Because I am the most brilliant legal mind of our generation, I give you this, my latest idea on the eradication of rape through enforcement of male responsibility:
The problem with rape, other than the fact that 95% of it is perpetrated by men, always seems to boil down to this asinine controversy over consent. The issue is grossly encumbered with a futile focus on meaningless, temporary instances of the withdrawal of consent, to wit: “she said yes” or “she said yes and then she said no” or “she said yes and waited until two days later to say no” or “she said yes and has been lying about it ever since.” She said, she said, she said.
Well, what if lack of consent were the default? What if all prospective objects of dudely predation — by whom I mean all women — are a priori considered to have said “no”? What if women, in other words, were seen by the courts to abide in a persistent legal condition of keep-the-fuck-off-me?
A straight girl could still have as much sex as she wants with men, if for some reason she thinks it’s a good idea (naturally I would most vigorously urge self-identified heterosexual women to contemplate the horrific personal and political implications of submitting to male domination in this way. But that’s another post). All she’d have to do is not call the cops. No harm no foul.
But if, at any time during the course of the proceedings, up to and including the storied infinitesimal microsecond preceding the sacred spilling of dudely seed, the woman elects to biff off to the nearest taco stand; and if her egress from the sweaty tableau is in any way impeded by the pronger (such an impediment would include everything from “traditional” brute force, to that insistently whispered declamation “just a couple more minutes, I’m almost there” the dread seriousness of which the fervid oaf dramatizes by that ever-so-slight tightening of his grip on her wrist); or if, in three hours or three days or, perhaps in the case of childhood abuse, in 13 years it begins to dawn on her that she has been badly used by an opportunistic predator, she has simply to make a call.
Presto! The dude is already a rapist, because, legally, consent never existed.
[The kind reader will intellectively supply the Law & Order 'chung-chung!' audio here]
This contingency would have the immediate and pleasant result that the engorged dude would be forced to ruminate a bit, prior to gettin’ busy, on the subject of his own integrity. Should he examine the scheme from all sides and ultimately determine that his motives perhaps emanate from baser impulses to dominate or whip off a piece or put a notch on his bedpost or satisfy some other subhuman urge, he would, would he not — knowing that the woman could drop a dime on him at any time should his deportment should fail to live up to her standards of civility — decline the opportunity to become a rapist and go to jail?
I grasp that, technically, the plan criminalizes all male participants in heterosexual sex.
Well, what of it? The set-up now, with the emphasis — in a misogynist world with a misogynist judiciary — on whether or not women “give” consent, is that female participants are all infinitely rapeable, because all some perv has to do is say, “she said yes.”
An excellent idea. I’ve already suggested in in a textbook I wrote for McGraw-Hill, called An Invitation to Feminist Ethics (where I am known as Hilde Lindemann). But I like how you go into sweaty, graphic detail.
Mamasquab, alas it was inevitable that I should unknowingly bite some published author’s steez, but I swear this idea came to me eureka-style this morning in a blinding flash of light.
Naturally I await the onslaught of burly legal dude-minds, poking holes in its flimsy women-are-human argument, until it looks like Swiss cheese. How did you fare?
Well there goes all of your credibility. That was the most ridiculous thing that I’ve read in a long, long time.
That the default position is not already an assumption of “no way, dude” speaks to women’s lack of power.
Zonk, can I be your doctor? I’ve got some interesting human response experiments I’ve always wanted to try, but these damn consent forms and the Belmont Commission and such really get in the way of my baser curiosities.
When I can no longer stand not knowing the acute failure mode for human lung response to sulphuric acid mist, I’ll know who to call? After all, you didn’t have to say yes.
I grasp that, technically, the plan criminalizes all male participants in heterosexual sex.
Hm, so what’s the down side?
Haw, haw, LMYC!
Also: doesn’t the current plan criminalize all female participants in heterosexual sex? Because the woman is assumed guilty from the get-go, right? Don’t wanna fuck? You’re a frigid, lesbian, cock-teasing bitch. Wanna fuck? You’re a slut and a whore. Change your mind midway through for ANY reason? Well, according to the State of Maryland, tfb — once penetration has occurred, you’re his, baby. Report a rape? You’re lying, bitch.
I guess now would be the proper time to acknowledge that Twisty has ruined my life. I no longer care about shaving. I take from my husband the kind of sex I want. I threw out all my high heels. I hate everything.
Good job, Twisty! Count me as one of your successes!
“I grasp that, technically, the plan criminalizes all male participants in heterosexual sex.”
I’m sure that there’s a technological way round this. You know, the Consent-O-Meter-40000, that has some spiffy technological way of letting you draw up a quick contract for sex between you and the dude in question (no loss of spontaneity), some way of verifying that it’s not forced (say you set codewords every morning, so ‘cytoplasm’ would mean that it was all ok, but ‘wombat’ would mean that you were being forced). Consent-O-Meter-40000 would remain switched on throughout intercourse, responding to and recording changes in the consent situation (him: “just a couple more minutes, I’m almost there†her:”WOMBAT!”). Any disablement or tampering with the Consent-O-Meter-40000 would result in an automatic rape charge. Consent-O-Meter-40000 would also be entirely voluntary for women to use, being simply for their convenience (for example, if in possession of a paranoid boyfriend). There are indeed numerous problems with this, and it lacks the beautiful simplicity of the original Twisty-plan.
I hate everything.
Good job, Twisty! Count me as one of your successes!
There, see? Twisty, don’t ever let the patriarchy tell you you can’t be fulfilled in your mission to ruin everything for everybody.
Hattie, please go get a taco.
No no, the woman is never the criminal. Her status remains static and her soveriegnty unquestioned. It is only the dudes who, when infringing on a woman’s personal soveriegnty, take the risk that she will not view the act as assault and invoke the tacitly understood “no” to commend the perp to the rapist pile.
I grasp that, technically, the plan criminalizes all male participants in heterosexual sex.
This statement sounds like something that would come from traditional mysogyny: it embodies both the spurious concepts that women are not capable of consent and/or the “you women always change your minds all the time” mantra.
I think it would be fairer to say that it potentially criminalizes all male participants in hetsex. Other than that, it shifts the burden of proof of consent to be far more in line with our commercial transactions and medical treatment.
In theory it would be a very quick way to dismantle the rape culture. Afterall, if women can no longer be treated as passive sperm recepticles to be taken at will, and rape actually HAS consequences, then it’s definitely not in a man’s best interest to stick it in her.
Yeah, there’d be legal implications and huge holes and problems and issues and stuff, but if we had this for even just a year or two, maybe it would finally knock away that sense of sexual entitlement so many men seem to run around with.
Hilde Lindemann
OMG! The Hilde Lindemann who put forth the awesome argument that forced pregancy is tantamount to specific performance a while back at the blog formerly known as Shakespeare’s Sister? You rock, mama.
Twisty, it hit me while I was reading your legal theory that a claim of consent is not a defense against, say, murder or battery. It shouldn’t be any different for rape. Of course it is, though, because of the historical view of women as property with a freshness seal (reflected in the gross Maryland ruling) and because the patriarchy conflates rape and sex. If they can’t tell the difference, why should they believe that we can?
Apart from rape, is there any crime on the books that’s cancelled out by a claim of consent? I can’t think of one, but I’m no lawyer.
I insert the Law & Order “dun dun” in a lot of things. Glad I’m not the only one. Oh yeah, and the fact that women are generally in a state of NOT wanting sex is really, you know, against dude-centric culture. Don’t we all want it, all the time?
I grasp that, technically, the plan criminalizes all male participants in heterosexual sex.
Not necessarily. Burglary laws don’t criminalize everyone I let into my house, just the ones who enter without my express say-so. Even if you visit every day, if you enter my home without my say-so you’re committing a crime.
Apart from rape, is there any crime on the books that’s cancelled out by a claim of consent?
Of course there are. Consent is what makes the difference between flirtation and harassment, a bear-hug and assault, a seventh-grade chorus recital and torture. Also landscaping and vandalism, watering my houseplants while I’m away and breaking and entering…
I think the better way to put it is “Are there any crimes that, when the perpetrator claims that the victim agreed to it, anyone in their right mind believes them?”
Robbery — “Hey man, he was giving away money left and right, then suddenly he says no to me?”
Breaking and entering — “He left the door open, then he complains because someone stole his TV!”
Car theft — “He TOLD me I could drive it. So what if I took it to Baja and sold it?”
Mugging — “He wanted it, man! He was gagging for it!”
Embezzlement — “The company gave me money every two weeks, then suddenly when I want a little on my own time, they get to refuse? Come on!”
Rape is not the same as “at any time should his deportment should fail to live up to her standards of civility.” Equating them would trivialize rape, among other problems.
Have you heard of being on bad terms with an ex? It happens. And not just because of the patriarchy.
Imagine if this applied to lesbian sex too. Do you think that would be a good idea?
Dude, lesbian sex? What are you talking about?
Absolutely! As a woman, I exist to be used and defiled. If I am foolish enough to protest, and demand justice, it is MY history, name, and choices that are scrutinized, twisted, and dragged through the gutter. The defendent rapist is “innocent until proven guilty.” The prosecution (notice that the victim is transformed into an aggressor) is therefore guilty until proven innocent.
So when I am raped by some sick asshole, I am guilty until proven innocent. The only way to prove this innocence is by closely examining every idealistic, mistaken decision I have ever made under the false assumption of personal sovereignty. My name is ruined, my life exposed, and rapist-turned-victim is issued a public apology by the prosecuting attorney.
Women who believe the lies and come forth are ruined. Women who don’t are silenced because they’re too “smart” to talk.
Did you know that Medusa wasn’t always the Medusa that we think of today? Apparently, she had gorgeous hair (that existed for the pleasure of ancient greek mysogenists). One fuckbag raped her in the temple of some goddess. This governing figure was so enraged at the slut who defiled her temple that she turned her hair into snakes, and
decreed that any man she looked at would be turned to stone.
That story is over 2000 years old, and it still goes on today.
Fuck the asshole who raped me. Fuck the patriarchy.
Hell, is the sarcasm meter broken? If so, go back and read my other post through sarcasm-colored X-Ray Specs. (”Is that really your friend’s body you ’see’ under his clothes?”)
Take the sarcasm specs off now: I am glad, nay, thrilled, that Twisty has ruined my life.
“I think the better way to put it is “Are there any crimes that, when the perpetrator claims that the victim agreed to it, anyone in their right mind believes them?â€
Robbery — “Hey man, he was giving away money left and right, then suddenly he says no to me?â€
Breaking and entering — “He left the door open, then he complains because someone stole his TV!â€
Car theft — “He TOLD me I could drive it. So what if I took it to Baja and sold it?â€
Mugging — “He wanted it, man! He was gagging for it!â€
Embezzlement — “The company gave me money every two weeks, then suddenly when I want a little on my own time, they get to refuse? Come on!—
This is an excellent summary.
“Fuck the asshole who raped me. Fuck the patriarchy.”
I seriously don’t want to be insensitive but were you raped or are you still talking about the story? I am confused. Also the story is appalling.
BTW, I didn’t mean the “current plan” as in the “Twisty alternative current plan.” I meant the written-in-stone current patriarchal plan, wherein the woman is always the criminal.
Dude, thank Jebus you’re here! You certainly have taken me down a notch. And boy, you sure learned us all a good lesson about trivializing rape, yessiree.
But seriously, a woman “being on bad terms with an ex” is such a tired excuse for slut-shaming.
I read it again and I apologise, it’s quite clear from the post.
As a dude, I think this is a brilliant idea. Though I still don’t know how to italicize text, this part:
“I grasp that, technically, the plan criminalizes all male participants in heterosexual sex.”
Is exactly why I think it’s brilliant. If you aren’t sure enough that what you’re doing *isn’t* rape, and you don’t trust your sex partner enough to retroactively *charge* you with rape, then you shouldn’t be having sex with them in the first place. I think conservatives and “liberals” could all get behind this because it would cut down on casual sex, STD’s, unplanned pregnancies, and… oh yeah… rape.
Dude: RE: Ex-girlfriends “getting back” at their ex-bf’s by charging them with rape:
A) I think that only we men can trivialize rape sufficiently to throw it about so carelessly. I think by-and-large women know that rape charges aren’t something you throw around to get back at someone.
B) Even if we assume that there are in fact cases where diabolical bitches are maniacally plotting their ex’s downfalls with totally fabricated rape charges, we still have to ask the question, who is responsible for the patriarchal social structure and totally fucked up relationship that got that couple into that situation. At the least, why the hell did you date, let alone have sex with this person? Did you not see the potential for her manipulative plotting?
C) If this law were the case, it would encourage men to *think* about who they have sex with, why they’re doing it, and how women feel about it.
D) That raging injustice you feel about this hypothetical situation? That’s how women feel about the real situation. And given the fact that we’re the one’s with massive institutions of oppression behind us, maybe we can afford to give up a little of that privileged security they don’t have.
If you aren’t sure enough that what you’re doing *isn’t* rape, and you don’t trust your sex partner enough to retroactively *charge* you with rape, then you shouldn’t be having sex with them in the first place.
*throws rose petals at CA?*
Zonk: ‘Well there goes all of your credibility.”
NOOO! Not my credibility! It was all I had goin’ for me, too.
This is sensible, it just takes the “no actual statement of ‘yes’ =’no’” to its logical conclusion. Hell, we as a society basically assume that all men are pretty much almost always willing, right? (E.g. “you can’t rape the willing”)
I saw one commenter object with the hypothetical of “well, what if we break up and she gets mad at me and then accuses me of rape when I didn’t actually commit rape.” I’m pretty confident that would not end up going as far as one might fear. And even if it did, so be it. Machiavelli, another old, dead, white guy, said that even if someone is wrongly punished under the laws of a state, such things are inevitable and acceptable for the proper functioning of a legal system. This is an adjustment our system could use that would create a lot more justice with very little more(if any) innocent hurt.
See, this idea give dudes ants in their pants, because they’re all like “what about the vindictive ex-girlfriend seeking revenge?”
Well, asshole, if you didn’t treat her like a piece of crap during the breakup, maybe she’ll let you alone. And if you think a woman is so “crazy” that she might drop a dime on your ass just to be mean, here’s an idea: don’t do her!
All this does is propose that there ought to be consequences for being a rapist perv, and that the arbiters of your assholiness are now your former fucksleeves instead of your fellow good ole boys. It’s exactly the situation we have now, except the potential victims have the power instead of the perpetrators. It’s been that way for millennia. Isn’t it our turn yet?
I don’t really feel raging injustice about the hypothetical situation. The original post was just a terrible idea, and I think it’s worth pointing that out, rather than cheering for it.
Let’s take the analogy with theft. Let’s say that my credit card is billed for something I bought and I later change my mind, I should not be able to bring criminal charges against the store. Letting me do so would mean that stores would stop selling things, and we’d all lose. Even in response to customers sometimes being cheated, such a law would be insane.
Similarly for tarring all heterosexual sex as criminal if one party later says so.
And kay, I understand in the real world rape charges *aren’t* brought by bitter ex’s, and on the contrary rapes by lovers and ex-lovers are underreported. And that justice would dictate it be easier for them to bring rape charges and to obtain convictions. But it’s still naive to think that—if they could—people wouldn’t abuse the power to freely jail anyone they’ve ever slept with in the past. The point of my argument has nothing to do with gender. If consent wasn’t a defense when men charged other men with raping them, it would be a similarly terrible idea. No person, male or female, should have to depend on their exs’ good will to stay out of jail, unless some real crime was committed. “Failing to live up to [an ex-lover's] standard of civility at any time” is not a real crime, and unfortunate as it is, does not warrant jail time.
There are possibilities other than status quo injustice and absurd revenge fantasies.
Dude: So, it doesn’t happen in the real world, but because it might happen in a hypothetical situation the law wouldn’t work?
Twisty, you know I love you and read you every day. I agree with everything you say. I agree with the theoretical idea behind this post, and I think LMYC summed it up nicely in comparing consent for rape with consent for mugging, or any other violent crime. It would be ridiculous to believe that anyone could agree to it.
However, as self-identified radical feminist, I have a tiny problem with your argument that women cannot give consent. This equates women with children, which is something patriarchy espouses and which YOU most certainly do not. Young children can never give consent to having sex with much older adults, because it is assumed that they do not have the mental capacity or understanding of what they are doing. Therefore, any situation in which a child has sex with an adult is rape, whenever it happens to be reported.
I believe an adult woman can give consent to sex for her own pleasure, so I cannot stand behind the idea that every woman who engages in heterosexual sex is unable to consent, even if she wanted to. As a lesbian, criminalizing hetero-sex the way gay sex has been criminalized amuses me to no end. However, as a feminist, I cannot condone grouping “women and children” together in the typical fashion, as it merely furthers the argument that women cannot make up their own minds, and that only men can be responsible for choosing their own sex partners.
Yes, something needs to be done about rape, but removing women’s right to say no or yes, and forcing them to take a default no on the basis that they do not have the power to choose heterosexual sex on their own, for their own pleasure, without it being rape, reminds me a lot of certain Middle Eastern countries where women’s legal status is identically equivalent to that of children.
Did I misunderstand something you said, Twisty? I have full faith in you, and do not believe you would argue anything without the betterment of all women in mind. :)
Let’s think about this.
The idea that ‘negative permission’ is the default pretty much follows the tenets of common law as it is practiced. If someone takes some property of mine, the law assumes that the burgler didn’t have my permission to take said burgled property, unless I speak up and say otherwise. This is a basic assumption in virutally all corners of criminal and civil law.
In the case of sexual assault/rape cases, however, there always seems to be some questioning of permission–who said ‘yes’? who said ‘no’? when was it all said?
WTF?
A) I think it’s irresponsible to think that all *almost all* women are so pure of heart that they are incapable of abusing easily abusable laws. If you give people easily abusable power, they will abuse it.
B) “who is responsible for the patriarchal social structure and totally fucked up relationship that got that couple into that situation. At the least, why the hell did you date, let alone have sex with this person? Did you not see the potential for her manipulative plotting?”
Who is responsible for the patriarchy? It’s certainly not the sole responsibility of the poor schmuck who is spending 15 years in jail for false charges.
And the second half of that paragraph sounds exactly like victim blaming, which seems to be the first thing that some people start to say when the victims are the males (people around here, I mean.)
C)Sure, the same way I would think about putting my head in a lions mouth and how the lion felt about it.
D)”maybe we can afford to give up a little of that privileged security they don’t have.”
A little? By a little you mean “having sex with a woman is license for her to send you to jail at any point she chooses for the rest of her life?”
I’m sorry. That’s really not something that anyone, much less and entire gender should have to do in the name of equality.
Let’s take the analogy with theft. Let’s say that my credit card is billed for something I bought and I later change my mind, I should not be able to bring criminal charges against the store.
If your credit card is charged, and you say you didn’t buy anything, should the store be able to say in its defense, “yea, but you asked us to bill your credit card?” Shouldn’t the default assumption be that you *didn’t* want your credit card billed, not that you’re just a lying ex-customer out for revenge?
Nevermind. BubbasNightmare said it better than I did.
See, dudewhohasread(butclearlynotgraspedthegistof)thefaq demonstrates the extent to which a paradigm of male entitlement has permeated his worldview through his paternalistic attempt to stop the naive little feminists from “cheering” an “absurd” thought experiment that casts women as legally entitled to their own bodily sovereignty.
Man, these lectures from realistic dudes! What would we do without’em?
Well, at the risk of getting bonked on the head by someone smarter than me, ‘conflating rape with sex’ happens because sex is the only one of these (which one of these is not like the others) in which the ‘victim’ sometimes appears to willingly participate.
I mean correct me if I’m missing something here, but is mugging a mutually chosen recreational activity?? Or murder?? “Oh, murder me now, sweetie, I just love it when you strangle me that way!” (Ach, shades of twisted BDSM perversion - yes, that’s what I said, perversion, slam me if you like, it’s what I feel.)
And that paragraph right there explains it, in that I can’t even talk about the violent stuff without it getting weird. I mean, even in this here radical blogspace there are women who claim BDSM is ok. So if there are women, possibility a majority of us, who don’t say “no” loudly and clearly every single time some yay-hoo (how the heck d’you spell that?) crosses our own personal boundaries, how are they supposed to know?
Really, truly, how are they supposed to know the difference? I’m asking a genuine, honest question here, as a woman who’s actually pretty damn good at ‘no’, but still struggles with being single and het and who (gasp)likes sex (though I admit I’m beginning to consider the notion of celibacy for a while). And sometimes I let my guard down because it’s just so friggin’ exhausting to constantly patrol the perimeter.
Ducking head and putting on flak jacket.
Repenting, the idea is not that a woman can’t give consent, it’s that the whole concept of consent doesn’t apply to her in the first place. She exists as an inviolable entity, a human being with full agency, on set-it-and-forget-it mode — you know, the way men are now. All this does is put the onus on the dude to not be a barbarian. He can certainly avoid jail by not having sex at all, and significantly reduce his risk by ceasing to rape, prod, cajole, shame, or nag.
I think that zonk and dude are wearing straw colored glasses.
Kidnapping is perhaps similar, in that there is often a question of consent, unless the victim is dead or severly battered. When I was a young sprout, rape was not considered possible(by dudes) unless the victim was beaten into unconsciousness or killed. I don’t think the dudely attitude has changed much since then. If you are not kicking, screaming, and biting, you’re practically consenting.
The presumption of no as the default position would be one tiny step toward teaching young men how to behave like decent human beings.
Shira, the correct analogy would be say that I did buy something, but later decided the store had done something else I didn’t like.
Well, asshole, if you didn’t treat her like a piece of crap during the breakup, maybe she’ll let you alone. And if you think a woman is so “crazy†that she might drop a dime on your ass just to be mean, here’s an idea: don’t do her!
Ex’s of both genders can be bitter even when no one treats anyone like a piece of crap. And people can treat each other like pieces of crap without deserving jail time.
Here’s another feminist idea. How about all women get guns for free and can legally shoot any man they’ve ever had sex with at any point in the past? Sure, most wouldn’t abuse the privilege. And it would redress injustice. And if you don’t want her to later shoot you, you can just keep it in your pants, right?
What upsets me about these ideas is not the “ants in my pants” (I personally haven’t burned too many bridges), but the way our common humanity gets forgotten. Prison is horrible, and even when people like murderers and rapists get sent there it should be at least a little bit tragic. What upsets me is the way people here talk with glee about the threat of prison falling on the heads of all hetero men. My point isn’t that your idea is unrealistic, it’s that your idea is hateful in its broad accusations of rape. It’s an ugly thing to watch, even if it’s in response to genuine injustice, and even if I don’t feel personally threatened.
Also, Repenting is right. Your idea would hurt heterosexual women, just like my credit card analogue would hurt buyers.
It’s certainly not the sole responsibility of the poor schmuck who is spending 15 years in jail for false charges.
Pffft when does anyone do 15 years for sexual assault?
“If your credit card is charged, and you say you didn’t buy anything, should the store be able to say in its defense, “yea, but you asked us to bill your credit card?†Shouldn’t the default assumption be that you *didn’t* want your credit card billed, not that you’re just a lying ex-customer out for revenge? ”
Sure, that’s why stores require credit card receipts, signed by the holder.
“oh no baby, we can’t have sex tonight, i’m out of requisition forms and we dont even have a pen so that you can sign a pre-sex consent form, a statement of intent and then a post sex declaration of enjoyment.
See, now I always thought that this is kinda how it should be. As I’ve said on other posts, I was “I knew the guy” raped umpteen years ago. I walked into his room. I was forceably prevented from walking out by his body and namely his penis. It seems like this is so damned simple. A woman should be able to get up and leave at any moment.
Anyway, here is what I am getting at, though. A few years back my apartment was robbed. My roommate accidentally left our patio door wide open one night and someone just walked right in and took our stuff. Now, certainly it was unwise that my roommate left the door wide open. And she felt like she really made a blunder there. But no one said, “You weren’t really robbed! You were asking for some stranger to come in and take your stuff without permission. You left your door wide open!” No one said that.
Compare that to the reactions I get from my little typical “I knew the guy” rape story. Well, you went home with him, you went into his house, you kissed him, etc. He probably didn’t understand that you didn’t want sex. You were sending mixed signals. But I never said in any manner, Yes, you can have sex with me. In fact, I said, no you cannot have sex with me but that was overruled by the fact that I opted to stay in his room rather than walk my sorry ass home in the dark at night.
So, it is assummed that even if you make it easy for someone, they are not allowed to come into your home and take your stuff without permission. But it is not assummed, even if you make it easy for someone, that they can enter your body without permission. What if it were?
Gee, how the hell hard could that be to figure out?
Don’t answer that.
Dude: so I shouldn’t wish men who rape to accept responsibility for rape because “prisons are horrible”? Come on. Is that the best you got?
“Pffft when does anyone do 15 years for sexual assault?”
Sorry, is 10 an acceptable amount of time to send someone to jail who did nothing wrong?
There’s really no difference between the hypothetical and the legal system as currently constructed: if someone brings a rape complaint, it’s assumed that there was a lack of consent, which is usually enough, barring absolutely dispostive DNA evidence, to secure an indictment, which doesn’t require proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Of course, I’ve seen a whole lot of unreasonable doubts in jury verdicts that acquit rapists, informed by a whole range of fucked-up ideas that most of the commenters are listing.
I like it! As far as fairness to men goes - I think I have the perfect solution. We’ll try it the new Twisty way for the next 5000 years, (just to even things out) and then, if it turns out there are a lot of problems with women abusing their power, we’ll try to come up with a compromise position that makes sense.
dude who HAS, what the hell? Is sex merely a commercial ‘transaction’ to you, like buying and selling a car??? Are you capable of getting that sex is much more than that, a level of physical and emotional intimacy that is not your godbag-given birthright?
Feelings. Emotions. These are not things we can buy and sell, and are things that always happen in intimate phyical encounters. It’s how humans are made, because we’re wired for intimate social connection. The fact that you’ve been socialized/brainwashed into splitting off from all that is most human about you doesn’t give you license to treat the rest of us like unwanted merchandise.
The thing that will do the most to prevent the bitterness of an ex is to, as somebody upthread said, never ever sleep with anybody if you are in any doubt whatsoever as to your own personal motives, her motives, and the fact that she is an actual human, with feelings, needs, wants, desires, etc. that are just as real and valid as your own.
An idea that effectively criminalizes rape, puts an end to the “he said/she said” rape defense, neatly bysteps blaming the victim, and places responsibility on the rapist to not be a rapist makes Dude and Zonk quake in their boots?
Makes me love it even more.
Thank you, Twisty.
You’re talking about more than rape. You said that if a man and woman have sex then the woman can at any point in the future, and for whatever reason, get the man convicted of rape. That would encompass situations that shouldn’t be called rape. I’m sure you can easily imagine them.
Maybe there should be some additional negative consequences for dudes whose ex-gf’s dislike them. If so, prison shouldn’t be one of them (unless of course they really have done something like rape).
The best I’ve got is that non-rapists shouldn’t go to prison.
Looky at how the scaredy dudes imagine that the Twisty Sovereign Vagina Law is vengeful, rather than just, in spirit. It’s the same old thing whenever anyone proposes that raping women should be made a bit more inconvenient. The hairy lesbians want to imprison all the innocent men! In those horrible prisons! And their horrible hairy ideas are hurting women!
One more time: this law would change nothing for dudes who don’t go around raping women. Their lives would remain exactly the same. Get it?
“what about the vindictive ex-girlfriend seeking revenge?â€
Ah, the old fears of a slave revolt.
Boy, the dudes are out in full force today, protecting the rapedom.
Sorry, guys, to tell you something you haven’t heard approximately one billion times already, but “You don’t get it.”
Our entire legal system is set up so that people who might not have committed the crime get punished anyway. Does this fill me with glee? Hell, no. Is it a fact? Hell, yes.
Your misogyny is showing like a half-slip under a silk dress. (Like that one, fellow blamers?) Twisty is positing that we change the idea of rape to mean “Unless the woman specifically says, ‘Oh please, let’s fuck,’ it’s rape” instead of the current “Well, she wasn’t strong enough in her denial of my advances, so I went ahead.” You are immediately assuming that this will give all vindictive women everywhere license to accuse men they went out with three years ago with rape. Guess what? Vindicitive women everywhere are CURRENTLY free to so accuse their exes.
I guess you’re right, though. Better avoid the remote possibility of crazy, vindictive women accusing exes of rape than the current reality of women getting raped, not being believed, and being assaulted all over again by our “justice” system.
Furthermore, may I be so bold as to suggest that being part of the gender that does 95% of the raping, you may not know that rape is not always so cut-and-dried as you decent men may think it is. I once had a guy shove my head down onto his raging hard cock, choking the shit out of me until he came in my mouth. Up to that point, I liked him and we were “fooling around,” as they say. I enjoyed the sexual feelings I was having. I (thought) I liked him and was even thinking maybe we’d start a relationship.
So was that rape, or not?
Need I tell you that at 19, I was too ashamed and embarrassed to even tell someone what had happened, because the answer would be: what did I expect? I was making out with him and we were behaving sexually, right?
When in that scenario did I get to say, “No”?
And that, my dear men afraid of being falsely accused of rape by an ex with full agency and the weight of the law behind her, was MILD compared to 99% of the stories you could read from other blamers here.
And it’s just ONE of the examples in my “sexual” quiver.
They way dude tries to squirm around the idea that nothing said means no even if it hasn’t been explicitly stated would be cute to watch if I it didn’t make me want to run my head into the wall, repeatedly.
No one here really wants inocent people to go to jail. We just have a different definition of inocent.In the sex/rape scenario currently being discussed: An inocent person is someone that made love WITH someone while considering the emotional well-being of all concerned. Like: Do I feel good? Does my partner like this? hey I’ll just ask! Do you feel good? What do you want? What do I want? Hmm this is good.
It’s not really all that hard, women do it all the time (not just sex). It is part of what it means to treat other people with respect. And if you give other people respect, then you get it back.
anyway there would still be courts that would have to rule.
But maybe with solely women as judges *maniaclaugh*
Shira, the correct analogy would be say that I did buy something, but later decided the store had done something else I didn’t like.
No, because we’re talking about the act of the company charging your credit card, and whether we should assume that you didn’t want your credit card charged if you say you didn’t. Your analogy is only “the correct analogy” if you want to privilege the company’s version of events over the customer’s.
I had a company do this very thing to me just last year - somehow got my credit card information and started charging me $30/month. They swore up and down that I had signed up for their service, that I had received their membership card and everything! I’ll give you one guess as to who won that debate.
I mean correct me if I’m missing something here, but is mugging a mutually chosen recreational activity??
People willingly give money to each other all the time, and yet people do not conflate mugging and gift-giving. The person who decides whether it was a mugging is the muggee, not the mugger.
Actually, when someone broke into my brother’s apartment and ripped off his stuff, the onus to prove a robbery had taken place was on him.
Well hell, Frumious, then let’s just shitcan the whole concept of “not saying yes means no” Damn. Your poor brother. That changes everything for me.
The person who decides whether it was a mugging is the muggee, not the mugger.
Yeah, but what about that panhandling bum of a brother who’s borrowed money from you for the last time, dammit, but when he whines pathetically, you give in?
These analogies are only so useful if we leave out the difference between material transactions and exchanges of emotional intimacy.
Can anybody tell me why discussing emotions (and all such softer, weaker, illogical things) seems to be verboten on this blog? Can I blame the P?
tinfoil hattie’s example sure sounds like rape. Or if not, then sexual assault. Either way, I really want to emphasize that what her ex did to her should be unacceptable and he should have to answer for what he did. I in no way want to excuse or protect behavior like that, and even something as horrible as prison might be justified for him, although tinfoil hattie would know better than me on this point.
I know a woman who was raped by an ex-b/f, and didn’t bring charges. It was a horrible situation and, despite my gender, I was not totally oblivious to what she went through. Obviously it would have been better if the law made it easier for her to get justice.
But this isn’t what Twisty said.
In fact, she emphasized that women could not legally give consent, and that sex is automatically rape, with men protected only by women not choosing to press charges.
Look, it might be reasonable to require signed consent forms before sex, and even then to have strong protection against fraud, or coerced signatures, and the like.
But that isn’t what Twisty said!
Had she said something sane, I wouldn’t be here complaining.
Well, as another dude whose opinion no one asked for, I have to admit, my first reaction to Twisty’s proposal was, if not outrage, deep skepticism and dubiousness. All the same arguments these other guys are making went through my head, including the vindictive ex-GF scenario (even though I’m pretty sure none of my exes dislike me so much they’d pull something like that even if they had the power) and the fact that on the face of it, it seems to violate the “presumption of innocence” that is supposedly embedded in the American legal system.
Then I thought about it a little more. A lot of Twisty’s posts require considerable mental mastication, at least for me.
I’m still not entirely convinced this would be a good idea (yes, I realize it’s wildly hypothetical anyway), but what struck me was that the current state of affairs is horribly unbalanced in the other direction. The default is that lots and lots of women get raped, very few rapists are punished, and anything that isn’t blatantly and obviously Rape with a capital-R, like hold-her-down-and-beat-her-and-rip-her-clothes-off, is not even regarded as rape by most men.
So adopting Twisty’s proposal would mean a lot less of that, and yeah, probably a few instances of innocent guys being jailed by vindictive ex-girlfriends.
That’s what has most guys going “OMGThat’stotallyunfair!!!!!” ‘Cause they see the potential injustice to them, and not the overwhelming injustice in the current situation, which affects women.
So I have to ask myself, would I be willing to take the risk that someday I’ll have consensual sex with a woman who turns out to be a nutcase and charges me with rape, if taking on that risk means massively fewer women will be raped? Especially given that once the new system kicks in (in Twisty’s hypothetical post-patriarchal fantasy world), all men would start being a helluva lot more careful about who they have sex with in the first place?
Yeah, I think the logic is starting to wear down my natural dudely defensiveness.
Oops, left off italics (quote) on
The person who decides whether it was a mugging is the muggee, not the mugger.
Frumious B, that was quite the laugh you just gave me!!!
When I was much younger, someone broke into my apartment building and stole my clothes out the dryer. Despite zero evidence that it had happened and no possible way of finding out who had committed the crime, the police never suggested that perhaps I had never really had those missing pants in the first place, or that maybe I had willingly given them away.
They took a report (which only happens 75% of the time when women report a rape) and assured me that they would keep the description of my clothes on file in case they turned up, and asked if they could contact me to provide additional evidence if laundry room robbery became a pattern in our area and they eventually caught someone.
Apparently you cannot even begin to imagine the contrast.
Thanks for addressing my concerns, Twisty. Throwing in my two cents against dude, The Man, and all their ilk:
Going with the premise that consent can’t exist and that men and women are both responsible for their own bodies is a brilliant redefinition of the law. Therefore, if one person violates another’s body, it is impossible for the victim to be persecuted for the crime, as is so often the case. It is the idea that someone could consent to a crime that is ridiculous. If a person were to bring a case to court regarding the possible theft or violation of their property, no court would bother to excessively question whether that person were trying to frame the accused.
The idiotic idea that every rape victim must go through some sort of screening process because of the theoretical idea that they could “consent” to the crime and might possibly be using the accused for money is callous and insensitive. Every person in court should be held up to the same scrutiny, and it seems completely innefective to justice (as statistics prove in the sadly small amount of rape cases that end in conviction of the rapist) to force victims of sexual violence to go through some sort of special screening process to ensure that they did not WANT the crime to occur.
Thank you again for inspiring me to think about this matter harder, Twisty. This discussion has inspired me to write the final paper for my college course on sexual violence about how the idea of “consent to rape” needs to be abolished.
So I have to ask myself, would I be willing to take the risk that someday I’ll have consensual sex with a woman who turns out to be a nutcase and charges me with rape,
What are you doing sleeping with somebody you don’t know well enough to know if she’s a ‘nutcase’? Hint: If she goes from ‘rational’ to being a ‘nutcase’, she probably, being brainwashed by patriarchy like the rest of us, unknowingly allowed you to violate her emotional boundaries by having sex too soon, hoping that you might turn out to love her and stick around.
Argh, round and round in circles. I also sense that women on this blog don’t want to talk about the fact that sex really is different for women than for men. There are even studies lately that support a physiological reason for that, something called oxytocin, a ‘bonding’ hormone released during sex, produced in copious quantities in women and significantly damped in men by testosterone. Better find a link to back this up, off to google I go.
What the dudes don’t seem to appreciate, is that women could make rape accusation now, today, the way things currently are. The new rules would not in any way affect the number of men who are falsely charged. It would affect the number of rapists who are not charged.
There is a myth, deeply ingrained in our culture, about false rape charges. The facts are that many women are raped, few men are charged, and even fewer are incarcerated for their crime.
It just might happen that if women were believed when they reported a rape, there would be fewer rapists on the street.
The dudely fear seems to be that if women were believed when they reported a rape, the dudes would have to stop pretending that they are just playing around when they hold their gf down and penetrate her against her will.
I think the better way to put it is “Are there any crimes that, when the perpetrator claims that the victim agreed to it, anyone in their right mind believes them?â€
Thanks, LMYC, for running my less-than-coherent question through your filter. That is what I meant, and your illustrations are perfect.
“sex really is different for women than for men”
Well, you’ll certainly get no argument from me on this point. Although whether this is due to culture-of-domination indoctrination or “oxytocin” remains a mystery. All I can tell you is, the day I figured this out was the day I waved a final sayonara to the het life.
Curiouser, you are almost right in my area of professional expertise with that last paragraph!! First off, I want to say I’ve agreed with almost every thing you’ve said today right up to that last paragraph. I think I may see where you’re going with your oxytocin study, so I’ll offer a preemptive debunk about causality and brain chemistry. My apologies in advance if I’m off on a tangent about something you already agree with.
Brain chemistry research is an emerging area of study. At this moment in time it is correlational rather than causal. Right now, assuming that we take those studies at face value - which I will for the purposes of this discussion, we see a correlation between sex and this bonding hormone for women but not for men. What we don’t know, although some people (not you necessarily, or the researchers - usually the media and other armchair neuroscientists) like to pretend we do, is whether this correlation is somehow innate, or whether its socially determined.
When neuroscience was in its infancy, most people assumed that anything in the brain was innate. More and more it looks like there is an elaborate system of reciprocal causation between brain chemistry and environment. So far, reciprocal causation is almost always a better model than straight environment or straight brain chemistry.
In this case, what I’m suggesting is that no one really knows the extent to which that observed gender difference in brain chemistry is a result of innate biological differences, or of differential socialization, or most likely both.
I hope this was vaguely interesting and informative for someone besides me.
What are you doing sleeping with somebody you don’t know well enough to know if she’s a ‘nutcase’?
As much as we’d like to believe that everyone should have sex only with someone they know and trust deeply and intimately, the reality is that men and women both tend to make foolish and irresponsible decisions when it comes to sex. Currently, the price for that (no matter which party was the foolish/irresponsible one) is largely borne by women. In Twisty’s paradigm, it would be shifted more to the male side. Even with the dreaded threat of “She could decide she’s mad at me years later and charge me with rape!” hanging over every man, I doubt it would completely eliminate sexual irresponsibility on the part of males, but it would sure reduce it.
Dude and Zonk bring up an interesting point, but not the way I think they tihnk. Under this law a bunch of guys who are otherwise privileged enough to never see the inside of a prison would have the “opportunity” to do so. How long do you think before radical prison reform exploded into *the* major political debate of the day? I mean, I bet we’d see a total overthrow of the prison-industrial complex in a single election cycle, what with rich white guys scrambling to get their sons out of the clink.
Well, Twisty may be trying to convert all us hets to her lesbian “lifestyle,” but I’m sure she won’t be personally offended to hear a bunch of polite “no thank yous.” And if she is, c’est la vie.
I don’t agree that women can never consent to sex with men, but that’s because I like having sex with men. Or I used to. Now I like having sex with “man,” my husband. If I didn’t like it with him, or with men in general, I’d opt for the Twisty way.
To me, if I come repeatedly and hard, and on my timetable, that works. Sorry for the TMI.
Also, maybe my oxytocin goes through the roof whenver I have sex, but I figure after centuries with the same man, I’ve had plenty of time to bond emotionally with him, so now I just want the physical parts of sex. Emotions, closeness, yeah-yeah. We’ll do that over breakfast, or on the interminable drive to my in-laws’.
I’m noticing a trend in the rape-apologist arguments. The dudes in question don’t want to allow women sovereignty over their own bodies because more rapists (who rape women) might go to prison. Prison is horrible, don’t you know. A man could get raped.Much better to let men rape women with impunity, Q.E.D.
IBTP.
“Twisty may be trying to convert all us hets to her lesbian “lifestyle,”
Ha! I can see it now: “Domineering radical Twisty Faster forces straight girls to adopt hairy lesbian ways.”
The way I see it there’s no actual “conversion” because heterosexuality is a construct of patriarchy. I think of it more as “liberation.”
Chacun à son goût, of course. For which gout there is no accounting!
the day I figured this out was the day I waved a final sayonara to the het life
Guessing I’m still looking for an escape hatch. Maybe after I’ve been blaming for a few more years (under Twisty tutelage) I might finally really ‘get’ it at a level that leads me to making life/relationship choices that work for me. Right now it’s still a hair-shirty (meaning constantly uncomfortable, not self-flagellating) sort of struggle.
brklyngrl, thanks for the comments - jury’s still out for me on oxytocin. I think I understand about the chicken/egg causal/correlational thing. I guess finding those articles simultaneously made me hopeful that, yay, here’s ‘proof’ that something I feel to be true in my bones is TWUE! Yay me! But on the other hand it chaps my fanny that my (and many other women’s) anecdotal evidence does not in fact = data. We have to ‘prove’ our truth in male/patriarchal/scientific/logical terms (forgive me, that was a broad sweeping unfair thing to say to a scientist, but it seems that if we made two lists comparing ‘female’ and ‘male’ and free-associated word pairs to their corresponding columns, that’s how things’d split out in our patriarchal universe. And that was a muddly thought.)
Still looking for something online to support where I was going with the oxytocin thing. Something maybe more credible than Wiki or a ‘lifestyle’ site with cherry-picked ‘data’.
She’s just treating consent to sex like a deadman’s switch, to use a mechanical metaphor. A deadman’s switch, for the groundlings, is a switch that you must squeeze in order to STOP something from happening. The default is for you to press it, and when you stop pressing, Event A takes place.
Basically, a hand grenade with the pin pulled is an explosive with a deadman’s switch. You must exert effort on the thing to keep it TURNED OFF.
In the same way, the default state for female consent would be legally defined as OFF. Consent, unless explicitly and enthusiastically given, would be assumed to NOT EXIST. In absolutely all cases.
In other words — and I take great glee in saying this — ALL MEN ARE RAPISTS UNLESS OTHERWISE DEFINED AS SUCH BY THEIR FEMALE SEX PARTNERS. (Applying this to gay or lesbian sex is a whole ‘nother ball of wax of a different colored kettle o’fish, and quite an interesting one.)
Essentially, if the woman doesn’t say, “Yes! By jim, I’d LOVE to have sex with you! I feel fabulous about this decision!” then IT’S RAPE. No “Well, she didn’t claw my eyes out,” none of this “She was drunk and didn’t/wasn’t able to say NO clearly enough,” and especially none of the, “She gave a grudging and unenthusiastic assent after relentless pestering that will allow me to git some offa her in the fine print.”
Right now, consent in the eyes of men and the law is signalled by a woman’s ceasing to say no. Under Twisty Law, consent is signalled one way only: by the enthusiastic hollering of the word YES! in neon purple lights with fireworks.
Apparently, this is threatening to grotesque womanhating males who can’t possible imagine a woman wanting sex with them so happily and joyously. So threatening in fact that, if required to measure up to that standard, they would find themselves condemned to a life of unrelenting celibacy. (Now, where’d I leave that teeny-weeny violin of mine?) They can’t possibly imagine a woman doing anything but mumbling assent to get him the hell off her back, or mumbling and drooling after he slipped a roofie on her, or any other variety of “consent” currently accepted in the eyes of Man, God,[tm], and The Law.
Let’s face it. When nature makes a surplus, that means that 90% of what’s there is worthless shit. 90% of men have no BUSINESS reproducing. And it’s female choice that’s the gatekeeper. If you, buddy, can’t get a single woman to literally hop up and down in joy, clap her hands, and do the endzone dance at the prospect of fucking you, you shouldn’t be fucking.
Argh, need to use the preview feature more. Left off quotes again on “the day I figured this out” etc., also “Guessing I’m still looking” should read, “Guess I’m still looking”.
Um, I’m a “nutcase” and I’d like to think that I’d never unjustly accuse anyone, even an assholish ex-boyfriend, of rape. Vindictive mean-spiritedness doesn’t mean a person is mentally ill. Thanks.
Please note that I’m not saying ALL SEX IS RAPE. What I am saying is all sex where you can’t get that woman to clap her hands to her mouth in delight and salivate at the prospect of fucking you IS RAPE.
Are you, Mr. I’m A Feminist But, the kind of man who can get a woman that happy at the idea of fucking you?
If not, then why are you trying to fuck her at all?
Are you so pathetic and stinky and so much of a loser that you can’t get her to want you?
If she “has hangups” and “has psycholgical problems, man” then why the fuck don’t you leave her hung-up ass the hell alone?
The ONLY thing that this little Twistified Code of Law would mean is, if you can’t get or find a woman who would be completely thrilled at the idea of fucking you, you ain’t gonna get laid.
AND WHAT MAY I ASK IS GODDAMNED WRONG WITH THIS YOU SHITSUCKING ASSHOLE?
While my heart eternally belongs to Twisty, because I love her, with credibility and tacos, from afar and forever, I’m feeling big love for the commenters here right now. Tiny brie lasagnas for everyone!
False.
Read her original post.
so now I just want the physical parts of sex. Emotions, closeness, yeah-yeah. We’ll do that over breakfast, or on the interminable drive to my in-laws’.
That’s great, Tinfoil, but I’m not in a committed relationship. But I’d like to be, and what I’m trying (maybe not very clearly or well) to say is that I think having sex as a way to bond with somebody we’re not already emotionally bonded with and committed to may well backfire for those of us seeking a long-term, het, committed relationship with a man. And the oxytocin thing is an attempt to add ’scientific’ support to my argument.
Guess I’ll be happier when I trust my gut enough to not question my own sense of what’s true for me and feel no need for external arguments to support my own feelings. IBtP.
True. Read her fucking post AGAIN.
Then, by your statement, consent should not exist for men either. After all, if someone sticks a finger up my ass or forces me to choke on their cock, I can still prosecute them for rape, or at least sexual assault. I have no problem with the premise - the system is broken, and it does need fixing. But I think you’re looking at the issue too simplistically. Without a formalized version of consent (which is, quite frankly, ridiculous), it will always remain so. When I ask my girlfriend if she really wants to have sex for the first time in our relationship, and she responds by grabbing me and throwing me onto her bed, is that consent? She never spoke aloud the word “yes.” If, 15 minutes later, she says that she’s changed her mind, has what we’ve done suddenly become rape, even if I do immediately pull out? What about even less-ambiguous situations, where the woman isn’t sure? Does the onus lie on her to actively say no? Yes, it does. But at the same time, she’s giving the same signals as someone who does want to have sex and simply isn’t explicitly saying it. As a guy, it’s not easy to tell the difference between the two. I tend to err on the side of caution; I won’t have sex with a girl unless I’m sure she’s ready to have sex. This isn’t always true.
While this sounds like a giant justification for the current system, it is not. It’s simply there to point out that if you’re going to deny consent to women, you should deny it to everyone. Equal rights, and all that (I know, I know, men benefit from the patriarchy, consciously or otherwise). Hell, ALL sex is rape, on both (or more) parties’ counts, so if someone wants to prosecute, feel free!
Beyond this, it makes sex even scarier for heterosexual women (as if it weren’t scary enough), since even a hint of her so much as not enjoying it much can lead to rape charges. Since most women don’t really want the men they sleep with to go to jail, they may be *more* afraid to report rape, rather than less, because if they haven’t made up their mind yet, well, according to the law it was rape. It doesn’t erase the issue of consent, it just makes it easier to prosecute men who may not have even gotten the signals to stop (we are pretty stupid). Do men have to be more considerate in choosing when and who they have sex with? Yes. But that doesn’t completely absolve them of responsibility if the woman isn’t willing to say no.
“That’s what has most guys going “OMGThat’stotallyunfair!!!!!†‘Cause they see the potential injustice to them, and not the overwhelming injustice in the current situation, which affects women.”
Exactly.
Actually, I remember attempting to report a bike theft from my garage when the kids were little and I had bikes for all of us. The first question of the dispatcher, “Was the garage door unlocked?” I said it was, “Well there’s really no point in us coming to take a report as it will be hard to prove.”
What? I didn’t though, reconfigure my deep sense of injustice to fit into the lazy cop’s refusal to take the time to report the incident. Instead, I chalked it up to another instance where without a man to legitimize my claim (or who claimed to experience loss), my loss was not considered worthy of consideration.
At that point I decided to hunt down potential bike thieves as my house seemed a popular point of destination and I was in no way going to give up my passion for riding because of them. Might I add that my vigilantism won success 7 out of 10 times my bikes were stolen. Lest any dudes here get the temptation to prove how irrational angry women are, no I didn’t kill the little bastard thieves, I just got my bikes back.
I took the same approach to men who pissed me off long ago, when I often reacted with force to men who would attempt unsolicited advances. I earned quite the reputation.
Hey, I-Just-Don’t-Get-It crowd? Here’s a quarter, get a sense of humor.
Oh gosh, I do hope I didn’t just lose my credibility? Because that would be bad.
It is widely bruited about that false rape accusations are rarely at least in part because the consequences for accusing someone of rape are often greater than the redress available, under patriarchy.
If you change the presumption in the way that Twisty’s modest proposal suggests, you’d expect the consequences for false rape accusations to significantly down, because the consequences for rape accusation (true or otherwise) in general would go down.
Consequently, I don’t understand why people assume that the number of false rape accusations wouldn’t change. By all accounts, Twisty’s proposed system voids the major reason why false accusations are rare.
“Essentially, if the woman doesn’t say, “Yes! By jim, I’d LOVE to have sex with you! I feel fabulous about this decision!†then IT’S RAPE.”
Well I’m on board with this. The “i can retract my consent whenever i want after the fact” part is bullshit though.
How often are wrongs righted without a single drop of blood being spilled by ‘innocents’?
I personally don’t feel a need to see all men in jail, but if one or two (or a hundred) accidentally land their asses there for a brief visit, I just see it as incentive for y’all to get your shit together and remove all cause for us to EVER think we need to remedy your collective behavior in such harsh fashion.
We want to see the shoe on the other foot. We want men, all men, to understand the role they each play, whether passive or active, in supporting the current male-dominated regime that oppresses women daily - even as we speak there’s almost certainly a woman being raped somewhere.
It shocks and appalls me that even I can say that so casually, so blithely, as if it’s not real. Even I, making a daily study of Twisty’s teachings, am still not able to escape the FACT that women’s oppression is universal, ubiquitious, and so common as to be taken completely for granted even by it’s most egregiously hassled victims (need to find an alternative for ‘victims’, the word has become almost meaningless/useless in this context.)
Sorry LMYC, but fiery rhetoric, popular as it may be, does not in fact make your interpretation available given Twisty’s text.
That’s what you THINK the modest proposal said. In fact, it never clarified how consent would be recorded or signalled, and was probably left as an exercise to the reader. I can easily see ways in which a recorded videotaped statement of consent (complete with noisemakers) before and after, could be taken as insufficient proof that the presumption of rape had been defeated, on a future accusation.
It’s hypothetical and probably unlikely, but you are talking about principle here.
Goodness me. Twisty and Blamer Regulars: you are all in *damn* fine form today. Thank you for the wheeeee!
As for the fellows preferring not to get it: it’s easy to decry the necessity of smashing a window if you refuse to notice that the house is on fire.
Oh, and: Twisty, what is this post’s title from? It’s very familiar, but I can’t place it.
It is not merely that prisons are horrible but more that prisons are usually the breeding ground of future criminal behaviour and the likely place where The System would act to subvert your proposal and/or reassert itself.
Because of the nature of prisons and their relationship to a patriarchal state, it is only moderately possible that your proposal would act as a long-term deterrent to rape and a way to end rape culture. Instead, there are a number of at-least-as-likely backfire scenarios.
For instance, you might create a large class of misogynists for whom women are not even useful as rape objects. Just one way in which it might go wrong.
Is Mandos threatening us? That’s kind of creepy.
As opposed to the even larger class of misogynists for whom women are only useful (lovely term) as rape objects, which we currently have in our streets, homes, and workplaces. Awesome.
Why do you dudes keep arguing about what Twisty specifically, exactly said? Why not think for yourselves and offer up a proposal of your own that you think we on the distaff side might find fair?
And if you’re not interested in learning our point of view or supporting a level playing field, why are you here? This site is (in one voice) not about the menz.
I challenge you dudely types to honestly consider the intent of Twisty’s post and see if you can word it in terms that fit both women’s desire for justice and your sense of fairness.
This presupposes that the modest proposal is the equivalent of smashing a window in this analogy. That’s not clear at all.
I suspect that the false accusation thing is probably going to be rare even if the proposal were implemented. But it does reveal some interesting things about those who defend it. (Those who oppose it, well, the interesting things about them were already presumed, no?)
Well, *I* certainly would not object to a world in which people spent a long time getting to know each other before having sex. But I still get a little surprised when people around here propose that there be a standard (for men or for women) of how Emotionally-Meaningful-Gazes-Into-Each-Others-Eyes-Connected people must be in order to establish sexaul relationships. No ships passing in the night for you! That’s really very interesting.
“A straight girl could still have as much sex as she wants with men, if for some reason she thinks it’s a good idea (naturally I would most vigorously urge self-identified heterosexual women to contemplate the horrific personal and political implications of submitting to male domination in this way. But that’s another post).”
C’mon Twisty lets have it.
So, Mandos, are you saying we should just start countering the currently popular Chinese practice of aborting/abandoning girl babies by administering a wee dose of arsenic to all newly hatched, penis-bearing Americans?
Because clearly that’s our only alternative, given that any more sane, rational, even-handed approach to such irrational and unpredictable creatures as men might ‘backfire’.
What you’re saying is that men are so pathetically deranged, so terminally clue-free and power-entitled that we’re better off not rocking the boat for fear of unleashing even more venomous behavior from what are basically monsters.
Gee, you must feel really good about being a member of such an upright, stellar class of beings.
MandosX3,
You seem to be making the argument that people behave decently out of fear of retribution rather that because they are decent human beings.
I presumed that the instance of false rape allegations would not change because the number of people willing to make such allegations would not change.
We have been discussing the fact that men frequently behave in a disgusting manner because they have been trained from infancy to believe that the behavior is reasonable and acceptable. Were they to be trained from infancy to behave as though women were people, rape would be an abberation, rather than the norm in their relations with women.
I think I meant to say ‘upstanding’, not ‘upright’ - little flecks of red rage keep muddying the otherwise limpid pool of pristine blaming thought. Maybe I just haven’t gotten mad enough yet to really burn off the last of the patriarchal blinders, so that I can spew forth freely in laser-focused, pure blamespeak in the esteemed Twisty fashion.
I’ve always wanted to read the text of the Antioch Rules. Anyone have it? I mean, that’s what we’re talking here. Also, when I purchase shit with my credit card, I sign my name. What’s the problem with requiring that before you have sex with someone? Oh, right, it’s not “natural”.
And we live in a helluva natural world.
-BDL
As many feminists have regularly pointed out: one of the ways that patriarchy apparently perpetuates itself is by suggesting—no, demonstrating!—that it could be worse. That’s not a threat, that’s merely a statement of what many feminists have said.
The point is, it is likely that there aren’t long-term sustainable fair legal solutions to the social problem of rape, or for that matter burglary, but perhaps rape in particular.
The intent of her post is nothing that isn’t the intent of most of her posts. There’s far more to talk about in the way that she (and others here) chose to say it.
Acutally, I think I’ve been pretty consistent in holding that I think that people behave decently or badly for a variety of reasons, some involving fear, some involving good training, some involving (insert favorite reason here).
This actually has no effect on the situation. Given that there are some number N women now willing to make a false rape accusation, the system as it stands uses the fear of accusation consequences to reduce that to much less than N. Without that fear/consequences, there would be presumably N women making false rape accusations.
Are there in the real world women willing to make false rape accusations (much larger than the number who actually do)? Who knows? WOULD there be in a world where they are free to do so? Why not? People change for all kinds of reasons, and are not the same one day after another, and are not equally decent at all hours.
Why should we think otherwise?
Sure. But there’s no reason to think that you will be able to bring up all men equally decently, or that upbringing will control all negative behaviours, and probably quite a lot of reasons to actually FEAR such a thing coming true. And in a world where women were liberated, there’s no reason to think that their upbringing would make them all equally decent either, and that they wouldn’t use their liberty to hurt more than when they are prevented from doing so by oppression.
(Which, of course, does not make said oppression a moral benefit to women, needless to say but delphyne might think that I am implying something that doesn’t REALLY follow from my words, and that interesting but sometimes annoying.)
oxytocin [google]
oxytocin [google scholar]
not that google in any of its incarnations is necessarily the be-all and end-all of information, but it’s a place to start.
On re-reading the proposal for the third time, I still don’t see how the hypothetical system differs materially from today’s system, assuming today’s system worked and unreasonable doubts did not magically transform into reasonable doubts during the jury deliberation process.
In other words, the only way that the system could be different is if it became incumbent upon the accused to prove consent. Now, that could be a recorded message or a signed piece of paper; the problem is that since consent can be verbally revoked (even under the present system), you’re right back where you started if that’s claimed.
The procedural problem you’re trying to overcome, then, is an unreasonable jury verdict. So far, the state doesn’t have the right to appeal if an acquittal based on some lunatic theory (the victim wore provocative clothing, had a few drinks, is of the wrong class or color); such effective jury nullification in favor of rapists defeats even the hypothetical system.
MonkWren,
You say you’re stupid. I say it is to your advantage to be so. Therefore you maintain your stupid in the face of repeated opportunities to learn. Unless you mean stupidity as the inability to learn. In which case you better hope women never really get to the point where they believe that.
Two problems with this. First, it would criminalize lesbian sexual contact and lesbians because neither would be able to give consent. Second, no one would get convicted of rape. The second one might seem counterintuitive, but look at the reaction of the men on this board to the idea. Do you think randomly chosen men on a jury are going to be better disposed to it? Pretty much the same exact cases would succeed, there by changing nothing.
Stopping rape requires social changes far more than legal changes.
I am appalled by the dudeliness take-over on this post. It is clear that neither Monk, nor dude-who-read-but-didn’t-get-it or some of the others can leave their positions of privilege.
What’s with the credit card analogy? Are we forgetting that we’re talking about the patriarchy? As pointed by Twisty a few days ago, just walking down the street cannot be a neutral act. How far is the head-up-our-butts syndrome when you cannot recognize that consent-giving is already a politically charged action? When a woman gives(or doesn’t give) consent, it is her responsibility to determine a whole bunch of things that dudes don’t have to, just because we are females living in a patriarchal society. I have to worry about things like whether I’ll be called a slut the next day, or what will happen if birth control does not work, or what if this guy turns out to be a clod and I want to stop but he doesn’t, or what if he is a total nut and turns whacko on me, or what if he is lying about what he wants in this relationship? It is not only about ‘do I want to have sex with this guy’. The fact that most men are unable to see this, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. It is just a reminder that the patriarchy is alive and well, even when we are talking about consensual sex. The reason why the credit card analogy goes down the tubes is that any crimes perpetrated by or through the credit card scam that you’re describing do not involve members of a class of citizens that are in all other aspects of their lives considered second-class and sub-human. Trivializing rape in that way is insulting and indicates the huge amount of privilege that you are clearly not willing to give up.
So what’s wrong about asking the dudes to take some responsibility for what they do? It doesn’t affect those who already do, is asks everyone to take responsibility for their own actions. I’ll tell you what’s wrong, it will actually ask of men that they take responsibility for their appendages and their actions. And as we all know, the patriarchy is not so hot on that.
As for the evil ex scenario, it goes to show how little idea men have of what it means to be sexually assaulted. Like saying ‘I’ve been raped’ is a trip in the park in this society. Like you can say something like that and lieu of, say, calling him a fucking moron.
The fact that so many of us here have had experiences with dude’s sexual privilege and lost our human status thanks to those assholes, who I’m sure are still doing it to other women now, just goes to show that the Twisty Law is not only a great idea, but also a great need. And I am up for trying it for a few thousand years and see how it goes.
I think the fact that people are conceptualising consent as a defence to rape is a problem. It isn’t. Rather, ‘absence of consent’ is an element of the crime itself. That’s why the burden of proof rests on the woman to prove that she didn’t consent. If it were a defence, Twisty’s solution would already be the law - the fact of sex having taken place would make out the elements of crime, and the defendant would have to affirmatively prove presence of consent in order to be found not guilty.
Anyway, the point I’m making is that Twisty’s solution isn’t as shocking as some people are suggesting. Nobody’s eliminating consent - it’s only the burden of proof that’s being shifted. Instead of the victim having to discharge the burden of proving that she didn’t say yes/said no loud enough, the defendant would have to prove that she in fact said yes. The same evidence, even, could be put before the jury. I don’t see why that would bring about the fall of civilization.
“As many feminists have regularly pointed out: one of the ways that patriarchy apparently perpetuates itself is by suggesting—no, demonstrating!—that it could be worse. That’s not a threat, that’s merely a statement of what many feminists have said.”
I am in complete agreement with this argument, Mandos. What I take issue with is the line you draw connecting it with this:
“The point is, it is likely that there aren’t long-term sustainable fair legal solutions to the social problem of rape, or for that matter burglary, but perhaps rape in particular.”
So help me understand exactly what you are trying to say. Society cannot improve the socially unjust legal situation surrounding rape, and the bleak fate of women who attempt to assert themselves as unrapeable is that of objects of hatred not even worthy of rape?
Mandos, I would actually prefer it if men thought of me as something so awful as to not be worth raping, instead of wanting to rape me without getting in trouble for it.
The intent of her post is nothing that isn’t the intent of most of her posts.
Well, humor me then. For my own personal enlightenment, will you please paraphrase for me, in words of your own, what the intent of “most of her posts” is? In case I missed it. Because right now all that seems clear is that you are repeatedly, intentionally, wilfully missing said intent.
That’s not a threat, that’s merely a statement of what many feminists have said.
Mandos, how about making a concrete, defensible statement of your very own that isn’t merely in response to another poster’s comment?
Neener neener, he said, but she said. What do you say? Why are you here on this blog? Are you here to learn, to contribute? Or merely to endlessly argue and obfuscate, belaboring trivial points to derail threads?
I imagine Twisty allows you stay for entertainment value and as an object lesson, and because you manage to just barely comply with the blog etiquette rules most of the time. Or maybe she sees you as her ’straight man’. Dunno.
LoL, Mandos as Twisty’s ’straight man.’ A more perfect coincidence could not have occured.
I’m guessing everyone thinks that MonkWren is a troll, since everyone’s ignoring him, but still, his rhetoric is, as LMYC might put it, pretty fucking scary.
“As a guy, it’s not easy to tell the difference between the two. I tend to err on the side of caution; I won’t have sex with a girl unless I’m sure she’s ready to have sex. This isn’t always true.”
THAT’S THE FUCKING PROBLEM! That men won’t take the simple responsibility to find out whether their partner actually, really, for sure wants sex is men’s problem, not women’s. They should be prosecuted if they simply think that they can have sex with someone because her “eyes looked right” or her “head was tilted just so.” People look at me like I’m an idiot when I mention that a prerequisite to having sex should be the question “Lover, do you want to have sex with me? While we’re having sex, shall we do this, this, or that? What would you prefer?” That’s not revolutionary. That’s just common sense. Get someone’s permission before sticking a cock in her/him.
“It doesn’t erase the issue of consent, it just makes it easier to prosecute men who may not have even gotten the signals to stop (we are pretty stupid).”
What the hell are these “signals”? How ’bout this for a signal: “yes, I want to have sex”? If a woman throws you down on the bed after you ask, and she doesn’t answer, you keep on a-asking. It’s not that hard. And as a non-woman, I take incredible offense to you calling me “pretty stupid,” in fact, stupid enough not to ask for consent, stupid enough not to be able to control my “urges” and rape someone! Maybe if YOU are stupid enough not to do these things, then you should be locked up, and not allowed to have sex. Damn!
LMYC, you’re style is so infectious.
To Coathanger:
Rapists don’t get convicted of rape as it is. Most men have the same reaction to even traditional concepts of rape. Anyways, who’s to say that this isn’t a critique of the jury system? The orange country cop case proves that dudely juries are always around. Juries are nearly always biased as they are.
Mandos, I really don’t mean to get personal here, so forgive me if that last comment felt like an attack.
But it’s infuriating that you talk about all this as if the things that happen to women only exist in some rarefied, abstract theoretical realm that has no basis in reality.
We are talking about REAL people here, real events. Have you ever, personally, experienced any of the kinds of harrassment that this blog talks about? We aren’t talking about all this stuff as an abstract philosophical exercise - it actually means something to the women writing here, in a personal way, on a daily basis, in our real, actual lives. It’s incredibly insulting for you to dismiss the views of people who’ve lived through this stuff, insulated as you are from such treatment by your institutionalized male privilege.
It’s like rich people who lecture poor people on the sins of excess or laziness. Really, truly, inappropriate, out of line, and unhelpful.
Ok, stopping the feeding of Mx3.
I’m (not really) surprised at the extent to which The MENZ!! will go to defend their and their brothers’ right to rape. I mean, just the very idea that something should or could be done about rape sents out the advance guard for the sputtering butbutbut brigade. Imagine if the idea actually came to fruition? My god, ER waiting rooms would be filled to bursting with arterial embolism cases.
As for the threat that we’d create more hateful and violent woman-hating criminals by putting rapists in prison? Okay, you’re right. It could happen. My solution to keeping rapists out of prison, docile, and sweet-voiced is to castrate them instead. See? Problem solved.
As for the evil ex scenario, it goes to show how little idea men have of what it means to be sexually assaulted.
They do, however, seem to have a pretty strong feeling that most women they’ve interacted with have good reason to feel vengeful. For what, they never seem to say.
Oooh, Twisty! I GET IT NOW! See why I’m so happy you ruined my life? There IS no such thing as “consent,” because it shouldn’t be a matter of “consent”! DUH! Hit me over the head with a mallet!
“Consent” implies “May I have permission to do this thing to you?”
Woo-hoo! Maybe I WILL become a lesbian after all, out of sheer loyalty to your brilliance.
“So what’s wrong about asking the dudes to take some responsibility for what they do? It doesn’t affect those who already do, is asks everyone to take responsibility for their own actions. I’ll tell you what’s wrong, it will actually ask of men that they take responsibility for their appendages and their actions. And as we all know, the patriarchy is not so hot on that.”
I have no problem with such. I do so fairly regularly, and I agree that most men don’t do so nearly enough. But I’m not responsible for determining whether a woman has made up her mind or not. If she hasn’t, than she needs to say no. If she does, and the man still presses for sex, then it becomes sexual assault (and rape, if they do actually have sex).
“I have to worry about things like whether I’ll be called a slut the next day, or what will happen if birth control does not work, or what if this guy turns out to be a clod and I want to stop but he doesn’t, or what if he is a total nut and turns whacko on me, or what if he is lying about what he wants in this relationship? It is not only about ‘do I want to have sex with this guy’.”
You’d be surprised at how many of those things run through a guy’s head before he has sex. Perhaps not to the same degree as a woman, and certainly without the same consequences, but sex is not as casual for men as you’d like to paint it (at least not for most men). Society portrays both men and women inaccurately. If any of my previous girlfriends were to have gotten pregnant, do you really think I would have been totally absolvent of blame? As a college student (yes, I’m the epitomy of what you hate: white, 20-something, and not as smart as I think I am), I can barely afford housing and food; if I were to get my girlfriend pregnant, my future is gone, every bit as much as hers. The point being that consent (or lack thereof) lies with both partners.
“MonkWren,
You say you’re stupid. I say it is to your advantage to be so. Therefore you maintain your stupid in the face of repeated opportunities to learn. Unless you mean stupidity as the inability to learn. In which case you better hope women never really get to the point where they believe that.”
I do mean it more in the “inability to learn” sense, although phrasing it as “difficulty to learn” would be more accurate. And I honestly hope that women do get to the point where they finally believe that, so they can help men learn instead of keeping quiet when they should speak up. Ignorance is not easily solved by letting someone figure it out; there’s a reason it took hundreds of years to develop the science of, say, physics, while a student can learn it in the course of a few semesters. I consider myself lucky to have had a number of female friends help teach me about female communication. I still don’t understand it, and I doubt I ever will, just like women tend not to understand how guys communicate. Punishment is one of the least effect motivators for behavioral change; I’d rather see a system where education and positive reinforcement lead to greater understanding and communication, where women feel comfortable enough to say no and men know enough to leave it at that. I don’t think holding men to blame for fucking sex is going to solve the problem.
“Consent†implies “May I have permission to do this thing to you?â€
The lightbulb finally just went off over my head too. Eek. Eww.
Curioser, I didn’t mean to be flip about your experiences. I was being tongue-in-cheek about my own relationship, which, OF COURSE, is based partly on the emotional bonds we HAVE built over 22 years together. Lots of those bonds were forged in conjunction with our sexual relationship, of course. And that is one of the reasons I DO feel so comfortable and cavalier about taking what I want from sex with my husband. I really meant no snark about you or anyone — sorry; I often get carried away by my delight in my own sarcasm.
MonkWren: You sound like my six-year-old: “What if I did my homework? And I really did it, but on the way to school? A big DOG grabbed it and took it, and chewed it up, and ALMOST BIT MY ARM, and the teacher didn’t believe me even though there were dog tooth marks all over the paper?” C’mon. How far did you have to stretch to come up with your scenario?
And LMYC, if you will marry me I WILL turn into a lesbian! A hairy one, even.
You’ve hit a nerve Twisty!
Just look at all the defensive dick waving going on in this post at the mere SUGGESTION of men losing their godbag given priviledge to assume that having a vagina = consent.
I do mean it more in the “inability to learn†sense, although phrasing it as “difficulty to learn†would be more accurate. And I honestly hope that women do get to the point where they finally believe that, so they can help men learn instead of keeping quiet when they should speak up.
MonkWren
If women as a group ever came to the absolute knowlege that you could not be educated to behave like a decent human being, the death penalty would be the appropriate response. I consider it less heinous than incarceration.
If you are not ineducable, stop clinging to stupid and stop doing to women what you in no way would tolerate being done to you.
I think that most of these dudes need to hie themselves to the feminist101 blog and stop cluttering up Twisty’s place with their inane bs.
By the way, whoever asked upthread, the quote is from the Beatles’ “She Said She Said” (from the album “Revolver”).
Monk: But I’m not responsible for determining whether a woman has made up her mind or not.
Monk- in fact, you are. That’s what you’re not getting.
And please don’t lecture us on what goes through men’s minds before/during sex. Ironically, some of us here, being het and all, have had somewhat varied experience in that arena, while you, I’m afraid, only speak for little ol’ self.
(naturally I would most vigorously urge self-identified heterosexual women to contemplate the horrific personal and political implications of submitting to male domination in this way.
You know, this statement stuck with me today, especially after the unbelievable battles I’ve faced this week. I wonder if we hets are just to be grunts in the army of the revolution following a strict, “don’t ask don’t tell” policy that ignores our numbers and our natures. We can work in male dominated fields, battle daily with prejudice, persevere to mentor younger women and help them to gain internships and scholarships just as long as we keep our dirty little secret just that. Doesn’t a dick sucker like Drew Faust realize the horrific political implications of her heterosexuality? Perhaps we are just to be excluded from the priestesshood of the new religion unless we agree to a lot of self loathing over our clearly disordered sexuality and must promise to remain celibate and not act on our horrific desires. Maybe there can set be a camp to help “cure” us of our affliction. Taking a page from the fundy play book radfems can intervene and help us see that although we may “think” we love and want to have sex with men we are really quite ill and just need curing. Give me a rubber band to wear around my wrist and I’ll give it a good snap whenever I feel those disgusting feelings.
I do not wish to live a celibate life alone and I am not sexually attracted to women. Sadly, all I can hope for is to be re-incarnated a lesbian.
Assuming that having a vagina means consent? Where are you getting this? Where did I say that having a vagina equals consent? Where did I claim that men had no responsibility? If you read my posts, you’d find that I want a similar system to the one Twisty proposes - one where both parties are held accountable for their actions.
thebewilderness - So if I have difficulty learning to read, I should just drop out of school, instead of seeking extra help from Special Education because I have a “disability”? If I have difficulty speaking, because my mouth is shaped differently from normal, I should not see a speech pathologist? If I don’t know how to communicate with women, I should be shot? Is that really your solution? I shouldn’t try to get to the source of the problem (ignorance) and get of it (education); instead I should just die? This only applies to some rape cases, but those are the ones where it will make the most difference, as well as the ones that are hardest to prosecute. If they can be eliminated, or at least reduced, wouldn’t you say we’d be doing a pretty fucking good job? If the solution to ignorance is death, than I’d say we all deserve to die.
You claim it’s about being a decent human being, but with no-one to tell others what a decent human being is, how can one be that human being? With no-one to educate, none learn, or learn only slowly. Instead of shooting us for being ignorant and slow-to-learn, why don’t you try to help speed up the learning process, and perhaps spare yourself or someone else a whole lot of pain down the road?
Rapists don’t get convicted of rape as it is. Most men have the same reaction to even traditional concepts of rape. Anyways, who’s to say that this isn’t a critique of the jury system? The orange country cop case proves that dudely juries are always around. Juries are nearly always biased as they are.
I do know that there is a huge problem with men not getting convicted of rape as it is, and no doubt the jury system is easy to critique, but other than enlightened panels of judges, what alternative is there really? And for the record, I would trust a panel of judges almost as much as juries.
I’ll reiterate my point, we can’t change the situation through law, because law, generally speaking, is a reflection of societal beliefs. Therefore the only way things will change is when large numbers of individuals change their views on the world.
Why is it that so many men - many of them self-proclaimed “decent” men - are so afraid of being (wrongly) accused of rape? Guilt? Paranoia?
A truly decent guy wouldn’t have any problem with what Twisty proposes.
MonkWren,
You’re right, you are stupid.
By the time we hit kindergarten, most of us have figured out that if we don’t like being hit with a stick, in all probability the other children are not going to like being hit with a stick.
You obviously haven’t grasped this yet.
Big dyke chin nods to all the blamers above.
And now, ifIf I may interrupt this moment of sterling dudely literal-minded chop-logic with a small scene from a playlet; I nicked the title from a recent science section of the NY Times:
“In Ducks, War of the Sexes Plays Out in the Evolution of Genitalia,†a play by B. Dagger Lee.
ENTER FROM STAGE RIGHT, DUCKTHATHASREADTHEFAQ, A MELLER’S DUCK, FROM MADAGASCAR.
ENTER STAGE LEFT, DAISY DUCK, A FEMALE DUCK, ALSO FROM MADAGASCAR.
DuckthatHASreadtheFAQ: Why did you evolve your vagina so as to reject my sperm? What if no one will mate with you? What if Peking no longer serves duck?
Daisy Duck: This elaborate vagina is the evolutionary result of forced mating. It is a necessary defense against unwanted duck sperm.
DuckthatHASreadtheFAQ: But I will simply evolve my phallus to be longer. Please answer my first set of questions. Also, another question—what about duck à l’orange? Aren’t you concerned that there is no rhyme in English for “orange� How will anyone be able to write a heterosexual love song about this?
Daisy Duck: My vagina is getting longer and more labyrinthine by the moment. And by moment, I mean eons.
DuckthatHASreadtheFAQ: I will make my phallus like a long corkscrew, so as to put my sperm inside you.
Daisy Duck: That’s fine, because my vagina actually spirals and turns in the opposite way to your corkscrew phallus. Here, please sign this release; I don’t want to get sued by a bitter, vengeful duck.
But MonkWren, you keep saying you want to learn, and we magnaimous radfems keep trying to teach you, and you keep explaining to us how we cannot possibly be right about, among other things, RAPE.
So, I’ve come to the conclusion that the victimness of an interlocutor on a blog/forum desighed by its owner for serious and advanced discussion of a social phenomenon (in this case, patriarchy) is not an argument against the examination of the content of their ideas.
If this blog were clearly defined as some kind of mutual support forum, I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole. Otherwise, are you telling me that I should patronize contributors—including contributors who’ve suffered from the phenomenon—by treating their ideas with delicacy and indulgent agreement?
I’m willing to do that, just as I’m willing to bow of the blog completely on request from its owner, and have said so before.
As for why *I* post here, well, it is interesting and fundamental to the human condition if what Twisty says is true. It’s inherently interesting to discuss the nontrivial implications.
This is not necessarily the case. After all, people spend huge amounts more ink agonizing about other abstract legal situations that might only apply to a small minority of people.
Yet how many of you have figured out that you don’t like being peer-pressured by college? Not many, if my experiences are to be any judge (and they very well may not be). What about relationship pressure? What about societal pressure? How many of you have said, on this very site, that you had sex because you felt you should, and that, at the time, you believed that you should want it? How are guys to know you don’t want it if you don’t say so, or if you consistently change you mind, or if you say no with your mouth but say yes in other ways? Having talked with a large number of women about this, it’s fair to say that a number of you have no idea what you want (not that men are any different), yet you hold us to blame for that? I have no fear of being accused of rape; I’ve never committed it, and I trust all the women I’ve slept with to not suddenly turn into back-stabbing bitches. But I don’t feel that I should be held responsible for something beyond my control that I have no part in. Or would you like to be held responsible for allowing the patriarchy to continue its rule over our society?
tinfoil hattie - I never said I wasn’t learning. Nor that I haven’t learned. Simply that most men don’t. Merely that I have difficulty doing so. Nor have I claimed that you are wrong (please, I encourage you, read my posts), simply arguing that perhaps a different implementation might be more useful to achieve the same goal.
But I don’t feel that I should be held responsible for something beyond my control that I have no part in. Or would you like to be held responsible for allowing the patriarchy to continue its rule over our society?
He doesn’t want to be, therefore he shouldn’t be. I think the six-year-old analogy has gained a dimension.
You have a part in it. We all do. And the idea that someone who nervously had sex because she thought she was supposed to probably isn’t going to be the most enthusiastic, active partner. I’m willing to be that your mental image of “woman acting like she wants to have sex = woman who has stopped resisting and is now staring blankly at the ceiling.”
And here’s a good rule of thumb: if your partner is “consistently changing [her] mind” about whether she wants to have sex, assume the answer is NO and act accordingly. Her need to not feel sexually violated trumps your “need” to have sex at that instant with that woman.
I completely agree with that, Shira. At significant portion of the male population, however, does not, and the answer to the problem is not to shoot them all, it’s to educate them so they don’t repeat their admittedly reprehensible behavior.
As for the responsibility part, if you believe we’re all responsible, than is not the woman responsible for her own rape? Your logic is self-defeating - everyone is responsible for the actions of society as a whole, and society is responsible for the actions of individuals, than the woman being raped is responsible for the man raping her. Therefor, responsibility is individual, meaning that I am not responsible for actions and decisions that are not my own.
… it’s to educate them …
Nice way to make it our fucking job. I ain’t your goddamned Mommy.
So, wait, you’re saying that women should be legally assumed not to want to be raped, the same way all human beings are legally assumed not to, for example, have their televisions stolen? You know who I blame for this not already being the case.
Durr. Should be “not to, for example, [b]want[/b] their television stolen”. Not “have”. I’m smart. S-M-R-T smart.
Nice way to make it our fucking job. I ain’t your goddamned Mommy.
Perhaps the problem was that Mommy never did it in the first place. Who’s going educate little Johnny then?
So smart I use the wrong kind of tags. *facepalm* I need more sleep.
Perhaps the problem was that Mommy never did it in the first place. Who’s going educate little Johnny then?
Maybe for once in his life Daddy could do something useful. Just a thought.
And if Daddy was never taught? And his Daddy was never taught? If only a fraction of the men who have ever lived have figured it out (which seems to be pretty apparent)? If the education never occurred, how could it have been continued, especially with the patriarchy frowning on such information dissemination? And even if Daddy did know, who cares? Is it the son’s fault for not learning what was never taught? Even if it is, isn’t the point to be better people and teach it to him anyways? Or would that require being a decent human being?
MonkWren:Or would you like to be held responsible for allowing the patriarchy to continue its rule over our society?
Your asshattery is showing again.
Our culture currently holds women responsible for every single thing wrong and gives credit to men for every single thing that goes half assed right. Twisty’s post suggested that one way for men to learn not to rape women would be for them to understand that without two people agreeing to have sex together, the default assumption would be no. Violations to be prosecuted.
If she isn’t sure she wants to, don’t fuck her.
If she doesn’t know what she wants, dont fuck her.
If you don’t know what you want, don’t fuck her.
If she enjoys kissing you, it doesn’t mean she wants you to fuck her.
If you are so caught up in how much you want to fuck her that you don’t have a clue what she wants, you have dehumanized her to the point where it doesn’t matter what she wants. Stop it, now!
As for the responsibility part, if you believe we’re all responsible, than is not the woman responsible for her own rape? Your logic is self-defeating - everyone is responsible for the actions of society as a whole, and society is responsible for the actions of individuals, than the woman being raped is responsible for the man raping her. Therefor, responsibility is individual, meaning that I am not responsible for actions and decisions that are not my own.
All have a part in the perpetuation of patriarchy =/= all have an equal part and certainly =/= absolution for your behavior. Jesus Christ. The point is that none of us exist outside of patriarchy, and so you must, through educating yourself, figure out how you perpetuate this system and how you benefit from/exploit your privileged position within the system.
Who’s going educate little Johnny then?
Heaven forfuckingFEND Johnny should grow the fuck up and educate him damned self, like most adult human beings.
And did it ever occur to you that DADDY SHOULD DO SOME EDUMACATIN’?
Naah, just go find something with tits and make it do the job. After allo, where Mommy falls short, then all other women must pick up the slack!
Fuck off.
“Our culture currently holds women responsible for every single thing wrong and gives credit to men for every single thing that goes half assed right. Twisty’s post suggested that one way for men to learn not to rape women would be for them to understand that without two people agreeing to have sex together, the default assumption would be no. Violations to be prosecuted.”
I don’t disagree with this in any way. What I’m trying to say is that there is likely a better way of teaching men that lesson, one that doesn’t involve significant jail time for men who are (or would be) decent people, if they weren’t so screwed up by society.
“If she isn’t sure she wants to, don’t fuck her.
If she doesn’t know what she wants, dont fuck her.
If you don’t know what you want, don’t fuck her.
If she enjoys kissing you, it doesn’t mean she wants you to fuck her.
If you are so caught up in how much you want to fuck her that you don’t have a clue what she wants, you have dehumanized her to the point where it doesn’t matter what she wants. Stop it, now!”
Good guidelines, ones I follow every time I have sex. I hope you do too.
And if Daddy was never taught? And his Daddy was never taught? If only a fraction of the men who have ever lived have figured it out (which seems to be pretty apparent)? If the education never occurred, how could it have been continued, especially with the patriarchy frowning on such information dissemination? And even if Daddy did know, who cares? Is it the son’s fault for not learning what was never taught? Even if it is, isn’t the point to be better people and teach it to him anyways? Or would that require being a decent human being?
Men can demand that women be “decent human beings” (defined as catering to his demands on behalf of men!), but if women are to demand that men be decent human beings, we are then obligated to take them by the hand and explain how to be a decent human being slowly and patiently, without getting too upset when they don’t quite grasp the concept.
I
loveblame it.Is it the son’s fault for not learning what was never taught?
Absolutely. It’s time for him to build a bridge and get over himself, observe the world, figure some shit out and be an adult. If the rest of us can do it he can too.
Have you never heard of the concept that ignorance of the law is no excuse?
MonkWren. You don’t want to change. You don’t want to help other men change. You want to keep arguing that we women are to blame for our situation.
And yeah, I HAVE read your posts.
If you were at all interested in “getting it,” you’d say: “Dang. It DOES suck to be a woman. Hmm. Next time my friends suggest going to a titty bar, or start hooting and hollering at women who commit the crime of walking past them on a public street, or whine about how women are so demanding these days, I’m going to tell them they’re all assholes who need to fuck off.”
But, I know (wait for it) — you don’t HAVE any friends who behave this way. Am I right?
MonkWren, being a white agnostic female, I know nothing about being black or buddhist. But say, just for argument’s sake, you spend a day trying to ‘learn’ about what it’s like for a black person to live in a white world. Say you take the ‘beginner’s mind’ approach of Zen, and assume you know nothing, or better yet, that everything you think you ‘know’ about black people is wrong.
You would not, in this scenario, presume to lecture a black person about their own personal experiences.
You would instead be quite humble, and would do most of your ‘learning’ by quietly observing.
You would also ask many questions, in that simple and open-minded way a child does when it truly doesn’t know the answer and has no preconceived notion as to what you might say. And you would always acknowledge that the black person’s expression of their own experience trumped any opinions you might hold about same, well-reasoned or otherwise.
Because we each own our own experience; it is unique. No one can tell us what we hear, see or feel, or how we interpret what we experience into words. We might discuss our impressions after the fact, compare notes, and possibly influence each other’s thinking; but the only person who is right about what they FEEL in a given situation is the person doing the telling.
Good guidelines, ones I follow every time I have sex. I hope you do too. MonkWren
Given your previous comments, you will understand why I don’t believe you.
Let’s face it. When nature makes a surplus, that means that 90% of what’s there is worthless shit. 90% of men have no BUSINESS reproducing. And it’s female choice that’s the gatekeeper. If you, buddy, can’t get a single woman to literally hop up and down in joy, clap her hands, and do the endzone dance at the prospect of fucking you, you shouldn’t be fucking.
I completely agree with you about the second part, but while generally I hate “what about the menz”, could we please not start with the social darwinism. First of all as someone with no intention of reproducing I fail to see the automatic connection between sex and TEH BAYBEEZ, second I don’t not want to sleep with X person because I think they are a evolutionary mishap, I don’t want to sleep with a person because as is so often noted on this blog, no is the default, I don’t have to justify not wanting to sleep with someone anymore than I have to justify my dislike of non-mild curry. I don’t regard anyone as an evolutionary mistake, I merely think they may be quite the delusional dumbass. Plus, as noted, I am not obliged to sleep with anyone, so I want people to understand that they respect my no, and my absence of yes because it’s my body, I am not letting them touch it so they can’t.
Each time the MonkTroll posts, I have an urge to press the Blame button, as if that could erase his whiny entitlement. However,
see below? The troll reveals his true colors:
As for the responsibility part, if you believe we’re all responsible, than is not the woman responsible for her own rape? Your logic is self-defeating - everyone is responsible for the actions of society as a whole, and society is responsible for the actions of individuals, than the woman being raped is responsible for the man raping her. Therefor, responsibility is individual, meaning that I am not responsible for actions and decisions that are not my own.
All right, we get it already! You’re a troll.
GO AWAY.
I’ll resist any further urge to respond, and humbly suggest we all do likewise.
Enjoying the hell out of this discussion, otherwise.
Go Team Us!
Well, regarding this comment:
I’d like to expand on the earlier response, re: how “she turned into a nutcase,” is from the wrong perspective. I mean, this is pretty basic — there’s all sorts of subtle pressures going on naturally from two people interacting whose desires are not utterly parallel, which is always going to be the case unless you’ve somehow duplicated yourself for some Narcissus lovin’.
So even if ex thought it was okay at the time, ex might look back at that some time later and it would squick her out. Or even if you thought it was okay at the time, you might see in retrospect that having sex with that person was a really bad idea (for instance, she had issues from abuse in her family or a previous relationship that made her easier to pressure.)
Is anyone really so completely self-aware and so fully cognizant of all the factors (in the heat of the moment, and particularly with the emotional attachment to the lover that is often involved) that they catch all of the undercurrents and pressures at the time? I mean, astoundingly enough, it is possible to take advantage of someone who doesn’t realize you are taking advantage of them. Heck, it’s even possible not to realize that you are taking advantage.
Do you really believe we should consign all these situations to “morning after regret?” Or would you be willing to admit that some of them are nasty enough that charges should be brought? Especially in a culture that tells everyone it’s only rape if a stranger jumps you and you scream and fight him, etc., etc.
This isn’t a matter of “whenever I want.” The issue — the reason Twisty’s saying put ‘em on trial, even years and years later, is because sometimes we don’t understand what happened to us until years and years later. You’ve seen one such story in this very thread. And I don’t believe you understand how common it is. This is precisely one of the problems with consent as it’s currently constructed.
RFH, speaking as someone who has a definite distate for the het nasty, I also do not consider myself a mistake — I in fact feel that there are about a zillion and one ways that any person can demonstrate themselves valued and worthy in a societal sense. I didn’t give my entire rather complex opinion on human evolution and what it has to do with the price of tea in China, but just because it’s not written into the comment, please don’t assume it doesn’t exist.
That said, I still think that any man who can’t get a woman to get happy at the idea of screwing him has no business trying to get into a vagina in the first place.
the answer to the problem is not to shoot them all, it’s to educate them so they don’t repeat their admittedly reprehensible behavior.
And just how, pray tell, do we ‘educate’ thieves and murderers? Do we take them gently off into a quiet corner and say, dear, I know life must have been difficult for you to become so very, very angry that you act out in the ways you do, but really, it’s very unbecoming and it just won’t do and I simply must insist that you cease and desist immediately. Or I shall have to take away your milk and cookies privileges.
Remember eye for an eye, or cutting off the hands as punishment for stealing? What if the ‘teaching’ of un-clued males involved ’showing’ them what it’s like by hiring big, powerful gay men to harass and intimidate da straight fellas?
Gah.
And to suggest that rape is any less ‘reprehensible’ than robbery is to fail utterly to recognize women’s equal value as humans. Just imagine some big guy taking you aside and whispering to you, nice ass sweetie, god what I’d love to do to you. Does it give you a little frisson of fear? That dark-alley, not-so-far-removed-from-the-jungle-after-all kind of feeling? We’re not talking about rape here after all, we’re just positing a little not-so-subtle propositioning (along the lines of what women experience every day).
Now going off to write on the chalkboard I will not feed the troll, I will not feed the troll.
B. Dagger Lee, one night, I got drunk with some of my more literary-minded friends and we figured out a phrase that rhymes with “orange”: “door hinge.” See? See? Or-inge, door-hinge? It totally works.
… the answer to the problem is not to shoot them all, it’s to educate them so they don’t repeat their admittedly reprehensible behavior.
And just how, pray tell, do we ‘educate’ thieves and murderers?
C&C, the best part is that these little right-wingers are so quick to scream and bitch about the stupidity of the “self-esteem movement” and how the left coddles criminals and what about victim’s rights when the topic of any other group of criminals is raised. Talk about how racism impacts and creates criminality, and they flat-out freak and start pissing and moaning over how Nobody Takes Responsibility For Themselves Anymore It All Started To Go Downhill When Women Began Working Outside The Home This Country Is Going To Hell In A Handbasket, yadda yadda.
Unless the topic of their own responsibility for their own actions comes up. Then suddenly they whine and bleat about how nobody gently took them by the hand and taught them to be good and decent human beings with endless tolerance and feminine patience.
Listen you little puke, fine. Society fucked you over and fed you a bill of goods about masculinity. Here is where you start unlearning it. If you’re going to struggle against it and instead start defending the bullshit you were mistaught, then go away. Slythwolf got it right — bind your own wounds, get up on your own fucking feet, and teach your goddamned self.
You can lead a dipshit to water but you can’t make him think.
Actually, “porange” rhymes too. I learned that from Witchypoo, on HR Puffenstuff, as a wee B. Dagger. But door hinge is much much better.
[quote]Who’s going educate little Johnny then?
Heaven forfuckingFEND Johnny should grow the fuck up and educate him damned self, like most adult human beings.
And did it ever occur to you that DADDY SHOULD DO SOME EDUMACATIN’?
Naah, just go find something with tits and make it do the job. After allo, where Mommy falls short, then all other women must pick up the slack![/quote]
Monk, you can teach yourself stuff, for crap’s sake.
“And just how, pray tell, do we ‘educate’ thieves and murderers? Do we take them gently off into a quiet corner and say, dear, I know life must have been difficult for you to become so very, very angry that you act out in the ways you do, but really, it’s very unbecoming and it just won’t do and I simply must insist that you cease and desist immediately. Or I shall have to take away your milk and cookies privileges.”
I’d say empathy training is a good idea, seriously, I do not have any interest in shooting people, life in prison I’m fine with, but frankly I do think that rehabilitation is the only other option, feminist theory classes and that kind of thing may actually work. However, this should be something you are paid to do, not something you spend all your time explaining for free.
So, Monk, it’s women’s fault if they’re raped because a few “moms” didn’t explicitely teach their sons “hey, women are not a bunch of fucking meat envelopes, it’s best not to do something to them that they don’t want!” You mean to tell me, Monk, that if my mom did not explicitely take ALL the damned responsibility in trying to fight off any infiltration of the rape culture that pervades us in her son that it is my fault if I get raped? Boy, where else have I heard the argument that moms are responsible for every freaking societal ail in the damned world? How about holding men who actually rape responsible?
I’m late to the party but my sisters in blame got it all under control. Love ya LMYC–you’re in fine blaming form, as always.
All that Twisty has suggested is that men be required to prove consent. The man could have the burden of *going forward* with evidence of consent. The man could testify “this is how I knew that she agreed to have sex…” It would be a rebuttable presumption. No one person has articulated a logical reason against this.
Merely suggest that women have power over their own bodies, and the menz begin to whine. Not give women power! The menz want education, and it’s our job to educate them. We might have to go to a horrible prison the men whine. Like having the funk-filled brautwarst (TM Twisty) poked in you when you feel like puking is a walk in the park. Point this out, and you’re turning this blaming community into an alleged support group, like we’re sitting around singing kumbya.
The most disturbing revelation of this thread is that these self-professed nice guys (blamers, red flag here!) cannot fathom how they will tell when a woman consents. The menz cannot prove consent because they don’t know what it is. That’s just pathetic.
The menz cannot prove consent because they don’t know what it is.
ZOMFG.
We really do live in a culture that doesn’t know the difference between sex and rape. This proves it.
That should be “funk-filled brautwurst.” Love that expression. LOL!
Yea, LMYC, this is a light bulb moment for me. I knew that Twisty was right, but this hits it home.
Mmmm, interesting point. The whole issue of proving consent thing has been in the forum for a while; I remember researching gender roles and their effect on children and coming across it.
But I like hetero sex. I like homo sex, too. I am of the opinion that as long as both parties are consenting and of the ability to give consent with a real knowedge of the consequences of sex, all sex is pretty nice.
Vive la revolucion.
lawbitch, I just typed out and then erased a long response along the lines of rebuttable and irrebuttable presumptions; yours is far more eloquent so all the better. But I think that Twisty is calling for an IRrebuttable presumption, and relying on the ethics of the accuser and the jury pool to prevent convictions for consensual sex regardless of proof or consent. I have no problem with the defendant having to prove consent as an affirmative defense including presumably taking the stand. Whether one characterizes it as a “presumption” or as simply an ordinary affirmative defense on the defendant’s burden like waiver or self-defense is a matter more of interest to academics. But I think tha Twisty wants something a lot more radical; maybe I misread her completely.
LMYC (trimmed for brevity):
And that runs us full-circle back to points made by the Twisty Commentariat in posts past–something to the effect of:
In a just world, men would have to be work their bodies and their minds into “attractive” shape, like so many women misguidedly do now, in order to make themselves feel like they are decently attractive to women. There’d be a lot more men asking questions like “Do these pants make my butt look big?”
«Why is it that so many men - many of them self-proclaimed “decent†men - are so afraid of being (wrongly) accused of rape? Guilt? Paranoia?
A truly decent guy wouldn’t have any problem with what Twisty proposes.»
I strongly suspect that there’s no such thing as a truly decent guy, and most men wander around trying to ignore the tiny internal voice that’s pointing out their failings. But, even if a truly decent(tm) man existing, he’d be improved by not having the law by default on his side all the time. And a statute of limitations might be a wonderful amendment to the law, but why not change the law first, then tweak it to fit if the hypothetical (I’ve done it with women, *and* had relationships disintegrate in a spectacularly horrible fashion. As far as I know, none of my exes have retconned our relationship into a rape accusation after the whole thing blew apart into a million pieces) plague of false accusations develops?
MonkWren:
Theeeeennnn I guess there’d be a lot fewer men having decent relationship with women? And those relationships would be what? healthier?
Just shots in the dark, you understand.
Grrr.
“decent relationships with women?”
All that Twisty has suggested is that men be required to prove consent.
No, she said something much more radical, that consent is never given, or that every case should be treated as if consent had never been given, with no exceptions at all, ever.
As she said “consent never existed.”
It merely be a matter of which women decided to press charges.
Wow, tracking this thread took me all day.
dude who HAS read the FAQ
One wonders why you’re here. Do you somehow feel a devil’s advocate is warranted? I think you’re mistaken.
Inverarity
Well put, but did you need the at first I agreed blah-blah that essentially feels like trying to cover your ass so that the men don’t think you’re a total wuss because you sided with them first, but then after taking a moment to carefully consider the nice femargument you came to your senses. Pick a side.
brklyngrl
good call
MonkWren
What world do you live in?” “I’m not sure I properly understand the distinction between trolling and trying to learn, as applies to you. I also think you miss the point that you acting as devil’s advocate is unwanted. Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.
Mandos
Using ‘N’ to make your explanation sound mathy and scientific doesn’t make it any more valid
Coathangrrr
You totally miss the point. The happy lesbian couple just wouldn’t take each other to court. If one of them did, well, same system, same logic, don’t have sex with a nutbar… so what was your point? Do you not think changing laws is a good avenue to promote social change? Not the only avenue, doesn’t always work, but many history books I’ve read have shown rule of law to have a huge social impact.
B. Dagger Lee
Nice, I swear I was thinking of the ducks article I read a few days back just a few posts before. Your ducky dialogue played out entertainingly and much better than what my mind had fumbled together.
Most importantly:
CuriouserAndCuriouser
brilliant and different perspective, nice to hear something I’ve been thinking about, but worded so well. So many well said things in this thread that I must really voice my appreciation. More thought provoking than most of the blog-prattle. I’d even say inspirational. I learnt from you today. I will quite seriously look for your posts carefully now (no mockery, I really will)
I think Twisty’s idea is grand. I thought it was good the second I read it. I’d be willing to sign a contract to that effect with any of my friends, and should we ever have sex and they decide it was rape, then good on them and I’ll be in jail (Well, not really. I fear that even if I went to court and was agreeable to the idea, the big ol’ patriarchy wouldn’t let it happen to me, being a privileged, white, young, educated male. It would set too bad a precedent :P).
There are a fair number of women I want to have sex with. As it happens, they don’t appear to want to have sex with me. It’s not taken all of my brain power to figure out this means I’m not going to have sex with them. It doesn’t change that I want to, but who gives a flying flip about that. And nobody should, it’s a moot point.
I’ve even discussed the matter in some detail with one of my friends. She’s gone so far as to express that she doesn’t even feel comfortable with me overtly wanting to have sex with her, even if that constitutes looking longingly into her eyes and hoping she’ll decide she wants to bed me (or even just kiss me (and my heart flutters and stomach does weird things now just thinking about holding her hand, and you all have to puke and read this)).
She doesn’t want to keep her guard up. So, the right thing for me is to either suck it up and hide how I feel as best I can (or change it, if I could ever figure out how) or to fuck right off and not have anything to do with her (we’ll miss each other, but we’ll get over it). It’s essentially a matter of me choosing between the two, whichever seems less intolerable to exist with (life’s not fair, boo hoo for privileged me).
So for the guys posting above who are curious, there’s a hint (or perhaps some perspective to help you realize how lame you are). If you’ve convinced a woman to have sex because she likes you and doesn’t want you to leave her alone or because she wants to feel accepted, why shouldn’t that be rape? It appears to suck because you’ve been taught that you have privileges regarding this.
I was taught that too, and I have the distinct feeling that it sucks, but I also try to be self aware and find the source of that feeling. I can’t not feel it, but I can realize that feeling stems from the patriarchy, and I can choose not to act on it. And little by little, I’m gonna sort out where my thinking comes from, and hopefully be able to choose who I am in an educated manner, or at least making a passingly good go at it.
So grow up and stop making me want to puke while reading you whine about your male privilege.
In a just world, men would have to be work their bodies and their minds into “attractive†shape, like so many women misguidedly do now, in order to make themselves feel like they are decently attractive to women. There’d be a lot more men asking questions like “Do these pants make my butt look big?â€
I’d prefer to have no one worry about stupid things like appearance and have them focus on becoming better people in other ways. But if the idea of a world where men have just as many body issues as women appeals to you, then OK.
I’m late to the blaming game, but y’all are on fire.
If anyone is interested, here is my legal understanding of consent in non-rape situations. The area that I know the most about would be trespass on property. Trespass is an entry on one’s property without consent. From what I learned about this concept, consent is defined incredibly rigidly. If I tell you that you can come by on Tuesday, and you come over Monday, you are trespassing. If you come over and I let you in for a cup of coffee, and then I decide I don’t want you there, you have to leave, for I have withdrawn consent. If I say you can stay until 10, you no longer have my consent to be there at 10:05 and you are trespassing unless I tell you that you can stay later. If I tell you that you can come by anytime you are bringing me cupcakes and you show up and come in the front door with muffins, that also oversteps the boundaries of the consent I have given, and you are trespassing. If I consent to you entering my home to build a porch, and I give you that consent because you have represented yourself as a licensed carpenter, you are trespassing if that representation was false. Of course, in cases of trespass, you also have to prove some sort of harm, but that’s pretty easy to do in cases of rape, because SHE WAS RAPED.
Contrast the view of consent in the area of trespass with the Model Penal Code definition of rape. The Model Penal Code is the American Law Institute (rich honky law dudes and a few token non-honkey non-dudes who get together and decide what the law should be, distribute it, it is studied in law schools) attempting to come up with their ideal of what the criminal code should ideally be. Then, various states adapt it and add or subtract various provisions, but it is a pretty good summary of what the ‘average’ law is across all states.
Anyway, here it is:
“(1) Rape. A male who has sexual intercourse with a female not his wife is guilty of rape if:
(a) he compels her to submit by force or by threat of imminent death, serious bodily injury, extreme pain or kidnapping, to be inflicted on anyone; or
(b) he has substantially impaired her power to appraise or control her conduct by administering or employing without her knowledge drugs, intoxicants or other means for the purpose of preventing resistance; or
(c) the female is unconscious; or
(d) the female is less than 10 years old.
Rape is a felony of the second degree unless (i) in the course thereof the actor inflicts serious bodily injury upon anyone, or (ii) the victim was not a voluntary social companion of the actor upon the occasion of the crime and had not previously permitted him sexual liberties, in which cases the offense is a felony of the first degree.
(2) Gross Sexual Imposition. A male who has sexual intercourse with a female not his wife commits a felony of the third degree if:
(a) he compels her to submit by any threat that would prevent resistance by a woman of ordinary resolution; or
(b) he knows that she suffers from a mental disease or defect which renders her incapable of appraising the nature of her conduct; or
(c) he knows that she is unaware that a sexual act is being committed upon her or that she submits because she mistakenly supposes that he is her husband.”
Please note the following: 1. consent is not mentioned; 2. there are different definitions for rape if the victim was your wife; 3. there are different levels of punishment if the victim has previously ‘permitted sexual liberties,’ which means that if you done anything sexual with them (i.e. you belong to the slut class), apparently your rape is not as important as that of one in the virgin/madonna class; 4. the idea suggested upthread that ‘consent is not an affirmative defense, lack of consent has to be proven to convict’ is not true. Advanced blamers could quickly come up with dozens - probably hundreds - of scenarios which do not meet this legal definition of rape, but in which there was not consent. This is the law (modified for some states, but a quick spot check reveals they are mostly the same). Sex that is not consented to is not necessarily rape - the perpetrator has to do something fucking awful, like drug the victim, or use force, for it to be legally recognized as rape.
I’m writing this, and my roommate is watching ‘Jesus Camp.’ This world is so scary.
Just another quick comment - I’m having trouble imagining a situation in which a rape would not be one in which “in the course thereof the actor inflicts serious bodily injury upon anyone.”
Any man who doesn’t assume that the default setting for consent is “no” deserves his encounter with the police. It’s that simple.
Unfortunately, there’s some very ugly cultural baggage around consent. For example, Allen Sherman, writing in a time when any woman who actually gave clear consent by saying “yes” was immediately written off as a slut, saw the moment when a woman lifted her pelvis (so a man could remove her panties) as the signifier of consent.
I read Sherman’s book before I lost my virginity. How scary is that? Nobody ever talked to me about consent. I remember a conversation about rape with a high-school girlfriend where my father said, “A real man loves his rape.” I hope that he was joking, but that was also before I lost my virginity. I was a “nice” guy, so I always stopped when asked, but the potential for disaster was huge.
There are still cultures on the planet where no woman ever actually says “yes,” no matter how she feels, because using the word “yes” in a sexual context would have immediate psychological and social consequences. There are cultures like this right here in the US.
This is totally fucked up. For both genders.
I don’t say this to apologize for males who claim “misunderstanding.” Men are generally the larger, stronger, more priveleged partner in any transaction about sex, and IMHO it’s up to us be fully sure we have made no mistakes about consent.
But it’s still fucked up.
Hi redhead, I’m sure that most courts would decide that, a woman who, not wanting to be hurt (or being sufficiently impaired) behaved in such a manner that, or the “actor” was gentle enough that no bodily damage (such as bruising, lacerations, or even physical discomfort), she wouldn’t really have been raped.
Sorry for the lengthy sentence, I hope you follow. I’m tired.
The above is an abysmal state of the world, and I often drearily wonder how the world continues to work, and why I should bother continuing with it, save that the alternative also doesn’t look any fun.
ramou - true. When I say ’serious bodily injury,’ I mean the blamer’s conception, not the law’s conception - which would not include what you described above. IBtP.
I think the central point that the dudes “don’t get” is that the majority of blamers genuinely don’t care if Twisty’s proposal is ‘not fair’ to the hypothetical falsely accused rapist of the post-revolution future.
As someone above said, its the old fear of a slave revolt. The worst fear of a ruling class is to have the pendulum swing in the opposite direction.
When dudes stumble upon Twisty’s brilliant posts, its like the planter strolling through the slave quarters and hearing whispered plans to burn down the big house. When I read Twisty’s posts, its like BEING in that cabin, and sharpening up a pitchfork while I listen to the plan.
trout,
It is amazing after all this time how many people do not get that there is no possibility of consent.
Either you are doing a physical sex act together or you are not.
Consent is all about she let you do something to her, it has nothing to do with sex. It is all about rape, in all its shades and permutations.
No kidding. It makes my blood boil every time I see something in the news or on TV that describes a rape victim as ‘unhurt’. The sheer, willful ignorance in that one word….
Thebewilderness,
I understand what you mean about consent. I just don’t know another word to use. Frankly, parsing that stuff gets too far into highfalutin-type sematics for me.
I’ve never been happy with merely getting “consent” from a woman, and I’ve always backed off when I thought that was happening. I’m not sure that makes me a great guy; it’s as much a a matter of disliking the ambiguity as anything else.
But there does have to be a bottom level standard for whatever constitutes not-rape. When I use the word “consent” I mean some response that’s at least microscopically above that level.
Well put, but did you need the at first I agreed blah-blah that essentially feels like trying to cover your ass so that the men don’t think you’re a total wuss because you sided with them first, but then after taking a moment to carefully consider the nice femargument you came to your senses. Pick a side.
Can the armchair psychoanalysis, Ramou. I was giving an honest response, not trying to triangulate myself between the bros and the radfems.
And you wonder why people mistake your site for a parody.
Forgive me if I’m missing something, but if this system was in place, wouldn’t a rape trial basically be the same as it is now? Even if the law recognized the default position for consent as being “no,” wouldn’t it still come down to her word against his? The man’s defense would still be “she consented to sex,” and the typical bullshit legal process of trying to determine who is correct would ensue. It would, however, eliminated the defense of “she did not say no loud enough,” as has already been stated, but it’s not all that difficult to shift the defense to “she said yes.” If it comes down to “she said yes” versus “I didn’t say anything,” where does a trial go from there?
I take your point, Twisty, which is a very good one. But I think that for the time being, and patriarchy being what it is, probably a good step in the right direction is the generalitation and strict application of the Spanish law on what we call “crimes against sexual freedom”.
There are two different crimes: rape and abuse. Rape is enforced sex or sex with someone under 12 (15??). Abuse is sex without consent, as there are plenty of occasions in which there is no consent, and we assume the victim tells the truth about her lack of consent, but there is no violence or it can’t be proved. Of course, the penalties against abuse are severe but ont as severe as the ones for rape.
The advantage of this system is that courts are reluctant to consider men guilty of sexual crimes if they find the penalties are too severe. A graded system gives the court the illusion of “ha, ha, we are going to be soft on the poor boy because this is a question of degree and we’re not applying the highest one to him”. The guy is going to prison anyway, and you are (beginning) to get the message accross.
You may as well tattoo “I LIVE UNDER A BRIDGE AND EAT GOATS” on your forehead when you say bullshit like this. Does it help you sleep at night knowing that the
strong sexy women* crazy fuckin’ bitches hate you because of what you are, not because of the rape-apologizin’ craplitude that flows from your fingers. Take your self-pity and go home, cookie. (*Oh, wait, that’s my perspective, sorry.)Hi Twisty. My comments never make it out alive; they must get sent off somewhere: they’re full of love and appreciation.
Rape is forced entry; all penetrative sex is rape.
Hi Twisty. My comments never make it out alive; they must get sent somewhere: they’re full of love and appreciation.
Rape is forced entry; all penetrative sex is rape.
Redhead: I think what has you confused on the bodily harm issue is that vaginas are *meant* to have penises in them. That couldn’t possibly be harmful!!
I think I have a solution to the consent issue. Before sex when a man puts a condom on, the woman could sign the packet to show consent. (Cause you’re all using condoms RIGHT!) Men are showing their consent by putting on the condom. If you are in a relationship for long enough that you no longer use condoms, you should have plenty of time to have made up consent forms. It wouldn’t solve every problem including coerced signatures or changing your mind later, but it would be a start.
On another note, I think the men who fear false rape accusations really don’t get the signigicance of being raped in our culture. Most women don’t report rapes because to do so is to acknowledge your loss of personal sovereignty. It is utterly humiliating and it tarnishes you in the eyes of the world- now this shouldn’t be the case- but for many women it is true. False rape accusations wouldn’t rise because being a known rape victim is a lot more than a physical violation, it is to mark yourself as damaged to everyone you know, and we all know how popular being seen as a victim is.
I can’t believe I’m about to write this: all penetrative sex is NOT rape. What’s the matter with you, D’Attournee-Lawson?
Um, isn’t the whole point that:
if she says it is, or until she says it’s not, whichever most effectively protects her.
Sorry redhead, I read all the law stuff you’d writ and then your question, but my brain didn’t jump contexts, so I blithely went along trying to identify the disparity, which was shocking news to me when I first figured it out, but is not news here.
Oh, shall I leave that to the proper patrons here?
I’m suggesting that the warm and cuddly “I didn’t agree, but then I saw the light” approach belittles the enormity of the concepts at hand. Sure, it’ll happen like that, but I can only see saying it like that as self serving and having no other benefit save to make other dudes feel more comfortable with the idea that they might be wrong. Comfortable such that “it’s okay that I’m doing wrong now, because I can always see the light later.”
wtf - Not what Twisty is advocating. I thought that’s what she might have been advocating, but no. She’s not shifting the burden of proving consent; she’s eliminating it entirely as a defense and making straight sex a felony for males, period.
The classic male defense - “She consented/wanted it to happen” - would be self-incrimination. His only defenses would be “no sexual intercourse happpened” or “wrong guy” or the like.
Straight sex would not be a felony for males, unless of course you define straight sex as “the man puts his penis in the woman’s vagina,” as most straight sex is framed, and unless said penis-putting was done without the woman’s specifically asking/commanding/telling that it be done so.
What if we defined straight sex (as a prior Blamer, I believe, once suggested) as “The woman’s vagina engulfs the man’s penis” or “The woman’s vagina surrounds the man’s penis” or “The woman declines to munch on the funk-filled bratwurst”?
How would that change your view of sex, and how would it change the idea of “consent”?
Dang. I’m in moderation.
Wow, I’ve been in moderation for 16 hours. Whatever happened to that no-account personal assistant… Paul, was it? Phil? Stop huffing HEB generic Windex and watching the Weather Channel!
What Bruce doesn’t get is that the current system also “relies on the ethics of the accuser”–It’s just that the assumption of ethics goes in the wrong direction.
In other words, current law and culture assumes that the accuser is unethical and lying, unless she can prove severe injury, being drugged, or being unconscious.
D’oh! Thanks for the clarification, ramou. Sorry, D’Attornee-Lawson, I apologize. And I know some of what I see as extreme literal-mindedness is just specificity.
But the big abstract is that the default is a big ‘NO’, everything—rubbing, exhibiting, touching, penetrating, licking, holding, etc. is unethical, immoral and probably criminal in the absence of “yes I said yes I will Yes.â€
I notice that most of the menz complaints are along the line of:
“It’s not fair! You can’t really be saying that we might have to prove that the women wanted to have sex with us!”
Why, yes. Yes we are. Exactly.
I’m not seeing the problem, here.
V, unless you mean another Bruce, I do in fact get that shifting the burden of proving consent from the government to the defendant will, in the overwhelming number of cases, turn on the ethics of the accuser. Norbizness got it right above in an early comment to that effect, as I noted above. In a technical sense, the law does not actually “presume” either innocence of the defendant or fraud on the part of the witness/accuser, but that is a narrow law-school technical point defining the difference between a burden of proof and a presumption. The so-called “presumption of innocence” is a slight misnomer for a proof burden; “presumption” has a slightly differently meaning in the law from proof burden, but I digress on a fairly pedantic point and in practice it comes out about the same anyway.
I do agree with you about the culture, however; most of the culture assumes that sex is consensual in the absence of hard-core non-testimonial evidence of coercion. That’s why I don’t have any problem with burden shifting of consent to the defendant for rape any more than I do for assault/battery: you touch another human being sexually (or non-sexually), you better be damn prepared to explain why and how the person you touched was happy for it to happen. Twisty could have proposed this idea that has met with a lot of support in these comments, but instead proposed a different one. The government should not have to prove non-consent beyond a reasonable doubt; the defendant should have to prove consent by a preponderance of the evidence, same as in self-defense.
Twisty’s more radical proposal does not shift the burden of the defense, but bars it entirely as a matter of law. Twisty’s proposal turns all straight sex into statutory rape, including that enjoyed by enthusiastic octogenarian couples. It criminalizes all straight sex, rather than shifting the burden of consent/approval for sex. Ethics becomes more of an issue when positive paternity test is proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a felony. To quote Twisty, “I grasp that, technically, the plan criminalizes all male participants in heterosexual sex.” I do criticize this idea but merely to describe it accurately is not to criticize it.
It’s obvious, Bruce, that you are reading a different post than nearly everyone else on this thread.
Given the rather daunting brilliance of the many minds gathered here, I would strongly suggest that you re-read, and then ponder exactly why you are so prone to this error.
“Moderation!”
“Dang. I’m in moderation.”
“Wow, I’ve been in moderation for 16 hours. Whatever happened to that no-account personal assistant… Paul, was it? Phil? Stop huffing HEB generic Windex and watching the Weather Channel!”
If only the 3,892 daily spammers hadn’t spoiled the internet for the rest of us. Like a world without patriarchy, I cannot conceive of an inbox without emails for Korean ciali$.
I regret that I was moved to go capering around last night, and Phil has bailed out on me again. He’s the guitar tech for Whitesnake now. I’m replacing him ASAP. Anyone want a crack at the job before I post it on Craigslist?
To use reified language (yo Mandos!) what I’ve got about this whole thing is that consent inherently implies a subject-object relationship.
(yeah, serious lightbulb time)
The objectification of the sexual act makes it impossible for women to engage in it willingly at all.
The ‘radical’ transformation required here, is that sex not be something that is ‘done to a woman,’ but rather that sex be an act engaged in by two subjects.
Each subject, fully able to will her/his own destiny engages in an act that is self-determined and is able to change that self-determination at any time (that of course being the nature of self-determination).
The difficulty of this is that under patriarchy, it is almost impossible for men to conceive of women as anything other than objects. Therefore, any sexual act a man engages in is most likely rape. Which is why you need a radical redefinition of the legal terms of rape if you ever want to approximate justice.
I actually think this is liberating. It gives a sort of map to the ways in which heterosexual sex can not be rape. When my partner and I try as hard as we can, we minimize the deleterious effects of the patriarchy through recognizing the ‘other’ as a subject, and not just immediately assigning ‘other’ to object category.
I know this is just rephrasing what a lot of wonderful people have already said on this thread, it is just really useful for me to put it into this sort of language as it allows me to think about it in a certain way. I post to make sure that the translation into theory-speak is actually an accurate translation and not some “Ich ein Berliner’ crap, and also hopefully to help others with lightbulb moments the way so many of you have helped me.
I love you people.
V - you might well be right. Definitely are right re: the brilliance of this crowd; that’s why I link to this blog on my site under the category “Cerebral.”
Well, my comment in moderation has pen!$ and v@gin@ in it. Should have used the Korean C1al!s spelling methods, huh.
You totally miss the point. The happy lesbian couple just wouldn’t take each other to court. If one of them did, well, same system, same logic, don’t have sex with a nutbar… so what was your point? Do you not think changing laws is a good avenue to promote social change? Not the only avenue, doesn’t always work, but many history books I’ve read have shown rule of law to have a huge social impact.
I am rather skeptical of using the law for social change in this case. Mainly because the legal system does not consist of laws alone, it consist of people and laws and complex structures. In a perfect world, sure, it would work pretty well. But we clearly don’t live in a perfect world, as the necessity for laws against rape testify to. Moreover, given our current society I think lesbian couple would definitely be negatively effected by a law of this sort. Maybe not in most of the country, but in areas where there are already problems said problems would be magnified.
I’d also worry that that would be racial overtones and problems in parts of the country as well. Given the history white people have of lynching black men for “raping” white women, I’d expect some problems.
Note to Mandos, who seems terribly concerned that feminists will damage their own cause by being all strident and shit:
Are you not worried that your patriarchy-defending posts will cause “reasonable” and “moderate” feminists to go postal on the nearest male ass? I know that after reading one or two of your posts I’m about ready to firebomb the local Elks’ Club.
I suggest that you keep your eyes averted when you’re talking to women, finish every thought with “don’t you think?” and for god’s sake, smile more! Remember, it’s more important to be liked than right.
Ahhh, the racism card. Let’s point out another social injustice to lessen focus on the social injustice at hand. Hey, even if it has no bearing on the point, save a semi-imagined one, everyone likes talking about racism more than <sarcasm>silly things like the rights of women<sarcasm>.
Kiki: when heterosexuals start complaining about how oppressed they are and how much the world is not built to accommodate them, I start doing that teeth-gnashing thing that’s just not good for me. So:
Personally, I didn’t interpret Twisty’s comment as anything other than a suggestion that when sexual activity between humans happens to, for whatever reason, follow established patterns of patriarchal power inequities, it behooves all parties involved to do so with an added layer of consciousness and deliberate choice. Clarity. To pay attention to what’s going on. IMHO, very sound advice.
This is actually one of the factors that contributed to my own choice for celibacy: even in queer sex between women, I found it just about impossible to get away from a butch-femme dynamic, and way way way too often the way that this dynamic played out was by patterning itself after ’stereotypical’ masculinized and feminized roles. I want no truck with this, and the women who did want to engage with this would eternally be frustrated by the nonconformity of me. I love women and their bodies with a deep and abiding and passionate and prurient and lustful love, but until people stop trying to jam me into a femmebox and nail me there, I’m not playing.
I don’t think it’s harshing anyone’s squee to suggest that paying attention to the world around you and the inequities therein might be a responsible thing to do. My .02.
Ahhh, the racism card. Let’s point out another social injustice to lessen focus on the social injustice at hand. Hey, even if it has no bearing on the point, save a semi-imagined one, everyone likes talking about racism more than silly things like the rights of women.
Or we could dismiss a whole class of oppression because it suited our needs to do so. The fact that I bring up a possible pitfall of this idea of twisty’s doesn’t mean I’m pulling the “racism card” and to say that it does is a simple way of shutting down conversation on a topic that would certainly be, and is, a problem. Oppressions are not monolithic, standing seperate from each other, they are intertwined.
I actually think that this is a way more likely outcome than anyone at all getting liberated from anything, under any conditions, but still: do you really want a world where men, too, have bizarre body issues?
(As opposed to a world where no one does?)
Whoever said that feminism cannot be fun clearly never read your blog! Keep up the good work ;)…
Note that I never said any such thing, though my humour-impaired self is detecting a soupçon of irony in the remainder of the post.
It’s not obvious at all that Bruce is misreading Twisty’s text, when the words are definitely there for all to see:
If you take the proposal at face value (which is probably a mistake knowing Twisty), that is exactly what Twisty is proposing: a consent defence can’t work. “Legally, consent never existed.”
Otherwise, it’s no different from the present system.
I’m suggesting that the warm and cuddly “I didn’t agree, but then I saw the light†approach belittles the enormity of the concepts at hand. Sure, it’ll happen like that, but I can only see saying it like that as self serving and having no other benefit save to make other dudes feel more comfortable with the idea that they might be wrong. Comfortable such that “it’s okay that I’m doing wrong now, because I can always see the light later.â€
Well, the way you see it is incorrect. If you insist on playing Less Dudely Than Thou, though, then go ahead and consider yourself the victor. Irony abounds.
Sure, but why are those not perfectly good reasons for any action in life, just as such? I again find it interesting how many people are not willing to acknowledge the variations and combinations in motives that people have, and how they change over time.
The point is, the law is not a great tool for judging all these minute details of individual motives, beyond very broad categories. It’s not a good tool for distinguishing between enthusiasm and acquiesence, particularly not after the fact.
Really? You are proposing that, rather than these discussions being seroius discussions on how best to liberate humanity, instead the commenters on this blog are discussing some kind of legalistic revenge fantasy, whereby all the members of the oppressor class are subject to destruction in order to…heal the psychic wounds of members of the slave class?
Slave revolts based on this premise don’t have a great history.
If you are seriously defining a legal system for criminal convictions with consequences, then it should be obvious that you want to track down and justify the “corner/boundary cases” where the system could break down.
And frankly, the whole analogy to trespassing or other property crimes is kind of odd. I frequently walk to work (hah!) and other things, and sometimes I take shortcuts through private properties—church yards, office tower grounds, private parking lots and the like. I even cut across front yards of private homes on occasion, bad bad me! I’m relatively certain that it would be unjust to charge me with trespassing.
However, I’m reasonably certain that I shouldn’t feel the same about my body or another body.
It merely be a matter of which women decided to press charges.
I’m betting on the ones who were raped.
From almost all the cases that get discussed on feminist sites, it doesn’t appear to me that the text of the law made much difference in the way that the cases were handled. That suggests to me that the text of the law is not the place where fighting rape would have a lot of effect. My point is that The System will easily adjust to a change in the premises of law the surrounding rape in order to continue to abuse of women, and in fact such changes are likely to make the situation worse.
Take, as a case in point, the fight of the recording industry against “piracy.” Now, in no way am I comparing the plight of the RIAA, etc, to the plight of women. What I am saying, however, is that the piracy issue illustrates the point about the effectiveness of the law on things that are not directly enabled by the law. All of the laws passed against a private violation—so-called piracy—have been defeated by other technological and social measures. It is probably harder than it was before to regulate copying.
And prison is like a giant Fight Club.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Things/people/objects that are judged to have no value at all often face worse consequences than those who are judged to have abusable value. Isn’t that something else that feminists and others have pointed out?
Golly, I’m so glad Mandos is here to tell us We’re Going About This All Wrong.
Clearly he knows best.
Whatever would we do without him, girls?
It makes me happy that you appreciate me.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Things/people/objects that are judged to have no value at all often face worse consequences than those who are judged to have abusable value. Isn’t that something else that feminists and others have pointed out?”
You mean we should thank our lucky stars that some chaps think we are at least worthy of raping? Good grief. You really haven’t paid any attention to feminists if that’s what you are getting from our arguments.
You know everybody here is very polite for some reason, but I wish you’d bog off, Mandos. You really are the most appalling sexist.
The excuses against Twisty’s proposal are suspiciously similar to the woman-distrusting ones made against the Swedish model which similarly believes women and puts the burden of proving the absence of coercion on accused men.
It’s oppressors projecting what they know damn well is their current misuse of power onto the people they’ve given legitimate reasons to seek revenge, and the possibilities scare them as much as their sadism thrilled them.
It merely be a matter of which women decided to press charges.
I’m betting on the ones who were raped.
I agree, I was just clarifying that the idea was *not* that women could somehow revoke consent, it was that they never could really give it.
coathangrrr,
I take your point about laws being used, in ways they were not originally intended, as tools of oppression. We have an excellent example right now of the civil rights division of the justice department, specifically created to protect the rights of blacks to vote, being used to prevent blacks from voting.
In the courts, if a man is found not guilty of rape, prosecutors are charging the victim, even though the evidence shows she was indeed raped.
Still, I would not wish away the civil rights laws, nor the laws against rape. I would not want to return to the time when a lesbian was assumed to be insane and placed in an asylum.
You know everybody here is very polite for some reason, but I wish you’d bog off, Mandos. You really are the most appalling sexist.
People are polite to him because blamers have still been raised in a patriarchy, and we feel that blaming is something we need to apologize for and prove that we’re bending over backwards to be FAIR even in the midst of our blaming.
So we accept and tolerate one token asshole. To assuage our feminine guilt at actually daring to blame.
If we weren’t still all guilty and looking to prove to someone how totally not scary and dispassionate we were about all this, he would have been shitcanned by now.
Mandos, explain to me why it would be “unjust” for me to have you prosecuted for trespassing on my private property. Because you didn’t mean any harm by cutting across my lawn? Because you walk to work? Because you think I shouldn’t care about strangers coming into my yard?
Just how deep is your sense of entitlement, anyway?
You’re lucky Mandos values your land enough to trespass on it, tinfoil hattie. If he didn’t, he might nuke it or something. That’s what FEMINISTS say would happen.
delphyne, delphyne, you are the adorable one today.
Well it’s not an abstract discussion for me Bewilderness. I was raped, although it took me years to call it that, because I wouldn’t have been able to prove it in court even though the little fucker was quite aware that I wasn’t consenting and waited until I was at my most helpless, knowing that I’d be unable to fend him off. So Mandos isn’t helping coming in with all his entitled crap and underhand threats - “you have to let men rape you and get away with it, because if you don’t things could be *much* worse”.
Twisty’s proposal somewhat mirrors Robin Morgan’s statement who says - “that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and desire.”
It’s certainly a novel idea and perhaps a revolutionary one that heterosexual women could have sex on our terms rather than those of the guy who is “prodding” us.
Honestly, you look away for the duration of one Eurovision Song Contest and a bit of a hangover and the Modest Proposal du jour on IBTP is suddenly heading for 250 posts. Which are, with obvious trollic exceptions, a brilliant and thrilling read.
I’m partially repeating someone here, and I apologise to whomever I’m not hat-tipping to, but I’ve just been through all the comments and have lost it entirely. This whole word “consent”. Ugh. Tinfoil hattie (I think) was the first to say this:
Yes. Exactly. The word “consent” needs to go. It has created a disastrous snarl-up over what is acceptable in terms of seduction, persuasion or coercion, especially in a rubbish culture like ours in which men are supposed to pursue and seduce women, and women are supposed to resist sexual advances in a feisty, coquettish manner.
Thus we have both men and women thoroughly confused about what “consent” even means. It really would be much simpler if we could simply ask: Did the woman want to have sex?
I suspect it is the very notion of female agency that has put the wind up the trolls. I note that discussions on male-male rape very rarely deterioriate into speculation about whether these ditzy male victims might go around changing their minds and trying to ruin other men’s lives by making false accusations. Indeed, I have very rarely noticed the motives or the integrity of male victims being questioned at all.
Still, I would not wish away the civil rights laws, nor the laws against rape. I would not want to return to the time when a lesbian was assumed to be insane and placed in an asylum.
For sure. And despite my most anarchist, anti-government leanings I do have to admit that making something illegal does make it wrong in the minds in many people, despite what the may think before it is illegal. So I guess that this change in law would in fact change peoples minds on what is rape, and that rape is wrong.
On the other hand, I’d say that if we had progressed as a society to where we could make a legal change such as this then we would already be on the right track. Because really all of this “what about the menz” rhetoric is absurd on the face of it when we realize that this idea of Twisty’s isn’t really a threat to them, it’s a hypothetical threat. Though when there are more realistic threats to women (see the recent attack on a female tech blogger) then men ask why the woman can’t just tough it out, I mean, it’s not like a man ever broke into the house of a woman he never met and raped and killed her. Where as women have a long history of using the political and legal system to throw men in jail.
That is not, in fact, what I said, or even implied by it. I never said you should thank anything for anything. I am merely restating the relatively banal claims that under patriarchy, if one refuses ones assigned value, one faces consequences.
In the case of someone taking a shortcut through certain kinds of private property, the level of harm caused by the momentary crossing of it is trivial compared to the harm that might be caused by the invocation of a legal process to criminally prosecute people for doing so.
That you think that the integrity of property is more important than the potential consequences of the prosecution of it is interesting. I’m really just not as willing to give our criminal justice system a lot of credit for solving problems, and it really surprises me how the extent to which people are willing to defend it here.
That’s always been up to Twisty.
This interpretation is in fact the logical consequence of a certain form of thinking common to some participants of this blog (not me). That form of thinking holds that our choices are so circumscribed by the patriarchy that any
Ooops, hit the submit-relabelled-as-blame button too early.
This interpretation is in fact the logical consequence of a certain form of thinking common to some participants of this blog (not me). That form of thinking holds that our choices are so circumscribed by the patriarchy that even acts of apparent resistance to it are accomodated and permitted by it. If this is so, then what happens to acts that are not accomodated and permitted by it? I presume that some are neutralized by it (hence the popular “empowerful” epithet). The remainder presumably don’t/cannot occur because…?
In the case of someone taking a shortcut through certain kinds of private property, the level of harm caused by the momentary crossing of it is trivial compared to the harm that might be caused by the invocation of a legal process to criminally prosecute people for doing so.
Sez Mandos
That is precisely the argument the trolls are making in this thread regarding rape.
LMYC: Please do not. Ever. STFU.
Pleas? Please, please, please!
~A Junior Blamer in Training
Tina
And that argument is only viable if you commit to thinking of rape as a property crime. Perhaps it is the result of conceiving of bodily autonomy in terms of a concept of property that is surely no less patriarchal than anything else.
“In this case, what I’m suggesting is that no one really knows the extent to which that observed gender difference in brain chemistry is a result of innate biological differences, or of differential socialization, or most likely both.
I hope this was vaguely interesting and informative for someone besides me.”
It was. My own inclination is to take your point even further, and assert that there is, in fact, no meaningful biological distinction captured by the semantic distinction between “innate” and “environmental” influences.
Catherine Martell: Exactly! What about agreement, instead of consent. Frame it that way. –BDL
“This interpretation is in fact the logical consequence of a certain form of thinking common to some participants of this blog (not me).”
So why not give us your own views of what Twisty is proposing then, Mandos, rather than (mis)interpreting it through other people’s thinking and logic. I mean as you seem to be here to stay, you might as well tell us what you actually think.
“Still looking for something online to support where I was going with the oxytocin thing.”
In order to access the primary scientific literature on this topic, you can search Pubmed here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed
and type in the search terms “oxytocin bonding”.
Unfortunately, many of the complete articles require journal subscriptions. However, if you contact the corresponding author of a particular article listed in the Pubmed entry, they are very likely to be happy to e-mail you the complete article.
It would be way more presumptuous to have an opinion as to how to proceed than it is already presumptuous for me to have a critique of other people’s opinions, don’t you think?
In any case, if you really want to know, I don’t believe anyone has an easy handle on the One True Cause of any sort of oppression or violence or anything like that. Consequently, it’s even more difficult to talk about solutions to these frustrating problems. I can only say that I suspect that the solutions mainly lie in women having access to public life—it becomes harder to think of women as rape objects when they are among your leaders and respected figures.
Or maybe it doesn’t. It’s just a speculation.
At the risk of being hoisted by my own petard:
Feeding the trolls not only makes the trolls happy and healthy, but it also effectively maims discussion between the women who have something useful and important to say.
I, for one, am more interested in reading and/or contributing to a discussion about rape that is more than merely jousting with trolls who are tiresome no matter how much they believe themselves to be beloved.
Oh god, please dont ask Mandos any questions. He only comes here to be entertained.
“yes I said yes I will Yes.â€
BDL, I just finished Ulysses last night! I was saving that last chapter for when I had a spare three hours. It’s too bad that Molly says it in response to getting married, though, and that one of her reasons is that Leopold’s as good as any guy anyhow. But damn, reading that chapter is at least twice as good as sex and about on par–well, slightly more euphoric–with eating a King Taco burrito.
Actually, I have no problem with men having strict liability for having sex. Men should consider having sex a ultra-hazardous activity. I’m envisioning a tort here. How about the “leave me the fuck alone” tort? Kind of catchy, don’t you think?
We do consider ourselves leaders and respectable people. The problem is that most men don’t consider us people at all.
“I challenge you dudely types to honestly consider the intent of Twisty’s post and see if you can word it in terms that fit both women’s desire for justice and your sense of fairness.”
As I understand it, her point is the following:
As things currently stand–with a presumption of consent unless affirmative evidence suggests absence of consent–women bear nearly the full burden of the consequences of a man’s failure to obtain genuine consent. Shifting the presumption to one of lack-of-consent shifts a substantial share of that burden back to men. This is only fair.
“The point is, the law is not a great tool for judging all these minute details of individual motives, beyond very broad categories. It’s not a good tool for distinguishing between enthusiasm and acquiesence, particularly not after the fact.”
Gee, what a legal scholar! This is exactly what the court systems do everyday–judge details and motives. Sometimes a judge makes these decisions–like in a family law or probate case. Sometimes, a jury makes these decisions. The function of the court system is to resolve disputes by sorting out the competing factual and legal issues.
Run along now, and watch Judge Judy.
Mandos, mandos, mandos, mmmm. Why are you doing all of this heavy lifting?
“…at face value†nothing! Underneath its face, I think Twisty’s post is ‘seriously defining a mental system for human convictions (as in the kind you hold) with consequences…’
Why don’t you wear bright colors and make big brown Kohl eyes at the heterosisterwomynspirits here? And do dances and whatnot? What’s with all of this Blue Meanie shit? I mean, I’m a big old pedant, but really. Dude! Shake it loose!
Aha! Revolver! (Who caught that?) Revolver is a great album, although as a child the cover always bugged the shit out of me. I went to a hippie-groovy elementary school and we sang a lot of Beatles songs.
In fact, I think it’s time for a musical interlude right this very moment, and it’s dedicated to Virago in the hope that she’ll accept my abject apologies for carrying on just a little more despite her plea:
In the town where I was born
Lived a girl who sailed to sea
And she told us of her life
In the land of blame machines
So we sailed up to the sun
Till we found the sea of green
And we lived beneath the waves
In our blaming dudes machine
We all live in our blaming dudes machine
Blaming dudes machine, blaming dudes machine
We all live in our blaming dudes machine
blaming dudes machine, blaming dudes machine
etc.
I blame my onerous deskbound chores, now made easier by listening to Revolver. I always totally forget how happy the Beatles make me!
BDL
I’m bummed, I don’t seem to get held up in moderation. I must not be cursing enough. Fuck.
The most disturbing revelation of this thread is that these self-professed nice guys (blamers, red flag here!) cannot fathom how they will tell when a woman consents. The menz cannot prove consent because they don’t know what it is. That’s just pathetic.
Exactly, thank you lawbitch, for putting it so well.
Also, I am always saddened as well by how the word ‘rape’ seems to bring them out in force. Apparently while men can’t seem to get their mind around the concept of consent, they certainly seem to congregate around the concept/discussion of rape like bees around a hive.
Like the good worker drones they are, tend the hive they must, lest we break it from the branch.
There’s really nothing else to say, since I think everyone else said it so well. I think us wimens is pretty much in agreement. No wonder the boyz get all jumpy about this!
I just moved a wee bit closer to bumping Miss Patty off.
I want a blaming dude machine. Superficially, the laptop fulfils the criteria; but, so far, my attempts to live in it beneath the waves in the sea of green have come to naught.
BDL is a delight.
Also, everybody pay attention to Virago. She is correct. Thank you.
delphyne,
This was the comment that prompted me to give you the adorable award of the day.
You’re lucky Mandos values your land enough to trespass on it, tinfoil hattie. If he didn’t, he might nuke it or something. That’s what FEMINISTS say would happen.
I’m sorry if it seemed dismissive.
It is not an abstract discussion for me either, no matter how hard I try to stay in computer mode, for similar reasons to yours.
PhysioProf or here, and in Helen Fischer’s book Why We Love
http://www.oxytocin.org/oxytoc/love-science.html
Either you are doing a physical sex act together or you are not. Consent is all about she let you do something to her, it has nothing to do with sex. It is all about rape, in all its shades and permutations.
So there are two ideas here that seem to be battling for supremacy, and instead are getting inextricably mixed in a way that confuses us all. I’m not much good at tautologies or things like that, but for my own personal clarity (thinking out loud here), maybe I’ll try a simple statement of the two competing premises:
1. Twisty’s Rule addresses all sex where ‘consent’ is an issue - meaning, the sex is not mutually desired by both parties, but is rather the product of the imposition of the desire of one party (usually male) on the body of another (usually female).
2. Mutually desired and agreed-upon sex. This would include ‘penetrative sex’, and would not be considered rape. The basic premise is that the involved parties would be intellectually and emotionally developed enough to enter into such a mutual agreement willingly, and would thereby assume responsibility for said decision/choice.
The notion of ‘how do we know’ I think/fear comes from an underlying culture that has the average mental/emotional development of a (stunted) adolescent male.
And it would take a whole ‘nother thread (or blog, even!) to disassemble and examine the component elements of how such a miserable social situation came to be.
Tinfoil, thanks, I suspected you were being, as they say, facetious, but I appreciate the clarification.
LMYC, I nearly died with your line, “you can lead a dipshit to water but you can’t make him think” - gawd. I’ll be lookin’ fer opportunities to trot that one out, you can be sure! And also your comments about how up in arms the wingnuts get about ‘personal responsibility’ and all - when you get inflamed to blame, you are magnificent in your fierceness.
Ramou, thanks for the kind words.
And to those who have followed up on the oxytocin notion with links/comments, thanks! I’m still looking for the one that best supported my earlier ‘point’ (if I can still remember what it was trying to be).
Back to reading the comments I missed since yesterday.
Sorry for blog-hogging, just trying to catch up - I notice a trend here, where many of the women’s comments are pithy, astute, and to the point, e.g.:
I notice that most of the menz complaints are along the line of:
“It’s not fair! You can’t really be saying that we might have to prove that the women wanted to have sex with us!â€
Why, yes. Yes we are. Exactly.
I’m not seeing the problem, here.
Followed by dudely retorts - no, you can’t call them retorts, because a retort (when it’s not some gizmo used by a chemist) is a “short, sharp response”. Let’s call them, diatribes? What word to use for lengthy, blithering, ninnified, unwieldy, incomprehensible, meandering, and generally obfuscatory pronouncements?
In other words, shall we say, smoke screen? Such as what the octopus uses to shield his retreat from something bigger and scarier than him.
BDL, you rock!
B. Dagger Lee, your songs should get awards. They are that brilliant. :)
Mandos, I like reading your posts because you are thoughtful. Yes, you have your own bias, just like I do and every other reader of this blog. I’m glad you keep keep the discussion moving along, though, it is good to be able to hear the opposing discourse from a polite source.
Mandos:
“And that argument is only viable if you commit to thinking of rape as a property crime. Perhaps it is the result of conceiving of bodily autonomy in terms of a concept of property that is surely no less patriarchal than anything else.”
True, and I think we’ve all made and had enough of the property metaphors. However, when we speak directly about the type of law we’d like to change, you make the argument that the legal system is unjust and inefficient, which (as you’ve pointed out) is another fact feminists also agree with.
So, if a change of laws must come gradually with social change to do any long-term good, your only suggestion of a solution to the problem is this:
“I can only say that I suspect that the solutions mainly lie in women having access to public life—it becomes harder to think of women as rape objects when they are among your leaders and respected figures.”
Yes. Agree again! We have so much in common it frightens me. So how can women get access to public life? We supposedly live in a democracy here in the USA, but the majority of public figures are only a select portion of our population. Specifically, male, white, and christian. Under a corrupt legal system that forces women to have very little representation, and working with the premise that changing the laws will not change the social outlook towards women, how can we women make our way into public view without saying and doing things that will upset the dominant group?
Unless you can make your argument for women joining the public sphere in a way that does not neccessarily mean that men will be displaced or offended by a change in their lifestyle, then please suggest it to me. I think we’d all love to know.
But it looks like female public figures taking their rightful place alongside male figures will mean that certain men will lose their chance at the positions those women will take. Naturally, someone must lose for someone else to gain. People of a certain race lose representation when people of another race gain it, as our electoral legal system plays out. Does this mean that someone of a certain gender or race cannot represent all their constituents? No, obviously.
So to all the people bitching and moaning about how giving women full control over their own bodies would be bad for men, because it would mean men losing control over women’s bodies, this is my answer. Lick it, boys and (traitorous) girls. Take this loss for the betterment of the human team.
If you’re a decent man or woman or anything in between, you’ll agree that what Twisty is saying is nothing more shocking than suggesting that everyone be responsible for their own bodies, and that maybe we should respect other people’s bodies as well.
Ps. Please do not tell me that, through my argument, an all-male(white/christian/etc) government could represent the rest of the US and everyone else can just deal with it. We’ve already seen how well that has worked out.
Mandos, please cut across my lawn. So I can show you how much more important I think it is that you NOT trespass on my property than it is that you have to pay the price for doing so.
The comment I have in moderation among the 3k spams Twisty lamented goes somethig like this, and I stole it from a veteran blamer on another thread somewhere: what if “intercourse” were defined by the woman’s v@gin@ engulfing, or swallowing, or wrapping around the pen!s, instead of “the man sticks his pen!s in the woman’s v@gin@.”
Well, you gotta laugh or you’d cry, right? Thanks, all, for the love, but they’re not really my songs, since they’re parodies. MedeaOnCrack, I think Miss Patsy has occasionally wanted to bump me off. She’s away for the day, so I’m running amok in our apartment. And there’s something strangely familiar about your prose style.
On the serious side, of the gazillions of women I’ve gone out with (okay, the rather small handful), Miss Pa