I just feel like it's weird how much critical feminist analysis exists of male fantasies, how these are shaped by social factors and how they don't exist in a vacuum... And then people come and defend rape fantasies For Women™ and somehow brand them as "feminist" by arguing that "most women have rape fantasies". Can we have a little self-awareness please.
I do think it's hard to tackle this topic. It's easier to condemn rape fantasies when the fantasy in question involves being the perpetrator. People don't know how to approach it when it comes to fantasies about being the victim of violence. It's uncomfortable. It might feel like victim-blaming. So it goes underdiscussed.
IDK, honestly I don't think I am myself fully equipped to approach the topic because I'm not an expert of any kind. I just think it's good to have open conversations about it in feminist circles.
I just want to raise a few points:
- The fact that erotic literature for women mostly caters to these fantasies is often used as "proof" of how women are somehow predisposed to this kind of fantasies. I wanna ask, is it common in erotic literature because it's naturally popular among women, or could it be that this is a common fetish because most erotic content aimed at women features it?
- I think the bioessentialist idea that women are biologically inclinated to have rape fantasies is very stupid, so I'm not even gonna engage with it. Therefore we have to recognize that rape fantasies are a product of external influences. We live in a society where social factors -whatever those might be- make it so it's extremely common for women to develop fantasies about being degraded. Is that something to be celebrated? Isn't this kind of fucking sad?
- What kind of argument is "Most women do it, so that makes it good", anyway? This is the same kind of thing people say to defend make up or weight loss pills.
