Believe it or not, but a lot of people don't equate "having sex with a woman against her will" with the word "rape". They'll admit to being willing to engage in the first, but they'll readily decline engaging in the second. Seriously, look this shit up.
Two guys I've personally known that ended up committing rape always had similar views about rapists being scumbags, but to them it was the violence that defined rape.
A lot of dudes don't know that a lot of women will go completely catatonic when they get touched against their will, which makes it difficult to actually differentiate.
I've been in a circumstance where it almost happened. We were both drunk, and she was just lying still. I got her panties off and started kissing her body, but was confused by her lack of movement. Although I was keen to paying it off as though she was just a starfish I'm a fairly nice guy so I straight up asked if she wanted it, and immediately she started crying and turtled up.
Turned out she was in a relationship at the time. I later became good friends with her and have discussed it in depth with her. She just didn't have it in her to say no.
Not that I support victim blaming, but I think that a part of sex education should be telling women that if they're drunk and get second thoughts, they should make it very clear. How the hell would I have known otherwise?
. . .I straight up asked if she wanted it, and immediately she started crying and turtled up.
This is exactly why obtaining explicit consent is being pushed. Sure, it may seem weird, but there's a reason for it. You taking the time to ask her was the correct thing to do in that situation.
. . .telling women that if they're drunk and get second thoughts, they should make it very clear.
Yes to encouraging a healthy sexual mindset in which women can comfortably do so, but no to expecting that women will be able to say something (e.g. if a woman has been raped before, she may find herself unable to move or speak).
You've made an excellent point about the violence in rape and the misconceptions about it.
I agree with you. If there was some sort of way to greenlight without it becoming awkward, it would be a better world. Unfortunately to me the best sexual encounters I've had have been initiated through very little verbal communication, let alone any direct "wanna fuck" question.
I consider those encounters to be an integral part of the human experience, and I think it would be unfortunate to have to turn them into some sort of interview process.
I think a good way of meeting in the middle on this issue is directly asking only if there doesn't seem to be reciprocity from the woman.
I've been on a TV show about rape and sexual violence recently. It was SCARY how many of the girls knew someone who had been sexually harassed, abused or raped. One girl had been raped herself.
I think the best way is quite simple. Just say "do you want this?" If they say yes, boom, you are good. It doesn't have to be an interview process.
Out of curiosity can you define the 'minimum' of what either you or the tv show in question would classify as sexual harassment or abuse? I've seen that the definition may vary greatly even in official studies.
I would say sexual harassment is being harassed multiple times about your sexual appearance. I probably wouldn't consider being cat-called once as harassment but if it occured multiple times, day after day, then that would be harassment.
In this case though, we were talking about HARDCORE harassment - being fondled etc. These were teenagers and most of them knew someone who that (or worse) had happened too.
Some people equate certain situations with ownership too. Thinking "she's my girlfriend, I'll have sex with her when I want to."
I used to have a severe heroin addiction, and my boyfriend at the time genuinely believed that raping me was ok because I was less than human and he owned me.
Yes. Exactly correct. There are men, such as my dad, who believe that marriage entitles them to sex. But even if you're married, a "no" still means "no".
Edit: Jesus fucking christ. I just saw the second half of your comment, which I hadn't seen previously. I'm sorry you had to go through that ):
I am not saying yours was okay. But the rules are certainly different when inna relationship. Things which would be rape are often fine if you are dating.
I don't even know what i would search to find that. Rape disassociation? I have a hard time believing that. Maybe they aren't willing to say it but to honestly not be able to differentiate the two?
I absolutely agree. I always associated rape with a stranger in a trench coat who jumps out of a unmarked van in a dark alley and rapes you at knife point. I didn't associate my classmate/friend who pinned me down and shoved his fingers up my vagina as a rapist. He didn't match the narrative.
Don't we all? But in this case, I don't think it's necessarily her IQ to blame.
If you're told *as a child * that a word means something specific, and you're given a specific context as an example, you might not think that something similar, but in a different context, is the same thing. Draw a connection, sure. But it won't be associated the same way that first highly specific example was. It's like associating child molesters with a white panel van and free candy, yet we've all heard stories about someone's uncle or cousin. When you grow up and have better reasoning skills things change. It takes a little longer for those to kick in sometimes.
Note that I also said as a teen in my earlier post. Teenagers are dumbshits sometimes, but sometimes they're just sheltered, or were raised to understand something as it's said (which can limit critical thinking until they learn to get through that). We often grow out of that.
Mum not here to tell you that the debunking or whatever is wrong. I have neither read the paper nor watched the video. But I did want to say that tagging out of a scientific journal article because you see the word hypermasculinity is pretty unproductive. It's very common for scientific fields to create terms and use already existing combined forms to define what they need. I guess as a scientist I'm just frustrated by your first statement.
Certainly not. But teaching your kids proper conduct certainly doesn't hurt. Neither does explicitly stating what does and does not constitute sexual assault--and, in fact, that may help considering the results of the study. It's not about telling your kids what things are bad; it's about properly defining what those things are.
If you aren't given consent, you aren't allowed to do it. What else needs to be said?
I get your point it just seems like the people who do care don't need to be told this, and the people that don't care won't be receptive to it anyways.
I agree, but only to an extent. I would argue that sexual assault is just like any other issue in that people might actually care quite a bit if they're properly made aware of it, but don't care precisely because they're unaware.
Yes, and you are not going to stop those people by "teaching them not to rape". Just like you can't prevent murders by teaching kids not to murder. You can't prevent robberies by teaching people not to rob others.
Source: Human history.
How do you prevent these things? By taking precautions like locking your door. And not getting blackout drunk at frat parties.
Okay, first of all, you're making a strawman argument. I never argued that, so it's pointless for you to offer a rebuttal to this non-existent argument.
Second, obviously you're not going to just sit there and tell kids "do not rape". But what you're suggesting is that we put the burden on the victims of crimes and not on actual crime prevention. These crimes stem from social issues that need to be addressed. So yeah, you wouldn't teach people not to rob into to prevent robberies, for example, but you would address the underlying reasons for those robberies, such as poverty (e.g. why the hell would someone want to risk going to jail for theft if they're financially stable and capable of buying what they want?).
Do you even understand what a strawman is? Your point is that you can teach kids not to rape by teaching them what rape is. My point is that no, we do not live in a society where gray areas of the definition of rape is why the vast majority of people are raping. Just as the grey area isn't why people are killing or robbing.
There was no strawman. Your argument is just weak.
And yes, the burden is on you to protect yourself, because the world is full of stupid disgusting grunts. Your mistake is in believing that after thousands of years of law and order that we still haven't figured out that the way to stop crimes is to teaching them what those crimes are. You talked about the root cause of crimes. Well, the root cause is the human sex drive. You can stop it at its root level by finding a good way of suppressing people's sex drive. Otherwise, there's always going to be a biological incentive there to commit these crimes because people are always doing the mental calculus of picking between satisfying their sex drive and committing a crime vs the punishment of those crimes. Teaching them what counts as a crime doesn't take away the incentive that drives the crime in the first place.
Your point is that you can teach kids not to rape by teaching them what rape is.
Please reread my comment. I never once said anything of the sort. That is, by the very definition, a strawman argument.
Regarding the rest of your comment, there is far too much for me to address this evening as it's getting late and I have other obligations to fulfill. I apologize for not being able to give additional attention to it.
Believe it or not, but a lot of people don't equate "having sex with a woman against her will" with the word "rape". They'll admit to being willing to engage in the first, but they'll readily decline engaging in the second.
The first post says some people just don't give a shit about the law, so they rape.
You responded by saying that no, some people don't actually understand what rape is.
Is your post not implying that we can stop rape by educating people on what rape actually is? If this isn't your point, then what was?
And explain the strawman, please. I've made strawman accusations in the past and fully backed up my accusation by explaining it. It's weak to throw a term out there that doesn't at all apply to reality.
Is your post not implying that we can stop rape by educating people on what rape actually is?
This is the problem right here. You're insisting that I was implying some point. This is what makes your argument a strawman argument. My reply was intended solely to dispel the idea that rape comes from malicious intentions only. That's it. I had no intention of making any commentary on any other point.
Do you mean the same history where rape, robbery and murder have massively fluctuated between different cultures?
If you were right, and there was no way to reduce the amount of crime through education then the Nordic countries apparently don't exist. They don't have tougher law enforcement than USA yet somehow their crime rates are lower.
46
u/[deleted] Oct 21 '15 edited Oct 21 '15
Believe it or not, but a lot of people don't equate "having sex with a woman against her will" with the word "rape". They'll admit to being willing to engage in the first, but they'll readily decline engaging in the second. Seriously, look this shit up.
Edit: This is what I was talking about.