Isn’t it good we have men to tell us what to do
| November 18th, 2006Sailorman (who occasionally comments on Alas) has an interesting new argument. He believes that the only way anyone should use the word ‘rape’ is to reflect the exact legal definition of where they live:
Anyone who frequents feminist blogs has seen similar claims, and more. Sometimes the claims are much more explicit: “drunk people cannot legally consent.” “Any pressure means it’s rape.” “If you didn’t want to have sex, it’s rape.”
In many states, those are all lies. And it’s doing no favors to those women who hear them.
If only members of the women’s liberation movement had had Sailorman’s wisdom, imagine how much stronger we would have been there. Obviously the feminists who started discussing ‘marital rape’ weren’t doing women any favours. Legally once , and feminists who implied otherwise were treating women like children and telling them what you think they “want to” or “should” hear ” (to paraphrase the oh so wise Sailorman words).
Because it is all our fault (sorry if you’ve heard that before):
If a woman knew, really knew, that a threat of trying to get you fired would not support a rape conviction, would she still give in to the threat? If she knew that scared silence gives much less support for a conviction than a shouted “no!” would she still remain silent?
I actually have no words to express my anger at the first example Sailorman comes up with. I sincerely doubt that a single person who has ever been raped by her boss has considered what the rape laws in her state when she decided how hard she could resist.
I believe that a woman is raped if she’s drunk, if she withdraws her consent part way through sex, or if she wanted to have sex with someone else. The law doesn’t agree with me. I’ve already written about why I define rape in the way I do:
I define rape in the way I do to support the women who are naming their experiences, and reiterate the idea they have the right to say no to sex.I also define rape in the way I do as a protection against men who have sex with women who don’t want to have sex with them. I believe that one of the few forms of protection women have against rape is gossip - passing on information that we know about men who hurt women.
Women need to know who the men are who don’t notice, or don’t care, that the women they’re sleeping with don’t want to have sex with them. Calling those acts rape is both protection and resistance.
I still believe that, my definition about rape is about women’s experiences, which is more important to me than the law.
Note for Commenters This post is open for feminist and feminist friendly commentators only. Non-feminists, and those I’ve asked not to post in my feminist only threads are not welcome.
November 18th, 2006 at 7:25 am
I seriously doubt rape victims are thinking logically about the chances of a rape conviction in court while they are being attacked. They’re probably thinking of more practical things like how to avoid getting further injured or killed.
This comment was written by Denise.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2006 at 8:05 am
I’m really glad you responded to this. I saw it on his blog and was appalled and angry to the point of speechlessness.
I’m so glad that legal definitions determine my vocabulary!
This comment was written by mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2006 at 8:20 am
And when referencing works of art that show the rape of Persephone, women and only women are now required to say, “The overbearing seduction of Persephone which would be rape and kidnapping if it wasn’t in a mythical era.”
This comment was written by Amanda Marcotte.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2006 at 8:42 am
So . . .
if a woman is in a country that practices Sharia and is forced to have sex against her will in front of only three other men, it’s not rape. The law says there have to be four men, so there!
Slaveowners never murdered black people; they “disposed of property.” Isn’t that what the law says?
This comment was written by batgirl.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2006 at 9:01 am
Well, I’ve talked about the divide between the “legal definition” and the “moral definition” of rape, and how it’s a problem that we don’t have separate terms the way we do for other crimes (e.g., “larceny” as a legal term and “theft” as a non-legal one), because people are far too willing to say that anything that doesn’t fit the legal definition of rape, with all its protections for defendants, doesn’t fit the moral definition, and is in fact not actually wrong (or is wrong on such a trifling level that it might as well not be).
But refusing to call rape (in the “moral” sense) rape is emphatically *not* the solution - it’d be far better to come up with a new phrase to describe the definition under law, and emphasize that definition’s incompleteness.
This comment was written by Jeff.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Thank you for responding to this. I’ve been meaning to comment at Sailorman’s place, but haven’t had the time or energy to put it all into words. And it doesn’t seem enough to say, “You’re just completely missing the point on this one.”
This comment was written by Sage.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2006 at 10:36 am
If a woman knew, really knew, that a threat of trying to get you fired would not support a rape conviction, would she still give in to the threat? If she knew that scared silence gives much less support for a conviction than a shouted “no!” would she still remain silent?
If someone were about to rape me, I wouldn’t be worrying so much about how the sequence of events would hold up in court later–although I’d probably have a good idea. I’d be worrying about the rapist. “Sure, he might injure me or kill me, and I don’t think I can fight him off, but at least the jury would be satisfied!”
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2006 at 11:36 am
If a woman ever says she does not want to have sex then a man should never force her to have sex. But a blanket statement that to have sex with a drunk woman is rape is going to far. Much sex between single people, who are not in committed relationships, occurs when alcohol is involved.
Clearly, if a guy ends up alone with a woman who is so drunk she is passed out, this guy should not have sex with her. But most of the time things are not this black and white. What about if both people are pretty drunk, but neither is quite to the level of passing out. So the woman never says no, but her judgment is blurred. So did she get raped?
It is common for young women and young men to wake up after a night of drinking beside someone that in hindsight they really wish that they hadn’t had sex with. If they both regret it, did they rape each other?
This comment was written by Dan Morgan.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Dan, did you follow the link that accompanied the word “drunk” in Maia’s post? Maia is referring to a judge who said that an incident was not rape, not because the victim consented (she did not), but because she was drunk.
Given that context, Maia was not claiming that “to have sex with a drunk woman is rape” in all circumstances. She was, however, rightly objecting to the claim that if a woman is drunk, then she’s responsible for whatever happens to her, and a rapist can use her drunkenness as a mitigating circumstance.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Ampersand,
Yes, I followed the link and the judge sounds like a real dingbat.
This comment was written by Dan Morgan.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Sailorman’s post was deeply disturbing to me for several reasons. One was his claim that if you can’t prove rape in a court of law (either because of jury bias or poorly written statutes) you are a liar if you say you were raped. Second is the idea that all rape victims should be detached enough from what’s being done to them that they can analyze how a jury would react to their reactions and change those reactions in order to please the potential jury.
The final reason is that Sailorman puts all responsibility for what happens in a rape on the rape victim, turning the rapist into someone nearly invisible. From his tone Sailorman could as easily be telling women how they should react when their car hits a patch of black ice. Like black ice, rapists and males are just behaving naturally. This view of rapists doing what comes naturally is supported by Sailorman’s failure to tell men that they should alter their behavior so no woman or girl they have sex with could ever possibly view them as rapists, exploiters or abusers.
Requiring men to stop pushing for sex when there isn’t an eager and willing response is just too extreme for Sailorman. Avoiding rape is women’s work. All men need to think about is how to get away with taking what they want.
This comment was written by Abyss2hope.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
O…Kay….
So, let’s say…a woman is in the process of being raped.
She senses there is no way to overwhelm him.
She also figures from the situation that if she resists (i.e. satisfies that jury)
he’s likely to kill her.
A deceased victim with a clear cut case is better than a living woman who chose survival to tell her story and hopefully send the rapist away?
*What?*
And, what about the class of women due to illness, temporary infirmity,impairment or old age…who *cannot* “resist” in the conventional manner….the very people who, by some studies, are more likely to be assaulted because they appear vulnerable….
Rarely does an ill thought out definition suggested by a man make me *angry.* This one won.
This comment was written by imfunnytoo.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
Sailorman shows more male entitlement than a willingness to learn in most of his comments. I wish he’d check his male privilege on a regular basis.
This comment was written by Donna Darko.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2006 at 7:09 pm
re Dan’s comment
In a case where both partners are drunk, I think the cutting edge isn’t whether or not she said ‘no’ - it’s whether or not she said ‘yes’. If the other party does not clearly get that message, they need to back the hell off. Both for their own safety and for the safety of the other person.
(I say that as somebody who participated in a lot of drunken sex when I was young and single and my consent at the time was very explicit. And yeah, occasionally I thought “I shoudn’t have done that.” But it was my choice, so you know, no hard feelings.)
This comment was written by Siobhan.Report this comment to the moderators
November 18th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
I think another important point that’s being overlooked is that most rapes are never even reported. A woman in a rape situation isn’t thinking “how can this be prosecuted in court?” In most cases she doesn’t even want to take it to court. Will understanding the law lead more women to say “no?” Of course not, if most rape victims try to stay clear of the law (and for good reason.) Why should feminist definitions change to fit legal definitions, and not vice versa?
This comment was written by Michele.Report this comment to the moderators
November 19th, 2006 at 1:54 am
OK I’m confused about something. Why should someone being raped even have to resist at all? What difference does that make to whether it is rape or not?
This comment was written by Span.Report this comment to the moderators
November 19th, 2006 at 8:09 am
Span, it seems that Sailorman and many others don’t believe boys and men are rapists if they can take sex without going through a stage where the victim shows stereotypical resistance such as scratching at the rapist’s eyes or screaming non-stop. That a victim truly experienced rape doesn’t matter, the rape must happen in a way that makes the rapist acknowledge that what he’s doing is rape.
As long as he wasn’t traumatized by her response, it ain’t real rape.
This comment was written by Abyss2hope.Report this comment to the moderators
November 19th, 2006 at 11:03 am
To me, one of the most telling problems with Sailorman’s post is that, even if one were to grant that his central claim is true (and I do not think it is true)–i.e., that if women knew rape law in their jurisdictions in detail and acted accordingly, there would be more rape convictions and, ultimately, fewer rapes–nowhere does he even remotely suggest that it is the law that needs to change so that it reflects the multiple realities both of women’s experience of rape and of how, when, where and why men rape in the first place.
This comment was written by Richard Jeffrey Newman.Report this comment to the moderators
November 19th, 2006 at 11:24 am
That Sailorman turns first to legal definitions is telling. It is a classic, weak debate technique - when one wishes to deny something, use a different definition of the same word. Way back in high school, I used that a few times in L/D. And then I had by ass handed to me by someone who knew how to counter it, much like this post.
This comment was written by fishbane.Report this comment to the moderators
November 19th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
Preserve us from good intentions. If the legal definition of rape conflicts with the experience of rape and the moral definition, the correct response is to change the legal definition, not to conform our description of experience to fit warped legalistic terms.
This comment was written by Kija.Report this comment to the moderators
November 19th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
Abyss2hope, you are spot on - Sailorman (and others like him) are not seeing rape as something the victim experiences but as something the perpetrator experiences.
As long as so many men are thinking about rape from that perspective it’s going to be difficult to change any law at all.
This comment was written by Span.Report this comment to the moderators
November 19th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
Sailorman - I have asked you not to post on my threads marked feminist only - if you want to post a response do it on your own blog. I have saved a copy of this comment in case you don’t have a copy - Maia
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
November 19th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
OK. So, if I’m reading you right, you’re arguing that the problem with feminist memes about rape is taht we don’t know the legal definition.
Except, I dont’ really think that’s right.
Also, you’re arguing that most women don’t know what the legal definition of rape is, and therefore that feminists have to alter their speech about rape.
I don’t think that’s right either.
So, yes.
Also, I probably shouldn’t be responding to you here, on account of the fact that I think Maia specifically asked you in her note not to respond on this thread (those I’ve asked not to post in my feminist only threads are not welcome).
Maybe I’ll repost this on your blog - if I feel like I want to reply to you in a hostile arena, which I’m not sure I do.
This comment was written by mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
November 19th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
I agree with Sailorman on the point that we do women a disservice by encouraging them to call a sexual act “rape” that will absolutely never be considered rape under any definition, either now or in the future.
For instance, there was a previous thread on Alas about a post at Biting Beaver where a girl was over her boyfriends house and he got her to give in to having sex with him. The boyfriend was emotionally manipulative but I think that instead of telling our daughters that they have been raped we need to work on making them confident enough to tell the boyfriend to “give my ass, I’m leaving because you don’t respect me”. And we need to work on making sure our sons know that it is unnacceptable to continue to try to get a woman to have with you-even if you don’t use physical force-to have sex.
I don’t believe that stretching the label of “what is rape” benefits women because it encourages a victim mentality instead of helping them to assert more control over the situations they find themselves in and to raise their self-esteem.
This comment was written by SmartBlkWoman.Report this comment to the moderators
November 19th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
SmartBlkWoman, while you might not see that BB’s scenario could be rape, I know it can be since giving in while isolated and under emotional and physical pressure is not the same as consenting. The boy or man in that scenario knew she didn’t want to have sex but continued pushing for sex anyway until he got what he wanted. And that makes him a rapist.
She said no and it didn’t matter. In most real life version of BB’s scenario, the “giving in” is done while being physically restrained.
To refuse to see that man as a rapist encourages men to recreate BB’s scenario. To put all responsibility for the girl’s loss of control on the girl excuses the man who sets out to control her.
Isn’t it better to stop BB’s scenario at the source (decision to go after sex whether the partner likes it or not) rather than demanding that all potential victims remain in a constant state of vigilance?
This comment was written by Abyss2hope.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 12:20 am
There is a difference between being “isolated” and between being “unable to leave”. If I am at someone’s house who I find physically threatening but who is not stopping me from leaving then I don’t believe that can be construed as physically pressure, particularly if I don’t live there and have somewhere else that I can readily go.
And what exactly do you mean by “physical pressure”? Is that the same as physically stopping someone from leaving, because if you are not physically restraining someone-such as blocking the exit with your body or forcibly holding them-who is trying to exit the premises then I don’t see how that can be construed as rape either.
But again you seem to be fudging the issue: there is a difference between physically restraining someone ( which is rape) and between telling them “either have sex with me or I’m breaking up with you”.
I disagree. I think that to call that man a rapist is to allow women to continue to see themselves as victimized instead of encouraging them to realize that they can leave when someone is trying to get them to do something that they don’t want to do and to help them to see that they are under no pressure to satisfy a man’s sexual urges at the expense of their own feelings; sex is not something that you do for someone else.
I think that by labeling the man as a rapist in situations like this we hinder women from being able to see just how much control they have over the situation.
I also think have to acknowledge that men are raised under patriarchy to think that emotionally manipulating women into having sex scores them points and is not viewed as the despicable act that it is. We need to encourage men to see their actions for what they are and the effect that they have on the women who they coerce; I think that by reflectively calling them rapists we also hinder them from looking critically at their own actions and seeing how they need to change.
I agree that males behavior needs to change but even if the men did change the women are still susceptible to emotional manipulation. The same routine that men use to get sex in isolated houses is the same routine that is used at work, at school, at the health club etc to get women to do what they want them to do. It just so happens that we call in rape when it relates to sex. By instead calling it emotional manipulation-which it is-we can relate it so the same behavior that we see in other social spheres and hopefully effect a larger change in behavior for men and women.
I don’t want women to remain in a constant state of vigilance but I do want them to recognize all the various shades of usury when they encounter it.
This comment was written by SmartBlkWoman.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 3:10 am
The more I think about it, the less I understand the idea that women shouldn’t call something rape unless it fits the legal definition.
Not all violent deaths are murder; I can certainly envision (rare) instances where someone could experience the exact same trauma as a “legitimate” rape victim, and yet wouldn’t consider the other person to be culpable in any way. But we still need a name for it- and I get the feeling even “sexual assault” wouldn’t cut it for many when it come to BB’s example. Perhaps we need a name other than rape or even sexual assault - or the legal terms need to change - but we are more likely to create such a name if we call it something than if we fail to name the problem at all.
Secondly, just because someone isn’t legally at fault doesn’t mean that many or most would not consider them morally at fault. We call all kinds of things murder that would never make it to a courtroom even with the best of evidence - at least not under workable laws. Not providing health insurance to workers when one isn’t required by law to do so is certainly not a crime and it’s especially not murder - even if the decision leads to premature death. Many people would consider it a moral failing, however, and even murder in the moral sense of the word.
And that’s all before we even get to the very common scenarios where many here agree that something should legally be considered rape - or some other crime on the sexuall assault spectrum - but currently isn’t.
The very idea of defining rape only by legal means is an affront to victims. As others have pointed out, we do not require that common usage of words like theft, scam, or even abuse to fit an exact legal definition. Why do so when it comes to rape - unless one does not completely consider ignoring lack of consent to be an immoral act? It seems as though many people are only concerned with the breaking of rules or the physical violence and infliction of emotional trauma that usually accompanies disregarding someone’s autonomy when it comes to sex - and not the actual rape itself.
Of course, in the end, we do allow common usage of the word rape even when it doesn’t fit the legal definition - but only when it applies to countries, groups of people, and pretty much everything but an individual who has been sexually assualted. Then the conversation immediately centers around the details of each parties’ behaviour (but usually most especially the victim’s) and how the law applies to them.
While I can see that some of this is understandable confusion arising from two seperate meanings for the same word, I’d like to point out that physicists have been using the word “work” to mean something very specific, and most definitely not the common meaning, for a long time. Yet I’ve never known of any confusion regarding which definition is meant (unless someone is attempting a bad pun). Rape is certainly harder to deal with than other words with multiple definitions, but it’s not the only instance by any means. And I rather think it’s insulting to (potential) victims to assume they can’t tell the difference between legal and common usage definitions.
I think the bulk of the problem is the same issue we always have: the ugly idea that sex is something that men want - and women have. One common definition of rape is the unconsented taking of another’s property - especially when the property is initimate (thoughts/decisions) or vital to one’s being (a village’s fields). All the scenarios that I’ve seen tossed around as being rape morally but not (currently) legally fit this definition in one way or another. I don’t see how argument that they should not be called rape makes sense - unless one has a blurred understanding of consent vs. submission.
Perhaps one might want to ask for clarification in many instances, and whether certain scenarious should be legally considered rape is subject to debate, but to ask people to not use other legitimate definitions of rape - some that have been around for centuries - just because there may be some normal confusion is a bit ridiculous.
This comment was written by Mickle.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 8:08 am
SmartBlkWoman:
Yes, there is a difference and in BB’s scenario it wasn’t merely a matter of the boy/man saying something and the girl responding with her consent. If that had been the case it wouldn’t have been rape. That was NOT the case in BB’s scenario.
The area between physical restraint and freely given consent is not a gray area where it’s impossible to know whether a rape (sex crime) occurred or not.
Rape (prosecutable) doesn’t always require physical restraint. The law can recognize how power imbalances (parent-child, therapist-patient, etc) can be used in sex crimes. Those who use manipulation certainly understand the power they have and if they exploit their power to override another person’s resistance and sexual boundaries, it is rape and should be a sex crime.
When somone uses a weapon to circumvent the lack of consent the intent is the same as when someone uses their power and the situation to circumvent the lack of consent. But the second group of rapists know their claim of “it was consensual” will be believed by many, many people. The victims may not have the opinion of the potential jury in mind but many rapists do and commit their crimes accordingly.
Staying in the same location as a man who wants sex is not consent and should never be construed as being consent. Part of the manipulation can be to convince the unwilling person that sex is not the goal, including promises that there will be no more requests for sex, when it is the only goal. So the person who didn’t consent stays but not for sex.
Yet, if sex happens people inject that motivation into the victim.
This comment was written by Abyss2hope.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 8:13 am This comment was written by Q Grrl.
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November 20th, 2006 at 8:14 am
It is ridiculous that you are attacking Sailorman directly, but not allowing him to respond in this space. How strange that all you got was a lot of “Me too”s and “I agree”s. WTG.
This comment was written by plunky.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 8:21 am
SmartBlkWoman:
There is a huge flaw in this argument. A man can be a rapist and we can still teach potential victims how to spot red flag behaviors. Just as we tell girls and women that a man who grabs them at knifepoint is most likely a rapist, we can tell girls and women that a man who attempts to circumvent their lack of consent is most likely a rapist.
What’s powerless about that?
By calling a rapist a rapist, no matter what tool he uses to rape, some men will decide not to rape.
This comment was written by Abyss2hope.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 9:21 am
there is a difference between physically restraining someone ( which is rape) and between telling them “either have sex with me or I’m breaking up with you”.
But aren’t they two symptoms of the same cause: a feeling of entitlement to sex and a willingness to go to any lengths to get it? If we get the word out that rape is unacceptable but don’t challenge the notions of entitlement, how much of an improvement would that be, from the point of view of the women who are still having sex when they don’t want to?
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 9:49 am
Apparently, in states that have revised their criminal codes such that sex crimes are now various levels of “Criminal Sexual Conduct”, rape doesn’t exist.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 10:17 am
If I am at someone’s house who I find physically threatening but who is not stopping me from leaving then I don’t believe that can be construed as physically pressure, particularly if I don’t live there and have somewhere else that I can readily go.
Having been in a similar situation (but it was my house), I cannot disagree more strongly. If you feel physically threatened, even with no overt, unmistakable physical threat made, you may feel you have a better chance of staying alive if you don’t leave. Your statement, to me, seems like blaming the victim (If you didn’t leave, you have only yourself to blame - You made the wrong choice).
I’m not sure how much my experience changed my views on the matter, but one thing is for damned sure - I’m not going to criticize anybody’s decision on how to act when in a situation that may have (or did) lead to rape. You do what you think is best and hope you made the right choice. Whether somebody feels it’s better to stay alive or to not be raped, I’m not going to question the choices that person makes when confronted with a situation in which those choices need to be made.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 10:28 am
By the way, from Moderately Insane, apparently:
“there are certainly some folks who think that anything other than “sex which is happy, mutually orgasmic, mutually satisfying, and done while sober, and which occurs between two equally privileged adults” is rape. You know who they are, don’t you? You’ve probably met some, too.”
Anyone met these folk?
This comment was written by mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 10:33 am
Nick
That is what SmartBlackWoman is saying, Because we have allowed the word and act of rape to mean something as an oogling or a boyfriend saying he’ll dump his girlfriend if she doesn’ thave sex with him, we have created a victim culture instead of a impowering culture. In a lot of instances woman actually have a lot of power, (like in an instance where a boyfriend says he’ll dump you if you don’t give him sex), we don’t nuture this power. We leave woman without tools to feel confident in using their power and instead nuture their victimhood if victimized. We don’t nuture a man’s ability to respect a woman or learn that sex is not owed to him. Instead we nuture his rapisthood if he in any way steps out of line with a woman sexually.
I also believe that there has to be some sort of definition and coherance at what rape is. Two parties getting crap drunk at a party and the female waking up and saying she was raped because she either blacked out or regretted the sex is wrong. Most wouldn’t consider the fact that the male party might have had the same reaction to getting drunk, but he is considered the rapist, she is considered a victim.
This comment was written by Zakia.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Mandolin, nope I haven’t met them, but I have met some people who think anyone who doesn’t fit their stereotype of who a rapist is and how that person exerts control over their victim CANNOT be guilty of rape and shouldn’t be considered a criminal under any legal statute.
Apparently there are many people who are fans of sex which is unhappy and not mutual.
This comment was written by Abyss2hope.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 10:49 am
Zakia:
Are you saying that the female couldn’t be saying she was raped because she was in fact raped?
This comment was written by Abyss2hope.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
I think i have to agree that it s a bit odd to make an example of Sailorman in a forum in which he cannot respond. I understand the point of feminst-only threads, but this seems more extreme.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Abyss - I said what I said. put the entire paragraph in your quote and it should be as clear as day
This comment was written by Zakia.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
Zakia:
How does teaching a man that using any form of coercion to get someone to have sex with him means that he is a rapist fail to nurture a man’s ability to respect a woman or learn that sex is not owed to him? Obviously, it is also necessary to teach a positive sexuality as well, but it is essential to also teach the red line of sexuality, particularly since there is plenty in the culture that teaches that the red line is much farther over. And “nurture his rapisthood” is a great phrase, but total nonsense if you are saying that by telling men that coercing sex in any way makes them rapists then they will say “oh what the hell, if I’m going to be considered a rapist just for using intimidation, I may as well just use physical force.” I don’t buy it.
This comment was written by Charles S.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
Zakia, your original quote seemed to imply that all women who say they were raped when drunk either can’t remember consenting or they know they weren’t raped. I was trying to determine if that’s what you meant.
This comment was written by Abyss2hope.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
I always thought rape was either attacking and having sex by force (stranger rape) or after having been told know in a way the man can easily understand as actually NO, he continues on anyways, using force (aquaintance rape).
In both cases, force or real threat of force (the words “I will kill you” or the branding of a weapon) is needed. A passivity is not NO. Many women are passive in bed, but they are not being raped.
I get so angry when someone has the gall to treat me like a child, and assume because I have had a few drinks in me I am somehow too stupid or immature to make a decision, or to say no clear enough to be understood. I choose to drink, no one else does. I choose to accept a drink from a man or to turn it down, so how is he somehow more responsible than I am? Women are just as capable of chasing after sex as men, and these days they often do. But if she has been drinking, it is rape of the woman? Basically this is saying men are more capable of making rational decisions than women. Nice. I love being treated as an equal. And it is so nice to see the definition of rape so watered down as to be meaningless. Thanks.
This comment was written by TBQ.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Sailorman could also post his response in an open thread on this forum, if he wants. What he can’t do is post on Maia’s “feminist only” threads.
I agree that the outcome in this case is a little odd, but as long as he has the ability to respond, I don’t really see anything wrong with it. I’ve certainly been criticized multiple times in forums I’m not welcome to post on, and I’ve never seen anything wrong with that.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
if thats the case it makes sense.
As for the idea that men have to threaten to kill you for it “to be rape,” this is even more strict than the legal definition in most cases. Consent is required, and silence doesnt equal consent, drunkenness doesnt equal consent, on and on. this is not to say taht drunk sex = rape. Nobody really says that. Nobody here is saying that. The argument is, instead, that it is possible to rape a drunk woman, a proposition long regarded as ridiculous when it was assumed that drunkeness was a sign of “looseness” and possible prostitution, which is to say, membership in a class of women who cant be raped and cant consent becuase they exist (in the anti-woman framework I’m describing, not supporting) soley for the purpose of being available to men for sex. The idea that marital rape exists requires a similar transformationof underlying assumptions.
In my experience, rapists dont ask, wait for a no, then threaten to kill you before they go ahead and do what they want.
This comment was written by curiousgyrl.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Again your clouding the issue by trying to make “grabbing someone at knifepoint” the equivalent of asking someone repeatedly to so something they initially didn’t want to do. I am sure you know that in the former there is the threat of physical force and in the latter the person can just walk away; the difference between the two situations is dramatic yet you are attempting to make them out to be the same thing. “Giving in” when you don’t have to is consenting.
It is creating a mentality of powerlessness because are encouraging a woman to believe that a situation in which she has no control ( being held at knifepoint) is the equivalent of a situation in which she does have control ( being able to leave the home of someone who is attempting to get her to have sex). By denying that in the latter situation the woman has the ability to leave you are denying her the right to stop seeing herself as powerless and denying her the chance to realize just how much authority she has over whether or not to have sex; she does not have to sex to keep a boyfriend and losing a boyfriend in lieu of having sex with him under circumstances that make her uncomfortable is completely acceptable.
All “tools” are not the same. A backhoe isn’t the same as a monkey-wrench; a knife held to your throat in a dark alley by a potential rapist is not the equivalent of a boy and girl sitting on the sofa at the boys house and him saying “I’m breaking up with you”.
This comment was written by SmartBlkWoman.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
I don’t believe that they necessarily are the same. How many times have all of us continued to ask someone to do something several times after they had said no in an attempt to get that person to change their minds?
As I said before, when someone asks you to do something 20 times in an obvious attempt to wear you down then that is emotional manipulation and we need to characterize it as such, but by calling it rape we deny agency to the person being asked the question.
The entitlement complex that encourages men to continue to ask women to have sex who are clearly not eager to do so is something that should be worked dealt with but by calling it rape we circumvent the ability of women to realize their own agency.
I think you make my point; the sense of entitlement that causes a man to ask repeatedly for sex is the same sense of entitlement at work in other spheres. By helping women to see the connect between the entitlement complex at work in the bedroom as the same as the entitlement complex in other areas we help them to see the larger picture and to realize their own agency. By calling one act of emotional manipulation rape we disconnect it from what is happening in other venues. The focus needs to be on working on men’s sense of entitlement in all areas and working on women’s sense of agency in all areas also.
This comment was written by SmartBlkWoman.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
I am not blaming the victim. In the comment you quoted I said 1) I don’t live there and 2) I can readily leave. If number 1 and number 2 are true then I have a responsibility to leave the premises.
But you cannot construe an “overt, umistakable physical threat” to be the same thing as a threat that might only exist in your mind or an unspoken threat that you fear but hasn’t been implied by the other person.
I also want to say that Zakia’s comment in #37 summed up what I believe perfectly, only I think she said it much more elequently than I have. :)
This comment was written by SmartBlkWoman.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
I am not blaming the victim. In the comment you quoted I said 1) I don’t live there and 2) I can readily leave. If number 1 and number 2 are true then I have a responsibility to leave the premises.
I could have readily left my own house. There is no difference. If you feel that your best option is not to try to leave, I’m not going to say that you are at fault. The threat may only exist in your mind, but we use our minds to determine if a threat exists. Maybe we were mistaken, but maybe not. Maybe staying is the best way to survive.
I disagree with you about whether you are blaming the victim or not. The above quote, the last sentence in particular, is what confirms it for me. You do not have “a responsibility to leave the premises.” You have a responsibility to do whatever it is that seems most likely to allow you to survive with as little harm as possible. The potential rapist has a responsibility to not rape, you have a responsibility to do whatever seems right to avoid rape and/or allow you to live. And I really don’t see why it makes a difference whose house it is, the potential rapist’s or mine.
It saddens me that you can’t see what you are doing. If a victim tells you that you are blaming the victim, chances are what you are doing is blaming the victim.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 2:57 pm
SmartBlkWoman:
But in BB’s scenario and other similar situations the rapist blocks her attempt to walk away and refuses to accept no for an answer. Refusing to accept no is not the same thing as merely asking for sex multiple times. The first ignores lack of consent, the second may be inappropriate but it is not a rape attempt.
Physical force is more than wielding a knife or a gun or threatening to kill someone. Physical force is involved when one person uses their body to control the other person. That could be stepping between the other person and the exit or it could be grabbing an arm or pinning the other person so they can’t move.
When coercion that on the surface isn’t violent is combined with subtle physical force, it can be as effective as a knife at the throat. If the victim doesn’t know how to get away that should never be seen as legal consent. Maybe you would know how to get out of that situation and would recognize the danger in time to escape, but that doesn’t mean everyone in that situation does.
If the only way to not have sex is to escape, how can that sex be anything but nonconsensual?
This comment was written by Abyss2hope.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Charles - if you only pay attention to a child when he does something bad and don’t bother to acknowledge, teach, or encourage good behaviour or when he is doing what is good do you think the child is going to see an alterantive.
We do nothing to boychildren, and men, in nuturing to teach them that sex isn’t owed to them. Our culture tells them not only is it owed to them, but something is wrong with a woman who wouldn’t give it to them. We only care when they rape or find ways to accuse them of rape, or imply a rape, or suggestion of an almost rape. Like I said, if two impaired people can have drunkingly consent to sex and the female can regret the sex or not remember the sex, she can claim rape and is considered a victim of rape and the same impaired man with the same symptons is then called a rapist, something is wrong with what we believe to be rape.
Our goal shouldn’t be that we have to resort to a man or a woman being confused about what rape is by watering the term down to nothing. We should teach or boy children that girls and woman do not owe them sex and they shouldn’t expect sex, or believe girls and women are on this Earth for sex. We should also teach our girl children that in many situations they have a lot of power when it comes to their bodies and sex and also that they don’t owe their bodies to anyone and no one OWNS their bodies.
This comment was written by Zakia.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
You certainly do have a responsibility to get yourself out of harms way if at all possible. If you are in a situation, any situation, that makes you uncomfortable and on your on volition you choose to stay when you just as easily could have left and not taken part, you can’t blame anyone else after the fact.
The point I was trying to make was about the girl being at her boyfriends house and she thought about leaving but chose not to when he started pressuring her for sex. I wanted to make it clear that if you have the ability to not stay with someone is pressuring you to do something that you don’t want to then the best choice is to leave, not go ahead and have sex and then call it rape.
Please don’t play the “I’ve-been-a victim-and-that-makes-me-right” card. You may have personal experience on the matter but that does not give you the final word to decide whether or not I am blaming the victim, particularly when you don’t know my own experiences.
This comment was written by SmartBlkWoman.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
And sex that occurs under all those circumstances would be (rightfully) considered rape.
That depends. Do you mean “escape” as is someone is physically stopping you from leaving and/or there is a threat of bodily harm if you try to leave, or do you mean “escape” as in “I’m alone with my boyfriend and my parents would be mad if I came home early and had to confess the truth of where I really was”; there is a big difference between the two.
Even if a woman doesn’t say “no” but she is physically stopped from leaving then it is rape; if the only way she can stop him from asking her to have sex with him is to give in and have sex with him, and that is what she does while knowing that she could have left if she didn’t want to hear the question anymore, then that is not rape.
This comment was written by SmartBlkWoman.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
SmartBlkWoman:
Your use of past tense reflects the reality of many rape victims. At some point she had a chance to leave, but as she’s struggling not to give in to the physical demand for sex that point is in the past.
But many people act as if the chance to leave never goes away and therefore no rape could have happened.
Whether the reduction of options is planned or accidental, the person making the demands has an obligation to not exploit the other person’s vulnerability.
This comment was written by Abyss2hope.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2006 at 11:33 pm
If you are in a situation, any situation, that makes you uncomfortable and on your on volition you choose to stay when you just as easily could have left and not taken part, you can’t blame anyone else after the fact.
What if you feel that staying gives you a better chance of surviving? Why wouldn’t the rapist be to blame if that didn’t allow you to avoid the rape? But this statement is so wrong and so ignorant of many real world situations and so loaded with blaming the victim that it is hard to believe you don’t see it. Look at the last 8 words of that quote. Who are you blaming?
I wanted to make it clear that if you have the ability to not stay with someone is pressuring you to do something that you don’t want to then the best choice is to leave, not go ahead and have sex and then call it rape.
Unless, of course, leaving gets you raped, beaten and killed. But you don’t seem to see that there are many possible consequences to staying and many possible consequences to leaving. Who are you to judge what the best thing to do in a situation you didn’t experience was? And that is what you are doing - judging. And every judgement you have proclaimed re: staying vs leaving is blaming somebody who stays. No matter how much you deny it.
Please don’t play the “I’ve-been-a victim-and-that-makes-me-right” card.
I suppose you could read it that way. However, I didn’t leave and I feel that you are placing the blame for anything that happened to me on my decision that staying gave me the best chance for survival. You are doing so clearly and without question. Rather than a quick, flat denial, you might want to analyze what you have written and my criticism of it to see if there might be any truth or validity to that criticism.
But I’m still curious about this:
In the comment you quoted I said 1) I don’t live there and 2) I can readily leave. If number 1 and number 2 are true then I have a responsibility to leave the premises.
Why do you see a difference between it being where you live and being where you don’t live? I simply have no idea why you see a difference depending on whose home this might happen in.
Of course, I still think that you are flat out wrong. You don’t have a responsibility to leave the premises. You have a responsibility to try to survive unharmed. If you think that staying rather than leaving gives you the best chance, that is what you should do. You in no way have a responsibility to leave the premises (unless, of course, you feel that is your best option in that particular case). Anybody who says otherwise is wrong and hasn’t thought through the myriad of situations that occur.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
November 21st, 2006 at 1:55 am
Zakia,
We are in agreement that people need to be taught a positive sexuality that isn’t about boys getting sex from girls and I think we are in agreement about pretty much everything else. The only point we seem to disagree on is this:
Rape is the term for the unacceptable act of forcing yourself on someone sexually. It is the embodiment of treating sex as something that you can take from someone else. To me, it seems perfectly appropriate to call using non-violent pressure to coerce someone to have sex rape. To you, this is watering down the definition of rape and confusing people about what rape is. Our goals (for wanting to call this rape, or for not wanting to call it rape) are the same: to decrease the frequency with which people (men) use non-violent coercive pressure to get their partners (women) to have sex, to increase the agency (or awareness thereof) of people (women) in such situations.
Here is why I think that calling coercing sex through non-violent pressure rape serves our mutual goals:
Rape is the bright line in sexual interactions. It is the form of sexual interaction that is societally forbidden. No one wants to be a rapist, no one wants their friends to think they are a rapist, no one wants to be raped. If you realize that someone is trying to rape you, planning to rape you, then you have a huge degree of leeway in your response, far more leeway than you do if someone is just being a jerk or annoying.
Calling coercion through non-violent pressure rape puts coercive non-violent pressure on the far side of that bright line. It helps to teach both men and women that it is really not okay to act like that, and that if someone acts like that, their behavior is unacceptable, sufficiently unacceptable that they have abrogated the normal social rules. Realizing that someone else’s behavior towards you has crossed a line like that, realizing that someone who is trying to non-violently coerce you into having sex is someone who is behaving completely unacceptably - someone who is trying to rape you - gives you greater freedom and greater agency to act. The social constraints that would normally make ‘being difficult’ or ‘making a scene’ hard to do are lifted somewhat. If you can call what you were defending yourself against rape, then you have more agency, not less.
Likewise, a man or boy who has learned that coercively but non-violently pressuring a woman into having sex is rape will be far less likely to do so, and a man or boy who does so will be less likely to do it again if they find that afterwards they are now viewed as a rapist by those around them.
Obviously, moving the bright line of what is rape is only part of the equation. We desperately need to change the positive model of sexuality to one of mutuality and active consent, but doing so does also involve progressively moving the predatory model of sexuality outside of what is considered acceptable, bit by bit into the completely unacceptable, into the definition of rape.
The practical definition of rape, what actions constitute rape and which ones done, changes over time. It isn’t immutable. If we all (or most of us) agree to call coercing sex through non-violent pressure rape, then that is what rape is. Maybe we need to give it a specific name, just as we did with marital rape and date rape before (two categories which would once mostly have not been considered rape), maybe we don’t (we don’t have a particular name for raping prostitutes, something that is still mostly not considered real rape).
This comment was written by Charles S.Report this comment to the moderators
November 21st, 2006 at 8:56 am
Charles agreed, but for Instance. Nicole had a post on here before about her near rape experience(which was an intoxicated man trying to penetrate her after his condom slipped of), however the post was title “my rape story”. The individual, drunk, got his senses together enough to stop and leave. But he was still seen as a rapist and she a victim, even though she herself says no rape occured.
An attractive woman being oogled by a man that finds her attractive has not been raped and that man is not a rapist.
When I’m tring to sleep and my husband is groping me because he’s horney and I tell him to cut it out and he makes another attempt and gets rejected again and then flips over and puts his back towards me with an attitude and whining is just horny and being a brat. He is not a rapist in the mind to rape me.,
A young man claiming to leave his girlfriend if she doesn’ t have sex with him is not a rapist. He is a young man that is horney and has no tools to deal or he is just a manipulative jerk and she is a girl that has no tools to say See Ya! They both reinforce each others behaviour.
My boyfriend in highschool telling me that Everyone is doing it and I’m lame for wanting to hold onto my virginity is not a rapist. He was being a jerk trying to get sex. And he still didn’t get any. And it was over and done with. And to this day we are friends, older and wise, and he looks back and has high respect for the fact I didn’t give in. But even if I gave in. I wouldn’t running around screaming he raped me. Just that I made a bad decision and he was a jackass. I had power in that situation and used it.
Usually non-violent cohercive rape goes hand in hand with emotional abuse. Emotional abuse has the specific purpose of rending a person mentally powerless. Rape is when someone is powerless and the potential rapist knows that person is powerless and he can get sex from them either by means of physical force of psychological force.
I just feel like accusing someone of rape can be devestating to both parties and shouldn’t be thrown around to mean every sexual encounter that doesn’t fit an ideal.
This comment was written by Zakia.Report this comment to the moderators
November 21st, 2006 at 8:57 am
( I think it was a woman named Nicole)
This comment was written by Zakia.Report this comment to the moderators
November 21st, 2006 at 11:15 am
Bean -
I may have simplified the experience and there was potential there for a rape to have occured, but one didn’t and the man wasn’t a rapist.
regarding a husband
Even in an instance if the groping kept occuring and I couldn’t get any sleep and gave in, again to me thats not rape. Thats me having power and not using it. I could leave and get on the futon, make him leave and get on the futon, etc, smack him upside his head, whatever. Now if I tried to get up and leave and he physically restrained me, held me down on the bed, or followed me and continued to persue it. Thats a different story. If he said something like I’ll divorce you and take the kids, thats a different story, if he withheld money from me or access to resources thats another story.
“still believe that, my definition about rape is about women’s experiences, which is more important to me than the law.”
“I believe that a woman is raped if she’s drunk,”
This is from the original post and it is troubling to me. The first statments leaves almost anything open to to being rape.
The first, experience is open to something that is one’s own mind. Rape is a moral and criminal act that involves one person with power or perceived power commititting and act of sexual intercourse against a person without power or perceived to be without power physically or mentally. And experience could be anything that someone, in their own mind, makes it what they want it to be. That is not okay to me in terms of accusing someone of rape or being a rapist. Just because a woman was not mutually satisfied, regretted the sex, or gave into some mild form of being coherced does not mean automatically a rape occurred. Just because a woman feels a man is leering at her or oogling her does not mean he is a rapist and wants to rape her. Just because a husband one night is annoying and begging you for sex because he’s horny does not mean he is a rapist. There are also, unfortunately, women who HAVE been raped but do not perceive they have been raped or they way they are working out their experience is that they have not been raped.
The second doesn’t make any sense, drunk sex does not always mean a rape occurs. People put expectations on a drunken man that they wouldn’t put on a drunken woman. He is so suppose to be drunkas her but coherant enough to have heard or requested a clear “yes I will have sex with you” from a drunk incoherant woman, but even if she says yes he is still a rapist because her yes was under the influence, and he being drunk and incoherant himself is suppose to somehow work that out?
Seriously, I feel like I have to tell my sons to either get written contracted consent from a woman before having sex with her and include a sobriety test along with it. Otherwise don’t have sex until your married and even then get written consent everytime you initiate the act with your wife because any potential sexually encounter with a woman, if it does not happen they way she wants it or the act no longer appeals to her, she can say, based on her experience, that she was raped
This comment was written by Zakia.Report this comment to the moderators
November 21st, 2006 at 11:35 am
Zakia:
I’ve never called every sexual encounter that doesn’t fit an ideal rape. What I do call for is for all people to work toward treating everyone’s sexual boundaries with respect and that everyone has the right to have their sexual boundaries respected, no matter their sexual history. All those who initiate sexual contact have a duty to make sure their actions are truly welcome.
If a sexual boundary holds at the first attempt to break through, repeated attempts to break that boundary are not innocent actions.
If someone freezes at unwanted sexual contact, ignorance of that pattern is no excuse for taking inaction as consent. The person who freezes may have a long and painful history of sexual abuse and endured that abuse by detaching. Excusing those who harm others while thinking only of themselves is something I won’t do.
If a driver hits a pedestrian while chatting on the cell phone and injures that other person without realizing it was a human they hit and then continues on without a thought, it doesn’t matter that the driver wasn’t intending to harm that other person. The bottom line is their negligence resulted in another person’s injury.
Ignorance and carelessness don’t change the fact that someone is a hit and run driver.
But when it comes to sexual interaction, it is too often only about the driver and not about those harmed by other people’s actions. And those who speak out about the number of people hurt are called radicals who say all sex is rape.
If we understand that it is acceptable to have systems (laws and awareness) to get drivers to stop injuring pedestrians why is it so unacceptable to ask people to stop ignoring the impact of their sexualized activity?
If people are harming others, often those who liked them and trusted them, wouldn’t it be better for everyone if those who harm learn how to stop hurting others and learn to interact in a positive manner?
This comment was written by Abyss2hope.Report this comment to the moderators
November 21st, 2006 at 11:52 am
Zakia:
You are misunderstanding what I believe Maia was trying to say. The definition of rape needs to be about the harm done and the impact of someone’s actions on another person. So the definition of rape is about the harm done not the rapist’s judgments of his own actions (she wasn’t a virgin, she didn’t hit me, etc).
So what your sons need to be attuned to is to only take sexual actions when they know for certain that their actions are not harming the other person in any way. But isn’t that something all of us should be trying to do?
To simply ask is this legal is self-centered and self-absorbed.
This comment was written by Abyss2hope.Report this comment to the moderators
November 21st, 2006 at 12:31 pm
I can’t follow the logic of comparing this to a hit and run driver because a person is actually hit by a car and the driver actually hit them and drove off.
If a driver swerves to miss a pedestrian he/she might have hit, no one will call him/her a hit and run driver and say that person was hit by a hit and run driver. They will say he/she is a jerk that wasn’t paying attention.
Well we could beat this to death. Maybe I just don’ t have the ‘correct’ view of rape or what is rape.
This comment was written by Zakia.Report this comment to the moderators
November 21st, 2006 at 1:44 pm
Abyss - I wouldn’t even trust that, because what my son might believe and what his girlfriend/Wife might believe can be two total different things. Because it is about her experience and how she felt and not his. As a heterosexual man, he will always been seen as a potential sexual predator and seen as having a predatory nature when it comes to initiating sex.
It all seems wishy washy and confusing, I think rape is a serious accusation along the lines of child molestation and can ruin a person. This discussion is starting to confuse me about what rape is suppose to be.
This comment was written by Zakia.Report this comment to the moderators
November 21st, 2006 at 2:34 pm
Nicole had a post on here before about her near rape experience(which was an intoxicated man trying to penetrate her after his condom slipped of), however the post was title “my rape story”. The individual, drunk, got his senses together enough to stop and leave. But he was still seen as a rapist and she a victim, even though she herself says no rape occured.
It was attempted rape. Seriously, a man is trying to stick his dick into someone who is saying “Would you stop that” and physically blocking him, that’s about as unequivocal as you can get. And yes, after trying several times, he stopped; that’s why it was attempted rape and not rape.
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
November 21st, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Zakia:
If that’s true, it is because of the number of men who are taught it is okay to prey on girls and women and because of the number who take what they’ve learned and commit rape and other forms of sexual exploitation and because of the number of girls and women who are told it is solely their responsibility to prevent rape and who are blamed when their defenses are breached.
Sex should be about both participants and it can be — with good communication skills and a healthy respect for how our actions impact others and with a willingness to stop what we are doing if there is any possibility that our actions hurt someone else.
From my own experience I can remember the shock and delight in having a man who refused to do anything until he was assured I fully consented to his actions and was a partner in what we were doing. The process was slower because of his approach since my boundaries had been trampled by rape and by others who exploited the damage left over from rape. I wasn’t just a body to be used, I was a person to be respected and savored.
Accusations of rape are serious because rape is serious and that is why it is so important that boys and men ensure that they always have the other person’s full consent before sexual contact.
The same is true of girls and women when they are initiating sex. They must be willing to stop and to respect the other person even if that person is vulnerable and exploitable.
This comment was written by Abyss2hope.Report this comment to the moderators
November 21st, 2006 at 3:39 pm
The woman in BB’s scenario, or any woman in any scenario where she has unwanted sex in the absence of explicit physical coercion, may or may not choose the word rape to name her experience, and we might argue about whether or not she should be encouraged to name her experience rape, and that gets us into questions of legal vs. moral vs. political definitions of rape; it gets us into questions of how a word’s connotations might shape the way men and women see themselves in relation to sex, sexuality and each other, etc. and so on.
I would hope, though, at the very least, that we would all agree that this woman should see herself as having been violated. Not only were boundaries she tried to establish not respected, but in BBR