Sailorman (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.
…I would tell my parents, and take steps for myself that she could not watch me undress.
And your fucking point would be?
How does my not telling right away – which is very common behaviour for victims of what even you would call rape (see abyss2hope’s comment) – matter one bit?
How does my forgiving him in between “events” – another common behaviour for victims of sexual abuse – matter one bit?
Does it somehow make what he did less wrong?
Not wrong at all?
WTF?
I’d leave it at us simply disagreeing if you weren’t tossing out ambiguous but creepy sounding shit like this – and shit like “I can’t have” and “I have no desire to.” This is, after all, not even remotely about you and what you “can have” or “desire.” Your repeated use of such phrases would make any logical person – even one who didn’t disagree with you on other things – question how much of your opinion rests on weighing the facts at hand and how much of it rests upon the way you want – or “desire” – to see the world.
Chris I’ve deleted your comments – this is a feminist thread, if it walks like duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, it’s extremely unlikely it’s actually a feminist – Maia.
However arguing round in circles won’t help, we (or you since I am likely to be banned for this) need to decide on a sensible gradient of criminality, of consent, of intoxication and of questioning and from there define rape in a way that can be enforced without either removing civil liberties on the basis of an accusation nor making a valid rape victim feel and indeed be punished for their experience.
There already is “a gradient of criminality”, and it IS enforced without removing civil liberties. Aggravated rape, aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, etc. And rape/sexual assault charges are prosecuted the same damn way other charges are. We call theft theft in everyday conversation, we don’t revert to the specific legal terms and go on about how the alleged victim probably gave the money/TV away and now regrets it, or how we’re being awful to the accused who only asked several times for the object and promised protection, and besides, that dumbass who just gave it away should have known better and is victim-tripping.
We don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. (We also don’t need to engage in martyr baiting–the whole “I’m probably going to be banned for this” comment was just a tad passive aggressive.)
deleted – Maia
chris;
this is a feminist-only thread
but I’m still going to comment on your comment.
First, the entire premise of the thread is that when the ‘is it rape?’ question immideately boisl down to legality and prosecution it becomes a discussion of the danger to falsely accused men and bypasses the poing where disucussion of consent, rape, power, sex, gender can give us insights not only in to what is specifcally wrong with the legal code, but can help us understand how our society operates to oppress women (thougth not only women) as well as deny men thier full humanity.
You cant get there if you spend hours debating whether some idiot who views sex as something to be ‘taken’ or ‘gotten’ from women, either through lies, intimidation, drugs or actual violence was technically over the line this week or not. The problem is our model of sex, and this is something that I dont believe can be changed primarily through changing standards of criminal prosecution. I think in order to change the culture at the smallest scales where its needed most (ie Maia’s ‘take back our bedrooms’ from the latest post), we are going to require tools and strategies that are more usefulthan the law can be to women day to day. (this is not to say I’m against legal reforms, but I think tend to be more successful as an effect of larger movements and changes in social organization than when intended as a primary cause.)
maia has already pointed out that gossip is a powerful tool in this sense, and i agree that I’ve seen it used this way effectively. are there other strategies that we can imagine that women can use to protect ourselves (and our children) and to reinforce a worldview in the men around us that would make rape less possible?
Finally though, I have to comment on this
and
I know that you are not saying that these are the same thing, but you are saying that the first quote represents something lower on the moral/legal scale than stranger rape or ‘violent’ rape. And the parallelism in the two sentences is striking.
I really take issue with the idea that the first scenario is a lesser form of rape, necessarily, and any implicaiton that it a is anything like b here.
Its possible to imagine (it is to me at any rate) a situation in which you consensually agree to have sex with someone you know and like and begin to, and it then becomes clear that your partner has in fact lied an lured you into this situation so that he could violently rape you. You thought “opportunity for nice pleasant sex with someone I like” and only learn later that your partner views you as subhuman and takes pleasure in demonstrating that fact by ‘”taking” something from you that you dont want to “give.”
I think this scenario gets at why I find the legal parsing and focus on what women can do to aviod rape (as opposed to what women can do to overpower rape culture) to be somewhat diversionary. The problem is the notion that sex is a commodity primarily provided (freely or otherwise) to men by women.
Only via that lens does it make sense to focus on what is techincally fair and foul for men to do in pursuit of sex, and only if you believe that all men view sex this way (and that all men are capable of rape) does the strong-woman-who-avoided-rape so visible upthread make any sense. (my vicitm, for instance could have left at almost anytime before being raped, could have not come over, not trusted this person, could have walked away before she suddenly couldnt; the idea to do any of those things would have required believing the rapist to be what actually turned out to be based only on the evidence of his gender.)
deleted – Maia
Ah yes, the ol’ woman as object/commodity argument.
And you want US to define rape in a way that is acceptable to YOUR standards? You know, those standards that see women as a commodity. *Snerk*
You do realize that many of the current laws on the books about rape were created when women WERE considered property. That it has only been within the past decade that it has been deemed unlawful for a husband to rape his wife. And yet you want us to work within THIS paradigm, this gradient, to find some commonality — for what? So that *men* feel more comfortable about the definitions of rape? So that only women have to change?
Why are you even bothering posting? Your thoughts/views haven’t been original for the past 2000 years or so.
Chris, there’s no point apologizing for this:
It’s like apologizing for doing something you know is wrong and uncalled for. If you cannot find some way to support that statement, then it is nothing but stereotype, which everyone should know by now is just another way of saying “crap that is demonstrably wrong, but that I choose to persist in asserting.”
There is no supply and demand at work here, unless you are creating it. Anyone can have an orgasm pretty nearly anytime he or she pleases. It isn’t sex that’s in demand in your scenario, it’s control of a female. Why else would you refer to it as a “conquest”?
Chris:
If this is true, sexual abuse, rape and all other forms of sexual exploitation of girls and women are the cause. When girls and women are no longer hurt through sex, their attitudes about sex will change.
I’ve deleted Chris’s comments, that’s not any feminism I’ve ever known.
I have to say I find it interesting that when the starting point is that we should not limit the word rape to the criminal definition of rape. Some people just come back and back to the legal model of rape. The criminal model serves the rapist and not the woman he raped. It pisses me off that people won’t be honest about what they’re doing, and acknowledge that they’re choosing the rapist.
its true. and they all ignored the feminist only thread jumping in to derail whenever they feel like it. yum
I don’t think it helps that you erase his words. I think it’s important for folks to see how others think — posters like Chris prove quite a bit how antiquated notions of rape are.
Not welcome to post here, means not welcome to post here – Maia
FWIW Chris, we’re arguing a physical definition of rape, not a moral one. The moral definition of rape can be summed up in the phrase “heterosexual sex”.
while I dont agree with Qgrrl on that one (heterosexual sex) i do think moral/legal misses the point. we should be able to have a conversation about what constitutes rape without starting from the premise that any definition must be legally enforcible. That of course makes perfect sense in any other context; the definition of rape–like the definitin of theft, murder, etc– can’t be based soley on whether or not the rapist can get away with it.
Q grrl – I see your point, but at this stage I’m so frustrated with the hijacking of my threads, that showing what offensive views some men have about rape is a low-priority for me (there are, after all, many, many forums where you can find that). It is problematic because I’m asleep during the American work day, and usually at work during the American evening which means by the time I get to non-feminist comments it’s often too late for me to delete comments early.
Q grrl:
That’s only true if your definition of heterosexual sex is the sexual exploitation of another human being. That definition makes sexual relationship an oxymoron.
Not really. As long as female heterosexual sex is still defined (by the patriarchal paradigm) within the Virgin/Whore dichotomy, where the normative sexual behavior of heterosexual males involves a certain tangible and socially accepted amount of force/coercion, then the moral definition of rape hinges all to closely on heterosexual sex. Especially if the only defining difference between the physical acts of heterosexual sex and rape is the woman’s consent. Which actually makes the morality of rape really all about the morality of consent, no?
Q Grrl–no, it depends on your definition of ‘normative.’
(Sigh.) I have to say at this point that I feel pretty red-faced for suggesting to Amp months ago the qualifier at the bottom of posts warning men who couldn’t be pro-feminist or at least feminist-friendly to stay out. What was I thinking when I figured that would help keep down the sort of behavior exhibited by Chris and his ilk ?
I’m astounded at how often men just continue to blunder into threads they’re not supposed to be posting in because they can’t be bothered to note the disclaimer. I’m also astounded at the kind of cliched sexist bilge they frequently write that aparently strikes them as “feminist friendly.” Finally, I’m astounded that when told by Maia to get the hell out, they simply burble on as if her request was meaningless.
I don’t know what I was on when I imagined that the qualifier would make one iota of difference to the way these jackasses operate. But I apologize to the sistren for my foolishness.
Amp, my new suggestion is a qualifier in giant type at the top and bottom of each thread in question. It should be in a boldface, blinking neon red. It should read:
WARNING: THIS IS NOT A THREAD FOR SELF-ABSORBED SEXIST ASSHOLE RAPE APOLOGISTS. STAY THE HELL OFF OR BE PREPARED TO HAVE YOUR POSTS REMOVED WITH NO WARNING AND NO EXPLANATION. DO IT MORE THAN ONCE AND YOUR ASS WILL BE KICKED THE HELL OFF THIS BOARD, DOUSED WITH STEAK SAUCE AND FED TO A WADING POOL FULL OF HUNGRY PIRHANAS. THANK YOU.
Well, since the Virgin/Whore dichotomy has not lost its current currancy, then boys are indeed taught, in a normative framework, that they have to use a certain amout of coercion and force to get girls to have sex with them. IOW, those girls who do not “resist” are Whores. Let me know when these values dissolve.
And again, the real key is that the only *significant* difference between the physical acts of rape and heterosexual sex is the woman’s consent. Therein lies the morality of rape.
Rape can and does take the form of any physical act that might otherwise be described as sex. I’m not arguing that the dichotomy you describe doesnt exist, becaue that would insane, but that it isnt an inherent part of every act of heterosexual sex and that the same dynamic infects and informs homo-sex and pan/poly-sex. I think you and I agree that sex that boils down to “consent” is an undesirably low bar, but I’m disagreeing that het sex = always and forever PIV sex and coercive ugly sex doesnt require PIV no matter who’s participating. So I think the whole thing hinges on normativity.
or, at least, I’m trying this out :)
Hmm, I think I’m not wording it correctly.
you think we’re saying the same thing?
bean, there’s a Cash ‘N Carry near my house. Really good prices on the jumbo multi-quart tanks of steak sauce. Let me know if you need to stock up…
I think my favorite part is when they’re reminded of the rule and then need to post again, just to make it clear that the woman who’s talking to them isn’t really talking to them.
We may recognize the dynamic, but we did fail to address the topic at hand and managed to get entirely derailed
Yeah, but the sun still rose today, curious. And it will still rise tomorrow. Also, he’s gone now. I’ve actually been pleased by some of the points you and others have been making. What else did you want to add ?
Well one thing I’ve been wondering about through the course of Maia’s excellent posts on this topic is how we imagine not just rape culture but sexual culture or just plain culture changing on this stuff; is it about our indvidual morality (as I think some have proposed)? About “queering” everyone and everything? About “education”? Or simply builidng womens collective power? If the last, what kinds of things best build power for women that we can use to prevent rape?
Ha, big questions, of coures, but I think Maia does a good job of framing the issues in a way that thats where we have to go.
Well, we need to stop thinking about it as a problem of individual men, that’s for sure. I don’t really know what else to add other than that merely pronouncing that some people in this culture have demonstrable power over others is written off as “victim mentality” by those who want the status quo preserved. It’s exasperating.