Rape Culture in the Media and Digital Age
In the history of the illustrated press, the portrayal of rape victims and rapists have been muddled. Sexual violence, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse are being perpetuated through the development of digital technology. Sexual violence, which can be defined as actual "physical acts, like rape, sexual assault, non-contact offenses and behaviors, like sexual harassment and sexual coercion." Technology is a big part of the problem with sexual violence because the coined term "technology-facilitated sexual violence" has become widespread as it refers to the ways that criminal harmful sexually aggressive and harassing behaviors are being facilitated with the help of digital technologies. This could mean all the way from capturing the actual act of sexual violence on a digital device, spreading revenge porn, reading articles of rape cases, distributing rape jokes and rape supportive material, or watching movies portraying sexual violence and aggression.
This digital age has brought different platforms like dating sites, that facilitate sexual assaults. While on these apps, people go out with strangers without knowing anything about them. This new, fast-paced ideology where you can swipe left and right to find a date with someone in your general vicinity proved pretty effective. This has been becoming increasingly popular over the last few years. Sexual offenders or even prostitution promoters join these sights in the hopes to lure young, vulnerable women into their business. These are called opportunistic sexual offenders. These people feed of the fact that a young 19-year old girl named Jessica would go to meet a 20-year old biology major named Jake but actually it turns out it's a 45-year old predator.
The harassment of rape victims after their stories have been shared in the media has increased over the last few years because of the portrayal of victims across the medias. There has been a disturbing amount of backlash concerning victims due to the spread of their images taken by the perpetrator or the images circulating in the news as the victim. These rape-survivors always receive an array of questions having to do with their clothes and sexual history. A new video came to the surface that helps us understand how victim-blaming doesn't really make sense.
There are gender stereotypes that contribute to the power dynamic between male and females. These typically allow men to assert dominance by being violent and aggressive towards a woman. Media and pop culture have attributed to the higher rates of sexual assault because in movies, songs, and TV shows, women are viewed in a purely sexual way and gender stereotypes such as women being sexually aggressive and women complying to this aggression. Specifically, in advertisements, women are barely clothed and modeling in suggestive poses. In Harrison Ford movies, there is a power dynamic where the man is more masculine and aggressive, which makes the movie...
