It would be deeply foolish to pretend to know exactly what is going through someone’s mind when they make a choice to commit sexual assault. No two attackers are the same, no two attacks are the same.
Even if you had the opportunity to talk honestly to a close friend who you knew had committed rape, and you could ask him why he did it, could you trust the answers? Even if he was trying to be completely honest and truthful with you, how could you know he was being entirely honest and truthful with himself? One of the most basic lessons of psychology is that people can go to enormous cognitive lengths to justify or explain our own behaviour to our own consciences.
Last week on the Good Men Project (and since reposted at xojane), Alyssa Royse wrote at length about her friend, who had raped a woman as she slept. The man was obviously very dear to the author, she talks repeatedly (and without ironic capitalization) about what a nice guy he is. Understandably, she is searching for an answer to the question, why did he do it?
I have no problem with that question being asked. Indeed at an individual, political and psychological level, it is a question I’d like to see asked a lot more. My problem is with the answer she gives.
In this particular case, I had watched the woman in question flirt aggressively with my friend for weeks. I had watched her sit on his lap, dance with him, twirl his hair in her fingers. I had seen her at parties discussing the various kinds of sex work she had done, and the pleasure with which she explored her own very fluid sexuality, all while looking my friend straight in the eye.
Only she knows what signals she intended to send out. But many of us can guess the signals he received.
Royse goes to enormous efforts to insist she is not attempting to excuse or justify the rape, but to “understand.” Unfortunately the understanding she comes to is deeply, deeply flawed.
This is not a “some girls, they rape so easy” story. I promise. This is a “some signals, they read so wrong” story. And the fault is not hers, it’s ours — all of ours — for not explaining what these signals DON’T mean, even if we don’t know exactly what they DO mean.
No, it isn’t. The fault is not ‘all of ours’ it is his, and squarely his. In trying to understand her friend’s behaviour, Royse suggests repeatedly that he did not know that what he was doing was rape. She goes on to say:
There are two simple truths here:
1. She had every right to do everything she was doing and fully expect to be safe from rape. (She was right.)
2. He believed that everything she was doing was an invitation to have sex. (He was wrong.)
The problem is not that she’s a “slut.” The implications of that word make my brain shrivel when sprinkled with the salty insinuations that so often accompany it: that a woman who exhibits a fondness for her own sexuality is somehow inviting anyone who sees her to have sex with her.
The problem isn’t even that he’s a rapist.
The problem is that no one is taking responsibility for the mixed messages about sex and sexuality in which we are stewing. And no one is taking responsibility for teaching people how the messages we are sending are often being misunderstood.
I’d suggest that the second of her two “simple truths” is, almost certainly, not true at all. I simply cannot accept that any reasonably intelligent and informed man (and by the description I’m assuming this man is both) doesn’t know full well that just because a woman wanted to have sex with you earlier in the evening, or last week, or last month, does not mean she necessarily wants to have sex with you right now. People have the right to change their mind, to develop a headache, or to lose a mood – not to mention fall asleep.
In other words, he might not have been wrong to think her behaviour was an invitation to have sex. Even if it was an invitation to have sex, it was not an open-ended invitation to have sex at any time with no comebacks. The implication of Simple Truth Number 2 is that if someone has wanted sex with you at any point in the past, you can assume you have their consent to sex at any time thereafter. This is profoundly wrong and a deeply damaging suggestion to make.
Speaking as a man, and as a man who in younger years has done his share of getting wasted and falling into bed with people, I never needed to be told that sex without explicit (and immediate) consent is rape. When I am told that other men get confused by mixed messages and honestly imagine consent is there when it has not been given, I simply do not believe it. In a nutshell I don’t think many if any men are that stupid.
What was going through this man’s mind at the time he raped his victim? Of course I don’t know, but I can easily imagine several possible thought processes. One is that he knew he didn’t have consent but at that moment didn’t care enough to let that prevent him. Another, and I suspect this is the most likely, is that he knew he didn’t have consent but took a guess that if or when the woman woke up, she would consent, since she’d obviously wanted sex earlier. Perhaps he thought he could get away without her waking up at all, or that she would have no memory of it the next day.
Any of those (or perhaps a combination of those and other thoughts) would seem entirely credible to me. The only explanation on offer which I find laughable is that he honestly believed he had her consent to penetrate her while she was asleep – or in other words that he didn’t know he was raping her.
Royse’s article is titled “Nice guys do commit rape.” Though not the most objectionable component to this mess, this is the most prominent problem. Nice guys do not commit rape, but guys we thought were nice undoubtedly do. Coming to terms with the truth that a dear and close friend is a rapist cannot be easy for anyone, least of all a sex educator and Slutwalk activist. Nonetheless that is the truth here. The one simple truth is that her friend is a rapist and no amount of tortuous doublethink can shift responsibility onto cultural attitudes, mixed messages or accidental confusion. He became a rapist at the moment he decided to rape. Whatever we mean by ‘nice guy’, whoever a nice guy is, he is not someone who knowingly rapes.
In attempting to understand, in attempting to explain, Alyssa Royse has produced one of the most convoluted, extended exercises in rape apologism I have ever read.
[slight edit, original version stated that Alyssa identifies as a feminist, now corrected. See comments]
Thank you for writing this, the article filled me with so many emotions, but mainly bewilderment that she insisted someone who could rape a sleeping woman was still a nice guy.
I was unaware she described herself as a feminist, more evidence perhaps that the term is so broad to meaningless?
I suspect we probably agree on more than we disagree on, but let me try and explain to you why that point #2, which seems to be the sticking point for you (and you are not alone) is so important to me.
The situation described in that article is woefully common. There are many women who have been victimized by men who didn’t realize that what they were doing was wrong. In fact, many women who don’t even realize that what happened to them was wrong, and instead carry around all manner of guilt and shame about something of which they need not be ashamed because it was not their fault.
This is the murky area of date rape. A term that I made clear I hate precisely because I believe it belittles these incidents. The reason I stated over and over again that I believe what happened here is rape, is to elevate these incidents to the level victims deserve. “You are not crazy, what happened to you was wrong.”
However, if these things can happen so often, then clearly there is some murky soup we’re swimming in. And it cannot be as simple as saying “he’s bad.” Because to say so would mean that at least 50% of the men out there are bad. It writes off the responsibility that we all have to look at the sexualization of women’s bodies and sexuality that make otherwise decent men think this is the expected outcome. MANY people would have believed that their interactions were logically and obviously headed to sex. As I said in the article, they would ALL be wrong. But we have to ask ourselves why so many people would think that. Men and women.
That’s what saddens me. That so many people would say, “what did you expect?” as a way to justify it.
At the same time, I think we do have to ask that, not as a way to justify it, but as a way to stop it. To understand it. To change it.
I am not justifying or apologizing. I told him, and i said in that article, that I believe that what happened was rape, was wrong and was his doing. But I also believe that we have to look at the implicit role that we all play in creating a sexualized society in which women’s bodies are little more than a commodity. And to ignore that part of it is to let it continue.
I have worked in victim’s services for too long, and seen the same scenario played out too many times not to ask why this is happening. I am not blaming the victim, I am, instead, spreading the blame to all of us, including those of us who really don’t want to believe that we may be part of the problem.
And one other small point of clarification. I have written and spoken extensively about why I do not use the term “feminist” in describing myself.
Hi Alyssa, many thanks for reading and responding, it is genuinely appreciated.
The first thing to say is I do not accept your assertion that a large proportion of men do what is described in the article. Yes, it is not uncommon, and it it is perhaps more common that assumed by many, but I think it is fanciful to imagine it is anything like 50% of men would do or have done this. .
MANY people would have believed that their interactions were logically and obviously headed to sex.
You know what? From your description, I believe their interactions were logically and obviously headed to sex, or at least the likelihood of it. I’m not disputing that.
What I am disputing is that any man of normal cognitive function wouldn’t understand that a sleeping woman is not a consenting woman. Perhaps she would have been consenting earlier. Perhaps she will go on to be consenting later, but at that moment, when she is asleep, she is not consenting. Every man understands that, whether or not he respects it.
I think there is a very fine, subtle and important difference between my best guess as to his thoughts and yours. You say he thought she was consenting even though she was asleep. I’m suggesting he probably thought that she would consent if and when she woke up. That’s not the same thing.
Unfortunately, that is just a slightly more sophisticated version of “she’ll probably like it by the end” which has been the go-to self-justification for rapists since time began.
No man has the right to make that assumption.
oh and apologies for sloppiness on the feminist thing. I’ll edit now.
I agree. The larger points Alyssa makes have merit, but narratively they do read in the original column as a justification for her friend’s actions. Having sex with someone who’s sleeping is not decent behavior, and I think ascribing it to our culture blurring lines doesn’t do us any favors.
Ally, I think you misinterpreted the context behind Alyssa’s “at least 50%” claim.
She said “There are many women who have been victimized by men who didn’t realize that what they were doing was wrong.” To me, this is the more likely context, rather than assuming she was referring to men who have raped women in their sleep.
it seems that what your saying is that he thought her wanting to have sex with him, amounted to same thing as her actually consenting?
if that’s the case then surly he’s not a Bad guy, just a morally ignorant guy? for him to be a bad guy I would have thought he’d have to understand why what he was doing was wrong and do it anyway
Ms. Royce is dreadfully misinformed, and I am attempting to make that clear on her piece itself over at Good Men Project. 50% don’t accidentally commit rape. That is a baseless assumption. In fact, as researcher David Lisak and others have determined in recent years, it’s a far smaller percentage of the population (almost all male) that commits sexual violence, and commits it over and over again. They appear “nice.” They feign confusion and horror when they are actually detected. But they almost always- always- know exactly what they are doing and how. Royce is correctly only in saying that there are many women who are raped who do not realize it. She is not correct in stating that there are large numbers of men committing rape and not realizing it.
I’ve worked with rape victims for years and the woman being asleep is the most common risk factor for rape. But what you seem to be saying is that a ‘nice guy’ could take it that someone was flirting, putting sex on the cards when awake and then deciding that when that person was asleep was the time to instigate that. Does that seem likely to you when most men prefer their partners awake and moving? Would you think it nice if someone took that money you’d mentioned lending them when you were asleep?
If he thought she wanted to have sex at some point why wasn’t he prepared to wait? What made him want to have that sexual contact begin on his terms without her input? Why didn’t he just think ‘great, soon this hot woman and I are going to get it on’ and be content with the anticipation leading to mutual enjoyment like most men do? What kind of man thinks that a total lack of participation is normal?
Everything about it suggests he doesn’t actually want women to be sexual. He doesn’t want them to flirt, to be independent, to have feelings about his sexual identity, possibly find him lacking in bed. Any man who was comfortable with sexual interaction would not wait for her to be asleep. It smacks of putting her in her place, marking his territory and removing her power. It’s not about mis-reading the signals. That would have been him making a move faster or in an embarrassing way and the sexual contact being postponed. This is sneaky, calculating and boils down to him wanting control over how and when sexual contact happened.
I think you’ve also made the mistake of believing what rapists say when most people who have ever met one know they are self centred, manipulative, lack self awareness, tend to be narcissistic and like all abusers, have a tendency to put themselves forward as ‘misunderstood’. That’s their camouflage. He told you lots of things, you seem to have chosen to believe them at face value as if the simple act of friendship is an alibi in life. Plenty of people who do bad things have friends. What you should have been asking is ‘am I biased because he’s my friend’ not ‘why wouldn’t I believe him’?
Can you be sure that he’s never done this before and that time the woman “who [didn’t] even realize that what happened to them was wrong, and instead carry around all manner of guilt and shame’ never spoke up? Are you sure that he didn’t think this woman with her drinking, drug taking and sex work past was easy prey only to discover that she was actually much harder to control because of those things? You mention those things as if they are relevant to you. You don’t think they were relevant to him too or it was coincidence that it was this woman he raped? (We all know the urban myth that you can’t rape a whore. Or a slut.)
You talk good talk about how women are being let down by objectification and our sexualised culture (apart from that lovely line “But if something walks like a fuck and talks like fuck, at what point are we supposed to understand that it’s not a fuck?” which suggests female sexuality overrides actual humanity) but your entire argument boils down thinking any normal man could think being asleep is acting sexy and thus if a man decrees any action to be sexy when it suits him, his feelings and desires trump everything else.
That’s not talking about sex or rape. It’s excusing it at best and aiding and abetting it at worst. Your whole article repeats the lies rapists tell and attempts to legitimise men always calling the shots sexually and not caring whether she’s fully on board.
I definitely believe that guys are not confused about rape. I find the constant barrage of ‘information’ about rape insulting to everyone involved. The problem is not confusion or aggression or sex. It is about violation and transgression.
But aren’t guys *put up* to being violators and transgressors, isn’t this a double-bind where they may be punished if they do it, but they will definitely be punished in a different way if they never attempt it
Your own analysis here points up what I think the original author is talking about. We really want this clear, there is rape, and there is not rape.
No one has any wish to pursue the complexities involved. Those allied with the rapists just want them to get away with it, and the rest of us just want action, since the culture has tended toward inaction far too much in the past.
Rape is a violent crime, but what about when it is more like theft. Why is theft of sex a violent crime?
Hey, I’m sharing this on my Facebook wall. I just loved your response. You’ve very precisely hit the mark about something that I’ve been wondering for a really long time. Thank you for finally clearing my doubts!
Alyssa, I’ve been thinking about your claim about “at least 50% of men” and your other assertions about how common this behaviour is.
It’s something I’ve been meaning to blog about for a while and this might bring that day forward a lot. But this is a particularly good and pressing example so I’ll say it roughly now.
I think it’s incredibly irresponsible to overstate the prevalence of crimes like this.
One of the strongest effects in social psychology is social conformity. People are much more likely to behave in any kind of way if they think large numbers of other people are doing it. Human beings generally don’t like behaving in ways that they know are aberrant, so we often overestimate how common our own behaviour patterns are. Gamblers think pretty much everyone gambles. Problem drinkers think everyone else drinks more than they actually do. Domestic abusers overestimate the prevalence of domestic abuse. All of that is well researched and documented. Very importantly, it seems to be a two-way effect, so not only do people who gamble come to believe that everyone else does it, but people who believe gambling is common are more likely to become problem gamblers. .
I don’t know of any equivalent research into sex offenders, but I’d fully expect people like your friend to believe “anyone would do this in the same situation.”
It is really important that anyone who thinks like that is put right, and not indulged. No, everyone does not behave like this. Only the small proportion of the population who are rapists behave like this.
What you are doing when you throw around claims like “at least 50% of men” is normalising behaviour which should always be considered aberrant (in every sense.)
Although if you do a rough and totally unscientific survey of the women you know, most will have a simular story, I would put 50% at a low estimate .
Not sure I accept that Jem. Yes, lots of women, maybe a majority, will have experience of being somehow molested by a drunk or having to resist unpleasant overtures, but do you really think a large proportion of women have woken up to find themselves being raped?
The stats are really difficult to trust as we all know, but lets not forget we are talking actual rape here, and even the highest estimates are one in six or one in four, and that’s usually including attempted rapes and serious sexual assaults – and under all circumstances, not just sleeping/conscious victims.
There’s also the factor that we know from lots of research that a relatively small number of rapists are prolific, and so responsible for a surprisingly high proportion of all rapes.Most men who rape at all will do so more than once,
So even if it were true that (say) 50% of women have had an experience something like this, it wouldn’t mean that 50% of men have perpetrated something like this, it would mean maybe 10 or 15% of men have done so.
My best guess is the proportion is considerably lower than that, even.
There is a difference between 50% of men committing such crimes and 50% of women experiencing them. I would suspect that well over 50% of women have experience sexual harassment (or gendered harassment) ever in their lifetime, but a much lower number (while still possibly a simple majority or close to it) of men have ever committed such ever in their lifetime.
Likewise, statistics put sexual assault at 1 in 4 women over their lifetime – and that may be a low estimate, considering reporting and definition problems. However, I doubt that same percentage of men commit rapes. Studies indicate that it’s closer to 5-10%. This is still a rather scary number, but it’s not at all an indication that most men rape or consider doing so. A myth which, I agree, helps the men who do commit rape feel as though they are mainstream rather that outliers and therefore are allowed to excuse their own behavior accordingly.
Ms. Royce,
I think there are a number of problems with your hypothesis many of which are well addressed in the body of this reply. Your answer, though, like your story is riddled with misconceptions.
First, as Roger Canaff stated, you are correct that many women don’t know that they were raped. However, I would venture to say that many women actually DO know they were raped, and either don’t want to believe it, or cannot come to terms with it. Similarly, I think you do not want to believe that your friend knew precisely what he was doing. Second, date rape is not the result of confusion or mixed socio-sexual signals; Date rape, like all other forms of rape is the result of one person feeling entitled to another person’s body, just like a common thief. Whether the rapist is an acquaintance or a stranger is of little to no consequence; All rapists take something that is not theirs for the taking. Further, this isn’t the dark ages. We, as a society recognize marital rape. There is almost no question that when you marry a person, you have invited them into a sexual union. A husband or wife needn’t flirt, wear sexy cloths or send signals. The two essentially contract to have sex for life. With that, we all understand that when a married partner does not want to give sex and it is taken, that is rape. Given this, and the host of other acquaintance rape scenarios, how could you possibly believe your friend didn’t know that inserting his penis into an unconscious woman was rape?
Finally, your article and your response are dangerously regressive. Sexual signals may or may not be a sexual invite. Often they are. However, that invite is for sex that is and must be mutually agreed upon. Women don’t always dress provocatively to “get the guy.” Many do so to feel sexual, or feel good about themselves. Regardless, it doesn’t matter. There is no “murky” area when a woman says “no” or cannot consent – like your sleeping victim. You may not want to admit it, but you DO vilify her by discussing her signals, sexual history and behavior. You are absolutely wrong; We don’t require a social dialogue about mixed signals. We need to discuss that people we may trust, care for and love may, in fact, be very bad people. You are absolutely right that there are “nice” rapists. I know a serial rapist with a wife and two children. I’m sure they think he’s just as great as your friend. Nonetheless, he is what he is . . . A sexual thief. A rapist and a bad person, just like your friend.
Ms. Mechanic speaks the truth.
Michelle and Roger, thanks to you both. Great comments.
Sorry if I am harping on my favorite theory: Did anyone ask this guy to really consider how much this was about the sex and how much was about the getting away with it? If the signals were really that strong, all he had to do was wait.
My feeling here is that guys are told that they need to prove they are not being controlled on a regular basis, in various ways, and that is what tips the balance more than half the time. It is not self-serving, it is an obligation.
That is especially keen for guys who are naturally, genuinely nice, and therefore in the habit of serving others. “Am I really a lap dog, or do I take risks? How can I take a risk that soothes my need to show myself I am not a wimp, and that will *probably* not turn out *too* bad?”
Your response to the problem seems to be tho if women stopped being sexual then there would be no rape. How about if men asked for explicit consent before sex always, there would be no rape?
Your stance seems to be sex negative and determined on how “good women “behave
I attend swinging clubs, an incredible sexually charged atmosphere, where the men might be safe in assuming that any woman present is there for sex. Very often the women are dressed in lingerie corsets or other outfits to reveal their bodies. However everyone knows that sex can only take place with explicit and informed consent. Its not women’s fault for being sexy, or sexualised, it is the fault of some men for refusing to understand enthusiastic and informed consent.
Apologies for calling you a feminist, I took it from Ally’s article.
I didnt mean those specific circumstances, just date rape, which is a horrible term, in general. However the fact I have googled and assumed finding data would be easy, and it isn’t , suggests that you are right and a lot more research is needed.
Wrong. The commenter is confusing prevalence with incidence. A far larger percentage of women are raped than there are rapists in the population. Research has demonstrated that men who commit rape- particularly non-stranger rape- victimize repeatedly over their lifetimes.
I am sorry that’s what you heard, it’s quite the opposite of what I said. Especially when I said that we don’t need to change how we express ourselves – explicitly stating that I like going out in leather pants and a corset – but that we need to change how signals are interpreted. That we need to teach people what such signals DON’T mean, even if we don’t know what they do mean. I was VERY explicit about that.
Also that she had every right to do, and to believe that she could do, all the things she was doing without being assaulted.
What we need to do is look at why those signals are being interpreted as an invitation to have sex. And we can’t pretend that they aren’t, because they are. Which is why things like this happen.
Which is why many people interpret her actions as an obvious precursor to sex, which they aren’t.
I was pretty clear about that, I think. At least I tried to be.
It’s a tough topic. Which is why the conversation needs to happen.
What we need to do is look at why those signals are being interpreted as an invitation to have sex.
Do you really, honestly believe that your friend took those signals to mean he was welcome to have sex with the woman at any time of his choosing, whether or not she was conscious at the time?
Ally, I could not agree with you more. Those signals probably WERE an invitation to sex – at some point. Ideally while she was conscious so that she could actually enjoy it.
I absolutely acknowledge there are nuances at work, but I just can’t agree with this. I think there are plenty of signals that are an invitation to have sex, and it’s good to keep checking in as you go along interpreting them since there’s always room for error. But sleeping is never an invitation to have sex, regardless of what signals were sent previously.
You know what signal is never misinterpreted…asking do you want to have sex!
[username edited by AF]
@Jemima Oh yeah, I agree! Was trying to say that there are signals that invite you/tell you someone might want to have sex with you (good conversation/flirting etc…) but you’re right, there isn’t any replacement for just asking, and it’s normal to ask for consent more than once depending on how things progress (e.g. as you go along does X sound fun to you but not Y?)
My two year old likes to stick his fingers up my nose, which hurts immensely and I’m sure is very unhygienic. Therefore I have been teaching him the very simple lesson that you don’t stick any part of your body (not just fingers) into parts of anybody elses’ body (not just their nose) without their permission. I am not sure why somebody twenty years older than my two year old CAN’T GRASP THE SAME FUCKING CONCEPT.
Just cannot express how much I love this comment. Thanks.
slow clap for you, sir xx
Bugger That was me Jemima commenting, logged on wrong account. My point still stands tho, in any way saying it is about woman and the signals they send blames women for being raped, even if you do not realize that is what you are doing.
[username edited by AF]
I do get antsy with the language being used – because it’s just not as clear as people think.
One is the supposed certainty and logic that gets used. So many have been literal;y programmed and indoctrinated to act and react to words a specific way they can’t see and and mentally sense the issues and obstacles.
He raped her = He’s a rapist. is it actually the correct language and thinking?
Rape gets treated different to other things – It gets intensely polarised, and that has happened in the last 40 years or so and seems to be linked to 2nd wave feminism. It’s not clear or possible to say with any certainty that it’s chicken and egg – but the two do appear to be linked.
He killed her = He’s a Murder. It’s acknowledged to be false, because it could be manslaughter. The rape is rape slogans have been very successful in programming a reaction.
You can’t say He’s a Rapist = He raped her, because the label rapist does not mean rape of every person possible. rape is rape breaks down and fails.
There is an ingrained imbalance here in language and I want to know why and what language is better, because the battle tanks keep getting bogged down in the linguistic no-man’s land and minefields. It may be better if that stopped?
He raped her = He’s a rapist. is it actually the correct language and thinking?
Yes
Interesting – Alyssa keeps highlighting how she has found the need to revisit how people think about issues, perception and communication – one aspect of that is language.
It is interesting to me that both the term rape and rapist have become so high;y polarised and gendered. It does not sit well in Equality And Human Right Euro Style.
“He committed rape – he’s a rapist” is qualitatively different to “She committed rape – she’s a rapist”.
In the same way child abuse by a woman receives a focus and weight that is fundamentally different and the only difference in sex/gender.
Just look at the “Vanessa George” case from 2009. The reaction to the women involved far outweighed the reaction to Colin Blanchard.
You either accept the language and ignore the differences or explore why they are there. To simply say it’s gender and that’s that is to dismiss obvious issues.
@MediaHound Y’know, I understand what you’re saying about “she’s a rapist” vs. “he’s a rapist” being loaded in different ways, and it frustrates t me to no end that men/boys who are raped are often dismissed (for ex. “12 year old has sex with 28 year old teacher? lucky him!” ugh.) but I can’t agree with you that the definition of rape is gendered and I don’t think it changes the essential problem Ally is addressing…..which is that a healthy society encourages consent & communication, and having sex with someone who is sleeping involves neither of those.
Expressio Unius Est Exclusio Alterius – the expression of one thing is the exclusion of the other. it applies to language as much as law. It’s a basic social construct that is part of all cultures/societies which have anglophone language.
If I use the word “rent” and then refer to “prostitution” … is there an embedded gender there?
The gender rape link has become some socially normalised that you have “Rape” and “Male Rape” – and if rape is as gender neutral as you believe there wouldn’t be the need to add a gender descriptor to have a male victim included at all. P^)
Why would Interpretatio Cessat in Claris be needed if there is equality of meaning and neutrality?
I think I understand your point MediaHound, and it is certainly an interesting question as to how rape and sexual assault are gendered within and by language.
However I’m afraid I really don’t see any relevance to the actual articles and debate here, which, as it happens, are very specifically, about a male rapist and a female victim.
It’s an interesting question as to whether I and everyone else would be discussing this case differently if the genders were reversed, but it is an entirely hypothetical point at the moment.
Sorry – must just be me who sees the progression. Nice guy and rape – people are focusing upon the word nice, when I’m looking at the word rape.
Nice Guy = One Narrowed View lined to gender asymmetry.
Rape = Supposed to be neutral but gendered due to common social usage
???? = Neutral words and wording which articulate the issue and not gender around the issue?
I think it’s beyond doubt that we’d be discussing this case differently if the genders were reversed: http://www.vice.com/en_au/read/sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll-morning-wood-and-pop-crushes/?utm_source=vicefb
On a sidenote, brilliant site. A calm bay of reason in a sea of anger and recriminations that makes up most online discussion of gender issues.
He raped her = he’s a rapist
He killed her = he’s a KILLER (see the difference?)
He murdered her = he’s a murderer
“Rape gets treated different to other things” – well, it IS different to other things, unless those things are rape.
The reason this angered me so much is because my experiences of being raped while unconscious all occurred within a long-term live-in relationship – a marriage, in fact. I considered myself in love with my ex-husband, I found him attractive and had the higher libido. No mixed signals there. But I was asleep, I was not able to enjoy sex on account of my brain being turned off.
This is penetration, we’re talking about, not waking someone up with kisses and cuddles to see if they’re in the mood. It’s scary, weird and traumatising. It’s so disorientating, you first have to work out whether you’re dreaming or whether you’ve somehow forgotten how this started, and it’s physically painful because your body wasn’t in any way ready for this, and you don’t have a clue how to respond. And you might think, maybe he thought I’d be into that, so afterwards you gently make it crystal clear; please don’t do that – wake me up! But no, it happens again and again.
Perfectly lovely man, made people laugh, put the bins out for our elderly neighbour. But in common with other people who are capable of crossing such major boundaries, he also had no problem lying, stealing, bullying and turning violent when he needed to get something of his chest. And then he’d tell me, well men, you know?… not very good at expressing their feelings in words.
Rapists are not slathering scaley monsters, but they are rapists. Our culture holds up a lot of ideas that allow many rapists to get away with it, to justify it to themselves and, as illustrated by all this, to justify it to their friends. It must be very shocking when your friend confides this in you, it’s a horrible thing to realise someone you love and trust is not nearly so nice as they seemed. But there is no ambiguity about the desire for a sleeping person to have something inserted in them.
I recommend a couple of Captain Awkward threads on this – the posts and the comments: My friend, the rapist and My friend group has a case of the Creepy Dude: How do we clear that up?
Incidentally, as far as stats are concerned, although a huge proportion of women experience rape, all the (admittedly limited) data collected would suggest that it is a much smaller minority of men who commit it. The same men do the same thing time and time again. Most men don’t rape. Most men aren’t at all violent towards actual or potential sexual partners. The men who are do it again and again and believe themselves to be normal.
thank you so much for this Goldfish, brilliant and moving comment.
Re Ally’s point:
“I think it’s incredibly irresponsible to overstate the prevalence of crimes like this.”
This is an hugely important observation. I’ve written about this previously in reference to rape prosecutions rates. (Briefly: rape prosecutions are, most people would agree, unacceptably low, but still the lowness of those figures is often exaggerated in the media. This creates an atmosphere where women think it’s never worth coming forward about a rape.)
The same applies here – if women erroneously think that the majority of men are rapists, a damaging distrust of all men may well be the result. Given the parallel strand of argument here about women feeling confident to live their lives freely, and the importance of inter-gender understanding to breaking down harmful, antediluvian gender stereotypes, I think this is catastrophic.
So actually, the danger of such numbers – if they are poorly-evidenced – is two-fold: the risk of social conformity amongst would-be rapists, and the risk of harmful stereotyping of men amongst women.
Samuel, this is one of my main objections to the kind of ‘don’t get raped’ campaign Zoe Williams is writing about in the Guardian today. It suggests your chance of being raped is somewhere round ‘inevitable if you have a drink’ and suggests you treat all men as potential rapists just looking for their chance.
Which is bullshit on several levels. Rapists are a tiny subset of men and it’s not helpful to most men to be tarred with the same brush. Suggesting they are two a penny actually gives rapists cover because they think everyone else is doing it and it allows their friends and family to normalise and hide their behaviour and it makes women terrified.
After my second rape in 8 months, the police more or less told me unless I worked out what was getting me raped so often, I’d be dead after the next one. Being told there would be a next one by people in the now was so intensely traumatising I couldn’t cope. I tried everything to stop this inevitability from happening. I gained weight, wore baggy clothes, stopped going out, became agoraphobic, wouldn’t even let the gasman in the house to read the meter, didn’t speak to men, didn’t look at them. I had this irrational idea I had to keep myself safe for 12 months. And I did. I wasn’t raped again.
But at the end of 12 months, I was heavily medicated, suffering an eating disorder, panic attacks, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, sobbing for hours on end and so terrified and guilty I couldn’t cope. I don’t really remember the next few years. Even now with about 100 hours of therapy behind me, I still feel overwhelmed by guilt if I go out and have a drink or flirt with the barman or wear nice clothes. Because I can’t shake the idea I’d be at fault when this casual inevitability of rape is bandied about all the time. So much of my life has been wasted by being made afraid it’s hard to bear in itself when I think what else I could have done…
Nikky,
Thanks for your comment. I’m desperately sorry you had such an experience.
I don’t think it can be said enough that most men aren’t rapists, really.
We should cry blue murder about the institutional failings that allow rape to occur, and allow rape prosecutions to repeatedly fail. But merely saying rape and rapists are common and women should watch out is deeply unhelpful.
All the best,
Sam
Except that women who are cautious around men aren’t acting that way only because they think rape is possible, but also because they _know_ that if it does happen it’s pretty much inevitable that what will be discussed afterwards is whether they “walked like a fuck” etc. Being cautious isn’t just about decreasing the chances of rape, it’s also largely about increasing the chances that one will be seen as a deserving victim rather than a slut who wasn’t really raped if it does happen.
So discussions that once again go over just how tempting women’s bodies are, rather than discussing the way culture:
1) encourages everyone to disassociate women’s bodies from women themselves
2) treats sex as something men do to women rather than something people do together
3) builds up the myth that the typical rape is committed by a stranger
4) builds up the myth that all men are tempted and some just can’t control themselves
5) ignores actual research on rape and rapists in favor of myths like the ones already mentioned
…aren’t terribly helpful or new.
Also, women don’t need to believe that “the majority of men are rapists” to feel a need to be cautious – we just need to know that a non-trivial number of rapists exist. The lack of support victims usually get is just icing on the cake. And we don’t get that news from the media – which doesn’t really talk about low rape prosecutions all that much – but from our own lives and experiences. Treating justified fears as irrational isn’t really helpful for encouraging women to speak up either, you know.
Rape is often used in wartime to punish the vanquished whilst in male prisons it’s used to both underpin hierachies and as a punishment .Gang members for instance who step out of line can be given the choice of either being killed or raped and then consigned to the bottom of the hierachiy.Gang rape has been interpreted by some as being an especially warped and twisted male bonding exercise and the victim is simply a means to an end.Whilst lone rapists may simply feel inadequate about their masculinity and feel the need to rape their victim to prove what a ”big man” they are and irrespective of whether they know their victim or not.
And whilst rape is overwhelmingly a male crime women can also be complicit either in procuring women to be raped and/or setting up women to be raped in order to punish them.And there have been cases where women have been involved in gangs which have raped men as well although to my knowledge this is very rare. .
So why do some men rape whilst others don’t. ? The veteran feminist Susan Brownmiller argued that the need to dominate and control the victim was a big factor. Whilst Camille Paglia took the view that male sexuality by it’s nature is both dangerous and aggressive which could be interpreted as a belief that all men are potential rapists.. However the fact is there’s no easy answer to this .Nevertheless most men don’t rape and most women aren’t complicit in the rape of others.Rape however is a crime that’s mainly carried out by young men.Violent crime is also most common amongst young men.Testosterene levels are also at their highest in young men.Therefore the way boys and young men are brought up and taught to mange their aggression may also be a factor in determining whether they rape or not.
ps Rape is obviously a violent crime..Serious non-sexual violent crime is also disproportionately carried out by young men. But some violent men can get sexually aroused when beating up their victim even though they don’t rape them.Kind of fits in with those who believe there can be a link between sex and violence combined with the need to dominate,control and humiliate the victim.I need to do more research on this so i’m a bit out of my depth but the answer to the question ”why do some men rape whilst others don’t” raises a number of highly complex issues.
@Paul
“But some violent men can get sexually aroused when beating up their victim even though they don’t rape them.Kind of fits in with those who believe there can be a link between sex and violence combined with the need to dominate,control and humiliate the victim.”
Unsurprisngly this caught my eye. I am a submissive, I am in a relationship with someone who derives sexual satisfaction from beating, dominating and controlling me. I find sexual satisfaction from this too, so the question of why some people get consent and some don’t is very close to my heart.
Somewhere someone pointed out the importance of not believing someone who rapes will look like an evil monster, I agree, understanding why some men and women do not believe sex must involve consent, and why they believe they are able to interpret consent lies at the heart of this.
[…] Royse has experienced a lot of fallout. She’s been called a rape apologist by people like Ally Fogg, and been told that she is making excuses for a rapist, by GMP’s own Matthew […]
I think that the difficulty Alyssa is having in working out how to respond to her friend’s behaviour can be explained by our use of moral language, and the way we tend to conflate certain moral concepts. The assumption is that only bad people do bad things, or that if a person does something bad, then he must be bad through and through – that people who do bad things are fundamentally bad people. This then makes it difficult to make sense of cases like this, because Alyssa knows that her friend is not ultimately a Terrible Person – he’s clearly not evil, and Alyssa believes him to be basically a normal, decent person.
So for that reason, she is having to do all sorts of elaborate mental gymnastics to try to make the thing he did not really that wrong – he is not a Bad Man, and only Bad Men do Bad Things, so therefore this can’t be that bad a thing. He can’t really be blameworthy, so it must be somebody else’s fault; and since we clearly can’t blame the victim, the only possible object of blame left is some vague, abstract notion of ‘society’ – we are somehow all to blame, for reasons that are not entirely clear.
But as Ally rightly argues, this simply won’t do. It is just not true to say that ‘as a society’ we somehow promote or condone mixed messages, and that her friend was really the victim of our confusing cultural norms. As Ally says, nobody seriously believes that an invitation to sex is so open-ended and temporally unspecific that you can cash it in whenever you like, including when the person is unconscious. This argument is completely unconvincing, but is the position Alyssa has found herself forced to defend in able to consistently retain her other beliefs, which are: (1) rape is wrong, and the victim is never blameworthy for being raped; (2) my friend is a good person; and (3) good people don’t do bad things.
The real solution to this problem is to reject belief (3). I am sure that Alyssa’s friend is not evil, or fundamentally bad. He may, in many ways, be a good, nice, decent person. But that does not change the fact that he did something very wrong, and which he ought to have known was very wrong. This was rape, and as much as it makes Alyssa uncomfortable to admit it, he is a rapist.
The point is that rapists are not fundamentally different from the rest of us; they are not a different species, or possessing of ultimately evil, black souls. They are normal people. Normal people are capable of doing bad things, and indeed normal people do very seriously wrong things all the time. Of course, this is a much more difficult, challenging conclusion to find ourselves with. If this is true, we can’t simply disregard the behaviour of rapists as an aberration, as the work of evil psychopaths about whom there is nothing more to be said. Neither can we redefine rape so that the behaviour of people like Alyssa’s friend is interpreted as not really rape, or not really that bad, because it was done by a Nice Guy.
Instead, both Alyssa and her friend need to be really honest with themselves about this incident, and acknowledge that what he did was wrong, it makes him a rapist, and that there is no other person or group he can pass off any of the blame to. I don’t know what motivated this man, who thinks of himself as a good, decent person, to rape a sleeping woman. But I know it isn’t the fault of ‘all of us’, or ‘society’. And if he is really the good, decent person he thinks he is, he needs to stop making excuses for what he did and admit that he, and he alone, is to blame.
I have to agree, I found the conversation earlier that committing rape does not make one a rapist very strange. However there is no rule that says having done something wrong you cannot admit your guilt and learn from it.
Can a rapist become a “nice guy” ? Undoubtedly, but self awareness self refelection and the desire to understand ones own culpability is vital.
Magnificent comment Rebecca, thanks so much.
And if he is really the good, decent person he thinks he is, he needs to stop making excuses for what he did and admit that he, and he alone, is to blame.
THIS, so much this.
The assumption is that only bad people do bad things, or that if a person does something bad, then he must be bad through and through – that people who do bad things are fundamentally bad people.
There is an apparent social and media shift around this at this time – Post Sandusky and also Savile. It’s causing problems because it’s always heading into the territory of “because Of” – he was seen as nice and now has to be seen as 100% bad “because Of”.
Well if he is bad now he was bad before – you just didn’t know it.
If he was a nice guy before why can’t he by a nice guy now?
But there is another issue that isn’t being said and that is before knowledge danger exists. It’s getting lost in the After it, therefore, because of it – post hoc ergo propter hoc – fallacies.
What I would say, (and I think this is what Rebecca was saying too), is that there really is no such thing as people who are inherently good/nice and people who are inherently bad/evil, The whole premise is flawed..
People do good things and people do bad things.
Some people do very bad things very often. Some people may do a very bad thing only once.
Does that make him/her a good person or a bad person? That’s entirely subjective.
Personally I think having committed rape should disqualify someone from being considered a good person, but it is behaviour that determines whether someone is good or bad, not some kind of existential binary. .
Someone who rapes can’t be considered a good person.I would have thought that was commonsense.Hitler loved his dog yet no one in their right mind would surely view that as a redeeming feature.Not the best comparison i know but what’s bad is bad.And whilst there’s different levels of badness someone who crosses certain boundaries cannot be considered a good person.Raping someone is crossing such a boundary.
Paul, almost everyone would agree that violent behaviour towards other citizens is an extreme example of bad behaviour, but that does not preclude goodness, either simultaneously or at other parts of their life. I think the fact that goodness can sit alongside badness in the same person is one of the fundamentally redeeming aspects of humanity.
When you say a rapist is bad, you are using shorthand – you are saying that they have exhibited a set of reprehensible behaviour. They have acted badly. You are probably not making a judgement on whether they are nice to their kids, or whether they remember their mother’s birthday.
I don’t think it’s about boundaries crossed – I think it’s about socially relevant behaviours. I think the distinction between ‘a bad person’ and ‘a person who has done something bad’ is entirely semantic when talking about them, as we are, in a specific context.
Agree, people have a tendency to divide people into Good and Bad, black and white…no shades of grey. ‘I think the fact that goodness can sit alongside badness in the same person is one of the fundamentally redeeming aspects of humanity.’ < this, exactly.
We demonize…even Hitler (and yes, he was a 'nice' guy and vegetarian, I've tried to explain this and it has been misunderstood before!) … even the killers of Jamie Bulger, were people. Not monsters.
That's not very palatable, is it? We want to project our darker feelings and desires onto these 'monsters'.
This is the fundamental attribution error – people underestimate how much of human behaviour is dependent on the situation and overestimate how much is due to personality traits. It is very scary to admit that yes, our family and friends might do bad things and even scarier to admit that we, too, might do bad things given sufficiently desperate circumstances. At work I support a guy who shoplifted to feed himself. He is severely mentally ill and his benefits were stopped. He literally had no money. I suspect many people would dismiss 'people who steal' as 'bad people'.
I veered off topic – not saying that in this case, though, the guy was in desperate circumstances. 'Good' people also do bad things *if it's easy and we are likely to get away with it*. Lots of social psychology studies show this…want to see how honest many 'respectable' people are? Secretly film how much they pay into an honesty box the for food and drink. In this case this woman had been flirting with this guy, had done sex work, was drunk, and so on – she was easy prey to rape, due to shitty attitudes that mean most people either just flat out won't believe her, or will dismiss it as not 'rape rape', as 'mixed signals', as Royse essentially does. The guy knew this, however subconsciously. And yes cognitive dissonance plays a huge role. Of course he wasn't going to say 'Yes, I raped her and that was a really bad thing to do'. He justified it, as Ally quite rightly points out, to himself – it obviously wasn't that calculated, consciously he genuinely believes he 'misread signals'. But on some subconscious level he knew this kind of rape doesn't
Yes, of course he's upset, he doesn't want to think of himself as a Bad Man and Rapist, because only monsters do that…
I'm not comparing skimping on the honesty box to rape – I don't believe most men rape (that idea is just dangerous as was discussed above). I'm saying it's a continuum. Who hasn't done something stupid that we later regret, when drunk, and justified it to ourselves to preserve our self-esteem? For most of us that doesn't extend to rape (or punching someone, or…). For someone to, at best, not to care whether someone else consents to sex they have to, well, lack empathy, I don't think (and bear with me, this isn't going to be what it sounds like) this was the kind of man who would go out and grab a woman from the street at knifepoint to rape. That's the point though, there *is* no 'type' of man who rapes, and most rapes aren't at knifepoint but are the kind of situation dismissed as 'date rape' or a case of 'mixed signals'. We could sit here and argue on an Internet thread until we're blue in the face about whether in any specific case, Mr X genuinely believed Ms Y consented to sex – about the exact heel height of her red shoes/ number of units she had had to drink/ degree to which the two of them had flirted/ exactly what was said before the rape, whatever, but that isn't the issue. The issue is attitudes to gender which we are all marinated in, which allow this kind of rape apology. From Royse's piece you'd think she thinks the amorphous 'society' and its messed-up attitudes to sexuality came out of nowhere. She's right of course to question those but it's a piece of nothing because she can't explain *why* society has crappy attitudes about a woman who was out drinking, dressed in *that*, blah blah, clearly wanted to have sex and, well, asked for it. It's like she thinks misogyny vanished into thin air. She simply can't reconcile the beliefs that her friend is a good guy with her beliefs that rape is wrong and you don't blame the victim. We need to stop pretending misogyny (and for that matter racism, classism, any -ism…) no longer exist. Yes, this 'good' guy raped someone. That doesn't make him a 'bad' man. Probably somewhat lacking in empathy, yes, but clearly not someone who is anytary hing we'd consider pathological, which is what I am trying to say, not a guy who would go out and torture animals or beat someone up…the issue is *who* we have more or less empathy for and *why*. Most of us can lack empathy sometimes. Sometimes we have to treat others as objects. You don't really worry about the kind of day the person who sells you your coffee is having (even though those of us who consider ourselves decent people would draw the line at being overtly rude to them, will say please and thank you and maybe even muster a smile). We simply don't have the time and energy. Which is fine. What isn't fine is when society tells us that some people are lesser – women, people who aren't white, poor people. We then deny those messages. We also generally deny the degree to which human behaviour is affected by our situation – we think only Bad People do bad things. Combine that with someone who is to some extent lacking empathy, has a need to control others and is somewhat manipulative so easily deceives themselves – perfect recipe for justifying rape. The fault *is* with society's messed-up attitudes to sexuality – but it's also with the individual. Attempts to explain rape without reference to both society AND the individual are bound to fail. And we do need to explain it – never excuse – to *prevent* it.
Update: I just read Royse's mate's article. They are both simply rape apologists. I mean, 80% of what they say is sensible, but they _ seriously_ believe this guy didn't understand what he was doing was rape? I studied psychology but don't need that, it's simply obvious that people deceive ourselves as to our motivations. I find their spiel dangeous because they're actually just peddling the old 'mixed signals' crap. Royse needs to wake up to herself – she simply doesn't want to believe her friend could do anything bad! Which is deeply immature as, as discussed at length, we *all* do bad things. Yes, let's discuss consent and our attitudes to sex…they didn't. They shrugged, said oh well he thought it was OK to have sex with a sleeping woman, blame 'society'. And have expended a lot of time and energy NOT addressing why he thought it was OK to do that.
Very well put. I’d add that Rape and some other crimes get treated as if they have completely different rules to every thing else. So given what we know then it should be no surprise that there are a few repeat offenders who tend to repeat as they “get away with” each offence . In just the way that the CJS and police work on the principle that there will be an MO for practically all crimes and criminals. For some reason for sex crimes in out society all sorts of additional complexity gets thrown in with at every stage. In law rape is a form of assault, it is relatively simply defined. Difficult to detect without corroborating witnesses. It’s totemic status appears to get in the way. Years ago a lawyer suggested abandoning the term I in a bid to improve detection and conviction. The passing years of moral hoo ha appear to me to make that a wise idea.
Two points on this:
The implication of Simple Truth Number 2 is that if someone has wanted sex with you at any point in the past, you can assume you have their consent to sex at any time thereafter. This is profoundly wrong and a deeply damaging suggestion to make.
It certainly is. The only time I can think of when having sex with someone asleep might pass is in a very intimate relationship. I can imagine situations where I might have woken up surprised but not necessarily violated, in fact more likely amused. But to do that someone would have to be pretty damn sure about it, because if the other person wakes up and say oi, that’s rape, then it is rape.
The only explanation on offer which I find laughable is that he honestly believed he had her consent to penetrate her while she was asleep – or in other words that he didn’t know he was raping her.
He did it because he wanted to and because he could. He was (from the account given) seriously drunk, but when was that ever an excuse?
It’s like a gang of pissed up teenagers kicking someone to shit because they felt like it. They can say “oh fuck, did I do that, I’m really sorry” afterwards, or their friends can line up and say “I don’t understand; they’re all really nice”, but they still did what they did, and now they have to eat it up.
(Corrected and reposted; please delete the other one.)
my partner has that consent. if, upon waking i’m not up for it (rare), he stops right away. but that’s between consenting adults in a relationship.
have experienced the opposite too mind, woken up being touched up by a repulsive man who took it a bit too well when i told everybody how out of order he was. like he’d had a lot of practise or something.
thanks for the great comments Jonathan, Butterflywings and Sammy, Paul & anyone I’ve missed.
So many great comments on this thread.
(I’m afraid you’ll have to take up the preview function with WordPress, Jon!).
[…] Schroeder wrote this piece for Good Men Project in response, as did Ally Fog. Both take different angles on the issues, and dig into the ideas beyond consent, even as there […]
[…] « On why men rape, and why they don’t […]
[…] Personally, I think the example was a bad one, because as Ally Fog points out in a response on his blog: […]
[…] Fogg, Why Did The Good Men Project Publish A Blog By An Unrepentant and Unconvicted Rapist?, On Why Men Rape And Why They Don’t, and The Dreadful Dangers of Normalization And The Terrible Mistakes of the Good Men […]
[…] – i.e., a claim that the majority of men are rapists – Ally Fogg points out that nice guys don’t knowingly commit rape and that most men don’t […]
“However, if these things can happen so often, then clearly there is some murky soup we’re swimming in. And it cannot be as simple as saying “he’s bad.” ”
Wrong-o, chickie. The soup isn’t “murky”, and, yes, he’s bad.
The only “murky” part is the brain of any person who is trying, desperately, to make their cognitive dissonance fit with their warm fuzzy feelings about their friends who have committed rape.
The social narrative called “she was asking for it” doesn’t give your pal a free pass. He did wrong, and he SHOULD feel bad, and he SHOULD make a commitment to never, ever, ever do anything like that again.
By saying “if these things happen so often, there must be some truth to the ‘she was asking for it’ meme”, you’re being a rape apologist. And YOU NEED TO STOP IT if you don’t want to be one. This behavior OF YOURS helps contribute to the narrative, which means the narrative is given credence, which means more men follow it along if they want to use a woman’s unconscious body to get off, which means their female friends say that there MUST be some credence to the idea that the woman was asking for it or else their nice, nice friend wouldn’t have committed a rape. It’s circular reasoning.
[…] where credit is due; it’s about time Obama et alia started looking out for their supporters) On why men rape, and why they don’t What’s My Name? They’ve Never Cared About The Deficit Conservatives Must Stop Blaming […]
Where society is to blame it is for propagating the myth that women’s signals are confusing to men, and for accepting their excuses (I was drunk/angry/uncontrollably horny; she was giving me the come-on/she obviously likes sex/isn’t fussy).
This guy did it because he thought he could get away with it and he thought that because of this myth as well as others being wholly or partly accepted and the confusion/lack of awareness/lack of control excuses being accepted.
It is very hard to accept that a friend has done a bad thing and I think this is mostly because it’s really hard to know how to deal with them from then on, and because abusers are very manipulative and prey on our feelings of guilt (“Oh, you’re supposed to be my friend and you’re taking her side/ rejecting me and now I feel bad. Poor me!)
Are we just actually terrified of confrontation with our friends?
[…] On Why Men Rape and Why They Don’t […]
[…] On Why Men Rape and Why They Don’t […]
Here’s the short version: Royse’s article isn’t as ideological puritan as I wanted, let me denounce her.
[…] Here […]
[…] did make an initial comment on Ally Fogg’s insightful post “On why men rape, and why they don’t” because I thought he nailed the consent issue head […]
[…] Fogg published two articles about rape on his site, Heteronormative patriarchy for men, here and here, in response to an article about a man who rapes a sleeping […]
This article makes no sense to me. You are saying that people have the right to change their mind but then I must ask you something; if one were to start having intercourse with another then suddenly one decides that they no longer want it mid way through, is this rape? Then what if a man just wants to pull out, well he’s been inside her so he must have rapped her. Further more, how do you quantify when something is rape and when it is not. What if two people just had sex, then one of them decides they no longer want it, is that then rape? Also what if a person does not protest and simply remains quite, how is the other partner to know if that is rape, they have showed no sign of protest during the act, but then when you are finished they cause you of rapping them? For this reason you article doesn’t really make sense.
Massacred, your reply is dumbfounding such that I’m inclined to think you are trolling. I actually hope that you, in fact, are doing so. If not, you are a very alarming sample of our population that does not understand consent. Every scenario you’ve described aside from silence is absolutely rape. If a person expresses that they no longer consent to a sexual act while amidst the act, and the other party persists, the person persisting is committing rape. If a person is verbally silent, but shows physical signs that sex is unwanted, this is also rape. Your comment about “pulling out” is illogical, and as such, I can’t respond to it. Ally Fogg, I’m sure you know you make perfect sense.
I think the standard we should apply here is the same standard we apply to other forms of physical violence.
We do not need to verbally consent to join a fistfight, but it is pretty clear when consent has not been given, or has been revoked. If it is ambiguous, and you don’t just stop fighting, even if that is because you are afraid to, consent to take part is assumed.
If someone tries to back out of a fistfight, and the other person insists on continuing it after they have offered to back down and stopped returning blows, that is battery.
If someone wants to back out of the fight and you let them, you were mutual combatants and you are jointly guilty of something far less than battery.
If there is a fight, and neither person makes any move to stop it, but then complains that the whole thing is the other person’s fault, but cannot prove unambiguously that they did not throw the first blow, there is no case.
(At the same time assault — the credible and unconditional threat to deliver serious violence now or in the future, is as good as a blow, and if you assault me and I batter you in response, we are mutual combatants. People who keep harping on the rules of consent want to remove the equivalent consideration in sexual contexts, but I think we need it. If you put your hand down my pants, and I am willing, we are having sex, unless you tell me otherwise.)
If someone just stands there while you beat them up because they won’t rise to the fight, you have committed battery. If you are so drunk you imagine the other guy assaulted you, that does not make it true. At the same time, if you assault someone by accident because you are drunk and they take it up, you are in combat, and unless you very clearly back down, this is a mutual fight.
Ambiguities exist only when they actually exist. But when they actually exist, no one has the right to feel violated. All of your questions have clear answers and you probably know them.
Maybe the right thing to do here is not to teach everyone the rules about rape, but to teach them the rules about violence in general.
you seem to think it’s only men who rape, what bullshit.
‘Seem’, perhaps, but only to the biased… What part of ‘someone’ implies a man? What part of talking about why men do something implies women never do it?
In fact the vast majority of rapes are by men and of women, and those are the ones ‘rape culture’ feminists are obsessed about, and that is who he is talking to, primarily.
But nothing he actually says gives a reason for your comment. There is a far larger injustice in omitting male victims than female perpetrators from the consideration.
Admitting male victims, and giving homosexuals full status as men kind of breaks down the ‘rape culture’ argument as well.
As do various actual psychological observations — like that narcissistic women are less stressed on that count than are equally narcissistic men. If rape scares women more than other violence scares men, creating an oppressive inequality, then women who think they are special should be more afraid than the comparable men — no?
But don’t put words in his mouth.
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