Such stories of the abuse of male power through sexual violence are all too common. A recent survey of teenagers between the ages of fourteen and eighteen revealed a mindset that "it is acceptable for a boy to force sexual contact on a girl if she arouses him or leads him on, if they have dated for a long time, or if she says she is willing to have sex but then changes her mind."
Men, and women, have grown up with the message that "boys will be boys" and that male sexuality is uncontrollable and aggressive. We have admired men like Rhett Butler who, in Gone with the Wind, forcefully carries a protesting and kicking Scarlet O'Hara up to the bedroom. We have snickered at the locker room talk of teenage boys who have boasted of their sexual "conquests." Through the media and pornography, women have been turned into objects for male consumption. Men and women are constantly being fed macho male ideals like James Bond, Hugh Hefner, Clint Eastwood, and Mike Tyson, who are tough, in control, aggressive, and always get their woman. In this context, masculine sexuality gets tied to power, control, aggressiveness, and the domination of females rather than to respect, mutuality, consent, and commitment. Our forefathers have passed on to us a heritage of distorted masculine sexuality as domination and aggression.
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Masculinity doesn't mean domination or aggression against females. Males can be sensitive to the needs of females and work for their justice without being less of a man. There is a hint of this kind of masculinity in our biblical story. Even within the patriarchal culture of ancient Israel, Absalom gives us a glimpse of a male exhibiting concern and sensitivity toward a female. He is the only son of David who speaks out against Tamar's rape. Having seen her crying, with torn robe and ashes of mourning on her head, Absalom enquired if she had been sexually abused by her brother. He advised her to keep the incident quiet, not in order to protect Amnon, but rather to protect Tamar.
It appears that Absalom was the one who informed his father of the incestuous rape of Tamar by her brother. Absalom was seeking justice for his sister. The first reaction of King David to the news was one of anger. But, as one scholar notes, David's anger was not that of a father exhibiting paternal love, but the anger of a male king in power. We can see that this was the case because King David did nothing to Amnon, who has raped his own sister, because he was David's firstborn son. Could it be that David remembered his own sexual domination of Bathsheba? Had he passed on a sinful sexual legacy to his son Amnon?
Maybe David didn't want to face himself in his own son's actions. Or maybe David thought, like a lot of men think, that the sexual violation of women was not that big of a deal. So David sat on his throne and with a shrug of his shoulders said, "I guess boys will be boys."
Here was a distant father, a powerful king, who by his inaction was supporting the power of men to use and abuse women, even when the woman was his own daughter. David was unable to confront sexual violence under his own roof because it might upset his family system! Yet his family was already being torn apart right under his nose by incest and by Absalom's hatred for his brother Amnon.
