In Praise of Penny Arcade on Rape Culture

[Trigger Warning: I am writing about rape again, and I will be snarky, sarcastic and otherwise more emotive in my writing than average]

If there is one thing that could be said for Penny Arcade’s handling of the criticisms of “The 6th Slave” comic, it is that they did begin a serious discussion of rape culture that is probably reaching a wider part of gaming culture than “ever before” (*hyperbole*). More non-feminist gamers are hearing this discussion than would ever hear of similar discussions of rape culture that occur in feminist gaming forums, on feminist gaming blogs, and non-gaming feminist blogs.

When I read the Debacle Timeline, I am struck by how many genuinely thoughtful posts have been created discussing the whole affair. Many of them don’t really seem to understand what feminists are trying to express by the concept of “rape culture,” but many of them do make an honest attempt. Some posts show serious reflection, and a change of mind. They also inspired the creation of Team Respect, who are pretty willing to patiently describe the aspects of rape culture to those asking about it at xkcd forums. It might be true that the debacle also started a flame-war in the blog comments, over e-mail and on twitter. But many of the actual blog posts linked through the Debacle Timeline are pretty thoughtful, for the most part.

Perhaps that is something good to come out of the whole affair. It is true many did not listen. But some did. Many have been saying they never considered such things before, and now they see differently. So congratulations to Kirby Bits for speaking her mind. And congratulations to Penny Arcade for bringing discussions of rape culture to a wider gaming audience. Too bad it had to happen in such an ugly way that probably hurt many rape victims and threatened many others along the way.

In this post I will:

1. Talk about different kinds of definitions; question what kind of definition would be helpful for discussing rape culture
2. Offer some reasons that I think understanding rape culture is not best done through definitions. Instead, we should seek to understand rape culture as “an Invitation to Unfamiliar Experience.” If so invited, one should treat it (metaphorically) like looking at shapes in the clouds together.
3. Talk about some reasons that the discussion of experiences in the case of rape is especially fraught. For women who have been raped, vulnerability lies in opening one’s experience to dismissal (this denies subjectivity, just as rape denies subjectivity and so can cause PTSD responses). For many men who have never raped or don’t consider themselves to have raped the vulnerability lies in the suggestion they “are rapists” or “support rape.” I don’t understand this aspect very well (as described here)
4. Talk about Rights and Responsibilities

Note: I did not do all that; overly ambitious for my lunch hour and coffee break. I save 3 and 4 for a later day.

1. Rape Culture and Definitions

A lot of people have been asking for a “definition” of rape culture. But there is something weird about this request. First, there are a number of different kinds of definitions and no one really specifies what kind of definition they are looking for. Here are some quick examples drawn from a much more detailed discussion here.

• Nominal definitions: explain the meaning of a term, in some loose sense of “meaning.” They want the person hearing/seeing the definition to get a loose idea of how to use the term. These are the kind of definitions often found in dictionaries (also called lexical definitions); or the kind of definition  I give if I explain ‘stick’ by holding up a fallen tree branch and pointing at it (also called ostensive definitions)
• Stipulative definitions: provide a specific meaning of the term. These might not commit to all the elements of the term that would be described in a dictionary, or would be commonly understood by speakers of a language. Rather than reporting on all the ways the term is used, it stipulates a special use for a special purpose. These descriptions aim to adequately describe one single, restricted, use of the term. (Often used to restrict the domain of discourse, or provide a short-hand way of talking about something that otherwise would take paragraphs or pages to explain).
• Descriptive definitions: like stipulative definitions, descriptive definitions aim to spell out the meaning of a term. Unlike stipulative definitions that restrict this meaning to only one of the ways the term is used in natural language, descriptive definitions want to provide an adequate understanding of all the ways that the term is used. Philosophy often uses descriptive definitions, and this is part of why it is such a drag to read.
• Explicative Definitions: “Sometimes a definition is offered neither descriptively nor stipulatively but as, what Rudolf Carnap (1956, §2) called, an explication. An explication aims to respect some central uses of a term but is stipulative on others. The explication may be offered as an absolute improvement of an existing, imperfect concept. Or, it may be offered as a “good thing to mean” by the term in a specific context for a particular purpose.” [Ed note: this is a direct quote, because I did not think I could phrase it any more simply or eloquently] Philosophy also often uses explicative definitions.

These distinctions are not all mutually exclusive; for example a dictionary might try to provide a descriptive definition or a dictionary might supply an ostensive definition. Each of these types of definition has a “use” so it is not like one is better than the other. Instead, each is more adequate for different tasks. (e.g. ‘Water’ means a lot of things in common speech. When I am talking about what is in the glass beside me I refer loosely to H2O plus fluoride and all the other impurities, because I just mean ‘what is in the glass.’ But a scientist might stipulate “I am talking about H2O” and try to make her samples as pure as possible in order to get more precise data).

So what kind of definition are people supplying when they talk about “defining rape culture”? What kind of definition are people asking for when they want someone to give them a “definition of rape culture”?

The definition provided at the Shakesville 101 post in the quoted parts of that post seems to me to be something like a stipulative definition. It is not trying to define all of the ways that “rape” is commonly understood or that people who speak English might intuitively understand “rape culture.” Instead, it is stipulating a special and restricted use of a term.  In fact, I think it might be introducing a new term, given the source (though the term might date back to a film before that book).

In many cases, when a new term (or a new use for an old term) is introduced, the first discussion of the term is stipulative. This can also be done ostensively; for example imagine the inventor of the mouse for a computer holding it up and saying “this is a mouse.” They would clearly not be drawing on common understandings of mice. Instead they are sipulating the name of the thing. (They might be drawing on visual associations with common understandings, and after the stipulation was first made, it might become part of common understandings.)

The problem with providing a stipulative definition that only introduces the term or restricts the use of the term as “the very definition” of rape culture is that the “definition” part of stipulative definitions are rarely very informative. Their purpose is to create a short-hand or restrict a domain of discourse to examine only one of its parts. The informative part comes after, when the term is used to explain or discuss some feature, set of facts, phenomena etc. The purpose of the stipulation is only to make the discussion more easy to get a handle on, the discussion is where the information lies.

To keep with the example of a computer mouse: “this is a mouse” does not tell you very much about the thing and might even be confusing the first time you hear it (as in the very first time, back in the dark ages when it was invented) due to associations with other things called mice that are quite different than this thing. If you hear the term “mouse” and kept thinking, but mice are little furry animals that squeek. It might make it harder for you to understand the plastic thing with a roller ball and a cord. You might think it was a cat toy (also called mice) or something. You begin to get an understanding of a computer mouse only once the inventor begins to tell you what it is for, what it controls, how it works and so on. That can take a lot of explanation. It will take an even longer time if you don’t even know what a computer is (maybe I am showing my age *snark*).

There is a parallel problem with providing stipulative definitions for rape culture: people have a tendency to think “well what is culture? I’ll look that up. Ok, got it. Now what is rape? I’ll look that up. Ok, got it.” Then they try to put these together into an understanding. But that won’t help. It is like trying to understand a computer mouse by analogy to live mice and their characteristics (especially if you grew up in isolation from computers (the analogy here to discussions of rape culture is growing up without understanding what systemic oppression is; for a short primer see here, for a long primer see my previous post). It won’t help because that is not how stipulative definitions function.

The definition in quotes at Shakesville seems stipulative to me:

A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women.

The definition restricts the domain of discourse to only those beliefs (and what ever else: values, etc. that goes into “a complex”) that encourage male sexual aggression against women. Why doesn’t it talk about women’s sexual violence against men? Because it is a stipulative definition, and stipulative definitions by their nature are trying to restrict what is discussed rather than capture every possible, or actual way a term could be used (as a descriptive definition would). Most often the stipulation restricts for a reason, perhaps because the theorist thinks analysis A fits these cases, but not those and only wants to talk about these cases.

The rest of the quoted definition seems ostensive to me:

It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.

In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable as death or taxes. This violence, however, is neither biologically nor divinely ordained. Much of what we accept as inevitable is in fact the expression of values and attitudes that can change.

These are not necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for being a “rape culture.” In order to provide a good descriptive definition, you must supply something like necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. It is not a nominal definition describing how most people actually do use the term (as a dictionary would). It might be moving toward an explicative definition, but it is not there yet (that would take argument, or reasons why this understanding is better than other understandings, at least for X purposes). I think these are best understood as making up an ostensive definition: They point out features that are common to the societies that have the belief complex stipulated above.

The definition provided at the Shakesville 101 post in the non-quoted parts is an ostensive definition. It is a definition by way of pointing to a collection of things and saying: “that is what ‘rape culture’ is.” Very similar to holding up a stick and saying “that is a stick.” (ETA: Here is another example of an ostensive definition regarding the Stubenville rape, trigger warning for images, video, and graphic descriptions at the link.)

The problem with providing an ostensive definition for things that are more complicated than sticks is that the person is then left to try to figure out what unifies these disparate parts. With a stick it is relatively simple. You just have to figure out that they mean the thing in their hand rather than say everything that is not in their hand (this, too, is complex as Quine points out when he says it is amazing that we can learn this way: why don’t we think ‘rabbit’ means just its ears or ‘look food!’ or something else). When the thing being ostended to is complex, and especially when the thing ostended to requires looking at old things in new ways it can be really, really, really difficult to get a handle on what unites the parts. This is true even when one has already provided the stipulative definition.

2. Rape Culture as an Invitation to Unfamiliar Experiences

Second, I am not sure rape culture is really something that can be defined, or perhaps more accurately, I am not sure that any particular definition would provide a very good understanding of rape culture. The term makes it sound like a “thing” but it is not really a thing. Instead, “rape culture” seems more like a theoretical framework that illuminates certain aspects of a culture. When people talk about rape culture it seems to me they are either talking about how thinking of rape on certain models illuminates otherwise inexplicable features of our culture that persist and sometimes seem intractable. They say, “look at it this way, and see how what was once invisible is now clear? See how what was once inexplicable now makes sense?”

Understanding rape culture (especially the first time) is not really best done defining a thing, or even a concept. Those seeking to explain it to someone who does not already understand would do better to offer something more like an invitation, “walk with me and I will show you the world as I see it, can you see it?” [Ed Note: Please excuse the ablist description that assumes all can walk and see and so forth.] It is a description of an experience. And that experience is one that is not really talked about much outside of discussions of rape culture. It is a description of a marginalized experience: the experience of rape victims. This is why I think the work Team Respect is doing on the xkcd forums is really important. People there are saying “I don’t see it.” And they are patiently responding “here, look again.” Sometimes this takes several back and forth exchanges, but then the person sees it:

I guess it looks that way from the right angle…

Only for a person like me to see it, I have to squint and cross my eyes while unfocusing like one does to see those magic eye picture things. And even then I can only see the image clearly for a few seconds.

And that is right. Because we often cannot see clearly experiences we do not share. But just because we can’t see something, or have a hard time keeping the perception before our eyes even once we’ve seen it, that does not mean it is not there to be seen. It is perhaps something like Wittgenstein’s Duck-Rabbit.

An image of the Duck-Rabbit perceptual-organization illusion

If you tilt your head one way it looks like a duck. Tilt it the other and it looks like a rabbit. It can be hard to see it both ways at the same time. But that does not mean that when you are seeing the duck, the rabbit is no longer there. Nor does it mean that this is “really” a picture of a duck and it is not “really” a picture of a rabbit.

Men and women who have not walked on the road of rape culture with someone saying, “here is what I see, can you see it?” “No.” “Well, how about now, do you see that outline there? Do you see that shadow there? I put those together and I get this.”

Perhaps it is not so much like walking down a road as it is like looking at shapes in a cloud. When we look at cloud shapes together one of us might immediately see something. The other might not see it. The persons who sees it might even name the shape and still the other person might not see it. The person who sees it might have to continue describing how they are putting the pieces together, and it might not be until the lines and shadows are pointed out and the connections to parts of the thing seen are made explicit in each of those shadows that the second person comes to see the cloud in the way similar to the first.

Sometimes analogies with familiar experiences can help make the shape come into view. The description at No More Anthems is telling in this regard:

For six months I didn’t see what the big deal was.  Then I started thinking.  I dismissed people every time they brought up “rape culture”.  I feel like I’ve seen it in action now.  The actions of the anonymous members of the Penny Arcade defense league gave more than enough proof that ‘rape culture’ is not just some fantasy cooked up in gender studies classrooms by “man-hating feminists”.  I can’t, and won’t, dismiss it out of hand anymore.

I also mocked the idea of trigger warnings.  Then I put myself in their shoes.

Here’s a secret.  I’ve struggled with mental illness and I came close to being kicked out of school for being suicidal.  This is one of the most painful periods of my life.  It’s such a painful thing to me that I’ve screamed at one of my closest friends because I felt she was making light of suicide.  It’s complicated.  I can crack jokes about suicide, but black humor and gallows humor is a coping mechanism for me.  The truth is, I get uncomfortable when other people talk about it.  I get upset if people make light of it.  I know what it’s like to feel like you can’t talk about it.  I know what it feels like to be dismissed by people with the attitude that anyone who commits suicide is a pussy, or that if you failed to kill yourself it’s because you’re just seeking attention.

That’s a trigger.

It was wrong.  I was wrong.  Jerry is right that we often exist in our own different realities that are wildly foreign to one another.  That’s why someone else’s reality and trigger warnings shouldn’t be dismissed.  Mike shouldn’t have dismissed it.  Penny Arcade fans shouldn’t have dismissed it.  I shouldn’t have dismissed it.  That you or I can’t feel it doesn’t make it any less true for someone else.

The six most powerful words in the English language:

I was wrong.  I am sorry.

All I can say to that post is thank you. It actually makes me cry because of the honesty and self-reflection (*emote*). Whomever this person is he/she moved passed a reactionary or defensive stance and really began to think about it.

So I think people should stop looking for “definitions” of rape culture. If one does not understand rape culture one should instead ask for a descriptive explanation of an experience.

I was going to continue with another bit about how to deal with differing experiences, but I will save that for later because this is already way to long.