On May 23, 2014, 22-year old Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured fourteen others in Isla Vista, California before taking his own life. In the middle of his rampage, Rodger uploaded a video on YouTube detailing his plans and explaining his motives. He describes his actions as retribution for the fact that he was still a virgin because girls rejected his sexual advances. Rodger declares, “If I can't have you, girls, I will destroy you. (laughs) You denied me a happy life, and in turn, I will deny all of you life. (laughs) It's only fair” (CNN, 2014). The 2014 Isla Vista attack was the consequence of the sense of entitlement Rodger felt to women's bodies and women's sexuality. This paper seeks to discuss the causes and effects of cis male
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As Lange reached the age of nineteen, panic began to set in, and he decided “if worst came to worst, [he'd] just find a whore on the street and end this virginity bullshit before [his] twentieth birthday” (Lange, 2008). Lange's concern over his virginity echoes the worries of many men. Starting at a very young age, boys feel pressured to have sex. Lange goes so far as to compare losing one's virginity to holding in one's hands “the Holy Fucking Grail of male adolescence” (Lange, 2008). The pressure young boys feel to have sex, and the shame of not yet having sex, can lead to harmful attitudes and behaviors. The expectation for boys to have sex early in life may lead to male sexual entitlement. As a possible consequence of this sense of entitlement, when boys are denied what they feel they are owed, in this case sexual gratification from girls, they may decide to take what they consider rightfully theirs (Uwujaren, …show more content…
MacKinnon addresses the assertion that rape is an issue of violence and control, not sex. To avoid the critique that they are against sex, individuals who opposed sexual violation renamed “as violent those abuses that have been seen to be sexual (MacKinnon, 1987). MacKinnon argues that formulating rape as a crime of violence, not sex, in an attempt to be objective, erases the fact that women have a specific perspective on rape. Asserting that rape is an issue of violence leads us to distinguish rape from intercourse based on how much force was involved, when we should instead focus on whether a woman's control of her sexuality was violated. Moreover, rape involves sexual arousal of the rapist (and in some cases, the victim). Rape “fuses dominance with sexuality,” and allows men to hurt, dominate, and control
As Lange reached the age of nineteen, panic began to set in, and he decided “if worst came to worst, [he'd] just find a whore on the street and end this virginity bullshit before [his] twentieth birthday” (Lange, 2008). Lange's concern over his virginity echoes the worries of many men. Starting at a very young age, boys feel pressured to have sex. Lange goes so far as to compare losing one's virginity to holding in one's hands “the Holy Fucking Grail of male adolescence” (Lange, 2008). The pressure young boys feel to have sex, and the shame of not yet having sex, can lead to harmful attitudes and behaviors. The expectation for boys to have sex early in life may lead to male sexual entitlement. As a possible consequence of this sense of entitlement, when boys are denied what they feel they are owed, in this case sexual gratification from girls, they may decide to take what they consider rightfully theirs (Uwujaren, …show more content…
MacKinnon addresses the assertion that rape is an issue of violence and control, not sex. To avoid the critique that they are against sex, individuals who opposed sexual violation renamed “as violent those abuses that have been seen to be sexual (MacKinnon, 1987). MacKinnon argues that formulating rape as a crime of violence, not sex, in an attempt to be objective, erases the fact that women have a specific perspective on rape. Asserting that rape is an issue of violence leads us to distinguish rape from intercourse based on how much force was involved, when we should instead focus on whether a woman's control of her sexuality was violated. Moreover, rape involves sexual arousal of the rapist (and in some cases, the victim). Rape “fuses dominance with sexuality,” and allows men to hurt, dominate, and control