“[Ours] is a culture in which sexualized violence, sexual violence, and violence-by-sex are so common that they should be considered normal. Not normal in the sense of healthy or preferred, but an expression of the sexual norms of the culture, not violations of those norms. Rape is illegal, but the sexual ethic that underlies rape is woven into the fabric of the culture.”
—Robert Jensen
Feminists developed the concept of a “rape culture” decades ago to describe how men who rape are not simply a handful of “sick” or deviant individuals. They are instead the products of a culture that glorifies and sexualizes male power and dominance, and at the same time glorifies and sexualizes female subservience and submission. Rape must be understood not as an aberration in such a cultural environment but as simply the extreme end on a continuum of behaviors. The controversial aspect of this seemingly commonsense argument is that it implicates tens of millions of men who are not rapists. Most men would rather not think about how they participate in a culture that actively promotes—or at the very least tolerates—sexual violence. Many find offensive the mere suggestion of any sense of shared responsibility.
As a result, the mythic image of the rapist as a masked man who hides in the bushes and waits to leap out and attack women continues to resonate powerfully, because while this image strikes fear in the hearts of millions of women and girls every day, it is also oddly reassuring—for both women and men. For women, it means that if they are smart and take the necessary precautions, they will drastically reduce their chances of being assaulted. For men, the image of the crazed rapist diverts the critical spotlight away from them. If the male population is divided into two distinct categories—“good guys” and “rapists”—then men who do not rape can easily distance themselves from the problem. But the reality of sexual violence is much more complex than the mythology. Stranger rapes occur with alarming frequency, and can terrorize an entire populace—especially women. But they constitute only about 20 percent of cases. Most sexual violence happens between people who know each other. On college campuses 90 percent of rape victims know their assailants. The perpetrators can be family members or friends of their victims. They are often “nice guys” whom no one would suspect.
Even more troubling is the fact that rape is an act of sexual aggression that can sometimes bear a remarkable similarity to what may be considered “normal” sexual behavior for men—either in heterosexual or homosexual relations. One study showed that one in twelve men admitted to committing acts that met the legal definition of rape. One study by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that 43 percent of college-aged men conceded to using coercive behavior to have sex (including ignoring a woman’s protest, using physical aggression, and forcing intercourse). Thus for men— especially heterosexual men—to acknowledge the depths of the problem would require an unprecedented level of introspection. In a sense they would have to question the entire process by which they had been socialized as men.
Not all rapes are the same. As Katharine Baker explains in a Harvard Law Review article about motivational evidence in rape law, rapes are not alike in the eyes of the men who commit them, and they are not alike in the eyes of the jurors and the public who judge them. “All rapes are, in part, about sex and masculinity and domination,” she writes. “But some…are predominantly about sex, some…are predominantly about masculinity, and some…are predominantly about domination.” Like domestic violence, there is no one-size-fits-all description of this crime. There are many different kinds of force, manipulation, coercion, and degrees of consent. Thus it is important to make distinctions between types of rape and rapists in order to successfully prosecute and prevent the crime. The college senior who gets a naïve firstyear student drunk and then pushes past her “no’s” to insert his penis in her might not fit the same criminal profile as a man who slips through the window into women’s bedrooms and rapes them at knifepoint in their own beds—but they are both rapists.
For the purposes of this discussion, I am going to focus on the majority of men who rape—not on the relatively small number of sociopathic or sadistic rapists. We do know something about most men who rape. For example, numerous studies have found that while they tend to be more emotionally constricted than nonagressive men, and are often angry and hostile to women, most of them are psychologically “normal.” The psychologist David Lisak points out that the old stereotype of the rapist was derived in part from extensive studies with incarcerated rapists, many of whom committed acts of grievous violence against their victims, who were often strangers. But according to Lisak, research over the past twenty years clearly demonstrates that the vast majority of rapes are perpetrated by what he calls “undetected rapists,” and they usually know their victims. Undetected rapists are men who typically behave in stereotypically masculine ways, see sex as conquest, and are hypersensitive to any perceived slight against their manhood. But they are not crazy, and they are not sociopaths. “There is simply no evidence, save the rape itself,” Katharine Baker writes in the Harvard Law Review, “suggesting that all or even most rapists are objectively depraved.” Chillingly, she goes on to say that given the social norms that encourage it, there is evidence that rape is “culturally dictated, not culturally deviant.”
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the role of media and entertainment culture in the transmission of what we might term “rapist values.” If large numbers of men who rape women are “normal” guys who perceive their behavior to be acceptable, it makes sense to examine the source of the social norms that feed those perceptions. Obviously social norms are rooted in a complex web of institutional forces. But one of the central insights of the relatively young discipline of cultural studies is that questions of identity (“Who am I?”) and ideology (“How does the world work and how do I fit into it?”) are intimately connected to the stories that circulate in a culture and give answers to these deeply human concerns. The cultural theorist Stuart Hall explains that we know ourselves when we see ourselves represented. Identity is in a sense a kind of recognition—we recognize ourselves biographically in the stories we tell about ourselves. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the mass media is the most significant institution of representation, and the most powerful teacher and transmitter of cultural values. Thus, if we are interested in the question not only of how thousands of average guys become rapists, but how millions of men (and women) develop rape-supportive attitudes, it is important to examine the media culture within which young people understand and construct their identities.
In discussions about the normalization of sexual violence, there are two critical aspects of media culture representation. The first is the image of modern Western femininity and how it has been connected with sexuality in contradictory and dangerous ways. Feminist scholars have shown how girls’ and women’s bodies have become a kind of “war zone” on which are played out all kinds of conflicts of identity. Our culture relentlessly assaults girls and women with the idea that femininity and sexuality are intertwined: that their bodies and their sexual behavior are the only things that are truly valued and desired by heterosexual men. Young girls especially can internalize this story and become obsessed with their appearance and (hetero)sexuality. Millions of them over the past few generations have responded to pressures to become sexual at younger and younger ages. Because they are socially validated largely through boys’ responses to their bodies, girls may find it logical to link “feminine” identity with men’s use of their bodies. A 2004 article in the New York Times Magazine reported on a new phenomenon in the sexual culture of American teenagers called “friends with benefits.” It refers to teenagers “hooking up” and having sex with no expectation of a romantic relationship. However, this is hardly an indication of a growing spirit of sexual freedom for both girls and boys. Many of these “hook ups” feature girls performing oral sex on boys, with no hint that the boys would reciprocate. One school counselor I spoke with in an affluent suburb of New York City told me that several girls were dumbfounded when she asked them if the boys performed oral sex on the girls. The possibility had not even occurred to them. And the double standard is still firmly in place, with girls running the risk of being derided as “sluts” if they misstep or hook-up with the wrong boy, while boys enjoy the status they derive from being a “player.” It is a disturbingly short step from this sort of non-egalitarian sexual relationship to outright sexual coercion and rape. As one young woman wrote to a colleague of mine:
“I have been raped twice and have had several other sexual assaults. I was not even fully aware that I had been raped either time until much later. It was so ingrained in my mind, personality, behavior, or whatever that this was how things are in the world. I believed that men had a right to my body and I was supposed to let them.”
While the forced choice between “virgin” and “whore” has been around for a long time, in the modern period a new twist has been added: girls now have to be both virgin and whore. Along with the cultural imperative that “sexuality is everything” is the equally powerful message that “good girls don’t.” In popular culture over the past decade, this contradiction was best embodied in the figure of the pop star Britney Spears—highly sexualized in everything from appearance to vocals but nonetheless “saving herself ’til marriage.” Girls learn early in life that others—especially boys—expect them to be sexy. But not too sexy. In one study published in the journal Adolescence in 1995, male and female adolescents who viewed a vignette of unwanted sexual intercourse accompanied by a photograph of the victim dressed in provocative clothing were more likely to indicate that the victim was responsible for the assailant’s behavior, more likely to view the male’s behavior as justified, and less likely to judge the act as rape. Young women caught in this Catch-22—where social validation comes from sexuality, but the more sexual you act the more you may be despised and blamed if you are victimized—are constantly negotiating an impossible balance, constantly concerned that admiration may change to contempt. If many girls are confused about appropriate ways to behave sexually, it is in part because the culture itself tells a contradictory story about female sexuality. But this contradictory story is not just about female sexuality—it is also about the power of boys and men to shape how women see themselves.
It is crucial, then, to consider a second part of the pop-culture storyline: the way masculinity is constantly equated with power and entitlement, including power over women and entitlement to their bodies. Individuals need to be held accountable for their actions, but violent individuals must be understood as products of a much larger cultural system. By offering up a steady stream of images of sexually aggressive men, and connecting dominant notions of masculinity with the control of women, the mainstream media and entertainment culture—which includes the enormous pornography industry—play a critical role in constructing violent male sexuality as a cultural norm. And here is the paradox: this very “normality” makes it harder to see just how pervasive the problem is. If heterosexual men are routinely turned on by representations of women in which sexiness is indistinguishable from mistreatment, the equation becomes unremarkable—if not part of sexuality itself. Consider the way Marilyn Monroe’s vulnerability has been sexualized to this day, more than four decades after her sad life—which was marked by sexual abuse and emotional trauma—ended in self-destruction at age thirty-six. Sexualizing violence against women has the effect of blinding people to its seriousness, because the focus shifts from personal pain and trauma to the pleasures of erotic portrayals.
Over the past several decades, a developing body of research in the social sciences has demonstrated that repeated exposure to depictions of sexualized violence can have the effect of desensitizing viewers—especially males—to the humanity of female victims. This desensitization begins early in life, and today, due to the proliferation of pornographic images on the Internet, cable TV, and increasingly in mainstream film and television, millions of boys and men are exposed to an unprecedented level of sexualized brutality against women. Repeated images and references to women as “bitches” and “hoes” in rap and rock music and accompanying videos, as “cum-guzzling sluts” on countless web porn sites, as objects of sexual bullying on the Howard Stern Show, or as scantily clad objects of contempt on pro wrestling telecasts make men’s sexual domination of women seem normal, routine, expected, even humorous. In this light, the routine news accounts of gang rapes and countless other sexual abuses should be seen as part of a normative cultural pattern. Sexual violence, in short, is part of a broader cultural pattern in which masculinity comes to be linked with power and control over women.
In the rest of this chapter I am going to look at rape culture through the lens of four distinct phenomena in mainstream media and entertainment: the rape trial of Kobe Bryant; the career of the white rapper Eminem; the popularity of professional wrestling; and the daily familiarity and influence of certain talk radio hosts. While none of these media phenomena directly cause men to rape women, each in their own way contribute to a cultural climate that is conducive to the development of “rapist values” in boys and men.
There is nothing like the rape trial of a famous athlete to remind us of how far we have yet to come in our understanding of sexual violence. The antirape movement has accomplished many things over the past three decades in the areas of legal reform, professional training for police, prosecutors, and judges, and public awareness. Arguably the movement’s greatest contribution has been to victim services. In most parts of this country, rape victims today can count on a level of compassionate, professional support that is historically unprecedented—and which still does not exist in many other countries. In spite of these positive changes, however, the explosion of victim-blaming unleashed in the aftermath of the sexual-assault charge against Kobe Bryant came as an unexpected wake-up call to many in the anti-rape movement who had been working for years to establish the seemingly straightforward idea that in rape cases the alleged perpetrator is the one on trial—not the victim. Almost from the moment that Bryant’s alleged victim—a nineteenyear-old college student—reported that he had raped her in his hotel room at a mountain resort in Eagle, Colorado, people on sports talk programs and around office water coolers began to impugn her morality and question her mental stability, character, and sexual practices. Instead of focusing attention on the behavior, character, and motive of the basketball superstar who was alleged to have raped her, people asked questions like: Why did she go up to his room? Didn’t she know what to expect?
Public opinion did not just question the victim; it also actively supported the alleged perpetrator. Consider this sequence of events. When Kobe Bryant appeared on a basketball court in Colorado on January 7, 2004, for a game against the Denver Nuggets, the media focus before and after the event was on the fans’ response. How loud would the boos be? Would they distract the Laker star to the point of disrupting his game? Was it possible for the authorities to ensure his safety? The Denver fans did not disappoint. Many at the Pepsi Center booed loudly, not only when he was introduced, but every time he touched the ball. It is not surprising that an athlete in the midst of a criminal trial would receive a chilly reception on the road. Especially when he was alleged to have raped a woman in the local area. But the more revealing aspect of the fan response to the Bryant case occurred at the Staples Center in Los Angeles a couple of weeks before and repeated itself several times in the subsequent months. On December 19, 2003, the Laker superstar arrived late for a home game, coincidentally also against Denver. He was late because earlier in the day he had to appear at a court hearing in Colorado; he flew back on a private jet in time to enter the game early in the second quarter. When Bryant emerged from the locker room and made his way over to the Lakers bench, thousands of cheering people sprang to their feet. A second standing ovation ensued when, a few moments later, Bryant first checked into the game. Yes, the Los Angeles Lakers fans gave an enthusiastic standing ovation to an alleged felony rapist. In a legal sense, Kobe Bryant was entitled to the presumption of innocence, and he was surely entitled to defend himself against the charges in a court of law. It is also quite possible that Lakers fans who cheered for Bryant had no conscious intention of making a profound statement about rape—one way or the other. It was not until months later that he issued a dramatic public apology to his alleged victim, in what amounted to a quasi-confession. The cheering merely communicated their loyalty to a flawed but essentially good man (and a great basketball player) as he faced the toughest test of his young life. But regardless of individual fans’ intent, there are many possible ways to interpret the meaning of these communal outpourings of affection toward Bryant. It is important to note that there was not simply polite applause when he was introduced, or a spontaneous eruption of joy when he hit a winning jumper at the buzzer; he got a standing ovation when he came into the arena.
Three decades after the birth of the anti-rape movement, what are we to make of this? Is it possible to discern any larger meaning from this highly public display of support for the most famous rape defendant of our time? Was it merely indicative of sports fans’ tendency to support home team players, no matter what they might have done? Was this unfortunate episode yet further evidence that entertainment values trump all others? It is tempting to chalk the whole thing up to the perversions of our celebrity-obsessed culture. But Lakers fans who stood and cheered inevitably conveyed something beyond support for the beleaguered Bryant. Let’s consider the specific messages they sent to (1) girls and women, including those who have been or will become victims of sexual violence, and (2) boys and men, including those who have been or will become sexual violence perpetrators.
The primary message to girls and women is simple enough: if you have been raped, do not tell anyone. Look at the price you will pay—especially if the perpetrator is popular. People will not believe you. They will actually blame you for damaging his reputation. Feminist legal reforms notwithstanding, the cultural deck is still stacked against you. Unless the profile of the alleged perpetrator conforms to the stereotype of the predatory monster—which is almost always a poor man of color or a mentally disturbed white guy—public opinion usually sides with the man. Your sexual history will be put on public display in an effort to smear your reputation. Your motives will be questioned. The bottom line: reporting a sexual assault is not worth it. Live with it. Be smarter next time.
The fans’ cheers for Bryant also broadcast the powerful message to millions of boys and men that large numbers of people in our society remain eager to excuse “bad boy” behavior. Obviously Kobe Bryant is a larger-thanlife figure who lives in a rarified world of privilege and fame. Nonetheless the statement about which party most people will support when there is a rape allegation registered loud and clear. Unless the alleged perpetrator looks like Freddy Kreuger and the victim is a nun, it is the man who can expect the strongest support. This is not by itself going to cause men to rape women. But men who followed the Kobe Bryant case—including men who have raped and men who have thought about it—could clearly see that once Bryant’s defense attorneys turned the spotlight onto the alleged victim, many people were eager to make excuses for the defendant. The not-so-subtle message: if it boils down to a he said/she said battle (which men who are charged with rape often claim it is), we are on your side.
Many fans who jumped up and clapped were undoubtedly convinced that Bryant was innocent of the rape charge against him. In other words, they cheered to show solidarity with their falsely accused hero. But if a significant percentage of Lakers fans in the stands believed Bryant had been unfairly accused, this means they believed the young woman from Eagle was either purposely lying or was so mentally unstable as to lack any credibility. It is important to explore the implications of this point of view. According to the FBI, fewer than one in five rapes are ever reported to law enforcement. One reason for this extremely low percentage is that victims typically fear they will not be believed. Why risk compounding the hurt of the original assault by exposing yourself to angry questions about your motives, embarrassing speculations about your sexual history, and the possible loss of friends who may or may not be supportive? In the extraordinary circumstances of the Bryant case, the woman also had to contend with the fact that her alleged rapist received standing ovations—as she received death threats.
When Bryant’s alleged victim—with her mother and father at her side— went down to a police station the morning after the alleged incident and filed a claim that the basketball superstar had forcibly raped her, it is hard to imagine that she could have anticipated the ferocity of the backlash that awaited her. Whether people believed her or not, any reasonable person has to acknowledge that reporting this rape was an incredibly bold act by this young woman. But once she reported the incident, matters were no longer solely in her hands. The decision to prosecute was made by the district attorney. Like any prosecutor, he had to know it is very difficult to win a conviction in a rape case, but he had access to all of the available evidence, and obviously he had confidence in her version of the story. It should also be noted that experienced rape crisis counselors and advocates in Colorado who worked closely with the then nineteen-year-old fully supported her. Did all this mean that Bryant was guilty? No. His guilt or innocence was for a jury to decide, after they had heard all the arguments on both sides and considered all the evidence. But in the meantime, thousands of Lakers fans took it upon themselves to vocally support Kobe and thus, by implication, impugn the integrity of his alleged victim. I wonder how many of the fans that cheered for Kobe Bryant have daughters or sisters. Would they have cheered for him if it was their loved one who said she had been raped by him? And if their loved ones are ever raped (by someone else), what is the chance they will feel safe telling a family member or friend who gave Kobe Bryant a standing “o” as he awaited trial? The even-handed approach would have been to withhold judgment—and applause—until all the facts were in.
At the same time, in order for Lakers fans to cheer for him with a clear conscience, they must have believed his claim that the sex was consensual. On what basis should they have believed him? Because he’s got a nice smile? Because they have watched him perform magic on a basketball court, and heard his articulate answers in post-game interviews? Because he had a female attorney? Because the alleged victim went up to his hotel room willingly? If a significant number of the cheerers believed that Bryant was probably guilty of rape and yet still found it within themselves to applaud him, then our culture is in even deeper trouble than many people think. A benign way to understand the Staples Center standing ovations is that a majority of fans were not consciously trying to send a message—but they were. They might not have been trying to silence rape victims by cheering for an alleged rapist—but that was almost assuredly the effect. They might not have intended to assert that they believed the pursuit of another title on the court takes precedence over the pursuit of justice—but that’s the message they sent.
A couple of years ago I gave a speech about men’s violence against women in a packed high school gymnasium in a town in the Midwest. The twelve hundred restless students in the stands were overwhelmingly white. Toward the end of my speech I decided to take a risk and criticize the superstar white rapper Eminem for the blatant woman-hating in his lyrics. I knew I would risk losing the support of some kids. After all, it was the height of his popularity, and it was safe to assume that many of them were fans of the white boy from the “wrong side of the tracks” in Detroit who had made it big in a hiphop world previously dominated by African American artists. But I reasoned that as a man giving a speech about men’s mistreatment of women, if I could not publicly challenge Eminem’s misogyny, who could? There were audible moans and groans and whispered comments in response to my statements, but I still received a nice ovation when I finished. As the students filed out I was approached by at least twenty kids, most of whom were positive and supportive. But one small girl stood out. She waited for several minutes off to the side, an indication that she wanted to talk with me in private. She was shaking when she finally approached me. She introduced herself and told me that she was a junior. Then she told me she had been in an abusive relationship. She thanked me for coming, and she assured me that she had gotten out of the relationship and was getting help. Then she started to cry, and asked for a hug. I fought back a tear as she walked away. Twenty minutes later I was in the faculty lounge upstairs when a teacher walked in. She thanked me and then said that in anticipation of my visit, she had instructed her students to read a critical article I had written about Eminem. She was curious to hear how one particular student reacted to my speech. This student—a huge Eminem fan—had read my article and was furious with me, and had told the class that she was going to call me out for dissing her hero when I came to the school. I asked the teacher for the girl’s name. It was the girl who had thanked and hugged me.
I realize that social and political critiques of the work of artists are fraught with peril. Artistic tastes vary widely, and so do people’s opinions about the social and political responsibilities of art and artists. For example, many Americans believe that artists have an obligation only to be true to their artistic vision—not to be concerned with the social consequences of their art. According to this perspective, the expression of unpopular or disturbing ideas through art might make people uncomfortable, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The purpose of art is not to make people feel good, but to give voice to the widest possible range of human experience and emotion. As the recording artist and feminist Tori Amos explains, “If you’re singing songs that are about cutting women up, usually these guys (like Eminem) are tapping into an unconscious male rage that is real, that is existing—they’re just able to harness it. So to shut them up isn’t the answer . . . they’re showing you what’s happening in the psyche of a lot of people.” I would never say that it is necessary to “shut up” Eminem, but I do believe that it is imperative to explore the implications of his popularity. In fact, I do not think it is possible to talk about rape culture in this era and not talk about the man who has been called the “hip-hop Elvis.”
If you followed the entertainment media over the past few years, you would get the impression that Eminem has moved beyond controversy and is now entrenched as a larger-than-life cultural force. He certainly experienced a more rapid and broad-based ascent into the mainstream than any black rappers ever have. But he has not been embraced by everyone. At the same time the white music/entertainment establishment was enthusiastically promoting Eminem as one of the most important artists of his generation, many people in the movements against domestic and sexual violence were appalled and profoundly disheartened. For decades, women and men in the field had maintained that rape and domestic violence thrive in a cultural environment where men’s violence is not only tolerated but often encouraged. And then along came a charismatic white artist in a black musical genre whose lyrics consistently ridiculed and degraded women, and took images of homicidal misogyny to a new low: “Put anthrax on your Tampax and slap you til you can’t stand.” But instead of inspiring an anti-sexism backlash, Eminem’s music was heralded by many as a brilliant, boundary-crossing contribution to lyrical performance and comic art. Instead of being condemned for stoking the fire of men’s fury against women, the songwriter was lionized as an artistic voice for the ages—while his critics were dismissed as cultural rednecks and yahoos, or worse, opponents of artistic expression and free speech.
For people who are not familiar with Eminem’s recordings, a sober reading of his lyrics—unadorned by the catchy tunes and infectious beats—can be an emotionally devastating experience. One college professor I know told me that one of her students in a humanities class read aloud the lyrics to several Eminem songs as part of a class presentation. As she read the words, a number of female students began to cry; several got up and left the room. A number of the men in class looked uncomfortable and chagrined. In any assessment of art, it is important to remember that context matters. Critics who defend or excuse Eminem’s misogyny often claim that his detractors do not understand his artistic intent when he gives voice to some of the most graphic homicidal rage against women ever captured on record. For example, in one of his most famous songs, “Kim,” Eminem presents a chillingly realistic narrative about a verbal confrontation and throat-slitting murder of his then-wife, who is named Kim in real life:
Don’t you get it bitch, no one can hear you?
Now shut the fuck up and get what’s coming to you
You were supposed to love me
(Kim choking)
NOW BLEED! BITCH BLEED!
BLEED! BITCH BLEED! BLEED!
It is possible that in this song and many others, Eminem uses his lyrical skills to transport the listener inside the mind of a murderer in a way that enlightens us about misogyny even as it entertains. It is possible, as Eminem’s defenders assert, that his music contains multiple layers of meaning and that to take it literally is to miss its rich complexity. It is also possible that the very appeal of Eminem’s music depends on widespread acceptance of violence against women as a cultural norm.
Whether you love him or loathe him, Eminem is unquestionably an impressive cultural player. He is a multitalented artist: a wildly inventive rap lyricist, a charismatic performer, and an effective actor (essentially playing a glorified version of himself in the 2002 Hollywood biopic 8 Mile.). What is in question is the nature of Eminem’s art and image, and its significance. Obviously his unprecedented mainstream success has much to do with his whiteness, and critiques of Eminem have typically centered on the racial politics of his initial rise to notoriety and then to the heights of pop-cultural fame. But there is another way to understand Eminem’s popularity, which is that he has achieved success not in spite of his virulent misogyny and homophobic utterances—as many critics allege—but in part because of them. Richard Goldstein argued in a brilliant piece in 2002 in the Village Voice that many of Eminem’s male (and some female) fans take “guilty pleasure” in identifying with the aggressor—especially when the victims are women and gays. As Goldstein explains:
“At its hard core, Eminem’s poetics is pornography, and it’s accorded the same privileges. Just as we’ve declared the XXX zone exempt from social thinking, we refuse to subject sexist rap to moral scrutiny. We crave a space free from the demands of equity, especially when it comes to women, whose rise has inspired much more ambivalence than most men are willing to admit. This is especially true in the middle class, where feminism has made its greatest impact. No wonder Eminem is so hot to suburban kids . . . He’s as nasty as they wanna be.”
Several years ago, Eminem was the target of protest from gay and lesbian activists who objected to his lyrical endorsement of violence against them. Other gays have embraced him in spite of this (most notably, and controversially, Elton John). But Eminem’s homophobia is not simply a matter of specific lyrics. Rather, it is central to his constructed crazy/tough white guy image. For all of his vaunted “honesty” and presumed vulnerability, the misanthropically cartoonish “Slim Shady” persona that Marshall Mathers—aka Eminem—hides behind requires (at least publicly) a purging of anything that can be associated with femininity. Hence, you hear from Eminem—and his mentor, Dr. Dre—a steady stream of “bitch-slapping” misogyny peppered with anti-gay invective, all in the service of establishing their “hardness.” “Now I don’t wanna hit no woman but this chick’s got it coming/Someone better get this bitch before she gets kicked in the stomach.” The irony, of course, is that this hypermasculine posturing—so contemptuous and dismissive of women—produces its own homoerotic tensions, which then requires Eminem (and other rappers) to verbally demonstrate their heterosexuality by attacking gays. It is an embarrassingly predictable process. The popular hip-hop writer Touré provided further insight in this area in a widely circulated Washington Post article in 2004 about the sad state of women in hip-hop: “The love in hip-hop is over men, over love, crew love, brotherly love,” he said. “It’s very sort of ancient Greek. It really doesn’t allow for a lot of room for women. Hip-hop at its essence is boys, not men, but boys talking about what they do for and with boys.”
Much of the mainstream cultural commentary about Eminem comes, understandably, from music critics and cultural commentators who write in major newspapers, magazines, and websites. Many of these people were initially critical of the misogyny and homophobia in Eminem’s work. It was not uncommon to read strong criticism of this in their reviews of his early albums. But as he grew in popularity, criticism of the gender and sexual politics of his music became more muted. Richard Goldstein pointed out the evolution of New York Times critic/columnist Frank Rich’s thoughts on Eminem in a November 2002 piece in the Village Voice. In 2000, Goldstein observed, Rich described Eminem as “a charismatic white rapper [who] trades in violence, crude sex, and invective roughing up heterosexual women, lesbians, and gay men.” In 2001, Goldstein wrote, “Rich pondered whether ‘racial crossover in the cultural market makes up for a multitude of misogynistic and homophobic sins.’” By 2002, Goldstein reported,“Rich ended up slamming ‘moral scolds’ for dissing Em, while confessing, ‘I’ve been fascinated with him ever since I first heard his songs at the inception of his notoriety.’”
There is no doubt that as opinion-makers in the music world increasingly praised Eminem’s talent, they made more excuses for his anti-woman lyrics. That is one definition of a rape culture: a society where sophisticated people routinely overlook or rationalize rape-supportive attitudes. In the case of Eminem, it is not just that his misogyny has been tolerated. He has been celebrated and honored in a way few artists ever have. He has won several Grammy awards. He even won an Oscar for best song in 2002, for his anthem, “Lose Yourself,” from the 8 Mile movie soundtrack. Can a society that heaps untold riches and praise on a man whose lyrics routinely brutalize women claim that it is serious about eradicating sexual and domestic violence? Consider this analogy. Could a society that claims to care about racism embrace and honor a white artist who glorified racism? Is it even remotely possible that a white artist who regularly rapped and joked about abusing and killing “niggers,” “spics,” and “kikes,” would win critical acclaim—regardless of how artistically inventive he/she was?
The full stamp of cultural approval of Eminem came when the movie 8 Mile was released in 2002. The Hollywood mythmakers Brian Grazer, Scott Silver, and Curtis Hanson (8 Mile’s producer, screenwriter, and director, respectively) blatantly distorted the rapper’s story in pursuit of box office glory. They left out the sexism and the homophobia. People who went to see 8 Mile who had not heard or read the rapper’s lyrics came out of the movie with a newfound appreciation for the talented white kid from a trailer park who had the courage to make something of his life. They were spared any exposure to the downside of Eminem’s rise to fame, especially his—and his record company’s—decision to attack women and girls in his lyrics with a vengeance that was truly breathtaking.
The cultural “meanings” of Eminem are sure to be the subject of debate for years to come. But so far, the national conversation about Eminem has taken place on the terms of fawning critics, flaks for the record and film industries, and lay prophets of the cultural Zeitgeist, all of whom have been incessantly hyping the bleach-blond rapper for the past several years. Give them credit. They have succeeded wildly—Eminem is now a full-blown cultural phenomenon and global merchandising cash cow. But it is time to expand the terms of debate. It is time to offer some counterbalance to the mythologizing distortions from the PR department of Eminem, Inc. In particular, it is time to consider with eyes wide open some of the potentially horrific effects of this art in a world already filled with misogynistic and violent men.
Eminem’s fans argue that his raps about mistreating, raping, torturing, and murdering women are not meant to be taken literally. I used to hear this regularly from young men and women when I asked them if they had any problems with the way the artist treated women in his lyrics. “Just because we listen to the music doesn’t mean we’re gonna go out and harass, rape, and murder women,” they said. “We know it’s just a song.” Thoughtful critics of Eminem do not make the argument that the danger of his lyrics lies in the possibility that some unstable young man will go out and imitate in real life what the artist is rapping about. While possible, this is highly unlikely. (Although rare, it does happen. In December 2005, a twenty-one-year-old Eminem impersonator in London was sentenced to life in prison for beating a twenty-six-year-old woman to death and stuffing her body in a suitcase in a case that was widely reported as “life imitating art.”) Rather, one of the most damaging aspects of Eminem’s violent misogyny and homophobia is how normal and matter-of-fact this violence comes to seem. Rapping and joking about sex crimes have the effect of desensitizing people to the real pain and trauma suffered by victims and their loved ones. The process of desensitization to violence through repeated exposure in the media has been studied for decades. Among the effects: young men who have watched/listened to excessive amounts of fictionalized portrayals of men’s violence against women in mainstream media and pornography have been shown to be more callous toward victims, less likely to believe their accounts of victimization, more willing to believe they were “asking for it,” and less likely to intervene in instances of “real-life” violence.
Let us not forget that the culture in which Eminem has become a huge star is in the midst of an ongoing crisis of men’s violence against women. In the U.S., rates of rape, sexual assault, battering, teen-relationship violence, and stalking have been shockingly high for decades, far exceeding rates in comparable Western societies. Sadly, millions of American girls and women have been assaulted by American boys and men. Thousands of gays each year are bashed and harassed by young men. For these victims, this is not an academic debate about the differences between literalist and satirical art. It hits closer to home.
What began as a tentative dance with the media has become a passionate embrace. After initially airing “misgivings” about featuring the woman-hating rapper, magazines with predominantly young female readership, like CosmoGirl and Teen People, now regularly feature “Em” on their covers, posed as a sex symbol, as an object of heterosexual female desire. This is not simply the latest example of the star-making machinery of mass media constructing the “bad boy” as desirable to women. It sends a powerful message to girls: He does not really hate and disrespect you. In fact, he loves you. He is just misunderstood. It is the hip-hop version of Beauty and the Beast. You know, underneath that gruff exterior, between the lines of those nasty lyrics, lies a tender heart that has been hurt, a good man who just needs more love and understanding.
This is a myth that battered women have been fed for centuries; that his violence is her responsibility, that if only she loved him more, his abuse would stop. This is one of the most damaging myths about batterers, and one of the most alarming features of Eminem’s popularity with girls. Remember, Eminem is the same “lovable” rapper who wrote a chillingly realistic song (“Kim”) about murdering his then-wife (whose real name is Kim), and putting her body in the trunk of his car, interspersed with loving references to their daughter Hallie (their real-life daughter is named Hallie). This is the same “cute” guy who angrily raps about catching diseases from “hoes”: “All these bitches on my dick/That’s how dudes be getting sick/That’s how dicks be getting drips/Falling victims to this shit/From these bitches on our dicks” (“Drips”). This is the same “sexy” artist who raps: “Spit game, to these hoes, like a soap opera episode/and punch a bitch in the nose, ’til her whole face explodes/There’s three things I hate: girls, women, and bitches/I’m that vicious to walk up, and drop-kick midgets.” This is the same “adorable” man who constantly unleashes torrents of verbal aggression against women, even though he is so sensitive to the potential wounding power of words that he famously refuses to use the “n-word.” Why is it not okay for a white rapper to diss “niggers,” but it is okay for a man to express contempt for “bitches” and “hoes?”
His credulous female fans counter: He does not really hate women. How could he? He loves his daughter! For battered women’s advocates, this is one of the most frustrating aspects of Eminem’s popularity. “He loves his daughter” is one of the most predictable excuses that batterers give in pleading for another chance. The fact is, most batterers are not one-dimensional ogres. Abusive men often love the very women they are abusing. And let us not forget that when Eminem verbally abuses his daughter’s mother, by extension he abuses his daughter.
We can gain important insight into one key aspect of the Eminem persona by studying both the behavior of men who batter, and people’s responses to them. The man who is being lionized as one of this era’s emblematic artists shares many character traits with men who batter. One glaring similarity is the folklore that Mathers has actively constructed about his famously difficult childhood. Narcissistic batterers frequently paint themselves as the true victims. It is them we are supposed to feel sorry for—not their victims (or the victims/targets of their lyrical aggression). It is well-known that many of Eminem’s fans, male and female, reference his abusive family life to explain and rationalize his rage. But it is not as well-known that batterer-intervention counselors hear this excuse every single day from men who are in court-mandated programs for beating their girlfriends and wives. “I had a tough childhood. I have a right to be angry,” or “She was the real aggressor. She pushed my buttons and I just reacted.” The counselors’ typical answer is, “It is not right or okay that you were abused as a child. You deserve our empathy and support. But you have no right to pass on your pain to other people.”
Boys and young men have long expressed frustration with the fact that girls and young women often say they are attracted to nice guys, but end up with the disdainful tough guys who treat them like dirt. When I suggest in my college lectures that men need to find the courage to resist putting on the “tough guise” in order to prove their manhood, I frequently hear from sincere young men who approach me seeking advice. “Women want me to be their friend,” they say. “But they want to go out with the alpha males. If I don’t act hard I go to bed alone.” What can I tell them? What are they supposed to conclude when 53 percent of the 8 Mile audience on opening weekend was female?
What are men to make of New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd when she writes, uncritically, that a “gaggle” of her female baby-boomer friends are “surreptitiously smitten” with a certain thirty-year-old rapper whose lyrics literally drip with contempt for women? What are boys to think of an online poll in CosmoGirl magazine in 2001 that found him to be the “sexiest musician”? That girls want to be treated with dignity and respect? Or that the quickest route to popularity with them is to be verbally and emotionally cruel, that “bad boy” posturing is a winning strategy to impress naïve (and self-loathing) girls? Surely most of Eminem’s female fans would not want to be sending that message to their male peers—but they are.
People who have listened carefully to Eminem’s actual lyrics—not just the hit songs or the sanitized movie soundtrack—know that many self-respecting girls who are conscious about the depths of our culture’s sexism are repulsed by Eminem’s misogyny and depressed by his popularity. Sadly, many of these girls have been silent, fearing they will be branded as “uncool” because they “don’t get” the artist who is supposedly the voice of their generation.
There are women who like Eminem because (they say) he is complex and not easily knowable; they would argue that it is dismissive to characterize his art as sexist. But the burden is on them to demonstrate how—in a culture where so many men sexually harass, rape, and batter women—it is possible to reconcile a concern for women’s physical, sexual, and emotional well-being with admiration for a male artist whose lyrics consistently portray women in a contemptuous and sexually degrading manner. Girls and women, even those who have been co-opted into Eminem worship, want to be treated with respect. They certainly do not want to be physically or sexually assaulted by men. They do not want to be sexually degraded by dismissive and arrogant men. But they cannot have it both ways. They cannot proclaim their attraction to a man who has gotten rich verbally trashing and metaphorically raping women, and yet reasonably expect that young men will treat them with dignity.
Eminem is popular with white audiences in large measure because the African American gangsta rap icon Dr. Dre and other hard-core black rappers with “street credibility” have conferred on him a certain legitimacy. Dre is Eminem’s mentor and producer, signaling to black audiences as well that unlike previous white rappers such as Vanilla Ice, this white boy is for real. What is missing from this story is that Dr. Dre himself is one of the most misogynistic and homophobic figures in the history of rap music. He has produced and performed some of this era’s most degrading songs about women. “Bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks/How could you trust a hoe/Cuz a hoe’s a trick/We don’t love them tricks/Cuz a trick’s a bitch” (“Bitches Ain’t Shit”). In other words, Eminem and Dre are modeling a perverse sort of interracial solidarity that comes at the expense of women. It is an old story: sexism provides men with a way to unite across race and class lines. African American people who are happy to see Eminem earning rap greater legitimacy in white America might want to consider that this era’s white artist most identified as a bridge to black culture has built that bridge on the denigration and undermining of black women—and all women.
One element of Eminem’s story of which all his fans are aware is that he and his mother do not get along. He claims that she was an unstable drug abuser who abused him emotionally. She sued him for defamation. Many people psychoanalyze him from a distance and argue that his problems with women stem from his stormy relationship with his mother. This may or may not be true, but it is an excuse that abusive men often make for their behavior. As Lundy Bancroft observes in his book, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men, battered women themselves sometimes like this explanation, since it makes sense out of the man’s behavior and gives the woman someone safe to be angry at—since getting angry at him always seems to blow up in her face. It is hard to say what percentage of Eminem fans relate to his often articulated rage at his mother, but consider this anecdotal evidence: I attended an Eminem concert in southern California during the Anger Management Tour in 2002. At one point, Eminem ripped off a string of angry expletives about his mother (something like “F-you, bitch!”) after which a sizeable cross-section of the eighteen-thousand-person crowd joined in a violent chant repeating the verbal aggression against Ms. Mathers (and no doubt other mothers by extension). Why is this aspect of the Eminem phenomenon such a cause for concern? No one begrudges Eminem, or anyone else, the right to have issues—including in some cases being very angry with their mothers. However, it is not a great stretch to see that Eminem’s anger can easily be generalized to all women and used as yet another rationale for some men’s deeply held misogyny.
Considering Eminem’s roots on the economic margins of “white trash” Detroit, class is also a critical factor here. Poor women—especially poor women of color—are easy scapegoats for many societal problems. Eminem’s fans presumably know little about the context within which Debbie Mathers (who is white) tried to raise her children. Might we have some compassion for her as we are asked to for him? Why was she constantly struggling financially? How did educational inequities and lack of employment opportunities affect her life, her family experiences, her education level, her dreams, her ability to be a good parent? As a woman, how did sexism shape her choices? She became pregnant with Marshall (Eminem) when she was fifteen. What was her personal history, including her history with men? Was she ever abused? We know a lot of women with substance abuse problems develop them as a form of self-medication against the effects of trauma. What is the connection between Ms. Mathers’s alleged (by her son) substance abuse and any history of victimization she might have? Further, if Eminem’s father deserted him and the family when Marshall was young, why is so much of Eminem’s verbal aggression aimed at his mother and at women? If you buy the argument that Eminem’s misogyny comes from his issues with his mother, then considering his father’s behavior, why doesn’t he have a huge problem with men? Hint: the answer has to do with sexism. It is easy to blame struggling single mothers for their shortcomings; right-wing politicians have been doing this for decades. A more thoughtful approach would seek to understand their situations, and while such an understanding would provide no excuse for abuse or neglect (if that is what Eminem actually experienced), it would give it much-needed context.
Many of Eminem’s fans claim that his Slim Shady persona and nasty anti-woman lyrics are just an act. But his misogyny comes out in interviews as well. In a Rolling Stone magazine interview in 1999, Eminem tried to explain his writing process:
“My thoughts are so fucking evil when I’m writing shit, if I’m mad at my girl, I’m gonna sit down and write the most misogynistic fucking rhyme in the world. It’s not how I feel in general, it’s how I feel at that moment. Like, say today, earlier, I might think something like ‘coming through the airport sluggish, walking on crutches, hit a pregnant bitch in the stomach with luggage.’”
Elizabeth Keathley points out in a fascinating music journal essay entitled, “A Context for Eminem’s Murder Ballads,” that many journalists buy the argument that misogyny is a creative response warranted by certain circumstances in an intimate relationship, rather than a world view that informs a person’s choices. This rationalization allows them to “overlook” Eminem’s misogyny and accept at face value his claim that’s he’s only kidding. Eminem’s defenders—including a number of prominent music critics—like to argue that his ironic wit and dark sense of humor are lost on many of his detractors. This is what his predominantly young fans are constantly being told: that some people don’t like the likeable Em because they don’t get him, the personae he has created, his transgressive humor. In comparison, his fans are said to be much more hip, since they are in on the joke. As a non-fan, I would offer this response: “We get it, all right. We understand that lyrics are usually not meant to be taken literally. And we have a good sense of humor. We just don’t think it is funny for men to joke aggressively about murdering and raping women, and assaulting gays and lesbians. Just like we don’t think it is funny for white people to make racist jokes at the expense of people of color. This sort of ‘hate humor’ is not just harmless fun—no matter how clever the lyrics or spellbinding the backbeats. Music lyrics and other art forms can either illuminate social problems, or they can cynically exploit them. Eminem is arguably a major force in the latter category. Sorry if we don’t find that funny.”
Eminem has been skillfully marketed as a “rebel” to whom many young people—especially white boys—can relate. But what exactly is he rebelling against? Powerful women who oppress weak and vulnerable men? Omnipotent gays and lesbians who make life a living hell for straight people? Eminem’s misogyny and homophobia, far from being “rebellious,” are actually extremely traditional and conservative. They are also clearly profitable, both for Eminem and Interscope records, for Nike, with whom Eminem has had a lucrative promotional contract, and with all of the other media that profit from his “controversial” act. As a straight white man in hip-hop culture, Marshall Mathers would actually be much more of a rebel if he rapped about supporting women’s equality and embracing gay and lesbian civil rights. Instead, he is only a rebel in a very narrow sense of that word. Since he offends a lot of parents, kids can “rebel” against their parents’ wishes by listening to him, buying his CDs, etc. The irony is that by buying into Eminem’s clever “bad boy” act, one could argue that they are just being obedient, predictable consumers. It is rebellion as a purchasable commodity. But if you focus on the contents of his lyrics, the “rebellion” is empty. If you are a “rebel,” it matters who you are and what you are rebelling against. The KKK are rebels, too. They boast about it all the time. They fly the Confederate (rebel) flag. But most cultural commentators would never dream of speaking positively about the KKK as models of adolescent rebellion for American youth because the content of what they advocate is so repugnant. Likewise Eminem would be dropped from MTV playlists and lose his record contract immediately if he turned his lyrical aggression away from women and gays and started trashing people of color, Jews, Catholics, etc. In that sense, Eminem’s continued success makes a statement about how this culture regards women and gays. Sadly, it is a statement that many progressive, feminist, egalitarian, and nonviolent people in this era of white male backlash find quite deflating.
Professional wrestling has escaped serious cultural analysis largely because of its spectacular surface appeal and the common assertion that “it’s only entertainment.” But its immense popularity and cultural presence, its consistently high ratings, and its aggressive promotion across a range of media channels raise some basic questions: Why is pro wrestling so popular? What does its popularity tell us about gender relations in this era? Given that the audience for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is comprised overwhelmingly of boys and young men, what are the stories it tells them—especially about what it means to be a man or a woman? How does pro wrestling contribute to rape culture?
In the past, discussions about wrestling’s effects on “real world” violence have typically centered on the behavioral effects of exposure to it. Does it cause imitative violence? But that question misses the point. The issue is not, “Are children imitating the violence they see?” but “Are boys learning that taunting, ridiculing, and bullying define masculinity?” People who do not watch wrestling are often surprised to learn that real (or simulated) violence actually comprises a small percentage of the length of a pro wrestling telecast. Most of the time is devoted to setting up the narratives, and to verbal confrontation and bullying. In wrestling video games, each combatant not only has signature moves, but also verbal taunts that can be directed against either an opponent or the crowd. The object of the game is to see who can be the most effective bully. There are also numerous storylines that depict men harassing and humiliating women, and imposing their will on women’s bodies—often in sexually graphic ways. There are numerous instances of men forcing kisses on women, pouring beer down their throats, and commanding them to perform simulated sex acts. In one scene involving two popular characters, the woman is obviously passed out and lying on the ground. The man gets on top of her to simulate rape as the announcers shriek with delight about how much she enjoys it. “She’s liking it,” one of them exclaims. “She’s euphoric.”
We know from decades of research that depictions of violence in the entertainment media create a cultural climate in which such behavior is accepted as a normal, even appropriate, response to various situations. As the pioneering media researcher George Gerbner explains, the problem of violence in media is not so much its graphic depiction but the stories it tells about who has power and who does not, who has the right to use it, and who is an appropriate victim. In that sense professional wrestling tells a powerful story about how “real men” prevail—through intimidation, humiliation, and control, all accomplished by verbal, physical, and sexual aggression. Manhood is equated explicitly with the ability to settle scores, defend one’s honor, and win respect and compliance through physical force. Already, this definition of manhood is at the root of much interpersonal violence in our society—including men’s violence against women. While it might not be possible to demonstrate a direct relationship between pro wrestling and domestic violence, it is clear that the wrestling subculture contributes to a larger cultural environment that teaches boys and men that manhood is about achieving power and control over women. And when you combine this lesson about manhood with storylines that depict women as two-dimensional objects whose main entertainment function is to take off their clothes, you have a potent recipe for the normalization of rape.
The role of women in the WWE has changed over the past decade. Back in the 1980s, in the days of Hulk Hogan and the Macho Man, women were essentially restricted to a couple of ornamental figures whose main function was to look good and titillate the audience. Today, they play a much more prominent role, either as wrestlers or as bimbo/prostitute sidekicks. In both cases they are highly sexualized and wear little clothing, and function effectively as strippers for the largely male audience. As the WWE’s Torrie Wilson explains, “To put it bluntly, [my character] has gotten a little sleazier, the clothes have gotten a little skimpier. I learned through trial and error that I got more popular as the hemlines got shorter.” But women in the WWE are not just objects for young men to stare at. As female characters have become more common, they have increasingly been drawn into the narratives. The sight of women being pushed, punched, and brutally slammed by men has become normalized through sheer repetition. There are countless scenes of men knocking women to the mat, punching them in the face, breaking chairs over their back, or mock-raping them. Wrestling might not directly cause men to be abusive to women, but there can be little doubt that it contributes to an atmosphere in which men’s violence against women is not taken seriously.
What is perhaps most disturbing about the role of women in the WWE is the deliberate sexualization of men’s violence against them. Examples: A scantily clad woman—not a wrestler—is slapped by a male wrestler on her bare buttocks and then pushed out of the ring and onto the ground. A large male wrestler picks up a woman half his size, drapes her semi-nude body across his knees, licks his hand, and spanks her on the butt as the crowd cheers wildly. And in one of the most disturbing sequences of sexual bullying ever shown on television, Trish Stratus, a WWE icon and “one of the most sultry divas ever in sports entertainment,” according to her official website, is confronted by WWE CEO Vince McMahon, playing himself. Backstage, he accuses her of some transgression, and then demands that she publicly say she is sorry. Once out in the ring, she does, but he presses on. “If you’re really sorry,” he says, “if you’re really, really sorry, take off your shirt!” She cowers and then complies as the audience roars its approval. He continues to verbally coerce her in this fashion until she is stripped down to her panties, barely covering her surgically enhanced breasts, at which point McMahon shouts at her to get on her knees and bark like a dog. She complies. The entire time, boys in the live arena audience and watching at home on television are treated to a kind of forced strip show, where their sexual arousal is linked to the sexually degrading treatment of an attractive but subservient woman at the hands of a powerful (white) man. On the WWE, men’s abusive treatment of their fictional girlfriends and wives is also commonly depicted within a storyline that presents the violence as deserved—a pattern that mirrors similar justifications in the “real world.” In one sequence where the wrestler Triple H confronts his “wife” for supposedly lying to him and angrily throws her down on the mat, the announcers literally say she deserves the beating he then inflicts on her. Similarly, wrestling plotlines regularly involve the sexual humiliation of women in the workplace, and treat the entire notion of sexual harassment as a joke. Until the character was discontinued a couple of years ago, in one of the most overtly racist and sexist characterizations on contemporary television, the Godfather, an over-the-top stereotype of a hustling pimp (and one of the few important black figures in the WWE) led out his “hoe train” of scantily-clad women to the leering and jeering crowds. Also, as female sexuality is increasingly prominent in the scripts, the line between the bimbo/prostitute sidekick and the female wrestlers has eroded. During one pay-per-view event, Miss Kitty, a one-time WWE women’s champion and a former hyper-sexualized sidekick, removed her top. Big contests for female wrestlers often involve “bra and panties” matches, mud or chocolate baths, Jell-O matches, or the “evening dress” contest (where you lose by having your dress ripped from your body). The most popular female wrestler ever, Chyna (whose real name is Joanie Laurer), built her reputation on her powerful physique. But after numerous cosmetic surgical procedures on her face and body, she posed nude in Playboy in 2000 in what became one of the largest-selling issues in that magazine’s history.
People who love pro wrestling defend all of this by claiming that it is fantasy and harmless entertainment—and if you don’t like it, don’t watch. But what does it mean when stadiums around the country are filled with young men cheering and laughing at the staged humiliation and abuse of women? What does it mean that millions of boys and men are entertained by scenes of bullying and ritualized sexual degradation? How realistic is it that boys who are immersed in pro wrestling’s cartoonish world of brutish male thugs and compliant female sex objects can switch all of that off and relate to their female (and male) peers in a spirit of equality and mutual respect? It is clear that the WWE sets up girls and women to be little more than compliant victims. But it also sets up boys and men either to be abusers and rapists—or to think like them.
I understand why Howard Stern is such a popular radio talk show host, especially with his core demographic of eighteen- to forty-nine-year-old white men. He is an undeniably talented radio personality with a fertile creative mind and a great voice. He is a gifted conversationalist. And he is more willing than perhaps anyone in the history of mainstream media to puncture the pretensions of pompous celebrity culture. He talks about sex all the time. He surrounds himself with beautiful young women who are eager to take their clothes off for him and his cohorts. He can also be charming, likable, decent, and funny. One of his winning personality characteristics is his selfdeprecation, combined with refreshing bluntness. He constantly refers to his own geeky looks, and does not hesitate to say that he has a small penis. He scores points for his honesty, especially because there is not nearly enough public honesty in modern public discourse—especially from men.
And he is also a first-rate bully. His relentless verbal aggression does far more than just expose the numerous hypocrisies of the rich and famous. Stern seeks out and destroys a variety of human targets, but his specialty— and a good part of the reason for his popularity with men—is his sexual bullying of women. He constantly belittles, ridicules, and provokes women—often young, surgically enhanced, and desperate to please men—to degrade themselves sexually for their moment of fame. He regularly makes jokes about people’s pain. One of the most well-known aspects of his popularity—at least according to many of his fans—is his eagerness to say things other men might think but would never dare say out loud. Many of these involve deeply misogynistic feelings. One infamous example is what he said on air shortly after the Columbine massacre in 1999. Talking about the murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, he expressed his disapproval that they did not rape some girls before they killed them. “There were some really good-looking girls running out with their hands over their heads. Did those kids try to have sex with any of the good-looking girls? They didn’t even do that? At least if you’re gonna kill yourself and kill all the kids, why wouldn’t you have some sex? If I was going to kill some people, I’d take them out with sex.”
But if Stern is such an abusive person, why is he so popular? We know from research on schoolyard bullies over the past twenty years that they are often popular, talented kids. This does not excuse their abusive behavior; it merely complicates the traditional image of the bully as an unattractive, unloved brute. Just as many people like Eminem, not in spite of his bullying personality but in part because of it, Stern draws legions of male fans that are attracted to his aggressive style and his callous disregard for people’s feelings.
Sometimes when I tune in to Stern’s radio program, my mind flashes to a moment in the late 1970s when I was a junior in high school and witnessed an incident that is etched in my memory. It was in the school cafeteria. A group of senior boys had secured a table next to the end of the food line. As girls took their trays and headed out to find a table, the boys held up placards numbered one through ten. They hooted and laughed as they rated the girls on their bodies and looks. I did not speak to any of the girls, but I imagine many of them must have felt humiliated and angry at being judged this way. My guess is that some of the boys who participated did not even pause to think how the girls might feel. At the time of this incident I was hardly a feminist thinker; I was a product of the same social environment that produced those boys. But while this event had an impact on me, and I still remember it vividly several decades later, girls and women have to live with boys’ and men’s often cruel judgments about how attractive they are every single day.
Despite the women’s movement and the enormous changes in women’s lives over the past several decades—especially middle-class women’s lives— this sort of abusive ritual is still enacted by boys in middle schools and high schools across the country. Only now, the boys are more likely to get in trouble for it, due in large measure to the passage of sexual-harassment laws that deem such behavior as constituting a “hostile environment” that denies girls equal educational access. But while the laws have changed, other parts of the culture are actually worse than before. In fact, due to the power and reach of mass media, millions of boys and men are in a sense brought into that cafeteria to witness such spectacles on a regular basis.
For example, one of the regular bits on the Howard Stern Show features women in skimpy outfits who line up in front of a panel of male judges and prepare to disrobe. They are often strippers, prostitutes, and porn stars, or young women in their late teens or early twenties who aspire to those professions. Either individually or sometimes in a group, the women strip off their clothes as the men comment on their weight, face, and breast size and shape. It is as if the women are African slaves on the auction block, and the men are plantation owners who have to decide which one has the right body for the work they will be forced to do. The judges are typically average-looking Stern sidekicks, but sometimes include oddball characters like an openly drunk and physically disabled alcoholic in his late thirties who angrily calls the women “bitches,” or developmentally disabled adult men who are there presumably to be laughed at when they say unpredictable things.
Fans of Stern would no doubt maintain that unlike the cafeteria incident, no one forces the women on his show to subject themselves to this humiliation. They are typically young women who are eager for the exposure on national radio and TV (the cable television channel E! carries Stern’s radio program daily). But regardless of the motivation of the women, one has to wonder about the effect on boys and men of watching repeated displays of men making critical and sometimes cruel comments about women’s bodies—and everybody laughing it off. Men who make openly sexual comments to women who walk by on the streets—and in other public spaces like sports arenas, bars, and clubs—often insist that “women like that sort of attention.” Is it possible that some men believe this because in the pornographic era, they are constantly presented with images of women who willingly participate in their own subordination?
In addition, one effect of Stern’s ubiquitous media presence is that he has become an iconic figure in certain parts of male culture. In a sense he is the focal point and preeminent role model for millions of boys and men who listen to his show and are drawn into the electronic community it creates. Like other radio programs such as the Don Imus Show, and television programs like Fox Sports’s the Best Damn Sports Show Period, Stern’s program includes several men (and one woman) who are nearly always with him in studio, “shooting the shit,” and helping to give the listener the impression that he (or she) is part of an extended “in” group of friends. As such, the norms that are established in that studio have wide influence in male culture. How wide? In 2004 Stern signed a five-year contract for $500 million with the satellite radio service Sirius, where Stern’s misogyny and pornographic imagination will not be bound by the strictures of FCC regulation.
If “incitement to rape” is ever made into a crime, the Los Angeles-based talk radio host Tom Leykis would make a great candidate for the first man to be prosecuted. The Tom Leykis program makes the Howard Stern Show sound like a feminist seminar. Leykis, who is number one in his time slot with males in LA, routinely calls women “bitches,” “whores,” and “sluts.” The overweight “shock jock” routinely makes demeaning statements like “Fat chicks serve a purpose—poor guys need love,” and instructs young men to stay away from women over thirty because they are dried up, needy, and desperate for attention. He has told countless women callers over the age of thirty that they have passed their “expiration date.” As a man approaching fifty who has been married and divorced four times, he brags about dating very young women, using them, and dumping them the minute they place any sort of demand on him. He got a burst of national attention during the Kobe Bryant rape trial, when he was the first prominent media person to unapologetically mention on air the name of Bryant’s alleged victim—whom he angrily denounced as a “lying slut.” (Most media outlets withhold the names of alleged sexual-assault victims out of respect for their privacy and concern that unwanted publicity could further traumatize them.) And he got tons of free media coverage in Canada in 2003 when he offered to donate $50,000 to charity if a woman newscaster in Vancouver agreed to bare her breasts and let him autograph them (she declined).
Leykis’s misogyny is so extreme and over the top that an unsuspecting listener who comes across his program on their radio dial might believe that he is a satirist who parodies the worst aspects of traditional masculinity. But he always stays in character, and his listeners generally accept his pronouncements as authentic. One promotion for his show referred to the sexual-harassment allegations against the TV game show host Bob Barker. “He’s seventy years old and sexually harassing twenty-year-olds,” he said. “He’s my hero!” It is important to remember that this sort of talk is not on some restricted access porn channel. The Tom Leykis Show is distributed by Westwood One radio network and is syndicated in sixty markets that include San Francisco, Dallas, Seattle, and Detroit. And as Ann Simonton, the founder of Media Watch, points out, it is often broadcast in afternoon time slots when children are listening.
One of the most popular features on his show is a recurring segment entitled “Leykis 101,” where “Professor Leykis” dispenses advice to young men about their relationships with women. It is really a how-to for young, horny men about how they can get laid, because in the “relationships” that Leykis promotes, women are basically there to service a man’s sexual needs and little else. He tells men never to spend more than forty dollars on a date, to dump a “chick” if she hasn’t “put out” by the third date, and to resist any sort of emotional attachment, which can only end badly. It gets worse. On the air he has repeatedly called women “sperm depositories” and “human urinals.” In Leykis’s universe, women are “scheming bitches” who only want a man’s money and maybe a father for their children, and men are perpetual adolescents who only want sex without commitment, and maybe someone to cook dinner for them. He says all of this with calm certitude, as if he is merely stating the truth. When women call to challenge him, he typically tries to discredit them by stating outright that they must be unattractive or “over thirty.” If they persist in their position that his show promotes harmful and demeaning stereotypes of women, he simply tells them that he speaks for men and his show’s popularity speaks for itself. On the rare occasion when a male caller takes issue with him, he attempts to discredit him with the charge that he has been “pussified,” or allowed a woman too much influence on his life.
One of the most disturbing aspects of his show is the steady stream of female callers who not only excuse his woman-hating rants but actually affirm them. On one show in 2005, a number of women called to say they like it when guys “throw them up against walls,” tell them to shut up, and don’t ask what they want sexually but just do what the men want. It is sad to think that young male listeners might actually take all of this to heart and treat women sexually with contempt because “that’s what girls want.”
On one representative show in 2005, Leykis asked his callers for stories about “dialing while drunk.” One young man recounted a story about a time when he was drunk and called his ex-girlfriend. It is possible that she already had a restraining order against him, because according to the guy, his ex recorded the conversation, and he was subsequently convicted of threatening her, for which he spent a year in jail. The spirit of his call was to warn that guys have to be careful when they are drunk and pick up a phone, because they can get themselves in serious trouble. Leykis did not chastise the man for his threatening behavior. He betrayed no hint of empathy for women who are on the receiving end of harassing phone calls from men, no acknowledgment that men stalking women is a big problem in the U.S., or that alcohol is correlated with all sorts of violent behaviors.
But this is positively benign compared to what he did on a show in 2000. In what has to be counted as one of the lowest moments in the history of talk radio, Leykis devoted an extended segment to a discussion of how men could use women’s sexual abuse histories as a manipulative trick to get them into bed. The segment started with Leykis reading letters from male listeners who say women who have been sexually molested “put out” more. He used that as a stepping-off point to talk about the ethics of men doing whatever it takes to get laid. At one point, he had a female caller on the line who tried to argue that using a woman’s weakness in order to get laid is like playing on a child’s innocence in order to molest them. Leykis disagreed, arguing that:
“All men do it . . . we find different weaknesses. Sometimes, we find out you have a weakness to, uh, have a couple of drinks and then you get, uh, kind of loose. Sometimes, we find out that you like to smoke pot and we get you stoned. Sometimes, we find out that you have a weakness for money so we take you out and we spend a lot of money on you and then, uh, you’ll bend over for us . . . We find out all kinds of weaknesses you have and that’s how we get in.”
The female caller asked if he thought this was a little cruel. He denied it. “I mean, men want to get laid,” he said. “We’re not here to . . . to . . . to get to know you.” If a man finds out a woman has been molested, Leykis continued, “You’re more likely to put out. You’re more likely to be good in bed. That’s what guys are saying.” When the woman continued to insist that it is cruel to exploit a woman’s problems in this way, Leykis did not budge from his position. “It seems horrible but I don’t think it’s as horrible as it seems.”
Before he became an unapologetic sexist and sexual bully on the airwaves, Tom Leykis used to host a political talk show from a liberal perspective. But in the mid 1990s when his career fortunes were sagging, he made the decision to copy the lucrative formula pioneered by Howard Stern, which combined sexually explicit talk with ugly and aggressive advocacy from the so-called “men’s perspective.” Like the Howard Stern Show, the Tom Leykis Show derives much of its influence from the claims of its host and fans that it speaks for all men. That leaves men who love and respect women and believe in equality between the sexes with a clear choice. Unless these men make their voices heard in public and private, the Sterns and Leykises of the world will continue to speak for men, and thus do a major disservice to countless women who have learned not to expect more from the other sex. They will also continue to do a disservice to countless men who, I am convinced, want intimacy and connection—along with sexual pleasure—from women as well as other men; but they will never find it by following the advice of cynical manipulators like Stern and Leykis.
I would suspect that most of Rush Limbaugh’s fans would not be pleased to see his name on a list of radio personalities who contribute to rape culture— especially when the list includes the likes of Howard Stern and Tom Leykis. Limbaugh is certainly not as crude and openly misogynistic as those two. But he merits inclusion on a list of talk-radio personalities who support a rape culture on the sole basis of his relentless attacks on feminists. People can legitimately differ with positions feminists take on various issues. In fact, there is often healthy debate and disagreement between feminists. But Limbaugh does not simply express disagreement with feminists; he routinely ridicules and personally insults them. That is, he routinely demeans the very people who created and sustain the anti-rape movement. Let’s be clear. There would be no rape crisis centers—or battered women’s programs—without them. Millions of women and children would not be protected by the laws feminists helped write and enact over the past generation. Rape within marriage would still be legal. Without feminists there would be virtually no anti-rape education in the schools. So when Limbaugh stigmatizes feminists by calling them names like “feminazi,” he is attacking those women who have been most successful in the fight against rape. This indirectly helps foster a rape culture to the extent that it weakens its most effective opponents.
But in addition to his attacks on the leaders of the anti-rape movement, Limbaugh’s comments about the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal that broke in 2004 were textbook examples of “rape-supportive” attitudes. When news reports confirmed that United States Army personnel had abused Iraqi prisoners with torture techniques that included sexual humiliation, threats of rape, forcing male detainees to masturbate while being photographed and videotaped, forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear, and arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them, Limbaugh used his highly influential radio forum to minimize the abuse and undermine the legitimacy of Americans who were outraged that such abuses took place in their name. In fact, Limbaugh made a series of statements that “downplayed, dismissed, and even endorsed” Iraqi prisoner abuse, according to the liberal watchdog website Media Matters for America. For example, Limbaugh said that Pfc. Lynndie England and other accused soldiers were engaging in acts that he compared to hazing and fraternity pranks, “Sort of that kind of fun.” He compared the chilling pictures of naked Iraqi men stacked on top of each other to “good old American pornography,” and claimed that the soldiers had just been “blowing off steam.” Furthermore, he asserted that the reaction to the “stupid torture” is an example of the “feminization of this country.”
The Abu Ghraib torture scandal did incalculable damage to perceptions of the United States around the world, and it badly undermined American claims to moral authority in the volatile Middle East. For a time, it looked like there might be pressure to hold senior officials accountable for this scandal, and not just the ordinary soldiers who claimed to be following orders. Limbaugh’s comments at the time were widely seen as an attempt to deflect criticism away from higher ups in the chain of command, up to and including the White House. But in playing this transparently partisan role, the nation’s number one talk radio personality did what powerful men have done for eons: he sided with the perpetrators of sexual violence over its victims. The rape culture will persist as long as influential people—for whatever reason—make excuses for sex crimes instead of firmly and unwaveringly declaring that sexual abuse will never be condoned, tolerated, or excused.