(First, kudos to Amanda Marcotte whose comment and link here in the Daily Kos Kerfuzzle thread served as the inspiration for this post)
How ingrained is our culture’s prominent “past-time” of ‘guilt tripping the sexual assault/rape victim for the attack’ in our psyches–especially the victims’? Whenever we begin to talk about the perpetrator (usually a guy) it seems as if we just throw up our hands in surrender and say, “yeah well, he’s a guy. Guys do that so watch out ladies.” Once again we slam the victims and women with all the responsibility for the attack, as if they raped or sexually assaulted themselves. When we list whose to blame for the attack and crime, we list everyone, including the victim, but rarely–if ever–the attacker. Or he’s at the bottom of the list and is portrayed as the least responsible for the attack. It’s the “we can’t help what guys do, but women should bear all the burden when it comes to prevention of sexual violence,” mentality of our culture. Rape Culture 101; guys are entitled to get sex on demand, to sexually harass, commit sexual assualt, and rape. And it’s all your fault if it happens to you. Guys can’t help themselves after all.
No one–I’m certainly not saying that women shouldn’t take precautions to protect themselves, but that’s a mere ‘band aid’ solution to the problem. The root of the problem here is that we barely or don’t at all take steps to educate young men about sexual violence prevention. While girls and young women are lectured on what not to do in certain scenarios in social settings, what do we do with the guys? Why are we so afraid to lecture them on “why they shouldn’t rape or sexually assault?” Why do we keep making up excuses for their behavior and crimes, but continue to scold the female victims for their attack? Boys will be boys; a tenet of the Rape Culture. Steve Gilliard’s post on the missing young woman in Aruba and his comment are prime examples of how we make up excuses for guys’ behavior towards women, and expect women to foresee their own attack. Never mind the guys’ responsibility in the attack at all–that doesn’t count.
I don’t think it’s not so much that “she got what she deserve”, but a media refusal to look at their conduct and say these girls were placed in a less than optimal situation. I would also bet no one had an honest discussion with them about acting like adults and making adult choices. Of course not. It was a “Christian” school. So they could get drunk, fuck any cute boy and no one would say things like:
“Be careful. Don’t just go off with any cute boy. He may not act that cute when you’re alone.”
“Carry condoms and lube”
“When you get drunk, you tend to make shitty decisions. So stick together and don’t let someone go off alone.”
Now, I’ve always been confused as to why a girl would go off with three guys. Was she going to pull a train? Or did she have two spare sex organs for them to use? Because otherwise, that sounds like a really bad decision. One which she should have been warned against. Boys in groups tend to do things they wouldn’t do alone. And the expectation of sex must have been high.
And we continue to gloss over the perpetrators and focus our blame squarely on the victim. Yes she didn’t make very good decisions but how does that warrant rape or sexual assault? How are rape and sexual assault “okay” decisions for guys? It’s okay to rape or sexually assault if the young woman made a poor decision? Is that what we tell guys? And his comment…
[…] Because you can’t tell someone to not brutalize women. Most men won’t do that, but if they do, you can’t say “hey, you know rape is wrong”. Most guys know that. The ones that don’t aren’t going to listen to a lecture.
The best we can do is say “look, some guys are assholes and you need to watch out for them.”
Now, you can tell boys that it isn’t OK to screw the drunk or hit women, but most guys aren’t going to do that anyway. But the problem for women is the guys that do and dealing with them.
[…]
I think women have a more idealistic view of men than men do. Chris Rock summed it up: “if a man comes up to you over the age of 13 and asks you if you want help, he’s saying ‘you want some dick with that?’
Women tend to resist the idea that most men size them up sexually. I can assure you that if there’s a boy in your daughter’s life and he’s a “friend”, he’s either not interested in her, or is just biding his time. But the idea of sex has crossed his mind.
The same applies to all your coworkers and opposite sex friends. If they’re straight, they have either thought about having sex with you or reasons why they shouldn’t.
But the issue is on the table.
Have you ever been out with a friend and then suddenly he got grabby or romantic and you didn’t expect it. Now, you might have written that off, but it happens because men rate women sexually, and that one time might be the time he actually acted on his feelings.
So when I say men will do anything for sex, I’m not just saying that. It’s observed behavior.
We continue to ignore the elephant in the room whenever we talk about sexual violence and prevention. We conveniently forget all about the perpetrator and focus on the [female] victim, and lecture them on why it’s all their fault. So much for those karate lessons and pepper spray–it’s still your fault. Gee, why don’t we just come out and say, “well if you didn’t have a vagina you wouldn’t have been attacked.” That’s the hint if you really think about.
And here are some questions about violence to ponder, that ties into our rape culture. Via V-Day: Until The Violence Stops…
What frightens you about giving up violence?
What are you afraid of losing?
What do you secretly like about violence?
How will sex change when there is no more violence?
What stories will you have to give up when you give up violence? what parts of your past will you have to release?
Why do you think ending violence is impossible?
Do you know anywhere in the world where there is no violence? describe.
Do you know anyone who truly lives non-violently? describe.
What is violence?
Where does it come from?
Do you believe violence is part of human nature?
Do you believe violence is taught?
What is the relationship of violence to patriarchy?
Do you think violence has to do with race, class, a particular place?
What would have to change in the world in order to end violence?
What would have to change in you in order to end violence?
What makes you violent?
What stops you from being violent?
Who has been violent towards you?
How did this change who you are?
Do you believe it is possible to end violence? why? why not?
@Amanda.
To be fair, it’s got to be a pretty close to unconscious defense of a rape culture; these aren’t guys who are wondering if they can browbeat someone into a ‘yes’ and still be legal. Still, an unconscious defense is still a defense, and I’m not sure if it’s better or worse that it’s unconscious.
How do we get that notion of active consent in schools? (I want it with the theme music, Keeper of the Cock, too.). This shouldn’t be too hard to do even circumspectly (I’m fine with it loud, but a lot of school-boards won’t be); consent means ‘I want to!’ not ‘Oh, I’ll put up with it.’ If you’re not sure, stop; you can always resume later if everyone wants it.
Because right now it’s too easy to argue that ‘well, she didn’t fight back, therefore, I didn’t rape her.’ Fucking annoying considering fighting back could escalate it to worse violence. (Do we tell the girls to fight back so they can be good testimony?)
Consent is active. I like it. That little phrase isn’t too hard to teach. A start? I don’t know.
Going back to an earlier comment about prostitution, here’s a clip from the Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050621daley,1,963401.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
It was kinda weird to read this and realize that damages to property values were being given (apparently) equal weight to the damages to prostitutes.
Cala: they give other guys the benefit of the doubt because they are unwilling to ask their sex partners if what they are doing (at ANY given time) is ok or not? That seems a little fucked up and puts the onus of rape squarely on the woman.
As a lesbian, I ask before, during, and sometimes afterwards if my penetrating my partner is OK. In my 20-odd years of sexual activity, the question never gets old and the answers are never ambiguous. Even with long-term partners I ask. I cannot and don’t assume that what happened yesterday will be OK today.
That your friend could penetrate his girlfriend for the first time and then “mechanically” finish is indeed rape. If he has even gotten to the point where he is envisioning his penetration of her body as “mechanical” he needs to get his fuckin’ dick out of her body. His mind is already telling him that there is something wrong and perhaps if she “isn’t really into it” she fuckin’ really isn’t into it. Duh. This guy, and any other out there, is putting his ejaculation (read: mechanically finish) before the emotional and physical needs of his partner. Partner, mind you. Not fuck toy. Not depository. But a real, live female body. What is so freakin’ difficult about a man asking or clarify what is going down (pun intended)?
Men act like communication is the most difficult of human interactions; and then they want brownie points for being good guys who really didn’t mean to rape their girlfriends. It just kinda happened, ya’ know, b/c they were confused and uncertain and it just MADE MORE SENSE to CONTINUE fucking despite their own confusion and uncertainty. How pathetic.
Q Grrl, your comment and Cala’s example got me thinking with my lawyer hat on. There are various states of mind defined in law for different purposes. Rape is generally a crime of intent, and I think the cultural view is that, too: if the man doesn’t actually intend to penetrate a woman against her will, he’s not a rapist, in this view.
But in Cala’s example, this guy thought it “MADE MORE SENSE to CONTINUE fucking despite their own confusion and uncertainty.” I, like you, think that is deeply wrong and fucked up. There are two states of mind used in law, both criminal and civil, that I think might be illuminating here: recklessness, which broadly speaking is knowing about a substantial risk but ignoring it; and negligence, which is a failure to exercise due care.
Now, certainly the guy in Cala’s scenario couldn’t be convicted under the criminal statute of any state I’m aware of. She didn’t say “no,” she did say “ouch,” but what that means is very context-sensetive, and it’s not even clear he heard it. So as a matter of fact, that probably gets him out of trouble. But should it? I don’t at all accept that what he did was okay. It was wrong.
So, as a culture, we need to move to a different model of what each partner’s obligations are in sex. Amanda and I and many others have stumped for the idea that consent is active participation rather than passive acquiescence. How does that translate into defining a man’s obligation during sex with a woman? I think at least a recklessness standard ought to apply. That is, a man may not engage in any sexual activity with a woman when he is aware of a substantial risk that she does not consent to what he’s doing. That covers Cala’s example: if he knew to finish up fast, he was aware that something was not okay, and he simply avoided finding out what was wrong.
Ultimately, we should be in a culture where a negligence standard applies to everyone: everyone has a duty to act reasonably to make sure his or her sex partner(s) is/are okay with what’s happening. As you point out, Q Grrl, that’s not really difficult. All one has to do is ask. And for all that I hear straight guys complain that asking messes with the mood, that’s never been my experience (“do you like that?” said well, can be one of the hottest things said during sex).
Thomas, I think that’s a nice construct to build on. It moves the whole “he said, she said” business to a new level. Cool!
“Now, certainly the guy in Cala’s scenario couldn’t be convicted under the criminal statute of any state I’m aware of.”
There was a case similar to this about a year ago being discussed on the blogs. In that case – it was more clear that the girl said “no” after sex was in progress. In some states that would be rape – some states are more clear about it than others.
A lot of guys seemed to be upset about the possibility of being considered a rapist under a scenerio like that.
I found these stats – but I wonder what definition was used (could be different for the different surveys – but that is assuming people were truthful in answering anyway):
In a national survey 27.7% of college women reported a sexual experience since the age of fourteen that met the legal definition of rape or attempted rape, and 7.7% of college men reported perpetrating aggressive behavior which met the legal definition of rape. 10
16% of male students surveyed by the Ms. Foundation had committed rape, and 10% of those who attempted a rape, took part in episodes involving multiple perpetrators. 12
http://www.stopfamilyviolence.org/sfvo/stats_sa.html
QGrrl & Thomas: Yes, it is fucked up what he did. In case that wasn’t clear. I don’t think anyone applauded this guy, or that any of my friends, at least, are sitting there going, ‘Gee, I’m worried that I won’t be able to treat a woman as a receptacle as I wish if I have to check on her consent continually’. (Having been with a couple of them (not the asshole, the ones who are confused) they’re considerate, nice lovers.)
The worry is more the words are too vague; or that maybe they’re a bad lover who didn’t notice/didn’t know what to expect and suddenly that’s rape; or maybe both people involved was drunk and having fun but what counts consent if someone’s drunk? They’re paranoid and uncertain. (What Brian Vaughan said, above. Inexperienced people worry about everything.)
I think, charitably, that they’re circling the wagons out of ignorance and fear. Perhaps that is pathetic. Perhaps they’re really acting to preserve a culture of rape. Either way, I think establishing consent as a mutual proposition, not as something to be won out of a girl, and then TEACHING that would go a long way. Right now if you hear anything about date rape prevention in high schools, it’s either a) laundry list of precautions for girls or b) a mention of consent with NO discussion of what consent entails.
But… how do you construct a standard for recklessness? Thomas, I’m interested in how you’d flesh out a recklessness standard. There seem to be a couple problems with it that would need to be overcome:
1) A standard couldn’t expect a guy to be a mind-reader, nor could it presume a certain level of competence (unless that standard is totally banal) with body-language reading. ‘Failure to exercise reasonable care’ works in theory… but how do you prove it in practice? How many times he asked how things were going?
2) Since the guy can’t be expected to be a mind-reader, I worry that the onus
would still remain uncomfortably upon the girl. Now not only does she have to show that she said ‘no’, but that she clearly demonstrated that she wasn’t ‘into it’ such that a reasonable blah-di-ho-ho-hum etc.
I’m interested to see how you would flesh this out.
Cala, I’ll take the second part first. I think that a recklessness standard takes the onus off the woman to a great extent, if you consider where we are now. Here’s where we are now: the prosecutor has to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that 1) he heard her say “ouch,” 2) that he understood that to mean that she did not want to continue, and 3) that he did so anyway. I’m saying the elements ought to be 1) he either a) heard her say, “ouch,” or b) reacted to her body language such that the jury could find that he knew something was wrong; and 2) that knowing she had said “ouch”/wasn’t into it, he ignored the risk that she didn’t want to continue.
As things stand, as a practical matter to establish his intent, the prosecutor has to show that she communicated her withdrawal of consent, which puts the burden largely on her. Under a recklessness standard, the prosecution need only establish through her circumstances where it was unreasonable for him to ignore the risk that she was no longer consenting. Now, there’s probably room for inside-baseball discussions among lawyers about whether this is really burden-shifting, but as a practical matter, I think once she says, “I said ‘ouch’, and it hurt like hell, and he seemed to react to it, but he didn’t acknowledge what I said, and then he just stroked really fast and finished up quickly,” if the jury credits that testimony, they could convict, and he’s got to explain that he didn’t hear her, and that he didn’t get the sense that anything was wrong, and that he finished quickly not because he thought anything was wrong with her but because he was so uncomfortable with sex that he just wanted to get it over with. And a jury could accept or reject that, but if they believe her and they think that he really heard her and didn’t ask if something was wrong, they could very well convict.
But I’m digressing more into the mechinics of adjudication than I meant to. I really meant to talk about social standards, and I think it’s better if at least some influential segments of society develop a more mutuality-based view of consent first, and if the law follows rather than leads (in part just because changes in this area that are out in front of a cultural curve will draw more backlash than changes where the law follows the culture).
I mean, when we tell men how to act, we ought to be telling them that if there’s a reason to think something’s wrong, if the other person doesn’t seem to be into it, then something is wrong and you have to find out what it is, right away.
To take the second part, I think once consent is established (and it has to be communicated, either verbally, or pretty explicitly in other ways, in almost any sexual encouter very early on), the question is this: when something happens that would lead a reasonable person to understand that his partner was no longer consenting, did he ignore that risk, or did he confirm that his partner still consented?
Thomas
I think you bring up a good point in discussing how juries would actually deliberate these cases.
We have (or are supposed to have) an assumption of innocence until proven guilty for the defendant and the responsibilty of convicting only if it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt for the jury. Legal definitions of rape seem to have been created almost as if these ideas don’t exist.
For it to be called robbery, the victims don’t need to assert that they said no; this works because for a suspected robber to be convicted, it needs to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime occurred and that the accused was responsible. In order to call an act rape, however, even legal definitions often require that victims assert, and often prove, that they said no or could not give consent. It’s as if, when the crime is rape, people cannot be expected to understand the basis of our legal system, much less ideas like respecting other people rights mean asking permission first. When dealing with rape, we like to act as if people will never presume innocence and/or will tend to convict even when reasonable doubt exists, which is the opposite of what usually happens, especially if the rape in question is not “stranger rape.”
I mean, hell, I feel a little guilty for borrowing dvd’s from someone who gave me both keys to her house (in order to feed her pets) and permission to watch her movies and borrow her books while she is away – simply because that I realized after the fact I wasn’t sure if she expected me to watch the dvd’s at her house (based on how she phrased it). While this may not be important enough for the police to come after me, she would be justified in being angry with me for not asking permission first, and would be within her rights to prosecute if I had borrowed something more expensive.
The situation being discussed, though, isn’t one where consent was merely presumed. Consent was given. In the woman’s mind, however, she wished to withdraw it. While I agree that the man should have been more aware of the situation, I’m not sure I’d agree with a rush to lay blame on him for not knowing what she meant by “ouch”. “Ouch” will come up in perfectly normal and consentual sex quite a lot. In and of itself, it doesn’t constitute a withdrawal of consent. Especially if sad softly and perhaps not heard. I think its reasonable to think that it should be followed up on to confirm the meaning. As a man, I’d ask. I’d encourage others to ask and think that this is a worthwhile issue to address in sex education classes. But for a novice, I’m not sure I can make that demand of him.
My first sexual experience ended with an “ouch” but it came from me. In my inexperience, I managed to slighly injure myself in a delicate manner. The point being that when its your first time, you don’t necessarily know what’s right or wrong. The couple should have both more openly communicated about the situation. I’m not going to say either is at fault for what happened. Its an unfortunate situation. But I do believe that when we say “no means no”, that this is an easy to grasp and, indeed, obvious standard. Ouch might mean no, but only “no” will always mean no. Its a clear word with a clear meaning.
In the meantime, we should try to encourage more active communication during sexual activity to men and women. I’ve had partners seem annoyed if I ask to make sure everything is okay, but its not going to deter me from occassionally confirming that everything is going well. It doesn’t even have to be about reconfirming consent. Its just good practice.
Cala, by no means when people say they are being defensive of the culture of rape are we saying they are deliberately trying to defend it. More that questions that need to be asked make most men squirm and they are willing to use their male privilege to prevent the questions from being asked. Again, all unconscious.
All this goes to show that the best advice to avoid rape that we can give girls is not at all to tell them to curtail their activities, become housebound or subservient. The best thing we can give girls is confidence so that they can say “Ouch” or “Stop” with the full conviction that they are human beings that have every right to tell someone that they want to stop fucking right now instead of receptacles who dare not have their own needs. That confidence does not come from being sequestered, I’m telling you now. I’m a very out and about young woman who asserts herself into “unsafe” spaces and one thing I’ve learned is to quit worrying about hurting a man’s feelings if I feel I’m in danger.
What we can teach young men is to value women’s enthusiasm, but of course, that would require a certain sex positivity that our culture is reluctant to embrace. It’s a huge shame, since not only is female enthusiasm a good way to clarify consent issues, it’s its own reward for men worth knowing.
One really positive thing I’ve gotten out of this thread is the idea of “enthusiastic participation” as opposed to “consent”. I will definitely use that in the sex ed class I teach.
It seems so obvious once it’s stated!
The best thing we can give girls is confidence so that they can say “Ouch”? or “Stop”? with the full conviction that they are human beings that have every right to tell someone that they want to stop fucking right now instead of receptacles who dare not have their own needs. That confidence does not come from being sequestered, I’m telling you now.
Word. Predators want victims who are afraid to, or are “too nice,” to say no. Girls (and, for that matter, boys) need to learn that being called a bitch by a rejected would-be is not the worst thing in the world.
I wonder if my boss will be pissed I spent the last… two and a half hours reading this while on the clock.
and I also only got to about 217 before I got antsy and wanted to reply, so I may be repeating others:
it seems and issue that came up is not only the definition of “would” in “would you rape/join the SS/burn women, kids, houses, and villages after being a litterbug” but the definition of “you.” I wouldn’t rape, or murder, or be otherwise atrocious, but then, I isn’t the same person I was when I was 5 years old (I recall being devoutly religious at the time, which is certainly not a part of my identity at this point).
I (this physical person) probably am capible of such evil, provided empathy and humanity were stripped from me. but since I have both empathy and sympathy, a discussion of what I could do if I were a sociopath really doesn’t have much meaning. Such a profound change would make me stop being me and so doesn’t answer the question.
for what it’s worth, I’m honestly how big a change is required to change who I am. I’m fairly certain that bodily violation would make me into some other me (though not a rapist one, I don’t think).
I really do believe dehumanization is a slippery slope, and that a few small acts makes more grandiose ones possible (arguably the point of Heart of Darkness). If I were forced to kill someone once, I’d feel horrible, and so wouldn’t change significantly. but I’m confident (if saddened) that it would get easier the more I was required to do so, and that the commission of one dehumanization (killing people) can very well lead to others (rape, torture).
awareness of the threat posed by such a line is helpful. I once had the opportunity to participate in a variant of the labcoat-shockmachine study. They didn’t ask ahead of time if I was familiar with the original work, but since I was familiar, I was more able to tell myself it was wrong and refuse to comply.
now, something a bit lighthearted: as I recall, Pussy Oversoul was hypothetically coopted as the name for a punk rock band.
I imagine Keepers of the Cock as being their second album, the cover art of which would be a Buckingham Palace style guard, working to tame and keep control over a large, phallic dragon in a cage, preventing both the liberty of said penoid monster and access to the chamber in which the beast is kept. The artwork, by Roger Dean (best known for his fantasy landscapes on Yes band album covers) was voted best album art of the year by Rolling Stone Magazine.
track titles include “I Need a Vacation,” “Boring Sex Club,” and a cover of Frank Zappa’s “Broken Hearts are for Assholes”
“Keeper of the Cock” would mark a stylistic shift, while still containing the hard edge and social activist message of their self named album, “Keeper” has a slightly goofy side ostensibly inspired by older acts like Blue Oyster Cult, Frank Zappa, and They Might Be Giants.
While the album did poorly domestically, sales in Europe and Japan were drastically better than expected, leading to a world tour and the band’s first concert DVD. The single “Boring Sex Club” also had the distinction of finally knocking that gawdawful Avril Lavene song out of radio rotation for a few months.
Thomas, thank you for a respectful and intellectually honest reply that actually addressed my post.
The connection I am trying to show is that messing with gender roles without actually understanding them can backfire and lead to unintended consequences. This error is hardly limited to feminists. I am sure that if MRAs were in a position to engage in social engineering, they would make hash out of things also.
Yes, that quote is unclear. I think there are two problems in the extreme that follow from men’s confusion about how to seek sex.
1. Rape. As far as I understand, some of the times a man rapes a woman, it is after she has already rebuffed his advances. Male confusion about how to seek sex will obviously contribute to those males being rebuffed. Hence, male confusion about how to seek sex contributes to situations where rape is more likely to happen. In short, imagine a situation in which a proto-rapist becomes an actual date rapist because he didn’t know how to induce the woman to be interested in having sex with him; if he had succeeded in doing so, she would have consented, and the situation where he decided to rape her would never have occurred.
Note to trigger-happy people: I am not suggesting that all rape is the product of male confusion. Just some of it. Nor does such confusion make rapists any less guilty.
2. Unwanted sex. I differentiate this from rape, because I was using the word “rape” to apply only to situations where the man knew that the woman wasn’t consenting but went ahead anyway. By that definition, which is of course arguable, “accidental” rape would not exist. But male confusion over how to seek sex could lead to miscommunications where the male thought the female consented, but she didn’t really, or situations like the one being discussed where the female did not want the sex but didn’t manage to communicate that clearly to her partner.
If males were taught how to seek sex in a way that was comfortable for women (which would include teaching males what both “yes” and “no” looked like), there would be less of both types of situations. That is why I have a problem with the way males seem to be taught everything they can do wrong with women, but not taught how to do things right. Such an approach seems bound to create confusion in males, and this confusion carries a price both for them and for females they interact with.
Aegis, there’s one big problem with the”rape is the result of the change in roles and expectations brought about by feminism” theory.
Rape is not a new thing. It did not start in the sixties. Even in the fifties, when the traditional roles still prevailed, women were getting raped. In traditional societies where the old gender roles are intact, women still get raped. I lived in Saudi Arabia, which is about as traditional as it gets as far as gender roles, and even there women get raped. And everyone there knows exactly what their expected gender roles are.
But, that quibble aside, here’s the real problem I see with your theory.
Aegis said
“1. Rape. As far as I understand, some of the times a man rapes a woman, it is after she has already rebuffed his advances. Male confusion about how to seek sex will obviously contribute to those males being rebuffed. Hence, male confusion about how to seek sex contributes to situations where rape is more likely to happen. In short, imagine a situation in which a proto-rapist becomes an actual date rapist because he didn’t know how to induce the woman to be interested in having sex with him; if he had succeeded in doing so, she would have consented, and the situation where he decided to rape her would never have occurred.
Note to trigger-happy people: I am not suggesting that all rape is the product of male confusion. Just some of it. Nor does such confusion make rapists any less guilty.”
I’m glad that you added that qualifying statement, and I thought it over before replying and am not being trigger-happy. I think that what you said here illustrates the major problem that most of the posters here have with your argument (note that I mean the actual substance of your argument rather than the language or tone you use in making it), and I’m not sure that anyone has really pointed it out. This is the central idea that I find problematic.
“In short, imagine a situation in which a proto-rapist becomes an actual date rapist because he didn’t know how to induce the woman to be interested in having sex with him; if he had succeeded in doing so, she would have consented, and the situation where he decided to rape her would never have occurred.”
What you are failing to understand is that there really is no technique, no special way of approaching a woman, that can transform her unwillingness to have sex with you into consent. There is no way to ” induce the woman to be interested in having sex with him”. A woman is either interested in having sex with a man or she isn’t. There is no magic formula for changing non-interest into interest. If she isn’t attracted to you, the way you approach her makes no difference to the outcome – she isn’t going to want to have sex with you.
Now there are many different components involved in whether a woman is attracted to a man or not. Some of what makes her interested is the man’s personality, which is a different thing from the specific way in which he approaches her. You can learn all the techniques and ways of approaching a woman that you want, but unless you plan on presenting a completely false front for the whole of your interaction with her, at some point your real personality is going to emerge. Either she will like that personality or she won’t
You also don’t seem to be taking into account the fact that women, like men, are attracted to people largely based on their physical appearance. Of course looks aren’t everything, but it’s a big part of the package. If a woman finds a man physically unappealing he could have the best personality and the most perfect approach imaginable, and chances are that she still won’t be attracted to him and will not want to have sex with him. This is part of the reason why most women end up with some male friends whom we love dearly but will never get physically or romantically involved with. It’s not that we love “bad boys”, or that women hate nice guys, or that there was anything wrong with the way they approached us. We’re just not physically attracted to them.
Honestly, I think that this is the real problem with your theory. You seem to think that when men are rejected it’s typically because they approached the woman in the wrong way, and that if they had just taken a different approach or known more about how women like to be approached the women wouldn’t have rejected them. You seem to believe that the difference between whether a woman consents or does not is just a matter of finding the correct way to approach her. It isn’t. It’s about a combination of physical attraction and compatible personalities. That’s not something that can be taught.
I’ve seen this idea repeated all over the place, with men telling other men that (for a fee of course) they can teach them the secrets that will make any woman want them. They can’t, and neither can feminists. There is no secret. Really, it just comes down to individual compatibility and how attractive you are in general.
Honestly, I think the problem with your theory, and the reason that everyone on the board feels compelled to keep yelling at you, is that you don’t seem to accept that women have sex for the same reasons men do. We decide who we want to sleep with based on whether we find them sexy, whether we enjoy their company (which isn’t a matter of how they learn to approach us, it’s a matter of who they are as a person). Feel free to clarify if you think I’m misinterpreting you, but you do seem to keep coming back to this idea that whether or not a woman decides to sleep with a man is based largely on whether or not he approaches her in the “correct” way, and that’s just not true. Firstly, because so much of our decision about whether or not we want to sleep with a man is based on attraction, and no amount of smooth talk can get over the fact that we find a man physically unappealing. Secondly, because the “correct” approach, if there was such a thing, would be different for each individual woman. This is where compatible personalities come in. The way I like to be approached would be different from the way Amanda, or PA, or ginmar, or mythago, or Jenny, or any of the other women on this board like to be approached. And we’re all feminist women within about a 10-15 year age range. When you look at women as a whole, the idea of teaching men the “correct” way to approach women becomes absurd. All that we as feminists can really do is say “here are the things that are ALWAYS a bad idea”, because some of those are pretty universal. The rest men need to figure out for themselves by paying attention to the specific woman they’re dealing with and discovering what does and does not work for her.
Do you see what I’m getting at? Because that’s really the core of the argument that you’ve been having with the people on this board, IMHO. You’re asking why feminists haven’t done something that can’t be done. And you’re failing to take women’s own sexual desires into account. I know that a lot of guys find this hard to swallow, but 9 times out of 10 if a woman rejects a man there is nothing he can do to change her mind. It’s not that he isn’t approaching her right, it’s just that she’s not interested.
Also, in regards to paragraph 2, I think that you’re swinging at the right thing but still not quite connecting with the ball, to use a sporting metaphor. I think that the real problem is with the whole idea of defining consent as something passive, ie if she’s not visibly struggling then the guy assumes that she is consenting. The solution is pretty simple – if the woman isn’t actively participating and enjoying what’s going on, there’s a problem and the man needs to stop whatever he’s doing and check in with her. The same principle works for any gender combination by the way – if either partner doesn’t seem to be getting into the proceedings the other partner needs to stop and find out what’s wrong. This isn’t just a recipe for avoiding rape (though it would certainly help to do that), it’s also a pre-requisite for good sex, which is surely what we all REALLY want, right? As many on this thread have pointed out, including myself, defining consent in a passive way is the core of the problem.
I’m not going to go into what enthusiastic partipation looks like here because I’m assuming that we all know that already, and also in order to keep things on a PG-13 level. Aegis, if you really need me to define participation and/or what enjoyment might look like I will, but I’m going to err on the safe side for now.
Apolgies to all on the length of my last post. I got a bit carried away and didn’t realise how much of an essay I was writing until I actually saw it posted.
Also, another thought for Aegis – have you ever read Susie Bright? You seem to have the idea that feminists have a monolithic and rather negative approach to sex. I think maybe you’re just not reading widely enough. Try googling Susie for a very different perspective.
.
Aegis,
As we have discussed above ……..
YES is enthusiastic participation. Anything less than that and the onus is on you to check – is she saying no? is she just not interested in sex at the moment? is she interested but put off by you trying to move things along too fast? is there something she wants you to do to help her along towards orgasm? Just for information, in my case that’s having the back of my neck stroked but it is different for every women and, sometimes, in different relationships.
You do want her to have an orgasm, don’t you?
Don’t tell me all this talking is too difficult because then I would have to ask what the hell you are doing trying to have sex with someone you don’t know well enough to talk to!
There is no magic button, no magic spell to “induce the woman to be interested in having sex with him” because each of us women is a unique human being. No matter what you do, no matter how clever you become there are some people who are just never going to fancy you. Sad but a fact. Some of the fun is in finding out who does and who doesn’t.
If you really want to know about the hows and whys of women’s sexual response and their ideas on the subject, there is a considerable literature – go read some of it. After all, what is that college education for if not to equip you for such a task? And you have the whole summer to do it in.
Sorry, BritGirlSF, we cross-posted but we seem to be on the same general wavelength!
Just for the record, I’m old enough to be Aegis’ great-grandmother! It doesn’t change the facts.
Hi Maureen, no worries. It’s such a good idea why not say it twice!
And I’m 31 by the way. Some things are eternal apparently.
Aegis: it sounds like you’re saying that the problem with rape is that the victims aren’t “putting out” – do you see the problem with that?
In addition to changing the idea about consent being passive acquiescence rather than enthusiastic participation, I think we need to work on eliminating this sense of men’s entitlement to women’s sexuality (i.e., the idea that if any man jumps through the proper hoops, any woman will be attracted to him and/or have sex with him, and conversely that any woman who’s not attracted or willing to have sex with a man must justify that decision), and the idea that lack of reciprocal attraction is an insult or an indication that there’s something wrong with one or more of the people involved.
Someone mentioned upthread that men must teach men not to rape.
Implicit in the notion that men must teach other men not to rape is the idea that men who do not rape are somehow more responsible for sexual assault than women who do not rape, or even more responsible for rape than victims of rape.
While I would certainly do my part, as much as any reasonable person would, I’m not comfortable with this characterizing of masculine culture by defining a biological trait with a social pathology. This kind of thinking is the foundation of all bigotry.
Nor am I comfortable with the other implicit notion in that statement, the passive princess in the tower waiting for men to deal with the problems and save her.
Rape occurs in queer culture as well (male and female), and I’m not aware of any evidence or study that would indicate it happens in lesser frequency there. I’ve asked the question many times when this topic comes up in my own social circles.
What is gained for victims by dividing the efforts of rape victim advocacy along gender lines?
1. Rape. As far as I understand, some of the times a man rapes a woman, it is after she has already rebuffed his advances. Male confusion about how to seek sex will obviously contribute to those males being rebuffed. Hence, male confusion about how to seek sex contributes to situations where rape is more likely to happen.
Translation: If you don’t want to get raped, ladies, you have to fuck every guy who asks.
Aegis, you belief that women owe men sex without hassle has far more to do with why women get raped than any other single factor. Men get angry when rebuffed not because they are confused, but, because like you indicate here, they don’t think women have a right to refuse sex. A sort of, “I asked nicely, and since you didn’t immediately give me what I want, I’ll take it by force.”
And of course, you are assuming, as usual, that sex is something women have and men have to steal or sweet talk out of us. In the grown-up world, sex is an activity two (or more) people do together to have fun. Think of it like dancing, not purchasing a hamburger.
Honestly, I think the problem with your theory, and the reason that everyone on the board feels compelled to keep yelling at you, is that you don’t seem to accept that women have sex for the same reasons men do.
Pshaw, Brit. Next thing you know, you’ll be suggesting that women are human beings with feelings and body functions just like men. Clearly we are robots with bad programming. Someone forgot to program us to spread ’em at first request by any random male. Poor men have to figure our programming code to magically get those legs spread and here you are confusing them even more by telling them that women have thoughts and feelings and desires. As if! No, we’re just machines with confusing codes.
Patience, Amanda, I’m trying to phrase things in Aegis-comprehensible language.
“Nor am I comfortable with the other implicit notion in that statement, the passive princess in the tower waiting for men to deal with the problems and save her.”
Have you actually read this thread?
Men need to deal with men’s problems. We are talking about rape on a case by case basis. We’re talking about rape used as a social tool…. oh, geez. Nevermind.
You’re right. Women should just take their lumps and shut up.
Also, I just have to throw it out there…where does this widespread idea that feminists are obliged to solve all the ills of society come from? Even the ones that they have no control over (rape’s a pretty good example…last time I checked we weren’t raping ourselves)? I’m thinking of the guy Q Grrl is referencing above…how exactly is rape NOT men’s problem that they need to fix?
It kind of goes along with Aegis’s “why don’t feminists teach young men better” lament. Isn’t this kind of like asking the NAACP why they don’t do more to help white people?
Aegis, I’m sure you’re going to read BritGirl’s (very patient) and Amanda’s (more pointed) response to your Paragraph 1 and protest that you didn’t mean to say that rape arises in significant part from situations where men ask for sex the wrong way and get turned down. Before you get upset, you should recognize that, whatever you meant to say, this is what you in fact said:
(Emphasis supplied.)
Perhaps you have a problem understanding how offensive this is. Your model is no less than the following: Some rapes happen because men who don’t know how to ask for sex are improperly denied by women who, on the merits, would have sex with them.
Though you explicitly disclaim that this justifies the rape, that doesn’t fix your problem. Your problem is that the above is inescapably a property conception of sex. The giveaway is your use of the word, “induce.”
Let’s replace the word “sex” with a commodity, which we shall call “pussy,” to use the word in its patriarchal sense. You say men ask for the pussy, and if they made inducement, that is, the proper application for the pussy, the pussy would be granted. But due to their procedural default in making the application for the pussy, they are denied. You say this hypertechnical denial of pussy is unjust. Of course, you say, the man is not then justified in stealing the pussy — any more than someone whose loan is improperly denied is justified in robbing the bank. But, you say, to fix the problem, we must remedy these unjust pussy denials.
If you read this far, you ought to understand the problem with this model: Women are not pussy. Women are not property. They are not the grantors of access to pussy qua property. Sex is not a property transaction. There is no proper form of application for pussy. Sex is an interaction. Consensual sex has more in common with playing music than it does with renting cars — people do it alone, or together, with whom they choose, because they like it.
Your model of sex looks like renting cars. The only kind of “sex” which has more in common with renting cars than playing music is prostitution. Since your model of sex looks a lot like prostitution, you need to rethink the way you view sex.
Thomas, I think I love you.
“BritGirlSF Writes:
I’m thinking of the guy Q Grrl is referencing above…how exactly is rape NOT men’s problem that they need to fix?”
I’m a man, though I’m not a rapist.
You can comprehend this, yes?
When a man rapes a woman, or another man for that matter, I don’t have any special insight into what he does, no “male” cameraderie, no “brothers teaching brothers” bond. Nor does he have any special reason to value my insight.
I have no more (and no less) in common with a rapist due to my gender, than does the woman or man he raped. It is no more, and no LESS, my responsibility to instruct him on his transgressions than it is any other person.
If you think it is MY responsibility, to a greater degree than your own, then really, you are revealing your hand here. You are more concerned with pointing a finger than solving a problem. To my mind, it’s not so different from listening to a Klansman characterize Black crime rates.
To the binary thinkers in the bunch, I don’t abdicate my share of responsibility for creating any aspect of human culture, nor for cleaning up it’s uglier aspects. I certainly don’t think the problem of “rape” is something for “feminists to solve”. In fact, I can’t think of any one political group more ill-equipped to do so – because the first steps to solving it are about understanding it, and consolidating the efforts of victims and advocates. As people, we are all capable of morality and compassion – and so I see little value in what you are doing – which is pointing a finger at me and at all men, and saying “You are more to blame for this than I am.”
No, I am not more to blame.
No, this is not my problem to solve alone, not any more than it is yours.
And where I would prefer to be working with people to stop rape and violence (especially, being the victim of violence myself), I instead find myself and all men a target of rage, simply because of my gender.
The federal government’s National Violence Against Women survey (which, despite the name, surveyed thousands of women and men) found that lesbians were about a third as likely to have experienced intimate partner violence from a woman as straight wemen were to have experienced intimate partner violence from a man; and also about a third as likely to have been raped by an intimate partner.
“I instead find myself and all men a target of rage, simply because of my gender. ”
Hyperbole. In fact, while many of us think men are in a better position to change the culture of men, and to pressure the men who rape to stop doing so, I don’t think I’ve seen a comment that amounts to rage at men because of their gender. I’ve seen rage at men who make excuses for rape, or who think of women as property, or who refuse to take women seriously. I’ve seen rage at men who rape, and in fact I have expressed rage at men who rape. But the allegation of rage by some group of feminists at men in general is not something I’ve seen. I think I would have noticed. I have a Y chromosome, a penis, a wife and a son.
#421
Nephandus Writes:
June 24th, 2005 at 6:41 am
“Someone mentioned upthread that men must teach men not to rape….
While I would certainly do my part, as much as any reasonable person would, I’m not comfortable with this characterizing of masculine culture by defining a biological trait with a social pathology. This kind of thinking is the foundation of all bigotry.”
I am bigoted against rapists – by this definition:
2. A person who regards his own faith and views in matters (of
religion) as unquestionably right, and any belief or
opinion opposed to or differing from them as unreasonable
or wicked. In an extended sense, a person who is
intolerant of opinions which conflict with his own, as in
politics or morals; one obstinately and blindly devoted to
his own (church, party, belief, or) opinion.
http://dict.die.net/bigot/
Although religion has little to do with it – I am committed to my belief that anyone who tries to justify and/or commit rape is “unreasonable or wicked” and nobody is going to be changing my mind about that.
But throw that bigot word out there and try to make those who disagree with you sound bad.
I don’t think anyone was “defining a biological trait with a social pathology” – although I did say that I think that rapists have an antisocial personality disorder. I don’t think all men are rapists.
I’ve also said that I think men with antisocial personality disorder can be adversely affected by the male culture that some men partake in that disrespects women as people. I think men have more of a chance of affecting that culture from the inside than women do from the outside. Though I suspect some men – and maybe those most likely to put pressure on antisocial men – do so because of the input/influence of women.
BritGirl, I have this funny image in my head of presenting a “Petition for Access to the Pussy Oversoul” to the clerk’s office in Kings County Supreme Court in Brooklyn, which as NY area lawyers know, is the ancient “hell of papers rejected for no apparent reason.”
When a man rapes a woman, or another man for that matter, I don’t have any special insight into what he does, no “male”? cameraderie, no “brothers teaching brothers”? bond. Nor does he have any special reason to value my insight.
As a single data point, this may be true – he has no reason to value your insight over that of other men. But a lot of men will value your insight over that of another woman.
It’s not a specific instance of “male bonding” or what have you; rather, it’s the fact that we’re in a culture where genders are still somewhat socially segregated, and the experiences of women can be dismissed as “not understanding what it’s really like for men.”
If you think it is MY responsibility, to a greater degree than your own, then really, you are revealing your hand here. You are more concerned with pointing a finger than solving a problem. To my mind, it’s not so different from listening to a Klansman characterize Black crime rates.
I apologize for adopting the tired tactic of demanding an exact quote, but where did you get the idea that anyone was blaming you, or that they were uninterested in solving this problem?
Responsibility and blame are not the same. The person to blame in a case of rape is the rapist. Responsibility for changing a culture that encourages rape falls on everyone, to a degree dependent on the extent that they can change it.
What was the sample distribution? Did they weight on sexual orientation in the survey? Do you know the deviation on this variable? Particularly in urban areas, these subgroups tend to cluster in tight districts – meaning that they will be vastly underrepresented if an even geographical dispersion is used. What was the definition of violence or rape used in the study? Sorry – it’s a lot to ask, but I’m curious.
The name of the survey OBVIOUSLY biases the response. Given the political leanings of queer culture, particularly among self-identified lesbians – when answering a feminist survey (I say feminist because of the unecessarily narrow scope of the survey), do you think there might be a greater likelihood to answer questions according to the expectations of the surveyer? I say this based on my own knowledge of the woman in the FemTheater in my city who smacked around her partner – while they were both ironically acting in a show about domestic violence. Interesting that – you would never see a more militant bunch than them, but while everybody knew what happened and talked about what to do about it, not a ONE of them confronted either one them.
Before anyone does shorthand on the argument (though I suspect it is futile), I’m not bringing it up to say “women are worse” – I’m saying that those involved with the politics can get so immersed in the intellectualization of it, so immersed in the script, that it becomes divorced from their own lived reality. In that sense, this person obviously had no problem punishing men for domestic violence with every performance of the show, while at the same time pounding her own girlfriend black and blue.
What was the sample distribution? Did they weight on sexual orientation in the survey? Do you know the deviation on this variable? Particularly in urban areas, these subgroups tend to cluster in tight districts – meaning that they will be vastly underrepresented if an even geographical dispersion is used. What was the definition of violence or rape used in the study? Sorry – it’s a lot to ask, but I’m curious.
From comment #428, we can conclude that a well-worded statement against rape-justification is a very good come-on technique!
:o)
cloudy day Writes:
“Although religion has little to do with it – I am committed to my belief that anyone who tries to justify and/or commit rape is “unreasonable or wicked”? and nobody is going to be changing my mind about that. ”
—
I don’t think anyone would ask you to change your mind about that.
But as I scan these threads, I continually see people attempting to posit points to try to understand the problem, to understand why it some people do it, to understand why some victims are continually subject to it while others are not, to get a rounded sense of the culture in which it steeps – and the typical response is to immediately disengage and to attack that person as “an apologist”.
Seeking to understanding a problem is not apologizing for it. Neither is suggesting that on a sociological scale – women and men both contribute to the culture of gender relations in which rape occurs. It seems in here, the mere suggestion that this isn’t black and white, that this isn’t something exclusively for men to solve, that this isn’t something that is exclusively men purpotrating on women – these things are immediately attacked and the poster characterized.
I don’t know what kind of trolls have posted on this blog before – the last time I debated with Amp on a regular basis was on alt.feminism, back in Usenet days (under a different name), but, when I think of my circles and interests, from the Feminist Theater to the Womyn’s Center at my University, to the feminist-oriented course stream I took in grad school a decade ago, and even to the marches I’ve participated in, and some terrible beatings I’ve personally suffered, I’d have a hard time finding many people who would be more likely to be sympathetic to any victims of violence – sexual or otherwise. And yet, somehow I find myself being characterized as part of the problem here. When that happens, I really have to do a double-take on what the movement stands for, because it seems to me, it’s become its enemy.
Robert Writes”
“Not sure who “we”? is. I was raised with lectures on what not to do in certain scenarios, and I was inculcated with sexual ethics, personal responsibility, no-means-no, and all that good stuff.”
—
As was I. Constantly -at school and in the media.
The women I knew received no such training – apparently because it was a problem for “the boys” to solve. Thus I had repeated encounters with women who were disapointed and bewildered because I stopped when they said “no, we can’t”.
Literally,
“Why did you stop?”
“Because you said so.”
“But I didn’t mean it, really. I was just thinking maybe we shouldn’t.”
“That’s fine.”
“But I liked it.”
“OK”
“You seem mad.”
“No. Just a little torqued up is all.”
“Well look, we didn’t have to really stop, you know”
“OK”
“Hey, come on, the mood’s kind of over now, quit it.”
“What?”
I’m sure that kind of conversation is inconceivable in feminist circles, but it happens all the time. And you bet it contributes to miscommunication and misinterpretation of signals.
Feminism’s contribution to the “culture of rape” is perpetuating the myth that women need not be participants in the discussion – that this is for men to go off and solve on their own and when they’ve figured it out, come back to the bedroom.
Let’s go dose all the boys with Yogi Berra slogans to “fix” what’s wrong with them. Anyone who suggests anything as benign as clear communication between partners, or who suggests empowering women enough that they don’t have to feel ashamed for actually WANTING sex (thereby enouraging them to play a “passive” or “unwilling” role when they do not actually feel that way), or that girls or women have anything to learn or contribute in that dialog – those people are characterized as apologists and lumped in with the rapists.
Great – we tried that way. How well did it work? Are they getting good results?
Nephandus, there seems to be a disconnect between the problem you’re now talking about (couples failing to have sex because women are culturally discouraged from actively participating) and rape, which is the subject of the thread. If you have a model of how the miscommunication you have described leads to rape, I’d like to hear it. Otherwise, you’re talking about a different (though related) problem, one of great concern to me, which is that this society punishes women for being sexual. It punishes them by calling them sluts when they ask for sex, and sometimes by denying them sex if they don’t know how to communicate that they want it.
Also, if your concern is that you’ll be attacked in a feminist forum for exploring models of how gender interactions work, you may want to try introducing yourself in some way other than by complaining that feminists are full of rage at men for no other reason than their gender. That’s kind of an antagonistic way to join a dialog.
Barbara, I think you’re suggesting that I have found the holy grail, the Proper Application For Access To The Pussy Oversoul!
“And yet, somehow I find myself being characterized as part of the problem here”
Nephandus, you are a part of the society in which high rates of rape occur. Thus, you, as well as everyone in society, are part of the problem.
Since our high rate of rape is interwined with sexism, most rapists and possible rapists will be more likely to listen to listen to men than women, so it be nice if men talked about it as much as women.
No one is trying to attack people who are genuinely trying to understand why rape occurs so often. We are, however, trying to tear apart the assumptions about women, men, sex, and desire that cause rape and work as excuses for rape.
Speaking of which – Thomas, Amanda, and BritGirl – you all rock and Jeff’s last paragraph can;t be said often enough: “Responsibility and blame are not the same. The person to blame in a case of rape is the rapist. Responsibility for changing a culture that encourages rape falls on everyone, to a degree dependent on the extent that they can change it.”
Read back up through the thread again. What do you think the “enthusiastic participation” standard is supposed to mean? And all the discussion of how women are discouraged from honestly admitting their own sexual desires? There’s been a great deal of discussion in this thread of how the acceptance of gendered stereotypes in sexuality is a problem for men and women both.
No means no. Everyone should stick by that. If a woman says “no” but really wanted to say “yes,” well, that’s a pity all the way around. But you absolutely, positively cannot use that problem to condone the behavior of men who get “confused.”
It would make things a lot easier if all women were conscious, consistent opponents of sexism. It would also make things a lot easier if all labor unions were militant, all workers were class-conscious revolutionary socialists, and so on. But it’s the work of activists to actually convince others to think consistently about issues of oppression. In the meanwhile, yes, you’re going to meet a lot of women who accept some sexist ideas. That doesn’t excuse you from challenging those ideas.
Why do men need to challenge other men about rape culture? Read BritGirlSF’s post #369. It reminded me why I avoid the bar scene. How much of this crap goes on? Hardly a day goes by when I’m not calculating how firmly I can confront some manager’s sexism without getting fired for it.
Nephandus, since you aren’t willing to work to change rape culture, I propose that I take “matters” into my own hands and castrate you, free of charge, at your earliest convenience. That way *I* will feel that I have done something proactively to send a political statement about men’s entitlement to women’s sex and bodies. If you don’t like it, tough. Not my problem. I don’t have time to worry about how you feel about your body and your rather intact nature with it. I don’t have time to worry about the social and private implications of removing your scrotum. In fact, I could care less. As long as my needs are met, hey, it’s all good, right?
Thomas Writes:
“If you have a model of how the miscommunication you have described leads to rape, I’d like to hear it.”
To understand how it leads to rape, move to the next instance that that boy has with a girl who says “No, we can’t,” based on what his prior encounter just taught him?
What was once taken at face value,based on what was taught in sex ed, is now something that might not be. Both partners are put at risk of the consequences of an unwanted act if only one of them is not trained to effectively communicate desires, or if they are not aware of the social risks of either continuing with an act when someone has stated that it is unwanted, or in deliberately being vague or misleading in what one is permissioning to enhance the sexual experience.
BDSM people develop word codes and safewords to allow them to play passive roles and even rape fantasies, while still having the safety of “safewords” like “RED” which they agree to mean -“OK stop, and I really mean it.” This allows the them to continue with the kind of roleplay they want to do, without having words that have double and opposite meanings.
Somehow, I doubt that the teen and early twenties set, with their relatively low sexual experience and social maturity really develop that much apparatus around them to protect each other. “No means no” is useful to boys if they listen to it, in that it will at least protect them from the chance of prosecution if they are wrong, though it certainly does not conform to the way many women – especially teenage girls – engage in sexual dialog.
Once again, lest it be lost, the fact that rape is a crime and is wrong is not a point of debate here. The issue – in a thread about “blaming the victim” is about understanding why it happens, and hopefully equipping my daughter and son with the tools needed to ensure positive sexual experiences, without conveying to them some fantasy script about how it’s supposed to go down, which will have no basis in their lived experience. Boys can certainly conform to “no means no.” I did, and I don’t have sympathy for the ones that didn’t and hurt someone. But I also know from my own experiences in formative years that some partners were disappointed that I stopped, and that they would have rewarded me for continuing despite their half-hearted protest.
Is deliberately raping someone equal on a moral equivalency scale with being misleading in sexual communication? Of course not – absolutely not. But at the same time, my concern is less about meting punishment at the moment, and more about ensuring positive communication and mutual understanding.
—
Thomas Writes:
“this society punishes women for being sexual. It punishes them by calling them sluts when they ask for sex, and sometimes by denying them sex if they don’t know how to communicate that they want it. ”
—
I find that feminism is as bad as the chauvanists in reinforcing the notion of “woman as infant” and “woman as chaste” in this regard. Strange bedfellows.
—
Thomas Writes:
you may want to try introducing yourself in some way other than by complaining that feminists are full of rage at men […] That’s kind of an antagonistic way to join a dialog.
—
Perhaps one man’s antagonism is merely another’s reaction to what’s in the thread already. Of course – I see myself responding to what others posted.
Perhaps one man’s antagonism is merely another’s reaction to what’s in the thread already.
Bullshit. You’re setting fire to strawmen.
“BDSM people develop word codes and safewords to allow them to play passive roles and even rape fantasies, while still having the safety of “safewords”? like “RED”? which they agree to mean -“?OK stop, and I really mean it.”? This allows the them to continue with the kind of roleplay they want to do, without having words that have double and opposite meanings.”
Uh, which by it’s very nature makes it not rape. Not even close to rape. You cannot fantasize non-consent; that would be psychically impossible b/c the moment you fantasize it, you are indeed consenting to it, and are indeed in control of what happens. But don’t let that stop you from feeling put out.
Enthusiastic participation is a concept which infantilises women or portrays them as chaste?
I’m interested in how you arrived at this conclusion – from some of your other comments (rage at all men etc) I rather suspect that you haven’t actually read this thread but rather have simply assumed that you *know* what feminists think and feel without even bothering to ask / read.
I wonder what that might remind me of…
Damn, Thomas. You rocked the house. And reminded me of a friend who wistfully joked to me in a bar she felt like she was handing out job applications. I wonder what form you fill out for access to The Cock?
I wonder what form you fill out for access to The Cock?
I don’t find applications very helpful, beyond some basic screening questions: leftist? (check yes or no); atheist or agnostic? (check yes or no); appreciation of geekitude? (check yes or no).
It’s all about the interview process. And the key thing I’m looking for in the interview process is something like the following: “I’ve really enjoyed this conversation, but I’m afraid I just can’t concentrate on it any longer because all I can think about is chewing your clothes off.”
I believe that would be the “enthusiastic participation” idea we’ve been discussing.
Speaking of the bar scene — again — these threads on rape keep splitting off into discussions of dating, etc. As BritGirlSF said, there’s a lot that’s unsatisfactory about the way dating, etc., works. Would someone mind setting up a thread on that, specifically, perhaps here or on Pandagon? I’d certainly appreciate some serious discussion of it with some people who are actually mature and conscious of issues of sexism.
“Well look, we didn’t have to really stop, you know”?
“OK”?
“Hey, come on, the mood’s kind of over now, quit it.”?
“What?”?
I know it’s flip to say this (because lots of guys feel that if they *could* have had sex, and didn’t, that’s somehow a failure), but if a single miscommunication is s enough to disrupt “the mood” then there probably wasn’t much mood to begin with, and not having sex in that situation is not a huge loss, even if it feels disappointing at the time.
I don’t think many feminists would be upset with a guy who, in that situation, said “Tell me what you want rather than playing silly games.” (Note, though, this is not the same as saying “Don’t lead me on if you don’t want to have sex.”)
It appears you have not read the thread. If you had read the thread, you would know that I identify as a sadomasochist. I’m very familiar with safewords and safesigns. Nor are those new concepts to most of the readership — most of us are fairly well informed here.
This is the same as Aegis’s model: man makes an application for access to the pussy oversoul; his proper application is denied because the woman is unwilling to say “yes”, though that’s what she wants to do; man may in the future cure the problem of improper denial by raping.
Look, the problem of women saying “no” when the mean “yes” is self- curing. If no means no, these women will either learn to say “yes,” or learn to do without. If men start saying, “well, they don’t say yes when they want it, so how can I tell?” the answer is, “if you can’t tell you have to assume the answer is no.” That’s not complicated. It may not be the answer you’d like, but it’s not hard to understand or difficult to apply.
I’ve got a son, too. I’m not going to hide from him that some people say “no” when they want to say “yes.” I’m not going to tell him things about the world that he will discover are not true. I’m going to tell him that he always has to take a woman (or a man) at her (or his) word when she (or he) says no. I’ll tell him that women (or men) who say “no” when they mean “yes” have issues. They are sinkholes of wierdness and self-hate and guilt, and he needs to get away from them, because if he does anything with a partner like this, that person will turn on him one day for reasons he’ll never understand.
(Some people may think that’s harsh, but he’s my son and I have to tell him the truth. Sexual interactions with people who play the “I want it but I don’t want to say so” game are overwhelmingly a disaster in the final analysis.)
There’s another problem with this model: how much of rape do you think is really attributable to good-faith lack of communication? I’m not talking about stranger rape, because trying to attribute that to failed communication is patently absurd. I’m talking about acquaintance rape. How much of it do you thing really is just “well-she-said-no-quietly-but-she-really-seemed-into-it?” Because that’s the only scenario your model explains. Suppose we eliminated all those. Now, you’ve got passed-out-drunk, rohypnol-in-the-drink, gang rapes of women who think they are going to have consensual sex with one guy, and “what-are-you-doing-get-the-hell-off-of-me-I-said-stop-you-asshole,” each of which I’ve heard a lot more times than anything that could be called “good faith miscommunication.”
In order to explain any other of these scenarios, you either need a vastly different model that doesn’t travel through miscommunication, or you’re talking about some man’s rage and frustration at all women, just because some say no when he thinks they mean yes. Either way, I think you’ll recognize that it is untenable to use your theory of “miscommunication leads to rape,” problematic as it is on its own terms, to explain the overwhelming majority of rape.
I already told you that your assessment of the thread was hyperbolic.
NB folks on this thread, I’m hitting the road tomorrow morning for a week-long trip, and my access will be limited. If this thread is still rockin’ when I get back, I’ll stick my head in ;-)
Amanda, I’ve had to toss all my old applications. The new forms have a narrative section for “reason for interest in a threesome,” and must be submitted in duplicate to my wife and I. A unanimous vote is required for approval.
Or were you just making a joke?
One quick response, and later I will get to Brit and Thomas…
Ugh, I should have known someone would come up with this straw man. Nowhere in my post did I imply that women were to blame for rape because they refused sex. If a woman refuses sex, she obviously has a reason to do so. That is why I was focusing on the guy’s side of the interaction to reduce situations where he was rebuffed.
No, Aegis, you did imply such a thing. Perhaps that wasn’t your intent, but that is what you did. Read Thomas’ excellent reply and maybe you’ll have better insight into exactly how you implied that – it has to do with th way you describe pussy as commodity rather than sex as joint activity.
If nobody understands what you meant, the shortcoming is with your writing, not with the reading comprehension of everybody else.
QGrrl writes:
“Uh, which by it’s very nature makes it not rape. Not even close to rape. You cannot fantasize non-consent; that would be psychically impossible b/c the moment you fantasize it, you are indeed consenting to it, and are indeed in control of what happens.”?
Nephandus:
Absolutely right. However, while some people do indeed get off half-hearted protests more intended to give form to the role-playing fantasy of non-consent, they are teaching their partners that even apparently clear verbal communication is in fact, not so clear. So what seemed ok with one partner might not be fine with the next. Neither boys nor girls are born with a roadmap to sexual relations, they generally have to figure it out by reading each other’s cues.
Spicy writes:
“Enthusiastic participation is a concept which infantilises women or portrays them as chaste? I’m interested in how you arrived at this conclusion”?
Nephandus writes:
I’m more interested in how you arrived at that straw man. I can’t find any place where I made any comment about enthusiastic participation. Was that what I was supposed to say to help your response make more sense?
Spicy writes:
“rather have simply assumed that you *know* what feminists think and feel without even bothering to ask / read.
I wonder what that might remind me of…”
Nephandus writes:
I don’t know ““ what would it remind you of? I wouldn’t want to put words in your mouth.
I think I’ve done enough feminist postgrad study, dated enough feminists, attended enough Take Back the Night marches and supported the local Feminist theater to think I know what feminists feel, certainly enough to have been accepted and defined as a feminist by people within the same organizations. You tell me, what does a person like that remind you of?
Jeff Writes:
“I know it’s flip to say this (because lots of guys feel that if they *could* have had sex, and didn’t, that’s somehow a failure)”
Nephandus writes:
Well, if you both wanted have sex, could have had sex, but didn’t ““ then isn’t it at least a disappointment, if not a failure to communicate? And why is it just the guy’s failure? In my experiences ““ that was part of the problem. The girl who said “No”? looked at me as if it was MY failure for not just going with the flow and doing it anyway, despite what she said. I should have been able to tell. And frankly ““ I KNEW she didn’t really mean “No,”? but I stopped anyway. So on some level, though I felt ever the gentleman, I felt silly in stopping, and afterwards, I felt that on some level she felt I was foolish to have stopped.
Jeff Writes:
“but if a single miscommunication is s enough to disrupt “the mood”? then there probably wasn’t much mood to begin with, and not having sex in that situation is not a huge loss, even if it feels disappointing at the time.”?
Nephandus Writes:
That’s not hard to disagree with, and clearly that’s the road I chose in each and every case. That said, it doesn’t necessarily take much to disrupt a mood ““ and certainly a discussion on the politics of “No,”? in the middle of coitus can also throw some ice on the situation. I doubt anyone, let alone some teenager, is going to let the Big Picture mitigate any disappointment he or she feels in a missed opportunity. You feel what you feel at the time.
Jeff Writes:
“I don’t think many feminists would be upset with a guy who, in that situation, said “Tell me what you want rather than playing silly games.”? (Note, though, this is not the same as saying “Don’t lead me on if you don’t want to have sex.”?)”?
Nephandus writes:
That’s a good starting point for effective dialog on that subject between both partners, but it’s also wisdom that comes from experience. It’s not taught in Sex Ed, and though I think it is something that would benefit girls AND boys, men AND women. But from what I see in this thread, (unless I am misinterpreting) we are looking at the task of educating girls as being either too onerous or too unfair. Though this is a cultural dynamic involving two people, it seems as though the recommendation for a solution is to try to bail out only one half of the canoe. It becomes the boy’s responsibility and burden to educate the girl on the “proper way”? to communicate one’s desire.
As for the second statement, I recognize and agree with the distinction, but I also think there are scenarios in which the second statement is more appropriate. I have dated women who most definitely used extended sexual teasing in a deliberate route toward sexual empowerment and esteem. It was used in a hostile way ““ as a deliberate attempt to make me feel foolish or submissive – though it bore the outward appearance of intimacy. It went beyond consensual “play”?. I don’t think any of them really understood how angry or small made me feel when she did that. I really loved the one of them, and it was heartbreaking when she broke down in my arms a few months after we broke up, telling me that she had just been raped, listening to her own feelings of guilt and self-implication ““ because she’d tried pulling the same act on some meathead. Did I blame her for what happened or think she deserved it? Of course not. But she blamed herself.
“Thomas Writes:
I’m very familiar with safewords and safesigns. Nor are those new concepts to most of the readership … most of us are fairly well informed here.”?
Nephandus Writes:
Good for us. More to my point though, do you suppose most highschoolers know about them and use them?
Do you think they might have application in Sex Ed as part of an overall discussion of the realities of power and sexual politics in the bedroom ““ one that doesn’t paint a fantasy of a male permissioning explicitly and verbally from a woman every escalation of sexual activity (again, an echo of chivalry).
Do you think they it be particularly effective in highschools or SM circles if words like that, and other tools of sexual communication were only taught to one of the genders, since they were the ones that apparently did all the raping?
“Thomas Writes:
If no means no, these women will either learn to say “yes,”? or learn to do without. If men start saying, “well, they don’t say yes when they want it, so how can I tell?”? the answer is, “if you can’t tell you have to assume the answer is no.”? That’s not complicated.”?
Nephandus Writes:
Great, but how much consolation was it be for my ex, who was raped, that she was clearly less to blame for it than the man who raped her, after she teased him and made some monster feel like her monkeyboy for 3 hours, thinking that she was entirely in charge of the situation the entire time.
Did she deserve to get raped ““ no.
Should he be punished to the full extent of the law for a despicable act ““ yes.
But somehow I doubt my sympathies made her feel as good as if she could have simply avoided what was done to her. She made a point of telling me that I’d tried to warn her, and if she’d listened to me, none of that would have happened. Maybe it would have, maybe not. The guy was obviously a creep and had it in him to do what he did. But knowing that, and pointing the finger at him after the fact doesn’t really help her much does it?
Are we arguing past each other here? I get the sense that somehow my acknowledgement that women have a role and an active responsibility for sexual communication – that they are SAFER if they look at it that way – is taken as an argument that they are to blame. I’m talking about what I think is more effective, and I think some others are talking about some sense of fairness or justice.
I’ve heard men complain that they can’t be expected to read women’s minds when it comes to the issue of consent. I agree. So even if you think you’ve got incredible powers of ESP and can sense she really means yes even though she’s saying no, don’t go there. It’s that simple really.
Aegis: In short, imagine a situation in which a proto-rapist becomes an actual date rapist because he didn’t know how to induce the woman to be interested in having sex with him; if he had succeeded in doing so, she would have consented, and the situation where he decided to rape her would never have occurred.
Aegis, reread this and then try and keep a straight face as you insist that we are misreading your assertion. If a salesperson cannot sell me a timeshare, they are supposed to suck it up and go on to the next prospect. If they held a gun to my head and forced me to buy it, or got me so drunk I didn’t know what I was doing and got me to buy it, it wouldn’t be considered a consequence of my refusal.
If she’s not agreeing to have sex with a man, there’s no problem. Some women choose not to have sex at all, a woman may not be attracted to the guy in question, etc. You don’t “induce” someone to have sex or “convince” them to. iI can’t think of anything more mood-killing than a nag.
Rape is not a consequence of a woman not agreeing to have sex with a man; it’s an act committed by someone who feels entitled to take whatever he wants.
Nephandus: Perhaps one man’s antagonism is merely another’s reaction to what’s in the thread already. Of course – I see myself responding to what others posted.
That string of invective was in response to the enthusiastic participation comments? The “women fucking you back” comments?
I’m with Thomas on this–it was pure hyperbole on your part.
It strikes me that you two are looking for red herrings to fry.
Nephandus, the reason we brought up “enthusiastic participation” is that we’d been discussing it, at length, in this thread. Not only did you engage in attacking strawmen by claiming that feminists never deal with women’s role in sexuality, you’ve made it clear you’re lying when you claim you’ve read this thread.
Sheesh. OK – I’ll take this slowly.
Nephandus said:
Where in this thread has anything been said by any feminist that would cause you to arrive at this conclusion?
I’ll save you the trouble – nowhere. What *has* been proposed is a definition of consent as ‘enthusiastic participation’.
That means that you are not engaging with this thread but with your preconceived notions of what feminists believe.
Add in that you have yet to provide a single example to justify your comments about rage at all men and what you get is a man who feels wholly justified in arriving late into the discussion but not bothering to read what has gone before and start lecturing the women here on their role in stopping rape and sexual assault and claiming that feminists are as bad as chauvanists.
Entitlement? You’re dripping with it.
This is a mindset that closely reflects that of rapists.
That clear enough for you?
Nephandus, to an extent, we are talking past each other.
You see, I agree that women have an equal responsibility for communication in consensual sex.
Where you and I seem to differ is that I believe that is different from rape, and has very little to do with it.
In a culture that blames women for getting raped, and where the “precautions” against rape are usually to curtail their own movements and social activities, shifting the focus onto what victim behavior “caused” rape, even with a disclaimer that the point of the analysis is not to blame, is just never going to go well. It encourages the actual blamers, and it pisses off many of the feminists.
Finally, the scenario you describe is not “good faith lack of communication,” as you clearly recognize. No amount of teaching clear communication would have prevented it. No amount of sex ed in school would have changed that situation. So nothing in your model addresses it.(And I hope you got nowhere near “I told you so.” If you even hinted at it, go find her contact information and apologize.)
Thomas Writes:
“And I hope you got nowhere near “I told you so.”? If you even hinted at it, go find her contact information and apologize. ”
How about instead, I just accept your apology-to me- for your bothering to raise the question of what my response was here. I don’t need your lecture, son. I didn’t at age 19, and I sure as hell don’t now.
Just as there is a study of criminology, which looks for patterns of behavior among habitual predators, there is also a study of victimology, which finds patterns of behavior among habitual victims. During the course of my feminist study, I read many accounts of women claiming to constantly dating and marrying wife-beaters or rapists, one after another, thus getting a unique view of “what men are like”.
Now, clearly there is something worthy of study within the behavior of the predators they partnered with, in serial. But it would astound me that nobody would acknowledge that perhaps something useful could be learned about patterns within victim behaviors as well as criminal behaviors. To ignore what’s plainly there, and what could be quite helpful, is to be deliberately obtuse. Has victimology become a forbidden social science within feminist circles – I guess it always was – but I’d never seen it put so plainly as I’m reading it now. Seems more like a response I would expect from an orthodox religion than a progressive movement, warning against science, observation, dialog with “the enemy”. It saddens me to see how much feminism has become the thing it stood against.
Nephandus, you’ve ignored THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE THREAD. Every damned time there’s a discussion of rape, it’s blame the victim, blame the victim, blame the victim, oh rapists are bad, but let’s blame the victim. Including on threads on feminist blogs discussing why we need to stop blaming the victim and how men need to stop making excuses for other men who rape. Which is EXACTLY what you are doing.
But it would astound me that nobody would acknowledge that perhaps something useful could be learned about patterns within victim behaviors as well as criminal behaviors.
We learn nothing “useful” about the criminals themselves. Victim studies is a whole separate discussion.
Yes, lets continuing talking about the victim and ignoring the criminal.
For goodness sake, have you read any of this whole thread or what precipitated it? Its the fact that there is never a discussion about rape that doesn’t end up obsessing over victim behaviors. Furthermore, it obsesses over victim behavior in a manner which clearly passes judgement on the victims. Enough of that. Just enough. We keep forgeting to consider the rapists in all of this, and that seems to me like a much more worthwhile area to consider. Because rapists seem to exist where no vicitm behavior can possibly be used to twist blame into the victims direction. The only thing constant about rape is that there is a rapist. Why is it so threatening to you that we take note of that?
Ah, but I never claimed that “rape is the result of the change in roles and expectations brought about by feminism.” I claim that male confusion/ignorance over how to initiate sex in a way that women are comfortable with contributes towards rape. Yes, male confusion over gender roles can contribute towards confusion over how to seek sex. Yet it is possible for males to be ignorant of how to seek sex in a way that women are comfortable with even when they aren’t confused about their gender roles. This ignorance predates feminism, and explains your Saudi Arabia example.
The rest of your post was quite interesting and succeeded in addressing my arguments (and in Aegis-comprehensible language, OMG) even though I disagree with some of it.
First, a couple points I should clarify. I don’t think that every time, or even most times males get rejected, that the problem was with their approach; just some of the time. I agree with you that sexual attraction, individual compatibility, and enjoyment of each other’s company are big factors in whether women decide to have sex with a man or not. Yet I don’t see why you exclude or minimize the man’s approach as a factor, especially since it will influence the woman’s perception of all the other factors.
If this is true, then if a woman meets a man she is attracted to, then she will be instantly ready to sleep with him. According to your formulation, females are never unsure about whether they are attracted to a guy, and never unsure about whether they want to sleep with a guy they are attracted to. If this is not what you mean, then please clarify.
I agree with you that if a woman isn’t attracted to a guy at all, that there is not much he can do. Yet even if a woman is attracted to a guy, there are still plenty of ways in which he can mess things up such that she loses interest in having sex with him. Or he may simply fail to initiate things, or do so in a way such that she rejects him. Also, his approach has some degree of influence on whether the woman perceives him as attractive in the first place. Hence, the man’s approach, actions, and behaviors do impact whether the woman will be interested in having sex with him or not.
You are correct in identifying an assumption behind my argument: that there are “right ways” and “wrong ways” for a man to approach a woman. I touched on this idea in my previous post, but I should probably explain it more fully, because “right way” and “wrong way” are admittedly misleading terms. What do I mean by the “right way” for a man to seek sex with a woman? I simply mean an approach such that she desires sex with him and feels comfortable having it with him.
I agree that there is no one “right way” to approach women, and that males must approach women in different ways. It’s true that every woman’s preferences are different, but that doesn’t mean that female preferences are different at every level. On some levels, both males and females have universal, or near universal preferences. That is because preferences are crafted by cultural, evolutionary and environmental forces that effect virtually everyone. How those forces interact and manifest varies between individuals. Hence, at other levels, people have preferences that vary wildly. If you want me to get more specific or provide evidence on any of these claims, then just ask.
Yet patterns exist both in the way people’s preferences are similar, and in the ways that they differ. If man were better able to identify and respond to these patterns, then they would be better at seeking sex with women in ways that women are comfortable with. I find it hard to believe that women’s preferences have no commonalities on any level, expect for some basic things that men can do wrong.
All I am saying is that males and females could be taught how to relate to each other much better than they do currently, specifically in the area of men learning positive ways to seek sex with women. By “better,” I mean “more conducive to mutually-fulfilling romantic and sexual experiences.” Would this mean that no man would ever get rejected? Obviously not, but it would make things better. But before this will work, people will have to stop pretending that it’s impossible. The fact that women have differing preferences in many areas doesn’t mean that this project would be pointless. Think of it this way: we wouldn’t say that it is pointless to teach people how to do ballroom dancing simply because all of their dance partners are going to be different. On the contrary, teaching people how to dance will make them more adept at responding to the uniqueness of each partner.
If rapists as a subject, get less attention in my responses, it’s because they are getting their due in others, and because there is little to dispute there.
Nobody is “forgetting rapists”.
My god, is that what you really think? Is that your first reaction? How long have you been steeping in this hate, that you would see this as the most reasonable interpretation of anything written here?
No wonder Thomas’s response to a man telling him the woman he loved was raped, goes immediately toward lecturing against the worst possible caricature he devised. What happened to the principal of charity in debate – the idea that you try to assume the most reasonable interpretation of your discussion partner’s statement? Is that where you all live – where the most reasonable interpretation, is that I look to my ex-girlfriend shaking in my arms and say, “I told ya so?” THAT’s your first thought as to what I would say there, and you POSTED it? Who DOES that? What kind of person SAYS that? Shame on you.
I can’t control rapists. I don’t understand them any more than anyone else does, regardless of the fact that I’m a man. I’m genuinely perplexed and offended that anyone would think I would. I’m perplexed that in a thread about victim’s advocacy, that people would be so eager to dismiss a first-person account of such an encounter, or to attack.
I can’t mediate the social experiences of everyone I love to ensure their life is free of rapists, or rape. I couldn’t even save a woman I loved from one.
But I can try to prepare the ones I love to change their behavior to reduce the risk for when they eventually meet with some creep. In the same way, while it’s not fair to me that I feel I need to cross to the other side of the street when I see a group of men gathered late at night (I’ve been a victim of a savage, random beating), my sense of justice does not compel me to barrel through their space because I have a clear legal and moral right to do so on a public sidewalk.
Lacking prescience, the best I can do is change my behavior and take REASONABLE steps to ensure I don’t become an active and knowing catalyst in a scenario in which I end up over my head. My ex didn’t deserve what she got ““ she knows it, and of course I told her that ““ but at the same time, as she relayed the specifics of what happened to me, she knew that if she hadn’t done what she did ““ the asshole she was with would not have acted violently, and she would have gone home that night instead of to the hospital. It happened exactly the way I told her it would happen.
As for the dick she was with ““ he was so before this happened and was a monster after ““ and nothing I’ve said here changes that. What’s to discuss there? What could she, or I have done, or learned here, to apply to that scenario before it happened, that would have helped? THAT’s what got me marching in Take Back the Night.
The sense I get from discussing this experience here is that I might as well have been the rapist, rather than the person with some common sense advice I dumped her with, which was, “Quit playing guys like monkeys, because eventually you’ll meet an ape.”
Err… how does *that* follow?!
If you are presenting this as the way *you* respond when sexually attracted to someone, I suggest to you the possibility that it is just that – your way.
IOW, the absence of ‘instant readiness’ does not ‘prove’ a lack of sexual attractedness.
Well, you certainly seem to have a problem with us discussing them. And you clearly don’t grasp the context of this discussion if you don’t think that there is a problem with the way rape is discussed in this country in that very often the rapists IS forgotten. It all becomes about the victims doing something to deserve and/or provoke it or the culture of “confusion”. So much blame goes around that often people DO forget the blame those who are *actually* responsible. You, yourself, want to silence discussions on ways to stop rapists and turn it around, yet again, into a discussion of chastizing women for allowing this to happen to themselves. Its a mentality which frankly serves to excuse rape, not prevent it. Giving up in the face of rapist’s attitudes must no longer be an option. If we want to confront this problem, we need to confront the PROBLEM. Not the victims.
Look, you want a discussion of rape that obsesses about what mistakes women make? There are plenty of them. That’s the REASON this thread was started. You just keep displaying to me that you haven’t bothered to understand what this thread is about when you justify your chastizing the discussion on the grounds that you get to ignore rapists because we’ve already given that topic enough discussion. That is the discussion. You’re trying to push it away from that because you don’t want it discussed. You’ve decided we’ve talked about it enough. You’ve decided you don’t want to do anything to stop rapists. You’ve decided to treat rape as inevitable. You haven’t read this discussion. You certainly don’t respect it. We don’t need to justify ourselves to you.
What BStu said.
Amanda updated a related thread on Pandagon with some interesting information.
More correctly:
Some males seek sex in a way such that women refuse them, when they won’t have been refused if they had known a different approach. Some rape occurs after males are rebuffed. Hence, male confusion over how to approach women sexually and initiate sex with them might help create situations where males are more likely to commit rape. Please explain any problems you have with any of those claims.
See the difference between my model and your straw man? Notice, I am not claiming that male confusion “causes” rape. That would require a sloppy attribution of causality. Neither am I talking about males “asking for” sex, because that implies that sex is something women dole out to men, which is, as you point out, a false assumption. Neither did I say anything about women “improperly denying” sex; those are your words.
I searched through your post for any support for these accusations, but I couldn’t find any. For instance, why does the word “induce” inescably mean a property conception of sex? You don’t bother explaining. “Induce” means “1. To lead or move, as to a course of action, by influence or persuasion,” or “2. To bring about or stimulate the occurrence of; cause.” Using the word “induce” doesn’t imply a “property conception” of sex. If I induced my friend to play violin duets with me, would you say that is “property conception” of music, or that I thought of him as property?
What do you mean by “if you read this far”? I always read all of any post I respond to. What reason would I have not to read your entire post? Are you trying to be antagonistic or something? I appreciated some of your posts earlier in the thread, because you upheld basic respect and addressed people’s arguments. Recently, you have been doing neither, and instead resorted to translating my arguments into moronic (though amusing) terminology, and making utterly inappropriate comments like the one Nephandus called you on. Please quit this.
Well, duh. If consensual sex is analogous to music, wouldn’t you agree that there are some ways to induce people to want to play with you? Such as having good musicianship and being skilled with your instrument?
Aegis, it doesn’t matter how a rapist approaches a woman about sex. Rapists don’t take no for an answer. That’s what defines them as rapists. It’s not “confusion.” It’s lack of respect for women’s autonomy.
What is it with the damned apologetics for rapists?
Aegis, how exactly is someone supposed to read being told that men rape because they get shot down? Too….fucking….bad. Man, I’ve been rejected a million times and I’ve never raped anyone. And you know what? Most men can deal, too.
You repeatedly insist that sex is about scoring, obtaining, whatever. Nitpick and nitpick and nitpick and pretend that’s going to distract people from your basic premise, which is that sex is something women have and men have to lie, beg, borrow or steal from us. And until you grasp that sex is an activity that two people do together, like playing in a band as Thomas said, you are contributing to the rape culture and certainly not fixing it.
If you want to get laid more, by the way, it helps if you befriend women instead of treating them like unfortunate obstacles between you and the pussy.
No one has ever in the history of the world said, “I induced my friend to play violin with me.” They say, and I assure you as someone deeply enmeshed in the local music scene, “We’re starting a band together.”
Seriously, a lot of women, myself included, can tell at 100 yards when guys have your attitude that we’ve got the thing you want–pussy–and you’re just trying to find the “magic” formula to talk us out of it. And we bolt because ew.
My boyfriend won me over in like 2 seconds, because he was really nice and addressed me as a friend. Also, his girl friends were really cool. Almost every man I know who actually likes women as people, not as unfortunate obstacles to the pussy, never seems to go without. Wonder why that works. Such a fucking mystery.
No. It means that if a woman is not attracted to you, she isn’t going to want to have sex with you. And if a woman is attracted to you, it doesn’t mean she wants to have sex with you.
I am attracted to a great many people, it doesn’t follow that I want to have sex with them.
You seem to think that if men just had the right plan, the right technique, knew which buttons to push and when, that they can induce women into having sex with them. Like it is some game they are playing and getting sex means they win.
Pseudo-Adrienne, any chance of this thread having a sequel? At 470+ posts it take a bit of time to download on dial up.
You seem to think that if men just had the right plan, the right technique, knew which buttons to push and when, that they can induce women into having sex with them. Like it is some game they are playing and getting sex means they win.
I’ve played some of those games. The well-written ones can be amusing at times. But I don’t pretend that real life works in any way remotely resembling that.
(Though, to cross over with the romantic comedy thread over at Pandagon, isn’t this pretty much what Groundhog Day was about?)
Wrong again. The most that can be inferred from my post is that if women didn’t refuse sex, rape would never happen (which is correct). Yet this does not imply that women should have sex with any man that wants to, or that women are to “blame” for rape because they refuse sex. And Thomas hardly established that I “describe pussy as a commodity”… it’s you and he who are talking about “pussy,” not me.
I have been enjoying your posts in this thread. Unfortunately, I am afraid that you will find that most of the posters here don’t understand concepts like reading with charity or intellectual honesty. They won’t be constrained by “male-defined” notions of civility, dontcha know? Sadly, this confirms your suspicion that some of them are more interested in blaming than in actually understanding the system and making practical changes to it.
True. But if he had succeeded in selling you the timeshare, then the whole situation would have been averted, right? That’s all I’m trying to get at.
Ah, but by “inducing” I don’t mean verbally convincing. If a woman dresses in a way that influences a male such that he desires sex with her, then she induced him to want sex with her. Say a man and a woman are dating, but she says she doesn’t want to have sex until they get to know each other better. So he makes sure they get to know each other better, and then she feels comfortable having sex with him. There: he induced her to want to have sex with him.
The most that can be inferred from my post is that if women didn’t refuse sex, rape would never happen (which is correct).
No, it’s not correct. Rape happens to men, for one thing; and it happens when women are unable to refuse sex. If what you mean is “if women never said no, men would not lack sex and thus wouldn’t rape,” you really don’t understand rape.
So, a woman should be careful about how she dresses so she doesn’t lead a man on. How is a woman supposed to dress so she doesn’t induce a man into wanting sex? Tuesday, on my day off, I mowed my lawn. I was dressed in shorts, a tank top, and my steel toed boots I use when I burn the ditches. My next door neighbor was out in his yard with his buddies, drinking beer and working on his car with the music blasting. Every time I came round that side of the yard on my mower I got whistles and rude comments about how if I wanted to ride something I should just take a break and come over for a visit. It was 97 degrees. I was covered in sweat and dust and my hair was pulled back in a sweaty ponytail. Exactly how was I dressed in fashion that would induce a man to want to have sex with me ?
I have trouble believing your claim that every time there is a discussion of rape, it is all about blaming the victim, because you seem to think that any analysis of the victim’s behavior is tantamount to blaming the victim. And you haven’t provided any explanation for why Nephandus is supposedly blaming the victim and making excuses for the rapists.
You and mousehound are right, that statement doesn’t follow… my bad. What I should have said is that BritGirlSF’s argument implies that “if a woman meets a man she is attracted to, then she will instantly know whether she will want to sleep with him or not.”
What’s with your damn straw men? The guy isn’t a rapist until after he has actually raped the woman. That is why I used the term “proto rapist.” I wasn’t claiming that his confusion caused the rape. I claimed that his confusion might cause him to be rebuffed, and he would obviously be more likely to rape then than if he wasn’t rebuffed.
Of course they can. The fact that the rapist got shot down doesn’t mean that we should have any sympathy for him.
Please point to somewhere where I have said anything like this. If I have (which I doubt), I would like to know.
True, nobody usually uses “induced” to describe a situation like that. Yet that is still what went on. Perhaps I should have clarified this earlier, but I am not using “induced” to imply intent. So if a bunch of musicians started a band together, it would probably be because they induced each other to want to play together. Maybe they did this intentionally, maybe they didn’t. Hence, if two people desire sex with each other, then they must have somehow induced each other to have that desire.
I would say that those qualities induced you to be interested in him. He just probably didn’t do it intentionally.
What interested me the most about your post is that you seem to outline an example of an approach that you consider to be almost universally unattractive, at least to the women you know: namely, treating a woman as an “unfortunate obstacle to the pussy.” Don’t you think that it things would be better if males were taught what behavior many women will characterize with an instant “ew,” so they could avoid showing that behavior? That is exactly the kind of teaching that I am advocating.
“What interested me the most about your post is that you seem to outline an example of an approach that you consider to be almost universally unattractive… treating a woman as an “unfortunate obstacle to the pussy.”? Don’t you think that it things would be better if males were taught what behavior many women will characterize with an instant “ew,”? so they could avoid showing that behavior? That is exactly the kind of teaching that I am advocating.”
Why should I care what approaches do and don’t cause a women to reject a man? This is a thread about rape, not dating tips.
Frankly, I find it insulting that you couch your suggestions on how to stop rape in terms of how to improve men’s dating luck. How about we teach men that women actually are not “unfortunate obstacle to the pussy,”? rather than teaching them that oh, if they want to be laid and want to avoid having to rape a woman to get sex, they’d better make women like them, and one good way of doing so is by acting as if they think she’s more than a pussy on legs.
I mean, there are more benefits to viewing women as human beings than getting laid more often, for God’s sake…
Aegis, deal with the main flaw in your airtight theory–women have desire. We don’t have to be cajoled, tricked, sweet-talked or raped. We have with who we want when we want. Some men don’t like this because they don’t get to have sex with partners they want. Tough. I’ll never fuck Brad Pitt. You don’t see me hijacking threads to whine about how I don’t get the sex partners I clearly deserve.
Ah yes, the “inducing” argument. I think I look fine in my black turtleneck–but no skin. Is that inductive?
“Look, the problem of women saying “no”? when the mean “yes”? is self- curing. If no means no, these women will either learn to say “yes,”? or learn to do without.”
Not only that, but the realistic fear that a significant number of men will disregard a “no” makes many women all the more hesitant to say “yes” to begin with.
One night when I was exploring Paris by myself, some guy came up to me and asked me if I would go to a club with him. Since it was dark, I was a foreigner (and thus easy), and the street wasn’t especially full, I said no – but I kinda wanted to say yes – it sounded fun and he was kinda cute, and he had a great French accent.
If he had simply given me a sad look and walked away slowly, there is a slight (very slight) possibility that I would have turned around and said yes (after all, I could always back out if he started leading me down some completely empty street or started coming on too strong in crowded dance club). Instead, he was extremely perisistent, so I got the hell away from him as fast as I could. The boy obviously had trouble taking no for an answer; who knows what would have happened if I had gone along and he had come on too strong too fast.
Aegis, “interested” does not mean “definitely wants.” Thus, what Spicy and mousehounde said.
And as far as “what behavior many women will characterize with an instant “ew,”?: Treating us as a monolithic group rather than individuals with individual tastes.
I’m sure that’s not the detailed prescription you were hoping for, but it kinda covers all that needs to, and can, be covered; treating women as individuals is only thing that will ever work on a consistent basis.
Duh. Where have I said anything contradicting the idea that women have desire? And nowhere have I said anything about cajoling, tricking, or sweet-talking women; in fact, I doubt such tactics work very well. All I am trying to get across is the idea that how males behave and act has an influence on how much women desire them (or don’t desire them). Why is that such a complicated concept?
Why do you make these assumptions about me? I’ve never complained that I don’t get the sex partners I deserve. Most of my complaints are about the socialization I received. I actually don’t believe anyone ever “deserves” sex partners.
Why do you accuse me of notions like this? I’ve never said anything like that. In fact, I think that most of the time a guy gets “led on,” it is because he led himself on. My point was nothing to do with what women should or shouldn’t do, it was simply that women are capable of inducing men to want sex with them. Clothing was the first example that came to mind.
Wow, your criticism is accurate this time. Allow me to rephrase: “The most that can be inferred from my post is that if women always said “yes” to male sexual advances, male-on-female rape would never happen (which is correct). Note to the trigger-happy: this in no way implies that women should always say “yes” to male advances.
OK, Aegis,
LESSON ONE
1. When talking to a woman do not crowd her physically, do not intrude on her personal space, no not catch or trap her in a corner.
2. Do not mention sex – directly, in code or by body language. Let it the idea arise of its own accord, if it’s going to.
3. Do not approach her when she has already seen you among a group of men who, she could well think, have been egging you on to prove yourself. Even if they haven’t.
4. Observe in your commuinity one or two men, possibly a little older than you, who seem to have plenty of women friends. Do not go by what men say of themselves or about others. Observe for yourself relaxed and friendly interaction between the sexes. Learn from it.
5. Take up a hobby or activity which requires some effort, which is done by both men and women in roughly equal numbers, where there are classes or social events and where traditional gender roles are not reinforced. Do not go expecting sex on day one – you are there to develop your social skills.
That is by no means all you’ll need to learn but it might get us over the “nobody taught me” refrain and allow us to take the discussion forward.
I’m just puzzled about why it falls to me, eight time zones away, to tell you this and why no-one in your own community could have told you the same, had you been willing to ask.
Now, let’s move on with the real topic of this thread.
Aegis, your modified statement is still wrong. As mythago pointed out in the text you quoted: rape does not only happen after a no, it also happens when there was no yes (although, legally, at the moment, this only applies when there was no opportunity to say yes or no).
If there is a problem with my statement, you haven’t succeeded in pointing it out. You are saying that rape can happen when there is no “yes,”… yet I was talking about women saying “yes” to male advances. So what is the problem?
maureen,
I like your list. I can state from experiences that it is good advice. It would have helped me a lot a year or two ago when I had no social skills and was completely clueless with women, but I’ve already figured most of those out on my own (except perhaps #3).
Unfortunately, giving me that advice doesn’t really solve anything, because I am not the one who needs it (though thanks!). That is the kind of advice that all teenage males need to end up with somehow, because not all males are getting it right now.
Btw, don’t let me stop you from taking the discussion forward. I don’t have mind control powers that force people to respond to me. If people decide to respond to my posts, that is their choice.
As it happens, I did ask. What I heard was “just be yourself,” “be patient and you will the one,” “you are such a nice guy… girls may not see it now, but eventually they will come to appreciate you,” and “every woman wants something different.” These platitudes were completely unhelpful. Eventually, I started figuring things out for myself, and this has been mostly successful, though it took a ridiculous amount of time and energy. People seem to have this strange phobia about giving males advice on how to approach women, even common sense advice like yours. The assumptions seems to be that any examination into what kinds of approaches work better/worse with females is the same thing as males “manipulating” women, or trying to find some “magic formula” to get them in bed, or viewing women as identical or interchangeable.
Oops, it seems that I forgot to close the blockquotes…
Great, Aegis!
No 3 is there because women see better out of the corners of their eyes than men – just a quirk of evolution – so that we can have a very good idea what is going on in the other corner of the bar (or parish hall) without apparently watching!
If you’d like to continue this conversation offline do, please, ask Amp to let you have my e-mail address.
Help! I don’t know how to close the block quotes. M
[Fixed now! –Amp]
Aegis said:
Then Aegis said:
Moving goalposts anyone?
Aegis said:
“if a woman meets a man she is attracted to, then she will instantly know whether she will want to sleep with him or not.”?
Okay, turn-about – when you meet a women do you know whether or not you are attracted to her instantly? How often do you change her mind? How much of the attraction is based on say, how she first approached you, and how much is just physical? How could a women you find unattractive induce you to sleep with her?
Aegis, that may not be what you are intending to imply, but that is what is sounds like and how it reads. And not just to me.
Newsflash, Aegis. You are still clueless.
Aegis said:
I have been enjoying your posts in this thread. Unfortunately, I am afraid that you will find that most of the posters here don’t understand concepts like reading with charity or intellectual honesty. They won’t be constrained by “male-defined”? notions of civility, dontcha know? Sadly, this confirms your suspicion that some of them are more interested in blaming than in actually understanding the system and making practical changes to it.
Nephandus says:
This is my problem here ““ because I genuinely wish to do something, and my feeling is that the kind of rhetoric I’m reading here is what most self-defined feminists hold up as a cautionary tale, if it’s believed at all. Frankly, I think it’s harmful to women, because it is so steeped in hate, without offering anything useful.
What are the two of us saying here that’s so objectionable?
That men and women should be taught practical social tools that will allow them to express what they want in a healthy way, where both sides mutually respect each other?
That women might also have a role to play in a sexual dynamic between two people ““ in scenarios that go well, and that go wrong?
That women have sexual desire too and should not have to feel that it is wrong to express what they want?
As I recall, those were *feminist* notions in the 60’s, and people who rejected them were called chauvinists ““ generating the culture that allowed rape to germinate. Welcome to 2005, where feminism has become a kind of neo-Victorianism, and where promoting the same ideas will get angry feminists calling you a “rape apologist”?. I don’t want to turn back the clock, and I know most women don’t either, but my god, these people are carrying the movement right over the cliff, discrediting themselves and the work of the brave women and men who came before them. I think they are hurting women.
Sheezlebub said:
“You don’t “induce”? someone to have sex
Nephandus says:
Inducing could reasonably includes “asking,”? or “seeking explicit verbal permission”? ““ which, as I understand in these circles, would seem to be a requirement at each and every level of escalation in a sexual encounter. It could also include “asking”? or “seducing”? or just generally being desirable or likeable.
So we come to the fallacy of unfalsifiable hypothesis. Men are rapists when they do not explicitly permission sex from their partners. But they are also on the same continuum when they attempt to express sexual desire for a partner by reasonable means ““ which could include “asking”?, or any of the things people would associate with dating.
Maureen said:
“Do not mention sex – directly, in code or by body language. Let it the idea arise of its own accord, if it’s going to.”?
Nephandus says:
Here we are back to implied cues again ““ which, for what it’s worth ““ I think is more practical ground in which to engage the discussion, since this is where most real sexual interaction occurs. Of course, it’s not explicit verbal permission.
Amanda Marcotte Writes:
women have desire. We don’t have to be cajoled, tricked, sweet-talked
Nephandus says:
Part of what triggers desire is the way a potential mate acts and talks or otherwise behaves. If someone acts like a moron, they are not likely to become a partner. If someone says things that I like, that make me feel good, then an attraction is more likely to happen. I don’t generally call this “trickery”? or “cajolery”?. I just call it getting to know someone. I find the neo-Victorian strains in what I’m reading uncomfortable ““ it does seem as though you are describing the norm of sexual interaction as being that of a bestial male attempting to be granted favors by some ethereal, virginal, and entirely passive being ““ a perfect chivalric ideal once again.
The most that can be inferred from my post is that if women always said “yes”? to male sexual advances, male-on-female rape would never happen (which is correct)
Oh, what civil and grammatically correct phrasing. *applause*
It’s just brilliant, that after endless protestations of “oh but no I’m not saying that… I’m not apologising for…” you come up with such ridiculously transparent statements. Oh but still with the pre-emptive “I don’t really mean that/you’d be only misreading me” disclaimer! Aaaah, ok then.
[Aside from that interesting and oh so original notion of rape as a consequence of lack of sex, I love that “note to the trigger-happy” when you deny what you just said. That’s not even a disclaimer. That’s flat out illogical, by the very rules of dry-logic academic debate that you pay lip service to. If you say “if A always happened, B would never happen” you cannot say “that doesn’t mean I’m saying that for B not to happen anymore, A always has to happen”. It does mean that. They are equivalent statements.]
Unfortunately, I am afraid that you will find that most of the posters here don’t understand concepts like reading with charity or intellectual honesty. They won’t be constrained by “male-defined”? notions of civility, dontcha know?
More likely, they won’t be constrained by your own notions of civility, intelligence, honesty and intellectual anything.
Ever had a single healthy instant of self-doubt in your life, that maybe it’s you who is being an arse, not the others? Never? Never even had an instant of doubt in your life where perhaps the thought that you are not The Entire Male Gender dawned on you? That perhaps your views of and your problems with women are your own, not everybody’s? And your own to figure out, not others?
Apparently not, or you’d have been actually curious of hearing other people’s views, instead of coming to the discussion with that foregone conclusion that you speak Eternal Wisdom and everyone else just wants to throw blame around. You’ve had dozens different people spend their time answering your longwinded weaselly posts through a dozen different threads. Well done. Glad to have done my part to contribute to that success, you’re welcome. Now, if you could get half as many kicks from genuine interest and conversation and real mutual interaction with women face-to-face, as you do from turning internet discussions on rape into discussions of the ‘confusion’ of the dating male as personified by you, you wouldn’t have to whine about ‘no one taught me this and that’.
Even if human relationships including sexual relationships were a matter of learning the ‘right’ dance steps that are the same for everybody – and it isn’t like that, but let’s assume it is – well, no one is going to come to your door and teach you how to dance. You have to go out and do it for yourself. If all you want to do is whine that people aren’t dancing the way you want them to dance, then just don’t expect others to be convinced that you are genuinely interested in dancing, is all.
Very good quotes Spicy.
I don’t even know where to begin. This whole effort to talk about women just needing to say yes is just so disgusting and shows utterly no comprehension about what rape is. Its a simplistic and insulting interpretation designed to let men off the hook.
I find the neo-Victorian strains in what I’m reading uncomfortable ““ it does seem as though you are describing the norm of sexual interaction as being that of a bestial male attempting to be granted favors by some ethereal, virginal, and entirely passive being ““ a perfect chivalric ideal once again.
That’s funny, because that’s the impression one gets from our friend Aegis’s views of a man as initiating partner and women as those in charge of granting or refusing access to sex.
And why does it always have to be The left, The feminist movement, The anti-war movement, The gay rights movement, it’s like it’s one single-cell organism with one single direction, one single thought and one single attitude, no internal currents and differences of approach, and no possibility of individual disagreements. I don’t have to agree 100% with everything every single person with political orientation x says to consider myself within or close to that political orientation and view of things, jeez.
I haven’t noticed anyone here denying that women do have a role to play in a sexual dynamic between two people and do have sexual desire too and should not have to feel that it is wrong to express what they want – in fact, I have seen several comments from both men and women asserting that very clearly.
As far as I’m concerned, I do make a distinction between rape and lousy sexual encounters, and I do believe that it’s obviously up to women to be active and clear about what they personally like and what they don’t like. Still, that doesn’t mean I’m going to yay cheer a man like in Cala’s example, someone who, in the absence of any reaction or response from a woman he’s having sex with and who is breathing, conscious and awake (!), continues ‘performing’ a sexual act in a mechanical way like it made no difference to him wether the woman was real or a doll or a dead body. It’s a lousy, fucked up notion of sex. (One that sadly has been typical part and parcel of marriage when women were only property and breeders.) I don’t need to call it rape, not least because no such situation can be prosecuted as rape. Call it what you like, it’s still lousy and fucked up. It’s not ‘Victorian’ to say it’s fucked up, is it? I obviously would question what kind of notion of sex and of herself the woman in this situation has. It’s a given that at the very least she should have made it clear if she wanted him to stop doing whatever he was doing. I can’t even imagine that degree of accepted passivity. But why not point out also what’s fucked up in the man’s behaviour, for what was in his power to do or not do, you know? If it’s both man and woman who have awful, sad notions of sex as a mechanical active-on-passive penetration act, why does it bother some men so much to point out the man’s role in it?
Also, I agree with Amanda:
What we can teach young men is to value women’s enthusiasm, but of course, that would require a certain sex positivity that our culture is reluctant to embrace.
How is any of that “neo-Victorian”?