This stream of consciousness comment has been bothering me for a while but I haven’t quite had the energy to tackle it until now when I was shamed into doing so because some other poor bugger has come and read the post, found the comment, and probably wondered (rightfully) why that comment wasn’t taken to task by me already – I mean, especially given this whole post is written in response to troubling comments from another man on another part of my blog.
Quick things I want to say about the issues raised in that comment:
- Avoiding rape is not much like avoiding mugging; people need to desist with this comparison. My vagina is not a purse, it is not my job to be careful when I walk about that you don’t realise I have my vagina with me. It is a part of my body, I have a right to exist with my body parts. Other reasons why rape is not like mugging – you don’t generally find that 3 out of 4 people mugged are mugged by someone they know/like/love/trust. (For more on why rape is not like mugging read this or this or this).
- ‘Gray rape’, as described in this infamous Cosmopolitan article has already been roundly criticised here and here and here. These are great responses which I can’t improve upon so I’ll leave that there.
- ‘Gray rape’ as described in this infamous The New York Times article has been thoroughly criticised here. (Note that I have included a male critic of the ‘gray rape’ concept for each of these articles as evidence that men can and do understand the concept of consent).
- No-one I know who was raped has ever described their experience as ‘gray rape’. I am sure there are some ambiguous encounters but I don’t know much about them, personally, and I haven’t been at all convinced by the definitions provided in those two articles above. I do think, however, that feminists should enter into a discussion of the more ambiguous settings of rape because it really needs exploration and analysis. Like, the Julian Assange case has really shown, if nothing else, that the world wants to talk about it. So I am happy to talk about gray rape.
- But, gray rape is not – when she says no to sex but you had great sex a week ago so she must have known what you’d want when she came over; when she says no to sex but she did just start a blow-job for you so what’s the difference; when he says no to sex but he has an erection so he must by lying; when she says no to anal sex or sex without a condom but you think she will get into it once you start; when she was so high she couldn’t answer yes or no; when she says no to sex while lying naked in bed with you. Ignoring the lack of consent would make all of these scenarios plain old rape and there is nothing novel or gray about them.
- ‘Numb’ is different to ‘passive’. We should take note of rape victims/survivors describing their response as ‘numb’. It is significant. As Jim C. Hines says here:
Isn’t it her responsibility to say no and make it clear she’s not interested? Is it fair to blame the guy if someone’s sending mixed signals?
This seems like a duh moment to me, but the phrase “mixed signals” means the signals are mixed. There’s no clear message as to what the person wants … meaning you have to find out. With as much miscommunication as you get in most relationships, don’t you think it’s a good idea to make sure you’re both on the same page?
When working with rape survivors, I talked to a number of people who had frozen when they realized what was happening. Sometimes these were people who had been raped before. Freezing is a survival response to a threat. It does not equal consent.
(My use of bold above).
- If someone goes numb in a situation of fear they don’t have a choice about whether they can refuse more firmly for you in order for you to feel they are justified. They are numb with fear and shock! As this comment points out, fighting back in a situation of rape can get you beaten/killed. Someone who doesn’t fight back during rape may be trying to minimise the threat they face. And not realising initially that you were raped can be a product of a victim-blaming culture rather than a “comical” lack of self-awareness about one’s sexuality.
- Second, note this. If in doubt about the consent, if you really can’t tell if someone is ‘just giving in’ or ‘being overcome with arousal’ (a la the heat in our crotches, as described in that comment) you could ask (it can even be quite a hot experience to ask). Yes, it is possible for someone to change their mind, be overwhelmed with lust for you, (I’ve changed my mind before, too) but you need to check. You should aim for ‘enthusiastic consent’, as described here by Jeff Vandermeer:
There is a reason for the “enthuasistic” part of the phrase. Consent without enthusiasm is rather lukewarm. “OK FINE go ahead.” “I don’t care.” “I have no opinion.” “Whatever, if it gets you to get off my back.” Consent that is in place because it’s easier than saying “no” isn’t much different from rejection. It is given because the giver feels there is no other choice (besides the potential for abuse, violence, and other bad things).
We need to stop assuming that we can communicate desires through some convoluted dance of subtle cues and half-no’s. Consent should be uncomplicated: only “Yes!” and other such affirmative variants can mean “yes”…
.. Enthusiastic consent is about welcoming. “Yes, I would like you to.” “I would love it if you did.” “Your presence here is not an invasion, nor just benign, but a welcome addition to my life.” It says something to welcome another person’s touch, verbally, openly.
- Finally, this question, which was raised at the end of the comment:
do you just make out with guys who your never, never going to fuck. ever. after all that drunken passionate makout
- Yes. Sometimes I did.
Further on the subject of going numb and being frozen with fear: I want to recommend this essay by Fugitivus on rape. One of the key ideas is that when someone you know, who you thought was a friend, ignores your wishes and tries to inflict something awful on you, you suddenly realize that you don’t know them at all:
So lack of resistance doesn’t equal consent. Lack of resistance often just means the person has concluded their life is in danger, and all they are trying for now is to not die.
Fugitivus also makes the point, in another essay, that
Great observation. Who wants to impose their sexuality on someone who’s obviously unhappy about it? Only rapists.
Kathmandu, bluemilk,
Great comment to a great post.
Of course it’s really very very easy to tell whether somebody has enthusiastically agreed to enjoy a sexual encounter. Treating a frozen unresisting but unresponsive body as if the person has really assented is just treating people like meatsocks because you think you can get away with it, and it’s dehumanising bullshit.
This is a great comment. I think the idea that one might – and many do – freeze in fear in the middle of a rape is a valuable and important point, and I’m glad to see posts like this where we are reminded that the risk of being beaten or killed for trying to resist a rapist is a thought ever in the back of women’s minds.
But (or perhaps “additionally” is a less confrontational/contrary word than “but” in this instance) I also think we need to consider that it doesn’t take a threat – or even perceived threat – of violence to make it difficult or impossible for women to fight a rapist, all it takes is the fear of causing a scene. I know that on the two occasions on which I was raped I wasn’t afraid that if I tried to fight off my rapist he might become violent, but I was afraid that he would get upset, feel rejected, cry or even try to harm himself, and it would make me feel guilty. At the time I didn’t try to stop them from doing what they wanted to me because by the time I realised I had someone’s hand down my pants it seemed too late, like saying “get the fuck off me, all I wanted to do was kiss you” would just cause a scene, and it would be kinder to just shut my eyes and let it happen. Which is seriously fucked up.
It still haunts and infuriates me that I felt compelled to put my own bodily autonomy second to the feelings of two insecure men, one of whom had **already told me** (though not in so many words) that he had raped his previous girlfriend at least once by taking advantage of her guilt over breaking up with him. But I don’t think that experience is at all uncommon, because women are socialised to be polite, to be meek, to put the needs and wants of people they care about above their own. Both of the men who raped me were my friends, and I liked them, both of them had lamented to me on previous occasions that they felt unattractive and unwanted, and both of them took advantage of my meekness either because they knew they could get away with it or, in the best case scenario (which is still awful), they were simply so psyched about being in a position to have sex that they didn’t *care* whether I was as psyched as they were, as long as I didn’t actually say “stop” (which is where the second quote comes in, of course). And my history, my society, my upbringing, although they had taught me that no means no, and that a boy who won’t like you if you won’t put out is an asshole, they *hadn’t* taught me that I had the right to hurt someone’s feelings if he was trying to take away my bodily autonomy, that my right to choose what happens to me trumped my friend’s entitlement to feel attractive and loved. And that’s *horrible*
I’m terribly sorry about your experiences but loved the way you made such a strong argument for the importance of enthusiastic consent here.. you’re right, it is not just about being in fear, it is also about not wishing to insult or embarrass a man.
[…] belief in consent’. Or something called ’gray rape’ (thanks to blue milk for the heads up there) Call it how you like, the message is the same; as Whoopi Goldberg so […]
Excellent response (and damn did I like the first comment here, too).
While I have several problems with the orignal comment–couldn’t read it without gagging–this stuck out for me, especially as soon as you highlighted it in your post here:
do you just make out with guys who your never, never going to fuck. ever. after all that drunken passionate makout
Yes. And unlike the unstated-but-implied expectation would have us believe, two people who are making out do not owe one another sex. Making out *may* be a step along the way, but it is not a goddamn guarantee, drunken, passionate or otherwise.
Exactly!
Bravo, bm.
Thanks for this post. I have a toddler daughter, fortunately years away from these issues. But I’ve been thinking about how I will parent her perhaps compared to how I’d parent a boy, particularly as a teenager. I never want her to be hurt in any way, but I also don’t want to put restrictions, say in terms of going out, on her that I wouldn’t put on a son. And also how I would best educate both sons and daughters about respect for others given they are growing up in a world where ‘blame the victim’ really is the norm. Have you given this any thought?
I would add that survival instincts can even make a person do something that SEEMS to be participating somehow but is actually their way of trying to take what little control they feel like they can. When a friend tried to rape me, I pretended that I was helping him out when what I was really doing was the only thing I could think of to stop it – controlling the very thing that he was trying to use against me. Lucky for me, his attempts were eventually interrupted by someone else, but not everyone is so lucky.
But as you say, blue milk, the difference is enthusiastic participation. And even if you have to stop and ask and it breaks the mood or whatever, it’s better than continuing obliviously. My current partner does that all the time (I do it too!) and it has never had a negative impact on what we are doing, because we aren’t selfish a-holes.
[…] love how eloquently and logically blue milk deconstructs the rape culture. Thank you. This entry was posted in Rape Culture and tagged rape culture. Bookmark the […]
This is brilliant. I’ve jsut started reading your blog soI wasn’t aware of the earlier post. When I read “gray rape” my first thought was “Oh my God she isn’t going there, is she?” I guess that’s the good thing about carrying on reading.
I was astounded by the comments you refer to. I find it hard to believe … no, scratch that … I find it all too easy to believe that people have those attitudes.
I have commented on other posts that it doesn’t matter if the person is keen on sex up to a point. One they demonstrate in some way (or become incapable of demonstrating) that they don’t want to go any further, then you stop.
It pisses me off in rape trials when the rapist says things like “Oh but she was keen on it up until ….” or in the Assange case where the … ok, let’s be fair… the allegations are that sex was conditionally consensual, but those conditions were broken and it is still thought of as “she said yes”.
“Rape avoidance techniques” is solely the responsibility of men. Don’t fucking do it. Saying women shouldn’t get drunk, go out on their own, wear revealing clothes, be affectionate, etc … this insults everyone. It says that women are to blame for being raped, but it also says that men are such pathetic morons that they can’t make decisions or control their own actions (they’d rather control everyone else’s).
I am in the process of trying to set up a FB page for feminist-thinking men to get together to share their ideas and strategies with the aim of spreading the philosophy. Rape culture won’t change until men do. We created it, we have to change it.
Apologies for sorta explicit content to follow:
Sometimes, my wife wants a nudey cuddle in bed. If I have an erection, she likes playing with it even if she doesn’t want sex. And (bless her) even though she feels bad for me for not “releasing”, if she doesn’t want it, I don’t. What is not to get about this?
The facebook page is an awesome idea, maybe making “enthusiastic consent” part of compulsory sex education would be a good idea too?
“stop rapists raping” is a bit of an unworkable solution without a plan, but enthusiastic consent sounds like a good plan
[…] from Blue Milk, All the way – gray rape and third base, about the tropes of “gray rape / date rape / not rape-rape” which are infesting the […]
[…] she take some responsibility, too, for the rape?’, and after that post there was this post, ‘All the way – gray rape and third base’. Now I write this post here and I hope this is the end of […]
Great post here. It makes me think of an exercise we did at an introduction to tantra workshop I went to recently. We were standing in front of a partner (fully clothed), and one partner touched the other in various (non-sexual ways), and the other had to respond with a clear “yes”, “no”, or “maybe” as to whether the touch was ok, and the toucher had to respond appropriately (though of course the “maybe” requires further dicussion/exploration). It felt a little silly while doing it (especially when being asked to give an enthusiastic “yes” to something as seemingly benign as being touched on the arm), but a few weeks later I realised it’s value when I was able to give an enthusiastic “yes!” to someone who was respectful enough to be waiting for it 🙂
When these issues of consent are brough up, I often hear people saying things like “I don’t think I’ve ever said to someone “I would like to participate in sexual intercourse with you””, which reflects the dominant attitude that consent is un-sexy and breaks the mood, and makes it into something like this: http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/consent/. I think if more people were led through exercises like the one I described above it would really change how people thought about consent, how it’s given and how they can make sure they have it without breaking the mood.
One thing I would add to the exercise is a part where people had to ask if the touch was ok, as I think we all also need to practice asking for consent when it’s not clear.
Another thing a friend of mine said during the workshop is that “a no is really a yes to yourself”, which I thought was a pretty cool thing to remember, especially for people who worry about not pleasing other people or people who might be offended by rejection.
Great article! I just found you but wanted to comment here, especially on this:
do you just make out with guys who your never, never going to fuck. ever. after all that drunken passionate makout
Actually, yes, and I was lucky because if I had been raped I’m sure I would have been blamed for it. I was 22 years old, in college and naive as all get-out after going to a girls’ school for my whole previous life. This was my second ever boyfriend – he asked me to French-kiss him and had to describe what to do! So I gave it a shot – hell, college is about experimentation isn’t it?
He then got an erection and I totally freaked out and asked him to leave – yeah, we were kissing on my bed in my room. Fortunately (and at the time I had no idea) he was a gentlemen and took his disappointment elsewhere and we broke up. But if things had gone differently I’m *positive* I would have been told I was “asking for it” – he was in my room, on my bed and I open-mouthed kissed him! But I wasn’t asking for anything and I had no idea what I was doing.
I was naive, stupid and young – and very lucky. Or I feel that way now. Really, every girl should be so lucky to have her man listen when she says “I’m freaking out, I really need you to stop now.” Is that so unreasonable?
James, wherever you are, I’m sorry I did that to you. I had no idea. But thank you for being a decent (if disappointed) man. I wish more men in the world were like you, and I hope you found someone to give your erection the attention it deserves!
Thank you for this wonderful article. I have been struggling with a so-called “gray” experience for years– not rape, but definitely what I would now term sexual assault– where I froze up when a male friend started getting physical. It took me years to get over partially because I didn’t know what to call what had happened. I blamed myself, because I had definitely been flirting with him earlier, and though at a later point I asked him to stop, I thought I must not have been forceful enough. I didn’t even want to discuss it with my therapist, because I felt that I was being whiny and silly; I hadn’t been physically forced– if I could have made myself move or speak I could easily have gotten away– and we hadn’t actually had sex. These things just happen, right? They really shouldn’t. I wish anyone I knew then could have told me about some of the ideas in this article. Even better, I wish someone had taught him about enthusiastic consent before any of it happened.
There really needs to be more understanding about consent, especially (in my experience), among college-aged men. There are too many stories every weekend about young women going to parties and ending up somewhere they didn’t want. Wanting to go out and have fun does not equal consent to sex. Even when your purpose in doing so is meeting boys, it does not equal consent. Drinking does not equal consent. Flirting does not equal consent. How long is it going to take us to get that?
Here is someone who is not listening in any way and still was allowed to tell his story as a joke in public. Warning – triggery for any woman who has been sexually assaulted: http://jezebel.com/5834712/is-this-comedy-monologue-a-rape-confession-%5Bupdated%5D
33 minutes in
Thanks Jane.. I blogged about that one here: https://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/this-is-rape-culture-and-everyone-is-laughing/ – anybody interested in Jane’s link can see more about the trigger warning on it first over at my post.
[…] she take some responsibility, too, for the rape?’, and after that post there was this post, ‘All the way – gray rape and third base’. Now I write this post here and I hope this is the end of it). Advertisement […]
[re-posted because i put it under J’s comment but Blue Milk said it belonged here]
There are some genuine ambiguous cases (for the sake of keeping the pronouns clear lets keep the victim ‘she’ and the possible rapist ‘he’):
* what if she DOESN’T say “no”, what if she says “yes” even, but only because she’s too drunk? (rape? regrettable sex? rape if she says nothing but regrettable sex if she says yes?)
* what if she says “yes” but said “no” earlier in the night before she was drunk? (rape? regrettable sex?)
* what if she even initiates it, but only because he deliberately got her drunk knowing what the outcome would be, and knowing she’d never go for him sober? (rape? regrettable sex?)
* what if she initiates it while drunk, after getting herself drunk, but he’s totally sober and he knows she’d never do it sober? (just regrettable sex? still rape? rape if he’s sober, but regrettable sex if he’s also at least a little bit drunk?)
* what if she’s hating it so much that she’s crying over his shoulder, and he asks if he should stop but she actually says “don’t stop”? (cruel, but can you deem him a rapist if she technically consented?)
i’m not sure if you meant i should put it here?
To me, if you know damn well she wouldn’t do you when she’s sober and you have sex with her when she’s drunk, that’s unequivocally rape. If someone suddenly comes on to you when they are drunk (or high or otherwise inebriated) when they have never done so before or they have actually turned you down before, you should not have sex with them, and talk to them about it when they’re sober. Even if you are drunk at the time as well. It is true that sometimes some people, myself included, are better able to express feelings they’re self-conscious about when drunk, but acting on them can wait until you’ve had a sober conversation and confirmed they were expressed because the person was relaxed and not just the alcohol talking. “So, last night you said some things/acted in a way that made me think you were attracted to me, can we talk about it?” might be awkward sometimes, but it is far better than waking up next to someone the morning after and feeling violated. So the first four are all rape.
I don’t know about the last one so much. If I was having sex with someone and they started crying, I would completely stop, separate myself from the person and then ask what was wrong, not keep shagging away and say “should I stop?” I think in that context as the crying person I would feel like the other person *really didn’t want to stop* and I might feel obliged to let them “finish” even if I was hating it. I actually have been in a situation like that that I don’t consider rape; it was with my boyfriend and I started crying because I was having unexpected flashbacks to a time that I *had* been raped. He asked me if I was crying (it was dark, so he couldn’t tell for sure) and I said no and we kept going, but afterwards I explained what had happened and we talked about it. I don’t consider that rape because I was confident at the time that if I’d said I wanted to stop he would have stopped, but I was having all these complicated angry feelings about my stupid rapist and didn’t want to let his actions ruin a happy, consensual moment with my partner (even though it still kind of did). But if I’d been with someone I just met at a party and started crying and he said “do you want me to stop?” I wouldn’t know what to do, and I might let him continue even if I didn’t want him to, just to get it over with and avoid a scene. So I do think if something the person is doing seems at odds with their apparent consent – and you’re not in a consensual kink situation where they’ve confirmed beforehand that crying etc. is fine – you should stop and then check.
I don’t know how I feel about situations where both parties are drunk and one person wouldn’t do it sober but the other person doesn’t know that because they just met, and when person B asks person A is enthusiastic and says yes and then feels violated afterwards. Perhaps it is fair that person B thought person A’s enthusiasm was genuine, but B could tell A was drunk and knows that inebriation affects people’s ability to make rational decisions. I think Mindy is right about leaving people alone until they’re sober.
Maybe the other way round would be clearer, define regrettable sex that wouldn’t be rape?
When both parties are sober, enthusiastically consent then over breakfast realise that their political ideologies are incompatible and regret being overtaken by lust. Yes, this is tongue in cheek, but we need to be teaching our young men that if your partner is drunk, leave them alone and wait until they are sober.
Actually in fairness to young men, we should be teaching everyone to leave your partner alone until they are sober, unless this is a situation that you have specifically negotiated with your partner.
yes, i think i actually know of more women than men who use alcohol to get what they want from people, that could be a matter of the social circle i hang around in or just small sample size though
Oh for godsake bee, take a visit to your local hospital and their rape unit and investigate how many drunk/high men are coming in having been raped by women these days.
They don’t report it, you of all people should know that reported rapes are not particularly representative of actual rapes.
I get the impression that men often wouldn’t interpret it as rape actually? though some of them do interpret it as some sort of mistreatment or abuse, even if they didn’t think it was quite criminal.
Women who have been “taken advantage of” while drunk also wouldn’t always interpret it as rape? and even if they did see it as rape may be even more reluctant than usual to report it?
Maybe it’s just regrettable sex if the aggressor gets the victim drunk, or waits till their target is drunk, to “take advantage of them”? but from everything else that’s been said that seems not to be the belief of anyone here?
Maybe men being even less likely to interpret it as rape, or to report it as such, is an effect of internalized “victim blaming” in that a victim with an erection is a very easy victim to blame?
Also, yes, i already acknowledged that maybe the people i know aren’t particularly representative of the population. Maybe rape by all means – including alcohol, is far more often committed by men against women. I already said that my small circle of people i know may be non-representative for some reason (e.g. maybe i avoid sexually aggressive men more than i avoid sexually aggressive women) and they are certainly too small a sample to be statistically valid.
bee – thinking you’re crossing over to troll behaviour now, are you for real with this line of argument? More women than men are raping drunken party-goers?
Yes, there a lot of men raped in this world, and yes, they don’t readily report it to the police… they’re almost exclusively raped by other men and they are raped mostly in prisons. Incarcerated men who become victims of sexual violence, well, their pain is utterly trivialised – save your arguments for them, they could really do with our support. Your ludicrous ideas about undetected large numbers of women raping drunken men in bars? Not so much.
like i have now said TWICE now, this is not based on some large controlled population survey, and i am not even claiming it is, this is from my sample of about half a dozen close friends who i know well enough to know the details of their sex lives.
maybe there is even a strong bias in what i hear on top of the small sample size, maybe men are much less likely to admit they do this because they are more likely to realise it is wrong.
So maybe don’t raise it on a forum about victim-blaming and rape apology.
Whether you want to call what i have noticed women doing “rape” is up to you, the men involved probably are significantly less traumatised than the male victims of violent rapes by men in situations like prisons.
I guess it would be somewhat belittling to the victims of violent prison rape to pretend it was analogous to being “taken advantage of” at a party by your ex-girlfriend.
Am am somewhat surprised you say this though? Is that what you are saying or am i misinterpreting? the message i get from most of this discussion is that violent rape is no less “rape” than ambiguous rape?
There’s even some evidence that LESS violent rapes are MORE traumatic because of the guilt and ambiguity. This evidence is only for women though, it may not be applicable to men? Men may react differently?
i was just responding to Mindy’s very valid comment “Actually in fairness to young men, we should be teaching everyone to leave your partner alone until they are sober, unless this is a situation that you have specifically negotiated with your partner.”
I think men are taught from an early age that ‘getting lucky’ is more important than how it happens and so not wanting sex is seen as unmanly. It doesn’t make being taken advantage of by an ex any less awful or any less rape. I think that many men probably are traumatised but admitting to it adds to the trauma, as it does for all victims.
bee – here’s how it went down.
You tried to suggest on a thread about men and women and drinking and rape that the problem was that women are raping men… I said, where’s your evidence… you said, victims don’t report rape.. I said, rather than trying to get your theory to float why not centre your concern for men as victims of rape in the area where we know for certain that male victim rapes overwhelmingly occur, in prisons… then you said you weren’t trying to build any theory at all about men being the most likely victim of rape while drinking, you were just saying it had happened in your friendship circle… then I said, ok fine, so maybe don’t try and float that theory on a thread about men and women and drinking and rape (cos interrupting a discussion about sexual violence to say that you think more women rape men than men rape women is a real MRA kinda move; we get that men are also victims of rape, we included them in the discussion but we are not going to budge in thinking that men are vastly more likely to be the rapists, cos every single study shows that).. now you’re trying to say that I am somehow silencing male victims of rape because not all of them happen in a prison… are you trolling or not?
Cos you look an awful lot like a troll through this thread. I am trying to take you in good faith but I also don’t have a lot of patience left.
I’m not “trolling”, I’m doing this for amusement or just to bait to “for the lulz”.
What’s a “real MRA kinda move”?
I didn’t see this as a thread about “men raping women”, i saw this as a thread about ambiguous rape and victim blaming?
Mindy mentioned – very rightly – that women also need to show respect for consent, and women also shouldn’t do anything with or to a drunk person which that person wouldn’t want to happen if they were sober. I just agreed with this.
I really don’t think you can say that “we know for certain that male victim rapes overwhelmingly occur” in prison. That’s where the vast majority of reported rapes come from (I’ll take you at your word on that because that does seem plausible), but in a discussion about grey areas, victim blaming, and unreported rapes, i don’t think you can conclude hat the majority of reported rapes is representative of non-consensual sex overall.
I never ever said i “think more women rape men than men rape women”, that’s a really terrible “straw man” on your part. I specifically said that it was just within my small direct experience. The only claim i made was that women use alcohol to obtain consent at least SOMETIMES.
Basic anatomy and physiology means that men – who are usually bigger and stronger – are more likely to be aggressors, and women – who are usually smaller and weaker – are more likely to be victims.
Men also have a higher alcohol tolerance making it easier for them to use alcohol to obtain consent, they just need to keep pace with their potential victim, a woman would need to ensure her potential victim out-drinks her.
Then there is the other practicality that if a man doesn’t want sex he would usually (not always – as you started in another post – but usually) not have an erection, making it more difficult for a female rapist to get what she’s likely to want.
So yes, of course men are more often the aggressors and less often the victims, i never said otherwise.
Women are almost incapable of forcefully raping a man, but they are quite capable of using more insidious means to make someone they want to have sex with do something he doesn’t want to do. Insidious means which you claim – rightly – are a clear case of rape in situations where the victim is female, i don’t think there should be a double-standard here. Women may very well do this LESS often than men do (though i think an accurate study would be next to impossible). But i think “less often” is still too much, they should NEVER do it.
“i actually know of more women than men who use alcohol to get what they want from people” versus “women use alcohol to obtain consent at least SOMETIMES” …?
“know of” not “know that”
“that could be a matter of the social circle i hang around in or just small sample size” i.e. within my social circle, not media reports, not distant rumours of what happened to “a friend of a friend of a friend” of someone i know, and not scientific studies. A number of incidents i could count on my fingers.
I’ve seen guys behave suspiciously, but i don’t know what their motives were or what happened next. But out of the small number of stories i am confident i know the full story on, which – as i have always said – is a small and biased sample, women are often the aggressor.
If i actually try to count and think back further rather than just recent stuff, i think it’s maybe more like 50:50 by person, but a slight skew towards female aggressor by incident and/or if you include failed attempts.
I never claimed it was for completed rapes either, not all of the incidents i was thinking of lead to penetrative sex. Just attempts to make people do things they did not want to do by getting them drunk.
If we are to “stop the rapist raping” we should stop all of them, not just the men.
Also we – as women, as a group – have a far stronger argument about respecting consent if we “practice what we preach” so to speak.
I never said you weren’t already “practicing what you preach” here, sorry i didn’t mean that as a personal attack/accusation. I mean “we” as a broader group. It’s not just a men vs women thing, we need to look inside our group not just outside in order to fix the rape culture.
bee, i am curious about a few of the things you have said here.
i have heard you mention, numerous times now about the “small circle of people i know” who “may be non-representative for some reason (e.g. maybe i avoid sexually aggressive men more than i avoid sexually aggressive women)” – you paint the picture that your social circle is made up of women who rape or otherwise take advantage of men, and then go on to say: “…they should NEVER do it.”
first of all, if you feel this way about people you “know well enough to know the details of their sex lives”, then what are you doing about it? if you feel so strongly that they should NEVER be doing this type of thing, then why is this your chosen social circle? you certainly cannot control another person’s actions or stop them from doing the things they do, but you CAN stay away from people who are doing things you feel are morally/legally wrong.
second: the fact that you “maybe avoid sexually aggressive men” does not mean that there are not rapist men within your circle. just because a man seems outwardly/overtly sexually aggressive, does not make him more/less a rapist than the quiet, shy guy in the corner. a rapist is a rapist is a rapist.
you cannot pick one out of a crowd.
you also state that: “out of the small number of stories i am confident i know the full story on…” – i take this to mean you have spoken to both “victim” and “aggressor/rapist” in all of these scenarios, and had some type of round table discussion on what went down, coming to full agreement on the story? this seems rather unlikely. if you were really having these candid discussions with people about their sex lives you would be doing one of three things (imo): listening silently, without comment; vehemently expressing your disapproval/disgust at what you are hearing because, as you say, things like this should NEVER happen; nodding and laughing along at another drunken story of ‘ambiguous’ sex, or whatever else you want to call it. if you were really expressing your disapproval, then i highly doubt that your friends would continue to divulge the details of their sex lives to you.
and as for this: “I’m doing this for amusement…” – i really hope you left out the NOT in this sentence.
Yes sorry, i think i meant to say something like:
“I’m not “trolling”, doing this for amusement, doing this just to bait you, or doing it “for the lulz”.” (with the “not” applying to the whole list)
I guess it lost something in the couple of times i re-phrased it.
Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt in the interpretation.
bee, please spare me the “practice what you preach” lecture. I have written about male victims of sexual violence on this blog, I have linked to articles on the topic of male victims, and I have included male examples in my posts about ‘rape’. I am the mother of both a son and a daughter and I am terribly mindful of the fact that boys (and men) can be the victims of sexual violence and abuse.
I am glad you have moderated your original line of argument, I am happy to leave this there now.
Come to think of it, why do we always end up talking about being drunk? Does nobody do e’s anymore? I’m not being frivolous, I am actually wondering what the implications are of a recreational drug with the specific effect of making you amiable and horny, in this context.
I think just because alcohol is the most commonly used and abused drug, and because alcohol legal, i imagine if the victim is doing something illegal which lead to the rape we end up with a whole new level of victim blaming?
There is the issue of drink spiking of course, there are possibly cases where someone has tried spiking someone’s drink with e, but they seem relatively rare compared to cases involving just alcohol.
i’ve been silently reading through all of the comments on all of the related posts for a few days now; after reading J’s comments and when the whole ‘gray rape’ thing was brought into the mix, I felt compelled to respond. (*i’m a little late to this considering the age of the original posts, but am a fairly new reader to blue milk and have just come across these.)
when i was 19 i was visiting my hometown (from college) and went to a very small, friends (+ friends of friends) only party. everyone was drinking – heavily. that is how we rolled, like it or lump it. there was a guy at the party who caught my eye; he was the brother of a friend’s boyfriend. i made eyes at him all night, flirted, and eventually ended up ushered (by friends) into a bedroom with him. this is just what i wanted – so far. i was excited to make out with this guy, and thought i might even like to have sex with him. we were kissing, and one thing seemed to be leading to another, and i was enjoying myself, until he suddenly turned me over and forced his penis into my anus. i was shocked – i uttered a “NO” (though maybe not very loudly?) and tried to turn myself over but couldn’t; when i turned my head round to look at him and said it (NO) again, he turned my face away, keeping one hand on my head the whole time, and carried on. i went numb. i waited, for what seemed like an eternity for it to end, and when it did, he got up, pulled his pants up, and walked casually out of the room. i stayed there, frozen, unable to move or do or say anything, apart from sob quietly into a pillow. i was too afraid to leave the room – i didn’t want to see anyone. the next morning, very early, i crept out of the house of sleeping (passed out) party goers and back to my parents house. i never told anyone.
i am 36 now. this is the first time that i am telling this story. do you know why? because of the all too prevalent belief that women (in particular) are somehow to be held responsible for getting themselves into ‘these situations’, and of course, because of the questions that J and bee are bringing up here regarding ‘ambiguous cases’ and ‘regrettable sex’.
i didn’t tell my friends because i thought that they would just say: “well, you did want to get together with him didn’t you?” and then i thought, maybe i just didn’t say “NO” forcefully enough. maybe i should have mustered up the courage/strength/will to GET UP and OUT. somehow. i didn’t tell anyone, because everyone, including my younger self, would think that i was just another silly, drunken, promiscuous girl – getting myself into another sticky situation that i would later regret. afterall, how could i get away with being promiscuous (as i was, for many years) and not expect things like this to happen, right?
so would you call it regrettable sex? indeed some of you would, but i like Mindy’s definition better: “When both parties are sober, enthusiastically consent then over breakfast realise that their political ideologies are incompatible and regret being overtaken by lust.” – for this is the only definition that does not leave women feeling that they should somehow accept even one tiny little speck of responsibility for being raped. even if they are promiscuous. or drunk.
stop blaming victims, just because you’re not quite sure the details of their assault fit your idea of what rape really is.
I’m so sorry that happened to you, V, and that you felt unable to tell anyone about it until now.
V, thank you for your comment/story. I feel absolutely heartbroken about not only what has happened to you but also the pressure on you to keep this story to yourself because of all the victim-blaming that happens.
I think it is so important to humanise people raped in these circumstances. A lot of energy goes into warning girls about how dangerous it is to get drunk/stoned when they’re out at a party because it might lead to rape – as if the problem is girls being drunk rather than boys raping, as if the world were such that if we could somehow stop girls from ever getting drunk again that rape would no longer exist. (Clue to those people: visit a Muslim country where NO-ONE is supposed to drink alcohol and witness that rapists still rape). We create this mythical ‘bad girl’ so we can throw her under a bus and protect the ‘good girls’ who don’t deserve rape. This infuriates me.
For fucksake, it is not a crime to be drunk or wasted, it is not an abnormal thing for people to do in our culture when they go out – it is ok to be young and fun-loving, it is ok to be older and letting your hair down, IT IS OK TO BE DRUNK OR STONED AND STILL EXPECT PEOPLE NOT TO RAPE YOU.
“IT IS OK TO BE DRUNK OR STONED AND STILL EXPECT PEOPLE NOT TO RAPE YOU.”
-exactly.
V, I’m so sorry you’ve had to carry this with you. The terrifying thing is that given our culture and the legal system as it stands, there is no way that your assailant (who will certainly have done the same thing to other people. Someone who is prepared to do that to someone else doesn’t do it only once) could ever be held accountable for his crimes. This shows us how broken we really are.
that case is definitely NOT ambiguous
Thank you for sharing your story V.
Gist is: I just don’t want to feel obliged to feel raped for every dumb mistake I’VE ever made. That horrible, powerless, violated feeling is far worse than I deserve for having a few too many drinks and doing something I regret.
Something *I* did NOT just something that “happened to me”. I don’t deserve to feel raped over making a dumb mistake. No one deserves to be raped, and no one deserves to even feel raped either. I just learned a lesson “the hard way” and now know not to make the same stupid mistake(s) again. Blaming the other person involved doesn’t help. Calling the incident something it isn’t doesn’t help.
Of course that horrible, powerless, violated feeling is terrible for people who really have been raped, but no amount of debating and redefining is going to make the actual victims feel better, and it is just cruel and warped to make everyone who’s just made a stupid mistake feel that bad as well.
It is often asserted that rape is not a sexual act, but a purely violent act. Is there any actual EVIDENCE for the assertion that rape is not motivated by lust? I’m not saying I have any evidence that this is wrong, just I have never seen any evidence that it’s actually right.
The only evidence I see for rape being entirely separate from sex is in the reactions of victims, but the reaction of the victim doesn’t seem likely to give good insights into the motives of the perpetrator?
The feminist angle on rape often that the only way to stop rape is to “stop the rapists raping”, but it seems a totally victim-centric view of the nature of the act isn’t very constructive towards rapist-centric prevention.
One is the major problem with the “not sex” narrative is that if we frame rape as “not sex” and motivated purely by violence, then any potential agressor will either honestly assume (or cynically assert in his defence) that if he is motivated by lust it can’t possibly be rape. Which is is obviously wrong, because the key is not in the motive but the consent.
I agree that the ideal rape prevention strategy is to stop the rapists from attempting it, but inorder to do that we need to – as unpleasant as it is – see it from their point of view. We need to truly and honestly try to understand the motives. You can’t judge the intention of the act based on the results.
So, is there any actual evidence on the motives? It seems like it would be difficult to study because if anyone came to an ideologically unpalatable conclusion they would be vilified as “perpetuating rape myths”.
Candy, what’s your hypothesis here? That rape happens when someone is overcome with uncontrollable lust? And yet I have felt some pretty extreme lust in my time, some of it quite unrequited and I have managed not to rape anyone.. how is it I managed that? And is your theory that someone can appear so sexy you just can’t control yourself with them? And this explains the young man breaking into a house and raping an elderly woman dressed in modest clothing.. how, exactly? And the rape of children.. how exactly? And the fact that some rapists don’t sustain erections during their assaults? Because where are you going with this?
No-one is arguing that rapists don’t enjoy raping people, that they don’t get some kind of kick out of rape, that’s not the point.. we’re just saying that the person who forcibly sticks something inside someone else’s body is responsible for that frickin’ act and that it’s something they do when they can get away with it.
And I have to wonder.. why are you so motivated to find the unicorn of rape culture.. the appropriate justification for rape? Because I don’t want to see this thread get tangled up again please.
In short response to most of your questions: no, no, and no.
I agree the rapist is the only one who has done something morally wrong. I agree that it is their obligation to resist their desire to rape people. I wasn’t questioning any of that. I don’t think being motivated by lust is any more (or less) excusable than being motivated by violence.
My intention was not convince you that rape is about sex, I don’t know whether it is as such, I just want to know the evidence that it isn’t? (In researching the history of spousal rape laws as part of the general history of women’s rights in marriage) I repeatedly came across the “myth” that rape is a sexual act, again and again, but always with very limited supporting evidence against the “myth”. I was just wondering what the evidence was? I remembered this discussion of the definition of rape, and i figured someone here may be able to enlighten me?
I guess your “I have felt some pretty extreme lust in my time, some of it quite unrequited and I have managed not to rape anyone.. how did I manage that?” was rhetorical? But I would like to attempt an answer. Empathy? You realised how the object of your unrequited lust would feel if their lack of consent was not respected and could relate to that. (So I guess deficient empathy is another possible contributing factor to rape. Not understanding and/or not caring about the feelings of the date who says “no”.)
Am I just making a straw man of it? Is “rape isn’t about sex” a somewhat misleading paraphrasing of “rape isn’t caused entirely by uncontrollable lust”? I guess I would agree with the latter. Rape also requires an acute disinterest in the other person’s feelings, or a sadistic attraction to them finding the experience unpleasant. I guess that disinterest and/or sadism is what separates rape from the rest of sex, but that doesn’t mean rape lacks the lust of sex. So I guess I agree that rape isn’t *just* about sex, but that’s not the “myth” debunking I keep encountering. I keep encountering the concept that rape has nothing to do with lust, which seems rather unbelievable.
I guess if you want it framed as a hypothesis my hypothesis would be: at least some rapists are motivated at least partly by a sexual attraction to the victim. I suspect that different rapes have different motives, most of them probably involve a mixture of lust and agression, but in varying proportions.
Lust being even part of the motive of rape is often presented as a “myth”, but I have never seen convincing evidence against this which sees it from the rapists point of view?
How is the rape of children not explained by lust? Pedophilia is a pathological sexual attraction to children. Though you and I cannot relate to this attraction, lust is a very likely motive in those cases. (Except in some rare cases such as those motivated by the truly dangerous myth that sex with a virgin can cure HIV where lust likely plays very little role.)
Some male rapists not maintaing an erection does not disprove lust as a motive any more than some men not maintaining an erection during consensual sex disproves lust as a motive for consensual sex. From what I gather on the topic (though you are probably more knowledgeable than me, and hence that’s why I asked you and your readers) many rapists do maintain an erection and even achieve orgasm? I have also heard that sometimes they are so aroused by the situation that they orgasm before they even succeed at penetration?
“why are you so motivated to find the unicorn of rape culture.. the appropriate justification for rape?” I don’t want to “justify” it, but i think we can’t stop it without knowing why it really happens. Creating a lust-free definition of rape as pure violence seems counterproductive to a genuine understanding and effective prevention. Particularly rapist-focused prevention.
I am just saying that if we want to disuade the rapist we need to know why they do it. Also if we present lust as a contradiction to rape then “i didn’t mean to hurt her, I just wanted sex” becomes a water-tight moral defence (which it obviously isn’t). Adding to all those disputed cases where the victim is terribly emotionally injured but the rapist (incorrectly) cannot see anything they did wrong.
I think the purpose of making a point that rape isn’t the same as sex is to counter the myth that rape is just sex that the woman (or man) regrets. A high up member of the BNP, the extreme right wing party here in the UK, said that rape wasn’t so bad, because women like sex and so being raped is just like being forced to eat too much cake (sounds ridiculous but it’s true: http://londonist.com/2008/04/rape_is_like_being_force-fed_chocolate_cake_blogs_bnp_official_.php). It’s also challenging the myth that if a woman is presenting herself in a sexual way then it’s her own fault if she gets raped, and also that this makes her more likely to be raped.
[…] All the way – gray rape and third base […]
Women absolutely do rape men, if you properly define rape.
According to the latest CDC (US government) survey, 4.8% of all men have been “made to penetrate” and 79.2% of the perpetrators were women. Examples of “made to penetrate” are: a woman who has sex with a man who is passed-out drunk, or a woman who forces a man to have sex with her through violence or threats of violence. There is some confusion due to the fact that their definition of rape excluded “made to penetrate” and only included men who had been penetrated. That was far less common (1.4% of men) and was mostly perpetrated by men. However, if you include “made to penetrate” as rape, which you should, since it is forced sex, women are a significant percentage of rapists, and the majority of male rape victims were raped by women. You can read the report at:
http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf Here are direct quotes from the report:
“Approximately 1 in 21 men (4.8%) reported that they were made to penetrate someone else during their lifetime”
“For three of the other forms of sexual violence, a majority of male victims reported only female perpetrators: being made to penetrate (79.2%), sexual coercion (83.6%), and unwanted sexual contact (53.1%).”
The above, lifetime stats do show a lower percentage of male victims (up to 6.2% of all men) than female victims (18.3% of all women) although this is far more than commonly believed. However, if you look at the report’s stats for the past 12 months, just as many number of men have been “forced to penetrate” as women were raped, meaning that if you properly define “made to penetrate” as rape, men were raped as often as women.
Here are some stories from male victims: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/v73r4/men_who_have_been_raped_by_women_can_you_tell_us/
Men get raped – absolutely agree. Women have sexually assaulted/raped/abused men/children – absolutely agree. Men get raped as often as women – completely disagree and your source does not prove that and I have yet to see a credible source that does.
And you’re right that there is a problem with the unrecognised rape of men and the biggest part of this is the rape of men in prisons where rates are horrific.. why are you more interested in questioning the credibility of women victims of rape and not more interested in raising the profile of male rape victims in prison?
So if a man is at a party and high on molly (E) and he has no recollection of making out with someone or consenting to sexual touching did the woman rape him? What if the woman phones the man the next day and says she found the sexual touching rough, and complains about the encounter but the man insists that he has no recollection of the encounter? What if the woman he supposedly touched had previously asked him out and he refused but later he finds out that due to being on Molly (E) it appears he consented to sexual play with the woman? Is the a regrettable encounter, a grey area? Who was violated in this case? What if the woman at first sees the whole thing as a regrettable encounter and meets with the man over coffee to talk about boundaries and safe words only to find the man is not interested in getting together and has no recollection of the event, and then the woman starts telling her friends that the guy sexually assaulted her?
better put:
context: In this case no intercourse happened. This all happened at a house party where all kinds of sex was permitted and lots of drugs was being shared out.
So if a man is at a party and he is both drunk and high on molly (E) and he has no recollection of making out with a woman or consenting to sexual touching did the woman rape him?
What if in the process of having non-consensual consensual making out the woman he touched had previously shown interest in him but he showed no interest in her but later he finds out that due to being on Molly (E) it appears he consented to sexual play with the woman? Is this a regrettable encounter, or a grey area around sexual assault? What if in the process of having a non-consensual consensual sexual encounter the woman finds the man is playing a little too rough. Who was violated in this case?
What if the woman phones the man the next day and says she found the sexual touching rough, and complains about the encounter but the man insists that he has no recollection of the encounter? If the man in this case was a woman we might say she was assaulted. But somehow in this case it is ambiguous? Why? what if the woman then starts describing the rough sexual touching as violent?
Genuine confusion!
I’m curious about where you’re going with this.. are you wanting to hear that women can sexually assault men (Ans: yes)? Are you wanting to hear that men are held to a higher standard of consent than women (Ans: no)? Consent is consent, yes or no, would you like to with me or not.. and enthusiastic consent and aiming for that is the point of this whole post.
You’re saying a guy was drunk/high and didn’t want to have sexual contact with this woman? But he has no memory of the sexual encounter so he doesn’t know who initiated it or how or whether he tried to make it stop? She says she thinks it was consensual but it was rougher than she likes it and she would like to improve the conditions for next time? Turns out he doesn’t want a sexual relationship with her. Misunderstandings everywhere.
I don’t think you have enough information here on its own to know/argue one way or another whether sexual assault happened or didn’t. There’s certainly the possibility.. by either party. It certainly doesn’t sound like a great situation for either party, and I note you also have a version of events that is very much from one person’s perspective of the story.. his. What would she say about the encounter? How does he feel about the experience.. does he see it as an assault?
Curious…let me get this straight; the man was high on Molly and has no recollection; (and I’m sure you realise that you substitute ‘drunk’ and you have a frequently used excuse for sexual assault)….the woman took the man to coffee/called him up/ to discuss boundaries/safe words …this sounds like an attempt to salve the situation? An attempt to recollect the event as rough sex that she didn’t like, not as sexual assault…and to set some safe boundaries so that it doesn’t happen again..but the man says he has no recollection etc/ does not wish to have sexual relations… and then the woman starts to describe the sex as violent/sexual assault…
…so are you saying that the woman wanted to continue sexual relations but because the man did not want sexual relations and did not want to/could not acknowledge that the sexual touching happened in the first place…..she retaliated by telling her friends he sexually assaulted her?
It feels like something is missing here.. like, can you imagine liking someone, then being with them and them doing something horrible to you, and not wanting to believe that they really did this thing, you want to discuss what happened, to somehow hash it out and ensure it doesn’t happen again…but then the person who did it, denies it ever happened….if that was me I would seriously be thinking, ‘this guy is an a-hole, he knows exactly what he did he just does not want to acknowledge it..he is not my friend at all’…down come the rose coloured glasses, reality becomes clear….so that’s my initial interpretation.
But what is yours?
Are you saying then that a) either the man did assault her, but he can’t remember it as he was high on Molly (and that he should therefore be excused?) or b) that the man did not assault her, that the woman is exaggerating or actually making the whole thing up to get back at the man for rejecting her when he is not high…?
Also you ask about whether it was in fact the man was sexually assaulted by the woman as he can’t recollect anything?
…welcome to the world of he said, she said, the need for witnesses and for physical evidence…where the only people who know the truth are the ones that were there …all else is speculation and asking outsiders to make assumptions about the believability of each side’s story.
I guess any of the above is possible…you can see where my own assumptions lie, which is not to say that I don’t believe that NO woman is capable of telling her friends she was sexually assaulted, just to get back at someone for rejecting her, I guess?? I have to say though I really can’t see why a woman would do that unless she had been assaulted. (Why would you tell your own friends a lie like that?)….
This happened in a friends circle. I am closer to the guy. The woman has not called it assault but she did ask the man to got to therapy and to take some responsibility for the event. The man has started going to therapy and he has also met with the woman to discuss the event. In therapy the man still has no recollection of events. But part of the problem for me is that the events sit ambiguously within the friend circle I am a part of. While the woman has not called it assault, though she has called it a violent encounter, some friends have called it assault, and some friends have been quite righteous about it. She has been very unhappy about this rumour mill, too. I genuinely think that a permissive social situation was set up at the party where something awful and uncomfortable was bound to happen to someone. Do I think assault happened? I am not sure. I think the sexual integrity of both parties were violated. However, the man in this case did not pursue the woman with the intention of forcing her into sex. And the woman did leave the situation once she realized that he was not in control of himself. Intention does matter, no? At the same time, an uncomfortable situation was created.
Still confused.
Oh and thanks for previous responses.
To clarify, curious, hypothetically speaking as we are….you either believe the woman, who is saying that she was sexually assaulted, or you don’t…and I have to say I don’t personally know of any woman who would tell her friends she was sexually assaulted if she wasn’t….it’s not exactly a badge of honour.
Sorry, above response typed before your response was up on my screen, have now read about your friend. So you have given more details and it makes more sense now and I have to say, what did you expect? Of course her friends are going to be righteous about it – whether he was under the influence or not, he hurt this woman and to be honest with you I am surprised she is not contacting police about it. It really sounds like she is trying to get him to take responsibility and look at his actions – as she is frightened he will do this again, “under the influence”, and have no recollection…if you can see what I am getting at. I am confused about where you say, the man did not pursue the woman with the intention of forcing her into sex…but the woman left when she realised he was not in control of himself…can you see where the gap is? Where the line got crossed? At some point, he did something, no?
It’s a horrible feeling knowing that someone you trusted is capable of something violent and cruel, whether they have taken drugs or not.
I find your answer ideological, and I am a feminist. The woman was very much in control of the situation until she realized she was dealing with a drunken and high slob, at which point she left the scenario. How is this criminal behaviour on the part of the man? Whose sexual integrity was violated here?
Also there is a party scene/club scene where men and women have made it ok to not be in control of their body. It would be cool to talk about the dynamics of that scene.
I’m sorry that you don’t like my answer! I think it’s funny you find it ideological, – I was basing my response on a similar experience, not some theoretical idea. I am not a lawyer – if you are asking for legal advice ….can’t give it, sorry!! If you want an opinion on responsibility and culpability on a human level then here is mine; ‘losing control’, if it entails hurting someone, can be as hurtful, as damaging, as someone pathologically and calculatedly hunting someone to hurt them. And a bloody lot of people who hunt, say they ‘lost control’ due to ,,,whatever… based on your depiction I am responding as thoughtfully as I can.
Now you say the woman was very much in control of the situation…(that is, I am guessing until the rough or violent behaviour occurred, at which time she left?)……which is it? She was in control and then at some point, she wasn’t, am I right ? And you ask who’s sexual integrity has been violated? Well honestly, who am I to judge? It sounds like the man feels violated too? But I don’t understand how…are you saying because he was ‘provoked’ into doing something violent that his integrity was violated??
I don’t know the full details, I don’t know the people, I am not a criminal detective, I am only able to generalise and that is my answer.
Would be interested to hear others’ answers. I realise this is trigger material and I apologise, but I felt that this scenario is quite common ( not needing a ‘party’ to occur either) so I have continued commenting.
Regarding talking about the dynamics of the party scene/club scene where men and woman have made it ok to not be in control of their body, I guess that’s something others will also have to comment on- I’d be talking without any personal reference at all.
Can I ask, are you saying that people have made it ok to lose control of their bodies and no one has set up safe boundaries around the behaviour and that these people reckon it’s ok for abusive stuff to happen?
I may be right off track here, but to me this is where mind f#%king reigns supreme, and I do know someone who allowed stuff to happen in the context of S&M who later believed they were assaulted and that the ‘Dom’ was a sadistic prick ( yet now they feel they have no leg to stand on as they let it happen).
Call me a prude, call me idealist, whatever, I think if you look at something from the outside (eg someone punching their partner) and it looks like assault and then they say oh no it was just a domestic tiff (ie “context”)…I think thats bullshit…it is what it is, criminal assault, (typed in a huge rush, sorry if doesn’t make a lot of sense).
sorry I am not implying that my friend allowed this thing to happen so now she has ‘no leg to stand on’, I meant that, that is how she feels about it. Also, ‘Curious’, you ask ‘ how is that criminal behaviour on the part of the man’….but earlier you said that she told her friends he sexually assaulted her…? Are you saying she is lying..?You clearly do have an opinion on this, you don’t sound so confused to me!
Oh far out, apologies again I am on 4 hours sleep a night…. really should not attempt to articulate anything, I’m sorry Curious, I re-read above, where you say that friends have called it assault, not the woman herself. There you go, is it not up to her to define the experience as she found it?
First time commenter & I’ve just read through the comments on the three –four? — connected threads. Full disclosure — I’m a woman, I’m a feminist, and I have a fair commitment to the notion of personal responsibility where it applies fairly. My little guy is only four, but I want to raise him to be part of the solution.
I’m responding to a comment — which may have been on another post, but it’s relevant here — to the effect that a mother wanted to teach her son, and her daughter, not to get so intoxicated that they weren’t in control of themselves. The responses to that comment were that her daughter — women — should be able to get drunk when and where they choose without being raped. I can’t argue with that. Absolutely true. But what about her — my — son?
Now, drunkenness is no excuse for inflicting oneself upon someone else, whether we’re talking rape or assault or just plain obnoxiousness (yes, I know those are on a descending scale of seriousness). No is no, regardless of whether either party is in full faculty of their senses. Let’s just accept that as a given. My little boy will be learning this one, full stop. He will also be learning that decent people don’t take advantage of anyone, regardless of why they are vulnerable.
Still, I can see a scenario where a woman might get so intoxicated she said yes, or even just responded with more enthusiasm than she might have otherwise, but really didn’t want to have intercourse (been there…). Sober she would have said no. But I can also see a scenario where a decent man’s judgement might be impaired to the point that instead of choosing not to take advantage of her drunkenness, he doesn’t recognize that the yes is fueled by intoxication, and allows himself to be swept up in a moment they are both going to feel rotten about later.
So…has he just become a rapist? And if he has, are we not then setting up a double standard? Are we suggesting that our young women can allow themselves the freedom to get so drunk/high they are no longer responsible for their “enthusiastic yes” but our young men do not have the freedom to get so drunk/high they don’t recognize the enthusiasm is the product of the drink?
Hmmm. I’m back to teaching both of them that they shouldn’t get so drunk they lose control of themselves. Just as women don’t deserve a lifetime of feeling violated, men don’t deserve a lifetime of feeling like they are violators.
Anyone have an answer for this one?
I was going to tackle this very question recently and then I stopped because some feminist writers did a good job of it and I tweeted links to those articles and now…. can’t find them. Sorry. Stay tuned. I will find them.
[…] post was first published here – thanks to author for permission to cross […]
[…] of my posts, originally part of a series (here, here, here, here and here), was republished at Women’s Agenda in […]
[…] commenter on bluemilk’s Gray-rape thread [trigger warning link discusses rape cases in both post and comments] asked for examples […]
[…] post was first published here – thanks to author for permission to cross […]