Rape Culture

What if the foundation of modern human morality is an anomaly? In this episode of Country Crocked, we confront a staggering mathematical reality: the concept of consent—the absolute baseline of modern ethics—was virtually non-existent for roughly 98% of human history. When you look closely at the raw historical data, somewhere between 30% to 60% of all humans ever born were likely conceived under conditions that meet modern definitions of sexual coercion, capacity failure, or rape. This isn't a conversation about individual bad actors breaking the rules; it’s an exploration of a societal machine that was working exactly as designed. We map the monumental shift of human history through the lens of individual child psychology—drawing on the developmental models of Jean Piaget, Donald Winnicott, and Daniel Stern. We unpack how humanity is slowly clawing its way out of a primitive state of "object relating" (treating others merely as tools to be used) and entering a wider "intersubjective window" that recognizes the rich, separate inner worlds of others. Finally, we pose a chilling question for the future: If our window of empathy continues to expand past gender, past race, and eventually past our own species, what everyday actions that we currently consider mundane will our descendants view with the exact same historical horror we now reserve for the past? In this episode, we discuss: The Scale Problem: Why systemic structures like captive enslavement, child marriage, and economic coercion made sexual submission a default survival mechanism rather than a choice. The Evolutionary Arms Race: How forced copulation evolved as a deeply rooted biological strategy across the animal kingdom—from chimpanzees to mallard ducks (with a callback to our previous episode, "F**k a Duck"). The "Thin Skin" of Consent: Why our current legal frameworks are merely a thin veneer stretched over ancient structures built for coercion. Societal Person Permanence: How marginalized groups successfully forced the dominant system to recognize their distinct interiority and autonomy. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit countrycrocked.substack.com/subscribe