MovieChat Forums > Sixteen Candles (1984) Discussion > Was rape a normal thing back then ?

Was rape a normal thing back then ?


There's a scene in the film where guy rapes girl and the morning after girl wakes up having realised she was raped and she actually enjoys it! WTF? I don't get the popularity of this film to be totally honest.

reply

It's true, in 1984 people weren't pointing at every single hetero sexual act and going "THAT'S RAPE! AND THAT IS ALSO RAPE! THAT IS DEFINITELY RAPE! OVER THERE IS ANOTHER THING THAT IS RAPE! EVERYTHING IS RAPE!" As others in this thread have already pointed out, when two drunk people are going at it, neither one of them is committing rape. Or, they both are... which cancels each other out.

The concept that "consent can't exist when a person is drunk" simply wasn't a thing back then. Instead there was more emphasis on personal accountability. We used to teach girls to assume that everyone at a party is a drunken sociopath, so be smart and don't put yourself into a position where you're an easy mark someone can take advantage of. The "TEACH BOYS NOT TO RAPE" meme is so idiotic. You can spend hours every day teaching a boy that rape is bad and hurtful and not to do it. But guess what? Virtually every boy in the world knows rape is wrong. But if the boy in question is a sociopath, he's going to do it anyway. When a girl got drunk and passed out a party and some creep raped her, we didn't give the creep a medal. He was rightfully shamed as a scumbag. But by the same token, we didn't treat the girl as if she was a 100% innocent angel. We treated her like someone who made a stupid mistake which allowed a scumbag to do something bad to her, and hopefully she at least learned a lesson.

And yeah, I'll just say it: Back then, rape wasn't seen as this crippling life-ending ultimate injury worse than death that happened to every girl/woman in the world on a daily basis. It was just something gross and nasty and creepy that shouldn't happen to a person. But if it did, life went on. At least, that's how it was thought of by people who had no experience with it. And the people who did experience it never EVER talked about it. It was literally a different world.

reply