Sexual Power Plays (Non-Consensual) For Fun and Profit

A new report on sexual assault released by the United Nations reveals that one in four men have admitted to raping a woman once in their lives for entertainment, punishment and revenge. amongst the top reasons listed. The study was published in The Lancet, a British Medical Journal, and it was conducted by the World Health Organization in the Asia-pacific region. 10,178 men aged between 18 and 49 years old where interviewed about engaging in non-consensual sex, and almost 75 percent of them said they committed rape because of “sexual entitlement,” or as form of punishment because the man was angry.“They believed they had the right to have sex with the woman regardless of consent. The second most common motivation reported was to rape as a form of entertainment, so for fun or because they were bored. Perhaps surprisingly, the least common motivation was alcohol," report author Dr. Emma Fulu said.While the sexual assault statistics are not quite that grim in the West, "sexual harassment of working women has been widely practiced and systematically ignored. Men’s control over women’s jobs has often made coerced sexual relations the price of women’s material survival. Considered trivial or personal, or natural and inevitable, sexual harassment has become a social institution." Catharine MacKinnon"Sexual harassment has been a fixture of the workplace since women first began to work outside the home. Although true epidemiological studies do not exist, large-scale surveys of working women suggest that approximately 1 of every 2 women will be harassed at some point during their academic or working lives. The data indicate that harassment is degrading, frightening, and sometimes physically violent; frequently extends over a considerable period of time; and can result in profound job-related, psychological, and health-related consequences."

MacKinnon's theory of workplace sexual harassment goes like this: "Men have power over everything of value in society, even the power to decide what has value and what does not. Men use this power systematically to shape and define the social beings we call men and women in ways which enhance the power of men and keep women subordinate to men. Women, in short, have been had, and will continue to be had (in every sense) until we understand our trap, seize the power to control our own lives, and get men's feet off our necks."