One surface level manifestation of us not being in reality is how rape both is and is not a big deal so far as we are concerned. The standard understanding among people in society right now is that rape is an almost uniquely and universally damaging thing. Rape has to be presented as universally damaging regardless of cultural context because if it wasn’t people might say to shift the culture rather than the action.

Yet where rape is presented in other contexts, people don’t typically continue to intuitively or even intellectually believe that it is universally damaging and evil.

A good way to highlight this is to look at respected historical texts. The Bible obviously has rape in the OT but people can say that’s just history.

The Kama Sutra is like an ancient self help text that actually advises on the circumstances that a bit of rape might be a good and advantageous idea. Surprise surprise it’s when the woman can’t make up her mind about marriage. Once you’re raped her that’s the issue settled then!

An interesting thing about it is the amorality of it. It’s just something that will achieve the purpose.

Yet where we go to see what people think of it on Amazon it has mostly positive reviews. Most of the one star reviews are because it doesn’t have pictures (the original never did) only two say:

“If you want to read a text from another time and place of elitism, sexism, racism, classism just for starters this book might reveal to the reader one aspect of the way society functioned. It is certainly nothing that should used as a guide for sexual relationships. Despite what this book has been historically cracked up to be, it also includes tips on how to cheat and/or seduce someone’s wife, some disgusting references to pedophilia in a positive light (disgusting), how to pimp out your daughter and pretty much details from certainly a wealthy man’s point of view of who to take advantage of, discard and use for their own devices. It is not a sex tip book or anything remotely close to the study of tantric sex, which emphasizes marital faitfulness, fairness and kindness in its philosophies.” Eleanora Fagan on September 7, 2013

and

rapist’s and child molester’s How-to guide I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS BOOK !!!!!!!!!!!; ZERO STARS, NOT EVEN ONE !!!!!!!!! I bought this book several years ago —– and was mortified to find it included instruction on how to rape women, how to seduce and molest girls and boys (by both men and women), and how mothers can train their daughters to be prostitutes …… and that was all i could stomach reading before i burned it (i am a survivor of childhood abuse and molestation and adult rape and abuse). If you want help learning how to pleasure your spouse intimately, there are far better books than this one; i recommend such old faithful books like “The Joy of Sex” and “The Gift of Sex” but there are others ….. if you are a woman and want to be grateful for being a member of America and its Judio-Christian culture, then read this. When, as a survivor and concerned citizen trying to protect our children and other woman, i mentioned these contents to my local Barns and Noble store where i bought it, i was treated with condesending snootiness, the manager not even offering to read it to see for him/herself ~~~~~~ and, needless to say, i have never bought another book from that or any other B&N store since … again, as a survivor trying to protect our children and other women from becoming victims. By crushed ember on November 21, 2011

Realistically, out of the 144 reviews only two have the actual outraged fact of the matter so far as modern society is concerned. And so because of that the Kama Sutra continues to be sold in bookshops across the land.

In comparison if you do a search for “How to rape” it comes up with this and a whole lot of rape prevention stuff.

Even the internet won’t tell you how to rape, ever mind your local bookshop in any other context. Rape is this universally disparaged thing.

Here is some advice about rape for teenagers:

“What is it like to be raped?

It’s very difficult to talk about what rape feels like at exactly the moment it happens or is going to happen, because words rarely cut it. Rape is a physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, personal identity, gender and sexual violation, all at once. At the moment it happens, for most rape victims, something in the fabric of the world as we knew it rips wide open. For those who had such low self-esteem they already felt they only deserved pain or suffering, rape validates that feeling. But the pain of rape doesn’t stop once the rape is over: not even close.”

That’s interesting for me as that’s what the horror of seeing the social environment is like too. Seeing the social environment is “a physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, personal identity, gender and sexual violation, all at once. At the moment it happens, something in the fabric of the world as we knew it rips wide open.”

Given that seeing the psycho-sexual environment is sort of like a mental rape its not too surprising that not no one wants to see that. I mean people don’t rape themselves do they?

BTW one thing I don’t want is for people to do any myth purification on the Kama Sutra and go ‘OK it’s got rape in it so now we’re going to get rid of the Kama Sutra’. Myth purification is where people take aspects of the mythspace and eliminate any obvious incongruities that may have accumilated.