Thread: Consent Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by scuffleball (# 16480) on
:
What is consent?
There has been discussion recently that one cannot consent [to sex] without doing so explicitly and verbally, and that people who drink more than the drink drive limit cannot consent.
There are some counter arguments. The first counter argument this is broadening the definition of rape. But to me this seems no different to saying that same sex marriage is broadening the definition of marriage, or that words like computer and gay cannot change their meanings.
Then there is the argument that people choose to drink too much alcohol so they should be responsible for their own actions having done so. And maybe you have reason, but certainly it seems highly immoral to sex someone in a stupefied state. Also, what about date rape drugs or even adding extra alcohol to someone's drink without their consent?
[ 12. June 2013, 18:43: Message edited by: Ancient Mariner ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
What is consent?
There has been discussion recently that one cannot consent [to sex] without doing so explicitly and verbally, and that people who drink more than the drink drive limit cannot consent.
There are some counter arguments. The first counter argument this is broadening the definition of rape. But to me this seems no different to saying that same sex marriage is broadening the definition of marriage, or that words like computer and gay cannot change their meanings.
Then there is the argument that people choose to drink too much alcohol so they should be responsible for their own actions having done so. And maybe you have reason, but certainly it seems highly immoral to sex someone in a stupefied state. Also, what about date rape drugs or even adding extra alcohol to someone's drink without their consent?
That argument in the middle doesn't make sense. If you are completely blotto, you cannot give consent, therefore it's the other person who is responsible for their own actions. Thus, having sex with someone who is out of it, is rape. Seems sensible to me.
Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on
:
I think Scuffleball is offering the argument in the third paragraph that if you choose to drink yourself into a stupor then, as it's so often crudely put, you're asking for it.
There is more protection for the foolish in the proposal that consent must be explicit and verbal.
GG
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
One of the effects of alcohol - long before the blotto stage - is to impair your judgment and decision-making over quite a range of issues. So really you need to be teetotal, because one glass of Chardonnay and you've already sold the pass in terms of maintaining the level of responsibility the OP suggests.
But there is a degree of trust implicit in society. You expect to be able to walk down the street without being immediately set upon because you are carrying money. You expect to socialise in places and in a way that is condoned - even promoted - by society without being raped. And when you get it wrong - it's your fault for choosing this street or that company and not that of the mugger or rapist?
Posted by birdie (# 2173) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
Then there is the argument that people choose to drink too much alcohol so they should be responsible for their own actions having done so.
That argument in the middle doesn't make sense. If you are completely blotto, you cannot give consent, therefore it's the other person who is responsible for their own actions. Thus, having sex with someone who is out of it, is rape. Seems sensible to me.
Damn right. I think we urgently need to educate young men and women about consent - that consent is not the absence of 'no' but the presence of 'yes', and that 'no' should always, always be respected.
Not long after the Steubenville rape case, I came across this piece from a 9th grade teacher which to be honest, I found both moving and chilling. The teacher did a fantastic job in talking about consent, victim shaming and other issues and that was great. But then, that's one class of children in one place. That there is a generation of children growing up who might ask "How can it be rape? She wasn't awake to say no.", I find terrifying.
The Day I Taught How Not to Rape
Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on
:
Part of the reason why this is so important to talk about now is that people were seriously making the argument that in the Steubenville case the victim was not raped because she was unconscious and therefore unable to say no. And while it would be good if everyone who was uncomfortable with proceedings was able to give a clear unambiguous "no" the trouble is that when fear kicks in people can respond in different ways - freezing, being rendered speechless and so on. So the message is gradually being adjusted from "no means no" to "only yes means yes" which seems sensible to me.
That "yes" can be verbal or nonverbal or some combination of the two. Mostly it's common sense. I've heard a lot of whining about "But how am I supposed to know if she's up for it if I don't ask permission for every single act?" and honestly, that's pretty stupid. If your partner tenses up, looks frightened or uncomfortable or otherwise indicates reluctance, you stop and ask. If you don't get some kind of clear consent in response, then don't start again. Frankly, if you are unable to tell whether the person you're with wants to do this, and unwilling to ask, you shouldn't be sleeping with anyone.
[aaaaaaaand crosspost ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
]
[ 12. June 2013, 10:38: Message edited by: Liopleurodon ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
I think Scuffleball is offering the argument in the third paragraph that if you choose to drink yourself into a stupor then, as it's so often crudely put, you're asking for it.
There is more protection for the foolish in the proposal that consent must be explicit and verbal.
GG
And it's a completely nonsensical argument. Fortunately, the law now does not accept it.
Posted by argona (# 14037) on
:
It is true that drunkenness is no excuse in law for committing any crime. Implicitly, the point is that drinking to a level where you cannot control your actions is itself a consensual act for which you must take responsibility.
However, this can only apply to your own actions, not what somebody does to you. Mug, murder or rape somebody while drunk and you must pay the price. Get mugged, murdered or raped while drunk and 'S/he chose to get drunk so was asking for it' is always a non-sequitur.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
I can't understand one basic thing about the men's arguments in these sort of cases. Where on earth is the pleasure in "having sex" with an unconscious, non-responsive, person? Couldn't the same be achieved on one's own? With an inflatable dummy? If the victim is just lying there all floppy, just what is the point? And again, what is the pleasure in doing it to someone who has shown they aren't enjoying it?
If that sort of thing isn't rape, it certainly isn't making love.
Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I can't understand one basic thing about the men's arguments in these sort of cases. Where on earth is the pleasure in "having sex" with an unconscious, non-responsive, person? Couldn't the same be achieved on one's own? With an inflatable dummy? If the victim is just lying there all floppy, just what is the point? And again, what is the pleasure in doing it to someone who has shown they aren't enjoying it?
If that sort of thing isn't rape, it certainly isn't making love.
Well, that's the perfect illustration of the truth that rape isn't about sex, it's about power. There may not be much "pleasure" in the sense that we like to think of sexual pleasure, but for a certain type of person there may be great pleasure in having forced themselves upon someone who would not have allowed their attentions if they had been able to resist.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Penny S
That's a whole can of worms, I mean the darker side of male desire. I guess there are men who are turned on by a non-responsive or unconscious woman, and many other varieties of this. I'm sure also, there is a dark side to female desire also. It involves power, powerlessness, fear, hatred, aggression, all of which can be eroticized.
I think Freud argued that sex was useful as it permitted our dark desires some safe expression, that is, in 'normal' sex. It's difficult to test this idea though, although I think there is something in it. For example, rape fantasies seem quite common, and are presumably quite safe in most people, as they don't act them out.
[ 12. June 2013, 12:02: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
Penny S: I can't understand one basic thing about the men's arguments in these sort of cases. Where on earth is the pleasure in "having sex" with an unconscious, non-responsive, person? Couldn't the same be achieved on one's own? With an inflatable dummy? If the victim is just lying there all floppy, just what is the point? And again, what is the pleasure in doing it to someone who has shown they aren't enjoying it?
It definitely isn't my thing, but if you're asking "Where do these men get the pleasure from?", I would guess the answer is: "the kick of power".
Which automatically leads to this conclusion: quote:
Penny S: If that sort of thing isn't rape, it certainly isn't making love.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Well, I think this is straying into dodgy territory. You have to distinguish fantasy from acting out. I would guess that lots of people enjoy a certain degree of fantasy about being overpowered, or doing the overpowering. This seems fine to me, as it is not being acted out. It is quite separate from rape, or violence.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
(LOL, I think three people gave basically the same answer to Penny S' question, cross-posting with eachother ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
)
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I wonder if they were cross-dressing as well.
The other point I forgot to make about fantasies about being overpowered and so on, is that they seem often involuntary. They just seem to rise up and float around. Well, if you want to try to control them, go ahead, but don't blame me if sex turns into a mental wrestling match, with possibly flaccid consequences.
[ 12. June 2013, 12:23: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by birdie:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
Then there is the argument that people choose to drink too much alcohol so they should be responsible for their own actions having done so.
That argument in the middle doesn't make sense. If you are completely blotto, you cannot give consent, therefore it's the other person who is responsible for their own actions. Thus, having sex with someone who is out of it, is rape. Seems sensible to me.
Damn right. I think we urgently need to educate young men and women about consent - that consent is not the absence of 'no' but the presence of 'yes', and that 'no' should always, always be respected.
Not long after the Steubenville rape case, I came across this piece from a 9th grade teacher which to be honest, I found both moving and chilling. The teacher did a fantastic job in talking about consent, victim shaming and other issues and that was great. But then, that's one class of children in one place. That there is a generation of children growing up who might ask "How can it be rape? She wasn't awake to say no.", I find terrifying.
The Day I Taught How Not to Rape
What if both parties, having been drinking Jager bombs together all night are blotto and both have impaired judgement? (That might not be the only function that is impaired though.)
Either way the giving and interpreting consent may be a bit foggy."I realise that he/she was drunk but thought he/she was coming onto to me. Then they came round and regretted their actions."
(Playing devil's advocate to see how this kind of legislation might work in practice. Just for the record, I think consent should be consciously given. In some kind of committed relationship).
Posted by scuffleball (# 16480) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
What is consent?
There has been discussion recently that one cannot consent [to sex] without doing so explicitly and verbally, and that people who drink more than the drink drive limit cannot consent.
There are some counter arguments. The first counter argument this is broadening the definition of rape. But to me this seems no different to saying that same sex marriage is broadening the definition of marriage, or that words like computer and gay cannot change their meanings.
Then there is the argument that people choose to drink too much alcohol so they should be responsible for their own actions having done so. And maybe you have reason, but certainly it seems highly immoral to sex someone in a stupefied state. Also, what about date rape drugs or even adding extra alcohol to someone's drink without their consent?
That argument in the middle doesn't make sense. If you are completely blotto, you cannot give consent, therefore it's the other person who is responsible for their own actions. Thus, having sex with someone who is out of it, is rape. Seems sensible to me.
The argument was stated thus; "if you get drunk and hit someone/throw up you should be expected to pay the consequences" or "if you are really drunk and someone persuades you to do a robbery are you not nevertheless responsible?" Which sounds like a dubious canard to me but I'm not exactly sure how to reply other than "what about Steubenville?"
Posted by scuffleball (# 16480) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Fortunately, the law now does not accept it.
It doesn't? I know a number of people who want the legal definition of rape to be broadened also.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
The argument was stated thus; "if you get drunk and hit someone/throw up you should be expected to pay the consequences" or "if you are really drunk and someone persuades you to do a robbery are you not nevertheless responsible?" Which sounds like a dubious canard to me but I'm not exactly sure how to reply other than "what about Steubenville?"
Hitting someone is a crime. Robbing someone is a crime. Raping someone is a crime. Being raped is not a crime.
You know, as often as I think I wouldn't have to explain this it's still a distinction that eludes an enormous number of people.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Fortunately, the law now does not accept it.
It doesn't? I know a number of people who want the legal definition of rape to be broadened also.
I think possibly we're shouting across the Atlantic here. The Crown Prosecution Service advice on rape in England and Wales includes this:
"People who have consumed alcohol may reach such a level of drunkenness that they no longer have the capacity to give consent. The courts recognise that this stage may be reached well before they become unconscious."
http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/rape.html
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
:
What about in situations where both parties get so drunk they wake up in bed without any memory of either having consented or not (a common trope in flms and TV shows though I assume it happens in real life as well). Is the man guilty of rape just because he is the penetrator rather than the penetratee in this mutually messy situation? Why can't the woman be argued to have just as much raped the man as the man raped the woman if neither of them have given explicit sober consent?
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
If a woman complained that she had been raped, and could not remember anything, and the guy ditto, I would think that the CPS would need some very powerful persuading to take that one to court.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think Freud
was one sick, fuck.
Question of degree, I think.
I have a large punching bag, ~45kg, that I occasionally hit and kick. I have used it to vent aggression. Research indicates, however, that this reinforces aggressive behaviour rather than releases it.
While dark fantasies may not turn to action, I am not sure they should be considered therapy either.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
The argument was stated thus; "if you get drunk and hit someone/throw up you should be expected to pay the consequences" or "if you are really drunk and someone persuades you to do a robbery are you not nevertheless responsible?" Which sounds like a dubious canard to me but I'm not exactly sure how to reply other than "what about Steubenville?"
Here would be my answer: "The first two scenarios you described imply some sort of motor control and ability to take initiative. So, by acting they are making a choice. If someone is drunk to the point they can't physically respond or so drunk they can't even from the word 'Stop,' that hardly compares."
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
If a woman complained that she had been raped, and could not remember anything, and the guy ditto, I would think that the CPS would need some very powerful persuading to take that one to court.
Yeah, exactly.
The Steubenville case involved several witnesses and video evidence of a girl who basically couldn't move getting passed around by a bunch of boys. That would be a good base point to illustrate the concept of "unable to give consent."
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think Freud
was one sick, fuck.
Question of degree, I think.
I have a large punching bag, ~45kg, that I occasionally hit and kick. I have used it to vent aggression. Research indicates, however, that this reinforces aggressive behaviour rather than releases it.
While dark fantasies may not turn to action, I am not sure they should be considered therapy either.
Well, I think the idea is that repressing fantasies causes trouble.
Freud? A genius in my book. Was he sick? I don't know.
Posted by comet (# 10353) on
:
just a side note, here, but don't count on whiskey dick. I know a lot of people think that because a man can get it up he wasn't "that" drunk.
I know of two men who were raped when they were seriously impaired. one was unconscious. the other has no idea what shape he was in, remembers nothing, but the DNA test came back positive and now he's a daddy.
Both of these men have told me they consider themselves to have been raped. neither called authorities because they knew they would not be taken seriously.
I have also talked to both of the women in these cases who laughed it off. Because "he obviously was interested!"
the pecker is a weird animal. a hard-on does not equal consent, either.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Yes, if you tie a man down, and against his will, stimulate his penis, it will get hard with some men. I suppose some abusers of boys might make the shitty argument that the boy was aroused, as he might have been in terms of an erection. Of course, this confuses boys as well, as they feel ashamed that somehow they were complicit.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
The Steubenville case involved several witnesses and video evidence of a girl who basically couldn't move getting passed around by a bunch of boys. That would be a good base point to illustrate the concept of "unable to give consent."
People who are unconscious can't consent to anything - I would have thought that was obvious.
Quetzalcoatl quotes the UK Crown Prosecution Service upthread, though:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
"People who have consumed alcohol may reach such a level of drunkenness that they no longer have the capacity to give consent. The courts recognise that this stage may be reached well before they become unconscious."
http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/rape.html
This is talking about someone who has some degree of motor control, is awake and talking, but is completely blotto and would probably go along with just about any suggestion that was made to them. In the UK, at least, sex with that person is rape, but there's a far bigger grey area in this kind of case than in something like Steubenville. Drunkenness is a continuum, but you can't have a continuum between legal, consensual sex and rape. A legal threshold has to be drawn somewhere.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I don't think grey areas invalidate a particular law or set of laws. In fact, you are bound to get them, and one of the functions of the CPS is to deliberate upon them, and decide if a prosecution is likely to succeed, and if it's in the public interest also.
But I assume that actions that would once not have been considered rape, today are, and one example is plying a girl with drink, and then having sex with her. I would think that once you would have got away with it 100% of the time, but today, maybe not so easily.
I guess the lawyers love the grey areas also, as they get to make loads of money.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
You know, as often as I think I wouldn't have to explain this it's still a distinction that eludes an enormous number of people.
A sad and disheartening truth.
-------------
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, I think the idea is that repressing fantasies causes trouble.
Repressing, rather than addressing, yes. But one must be careful walking the line between acknowledging and licensing.
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Freud? A genius in my book. Was he sick? I don't know.
One does not preclude the other. While I do not think his contributions should be ignored, I do think he projected more than he realised.
lilBuddha letting go of this tangent
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think Freud
was one sick, fuck.
Question of degree, I think.
I have a large punching bag, ~45kg, that I occasionally hit and kick. I have used it to vent aggression. Research indicates, however, that this reinforces aggressive behaviour rather than releases it.
While dark fantasies may not turn to action, I am not sure they should be considered therapy either.
I don't have a punching bag, but I do have a Freud finger puppet and a Freud action figure. When I don't have appointments, both Freuds play with my StarTrek Next Generation actions figures (Captain Picard, Worf, Riker, Picard as Borg, and I also have the Grand Negus from Deep Space Nine).
I asked all of the above what they thought about consent. The STNG characters all deferred to Counsellor Troi, who is not here. The Freuds told me that "alles dem penis geschaft possessors müst do mehr goot lovin und schpeaking bevor using dem pekker", the meaning of which is rather transparent: no talkie no fuckie.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
no prophet: The STNG characters all deferred to Counsellor Troi, who is not here.
She wouldn't be of much use anyway. She'd babble something like "I sense some agitation in your question, do you want to talk about it?" and then go water her plants or something.
Posted by argona (# 14037) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I have a large punching bag, ~45kg, that I occasionally hit and kick. I have used it to vent aggression. Research indicates, however, that this reinforces aggressive behaviour rather than releases it.
Indeed. Also shouting, screaming, cursing, all the things people call "letting off steam". We are not pressure cookers.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
lilBuddha: I have a large punching bag, ~45kg, that I occasionally hit and kick. I have used it to vent aggression.
I have a trumpet. It can play really loud!
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
lilBuddha: I have a large punching bag, ~45kg, that I occasionally hit and kick. I have used it to vent aggression.
I have a trumpet. It can play really loud!
That's not so loud. My amp goes to 11.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Various:
--Some American colleges used to have student sexual relationsip contracts. Both parties would sign up before starting the relationship. It was to clarify any future claims of sexual harassment, etc. Of course, that might not help in a specific instance. I don't know how well the contracts worked.
I searched but didn't find any relevant hits. IIRC, either Antioch College or Oberlin was the first. I think the program started in the late '70s. Perhaps it was dropped.
--I read once that Herr Freud originally believed many people had "premature sexual experience" in the form of abuse. But the more he got into it, the more uncomfortable he got. IIRC, there were letters suggesting there may have been abuse somewhere in his family. Supposedly, that was when he backed off and decided it was all psychological and symbolic, rather than actual happenings.
If only he could've stuck with his original realization...
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
--Counselor Troi took abuse and rape seriously, whether physical or telepathic. She and other crew members experienced it.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Well, many of the post-Freudians did rehabilitate the idea of child abuse. And of course, the role of fantasy and symbolism remained pretty important. O/t.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
This is talking about someone who has some degree of motor control, is awake and talking, but is completely blotto and would probably go along with just about any suggestion that was made to them. In the UK, at least, sex with that person is rape, but there's a far bigger grey area in this kind of case than in something like Steubenville. Drunkenness is a continuum, but you can't have a continuum between legal, consensual sex and rape. A legal threshold has to be drawn somewhere.
Playing devil's advocate here -
If someone (of their own volition) were to get completely blotto and sign a life-changing contract, wouldn't that contract still count as legally binding? IOW, it would be treated as though the signatory had given complete consent.
Don't get me wrong - it would be morally reprehensible to take advantage of someone's drunkenness in that way, but as I understand the law the contract would stand nonetheless.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
According to this page,
quote:
If a person signs a contract while drunk or under the influence of drugs, can that contract be enforced? Courts are usually not very sympathetic to people who claim they were intoxicated when they signed a contract. Generally a court will only allow the contract to be avoided if the other party to the contract knew about the intoxication and took advantage of the intoxicated person, or if the person was somehow involuntarily intoxicated (e.g. someone spiked the punch).
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Playing devil's advocate here -
If someone (of their own volition) were to get completely blotto and sign a life-changing contract, wouldn't that contract still count as legally binding? IOW, it would be treated as though the signatory had given complete consent.
Don't get me wrong - it would be morally reprehensible to take advantage of someone's drunkenness in that way, but as I understand the law the contract would stand nonetheless.
Yes, it would. Someone I know was doing military service (at the time when it was compulsory in France) and got blind drunk with his comrades. They held out a bit of paper to him and told him to sign it, which in his intoxicated stupor, he did. Next day he discovered he'd signed up for the parachute regiment. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
He was forced to go through with it, which included having to fight a war in [can't remember which African country]. FWIW, he now thinks joining the Paras was one of the best things that ever happened to him.
Not sure whether that's relevant for discussion of sexual consent, tho <muses>
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
:
We used to call it "Taking the King's Shilling" The story told on the HMS Victory tour was that recruiting Seargants used to slip them into a jar of ale, it was taken when it touched the lips!
[Put link into bitly to fix the code
-Gwai,
Purg Host]
[ 13. June 2013, 14:15: Message edited by: Gwai ]
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
We used to call it [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King's_shilling]"Taking the King's Shilling"[/url] The story told on the HMS Victory tour was that recruiting Seargants used to slip them into a jar of ale, it was taken when it touched the lips!
Hence the existence of tankards with glass bottoms, or so I gather.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Some American colleges used to have student sexual relationsip contracts. Both parties would sign up before starting the relationship. It was to clarify any future claims of sexual harassment, etc. Of course, that might not help in a specific instance. I don't know how well the contracts worked.
I never understood that. All the "contract" tells you is that the parties consented to sex at the time that they signed the contract. If you want to use that as evidence that rape didn't happen, aren't you claiming that marital rape doesn't exist?
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Various:
I read once that Herr Freud originally believed many people had "premature sexual experience" in the form of abuse. But the more he got into it, the more uncomfortable he got. IIRC, there were letters suggesting there may have been abuse somewhere in his family. Supposedly, that was when he backed off and decided it was all psychological and symbolic, rather than actual happenings.
If only he could've stuck with his original realization...
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson was the author who put this idea forward in a book The Assault on Truth. He overstated his case, as did Freud when he retracted the "seduction theory" in the face of intense criticism. I've read that and Freud and His Father (by Marianne Krull) which discusses this all rather well. The truth lies somewhere between. I think the better wish is that both theories had been maintained.
Posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg (# 17687) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
What is consent?
There has been discussion recently that one cannot consent [to sex] without doing so explicitly and verbally, and that people who drink more than the drink drive limit cannot consent.
There are two matters on the table here: 1 sexuality (touching) and 2 imbibing alcohol with its effects on cognitive function.
1. Sexuality is related to the propagation of our bloodline, not merely to pleasure and mating versus STDs and unwanted children.
Consent in sexuality is PROFOUND by the WILL. Nobody here thinks that physical passion is a trivial pursuit. It's an emcompassing and engrossing experience ... not easy to escape.
Sexual dalliances are another matter: either of excess or out of frustration and alienation.
2. Consenting to have one's organism relieved of acidosis by the infusion of alcohol, to relieve pain, relieve tension, relieve worry ... is a different order of experience.
Some people get away with fewer cognitive problems with alcohol than others, but everybody in our society and culture needs a chemical remedy and antidote to the terrible acids that overwhelm our bodies in this society:
--lack of enough oxygen, breathing.
--too much protein in the diet.
--toxicity accumulated in the gut.
Alcohol relieves these problems, but causes other problems of dizziness, disorientation and confusion.
We trade one problem for another. That's not the same as "sexual" consent.
They're different problems.
Emily
Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on
:
My opinion might not be popular but i would say both are to blame in a way.
If a girl gets completely wasted and a guy takes advantage, then he committed a crime in my opinion. Kind of the same thing to me if 2 people get into a fight and one accidentally kills the other. Whether it was intended or not, a crime was committed.
I do feel however that a lot of people take 0 responsibility for their own actions anymore. It's like getting mad at fire if it burns someone. This is why people teach kids to avoid these situations in the first place. because we know they are setting themselves up for trouble. While i wouldn't say it's ever the girls fault, if you get that drunk around a bunch of other drunk people it's like smearing honey on yourself and laying down in the woods in front of a hungry bear. I don't know that i feel the definition needs to be broadened though. I'd just say it's best to avoid situations where you could be put on either side of it.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rafin:
While i wouldn't say it's ever the girls fault, if you get that drunk around a bunch of other drunk people it's like smearing honey on yourself and laying down in the woods in front of a hungry bear.
But that seems to be exactly what you are saying. If you get that drunk around a bunch of other drunk people, then could the "honey" be a boy and the "hungry bear" be another aggressive boy who beats him up for no reason? Iow, you seem to be saying that to some degree a girl is asking for rape if she gets that drunk, but do you think the same for physical assault? They are often identical.
In addition, it's disturbing that you chose that particular analogy. It seems to suggest that boys are hungry bears and seems to deny that rape (non consensual sex) is an act of power and aggression and suggests that rape is motivated by sex. It's not.
However, I do understand the complexities at play here and understand you may have meant something completely different.
To speak of some of the other topics, I think that, as hard as it is to do, sexual crimes needs to be looked at the same way murder is looked at. By that I mean, we need to look at the motives and extenuating circumstances of the criminal.
For example, the scenario of the very drunk male and the very drunk female. Neither capable of giving or receiving consent. This may not be rape because of the state of mind of the male or the two people involved. Also, there is the scenario of the quite drunk female acting provocatively but is actually unable to give consent. Her actions cold be misconstrued.
I do know someone who recently woke up next to someone she had just met and was naked. She doesn't remember if she had sex or not. This was obviously somewhat disturbing to her, but she also realized her role in the situation and is letting it go and moving on. I don't know the state of mind of the boy. However, if he was sober enough to realize that she was not capable of consent, it was rape. If he was very drunk he may not have had that ability to choose right from wrong. If she was very drunk, as she obviously was, but acting and speaking in a very willing manner, it was not. If she had become pregnant.....consequences are consequences and he would have had to deal with that same as her.
It's about state of mind and choosing right from wrong and choosing not to knowingly violate someone. It's very simply wrong to knowingly hurt another person, especially in that manner.
The situation of an unconscious female "unable to say no, therefore, its not rape", is completely disgusting.
And if you get very drunk and you have no one around you to watch out for you.....yes, that is a very dangerous situation. For many reasons. I don't know many people who go out alone and get smashed. I'm very familiar with "girl code". Friends watch out for friends.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rafin:
My opinion might not be popular but i would say both are to blame in a way.
If a girl gets completely wasted and a guy takes advantage, then he committed a crime in my opinion. Kind of the same thing to me if 2 people get into a fight and one accidentally kills the other. Whether it was intended or not, a crime was committed.
I do feel however that a lot of people take 0 responsibility for their own actions anymore. It's like getting mad at fire if it burns someone. This is why people teach kids to avoid these situations in the first place. because we know they are setting themselves up for trouble. While i wouldn't say it's ever the girls fault, if you get that drunk around a bunch of other drunk people it's like smearing honey on yourself and laying down in the woods in front of a hungry bear. I don't know that i feel the definition needs to be broadened though. I'd just say it's best to avoid situations where you could be put on either side of it.
It is not zero sum. Whist it may be stupid to become intoxicated at a party and may make one more vulnerable, the rapist is still 100% guilty of rape.
Posted by anne (# 73) on
:
Before I leave the house, I check that I have locked all the doors and shut the windows. Leaving a window open so that someone can get in is stupid. But even if the front door stands open all day, my belongings should be safe. Coming into my house and stealing my telly is theft, whether or not I was smart enough to lock the door.
Although of course I would hope to avoid being too stupid, too much of the time, I should be able to be stupid, or to do stupid things, without becoming a victim of crime. I should be able to see a person doing a stupid thing without choosing to commit a crime against them.
anne
[ 14. June 2013, 07:05: Message edited by: anne ]
Posted by scuffleball (# 16480) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Various:
--Some American colleges used to have student sexual relationsip contracts. Both parties would sign up before starting the relationship. It was to clarify any future claims of sexual harassment, etc. Of course, that might not help in a specific instance. I don't know how well the contracts worked.
I searched but didn't find any relevant hits. IIRC, either Antioch College or Oberlin was the first. I think the program started in the late '70s. Perhaps it was dropped.
Hunh? As in "I consent to xyz until further notice"? Because isn't part of the point of consent that it's freely retractable at any time?
Posted by scuffleball (# 16480) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
This is talking about someone who has some degree of motor control, is awake and talking, but is completely blotto and would probably go along with just about any suggestion that was made to them. In the UK, at least, sex with that person is rape, but there's a far bigger grey area in this kind of case than in something like Steubenville. Drunkenness is a continuum, but you can't have a continuum between legal, consensual sex and rape. A legal threshold has to be drawn somewhere.
Playing devil's advocate here -
If someone (of their own volition) were to get completely blotto and sign a life-changing contract, wouldn't that contract still count as legally binding? IOW, it would be treated as though the signatory had given complete consent.
Don't get me wrong - it would be morally reprehensible to take advantage of someone's drunkenness in that way, but as I understand the law the contract would stand nonetheless.
Kelly Alves' argument still holds - "The first two scenarios you described imply some sort of motor control and ability to take initiative. So, by acting they are making a choice. If someone is drunk to the point they can't physically respond or so drunk they can't even from the word 'Stop,' that hardly compares."
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
But in the UK, it can be rape, even if the women is conscious, but is totally hammered. I think the argument that she could speak or move, will not get the rapist off. No doubt, it's a very grey area.
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
quote:
Originally posted by Rafin:
While i wouldn't say it's ever the girls fault, if you get that drunk around a bunch of other drunk people it's like smearing honey on yourself and laying down in the woods in front of a hungry bear.
But that seems to be exactly what you are saying. If you get that drunk around a bunch of other drunk people, then could the "honey" be a boy and the "hungry bear" be another aggressive boy who beats him up for no reason? Iow, you seem to be saying that to some degree a girl is asking for rape if she gets that drunk, but do you think the same for physical assault? They are often identical.
I would say so. Any time someone gets drunk around other people you put yourself at risk. The drunker you get the more risk you put yourself in. You need to trust the people whose company you are in, and not everyone is a good and perfectly moral person - especially when drunk!
It is the same as if you walked into a room full of strangers, handcuffed your hands behind your back, blindfolded and gagged yourself and left your wallet and phone sticking out of your pocket. If you are incapacitating yourself so that you can't properly look after yourself, defend your property or person, then you have to make damn sure you're doing so among friends who will look out for you, and make sure you're safe. While mentally and physically incapacitated you have basically made yourself utterly vulnerable - to theft, violence, humiliation, and even rape.
Is getting fall-over drunk alone in a roomful of strangers a really, really, really stupid thing to do? Yes, of course. Is raping or otherwise harming someone who has put themselves in that vulnerable position a sick crime? Yes, of course. But sick criminals exist, and everyone needs to be very, very careful in public places where anyone could take advantage.
To argue that society should be otherwise, that everyone should be good and moral people, that any girl should be able to collapse unconscious in a house full of drunken men wherever they please without any danger at all is a lovely wish, but it's never gonna happen.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Fortunately, the treatment of rape has moved on from the days when a girl who was drunk, or who wore revealing clothing, was reckoned to be partly culpable.
It may be foolish to be hammered with a bunch of men who are hammered; none the less, if they have sex with her without consent, it's rape.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by anne:
Before I leave the house, I check that I have locked all the doors and shut the windows. Leaving a window open so that someone can get in is stupid. But even if the front door stands open all day, my belongings should be safe. Coming into my house and stealing my telly is theft, whether or not I was smart enough to lock the door.
Yes I get that , it reminds me of the old catch-phrase "Don't invite crime" used in crime prevention when people were encouraged not to leave valuables on display in locked cars.
So, straying into the shot down in flames arena, doesn't the same logic apply to the scantily clad female who behaves provocatively and gets herself blind drunk ?
Yes, it may please are sense of retribution to brand a man who take advantage in this situation a 'Rapist' , in the same way we brand the person who walks in through anne's open door to take the telly a 'Thief'.
Fact remains though -- Prevention is better than cure.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I don't see that it's about retribution. It's simply about the law on consent. Having sex with someone without it is rape, and it doesn't matter if she is drunk, scantily clothed, etc.
Those ideas go back to the old days, when female sexuality was itself seen as suspect, and women were blamed for rape. Thankfully, this is less common in the courts, at least in the UK.
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on
:
Here's the thing though… I agree that it is wrong to take sexual advantage of a drunk person and that it ought to be considered rape and prosecuted as such.
OTOH, I also think that my friend was responsible for his own actions under the influence when getting conned into signing himself up for the Paras and didn't have a (legal) leg to stand on when he tried to get out of it.
I'm not sure my position is consistent and I'm having a hard time articulating why the two things are different.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
It's interesting that 'cooling off' periods have been introduced for certain contracts, precisely because people may be not be in a rational state, when they agreed to the contract.
Of course, it doesn't apply to all contracts, and mainly, I think, to cold callers, and online sales of certain services, e.g. insurance.
I suppose also it's because there have been so many scandals about mis-selling.
Posted by Dinghy Sailor (# 8507) on
:
I think it's a bit more fuzzy than how some people try to paint it. Yes, consent is essential. However, at what stage are you too drunk to give consent? Any amount of alcohol will alter your mind, so you're likely to do things that you wouldn't do if sober. If we wanted to be clear cut, we'd have to say that it's impossible to obtain consent to sex from anyone who has any amount of alcohol in their blood - and that's clearly never going to work!
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I don't think that I have been avoiding the fuzziness - I have mentioned grey areas on a number of occasions.
In the UK, that is up to the CPS, to decide if a prosecution is likely to succeed, given the evidence, and also, if it is in the public interest.
Then trials themselves begin to illuminate the grey areas, and there have been a few cases in the UK, which seem to do this, for example, it is not OK to have sex with a drunk woman who seems incapacitated, even if conscious. You can't assume that having had sex once, gives you permission to do it again, and so on and so on.
On the other hand, it is not OK to have sex with someone consensually, and then feel regret and cry rape. The courts tend to come down heavily on this.
But these cases must be a nightmare to conduct, as the evidence might be very slight.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
Here's the thing though… I agree that it is wrong to take sexual advantage of a drunk person and that it ought to be considered rape and prosecuted as such.
OTOH, I also think that my friend was responsible for his own actions under the influence when getting conned into signing himself up for the Paras and didn't have a (legal) leg to stand on when he tried to get out of it.
I'm not sure my position is consistent and I'm having a hard time articulating why the two things are different.
I'd say your position is consistent because you aren't saying that the people who conned your friend into signing up for the paras are innocent. Also, you have never implied that he was physically forced to sign up, which would be closer to an equivalent with rape, for me.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Those ideas go back to the old days, when female sexuality was itself seen as suspect, and women were blamed for rape.
I make no apology for having ideas of the old days . Days when women weren't afraid to go outside the door for the fear of rape , days when young women didn't subscribe to a succession of sexual encounters with strangers picked from IT chat-rooms to overcome feelings of being ugly.
But yeah, nostalgia ain't what it used to be .
Anyway someone who takes advantage of a drunk woman isn't a bad person they just made a bad decision, a bit like the yorkshire ripper really,(yes I'm being silly in case you're wondering).
As for the matter of female sexuality and it's 50 shades of grey area ? Well I happen to think the last minute withdrawal of support from the UK's 'slut-pride' march tells us just how grey it is.
Am I excusing the actions of a rapist in all of this ? No I am not . Someone convicted of violent assault and rape, on the basis of hard evidence, deserve every damn thing they get and need to be locked away for a very long period . Oh dear, that's me patronizing women again .
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
rolyn, just as long as you remember that in those same days you wouldn't have had a clue how many people were being raped because they couldn't afford to tell anyone. Maybe if no one worried about rape then, it's just because no one dared to worry about it aloud.
Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on
:
Basically what I am saying is that people need to use their heads. I was wrong to say both are to blame in a way. It may have come out wrong.
My point is that just because people shouldn't do something doesn't mean they won't and it's best to avoid putting yourself in a situation that someone can take advantage of that way. It doesn't make it the girls fault, but she has greatly increased her risk of it happening. And i don't think there is anything wrong with pointing that out.
Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on
:
Thing is, silly mistakes victims make get pointed out CONSTANTLY. Every time. Every case. It hurts people who've been through sexual assault that it's the first thing that gets brought up. Yeah it's not sensible to drink until you pass out / fall over / can't remember your own name. But there is something insidious about the fact that whenever someone gets raped the question of "what could she have done differently to make this not happen?" almost always arises before "what made him think that this was somehow acceptable?" (Or indeed, reverse the genders here - consent is important either way). It's not striking a blow against the established order to ask what the victim did wrong. It IS the established order.
And most of us have done something silly at some point in our lives. Whether it's drinking too much, hanging out in the wrong place, trusting the wrong person, or whatever. Particularly when we're young and naive, we do things that are ill-advised. I'm one of the lucky ones - none of these bad decisions has resulted in anything horrible happening to me.
But when horrible things do happen, the victim will most likely go over that time in his/her brain over and over. Probably for years. How could I be so stupid? Why did I get into that car? What was I thinking? Incidentally, it's more likely to be something like "why did I trust that work colleague enough to go up to his hotel room?" than "why did I wear that dress?" - Dressing "provocatively" doesn't cause rape. Being around a rapist causes rape.
Also, because I see the "if I leave valuables visible in my car" argument is alive and well, here's the explanation of why a vagina is not like a laptop.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
quote:
Originally posted by Rafin:
While i wouldn't say it's ever the girls fault, if you get that drunk around a bunch of other drunk people it's like smearing honey on yourself and laying down in the woods in front of a hungry bear.
But that seems to be exactly what you are saying. If you get that drunk around a bunch of other drunk people, then could the "honey" be a boy and the "hungry bear" be another aggressive boy who beats him up for no reason? Iow, you seem to be saying that to some degree a girl is asking for rape if she gets that drunk, but do you think the same for physical assault? They are often identical.
I would say so. Any time someone gets drunk around other people you put yourself at risk. The drunker you get the more risk you put yourself in. You need to trust the people whose company you are in, and not everyone is a good and perfectly moral person - especially when drunk!
It is the same as if you walked into a room full of strangers, handcuffed your hands behind your back, blindfolded and gagged yourself and left your wallet and phone sticking out of your pocket. If you are incapacitating yourself so that you can't properly look after yourself, defend your property or person, then you have to make damn sure you're doing so among friends who will look out for you, and make sure you're safe. While mentally and physically incapacitated you have basically made yourself utterly vulnerable - to theft, violence, humiliation, and even rape.
Is getting fall-over drunk alone in a roomful of strangers a really, really, really stupid thing to do? Yes, of course. Is raping or otherwise harming someone who has put themselves in that vulnerable position a sick crime? Yes, of course. But sick criminals exist, and everyone needs to be very, very careful in public places where anyone could take advantage.
To argue that society should be otherwise, that everyone should be good and moral people, that any girl should be able to collapse unconscious in a house full of drunken men wherever they please without any danger at all is a lovely wish, but it's never gonna happen.
Well, I was just taking issue really, with the analogy. It seemed to suggest "asking for it" and it seems to imply that men are "hungry bears" and that the hunger is desire and not aggression. I understand and agree with his most recent post.
Saying a person should make sure they are safe and saying that they are culpable in the crime are two different things.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
rolyn, just as long as you remember that in those same days you wouldn't have had a clue how many people were being raped because they couldn't afford to tell anyone. Maybe if no one worried about rape then, it's just because no one dared to worry about it aloud.
Exactly. I served on a jury for a rape trial 30 years ago. I was shocked at the way the victim was treated by the defense attorney-- without anyone in the courtroom stopping it. The victim was literally characterized by the defense attorney as a whore because she was not wearing hose-- in L.A. in August when temps are triple digits and she was going out for pizza with friends. (I don't wear hose to church in August in L.A.).
The non-disputed facts of the case were that both persons were totally wasted on both weed & alcohol, that there was some sort of sexual encounter, that the defendant's knife was involved, and that there was small amounts of blood (since the defendant & victim had the same blood type, in those pre-DNA testing days it was impossible to say who's).
Victim took the stand and said the defendant pulled the knife to force her to comply. I thought the case was pretty much finished when the defendant took the stand and said the victim pulled the knife to get him off her. In what conceivable set of circumstances, does that not constitute "no"?!?
And yet, a good % of the jury, were sympathetic to the defense attorney's argument. The one holdout (a woman, fwiw) finally said "OK, I guess he's guilty. I just wish we could punish her too" to which another juror responded, "getting raped wasn't enough?".
I've served on several juries since, but never another rape trial. I hope and pray things are different now than they were then. But I'm not at all confident that is the case.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
God almighty! What did she think she wanted to punish the victim for? I mean if you had asked her, what would she have said? Being a whore for not wearing hose?
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
My son and I were just discussing this and he said that in his college freshman English class, they had a debate about the Steubenville case. He said most of the people arguing for blaming the victim were girls.
The only reason for this mind set for girls, or this woman in the jury, that I can come up with is that it is a case of " it's not going to be me". " I won't get smashed at a party", " I won't smoke weed", " I always wear hose". I don't know, it's bizarre. But I think this kind of lack of compassion is born of fear.
It's sad to hear about people who have such little compassion for others, thirty years ago and today.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
God almighty! What did she think she wanted to punish the victim for? I mean if you had asked her, what would she have said? Being a whore for not wearing hose?
Yeah, pretty much. The victim did show poor judgment-- she was mad at boyfriend (who cheated on her), went off in a huff, got drunk & high with a stranger in a deserted back alley. Not smart, for sure.
But, as was noted before, who among us hasn't done something stupid when young-- and, in this case, hurting? And do we really think rape is an appropriate (or, to that juror apparently, insufficient) punishment for poor judgment?
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
My son and I were just discussing this and he said that in his college freshman English class, they had a debate about the Steubenville case. He said most of the people arguing for blaming the victim were girls.
The only reason for this mind set for girls, or this woman in the jury, that I can come up with is that it is a case of " it's not going to be me". " I won't get smashed at a party", " I won't smoke weed", " I always wear hose". I don't know, it's bizarre. But I think this kind of lack of compassion is born of fear.
It's sad to hear about people who have such little compassion for others, thirty years ago and today.
Yes, I agree. I find myself instinctively thinking that way at times when I hear of some tragedy. My brain just seems to instinctively go to some sort o reassuring distance between me and the victim-- some way of telling myself it won't happen to me. Life has knocked quite a bit of that out of me, as I've discovered I'm just as subject to life's tragedies as the next guy. But there does seem to be the instinctual response of distancing. But we can choose to fight that, face the fear, and respond with compassion.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by scuffleball:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Playing devil's advocate here -
If someone (of their own volition) were to get completely blotto and sign a life-changing contract, wouldn't that contract still count as legally binding? IOW, it would be treated as though the signatory had given complete consent.
Don't get me wrong - it would be morally reprehensible to take advantage of someone's drunkenness in that way, but as I understand the law the contract would stand nonetheless.
Kelly Alves' argument still holds - "The first two scenarios you described imply some sort of motor control and ability to take initiative. So, by acting they are making a choice. If someone is drunk to the point they can't physically respond or so drunk they can't even from the word 'Stop,' that hardly compares."
Actually, you can't really prove that someone knew what they were signing, just by looking at a signature. My comment was meant more about stuff the person is doing that requires them to actively engage themselves to do it, like picking up a gun or walking out of a store with a TV set. Stuff you can physically prove they did.
IMO it would constitute a huge gray area, and the idea of "sex consent forms" strikes me as kind of weird. Just seems beset by loopholes.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
rolyn, just as long as you remember that in those same days you wouldn't have had a clue how many people were being raped because they couldn't afford to tell anyone. Maybe if no one worried about rape then, it's just because no one dared to worry about it aloud.
Yes Gwai , I hear what you are saying.
Having had my earliest attitudes shaped by 60's TV, I am well aware that the so-called 'Golden Age' only really exists in my own mind , and confess to being somewhat self-indulgently content with that .
I just don't know why 21st Century young ladies should want to get themselves so inebriated as to place themselves in a position of potential harm .
OK, I do sort of get the slut-pride thing and the removal of institutional sexism . ISTM like a very long and confusing road for both genders.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
rolyn, just as long as you remember that in those same days you wouldn't have had a clue how many people were being raped because they couldn't afford to tell anyone. Maybe if no one worried about rape then, it's just because no one dared to worry about it aloud.
Yes Gwai , I hear what you are saying.
Having had my earliest attitudes shaped by 60's TV, I am well aware that the so-called 'Golden Age' only really exists in my own mind , and confess to being somewhat self-indulgently content with that .
I just don't know why 21st Century young ladies should want to get themselves so inebriated as to place themselves in a position of potential harm .
OK, I do sort of get the slut-pride thing and the removal of institutional sexism . ISTM like a very long and confusing road for both genders.
Agreed, but more so I wonder why on earth some 21st century young men believe they can do whatever they want to someone who has placed themselves in a compromising position.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
rolyn, just as long as you remember that in those same days you wouldn't have had a clue how many people were being raped because they couldn't afford to tell anyone. Maybe if no one worried about rape then, it's just because no one dared to worry about it aloud.
Yes Gwai , I hear what you are saying.
Having had my earliest attitudes shaped by 60's TV, I am well aware that the so-called 'Golden Age' only really exists in my own mind , and confess to being somewhat self-indulgently content with that .
As someone of the same generation, I would say "self-indulgent" is a good word for it. Yes, it was lovely to watch TV back in the day and be lulled into this fairy tale illusion of peace and harmony. But the end result of that was that a lot of institutional evil got overlooked in our rosy haze.
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
I just don't know why 21st Century young ladies should want to get themselves so inebriated as to place themselves in a position of potential harm .
Again, speaking as someone of that same generation-- sorry, we were just as prone to making stupid mistakes and poor judgment in the 1950s and 60s as 21st c. women are. It's simply a function of age. The way we human beings learn is thru trial and error, which involves a measure of risk. That means that when you are young you are going to make a lot of mistakes. There's no way around that, and it's not something new in the 21st c. It's been the way since time began-- young people make foolish choices, suffer the consequences, and learn from that.
That task for the rest of us-- parents, elders, etc.-- is to try to structure the world to give them enough room to maneuver and take some risk and experience some consequences, while at the same time creating some boundaries/ limits to those consequences to limit to some extent the potential damage of those consequences. One should feel some pain as the result of a foolish choice-- that's how you learn. But one shouldn't ordinarily have their life ruined by a relatively common lack of judgment. If someone-- even a child of mine-- was getting drunk in the company of untrustworthy strangers and ended up getting their wallet stolen, I would probably feel that was an appropriate lesson learned. Getting raped, however, is not.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
cliffdweller, I agree basically with everything you're saying. I would ask you to be careful about implying a raped person's life is ruined though as I doubt you mean that. I think some raped people feel like their lives are ruined at the time, and having that confirmed by society could be hard.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
cliffdweller, I agree basically with everything you're saying. I would ask you to be careful about implying a raped person's life is ruined though as I doubt you mean that. I think some raped people feel like their lives are ruined at the time, and having that confirmed by society could be hard.
Yes, thank you, that's a very good point-- I appreciate the correction.
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
I just don't know why 21st Century young ladies should want to get themselves so inebriated as to place themselves in a position of potential harm .
OK, I do sort of get the slut-pride thing and the removal of institutional sexism . ISTM like a very long and confusing road for both genders.
No-one gets themselves drunk to place themselves in a position of potential harm. They get drunk with other purposes and intent. Then a bastard comes along.
Much as I don't lock my house front door so that someone can walk in a steal my stuff. I do it because I'm taking the dog a short distance to pee. If some opens the door because it is unlocked, or breaks down the door because it is locked, and in both situations steals my stuff, both situations qualify for a charge of breaking and entering.
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Yes Gwai , I hear what you are saying.
Having had my earliest attitudes shaped by 60's TV, I am well aware that the so-called 'Golden Age' only really exists in my own mind , and confess to being somewhat self-indulgently content with that .
I just don't know why 21st Century young ladies should want to get themselves so inebriated as to place themselves in a position of potential harm .
OK, I do sort of get the slut-pride thing and the removal of institutional sexism . ISTM like a very long and confusing road for both genders.
Men get raped too.
Posted by Sarkycow (# 1012) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
The only reason for this mind set for girls, or this woman in the jury, that I can come up with is that it is a case of " it's not going to be me". " I won't get smashed at a party", " I won't smoke weed", " I always wear hose". I don't know, it's bizarre. But I think this kind of lack of compassion is born of fear.
ISTR from psychology theory that it's to do with control of events etc. and protecting oneself. So if you believe that events are outside peoples' control, then events will happen to you and you can't stop them. To reassure yourself that bad things won't happen to you, you determine that either - The victim said/did/wore something to somehow cause it, went to the 'wrong' place, had the wrong skill/characteristic/attribute, etc.
or - The person doing the bad thing is a terrible monster.
If [a], then as long as you don't do or say whatever it is, or possess said attribute etc., then you will avoid the bad thing. If [b], then you will avoid the bad thing because you don't know any terrible monsters - you only know fairly nice humans.
So it's not so much a failure of compassion, as a psychological mechanism to protect oneself. Which doesn't make it feel better for the victim, but it can help onlookers understand where people might be coming from and so how to help them see more objectively and show some compassion.
Posted by Sarkycow (# 1012) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Yes Gwai , I hear what you are saying.
Having had my earliest attitudes shaped by 60's TV, I am well aware that the so-called 'Golden Age' only really exists in my own mind , and confess to being somewhat self-indulgently content with that .
I just don't know why 21st Century young ladies should want to get themselves so inebriated as to place themselves in a position of potential harm .
OK, I do sort of get the slut-pride thing and the removal of institutional sexism . ISTM like a very long and confusing road for both genders.
Men get raped too.
ISTM that rolyn believes rape only started happening in the last few decades, and correlates with young ladies wearing less/more revealing clothing, going out without a male escort, drinking alcohol, etc. Apparently this isn't the cause of the rape though, which is nice to know. Just the two things correlate.
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
Well, I was just taking issue really, with the analogy. It seemed to suggest "asking for it" and it seems to imply that men are "hungry bears" and that the hunger is desire and not aggression.
I'm not sure that desire and aggression live in hermetically separated and labeled boxes. There's a bit of each in the other, in my experience. This is why I'm not convinced by the "rape is about power and aggression" assertion; it is, at least partly, about sex as well.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
I suspect Fr Weber can find what the camel riding aunt said to Father Chantry-Pigg about what men need to learn, when the subject of women needing to cover up when travelling to Trebizond. I can't find it at the moment.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
If someone opens the door because it is unlocked, or breaks down the door because it is locked, and in both situations steals my stuff, both situations qualify for a charge of breaking and entering.
AFAIK the Insurance companies don't see it that way.
If you don't take proper precautions to protect your property they won't pay .
A female who wears revealing clothing , behaves provocatively prior to getting unconscious on alcohol/drugs and then ends up in the company of strangers is not taking proper good care of her personal property, (in this instance her body), IMHO.
If anyone here thinks I'm the rapist's friend then read my comments upthread . And yes I'm aware men get raped too , usually by other heterosexual men.
We hetero males are a liability , no tightening of a single law is going to change that overnight.
Far better to enforce the rape law we already have rather than allowing it to get bogged down over the dubious definitions of consent.
Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
A female who wears revealing clothing , behaves provocatively prior to getting unconscious on alcohol/drugs and then ends up in the company of strangers is not taking proper good care of her personal property, (in this instance her body), IMHO.
As you acknowledge that men get raped too, would you extend this statement to apply to males as well as females?
Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on
:
@Rolyn
Women get raped....
When they are completely covered by a Burqa.
Wearing old jeans and cardigans.
In their nineties.
In the family home.
When completely sober.
Though out history uncounted women have been raped while being conservatively dressed and not drunk.
The majority of rapes are not carried out by complete strangers in a dark alleyway but by people known to the woman.
Advising women to cover up and not get drunk obviously isn't going to change anything.
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
... If you don't take proper precautions to protect your property they won't pay . ...
Once more with feeling: a woman's body is not property.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
A female who wears revealing clothing , behaves provocatively prior to getting unconscious on alcohol/drugs and then ends up in the company of strangers is not taking proper good care of her personal property, (in this instance her body), IMHO.
I m sorry, but this is stupid.
Going to your theft example, does a judge give a lesser sentence to the thief because the victim left their door unlocked? Or because the thief could see the telly through a window? Or because, oh fuck it, rape and theft are a ridiculous comparison anyway.
Rape is 100% the rapist's guilt.
Dressed provacatively? Is this the 1950's?
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on
:
Men standing next to naked women lose the ability to masturbate ? Who knew !
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
A female who wears revealing clothing , behaves provocatively prior to getting unconscious on alcohol/drugs and then ends up in the company of strangers is not taking proper good care of her personal property, (in this instance her body), IMHO.
I m sorry, but this is stupid.
Going to your theft example, does a judge give a lesser sentence to the thief because the victim left their door unlocked? Or because the thief could see the telly through a window? Or because, oh fuck it, rape and theft are a ridiculous comparison anyway.
Rape is 100% the rapist's guilt.
Dressed provacatively? Is this the 1950's?
It is a stupid argument, since if rape is defined as sex without consent, then the victim's behaviour is irrelevant.
It's true that previously such arguments might have been tried in court by the defence - she was drunk, dressed provocatively, keeping bad company - but as far as I can see, in the UK at any right, these issues are legally irrelevant.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
If someone opens the door because it is unlocked, or breaks down the door because it is locked, and in both situations steals my stuff, both situations qualify for a charge of breaking and entering.
AFAIK the Insurance companies don't see it that way.
If you don't take proper precautions to protect your property they won't pay .
A female who wears revealing clothing , behaves provocatively prior to getting unconscious on alcohol/drugs and then ends up in the company of strangers is not taking proper good care of her personal property, (in this instance her body), IMHO.
If anyone here thinks I'm the rapist's friend then read my comments upthread . And yes I'm aware men get raped too , usually by other heterosexual men.
We hetero males are a liability , no tightening of a single law is going to change that overnight.
Far better to enforce the rape law we already have rather than allowing it to get bogged down over the dubious definitions of consent.
We aren't talking about insurance which is motivated by money, but the definition of a criminal act, which is supposed to be motivated by justice.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
Well, I was just taking issue really, with the analogy. It seemed to suggest "asking for it" and it seems to imply that men are "hungry bears" and that the hunger is desire and not aggression.
I'm not sure that desire and aggression live in hermetically separated and labeled boxes. There's a bit of each in the other, in my experience. This is why I'm not convinced by the "rape is about power and aggression" assertion; it is, at least partly, about sex as well.
I don't believe they are separate boxes either. However, the sexual desire in rape is fueled solely by the power and aggression of having complete control over another person, without consent.
It may be true that there are elements of power and aggression in consensual sex, but the difference is that these elements are part of the experience, not the entire focus as it is in rape.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fineline:
As you acknowledge that men get raped too, would you extend this statement to apply to males as well as females?
Yes I would . Although the analogy doesn't work quite the same because we'd be comparing it with gay rape.
Reports of man rape I've heard about seem to have occurred in normal environments without drugs or any suggestion of possible sexual interchange.
As for others calling my argument stupid, I still maintain the charge of stupidity falls to those who don't take proper care of themselves when out for what should be an enjoyable night .
And NO, I am not defending the criminal actions anyone in these regards .
If the law is to mete out equal sentence to those taking advantage of a drunk after a night out, as it does to those who commit a sexual assault with violence stone-cold sober , well then so be it . Who am I to argue . What is it out of interest-- 20 yrs , released in 10 ?
One might though hope that, once convicted , it may be possible to differentiate between a potential serial offender and a one-off idiot. Or are you now going to tell me there is no difference .
< BTW wb Fineline>
Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
If the law is to mete out equal sentence to those taking advantage of a drunk after a night out, as it does to those who commit a sexual assault with violence stone-cold sober , well then so be it . Who am I to argue . What is it out of interest-- 20 yrs , released in 10 ?
One might though hope that, once convicted , it may be possible to differentiate between a potential serial offender and a one-off idiot. Or are you now going to tell me there is no difference .
In the first scenario someone commits rape but in the second scenario someone commits rape.
Posted by Antisocial Alto (# 13810) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
One might though hope that, once convicted , it may be possible to differentiate between a potential serial offender and a one-off idiot. Or are you now going to tell me there is no difference .
Yes.
"Of the 120 rapists in the sample, 44 reported only one assault. The remaining 76 were repeat offenders. These 76 men, 63% of the rapists, committed 439 rapes or attempted rapes, an average of 5.8 each (median of 3, so there were some super-repeat offenders in this group). Just 4% of the [1882, college-educated] men surveyed committed over 400 attempted or completed rapes."
Guys don't "accidentally" end up with an incapacitated girl. They pick one out on purpose.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
A female who wears revealing clothing , behaves provocatively prior to getting unconscious on alcohol/drugs and then ends up in the company of strangers is not taking proper good care of her personal property, (in this instance her body), IMHO.
If anyone here thinks I'm the rapist's friend then read my comments upthread.
Of course you're the rapist's friend. You've helpfully compiled a list of legitimate targets for serial rapists. All he has to do is look for a woman who's been drinking, or wears revealing clothing, or any of the several dozen other items on the Legitimate Victim's List of Do's and Don'ts™ and he's got his victim picked out. He knows all it will take is one police detective, prosecutor, or juror who buys into your whole "she was asking for it/deserved it/got what was coming/etc." position and while he may see the inside of a courtroom he'll probably never see the inside of a cell.
Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on
:
@rolyn
"my wife frequently walks home alone after dark from her martial arts class or after working late. We don't run a car and she can't afford to take a taxi every time she's out alone in the evening. In your opinion is she negligent to take that risk? If she isn't, what level of risk taking do you consider negligent? And if she shouldn't have the freedom of movement about the city that a man has, how do you propose to compensate her for that?"
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
We hetero males are a liability...
(spit take)
Are you content with believing that?
Do you want the young men in your life believing that, or do you want them to believe they are capable, honorable, and decent? Because it could go either way, depending on what voices are getting to them, and whether people respect them enough to expect a lot of them.
Reinforcing the cultural lie that a man can't (to use Doublethink's example ) excuse himself to the toilet for 5 minutes if he is overwhelmed in the middle of a date, but is physically incapable of governing himself in such circumstamces, is about the most misandronist thing I have ever heard.
[ 15. June 2013, 20:34: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on
:
I think there is a difference between suggesting people take steps to keep safe, and suggesting it's their fault if they don't and if they get hurt. If I left my front door unlocked one night, and someone came into my house and attacked me, it would of course be their fault not mine. But I still lock my house at night, even though of course people should be taught that they shouldn't break into people's houses and attack them. And of course someone could break into my house and attack me even if I locked the door.
I think a difficulty can be when people are out and get drunk, and a drunk man has sex with a drunk woman, because she is acting in a sexual way towards him. The man is at fault - regardless of the fact he was drunk, he chose to get drunk and is responsible for his actions. But then I would say in this situation it's not necessarily a case of aggression and control, and could just be that he reads her behaviour as wanting what he wants, and if her behaviour had been different, or if she hadn't been drunk, it might be less likely to happen. Not that this makes her responsible, but personally, in terms of looking after oneself, if there are steps one can take to make it less likely that one gets attacked in any way, I want to take those steps, and if I had a daughter, I would advise her to take steps to keep safe. Probably more with a daughter than a son, because women tend to be more vulnerable, because of the way society is.
Self-protection, and the desire to protect those one loves, is a normal human instinct. Regardless of the fact that people shouldn't be raping/attacking people, if this is a behaviour that happens, then as well as trying to discourage that behaviour, one surely still takes steps to keep oneself safe. I guess I see that perspective more because I've worked in a lot of environments where there is a high risk of being attacked, and so I have had various training sessions where we learn ways to minimise risk, ways to de-escalate people's anger, etc. That doesn't mean it's my fault if I get attacked, and it doesn't justify the behaviour of people doing the attacking, but it's just about trying to keep myself safe.
[ 15. June 2013, 21:48: Message edited by: Fineline ]
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fineline:
I think a difficulty can be when people are out and get drunk, and a drunk man has sex with a drunk woman, because she is acting in a sexual way towards him. The man is at fault - regardless of the fact he was drunk, he chose to get drunk and is responsible for his actions.
I agree with your post but I would clarify that if a drunk woman gives consent, even though she may regret it later and may not be making the best choices, it's definitely not rape. Women are responsible for their behavior as well if they choose to get drunk. If the drunk woman is acting in a sexual manner but denies consent, or, is unable to speak, it is rape.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
A female who wears revealing clothing , behaves provocatively prior to getting unconscious on alcohol/drugs and then ends up in the company of strangers is not taking proper good care of her personal property, (in this instance her body), IMHO.
If anyone here thinks I'm the rapist's friend then read my comments upthread.
Of course you're the rapist's friend. You've helpfully compiled a list of legitimate targets for serial rapists. All he has to do is look for a woman who's been drinking, or wears revealing clothing, or any of the several dozen other items on the Legitimate Victim's List of Do's and Don'ts™ and he's got his victim picked out. He knows all it will take is one police detective, prosecutor, or juror who buys into your whole "she was asking for it/deserved it/got what was coming/etc." position and while he may see the inside of a courtroom he'll probably never see the inside of a cell.
Well said. Of course, this kind of stuff about women getting drunk or dressing 'provocatively' justifies rape.
In the past, (I am talking about the UK), it was used as a kind of smokescreen for 'she was asking for it', and the legal defence in rape trials would try to blacken the name of the female victim.
I think this has been clarified a lot in the UK, and basically, the victim's behaviour is irrelevant to the legal charge of rape.
Of course, it may still unconsciously influence police, lawyers, jurors, and so on, but a good prosecution barrister will point this out.
Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on
:
I interpreted Rolyn's post as being about women keeping themselves safe - looking after themselves. To me, it makes sense, if I want to keep myself safe, not to go out with strangers, act sexually and get totally drunk with them - and if I had a daughter, to give her guidance about such things.
This is what I meant in my previous post. That it's also important for people to take care in the situations they get into - it's not about assigning blame to the victim or excusing the behaviour of rapists, but just acting prudently to look after oneself, and minimise risk.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
OK, but this thread is about consent. What relevance does a woman's behaviour have to this? I just can't see any. If she is naked, drunk, and dancing around, that doesn't change the requirement to have consent, in order to have sex with her. You don't get to say, 'oh her behaviour was an implicit consent'. It's not.
Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
OK, but this thread is about consent. What relevance does a woman's behaviour have to this? I just can't see any. If she is naked, drunk, and dancing around, that doesn't change the requirement to have consent, in order to have sex with her. You don't get to say, 'oh her behaviour was an implicit consent'. It's not.
Well, it's true I don't think Rolyn was talking about consent in that comment, so that wasn't directly about the original question. But people were taking his comment to mean that a woman was giving consent, and I didn't interpret it that way, so that is why I posted. And also because I don't understand why people think it's so wrong to advise women to take care in such situations - people seem to think that this excuses rapist's behaviour and I don't understand that logic. Often conversations about consent go on to say that it's wrong to advise a woman to take care.
However, as far as I understand, often, in court cases, it is the behaviour that is the issue with regard to consent. The woman hasn't said yes or no, but sexual behaviour is taken to mean consent, and then the woman says afterwards that she hadn't wanted it. It is difficult for a court to judge in those situations.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Yes, there are grey areas. But one of the traditional ways in which rapists have got off is to blame the woman in some way. Therefore, I am always suspicious, in a discussion of rape, when people start saying 'women have to be careful'. OK, we should all be careful, but a woman being careless does not turn rape into non-rape.
This is one reason that the definition of consent in relation to drunkenness was clarified in English law. A woman doesn't have to be unconscious to be seen as not giving consent.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fineline:
The woman hasn't said yes or no, but sexual behaviour is taken to mean consent, and then the woman says afterwards that she hadn't wanted it. It is difficult for a court to judge in those situations.
Yes, this is where there are grey areas. I think that defining rape has to include state of mind. If a woman is behaving in a sexual manner towards another, and by that I mean actively coming on to another, her state of mind may very well be that she is consenting to further activity. AFAIK, sexual activity doesn't usually include, "may I, my lady?" So intent, consent and state of mind are all very important things. Hard to prove in court and very messy.
What I actually see as the problem is society's view, in general, that women should not behave in a manner that portrays her as a sexual being. It seems that a common argument that goes to consent is a women's dress, and behavior, such as dancing. As if a woman who would choose to portray herself as being sexual automatically means that she would consent to any sexual behavior. Stupid.
The only behavior that should matter in proving state of mind or consent is the behavior specifically between the two people involved. That is, sexual activity, explicit conversation and very obvious sexual behavior. In no way should that ever include how a woman is dressed or how she dances or what she consumes.
And yes, I do think that if a woman says no, after going quite far in her sexual activity, it's still no. And consent ends. However, this is very difficult, if not impossible to prove.
Posted by AmyBo (# 15040) on
:
What ever happened to "do ya wanna?" Is that really so hard to ask? Hell, my husband says it all the time.
As far as wanting to stop before sex, yeah, been there, done that, that ex can burn in hell. You're right on that at least: you don't even report that shit because of the attitudes on this thread. You're forgetting this is about real people, not theoretical sub-human "sluts".
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Yes, these attitudes die hard, as we can see here. Male sexuality is seen by some people as this overwhelming force, and if a woman should titillate it by her demeanour and behaviour, then she cannot then retract, as the man is now a raging bull, who must be satisfied.
Yet this attitude is changing. As I keep saying, in England, defence barristers now no longer routinely seek to trash a female victim, in order to prove that she was asking for it. If her barrister can show that she said no, it doesn't matter if previously she was asking for it.
Of course, as others have said, this is very difficult to demonstrate, and the vast majority of rapes never make it to court.
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on
:
Originally posted by fineline:
quote:
if I had a daughter, I would advise her to take steps to keep safe. Probably more with a daughter than a son, because women tend to be more vulnerable, because of the way society is.
Locally, young men seem more vulnerable to casual alcohol-fuelled aggression and violence; I'd advise my son to avoid getting drunk just as much as I'd advise my daughter. I'd want him to be sober enough to anticipate trouble and avoid it.
BUT if a young man was drunk, and ended up in casualty because another drunk had taken a dislike to him/ thought he was looking at him funny / thought he was eyeing up his girlfriend / objected to his choice of football team/ whatever, it wouldn't be any the less assault just because the victim hadn't been sober.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Yes, the analogy I use, is if I wander into a tough area of London late at night, and get mugged, is the crime of the mugger lessened because of my stupidity? Would his barrister stand up, and say to the jury, well, you can't really blame my client, (the mugger), because the victim was stupid enough to go into a dangerous area? Now that would be bizarre.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fineline:
That it's also important for people to take care in the situations they get into - it's not about assigning blame to the victim or excusing the behaviour of rapists, but just acting prudently to look after oneself, and minimise risk.
This is pretty much what I've being trying to say , albeit badly.
Having read other posts I now acknowledge my comments have been naive . I didn't realise that sex offenders deliberately went out their way to target female revellers who had become incapacitated through the use of too much alcohol.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by AmyBo:
What ever happened to "do ya wanna?" Is that really so hard to ask? Hell, my husband says it all the time.
As far as wanting to stop before sex, yeah, been there, done that, that ex can burn in hell. You're right on that at least: you don't even report that shit because of the attitudes on this thread. You're forgetting this is about real people, not theoretical sub-human "sluts".
Yea, my husband isn't subtle either. I think that's more about "should I get all riled up or are you too tired/have a headache/not in the mood"? From what I can remember, first time sex with someone is a little more subtle and a little more seductive. And there's nothing wrong with that.
I've been there done that as well. I think it's not reported because its not provable. Even if these attitudes were to wither and die it would still be hard to prove. And it needs to be proven, because, like it or not, there are women who will get drunk, fully consent to sex, regret it and then say it was rape. And again, I think that problem also goes back to societal views on female sexuality. Women will regret their sexual exploits because we have been conditioned to do so. Men, not so much.
Posted by MarsmanTJ (# 8689) on
:
What happens in the hypothetical, they both wake up naked, in bed, the next morning, and neither of them can remember giving consent, yet there is clear visible evidence that they had some form of sexual contact? How about if only one of them cannot remember giving consent? While I am totally on the side of a woman can act and dress however she wants, it's no excuse for rape, what happens if she assumes he took advantage/rape, and all that is left is second-hand witness testimony (she had been flirting with him all night and took him back to her place)?
Sadly, having been at university, I know plenty of people who have no recollection of what happened the previous night. Some of them woke up in beds with people they didn't recognise the next morning and tacitly assumed they had consented, but it strikes me as a horrible grey area.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by Fineline:
That it's also important for people to take care in the situations they get into - it's not about assigning blame to the victim or excusing the behaviour of rapists, but just acting prudently to look after oneself, and minimise risk.
This is pretty much what I've being trying to say , albeit badly.
Having read other posts I now acknowledge my comments have been naive . I didn't realise that sex offenders deliberately went out their way to target female revellers who had become incapacitated through the use of too much alcohol.
Are you serious? Admittedly, I grew up in a tough area of Manchester, but I knew guys who did exactly that, and weren't above plying girls with drink, in the hope of incapacitating them. I doubt if they saw it as rape. But it is.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by MarsmanTJ:
What happens in the hypothetical, they both wake up naked, in bed, the next morning, and neither of them can remember giving consent, yet there is clear visible evidence that they had some form of sexual contact? How about if only one of them cannot remember giving consent? While I am totally on the side of a woman can act and dress however she wants, it's no excuse for rape, what happens if she assumes he took advantage/rape, and all that is left is second-hand witness testimony (she had been flirting with him all night and took him back to her place)?
Sadly, having been at university, I know plenty of people who have no recollection of what happened the previous night. Some of them woke up in beds with people they didn't recognise the next morning and tacitly assumed they had consented, but it strikes me as a horrible grey area.
I addressed this up thread somewhere. This happened to a young friend of mine recently. I don't believe that's rape. I guess it could have been and the woman does not remember refusing. However, from what I understand about black outs (I rarely blacked out) I think she would remember if it was a highly negatively charged experience. My friend does not consider it rape and assumes that she gave consent. Based on what she knows of herself. She may regret it and take better care next time, but she takes responsibility for herself.
Regardless, very, very hard to prove and IMO, not worth fighting. Let it go and move on.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I doubt if the CPS (in England) would take up a case like that. There is little hope of a prosecution. I think there has to be more than just a possibility that I didn't consent, but an actual memory or a feeling, or physical evidence, e.g. bruising, and so on.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
Sadly, in the recent cases of children being groomed and abused, both the caring services and the defence lawyers assumed consent and attacked the girl's histories, so it may not be routine, but it still happens.
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
What do you expect if you sleep on the streets?
What do you expect if you fall asleep in your own bed?
But seriously, I don't remember any of these victims being told they should have been more careful about where they slept.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Sadly, in the recent cases of children being groomed and abused, both the caring services and the defence lawyers assumed consent and attacked the girl's histories, so it may not be routine, but it still happens.
Yes, I think misogyny of this kind is still alive and well. Some of the stories from those cases were staggering, as if care homes had become places where young girls could be picked up for easy sex.
But the old-fashioned approach of 'well, she was asking for it' is being rolled back in the legal profession, amongst police and so on. Still a long way to go though.
But I think the law on consent has become more precise, and more useful to women. For example, the police now have a standard question for suspects: what steps did you take to ascertain consent? And just mumbling, well, she didn't say no, may not be good enough.
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
... there are women who will get drunk, fully consent to sex, regret it and then say it was rape. ...
And that would be the rapist's side of the story.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
... there are women who will get drunk, fully consent to sex, regret it and then say it was rape. ...
And that would be the rapist's side of the story.
So, are you saying that no woman would ever lie?
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
Rape is vastly under-reported. Why? Because a person who makes an accusation of rape will be subjected to a gauntlet of misery, starting with medical exams and ending with character assassination in court. That hardly seems the easiest way to deal with the embarrassment of a regrettable sexual encounter. OTOH, the argument that women get drunk, have sex, and then lie about rape is exactly what a predator who has spiked someone's drink would say. Are you saying rapists always tell the truth?
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Rape is vastly under-reported. Why? Because a person who makes an accusation of rape will be subjected to a gauntlet of misery, starting with medical exams and ending with character assassination in court. That hardly seems the easiest way to deal with the embarrassment of a regrettable sexual encounter. OTOH, the argument that women get drunk, have sex, and then lie about rape is exactly what a predator who has spiked someone's drink would say. Are you saying rapists always tell the truth?
Absolutely not. Obviously. I agree rape is under reported. I also think that the majority of rape allegations are true. But some men are innocent who are accused and there needs to be trial. For all kinds of messed up reasons. That's all I'm saying. The justice system can't change it's "innocent before proven guilty" stance just because its a rape charge.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Would his barrister stand up, and say to the jury, well, you can't really blame my client, (the mugger), because the victim was stupid enough to go into a dangerous area? Now that would be bizarre.
Barristers do, in fact, stand up and plead in mitigation that this was a one-off offense, that my client is usually of good character but was tempted by the display of wealth that was far greater than anything he usually sees, that he was desperate for money to feed his thirteen starving children and dog, and that he wouldn't have committed the crime if the victim hadn't put temptation in his path.
Maybe it even lessens his sentence sometimes.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Are you serious? Admittedly, I grew up in a tough area of Manchester, but I knew guys who did exactly that, and weren't above plying girls with drink, in the hope of incapacitating them. I doubt if they saw it as rape. But it is.
I am serious . A tough area in Manchester must, I imagine, be a very different place to a rural spot dropped off the edge of Dartmoor.
Having read Antisocial Alto's link on 'Predators', (a survey carried out in the US re date rape etc.), I discover this is a massively cultural thing . Without wanting to lapse into total despair, it looks to me as if the war on rape is one with a victory about as likely as the war on drugs.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Are you serious? Admittedly, I grew up in a tough area of Manchester, but I knew guys who did exactly that, and weren't above plying girls with drink, in the hope of incapacitating them. I doubt if they saw it as rape. But it is.
I am serious . A tough area in Manchester must, I imagine, be a very different place to a rural spot dropped off the edge of Dartmoor.
Why? No men living in rural Dartmoor would ever think of getting a girl drunk in hopes of getting inside her pants when she's incapacitated? Really?
[ 16. June 2013, 20:16: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Are you serious? Admittedly, I grew up in a tough area of Manchester, but I knew guys who did exactly that, and weren't above plying girls with drink, in the hope of incapacitating them. I doubt if they saw it as rape. But it is.
I am serious . A tough area in Manchester must, I imagine, be a very different place to a rural spot dropped off the edge of Dartmoor.
Why? No men living in rural Dartmoor would ever think of getting a girl drunk in hopes of getting inside her pants when she's incapacitated? Really?
Hold on. I don't think it's that prevalent either. Are we talking about incapacitated as in passed out or incapacitated as in lowering someone's inhibitions? I have a hard time believing the world is overrun with men running around trying to date rape women. Let's not smear the gender by saying it's so.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Would his barrister stand up, and say to the jury, well, you can't really blame my client, (the mugger), because the victim was stupid enough to go into a dangerous area? Now that would be bizarre.
Barristers do, in fact, stand up and plead in mitigation that this was a one-off offense, that my client is usually of good character but was tempted by the display of wealth that was far greater than anything he usually sees, that he was desperate for money to feed his thirteen starving children and dog, and that he wouldn't have committed the crime if the victim hadn't put temptation in his path.
Maybe it even lessens his sentence sometimes.
Come on. Tempted to crime to relieve suffering of loved ones is not in any way the same thing as feeling entitled to crime because of someone's stupidity.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Are you serious? Admittedly, I grew up in a tough area of Manchester, but I knew guys who did exactly that, and weren't above plying girls with drink, in the hope of incapacitating them. I doubt if they saw it as rape. But it is.
I am serious . A tough area in Manchester must, I imagine, be a very different place to a rural spot dropped off the edge of Dartmoor.
Why? No men living in rural Dartmoor would ever think of getting a girl drunk in hopes of getting inside her pants when she's incapacitated? Really?
Hold on. I don't think it's that prevalent either. Are we talking about incapacitated as in passed out or incapacitated as in lowering someone's inhibitions? I have a hard time believing the world is overrun with men running around trying to date rape women. Let's not smear the gender by saying it's so.
Really? I rather thought that was about half of the point of most frat parties. And yes, I have heard that said by frat boys.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
No one said anything about "overrun." Rolyn quite stridently implied that sort of thing would never happen in rural areas, only in nasty inner-city neighborhoods such as quetzalcoatl's in Manchester.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
Well, I've been to many frat parties and have two sons in college. Frat boys like to talk big, but the large majority are human and don't date rape. "Get laid", yea, but not without consent.
Of course, date rape happens, far more than it should. But I still feel like we are painting the gender a little harshly and that's not a good message to our boys and men.
Its entirely possible to live in a rural town and actually not know any date rapers.
Posted by anne (# 73) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
No one said anything about "overrun." Rolyn quite stridently implied that sort of thing would never happen in rural areas, only in nasty inner-city neighborhoods such as quetzalcoatl's in Manchester.
Which to me (a former member of the Young Farmers Club, a former student at Agricultural College, born and bred in rural England) suggests that Rolyn has never been a young woman living in the British countryside. Most of the young men that I trained with, worked with, danced with, went out with, spent time with, were decent people. Even when they'd had a drink or ten they wouldn't want to hurt, insult or assault a woman. But that's most of them and to suggest that there weren't plenty of young men only too pleased to ply a woman with alcohol until she was too drunk to offer informed consent is ridiculous.
It's not about country vs. town, it's about human beings.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But I think the law on consent has become more precise, and more useful to women. For example, the police now have a standard question for suspects: what steps did you take to ascertain consent? And just mumbling, well, she didn't say no, may not be good enough.
As it shouldn't be.
Hypothetical example-- well, more or less,I am pulling it from the film Bully which is supposed to be based on real-life events: A teenaged boy and girl are having sex and both are enjoying it. Midway the boy tries to maneuver her into a position she doesn't like. She sighs and said she hates it that way. He is physically much stronger than her so he simply hold her still and carries on. She struggles, calls him a variety of names and shouts "I SAID I DON'T LIKE THAT!" at him. He ignores her and finishes. She kicks him out of bed afterward and angrily shouts at him, calls him an asshole, etc.
So, I've shared before that I grew up somewhat of a tomboy, and thus guys would say some of the most amazing shit in front of me because they just forgot I wasn't one of them. Based on said shit, I can say with a reasonable amount of confidence that because:
1. The girl was having sex with him already;
2. She was merely pissed off afterwards, rather than traumatized or terror stricken;
3. [This is the part that gets me] "she didn't actually say no!"
... some of the guys I knew would say that this was probably not rape, but just some weird miscommunication.
And I'm not talking about raving psychos, I am talking about decent guys who would never in their lives dream of man-handling a girl in the described fashion. And that's what troubles me-- not the degenerate behavior of degenerate people (of either sex) but the fact that still, in the age of information, so many young guys out there still aren't quite sure what constitutes rape.
Blog post from a teacher who took on her classroom half full of baffled boys about the issue.
So, while we are out there sending girls to Tai Kwan Do classes and teaching them how to know a safe city street from a dodgy one and empowering them to say 'no', the education we are giving boys about consensual sex often boils down to "wear a condom, don't get her in trouble" and "If she says 'no", stop."
One of many disturbing studies done about high school sexual assault beliefs. In a nutshell, there are still boy AND girls out there who believe if a boy buys a girl dinner, she's consented to sex. That's what we are up against.
I think we need to go much deeper with young men. We need to completely replace "proceed until you hear 'no'" with 'The Enthusiastic Yes." (and idiots like Patty Stanger and other dating gurus need to stop telling men that asking for permission along the way makes them look wimpy.)We need to tell young men that when their sixth grade teacher has sex with them, this is not them "getting lucky" but someone abusing the trust and responsibility given them, and that sex is not just something you take, but something you give.
[ 16. June 2013, 22:22: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
Well, I've been to many frat parties and have two sons in college. Frat boys like to talk big, but the large majority are human and don't date rape. "Get laid", yea, but not without consent. ..
And frat boys would never lie, and would never consider the absence of a "no" from an incapacitated person to be an invitation to 'get laid'. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
We can play these games forever, but I'm bored now. Bored with debating whether a woman's body is property, like a wallet left on the sidewalk, or whether women are just lying sluts.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
As I've been reading this, I've been remembering a story from my teens, told by a fellow pupil. She had been out on a double date with her best friend, and had been in the back seat of a car with the boy brought for her, and her friend and her close boyfriend in the front. The car did not have rear doors. The couple in the front started to have sex, enthusiastically. She wanted to get out, but couldn't. Her date suggested they should also have sex. She didn't want to. But she ended up doing it, losing her virginity to someone she didn't even like because everyone else in the car thought she ought to.
Was that rape? She certainly didn't give enthusiastic consent. (I don't know what happened to the "friendship".
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
Don't know if it would be rape legally, but that is definitely seven kinds of fucked-up, less than consensual, and I hope she found much better friends down the line.
So that lead to a good question-- is there non-consensual sex that is not rape? As in-- he/ she wouldn't stop bugging me so I gave in, I figured if I didn't let him/ her they'd keep trying all night and I really want to sleep, he/ she said they would dump me if I didn't, etc.)
And is it possible to acknowledge that there is such a thing as non-consensual sex, (or, reluctant consensual sex. that it is bad sex and should not happen, but not designate it as rape?
(These are only questions-- Of course I think best practice is 'if there is any question, don't do it,' and anyone who continues if there is a question is asking for trouble, whether legal or relational.)_
[ 16. June 2013, 22:41: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
Well, I've been to many frat parties and have two sons in college. Frat boys like to talk big, but the large majority are human and don't date rape. "Get laid", yea, but not without consent.
"Get a few drinks in her and she'll be an easy lay" is fairly common - relying on the alcohol to merely lower her inhibitions. It probably isn't exactly rape, but it's not the moral high ground either.
"Get her drunk to incapacity, then you can do what you like to her body" is less common, but not nearly infrequent enough to be called "rare".
It is rape, but most of the perpetrators think they're exactly the same as the first category above, because "she didn't say no".
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Was that rape? She certainly didn't give enthusiastic consent. (I don't know what happened to the "friendship".
It was wrong, no matter the label. There should never be any pressure to have sex. If it is not mutual, it should not happen.
X-post with KA who said it better.
[ 16. June 2013, 22:45: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
So that lead to a good question-- is there non-consensual sex that is not rape?
Well, no, but reluctant sex isn't the same as non-consensual sex. Sex you don't want to have, but have anyway, because he bought you dinner and you feel like you owe him, isn't rape. Sex that you don't want to have, but do anyway, because your boyfriend wants it and you think he'll dump you otherwise, isn't rape.
Because you have consented. Is boyfriend a scumbag for putting you under pressure to have sex you weren't comfortable with? Yes, absolutely. But he's not a criminal.
"Have sex with me or I'll dump you" is a pretty shitty way to behave, but it's not rape.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
Well, I've been to many frat parties and have two sons in college. Frat boys like to talk big, but the large majority are human and don't date rape. "Get laid", yea, but not without consent. ..
And frat boys would never lie, and would never consider the absence of a "no" from an incapacitated person to be an invitation to 'get laid'.
We can play these games forever, but I'm bored now. Bored with debating whether a woman's body is property, like a wallet left on the sidewalk, or whether women are just lying sluts.
The fact is, most rapes (outside of jail) occur between a man and a woman, and the vast majority of those are a man raping a woman. in order to discuss that, we have to discuss the kind of things that make it possible for a man to give himself permission to rape a woman-- and the sad fact is, there are many such tools available in our culture. it is possible to have that discussion-- what kind of tools does our culture gives men that make it easier to excuse/ get away with rape-- without saying "all men are rapists."
Indeed, I enter this conversation confident that the overwhelming majority of men I know are just as concerned about the problem as any woman I know, and welcome advice/ insight/ examples that will help them understand.
Consider the teenage boys in the blog I linked post above. They are not even sure about what rape is. How does it help them to cut off discussion with, "People who talk about what some men do to women are condemning all men" help them?
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Don't know if it would be rape legally, but that is definitely seven kinds of fucked-up, less than consensual, and I hope she found much better friends down the line.
So that lead to a good question-- is there non-consensual sex that is not rape? As in-- he/ she wouldn't stop bugging me so I gave in, I figured if I didn't let him/ her they'd keep trying all night and I really want to sleep, he/ she said they would dump me if I didn't, etc.)
And is it possible to acknowledge that there is such a thing as non-consensual sex, (or, reluctant consensual sex. that it is bad sex and should not happen, but not designate it as rape?
(These are only questions-- Of course I think best practice is 'if there is any question, don't do it,' and anyone who continues if there is a question is asking for trouble, whether legal or relational.)_
I think lawyers/barristers sometimes try to use a technical mens rea argument, that the suspect had no criminal intent. This often seems to boil down to an 'honest mistake', although it's quite difficult to think of situations where this might happen, except possibly where the man is himself totally drunk, and unaware of what's happening; also a man who is in a psychotic state, or very mentally retarded. But in some countries recklessness is included within mens rea, I think.
But in practice it seems to be a rare defence; but I know some lawyers do object to the definition of rape as sex without consent, since this leaves out the man's intention to have sex under duress.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
Well, I've been to many frat parties and have two sons in college. Frat boys like to talk big, but the large majority are human and don't date rape. "Get laid", yea, but not without consent. ..
And frat boys would never lie, and would never consider the absence of a "no" from an incapacitated person to be an invitation to 'get laid'.
We can play these games forever, but I'm bored now. Bored with debating whether a woman's body is property, like a wallet left on the sidewalk, or whether women are just lying sluts.
If you're bored, go read my other posts. What makes these discussions ridiculous are extremists.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Consider the teenage boys in the blog I linked post above. They are not even sure about what rape is. How does it help them to cut off discussion with, "People who talk about what some men do to women are condemning all men" help them?
I didn't feel like we were starting to talk about "some men", but more than some. That's like saying young men are a liability like someone said upthread. I don't see how painting with a large brush helps our young men to make better decisions. I don't see how I was cutting off discussion either.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
Well, I've been to many frat parties and have two sons in college. Frat boys like to talk big, but the large majority are human and don't date rape. "Get laid", yea, but not without consent.
"Get a few drinks in her and she'll be an easy lay" is fairly common - relying on the alcohol to merely lower her inhibitions. It probably isn't exactly rape, but it's not the moral high ground either.
"Get her drunk to incapacity, then you can do what you like to her body" is less common, but not nearly infrequent enough to be called "rare".
It is rape, but most of the perpetrators think they're exactly the same as the first category above, because "she didn't say no".
Well, I agree. I never said it was rare. I personally think that men or boys that think that having sex with a completely incapacitated person is a pretty sick individual. And maybe I'm an optimist but most males are not that sick.
I think a lot of boys or men who think that another may be innocent because "she didn't say no" is not so much an indication that they would do the same, but a fear that they could also misread signals and get into similar trouble. I'm pretty sure, unconscious is a pretty good in indication of non consent.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
For some reason I am reminded of the Yale fraternity pledges who were marched past a sorority chanting, "No means Yes and Yes means Anal."
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
For some reason I am reminded of the Yale fraternity pledges who were marched past a sorority chanting, "No means Yes and Yes means Anal."
WOW. it was banned thankfully.
Ok, I never joined a sorority just went to frat parties. But I was with friends and I never had a bad experience at a frat party and I put myself in a lot of compromising positions. Maybe my experience is only my own and there are more dangers out there than I think. However. I think the simple fact that this was banned by the university is proof of what I'm trying to say. It's not mainstream behavior to have this kind of attitude.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
I think the simple fact that this was banned by the university is proof of what I'm trying to say. It's not mainstream behavior to have this kind of attitude.
I don't think that follows. It's just not mainstream behavior to say it out loud.
Posted by MarsmanTJ (# 8689) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
"Get a few drinks in her and she'll be an easy lay" is fairly common - relying on the alcohol to merely lower her inhibitions. It probably isn't exactly rape, but it's not the moral high ground either.
And this is the crux of the argument, in my mind. If a girl is choosing to drink more than is wise, knowing full well that her inhibitions are lowered, and then consents to having sexual contact with someone else while not being in full possession of their faculties and thus not being able to make informed consent... it's an ethical grey area. She may have loudly and clearly given consent, but is she actually able to give consent when her inhibitions are lowered? Everything within me says that she can't give consent.
An ex-girlfriend of mine after too many drinks started pressuring me for more sexual contact than I knew she would want when sober (both of us were/are serious about waiting for marriage). At the time, she thought she was in full possession of her faculties and said she knew she wouldn't regret it at all. The next day she rang me, thanking me profusely that I had left her at home to sleep, and had point-blank refused to do any of what she had asked. Turning her down was the most difficult thing I've ever done, and after that, I monitored her drinking if we were out together, since I did not want her to put me into that situation again.
How do we explain to young men that sometimes 'yes' isn't an informed 'yes'. Had me and my ex-girlfriend been sleeping together, would it have been right for me to take advantage? Had we been married, I probably would have done what she asked, and I highly doubt either of us would have regretted it. I guess for me, being sexually involved with someone requires at the very least knowing them when they are sober, knowing what they want when sober, then being able to make a judgment call about what they are doing when their inhibitions are lowered, and taking the moral high ground if in doubt. How we explain that to men of a culture where drinking and one-night-stand hook-ups are common, I don't know.
[ 17. June 2013, 06:54: Message edited by: MarsmanTJ ]
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by MarsmanTJ:
An ex-girlfriend of mine after too many drinks started pressuring me for more sexual contact than I knew she would want when sober (both of us were/are serious about waiting for marriage). At the time, she thought she was in full possession of her faculties and said she knew she wouldn't regret it at all. The next day she rang me, thanking me profusely that I had left her at home to sleep, and had point-blank refused to do any of what she had asked. Turning her down was the most difficult thing I've ever done...
Wow, nice work! ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
You can certainly teach kids about consent, in sex education classes in school, and explain the legal ramifications, and why it is not OK to assume consent.
Far more problematic is to penetrate through the cultic dogmata of machismo. I suppose this is held together through a mixture of bravado, conformism, and possibly an intense fear of women. Very difficult stuff to work with and through, in young male adolescents, especially en masse.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
... Turning her down was the most difficult thing I've ever done...
Wow, nice work! [/QB]
From me too.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Hey, I used to turn down female students who wanted to sleep with me; I used to say that I had a lot of theoretical work to do on the Chalybäus account of the Hegelian dialectic, and had to keep my head clear. Do I get kudos for that?
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
That you used language like that negates the claim that students wished to have sex with you.
[ 17. June 2013, 15:54: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Damn, you spotted my fatal flaw.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by MarsmanTJ:
And this is the crux of the argument, in my mind. If a girl is choosing to drink more than is wise, knowing full well that her inhibitions are lowered, and then consents to having sexual contact with someone else while not being in full possession of their faculties and thus not being able to make informed consent... it's an ethical grey area. She may have loudly and clearly given consent, but is she actually able to give consent when her inhibitions are lowered? Everything within me says that she can't give consent.
OK. But surely the same would have to apply to a guy in that scenario as well, wouldn't it? What if he is also too drunk to give informed consent? Are they both raping each other?
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
... Turning her down was the most difficult thing I've ever done...
Wow, nice work!
From me too.
Indeed. Although it is sad that showing respect for a friend actually warrants surprise and praise in our society. It should be the norm. Not the selfish gratification-driven norm we currently have. Why can't we teach our children that this sort of chivalry be the base standard of behaviour rather than the exception?
But since it is:
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
That you used language like that negates the claim that students wished to have sex with you.
I dunno, if it's true there's a lid for every pot, that must include pots full of the Chalybäus account of the Hegelian dialectic. Although perhaps this case is a reductio against that thesis.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
That or some of the pots are very small.
ETA: I do not wish to go onan on about this, but perhaps it is a single-serving pot.
[ 17. June 2013, 16:17: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
That's a good pun, I've got to hand it to you.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by MarsmanTJ:
And this is the crux of the argument, in my mind. If a girl is choosing to drink more than is wise, knowing full well that her inhibitions are lowered, and then consents to having sexual contact with someone else while not being in full possession of their faculties and thus not being able to make informed consent... it's an ethical grey area. She may have loudly and clearly given consent, but is she actually able to give consent when her inhibitions are lowered? Everything within me says that she can't give consent.
OK. But surely the same would have to apply to a guy in that scenario as well, wouldn't it? What if he is also too drunk to give informed consent? Are they both raping each other?
Yes, I wonder about that. Some countries have a legal category of 'reckless negligence', or a paraphrase of that, which might be used to counter a claim to have been totally drunk, therefore the male could not assess whether consent had been given by a female.
In other words, being very drunk apparently negates the mens rea aspect of the crime, but the reckless negligence brings it back. Any lawyers want to correct that?
I don't know if any man has tried to reverse the charge of rape; it would require some chutzpah.
[ 17. June 2013, 16:41: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Sadly, in the recent cases of children being groomed and abused, both the caring services and the defence lawyers assumed consent and attacked the girl's histories, so it may not be routine, but it still happens.
Not if they were tried under English law they didn't. Or not since 2004 anyway. Not if the victims were children. When an adult has sex with a child the question of consent isn't even allowed to be raised in court, because they will be tried for child sex abuse not rape, and actual consent is not an issue in child sex abuse:
"Those accused of child rape can no longer argue that the child consented" (Crown Prosecsiton Service page on Sexual Offences)
So "honest mistakes" make no difference. As if anyone really believed that an adult could be honestly mistaken about raping a child anyway.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
So "honest mistakes" make no difference. As if anyone really believed that an adult could be honestly mistaken about raping a child anyway.
I think there are fuzzy areas even here. If an 18 year old high school senior (or british equiv) has sex with their 17 year old crush, is that rape?
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
So "honest mistakes" make no difference. As if anyone really believed that an adult could be honestly mistaken about raping a child anyway.
I think there are fuzzy areas even here. If an 18 year old high school senior (or british equiv) has sex with their 17 year old crush, is that rape?
Well, it woudl have to be 15, because the age of consent is 16 here. But even then it would not count as rape in English law. Having sex with someone below the age of consent is not the same crime as rape, its is tried and punished differently.
But the quote I linked to is specifically about children - not older teenagers.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't know if any man has tried to reverse the charge of rape; it would require some chutzpah.
If the initial charge of rape is based purely on the woman giving consent while impaired by alcohol then I don't see why it's any different at all the other way round. The only way it could be so is if you say that either (a) men cannot ever be drunk enough to be incapable of giving consent or (b) men do not have to consent to sex. And both of those options seem incredibly troublesome to me...
Posted by birdie (# 2173) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Sadly, in the recent cases of children being groomed and abused, both the caring services and the defence lawyers assumed consent and attacked the girl's histories, so it may not be routine, but it still happens.
Not if they were tried under English law they didn't. Or not since 2004 anyway. Not if the victims were children. When an adult has sex with a child the question of consent isn't even allowed to be raised in court, because they will be tried for child sex abuse not rape, and actual consent is not an issue in child sex abuse
From this article, an account of the trial, earlier this year, of men accused of grooming and sexual abuse of young girls in Telford:
Khan's client, Ahdel Ali, was convicted of crimes including the rape of a 13-year-old and multiple sexual offences with children as part of a three-year investigation called Operation Chalice – but not before the main victim in the trial, a girl called Abby, was aggressively cross-examined by seven barristers every day for three weeks. Each represented a different man charged with sexually exploiting her over two years, and all in turn had their go at testing not only her evidence relating to their client, but also calling into question her integrity, lifestyle and issues of consent.
So it looks as though the law as Ken describes it is not being applied, unless I've misunderstood it.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I don't know if any man has tried to reverse the charge of rape; it would require some chutzpah.
If the initial charge of rape is based purely on the woman giving consent while impaired by alcohol then I don't see why it's any different at all the other way round. The only way it could be so is if you say that either (a) men cannot ever be drunk enough to be incapable of giving consent or (b) men do not have to consent to sex. And both of those options seem incredibly troublesome to me...
It is certainly possible for a woman to rape a man, and also possible to commit sexual assault. There are just very few cases of such rapes reported, at least on the internet.
I would imagine that if it happened, many men would be ashamed/afraid of reporting it, for fear of being labelled a wuss.
Incidentally, on the subject of intoxication, I think it's correct that voluntary intoxication can't be used as a defence for any violent crime in England. The reason is obvious - people would get drunk, commit the crime, and plead being drunk as a defence. Probably the same in other countries.
Involuntary intoxication is a possible defence, I think.
Posted by MarsmanTJ (# 8689) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
OK. But surely the same would have to apply to a guy in that scenario as well, wouldn't it? What if he is also too drunk to give informed consent? Are they both raping each other?
I don't know. In my scenario, I don't drink (alcohol REALLY doesn't agree with me, a four-day migraine from anything much more than the sip at communion just isn't worth it) and so it's very straightforward. But I can well imagine scenarios where the consent WOULD be actual, for example, a dating couple who are sexually active, after a party where they had had something to drink and both wanted it... I highly doubt any sane person would consider that rape. The reason I knew she would not have wanted it was because of a strongly held opinion that I knew about before she started drinking. It's why I think one night stand type relationships are incredibly murky areas.
As far as I'm concerned, any guy who has a girl come onto him when drunk should give her his number, and tell her to call him when sober if she wants more than a kiss or two, because then he can be certain of her consent. Consent isn't something that anyone, whether they believe in sex before marriage or not, should take lightly.
At what point does someone who isn't used to drinking discover their inhibitions lowered? I have no idea, in the case of my ex it was three glasses of champagne that her inhibitions were noticeably lowered, but she rarely drank because I rarely drank. She wasn't slurring, she was walking and talking fine. But when we got back to her place, she definitely wanted more than she would have wanted (or at least, than her rational brain would have wanted) stone-cold sober.
I had a discussion with a female friend from Germany recently, who was a graduate student in the UK. She said that in Germany, girls if they went out to get totally drunk, went out in groups of girls, and stay with that group. If they went out looking for male attention, they don't drink (particularly the girls), because culturally, neither sex finds drunk people attractive. Now she DID point out that in Germany, having a couple of pints doesn't count as drinking...
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by MarsmanTJ:
How do we explain to young men that sometimes 'yes' isn't an informed 'yes'. Had me and my ex-girlfriend been sleeping together, would it have been right for me to take advantage? Had we been married, I probably would have done what she asked, and I highly doubt either of us would have regretted it. I guess for me, being sexually involved with someone requires at the very least knowing them when they are sober, knowing what they want when sober, then being able to make a judgment call about what they are doing when their inhibitions are lowered, and taking the moral high ground if in doubt. How we explain that to men of a culture where drinking and one-night-stand hook-ups are common, I don't know.
This to me would be the frontline of attack for adults attempting to talk to young people about rape. IN a culture where one-night stand hook-ups are the norm, teaching sexual communication would, in my mind, be especially important.
It's not just about preventing rape, either it's about helping guide young people toward healthy sex patterns. Reluctant sex might not be criminal, but enough of it could screw a person up good and proper-- both giving it and settling for it.
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
You can certainly teach kids about consent, in sex education classes in school, and explain the legal ramifications, and why it is not OK to assume consent.
Far more problematic is to penetrate through the cultic dogmata of machismo. I suppose this is held together through a mixture of bravado, conformism, and possibly an intense fear of women. Very difficult stuff to work with and through, in young male adolescents, especially en masse.
"Cultic dogmata" is a good way to put it-- as I see it, it's not (definitley not) that all boys are potential rapists, it's just that (from my observation) most haven't internalized the kind of script they need to shout down other boys who promote the dogma of machismo-- they might not like it, they might choose against it, but they don't know what to do when Alpha Boy X starts making totally funny rape jokes, or demanding to know when he's going to finally get laid. The act of speaking up itself becomes a way to identify one's self as less than macho, and the risk of doing so can be far too great.
So back to what I said before-- we really need to call out machismo culture for the ugly diminishing thing it is. We really need respected, trusted men to do it, in particular-- parents, teachers, clergy. By presenting it in all its ugliness and shouting against it, the voices of trusted people start to replace the voices shouting at boys from hateful places, and that might possibly give them the strength to use their own voices.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Yes, machismo is ugly, but it is also very frightened, well, I think so. This is what makes it so difficult to work with, or dissolve, as it's easy to reinforce the fear.
If you start telling boys how ugly it is, there is a good chance you will drive them back into it.
Yes, I think some mentoring schemes can work.
And there is a wider question I suppose - why are there so many young guys who are at a loose end, and feeling without value?
Well, I would say that globalized capitalism has a lot to do with it - the same thing which turns women into commodities.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, machismo is ugly, but it is also very frightened, well, I think so. This is what makes it so difficult to work with, or dissolve, as it's easy to reinforce the fear.
If you start telling boys how ugly it is, there is a good chance you will drive them back into it.
Yes, I think some mentoring schemes can work.
And there is a wider question I suppose - why are there so many young guys who are at a loose end, and feeling without value?
Well, I would say that globalized capitalism has a lot to do with it - the same thing which turns women into commodities.
Good point(s). Like MarsmanTJ, I think it's tough to know what to do.
And you're right-- I am using the phrase "shouting it down" when something more proactive would be more appropriate-- although I believe the "tenants" of machismo are a lie, and should be consistently treated as such, positive approaches are more efficient as far as results.
SO the challenges is presenting a new definition of power-- one that teaches boys that learning to treat women as people first and foremost makes them an asset and a benefit to the world. That their young selves can be pioneers of the new frontier, of which machismo cannot be a part...just like the world needs to learn a different definition of power than "he who acquires the most is the most important."
But you raise a good point-- a lot of the strange, alarming rise in the antipathy against women that seems to be global currently, might just be helpless- feeling human beings looking for others more helpless than themselves. Or at least others they perceive that way.
(Side note-- and YMMV, but via interactions with my nephews, I have observed that boys who have joined girls in sport activities seem to have less of a problem with exhibitions of independence and prowess and personal agendas from girls than their more gender-exclusive compatriots do. Having people of both sexes as equal, relied-on, necessary team mates seems to really knock a lot of gender-biased attitudes right in the teeth.)
Posted by anne (# 73) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
And there is a wider question I suppose - why are there so many young guys who are at a loose end, and feeling without value?
Well, I would say that globalized capitalism has a lot to do with it - the same thing which turns women into commodities.
Pretty sure that women were commodities - or at least property - quite a long time before capitalism got itself globalised.
anne
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by MarsmanTJ:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
"Get a few drinks in her and she'll be an easy lay" is fairly common - relying on the alcohol to merely lower her inhibitions. It probably isn't exactly rape, but it's not the moral high ground either.
And this is the crux of the argument, in my mind. If a girl is choosing to drink more than is wise, knowing full well that her inhibitions are lowered, and then consents to having sexual contact with someone else while not being in full possession of their faculties and thus not being able to make informed consent... it's an ethical grey area. She may have loudly and clearly given consent, but is she actually able to give consent when her inhibitions are lowered? Everything within me says that she can't give consent.
An ex-girlfriend of mine after too many drinks started pressuring me for more sexual contact than I knew she would want when sober (both of us were/are serious about waiting for marriage). At the time, she thought she was in full possession of her faculties and said she knew she wouldn't regret it at all. The next day she rang me, thanking me profusely that I had left her at home to sleep, and had point-blank refused to do any of what she had asked. Turning her down was the most difficult thing I've ever done, and after that, I monitored her drinking if we were out together, since I did not want her to put me into that situation again.
How do we explain to young men that sometimes 'yes' isn't an informed 'yes'. Had me and my ex-girlfriend been sleeping together, would it have been right for me to take advantage? Had we been married, I probably would have done what she asked, and I highly doubt either of us would have regretted it. I guess for me, being sexually involved with someone requires at the very least knowing them when they are sober, knowing what they want when sober, then being able to make a judgment call about what they are doing when their inhibitions are lowered, and taking the moral high ground if in doubt. How we explain that to men of a culture where drinking and one-night-stand hook-ups are common, I don't know.
Well, that's it. You've got it. It's all about respect for another person. It's hard to argue your post because there's absolutely nothing wrong with what you said. However...... I find myself thinking of a few points that I feel I need to share. I would like to do so with the understanding that you have my full respect.
I think that if you say that a drunken consent is not consent than is a drunken rape still rape? (Of course it is) I feel that what you do when you choose to get drunk is your responsibility. No one forced you to drink.
Your situation was very black and white. You both wanted to wait until marriage. You knew this. You knew she would regret it. You would not hurt her by doing something you knew would cause her pain. I would expect no less from a boyfriend. It's not always black and white for people who do not share your paradigm.
You say turning her down was the hardest thing you have ever done. You are either a very fortunate person, and I'm glad for it, or you are very young and may you continue your good fortune.
You say you monitored her drinking and I understand why. However, I wonder, again, how did she feel about you monitoring her drinking? Why did she continue to drink to the point that you have to monitor her? Sometimes people drink
to lower their inhibitions and do what it is they want to do but feel they can't. I wonder if she felt as strong as you did about no pre marital sex? None of these questions do I expect you to answer, it's just what I wonder.
To answer your questions, you tell young men that you have a close relationship with that some women regret their actions the next day. If you had been sleeping together the question on whether or not it would have been right depends on the situation. If you know she would deeply regret it, then, no, it would not.
How to explain it to the culture you speak of? Well, first of all, the culture of excessive drinking and one night stands being common is usually a short lived one. It's usually a period of self discovery, usually in the college years. You raise people to always respect others and that they should always take the other person's perspective into consideration. It's not hard to figure out consent. It's really not.
My son and I had a conversation about this the other day and I asked him if he would prevent a friend from doing something she may regret. He said, of course. It's the same kind of situation. You don't do something that you have reason to believe would cause hurt to the other.
I'm not going to say its easy, when your life paradigm includes sex before marriage (and then it's still not easy!), because its not black and white, it has shades of grey (still a useful expression) but its not hard, to teach boys respect and basic human decency to navigate those shades of grey. It can be done.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by anne:
Pretty sure that women were commodities - or at least property - quite a long time before capitalism got itself globalised.
Indeed, women were commodities centuries before capitalism was a gleam in the Hanseatic League's eye.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Having sex with someone below the age of consent is not the same crime as rape, its is tried and punished differently.
English law differentiates between children under 13 and children over 13. Rape of a child under 13 (where rape specifically means the penetration of the mouth, anus or vagina with a penis), assault by penetration of a child under 13, and causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration are all subject to life imprisonment. There is no defense in law for sex with a child under 13.
If the child is aged between 13 and 16, the crime is "sexual activity with a child" rather than rape, the penalty is up to 14 years imprisonment rather than life, and the accused may use the defense that he reasonably believed the child to be overage.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by anne:
Pretty sure that women were commodities - or at least property - quite a long time before capitalism got itself globalised.
Indeed, women were commodities centuries before capitalism was a gleam in the Hanseatic League's eye.
I didn't think I was saying otherwise.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by anne:
Pretty sure that women were commodities - or at least property - quite a long time before capitalism got itself globalised.
Indeed, women were commodities centuries before capitalism was a gleam in the Hanseatic League's eye.
I didn't think I was saying otherwise.
You rather seemed to be saying that globalized capitalism is the thing that turns women into commodities, which rather implies that it is THE thing that turns women into commodities, i.e. the one and only thing. That's what "the" means.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by MarsmanTJ:
As far as I'm concerned, any guy who has a girl come onto him when drunk should give her his number, and tell her to call him when sober if she wants more than a kiss or two, because then he can be certain of her consent. Consent isn't something that anyone, whether they believe in sex before marriage or not, should take lightly.
You're missing the point. If both of them are drunk, why is all the onus on the man to establish consent? Aren't his inhibitions and judgement impaired as well?
The way some people here are arguing, it's like a drunk woman could drag an equally drunk man back to her room, strip him, shove him onto the bed and ride him all night - and he'd be a rapist because she was drunk and therefore unable to give consent. And if he said he was drunk and had no idea what was going on then they'd be using the "your drunkenness doesn't excuse your crime" line on him. Is that right? Is that really where we're at?
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by anne:
Pretty sure that women were commodities - or at least property - quite a long time before capitalism got itself globalised.
Indeed, women were commodities centuries before capitalism was a gleam in the Hanseatic League's eye.
I didn't think I was saying otherwise.
You rather seemed to be saying that globalized capitalism is the thing that turns women into commodities, which rather implies that it is THE thing that turns women into commodities, i.e. the one and only thing. That's what "the" means.
Nice bit of quote-mining there. Why is this forum so full of it?
I said this:
"Well, I would say that globalized capitalism has a lot to do with it - the same thing which turns women into commodities."
Both you and Anne seem to be interpreting that as 'the same thing which - for the first time in history - turns women into commodities'. I don't see that 'for the first time in history' is implied.
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Having sex with someone below the age of consent is not the same crime as rape, its is tried and punished differently.
English law differentiates between children under 13 and children over 13. Rape of a child under 13 (where rape specifically means the penetration of the mouth, anus or vagina with a penis), assault by penetration of a child under 13, and causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration are all subject to life imprisonment. There is no defense in law for sex with a child under 13.
If the child is aged between 13 and 16, the crime is "sexual activity with a child" rather than rape, the penalty is up to 14 years imprisonment rather than life, and the accused may use the defense that he reasonably believed the child to be overage.
That defense used to be available to men aged 23 or under. I'm not sure if that's still the case.
Grooming has been mentioned and there is now a specific crime of grooming a child for sexual activity. This is the CPS sentencing guidance Even if no such activity has taken place an offence has still been committed: quote:
In a case where no substantive sexual offence has in fact been committed, the main dimension of seriousness will be the offender's intention - the more serious the offence intended, the higher the offender's culpability.
Adults can be groomed too, and not just for sex. The kind of techniques employed in cults are designed to reduce someone's ability to make independent choices.
Posted by MarsmanTJ (# 8689) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
You're missing the point. If both of them are drunk, why is all the onus on the man to establish consent? Aren't his inhibitions and judgement impaired as well?
Yes. And this is what makes it quite so difficult.
quote:
The way some people here are arguing, it's like a drunk woman could drag an equally drunk man back to her room, strip him, shove him onto the bed and ride him all night - and he'd be a rapist because she was drunk and therefore unable to give consent. And if he said he was drunk and had no idea what was going on then they'd be using the "your drunkenness doesn't excuse your crime" line on him. Is that right? Is that really where we're at?
And that's where I have a problem with the whole thing. This is where I have quite a fundamental problem with the culture of picking someone up at a bar because one is drunk, from both genders. Because actually, in those circumstances, it is possible they HAVE consented. It is possible they went out, to get plastered with the express intention of hooking up, and they knew full well what they were getting themselves into. It is possible, there was a cute guy/girl that they knew was interested and they knew they needed some dutch courage before approaching them, and they knew what they were doing. But it's where do you draw the line? For me, the line is very simple: I want the first woman I sleep with to be someone that we're both wearing rings, have exchanged vows, and have spent enough time thinking about it, that we know that our first time is consensual. But I recognise that that is not where society is. I equally recognise that there are plenty of people of both genders who go out to drink on a friday night, and wake up the next morning in bed with a stranger, and go 'what the hell did I do last night?' And in that case, all my historic chauvinism from my conservative evangelical background, coupled with the lashings of feminist theology I got during my degree, meshes together to say that real men should not have let it get that far. Whether the girl had responsibility or not, sure, but part of the culture which makes women afraid at certain times (I hate the term 'rape culture') is that too often they feel like the victim in those circumstances. Maybe men do to, but I think that may be a difference of emotional wiring. And it is that sort of behaviour needs to become uncool.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
I wouldn't suspect bad faith on mt's part, quetzalcoatl. For one thing, that's how I interpreted it too. Perhaps you were not clear.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Marsman
I can see where you're coming from, but I'm not sure that 'real men should not have let it get that far' is going to work.
It seems to make the man the chief responsible adult in these situations, doesn't it? Perhaps you don't intend that meaning.
I get the impression sometimes of Christians, and others actually, standing on the shore, watching the tide come in and out like Canute, rather helplessly.
These shifts in mores seem to be beyond our comprehension really. I can see how one can work with people individually, on these issues, as I used to do it as a therapist, but even then, not to recommend any particular route.
On the plus side, I think many people get fed up with the one-night stand culture, and want something more meaningful.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Erroneous reference to Canute who actually (according to legend) deliberately sat by the sea, to prove he wasn't all-powerful.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
Surely many of these statements that are used to put responsibility on men are correct, just missing something. A woman should also not lose control. It's just that being raped is not the appropriate punishment. If the man should be a little more careful, well he's the one who would have the fun and little chance of being raped*, seems fair if he pays a price of a little carefullness, no?
Not none, and thinking only of cross-gender sex. I haven't a clue about risks of rape in gay sex, though I am sure they are not zero.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
MarsmanTJ: It is possible, there was a cute guy/girl that they knew was interested and they knew they needed some dutch courage before approaching them, and they knew what they were doing.
Hey, I resemble that remark!
[ 18. June 2013, 16:20: Message edited by: LeRoc ]
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I haven't a clue about risks of rape in gay sex, though I am sure they are not zero.
I saw a programme about the lesbian gay scene a while back . OK, obviously we're not talking rape per se, but apparently it wasn't all that uncommon for a woman to fall foul of aggressive behaviour after a pick-up at a club or wherever .
One party thinks they're in for some kissing and cuddling while the other goes for a bit of a forceful and unconsented fumble down below.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Male-female, male-male and female-female all should have the same standard as to whether an event is rape or not.
Posted by scuffleball (# 16480) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by Fineline:
That it's also important for people to take care in the situations they get into - it's not about assigning blame to the victim or excusing the behaviour of rapists, but just acting prudently to look after oneself, and minimise risk.
This is pretty much what I've being trying to say , albeit badly.
Having read other posts I now acknowledge my comments have been naive . I didn't realise that sex offenders deliberately went out their way to target female revellers who had become incapacitated through the use of too much alcohol.
This is a nice idea on paper. But.
It neglects the fact that rape causes a lot of emotional distress and rumination that can - eventually - lead to mental health problems.
Saying that someone who was raped could have avoided this by taking a different course of action causes poor self-esteem, exacerbating this.
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I doubt if the CPS (in England) would take up a case like that. There is little hope of a prosecution. I think there has to be more than just a possibility that I didn't consent, but an actual memory or a feeling, or physical evidence, e.g. bruising, and so on.
Hmm this is a tough one. Otoh somebody could get so drunk they forgot what they were raped. But a friend of ours got accused of rape for returning home a drunk person who was confused and forgot stuff. Thankfully I imagine it would have been fairly easy to show no sexual activity had taken place, and the matter was never brought to the police.
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