LUDMILA ANDRÉA

We live in a culture where joking about rape, often in a sickeningly nonchalant fashion, has somehow become ‘okay.’ A culture where the perverted view of rape as a ‘fact of life’ has gradually become acceptable. Over time, rape and other forms of sexual violence have become trivialized. This trivialization has resulted in a society that is now able to regard violent, sexual acts as inevitable norms and behaviours that are deeply embedded into the fabric of our culture and therefore impossible to eradicate. Actions and rhetoric that normalize rape are rampant both in the media and in personal interactions and discourse and have bred widespread apathy and complacency among individuals who have been led to believe that change is unrealistic and unattainable. Rape culture is dangerous in and of itself, however it becomes exponentially more menacing when you realize just how discreetly it has been woven into the fabric of our lives.

The context surrounding rape culture is complicated and complex; a web of deeply entrenched cultural beliefs that are surprisingly resilient and difficult to break down. For the sake of clarity, I will refer to rape culture as a set of beliefs that “encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women … Where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. [A culture in which] 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.” (iix) Yet encouragement and support exist in many different forms, and it is for this reason that it has become so difficult to accurately demarcate the causes. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of rape culture is not merely what it suggests (that violence against women is ‘okay’), but is instead the terrifying reality that rape has come to be viewed as a norm; as something that is fixed and therefore impossible to change. However, what our society has come to see as something inevitable is, in actuality, something that is entirely contingent upon our current set of values and beliefs; a set of norms that can be changed.  

While reading an article the other day, I came across a metaphor that likened rape culture to something called the boiling frog syndrome. I had seen this metaphor applied to a wide variety of circumstances before, however seeing it applied to rape culture fit so perfectly that I didn’t know whether my shocked reaction was due to appreciation or horror. Perhaps it was a bit of both. In any case, the boiling frog syndrome—used to illustrate the inability for individuals to recognize slow, gradual change, no matter how significant the overall change—suggests that if a frog is placed in a pot of lukewarm water that is then heated gradually, the frog will not be able to perceive the danger and will slowly be cooked to death. Whether or not this a biologically accurate phenomenon, it exposes how contemporary norms surrounding rape have come to be viewed as ‘normal’ and ‘commonplace’: very slowly and discreetly. What originally seemed to be benign, ‘lukewarm’ circumstances have nearly come to a boil, right under our noses. The time has now come for us to deal with, what undeniably is, a very complex problem. To suggest that this is an easy feat would be ignorant and naïve, so I will not try to dilute the intensity of this undertaking. But if we do not mobilize our society and take collective action, we too will be met with the same fate as the boiling frog.