Rape is so funny.

In my view of it, rape culture is any environment wherein predatory sexual behavior is treated as normal or trivial. I trust you'll forgive me for embracing this broad, intolerant definition thereof.

I am conversely not a liberal when it comes to gender definitions. Masculine and feminine, in my view of it, are just gendered ways of saying dominant and submissive respectively. For a man to want to be a "manly" man is for him to want to be a controlling man, and for a woman to want to be a "feminine" woman is for her to want to be controlled and demeaned. I don't view it as more complicated than that. An egalitarian society features no such concepts, in my opinion.

Liberals love to speak in careful nuances. "Mainstream" porn. "Toxic" masculinity. Etc. In reality, there is no other kind of masculinity, but only different strategies and degrees to which it is tolerated by a given society. That is why, despite all these different forms and expressions of masculinity existing around the world that you highlight, there is not a single country that treats women as the equals of men overall. Not even one. And it also why rape is a particular crime committed almost exclusively by men in each case.

Really? The biggest enemies of the porn industry are very clearly right-wing governments and activist groups. And if you think masculine = dominance, and feminine = submissive, then I don't think you have actually seen a lot of mainstream porn... or paid for sex in Amsterdam before :P

I'd suggest the best definition of masculinity is a culture's view what makes you most sexually attractive to women, and the best definition of femininity is what makes you most attractive to men.

That said, the strategy of trying to manipulate or dominate women clearly doesn't work very well in most areas of most Western countries these days; it's not a new thing either: the idea of 'the submissive woman' is very old-fashioned, even for our grandparents. It's a pre-WWII mentality that has largely died off in most westernized countries.

The countries where that idea hasn't died off yet (I'm looking at Japan) clearly DO NOT have nearly as much sex as we do. The people who TRY to stick to those old-fashioned ways are not having nearly as much fun as everyone else. The more wide-range sexually liberal approach is clearly the winning strategy in the modern westernized world; and with the continued rise of social technology, expect that trend to continue.

Rape culture is more the fact that many years ago wouldn't have considered a guy having sex with a barely conscious girl as rape. Or people thinking that a husband initiating sex with his wife whilst she sleeps is ok.

So true, on top of that there is a huge rape problem in all branches of the military which has even more guns then the civilian population. 

Maybe not guns, but knives and bats certainly.
Remember, those weapons are more deadly.

LOL :P I imagined this in the wrong way

Dogs are also quite dangerous, they kill and injure a lot of people each year and they could be used to get more rapes, but yeah guns should do the job.

But I don´t really think that rape culture should be made bigger with the help of guns. Less guns and more knowledge to reduce the number of rapes. Happy people who appreciate others, don´t often rape their friends/family or even strangers. In the West, what ever that means, rapes are most often done by men to someone they know and because of that, knives, dogs, guns or pepper sprays don´t offer much protection. There could be chance that the rape victim kills him/herself with gun, so in that way it might be a solution to the problem (in a twisted and wrong way), but more likely the rapist has the gun/knive/bat/bat/dog and it makes it easier to rape.

So yes more weapons if more rapes are needed and less weapons if less rapes are wanted. I want less rapes and would like to see less guns, guns should be for hunting and not for "protection".

"In my view of it, rape culture is any environment wherein predatory sexual behavior is treated as normal or trivial. I trust you'll forgive me for embracing this broad, intolerant definition thereof."

what would you define as predatory in this context?

"there is not a single country that treats women as the equals of men overall. "

so in your view men and women are the same when not socialised differently?

" For a man to want to be a "manly" man is for him to want to be a controlling man"

what about working out and wanting to be strong?

is it bad for a man to want to be able to squat 600 pounds?

This. 

You're right: being a relatively poor American woman lacking both the resources and desire to engage in sex tourism, I don't have that experience going for me.

I do, however, have data concerning the general contents of pornography.  Approximately 88% of porn scenes contain violent acts (such as slapping, choking, etc.) and 49% include verbal aggression (mostly name-calling). Almost all (94%) of these portrayals of aggressive behavior are directed towards women, and about three-fourths of them are specifically committed by men. The women are almost always portrayed as finding these experiences pleasurable. I think this paints a very clear picture of what social roles are being portrayed in aggregate.

Answering, again in order of the questions asked:

-By predatory I essentially mean unwanted sexual aggression; namely, sexual harassment and assault. I'm just using that as a blanket term to cover all of it.

- In the question of whether gendered behavior by men and women is mostly the product of nature or instead of nurture, men tend to conclude that it is mostly nature, while women tend to conclude that it is mostly nurture; social conditioning to behave in certain ways. Who is right? Well let's put it this way: Scientific findings as yet seem to reinforce the first view only to the degree that female scientists are absent from the picture. Remember that the next time you hear some guy online cite "evolutionary biology" or "science" in the abstract as an argument against feminist ideas that challenge gender roles.

-What I would object to in your last question is the simplistic equivocation of physical strength with being male, as though the weaker man is less legitimately male...or as though the physically fit woman is less legitimately female because she lifts weights. These gendered assumptions have a real impact on the way people live their lives. I've spoken to many women over the years who have told me that they deliberately avoid activities like weight-lifting out of fear that they'll "bulk up like a man", i.e. become less female as a result. I don't think that gendered stigmas like that should exist. Weight-lifting lifting should just be weight-lifting. It shouldn't be thought of as specifically male.

"Remember that the next time you hear some guy online cite "evolutionary biology" or "science" in the abstract as an argument against feminist ideas that challenge gender roles."

fair enough, do you think then that if we socialised girls the same as boys then we'd have men and women that behave the same in adulthood?

" I've spoken to many women over the years who have told me that they deliberately avoid activities like weight-lifting out of fear that they'll "bulk up like a man", i.e. become less female as a result. I don't think that gendered stigmas like that should exist."

yeah i've heard women make comments like that before and its pretty ignorant a thing to say since putting on muscle generally takes a lot of time and effort

but isn't that more to do though with what men and women find attractive though?

like maybe they figure that since men aren't attracted to large women with lots of muscle that they'd therefore avoid becoming that way?

"Approximately 88% of porn scenes contain violent acts (such as slapping, choking, etc.) "

this wasn't posted to me but an interesting thing about this is that i've experienced and men i know have experienced women requested to be slapped, have their hair pulled or choked or whatever and being a good man i'd refuse

i've wondered if maybe that's due to our society socialising women to percieve themselves as weaker and worthy of abuse of something