Rape Culture and the Story of Sodom and Gomorrah

But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.” Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”
Genesis 19:4-8

There are many dark tales in the Bible, but the story of Sodom and Gomorrah has a special place within that collection. 

And within the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the darkest verse is surely the description of Lot going out to the mob and offering up his two virgin daughters: “Look,” he begs them, “I have two daughters who have not yet known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please.”

The moral lesson seems to be that the gang rape of women is not nearly as bad as the gang rape of men.

Unless you have been hiding out in a wilderness cave without internet access, you know the story of the Palo Alto judge who handed out a six month sentence in the county jail to Brock Turner, a star athlete at Stanford, for the rape of an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. The judge said that although he understood how difficult it was for the young woman, he feared that a longer sentence would have a severe impact on the young man.

In her powerful and moving statement to the court on the sentencing of Mr. Turner, the young woman described how she learned what had happened to her when she was lying unconscious, passed out from drinking too much:

"One day, I was at work, scrolling through the news on my phone, and came across an article. In it, I read and learned for the first time about how I was found unconscious, with my hair disheveled, long necklace wrapped around my neck, bra pulled out of my dress, dress pulled off over my shoulders and pulled up above my waist, that I was butt naked all the way down to my boots, legs spread apart, and had been penetrated by a foreign object by someone I did not recognize. This was how I learned what happened to me, sitting at my desk reading the news at work. I learned what happened to me the same time everyone else in the world learned what happened to me. That’s when the pine needles in my hair made sense, they didn’t fall from a tree. He had taken off my underwear, his fingers had been inside of me. I don’t even know this person. I still don’t know this person. When I read about me like this, I said, this can’t be me.

“This can’t be me. I could not digest or accept any of this information. I could not imagine my family having to read about this online. I kept reading. In the next paragraph, I read something that I will never forgive; I read that according to him, I liked it. I liked it. Again, I do not have words for these feelings.

“At the bottom of the article, after I learned about the graphic details of my own sexual assault, the article listed his swimming times. She was found breathing, unresponsive with her underwear six inches away from her bare stomach curled in fetal position. By the way, he’s really good at swimming. Throw in my mile time if that’s what we’re doing. I’m good at cooking, put that in there, I think the end is where you list your extra-curriculars to cancel out all the sickening things that’ve happened.”

They listed his swimming times because. Well, because he was an important and talented guy at Stanford, for crying out loud. 

She was saved by two Swedish graduate students who were riding by on their bicycles and saw the young man assaulting her (the description is more graphic than that.) They chased the guy and caught him. They pinned him to the ground and called the police. And when the police arrived one of the rescuers had his head in his hands sobbing uncontrollably because he could not unsee what had happened.

In her statement, she thanked them and said that she sleeps with pictures of two bicycles taped above her bed to remind her that there are heroes in her story.

At the end of her remarks, she addressed all the other young women, who often live in fear that something like this might happen to them:

"And finally, to girls everywhere, I am with you. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you. I fought everyday for you. So never stop fighting, I believe you. Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining. Although I can’t save every boat, I hope that by speaking today, you absorbed a small amount of light, a small knowing that you can’t be silenced, a small satisfaction that justice was served, a small assurance that we are getting somewhere, and a big, big knowing that you are important, unquestionably, you are untouchable, you are beautiful, you are to be valued, respected, undeniably, every minute of every day, you are powerful and nobody can take that away from you. To girls everywhere, I am with you. Thank you.”

What makes this story newsworthy is that the folks at Buzzfeed picked up the young woman’s statement and it went viral.

Her story is not unusual.

In recent weeks we have had a national debate about the imagined threat of transgender women (who were classified as male at birth) using the women’s rest room.

How bizarre is it that public officials are worried about the imagined threat of a transgender woman (who was born male) sharing a restroom with your daughter, and those same folks seem to show very little concern for the rape of young women by young cisgender heterosexual men?

The Palo Alto incident is just the one at the top of your newsfeed. In the Baylor sexual assault scandal, both football coach Art Briles and University President Ken Starr (yes, that Ken Starr) were forced to resign after the university repeatedly covered up sexual assaults by members of the football team.

Sports Illustrated’s online journal recently published a Question and Answer interview with columnist Tim Cowlishaw.

It starts this way.

Question: “Is there any way for Baylor football to recover from all this? . . . how can Baylor stop this bad momentum?”

Cowlishaw: “A new sales job, different recruits. It probably won't be as bleak on the field as it might seem. Won't really be bleak at all this season, they could easily contend. There will be a drop off, but if there are no NCAA sanctions and no lost scholarships, Bears might recover quickly. But do they get back to top 10 level? I don't know about that. I would bet against that for some time.”

Okay, we get it. It’s a sports magazine. And I understand that the whole interview was about the football team. But is it not indicative of our profound insensitivity (to put it mildly) that we are talking about the impact on the Football Team, rather than the impact on the young women who were assaulted?

Is it hyperbole to say that we live in a “rape culture?”

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah would seem to bear witness that we have always lived in a rape culture. And that is probably true. It says something profoundly troubling about the way that males have treated females throughout human history.

But the story of Sodom and Gomorrah has a surprising and overlooked lesson within it.

Students of the Bible already know that the original sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, which caused God to plan destruction for those cities, had nothing to do with sexual violence. Ezekiel declares that their sin was that they “had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy” (Ezekiel 16:49).

What most people miss is that the crisis in Lot’s home is resolved non-violently. No one gets raped. Just as the mob is about to break down the door, the strangers (angels) pull Lot back inside the house. Then the men outside are struck with blindness so that they cannot find the door, and everyone escapes.

The mob wants to gang rape the strangers, and Lot offers to let them rape his daughters instead, but God has a better idea: nobody gets raped. It all ends without violence.

That is a lesson we have yet to learn.

Curt Schilling Confronts the Rape Culture

For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.
James 3:7-10

I am a huge fan of Curt Schilling. As a pitcher for the Red Sox he was spectacular. He was dependable in the regular season and came up big, very big, in the post season.

I think he belongs in the Hall of Fame. On the other hand, I also think Jim Kaat belongs in the Hall of Fame.

But Curt Schilling the political commentator and pontificator, not so much. He doesn’t believe in evolution or global warming, for starters. And I think he sometimes seems to have a martyr complex about that. I don’t think he was kept out of the Hall of Fame because of his political views.

That is a somewhat long way of saying that when it comes to Curt Schilling, as much as I admire his baseball skills, I am not a true believer. So when a friend posted a link to his blog site, I approached it with some skepticism.

The short version is that he tweeted a congratulatory note to his daughter, Gabby, on her acceptance to Salve Regina University to play softball for the Seahawks, and the response included some vile remarks from young guys. Curt did a little internet research, tracked down the guys, exposed them, and there were consequences. A couple of them lost their jobs and several were suspended from their college sports teams.

Of course, it didn’t end there.

Perhaps it is not surprising that some of the response has been that Schilling should have known better than to say anything about his daughter. He’s the one who opened the door in the first place.

On sports talk radio, Jim Murray went even farther. Commenting on the Felger and Massarotti show, he went hard at Schilling:

“To be all high and mighty about this, like Curt Schilling has kind of been, I think he’s almost as bad as some of the guys tweeting at him. It was a poor joke what some of those guys were doing. It was a dumb joke in bad taste, but for these guys to lose their job and for him to sit there and be like, ‘Ha-ha-ha gotcha!’, I think that’s just as gross. He just seems a little bit pompous about the whole thing, but then again I don’t have kids.”

If you read Schilling’s blog, I think you will agree that what was tweeted about his daughter was a lot worse than “a dumb joke in bad taste.” But before you look at the blog, please be warned that his pictures of the twitter feed really are incredibly vile. In their tweets, they talk about wanting to rape his daughter. And although a normal person would not believe that it could be worse than that, they don’t just talk about raping his daughter, they do so in gross and graphic ways. If you read what they wrote and what they threatened to do, I don’t think you will feel sorry that they lost their jobs or got kicked off of their teams or maybe expelled from school.

In this, as in many other instances, Curt Schilling did get “all high and mighty.” But in this case it is more than justified.

But the much larger point has absolutely nothing to do with Curt Schilling.

Question: Is this episode an outlier, or is it evidence of a larger problem? Specifically, is this evidence of what some have called a “culture of rape”?

How else do we explain it?

This goes way beyond the general observation that “guys are pigs” because we are always thinking about sex. There was nothing even remotely erotic about the tweets.

Admittedly, all of the vile tweets were sent by a small handful of young men. Thankfully, this is not how most young men think about women.

But it has caused me to look again at the problem of campus rape. When activists talk about a “rape culture” on campus, others dismiss it as hyperbole. The Schilling experience may be more indicative than we might hope.

Clearly, it is something that needs to be addressed. It is real. We cannot excuse it or ignore it. This is not just guys saying dumb things. It is misogyny in one of its most brutal forms.

In his blog post, Schilling says that those who don’t have children and more specifically, those who don’t have daughters, will not understand. I think he is wrong. I know plenty of men who do not have children and yet understand this issue.

We can’t wait for young men to grow up and have daughters before they understand that threatening to rape someone is wrong.

Bob Costas and the Gun Control Debate

Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them; and all the men who were with him did the same. ¹²They mourned and wept, and fasted until evening for Saul and for his son Jonathan, and for the army of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword. ¹³David said to the young man who had reported to him, “Where do you come from?” He answered, “I am the son of a resident alien, an Amalekite.” ¹⁴David said to him, “Were you not afraid to lift your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?” ¹⁵Then David called one of the young men and said, “Come here and strike him down.” So he struck him down and he died. ¹⁶David said to him, “Your blood be on your head; for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, ‘I have killed the Lord’s anointed.’”

II Samuel 1:11-16

Javon Belcher was the best linebacker, and maybe the best football player to ever play for the University of Maine Black Bears, and he went on to play for the Kansas City Chiefs in the National Football League. He graduated with a degree in family relations.

Last Saturday morning he shot and killed his girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, and then drove to the Chiefs practice facility to thank his head coach and general manager, Romeo Crennel and Scott Pioli, for giving him a chance to play in the NFL before killing himself.

Now, three days later, there is widespread outrage. Just Google story and you will find bloggers and columnists from coast to coast up in arms.

The target of their outrage is Bob Costas.

If you haven’t been following the story, that may sound confusing. Costas didn’t shoot anybody, but he did something much worse. He spoke about gun control on national television. At half-time of the Sunday night game he took a little more than a minute to suggest that without a handgun, both Perkins and Belcher might still be alive.

Jeff Wagner, a sportscaster in Milwaukee said Costas could be summed up in three words, “What a weasel!” His blog on the subject was titled, “Hey Bob, Just Shut Up and Call the Game.” Apparently, Mr. Wagner is not aware that Costas doesn’t actually call the game. Maybe he has Costas confused with Cris Collinsworth or Al Michaels.

There have been calls to fire Costas and to boycott NBC.

The critics called it a “rant,” though it was delivered calmly and without rancor. Angry and outraged commentators asked how Costas could be so callous as to use a tragedy like the deaths of Kasandra Perkins and Javon Belcher to advance his own “political agenda.” It was, they claimed, “unseemly.”

Which makes sense.

Obviously, we wouldn’t use a death in a fire to talk about fire safety. We wouldn’t talk about drunk driving or seatbelts after a traffic fatality. And we certainly wouldn’t talk about smoking after someone who smoked for thirty years died of lung cancer. In all those cases, we would wait a decent interval, until all of us had forgotten what happened before we talked about how future deaths could be prevented.

Bob Costas crossed the line. He violated the unwritten rules.

In spite of the killings in a Colorado movie theater in July and a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin in August, gun control was barely hinted at during the presidential election. And if you Google
“mass shootings in the United States,” you will be amazed at how many killings you don’t even remember. For the most part, we have followed the unwritten rule and have not spoken a critical word about the guns used (mostly obtained legally) to kill innocent people.

And as a pastor, I should confess that I don’t think I have ever addressed the issue of gun control in a sermon.

Ironically, the Javon Belcher murder and suicide probably provided the weakest argument for gun control. Sadly, men have been killing women since long before there were handguns.

I don’t know whether better gun control laws would have saved Kasandra Perkins’ life. I do know that our unwillingness to deal with the proliferation of firearms in this country is just plain crazy.