About the only possible excuse the man could come up with would be “I was too drunk myself to realise what state she was in”, but excuses like that are why British English has adjectives like ‘piss poor’.

curiousgyrl: As to why I can’t go back and apologise, it was near 20 years ago and I simply have no idea how to get in touch with the girl; I can’t even remember her name. I’m absolutely certain that what happened wasn’t what the legal system would describe as rape, but that’s rather beside the point.

Amp: Have you ever heard Richard Thompson’s song ‘Read About Love’? The lyrics are at http://www.richardthompson-music.com/song_o_matic.asp?id=172 definitely one of those songs that hits you between the ears.

Probably yes anyway, but I have a sense of a lurking attempt at a “gotcha.”

PS–to paul, I dont know about your situation, but it is certianly not true of all men that they cant “go back and apologize” for actions and behaviors they now find disturbing/shameful/potentially seriously harmful to another person. In my case an aopology would give me a major boost of hope for the world, but i’m not holding my breath.

I’m not sure why you felt it necessary to address that comment directly to me (especially when you’re quoting someone named Piers) :-)

(I may respond to another part of your comments in the thread that Mandolin has opened on the legal and personal definitions of rape, but I want to see what other comments are there first).

which never really jibes with the whole plan-to-let-the-car-run-out-of-gas or get-her-really-drunk methods of practicing indifference, in my opinion/experience. They knew they were doing it, they just believed they have a right to, and (perhaps rightly) that it is a normal thing to do. And that its not *really* rape.

Meanwhile, the “hatred” rapists, it seems to me, often, though not always, hate women impersonally, if not indifferently. Its still not about you, even when its violent. In fact the not-about-you thing is the central element of all rape.

So if the legit question that Amp is asking is “how do we get men to recognize rape?” –especially when it means seeing their own behaviors in a new, possibly ugly, light–I think this distinction is less than useful. However, another way to follow Amp’s logic is to stop describing misogyny as “hatred of women” and describe it in more specific ways.

That might be something I could get behind. Though I would like to emphasize that the problem with ‘hatred’ as a description is its lack of clarity, not its tendency to make men uncomfortable. There is no way to talk to men about chaning their behavior which will not have that effect at some point, i think.

Anyway, I think I actually agree with Amp overall upon readinig the post, but partially got set off by people in the thread calling “indifferent/ignorant” rape “quasi-rape” and focusing on legal definitions, not on the main point of the post which sees misogyny as widespread and at the heart of all rape.

I do think the post is written in a way that can reinforce kind of view, though i get it that that is not the intent. 24 hours later, I realize its not really amps fault that others took it there.

PS–to paul, I dont know about your situation, but it is certianly not true of all men that they cant “go back and apologize” for actions and behaviors they now find disturbing/shameful/potentially seriously harmful to another person. In my case an aopology would give me a major boost of hope for the world, but i’m not holding my breath.

Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they were truly so disconnected from the woman involved that they couldn’t tell the difference between, for example, a woman who was responding enthusiastically to their advances and one who was struggling to get away. I don’t know where that idea gets one…apart from it makes these guys–and the society in which they are considered “perfectly normal”–seem even more screwed up than before. Maybe there is some room for education? Could education help these guys learn to watch for signals from their partners and potential partners? Would they even be willing to learn?

But one of the things I’ve noticed, when people I’ve known have been raped by these ‘indifferent rapists’ - is that they react just as angry and entitled and are just as likely to trash the survivor, as any other rapist. In this they make it clear that they do hate women who get in the way of their sense of entitlement, or inconvenience them in any way.

You wrote this: “I can see it if you think those things should be legally punishable. (in other words, it makes perfect sense if you think those things ARE rape) ”

That suggests that the only definition of rape that is acceptable is one with a legal ramification, because it suggests that one only thinks things ARE rape if one seeks to make them legally punishable. That means that you’re saying that a personal definition of rape should be consonant with one’s desired legal definition of rape, and thus that the deciding factor of rape is the legal system.

If it’s not what you meant, then you expressed yourself poorly.

You’ve made this argument before; it’s been rebutted before; like curiousgyrrl, my patience with you coming onto an unrelated thread to make it again is limited.

I don’t know how to delete my old post though.

Mandolin: I’m well aware of that. See, e.g., the bottom of post 11. But a host of people using different definitions is a bit like the tower of babel. And since most people know the legal terms, then absent some other clarification they make the most sense to use.

I figured you’d at least have posted, you know, something related to rape/definitions of rape/etc that I missed to get into the “…. Period.” snark. but you haven’t.

So, back atcha: rape is a legal term of art. Like other legal terms, it has a meaning in that sense, which is relatively fixed. It also has a nonlegal meaning, that is extraordinarily similar to the legal one.

While words in general are not defined by the legal system, SOME words are basically defined that way. Rape (along with murder, for example, and burglary), which is a crime whose basic definition hasn’t changed in centuries, is in that category.

Still, if you want to use the word “rape” to refer to nonlegal rape like, say, technically consensual sex where the consent was achieved by one person being a lying sack of shit, then as i said before I’m all for it. But come on: if someone wants to use a word in a way that doesn’t match society’s general usage, and isn’t in the major dictionaries, then it’s not unreasonable to ask the person who wants to tweak the definition to at least make that clear, ya know?

I think the direction this thread has taken (who was ever talking about “dont be a prude” low-level coercion guy, until Sailor did? The post is about hostile rapists vs indifferent rapists) supports my point that there is a danger in reinforcing the rapist-eye-view distinction in this post–our job is to engage with this yes, but to disrupt it. I see Amp saying there is a real and significant distinction here that I just dont see.

Even if the “don’t be a prude” guy never sees it, we have to tell women that his behavior is unacceptable, that they have been coerced into sex, and that they don’t need to blame themselves for being traumatized.

The legal system is not the sole arbiter of meaning. Period.

You don’t have to waste time and effort “differentiating in terms”. We’re talking about words like consent and respect and empathy. You don’t ever have to use the R-word if you’re trying to tell people that they’re being selfish and thoughtless, that women are people, that treating the opposite sex as an enemy and sex as some kind of bizarre capture-the-flag game is not only counterproductive, but immoral and shitty behavior.

mythago Writes:
May 13th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
And now we’re derailing into the discussion of how much we should tiptoe around wrongdoers’ feelings lest they retreat into denial.

If the goal is to stand around, share a (virtual) beer, and bemoan some group’s behavior, then the feelings of that group are moot. Nothing wrong with that in principle, and certainly any political movement needs communication within the “core” to happen.

But.

If the goal is to actually engage that other group in conversation to try to convince them of something then the feelings of that group are pretty damn important, dontcha think?

If you’re not going to differentiate in terms–whether it be “wrongdoer” or “rapist” or “almost rapist”–between someone who calls a girl a prude and stomps off in a huff, versus someone who goes for the “drunk hit”, then you’re not speaking a common language that makes sense outside a very limited audience.
Since the post seemed NOT to be about the “standard” rape issues, and seemed to be about the more generic masculinity issues, that by definition means it’s got a larger audience. And IMO presentation matters.**

Lu Writes:
May 13th, 2007 at 3:52 pm

But, Sailorman, saying “aw, c’mon, don’t be a prude, I’ll make you feel good*” and getting a woman drunk and holding a gun to her head all have in common that the woman’s feelings aren’t important: she’s not a person but a prop, as Amp put it so well. What we’re discussing is how to get men to recognize this common way of thinking, and to reject it, to treat women as people.

yes, they have that one thing in common. But they are, in most other respects, totally different. When you focus solely on what those things have in common without acknowledging that they are as a whole quite different, it becomes nonsensical.

E.g., are you now, adding “putting a gun to her head” to the things that are like calling someone a “prude”? What’s next: “well, calling someone a prude has a lot in common with raping her, then killing her afterwards”? Does the extension ever hit a “wait a minute, this doesn’t make sense!” mark? When?

Comparisons can be made between almost anything. Your disagreement can be compared (accurately, so long as I limit the comparison) to the insane person I met a month ago, who violated Godwin’s Law in his very first post. But–like the gun vs. the “prude” comment–they are much more different than alike.

**Amp, if you want this to be a “never mind the audience” post, let me know. I’ll drop this line of thought pronto.