Droit du Seigneur and the Neofeudal Privileges of Class in America
Want to understand the full scope of neofeudalism in America? Follow the money and the power and privilege it buys.
The repugnant reality of class privilege in America is captured by the phrasedate rape: the violence of forced, non-consensual sex is abhorrent rape when committed by commoner criminals, but implicitly excusable date rape when committed by a member of America’s privileged elite.
Compare the effectiveness of excuses offered by privileged elites (we were both drinking, I didn’t hear her say no, etc.) when offered in court by less privileged males on trial for rape. The privileged elite is acquitted or given a wrist-slap while the commoner gets 20 years in prison.
This implicit privilege to non-consensual sex was known as Droit du Seigneur(right of the lord) in feudal Europe. While scholars debate whether the right of lords to have their way with female subjects was institutionalized, it doesn’t take much imagination to see the lack of recourse unmarried female serfs had if summoned to the lord’s lair.
The “right” to non-consensual sex is simply one facet of class privilege in America. One need only examine the histories of Harvey Weinstein and Bill Clinton to see how Droit du Seigneur works in America: from the perverse perspective of the privileged, the female “owes” the “lord” sex as “payment” for his interest in her, or (even more offensively, if that’s possible) the female is “fortunate” to have attracted the violent sexual gratification of the “lord.”
While the standard presumption of sexual assault / date-rape is that it’s all about sex, the much more disturbing reality is that it’s a crime of violence.Force and violence are also privileges of the New Aristocracy, both the direct violence of sexual assault and indirect violence threatened or manifested by the innumerable thugs that surround the New Aristocracy.
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