of rejection, fear of violence, peer pressure, insecurity, guilt... the list goes on and on, and desire comes pretty much last. And consent is transient. Sex takes a long time - many minutes - and over that period the engagement of both parties varies. Consent waxes and wanes.

Even for people who do not play the games we play, there is not a clear binary divide between rape and non-rape. The grey area is wide, wide, wide.

So this is not an easy question with an easy, trite answer.

But the issue that makes it harder is this: how can you, as audience, tell?

You watch a movie of a couple of beautiful people making languid love in an elegant bedroom. How do you know that off-camera the director isn't holding a knife to the throat of the actress's daughter and saying to the actress 'make it look good or she gets it'? OK, that's an extreme and melodramatic scenario, but you don't know. And at a less extreme level, it's very probable that many porn actresses do what they do for a gamut of reasons not all of which could be described as free consent.

Rape is, culturally, very potent. It forms part of many of the narratives of our culture; it occurs in movies, in stories, in songs, in poetry, in painting. It's potent in part because although we like to see ourselves as rational beings, beings of the mind, in fact we're animals and as animals have evolved through a long period of small-group hunter-gatherer society in which what we now call rape had evolutionary benefits for both genders.

This is a complex issue. It will not go away.

So, finally, to try to give an honest answer to the original question.

Suppose I watched a film of what looked like rape, and had not been told in advance that it was real rape, yes I very possibly would get off on it (depending on the details - I get turned off by cruelty, and if the woman was consistently expressing distress then that would not be a turn-on at all). If I subsequently found out it was real rape I would be horrified and sick. If I knew in advance it was real rape I would refuse to watch it.

But I shall continue to explore the grey areas - some of them very grey areas - in my fiction; and I will defend other people's write to produce images or film of simulated rape, even though such work is now illegal here in Scotland.

 

[VelvetDarkness]

For those of you who said you would not want to watch such a thing, is it because you would feel so much empathy for the victim that the experience would be unbearable, almost as if you were being raped yourself?

Partly. I have a very strong sense of empathy and justice.

For those of you who said you would watch the video, is it more because of a morbid curiosity or because you think you'd be turned on by it? Do you feel that by watching the video, even though it had already happened, you would be in some way implicitly approving of the act?

what pisses me off about rape videos is that by watching the video, you essentially rape the victim again and again. in the vast majority of cases, the victim does NOT put the video out for consumption. in my opinion, by watching it, the viewer participates in the further dehumanization and abuse of the rape victim.

I feel just as neci does about circulating footage of non-consensual acts like that.

I wouldn't want to be turned on by it. I would hope that I wouldn't be but I wouldn't want to find that out about myself and then have to live with it. I would also feel that I was colluding with or approving of the rape by viewing it. That I can't change the fact it has already taken place doesn't enter into my internal moral debate.

I need the illusion. I need to know that it's all ketchup and fancy lighting and that nobody really got hurt. I could not knowingly have any part in the sorry industry that produces rape/snuff footage or collude in the abject misery of the women who are used for it. That I wasn't being asked to pay someone to watch rape footage would make no difference. I would still be colluding in it.

This is actually why I don't watch rape porn of any kind. A brief search has brought me to the conclusion that unrealistic 'rape' scenes with stupidly proportioned brainless women who can't act leave me completely cold. Anything that looks convincing disturbs me, so I stop watching in case what has been marketed as a consensual video actually shows non-consensual sex or has been made by threatening, blackmailing or coercing vulnerable women.

I'm an ethical consumer when it comes to everything else so that for me extends to pornography. I won't risk scarring my soul by viewing something I believe to be a genuine rape. I might wonder what was on the tape but I will be a happier person for not finding out.

 

[00Syd]

When we post stories to Literotica no-one pays us to, but we get an audience for our work, and we relish that audience. By watching film of real rape you are giving the maker of the film - who must, inevitably, have been complicit in the rape or why was the rape not stopped? - an audience. This is similar to arguments about viewing child pornography. It is not victimless. You are providing an audience for the perpetrators, and in doing so you are providing a motivation to repeat the offence.


<snip>

You watch a movie of a couple of beautiful people making languid love in an elegant bedroom. How do you know that off-camera the director isn't holding a knife to the throat of the actress's daughter and saying to the actress 'make it look good or she gets it'? OK, that's an extreme and melodramatic scenario, but you don't know. And at a less extreme level, it's very probable that many porn actresses do what they do for a gamut of reasons not all of which could be described as free consent.

Why are we assuming that the video of the rape is some purposely filmed video for profit? I was imagining some footage caught on a security camera.

If I knew that the footage presented to me was made by some covert rape-pornographers who go kidnap some girl, rape them and then film it, no fucking way would I want to watch it. If it looked even remotely produced I would probably have to turn it off immediately.

When we talk about video of a real rape, I was imagining security footage that just happened to capture it, or something. Does that make it any more forgivable for me to watch it? Maybe, maybe not. But that would make me feel much, much, much less guilty.

 

[intothewoods]

I have mostly been thinking about this question as if there were a hidden camera left on somewhere and the tape magically lands at your doorstep. I wasn't aware there were very many rapes that were actually filmed. If someone said to me, hey, there was a gang bang rape, and one of the guys filmed it, do you want to watch, that would be pretty gross to me and a turn off. It's a little difficult to answer this question in the abstract.

 

[intothewoods]

Why are we assuming that the video of the rape is some purposely filmed video for profit? I was imagining some footage caught on a security camera.

If I knew that the footage presented to me was made by some covert rape-pornographers who go kidnap some girl, rape them and then film it, no fucking way would I want to watch it. If it looked even remotely produced I would probably have to turn it off immediately.

When we talk about video of a real rape, I was imagining security footage that just happened to capture it, or something. Does that make it any more forgivable for me to watch it? Maybe, maybe not. But that would make me feel much, much, much less guilty.

lol, exactly.

 

[ownedsubgal]

I have mostly been thinking about this question as if there were a hidden camera left on somewhere and the tape magically lands at your doorstep. I wasn't aware there were very many rapes that were actually filmed. If someone said to me, hey, there was a gang bang rape, and one of the guys filmed it, do you want to watch, that would be pretty gross to me and a turn off. It's a little difficult to answer this question in the abstract.

interesting that both you and Syd imagined it that way...when i read the OP i immediately thought of a rape being intentionally filmed by someone involved with the crime, something that actually does happen quite a bit. i imagined coming across it via underground dark "porn" circles, either online or receiving a discreet DVD.

 

[SimonBrooke]

[side rant]Most 'comedy' annoys me these days, cause it's all centered around people getting hurt, humiliated, or made fun of. I don't think any of that is funny, and it just ANNOYS me. [/rant]

At the end of Stage 11 of the 2007 Giro d'Italia, someone painted a series of advertisements on the road just in front of the finish line. The paint didn't dry in time, partly because it was raining. The first three or four riders made it across OK, but then someone went down; and everyone else grabbed their brakes to try to miss the guy on the ground so they all went down too - and eventually there were fifty or sixty riders sliding across the finish line on their arses.

For anyone who's ever fallen off in a bike race, that was painfully funny. But it was partly painfully funny because you knew exactly what they were feeling, and because of how inevitable it all was. Yes, it's train wreck television. But I'll admit to laughing at that one till it hurt.

I don't see it being much more heinous than watching a youtube video of an A-10 blowing an Afghan town to smithereens.

Absolutely. The morality of watching this and watching rape are not dissimilar, except the guy in the A-10 is doing it to more people at once.

how many people here are wired "normally?" we're all a bit off, hence my confusion over my weirdness being singled out, excused and disregarded.

This.

 

[StrayKat]

Kat, the boundaries are blurred. They always are, always have been, always will be. Consent is actually a hugely difficult concept - it seems not to be, but it is. Coercion can take so many forms. People have sex for so many reasons - loneliness, low self esteem, fear of rejection, fear of violence, peer pressure, insecurity, guilt... the list goes on and on, and desire comes pretty much last. And consent is transient. Sex takes a long time - many minutes - and over that period the engagement of both parties varies. Consent waxes and wanes.

Even for people who do not play the games we play, there is not a clear binary divide between rape and non-rape. The grey area is wide, wide, wide.

As you say gray area is very wide. Doesnt that mean its so much easier to cross the line to black? And dont I have the right to be disturbed by that?

What I see is people talking about "play" in context with violence. I cannot but think that they cant really see full picture of real violence if they can see some kind of game in any aspect of it. Therefore my conclusion is that they would only understand the real difference if they actually experienced both sides.
I am not basing my opinion on anything but personal experience. I have been through some tough shit in life and any possibility of seeing somebody else going through the same thing makes me literally sick. There is no chance I could get aroused by it, and I think it is because I do know the full picture from the point of the victim.
Maybe I am wrong. Maybe those things are so individual that one cant give opinions even based on personal experience. But that is the way I feel. I saw people I knew being blown to pieces before my very eyes and I never stop to watch a car accident, I turn my head away.

 

[Belle966]

I'd watch it. I'm always intrigued by rape scenes in films, so if I had the chance to watch a real one I definitely would. When I watch something like that I find I'm able to switch off from the reality of it and view it in a purely sexual way, with no emotional connection or empathy with the victim. I'd never hurt someone without their consent and I don't support rape, but, to me, simply watching it does no harm to anyone. The victim wouldn't know that I'm eroticising her trauma. I don't think I could resist temptation to watch even if I did have a moral objection to it! I think it's natural for most people to be at least curious about watching.

 

[Primalex]

If anyone here feels my comment about blurred boundaries is directed at them, I would say they should really think about why they feel that way

I can tell you why.


Aquila wrote:"There is a world of difference between reality and fantasy, and it scares me that the boundaries are so blurry for some."

This "some" can only refer to the people who had posted before, otherwise how would (s)he have known that the boundaries are so blurry for some? You know that it is meant this way, because if you imagine that everyone had written how sick this is, this sentence wouldn't have made any sense. So this comment was directed at those who would watch it.

You replied to this with:"Seriously, its scary."

There you go.

 

[Primalex]

What I see is people talking about "play" in context with violence. I cannot but think that they cant really see full picture of real violence if they can see some kind of game in any aspect of it.

Saying it's okay to enjoy fake rape videos and it's bad to enjoy real rape videos is like crying about the World War 2 genocide while wearing a Nazi uniform at a costume party - very hypocritical.

 

[StrayKat]

I can tell you why.


Aquila wrote:"There is a world of difference between reality and fantasy, and it scares me that the boundaries are so blurry for some."

This "some" can only refer to the people who had posted before, otherwise how would (s)he have known that the boundaries are so blurry for some? You know that it is meant this way, because if you imagine that everyone had written how sick this is, this sentence wouldn't have made any sense. So this comment was directed at those who would watch it.

You replied to this with:"Seriously, its scary."

There you go.

To be honest I didnt notice anyone posting before her having any problems about their boundaries. So I assumed she was talking generally from her impressions not only here on this board or any particular person.
People with blurred visions exist. I find that scary. Shoot me.

Saying it's okay to enjoy fake rape videos and it's bad to enjoy real rape videos is like crying about the World War 2 genocide while wearing a Nazi uniform at a costume party - very hypocritical.

Yes, it is, especially if you never did anything to help victims of that genocid and you could. I personally try not to cry over anyone. Either I do something or I keep my mouth shut.
Just fyi I dont wear Nazi uniforms for any occasion - I despise Nazis and their uniforms creep me out. I dont watch fake rape videos either.

 

[jenniferbaby]

I keep thinking about and coming back to this thread. It's probably not good for me, but (and the car crash metaphor has been used many times already), like a car crash, I cannot avert my eyes.

I've not been raped, but my sister has, and she's also been molested. I cannot begin to provide her answer to this question, and I'd be interested to know what she'd think. Unfortunately, we are not on speaking terms so my curiosity will go unfulfilled. I'm not sure I'd ask her even if we were speaking.

I'm an ethical consumer when it comes to everything else so that for me extends to pornography. I won't risk scarring my soul by viewing something I believe to be a genuine rape. I might wonder what was on the tape but I will be a happier person for not finding out.

Yes, I find that my soul would be scarred watching a video of an actual rape, much as my soul would be scarred enduring an actual rape. What's the difference between me (and those who agree with me) and those on here who would watch the video and possibly become aroused by it?

 

[intothewoods]

interesting that both you and Syd imagined it that way...when i read the OP i immediately thought of a rape being intentionally filmed by someone involved with the crime, something that actually does happen quite a bit. i imagined coming across it via underground dark "porn" circles, either online or receiving a discreet DVD.

I wouldn't have guessed that many rapes were filmed. I would guess rapists wouldn't want the evidence around. Maybe they wear masks? If you consider that most rapes go unreported, perhaps it makes sense.

 

[Primalex]

I wouldn't have guessed that many rapes were filmed. I would guess rapists wouldn't want the evidence around. Maybe they wear masks? If you consider that most rapes go unreported, perhaps it makes sense.

It depends. Child molestation is usually recorded these days, as this happens within your own walls and it rarely happens at random. They are also rarely masked, maybe blurred when used as trade material for other child porn, but even then not often, as they assume their "production" never leaves these certain circles.

"Traditional" rape is indeed rarely recorded, but of course this number is increasing, just because of the increase of the availability of cameras. These days everyone with a cell phone has a camera. It's not that easy to rape someone with only one free hand if you are alone (unless it's a date drug rape) , so these videos tend also to be gang rapes.

 

[catalina_francisco]

I'd watch it. I'm always intrigued by rape scenes in films, so if I had the chance to watch a real one I definitely would. When I watch something like that I find I'm able to switch off from the reality of it and view it in a purely sexual way, with no emotional connection or empathy with the victim. I'd never hurt someone without their consent and I don't support rape, but, to me, simply watching it does no harm to anyone. The victim wouldn't know that I'm eroticising her trauma. I don't think I could resist temptation to watch even if I did have a moral objection to it! I think it's natural for most people to be at least curious about watching.

I actually dont think it matters a hoot to the víctim if you eroticise it or just watch it. From cases I have read about where such videos have been made available to others to watch, the victim/survivor has been further traumatised on top of what happened to them during the rape by the simple fact others have seen them in that situation, they have been humiliated publicly through it, and the fact there are people our there who were happy (for want of a better terminology) to watch it and did, and obviously found it entertaining otherwise why would they have watched? Sort of puts an end to thinking there is any hope of trust, safety or protection ever again.

Unfortunately, few who do see these things, come forward to alert the police or identify the perpetrators, so they can't use that as their excuse for why they watched. In some situations in life, you may think you are not supporting a particular negative, but while you stand by and watch and do nothing, supporting is exactly what you are doing...history is littered with stories of people who claimed to not have supported various atrocities, but were happy to benefit from the side benefits, or just stand by and do nothing to stop what was happening. Comes back to the popular 'not my problem' mentality many live by, and why it has been proven you are more likely to be helped by one stranger alone in the street if you are attacked, then when there are several strangers on the street. Doesn't make sense, but is a weakness of the human animal.

Catalina

 

[Netzach]

I admit to not reading all the thread, though I have scanned it.

To me this whole questions is about choice. Thats what draws the line between people like me and others here and active rapists and paedophiles, who use the arguments that they cant help doing it, its just an automatic biological reaction that they cant control.

Surely its about knowing boundaries??

Sure I find the visual, fantasy of forced sex hot. But the choice comes when deciding whether to watch something that shows the abuse of someone in real life. Someone who is forced without consent and who will no doubt suffer horrendous, traumatic consequences for the remainder of their lives.

When its a question of this..we all know where the on/off switch is. Its on the tv and it's on the dvd player. The choice is easy. You dont watch it.

Netz you are right though, the fact that people exist without a moral compass isnt our fault, but what is our choice, is whether we join them or not.

I enjoy the fantasy of forced sex, but I do not want to get my rocks off watching what amounts to someones life being destroyed.
I could watch and I could even perhaps feel aroused and I could equally choose not to feel guilty about watching, whether I took pleasure or not.
But there are some things I do not condone and do not want to be associated with. And even if a part of me were curious, my principles would kick in.

Again its a choice thing and I honestly believe that if I am not able to exert some self control over what I think is acceptable wank material, then I have a huge problem.

That responsibility has to start with us.

If we cant draw the line who can.

But the question was not "if you came across a video containing footage of a rape would this become your new favorite secret porn go-to"

it's simply "would you watch it?"

Not would you watch it and condone it, not would you watch it and think it was cool and circulate it, not anything further than "would you watch it?"

Maybe I'm insane or something, but I watch. I look. It's not about my comfort levels, the Vietcong guy getting his brain blown out, the contractor getting his head cut off, the iconic and *necessary* visual evidence of our bloody existence. My reactions to these images fan out in a complicated spectrum, and don't necessarily interfere with my ability to understand the obscenity of the acts that created them. This notion that by looking you become instantly complicit, to me lifts the blame off the people who DID THE ACTS.

Sorry I'm insensitive to the horror and shock over images of degradation, versus what happened. My ancestors are the people you see being bulldozed naked into graves, no one had a second's pause about plastering skeletal, diseased, dehumanized Jews all over the newsreels so the world could sit up and go, no way, no shit! Personally, to me, the outrage stopped with the bullet and the rest is quibbling over details. The outrage should be placed on whatever *allowed those images to exist* not on their existence. However many people insist it didn't happen at this point, how many more would be running around if Germans weren't records pervs?

Without images, reportage, gore - we'd still be fighting the freaking Civil War, if not Vietnam. Images exploit the person in them, but sometimes individual exploitations serve a larger purpose. The diarist baring their fucked up life, the person who donates their stiff to science, realizes this.

 

[nh23]

I think I'm odd in the fact that regular violence does nothing for me. I can't even watch horror movies. Or most action movies. They turn my stomach. But knowing how popular those things are, I have a hard time believing that there isn't a large subset of the population that gets turned on by them. (Yes, I realize movies are not the same as real life; I'm just using an example.)

However, sexual violence arouses me. It always has. I'm not sure what the difference is in my mind.

Like I said before, I have a huge violence fetish. However I know that it's not just me. I think a lot of people don't admit it, but just look at the movies and shows that are produced. Why are films like Saw, and Hostel so popular? There are a lot more people like me, they just don't admit it.

That being said if the things that happened to me in my childhood were on tape and people watched them for some sort of sexual gratification, I'm sure I'd have a problem with that. I'm sure it would be devastating and make things a lot worse.

However presented with the opportunity to watch a rape on tape, my honest answer is still that I would watch it.