Some thoughts on gang bangs and "proving it"

Abyss2hope at Alas, A Blog has a short post up about the Duke rape case and homosocial bonding.  The post has a link to this Washington Blade story, a story which begins:

A criminal psychologist said Collin Finnerty, the Duke University lacrosse player charged with rape and assault, could be attempting to prove his masculinity.

"Masculinity is something that has to be proven," she said. "It is not innate or natural. It’s something young men have to establish, and they have to establish it publicly.

(Bold emphasis mine).

In the field of "men and masculinity studies", there's an extraordinary amount of material written about the problem of "proving it".  In virtually every young American man's life, establishing one's masculine credentials in the eyes of male peers is one of the most difficult, most constant -- and most self-defining -- activities of childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood.  In both fiction and autobiography, countless men have recorded the sad, brave, appalling, frightening, disgusting, daring, and frequently unsuccessful measures they took, alone or collectively, to "prove" that they were men.

A book I use regularly in my Men and Masculinity class is Muy Macho: Latino Men Confront their Manhood, edited by Ray Gonzalez.  One of the essays in the book is by Rudolfo Anaya, who describes this phenomenon -- and the way in which women are used -- perfectly:

Little boys like to brag about the length of their penises, or they have contests to see who can piss the farthest.  Acting out "I'm bigger, I'm better", the game begins to have a built-in power aspect. Later, boys will brag about having scored with a girl, and in the boast is contained a hint of the power they have exercised.  Those who haven't yet scored have less power.  They're virgins in the game.  Those who don't see girls as the goal to be conquered have even less power.  A hierarchy of needs and behavior begins to define the male role and the power inherent in it.

Bold emphasis mine.

Another writer in the same collection, Ilan Stavans, makes a similar point about the vital function sex with women plays in establishing manhood.

Like most of my friends, I lost my virginity to a prostitute... An older acquaintance was responsible for arranging the date, when a small group of us would meet an experienced harlot at a whorehouse.  It goes without saying that none of the girls in my class were similarly "tutored": They would most likely become women in the arms of someone they loved, or thought they loved.  But love or even the slightest degree of attraction was not involved in our venture.  Losing our virginity was actually a dual mission: to ejaculate inside the hooker and then, more importantly, to tell of the entire adventure afterward.  The telling of the story -- the matador defeating the bull, the conqueror's display of power -- was more crucial than the carnal sensation itself.

Again, bold emphasis is mine.

This last bit from Stavans popped into my head weeks ago in relation to the Duke case.  (Though many have focused on the fact that the victim in North Carolina is black, few have pointed out that she's also several years older than those who are accused of raping her.  That fits a classic story line too, a subject for another post.)  When my students read Anaya and Stavans, most of them end up nodding their heads vigorously.  In their own lives, or the lives of the men they know, they see so clearly how hetero-relations have been almost hopelessly infected by the overwhelming need that so many guys have to "prove it" -- using a woman's body to do so.

The thrill of the gang bang -- or gang rape, which is different -- is not the sex: it's the audience.  Pardon the vulgarity: but the real payoff is not to fuck, but to be seen fucking.  Homosociality (the overwhelming need to prove oneself in the eyes of one's own sex) all too often trumps authentic sexual desire, or becomes so hopelessly entangled with innate sexual desire that many men have trouble distinguishing what they a priori want and enjoy from what behavior will bring them the pleasure of greater status in the eyes of men.  In other words, like Stavans, they derive more lasting pleasure from sharing with other men their conquest narrative than they do from the sexual experience itself!  That's one of the most universal -- and ugliest -- aspects of modern American masculinity.

Comments

[David Thompson]

I reaffirm my masculinity every time I take a leak. That's all the proof I need, and apparently everyone else is too dumb to figure it out from that.

[Faith]

Your intro is fabulous. I am an ethical atheist Jewish Democrat ENTJ Capricorn science geek fire eater and rape survivor. There are a few other descriptors.

I was raped almost 20 years ago by a US Marine proving his masculinity just days out of a grueling boot camp experience. I'm sure it seemed OK for him. I was 17 and it changed my life. It wasn't a gang rape but others could hear it occurring. Thankfully, one of them stepped in, eventually. I don't know what gave him the balls to do it but I'm grateful.

All men are not rapists, some men are. Some men prove their masculinity by doing something braver than fucking a 17 year old against her will.

[bmmg39]

My sympathies to you, Faith, even though you may not need or wish for them.

The sooner we drop this infatuation we have with so-called "femininity" and "masculinity," the better.

[Anthony]

Hugo, it rather weakens your point to use as a major prop for your thesis an event which didn't happen.

[KaetheDouglas]

The thrill of the gang bang -- or gang rape, which is different -- is not the sex: it's the audience

What's the difference?

[Hugo]

Well, the gang bang involves a consenting woman, gang rape doesn't. Rare, but not inconceivable.

[Reader]

"'Masculinity is something that has to be proven,' she said. "It is not innate or natural. It’s something young men have to establish, and they have to establish it publicly."

Is masculinity studies just English essays about whatever you think? Because I can quote a wealth of psychological literature showing that perceptions of masculinity are partially established by physical appearance. Tall muscular guys with big chins have a natural edge and usually don't need to establish it.

I would agree with you guys more if you just didn't make stuff up by citing people with a personal opinion and no data to support it. You guys are studying English, not psychology, and while phenomological descriptions are essential to consider for any psychological theory, they're fundamentally useless without scientific data to support them (see Freud).

[alexander]

Some random thoughts:

Many societies have rituals for transition to puberty and adulthood. We do not have rites of passage, or not very much. Add to this the prolongation of adolescence in consumer societies and perhaps there is a societal disfunction here.

Mass rape has to be pretty low on the "proving" it scale. I'd think the pecking order is:

Guy who is a babe magnet

Guy who deals with sex workers

Guy who "gets lucky"

Guy who doesn't even bother to try

But I have ever yet to meet a guy who thought that raping anyone was proof of manhood.

Women "prove" themselves in different ways. I know many women who see marriage as their rite (or perhaps, "right") of passage. Which is why weddings in "chick flicks" are the culmination of the plot. Compare this to male-oriented action movies, where the payoff is in car chases, explosions, and general mayhem (which, come to think of it, sounds like the outcome of a lot of marriages!).

Question I would raise is if we dump the rites of passage, with what do we replace them?

[Antigone]

Reader-
You said use scientific data and then went "Freud". You have now outed you as satirically ironical, or more likely, an idiot.

Freud's theories were untestable, therefore, not scientfic. QED.

Alexander-

I think the culimination of an action movie, the guy gets the trophy girl, so end of "chick flicks" (which I hate anyway) the prize is "marriage". The end of "action flicks" the prize is a woman. (And normally a hot one).

I don't think we should dump rites of passage, I think we should have rites of passage that are more goal-orientated (and hopefully gender-nuetral). Getting your first driver's liceance, getting drunk on your 21st, graduating from high school, et cetera. Those should be the rites.

[Reader]

Antigone - Freud is an example of the unscientific untestable theories. Read harder next time, the sentence only makes sense one way.

[bmmg39]

"Question I would raise is if we dump the rites of passage, with what do we replace them?"

Nothing. As someone who prefers the childlike to the "mature" -- a word I'm using loosely -- I've never seen the point to most of the things people consider rites of passage. They range from the merely pointless to the downright harmful: losing your virginity, drinking alcohol, "smoking your first joint," getting arrested...I don't care for the Ramones, but if that's what being an adult means, then I Don't Wanna Grow Up.

[Vergil]

I don't think it's correct to say that Freud's theories can't be tested. For example, his claim that paranoia is caused by repressed homosexuality could certainly be tested. The real issue is two-fold, and is explained well in "The Foundations of Psychoanalysis" by Adolf Grunbaum. First, when the adherents of psychoanalysis see results that could falsify their theories they tend to create some sort of ad hoc explanation as to why the new evidence actually supports their theory. This being said, the behavior of individuals who hold a particular theory doesn't logically imply anything about its truth or falsity, or its testability. The second issue is that psychoanalysts claim that because of the nature of psychoanalysis, it shouldn't be subjected to randomized clinical trials. The claim is somewhat similar to the one made by Kuhn in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," where he claims that standards of evidence are particular to each discipline. This second claim I think is just transparently ridiculous. There is such a huge amount of evidence that randomized clinical trials are the best method for proving the efficacy of any treatment.

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