Blog Post 5: Cultural Study and Class Discussion

In today’s lecture we talked about cultural studies. To my surprise, the article shows that 9 in 10 victims know their offenders. Moreover, it’s among 1000 college female students, there are 35 rape incidents happen each year. And one study show that 88 percent victims have never consumed alcohol before the rape. Only 25 percent victims consumed alcohol or drugs before rape. These statistics suggest a cultural phenomenon that is going on in America, and this phenomenon does not really involve drinking and alcohols. I think the culture of sexuality has a lot to do with moral corruption. Girls believe it’s ok to sleep with the guys they know; and guys also believe it’s ok to rape the girls they know. I think this moral corruption has a lot to do with media. This is because media culture also depicts the culture of sexuality. Nowadays, you can hear sex oriented context in a song, or watch a movie contain scenes of people having sex. And a lot of young people and heavy TV viewers accept the media’s portrayal of man and woman. For example, the novel fifty Shades of Gray has sold millions of copies across America, and it is not only a sex oriented book, but also about BDSM (a practice that involves dominance and submission). This novel has changed normal couple’s life style, a lot of couple who read the book started sexual role playing. To be specific, after reading this book, man would like to play the dominant role who ties a woman up and pretends to torture her. I have watched the 2014 documentary of Fifty Shades of Gray, and found that a lot of couples being interviewed actually admit that BDSM is already part of their lives, and they don’t want to get rid of it. If media can change man and woman’s attitude about sexual violence, they maybe hold more endurance with sexual assault. But this is just a guess, because I know that BDSM role playing is a lot different than actual rape. But as people become more endurable with sexual violence, they also become more endurable with certain sexual behaviors that maybe have something to do with rape. And I think media has brought an unheathy attitude to the society, because it has made people become more open up to having sex than ever.  

I think that social media is a commercial product; it encourages people to consume more of its product (such as sex oriented texts and alcohol). As people consume more, their economy grows up, but their moral standards become corrupted by continued consumption of unhealthy contents. In my opinion, consumers should acknowledge the effect media brought on society and stop relying too much on media contents. The media producers too should limit the contents that have negative effect on society.

In class discussion, we also talked about the bans and affirmative actions. For bans and limits, students suggest to have undercover police in a party, or forbidding students to go to dangerous places (such as wild place or place with no people). I think that if there is going to be undercover police, the number of police will depends on how big the party is. It is unpractical to send so many police to a large party when most of the campus police are dealing with other crimes. I remember the instructor said local police in Pullman believe that they are not in charge of the raped happened on campus. I don’t think that local police should ignore the crimes happened on campus because protecting all citizens is their duty. If the police on campus are busy or takes long time to investigate rape case, local police should also be send to help the investigation. If students are forbidden to go to “fly zones,” they should at least be informed where these places are, in case they accidentally confronted danger.