Mormonism Doesn’t Have a Monopoly on Rape Culture: It’s Just an Easy Target

I’m normally a fan of Peggy Fletcher Stack’s articles at the Salt Lake Tribune, but her recent article, “How outdated Mormon teachings may be aiding and abetting ‘rape culture’ “ strikes me as irresponsible. In the article, Peggy Fletcher Stack and co-author Erin Alberty recount anecdotal evidence that Mormon culture and teachings support rape culture, such as a bishop who, upon learning a woman had been raped, responded “let’s begin the repentance process,” or outdated 19th-century language in the Book of Mormon that conflates virginity with virtue, even suggesting that virtue can be stolen through sexual assault.

Insofar as the rape culture described in this article happens, it needs to stop. Period. That’s it. And I know the awful stuff this article describes does still happen. BUT generalizing to suggest all Mormons or even most Mormons are taught that men can’t control their sexual behavior and that it’s only rape if you fight tooth and nail just isn’t accurate.

Those anecdotes are real, and books like The Miracle of Forgiveness have had a real influence on Mormon culture. But for every anecdote about how Mormon teachings place more blame on women for sexual behavior, there’s an anecdote to demonstrate the reverse. For instance, there were countless occasions when I was in lessons as a teenager and later a young adult where we were taught that, if anything, men were expected to exercise greater responsibility in obeying the Law of Chastity (the Mormon teaching against premarital or extramarital sex) because they had the privilege and responsibility of holding the priesthood.

And victim-blaming seriously isn’t a Mormon-exclusive problem. It’s just as much a problem in secular culture. When I was in high school and experienced sexual harassment, I reported it to a teacher, who proceeded to lecture me on how my uptight behavior (such as asking to be excused while the class watched an R-rated film) was inviting sexual harassment. That’s right – in the eyes of that teacher, it was actually my decision to be religious that made me partially responsible for a student’s decision to sexually harass me.

And if you don’t believe that Mormonism does anything to combat rape culture, you probably don’t know very much about how prevalent rape culture is in mainstream pornography. For instance, at an academic conference, I once unwittingly stumbled into a presentation about pornography that I had anticipated to be a critique of rape culture. Instead, I listened in horror as an all-male panel explained, with utter derision for feminists who disagreed, that Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” a song widely critiqued as “rapey” was in fact about a man recognizing a woman’s true desire for sexuality, despite her protestations, an approach made necessary by Christian teachings about the fall of Eve. In other words, I listened to a presentation about how awesome rape culture is. In a secular setting. Read up on the topic of rape culture in mainstream pornography, and you’ll see what I mean – Mormon teachings certainly do not promote that aspect of rape culture.

In fact, you don’t even need to read about rape culture in pornography – just look at it in chick flicks, where a long-standing plot tradition often relies upon the female protagonist getting drunk enough to lose control (i.e. she’s no longer capable of consent) and having sex with the male lead. The audience is usually encouraged to delight in this plot development – that’s rape culture. Plain and simple. Or watch one of the many popular teen dramas and note just how frequently high school students are portrayed in a “relationship” with an adult. In Glee, one of the most self-righteous, didactic TV series ever to be created, when a student considered reporting a show choir coach who was sleeping with a student, other students intervened and convinced her it would be petty and unethical to say anything, a message the show seemed to whole-heartedly support (Glee’s didacticism usually involved a major character explaining the moral of the story, and there was no follow-up lecture to discredit the “don’t report her”  lecture or to explain why a student couldn’t really consent in this scenario).

So let’s keep critiquing rape culture, without throwing Mormonism – an all-too-easy target in contemporary American culture – under the bus.
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