In Aotearoa New Zealand a Facebook group has caused huge controversy over the last week. The group has existed for the last few years. My knowledge of the group isn’t extensive because I’d rather not know the details, but Roast Busters, from what I’m aware, is a group of young men boasting about their sexual exploits, reports have talked about their being incidents’ relating to sex with underage, drunk teens and group sex. Rape seems to have been a very real part of what they were involved in.
It also seems it was brought to the attention of the police a number of years ago but that has yet to lead to any criminal proceedings. With the group becoming known to the public, the controversy has erupted with much expression of a desire for vigilante justice.
The whole thing leads and has led to a number of discussions; definitions of rape and how it is discussed in the public domain with one radio station coming under fire because of the poor approach to the conversation undertaken by a couple of announcers when discussing the issue with a friend of one of the possible victims, the actions of the police and the nature of the justice system both in the fact that no convictions of any sort have yet taken place and in what it means to be innocent until proven guilty in the face of the vigilante expressions that have exploded forth. Another important discussion is how victims of sexual abuse are treated and the nature of the legal process that makes it very difficult for them to pursue justice.
These discussions are being had well in other areas so I would like to focus on a different factor – our culture of sexuality. At first glance my approach may seem conservative (and it is) but there is also a strong feminist presence in my views, but not a feminist perspective based on the use of overt sexuality as power.
Allow me to say it bluntly; our culture has a cheap view of sex. We’ve moved from a view of sex where it’s understood to be a deep expression of partnership and unity to it simply being a functional activity. Sex has too often become something seen as an emotionless form of entertainment where all that is required to pursue it is a base form of desire. It’s also often seen as some sort of currency used to entertain or sell products or ideas.
The prevalence of pornography heightens this view and when young people access pornography where people simply hook up to have sex and nothing more, often group sex, is it little wonder that groups like Roast Busters would form expressing a cheap approach to sex that sees it and those who engage in it as nothing more than entertainment?
Too often a deranged form of feminism has reinforced and shaped this problematic cheapening of sex. There is a feminism that uses sex as a form of power. It’s no accident that pop culture figures like Miley Cyrus seek to convey their strength through overt expressions of cheap sexuality – because that expression is seen as a form of power. We can work through a long list of pop culture icons that have enforced this cheap sexuality as power and currency. Then there is the misogynistic form of popular hip hop that expresses a cheap sexuality as a form of success where the male hip hop artist is king and women are simply products that placate the desire of the king. This isn’t even touching the surface of what we could talk about. As the father of a young girl I’m very aware of the cheapening of sexuality that goes on even in children’s stories, products, movies etc many would seem to take as very innocent.
What does all this lead to? A culture of cheap sexuality and ultimately, rape. In this culture rape can even look and sound consensual because the peer and pop environment demands and shapes it. This is a culture where groups like Roast Busters and their victims are the logical outcome. If we’re truly seeing the abusive nature of sex and sexuality that pervades our culture, Roast Busters should not surprise us but it should deeply grieve us.
The problem is that our cultural approach to sexuality does not mirror the inherent dignity of the human being. Hence the presence of the victim even when the victim could be argued to have been consensual. Rape is a question of power and our culture of cheap sex places the power in the hands of the initiator – the person who desires it and too often this is the male(s). A culture of cheap sex demands that young ladies conform because it’s simply entertainment or currency and I have no doubt that even when consent is given, it’s often simply because of a culture that has shaped the victim’s need to offer consent because that’s what she (and sometimes he) is supposed to do – large amounts of alcohol helps to bring down the natural defences that would guard the dignity of the victim. The victim may have been deluded by the wider culture into thinking they are expressing a power in consenting (and are therefore weak if they don’t), only to find, after the incident, that they actually feel abused and cheapened. How does such a victim then approach the justice system? In the face of the reality the façade of the lie very quickly falls away and what’s left is a broken and shattered human whose dignity has been brutally stolen.
The traditional and conservative view of sexuality may seem prudish to many, but there is a true feminism in it. The use of sex as currency and a form of power is not feminism, it is simply another objectification of the female for the sexual gratification of the male (and increasingly, vice versa). The porn industry feeds this.
True feminism sees and upholds the strength and holistic dignity of both men and women and it guards the sexuality of both as something beautiful and valuable. It undertakes that protection fiercely. In this form of feminism sex isn’t cheap and a culture with a true and healthy feminism at its core upholds sex and sexuality as something of infinite worth never to be used as cheap entertainment or promotional currency. Our culture is a long way from this, but if we really want to confront groups like Roast Busters we need to honestly and boldly confront our culture of rape that flows from a cheapening of sex and sexuality. We need a truly strong feminism to break through.