Rape Culture

It's strange that there was a time in my life not too long ago in which I had no idea what "rape culture" was, much less how much it shaped my outlook on life. I used to be one of those feminist-hating-feminists that high schoolers typically think is a really awesome concept. I don't remember anyone ever actually telling me that feminists were bad or overly radical, it's just the sort of impression I got from society. I don't remember anyone specifically telling me girls who have too much sex are bad people, it was just what everyone "knew." I am, however, keenly aware of why I subscribed to the rape culture logic even while I was becoming more open and progressive, but that's probably a long and rage fueled enough story to be its own separate post eventually.

The main point of this is, I guess, rape culture sucks, and people who pretend it doesn't exist suck, and people who don't realize it exists (like my mother, I believe) need to be educated about it.
This kinda ties into part of my previous post where I said something to the effect of how I hate being female because I can't just go for a walk alone downtown at night. I used to live in a fairly rural community, so there was no reason for me to want to go walking around at night, so I guess I never really got those warnings women who grew up in more populated areas did. I mean, I still heard about the dangers and basically understood them, but I figured they were just a bunch of paranoid women, and I didn't want to identify with them; I still don't, really. But now I've moved to a more densely populated college town. Pretty soon after moving here with my roommate, I really got sick of either being in the apartment or being around her, but the second I suggested the idea of walking alone downtown, my roommate and my best friend flipped out. Under no circumstances was I to be by myself at night. I found the idea ridiculous, but I heeded their caution anyway. My roommate would occasionally talk about how there was no way she would walk around in our neighborhood at night, but I find her rather paranoid about most things, and this was no exception.
But then I started reading more feminist articles and books, and came in contact with more news reports and horror stories. I began understanding that the world was even less of a safe place than I considered it before, and that people who blamed rape victims for their assault were not as few and far in between as I had thought.
Then, there were two things that really drove home the prevalence of rape culture and how unsafe I was in my neighborhood in general.
I'm on OkCupid, which is a dating site on which you can write up and answer a bunch of questions in an attempt to find a match who has similar values as you. There is one question that really sticks out to me as one with an obvious, sane answer, but apparently not everyone gets it. The question is "If you were at a party with a person of the gender you like who is drunk and hitting on you, but you know would never normally have casual sex with you, would you take advantage of the situation?" or something like that. To me, the obvious answer is no. Of course you wouldn't take advantage of a person's inebriated state and have sex with them when you know they wouldn't do so sober. However, at least half the guys I was checking out who answered this question answered "yes" that they would in fact take advantage of that person. I cannot comprehend how someone can rationally think "this person would not normally have sex with me" and then feel it's perfectly fine to have sex with them! Don't they realize that's date rape? Needless to say, it made me very wary of going to parties of any sort, which is really fine since I'm not a big partier to begin with.
The second event that showed me how unsafe my neighborhood was occurred about a month ago. One of my car windows, along with the windows of about eight other cars, was smashed in as it sat in my apartment parking lot. I did not have anything expensive looking sitting out, and nothing was stolen. Someone simply decided to go around smashing in windows for the heck of it. While this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with rape culture, it was a wake up call that all the crime I read about in the news or see portrayed in various forms of media was real and immediate and I wasn't safe from it. It was a relatively small violation, since nothing was stolen and I wasn't there, but still a violation that definitely makes you feel more unsafe in general. It made me wonder what if I had been out there when that person or group of people was out looking to make trouble? I occasionally drove around at night, and sometimes I would work until 10 and maybe shop after work, and not get back until late. What would have happened to one lone female in such a situation? And I hate it. How often do guys worry about this? How often are they afraid to walk out to their car at night? How often do they wonder if they should wear certain clothes in certain areas at certain times because it might give people the wrong idea, it might make their assault justifiable?
And it goes on into a spiral of questioning and bitterness at the differences between genders, about all the men, and even women, who actually believe women with multiple partners or revealing clothing were "asking" to be raped, or all the men who don't realize taking advantage of a drunk woman is rape, all of the women who are too afraid of the judgement and isolation if they report their assault.
On top of all of this, I watched an episode of Dateline that discussed date rape drugs in which a reporter pretended to slip a woman at a bar a roofie after bragging about his intentions to some randomly chosen guys, and then getting high fived at the prospect! Even more disgusting was when the reporter left with the actress, came back alone, mentioned that the woman was passed out under the boardwalk, and a guy saying he "wouldn't mind sloppy seconds"! These are real people out there. Potential rapists who consider themselves to be decent, average people, who not only do nothing when they know a woman is going to be drugged, but encourage it and want a piece of the action.
I don't feel like I can empathize with humanity anymore. People need to be educated, they need to be told that their patterns of thinking about women and sex are just plain wrong. Women need to be able to feel safe walking the street at night. I just... I don't know. I can't handle all of these horrible things I'm learning. I almost miss my naivety.

Yes, I realize this post was highly hetero-centric, and my apologies  but it was long enough as is, and adding all the other facets out there would make it twice as long. Maybe I'll talk about it in another post.