So far I have addressed the concepts of morality, biology, coercion,
free will, agency and responsibility, all as relates to the “Nice Guys…” blog
post specifically, and male/female interaction more generally, and especially
how our collective assumptions on all of these issues change when the topic is
sex, and what this implies about our deeper subconscious beliefs.
Here is yet another thing which,
like past examples in this essay, most people know to be true, but many prefer
to deliberately ignore because it challenges a socio-political goal. And, like before, I propose that the goal is
reasonable, and something we should indeed be working towards, but that we can
not effectively work towards it if we don’t first admit the reality of the
present world.
This issue is summed up in several comments on the original blog post:
This issue is summed up in several comments on the original blog post:
Jonathan G says:
Alyssa,
I’ve mostly stayed out of this discussion because it seems that so little good can come from it. I applaud you for having the courage to stand up try to talk about it, but you’ve seen every tool in the arsenal of political correctness-enforcement arrayed against you: shaming, disengagement, threats, ridicule, repudiation. As Asimov liked to say, “Violence is the last resort of the incompetent.”
Also, I feel a volcano of anger around this topic, and it’s easier to keep it from erupting by simply refraining from talking about it. But there are enough people who show a willingness to stick around and try to discuss it, I should put in an effort, and since you’ve brought up a topic that I feel is key to the issue:
In this case, he believed that weeks of aggressive flirting, sitting on his lap talking about having sex with him, getting drunk and falling in to bed with him meant she wanted it. HE WAS WRONG, as I said in the piece. But he would not have been alone in thinking that. So WHY did he think that and how do we need to change the ways we teach consent?
WHY did he think that? (Said with clenched jaw and gritted teeth:) Perhaps because THAT’S. HOW. SO MANY. WOMEN. SAY. YES.
Look, I don’t have direct experience because I can’t directly know any other person’s mind, and I’m a man, but we’re all human with human thoughts and emotions, so I can extrapolate what I would feel in somebody else’s position. (I think we even have a word in English for that ability.) I have developed a theory–using that word in the scientific sense of an explanation that’s held up to repeated cycles of observation-hypothesis-experiment–that women want and enjoy sex but cannot directly pursue or ask for it because we live in a culture that still shames female sexuality, so they have to maneuver themselves into situations in which “next thing I know” sex happens and it was “his fault.” (This latter quote from a friend who had a long run of satisfied and consenting sexual partners after he cracked the code and successfully conspired with these women to give them ‘plausible deniability’ about who actually initiated sex.)
In actuality, women’s maneuvers tend to show up in far more subtle ways than weeks of aggressive flirting, sitting on a man’s lap and talking about sex, and passing out in bed drunk with him. In my past, there was the on-line chat friend who invited me over to her apartment on her last night in town after coming home alone from the bars. The woman who invited me over to watch some movies, but didn’t seem to actually have any on-hand when I got there. The young woman I hung out with for quite some who proclaimed her interest in her gay friend, but continually talked about sex, subtly flirted and kept finding ways for us to be alone together. And others. I did not understand that this is how the game is played back then, though, so I didn’t make any moves.
So how do I know they wanted sex? Everything that I have observed and learned in the years since tells me that the totality of the circumstances and their behavior screamed, “Yes, yes, YES!” I still don’t know for sure, but that’s my point: As a man, you constantly find yourself in the position of having to GUESS. (I guessed wrong in those instances, and they all cut off contact with me after the moment I should’ve made a move, which is utterly bizarre behavior if it’d truly been a friendly visit.) If you ask for consent explicitly, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Sex applies: The answer may be yes or no, until such time as you ask, then it’s no…
…because an explicit “yes” makes her, in her own mind and/or the minds of others, a slut. An explicit “yes” removes any plausible deniability that it was “his fault,” moving it from a “next thing I know” occurrence to a deliberately-planned action. In fact, the only woman in my past who directly expressed her desire to have sex–and the only one who bothered to get my explicit consent, by the way–is a woman who recognizes that her actions make her a slut in the eyes of many people. People do call her that, and it pains her, but she has accepted it and got on with her life.
Now, I can’t answer for why the guy described in the article decided to lead with his penis while she was passed out. That’s pretty damn stupid. When I said that guys have to GUESS, that’s what I meant– the forward behavior this woman exhibited may not mean “yes” at all. (Although she acted like a total asshole if she meant “no” all along.) The way to go for it is a touch on the arm, a kiss, gazing into her eyes and leading her to the bed, or along those lines. Y’know, something easy to brush off without much drama. If I had to guess why he might have done it using some empathy–there’s that word!–I would speculate that he really thought she would consent, but wasn’t sure, and had to get messed up on alcohol and maybe other drugs to overcome the insecurity, thus making really, really bad decisions.
As a society, we need to have this kind of discussion, angry Rape Fundamentalists be damned, because if our society had a way to let women seek sex without shame that didn’t have ambivalence built-in, then this situation would have had a happy ending. Thanks again for bring it up, Alyssa.
Equally important to teaching people to respect it when no means no, is addressing all those times when no actually does mean yes. While plenty of people want to pretend this never happens, the reality is (and I believe everyone knows this), it happens quite frequently.
Tamen says:
If a woman wants to have sex
with you, and you ask her, she’ll say yes. Which is definitely going to heat
the mood up.
The
water would be much less muddied if this really was the case. I’ve had women
ask me at a later date why I didn’t push harder the time they said “no”. I’ve
had commenters on this site point out that the reason for that might be that
they are afraid of being stamped as a slut. We’ve had articles on this sites
where the female authors lament the lack of real men who will ravish women, who
will take what he wants without waiting for her yes.
·
Morgan says:
Amen to that. I’m a guy who cares about consent, and I can vouch for
the fact that Alyssa’s statement is not universally true. I can only speak from
my own experience, but I have been involved with multiple women who either a)
wanted me to disregard their explicit statements of non-consent and were
disappointed or upset when I did not, or b) were turned off by me asking for
consent. Note that I am not just inferring their preferences from their
behavior; they actually told me in as many words (usually at a later date). And
these weren’t just women who wanted to roleplay a non-consensual encounter.
They would have preferred, during our first sexual encounters, for me to have
either not heeded what they said about consent or to not have asked them.
For women who care about consent, this may seem bizarre and improbable
(hell, it seems bizarre and improbable to me), but it is true: there are women
who actively dislike it when men explicitly check for consent. I strongly doubt
that a majority of women feel that way, but a significant minority of women
that I’ve slept with have. I find this absolutely maddening to deal with, and
it is just as frustrating when other women say things like, “Just ask! Getting
consent is sexy!” That’s a perfectly reasonable sentiment, but not all women
are that reasonable.
I think that men ought to make sure that they get consent before
having sex, because it is obviously the better policy. It would be nice,
however, if women (and militantly feminist men) would recognize that men who do
so are sometimes punished for it.
We can not pretend that is not relevant to the issue of rape, and expect to make any progress in reducing it. If we want a society in which consent, or lack-there-of, is respected, then it is necessary for everyone, male and female, to be speaking the same language.
Notavi says:
I
was thinking about this today, and I find myself wondering if one of the things
that confuses this issue is that there are so many different kinds of people in
this whole wide world.
There
are plenty of guys out there who approach a womans boundaries as something to
be pushed past, and I can 100% see why feminists are angry about those guys,
and angry about the social culture that encourages them. They exist and they’re
a problem, but they’re not the only kind of guys out there.
Not
every guy out there wants to ignore or override womens boundaries, and the
culture we live in creates other challenges for guys who are trying to respect
those boundaries. Some women do actually say no when they mean yes, as a way of
trying to defuse the shaming that society puts on them. Here’s a blog post that
puts the stats at 39% -
http://letterstomycountry.tumblr.com/post/4245885118/comments-on-rape-law-and-the-mens-rea-of-consent .
“In one survey of women’s undergraduates, 39 percent reported that they had said no when they meant yes, and 61 percent of the sexually experienced women in the survey said that they had done so. Ninety percent of these women said that fear of appearing promiscuous was an important reason for their behavior.”...
http://letterstomycountry.tumblr.com/post/4245885118/comments-on-rape-law-and-the-mens-rea-of-consent .
“In one survey of women’s undergraduates, 39 percent reported that they had said no when they meant yes, and 61 percent of the sexually experienced women in the survey said that they had done so. Ninety percent of these women said that fear of appearing promiscuous was an important reason for their behavior.”...
39% is of everyone in the survey, including those who aren’t
“sexually experienced”.
Someone who has yet to engage in any form of sexual activity
is less likely to have ever been in a situation where they could potentially
say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The subset of those
surveyed who were sexually active is a more relevant demographic, and the
percent of women who said ‘no’ when wanting sex is substantially higher at 61%.
61% is a majority.
This makes the cliché of "no means no" as trite an
oversimplified sound byte as "just say no to drugs".
In all of those cases, the best way to prevent “rape” would
be for the woman to simply say "yes".
The reason the individuals involved had sex was because both
of them wanted to.
The reason that act of sex gets technically classified as
rape is because she lied about
her own true feelings and desires. Had she been honest, the same events
would have taken place, but it wouldn't be called rape. It would just be
called sex. In the vast majority of cases, any woman who knows inside of
herself that she wanted it to happen, but was just offering nominal resistance
so that she could say that she did, therefore absolving herself of the social
consequences, is not going to press
charges against her "attacker"/partner for accurately reading her
non-verbal signals, and giving her all of what she wants - both the experience
of sex, and plausible-deniability that she wanted the experience of sex.
Particularly if it was to be able to say to her friends or family that she was
pressured into it, she'll stop short of calling it rape, least they then
pressure her to file charges. In cases where what she wanted was plausible-deniability
to her own self, then the risk of false accusations probably climbs in relation
to how honest she is able to be with herself. However, all is not well
with this solution, even if seemingly no one got hurt. Because, men, like
women, are people, and people start out as babies and grow up and learn about
the world around them through their experiences. If a man's first sex
partner is one who expects him to take charge, who expects him to seduce her
and to be assertive about it, if she expects him to be dominate and to give her
the possibility of claiming after the fact that she didn't really want to, then
that is going to color his understanding of communication with the other gender
and of the dynamics of sexual relations. If his first several partners
behave his way (and if the total is on the order of 2/3rd of the entire
population, its not at all unlikely that they will be) it will seem more and
more like a universal truth, no matter what the anti-harassment videos and
public service messages say. Then, if at some point he ends up with
someone for whom no absolutely and unambiguously really does means no, there's
a pretty good chance, especially if she has been flirtatious with him, made out
with him, and/or gone home with him, that he is not going to realize that this
is an exception to the rule he has learned.
In other words, all women who at any point in their lives have said ‘no’ when they meant ‘yes’, and/or who have responded positively to sexual aggression, are indirectly responsible for date-rape perpetrated by their past-partners on someone else.
But wait, we still need to take a step further back, because we all know the reason so many women do this. It is because of society’s view of women and sexuality - namely, that they should only ever have sexual desire for a man who they see as a potential husband or long-term partner, and acting on any desire other than that makes her a "slut", which is simply to be understood as the worst possible insult that one can make toward a female.
If as much as 2/3rds of all women have at least
once in their lives deliberately intended to be “raped”, because they actually
wanted to have sex but didn’t want to admit it for fear of slut-shaming, then
clearly a huge percentage of rapes would cease to happen if women were allowed
to experience their own sexuality in whatever way they choose with zero
judgment from anyone not actually involved in the act.
So if we have as a goal the reduction of rape, one important direction must be an emphasis on cultural change of acceptance of woman's sexuality. One word can prevent any possibility of rape. "Yes". No one should ever say it if they don’t really mean it, but if every person who felt they were "supposed to" resist sex were to lose that belief, the incidents of sex based only on ambiguous signals would drop dramatically.
So if we have as a goal the reduction of rape, one important direction must be an emphasis on cultural change of acceptance of woman's sexuality. One word can prevent any possibility of rape. "Yes". No one should ever say it if they don’t really mean it, but if every person who felt they were "supposed to" resist sex were to lose that belief, the incidents of sex based only on ambiguous signals would drop dramatically.
On the plus side, there has been enormous progress on this
front in society over the past half century.
It used to be a crime to have sex outside of marriage. In practice, only women were ever punished
for breaking that law. Pregnancy outside
of wedlock was an even graver offense, one which both mother, and later the
“bastard” child would pay for, but again, not the father.
On the other hand, while laws of this nature were generally
altered to at least be gender neutral, non-marital sex remained a crime in
parts of the US
far longer than you probably think. In
the state of Virginia it was a
crime for two heterosexual adults to engage in consensual sexual intercourse if
they were not legally married until…
Eight years ago, in 2005, when the state Supreme Court
finally officially struck the law down in the appeal in Martin v. Ziherl (I guess that's why it called Virginia)
As recently as that, being a “slut” would not just make a person socially stigmatized, it would make them a criminal, and a repeat offender at that.
As recently as that, being a “slut” would not just make a person socially stigmatized, it would make them a criminal, and a repeat offender at that.
It may not have been enforced, but it was on the books, and
the ruling overturning it was not unanimous.
Of course, legality aside, it was all but universally
socially unacceptable for anyone (but especially women) to have sex outside of
marriage all the way up to the 1950s, with the youth counter-culture (known to
the squares and the “man” as “hippies”) blazing a trail toward sexual
freedom. It took decades for that view to
become more or less mainstream, but it gradually did, so that most people my
age or younger grew up in a world where it doesn’t have to be a secret that
non-married couples have sex with each other.
Among most individuals, even a majority of religious ones, and in
popular media, sex outside of marriage is no longer the grave taboo it once
universally was.
But the lingering stigma in our collective subconscious has
not entirely kept up.
And there are a lot
of progressive feminists who realize that, while improvements have been made,
we still have a long way to go and are focused in that direction.
Unfortunately, some of the deeper implications of this
mindset are so ingrained as to be invisible, and plenty of progressives are
still working – unintentionally – at preserving, and even strengthening, the
idea that there is something negative, something sub-human, about sexuality in
general, and female sexuality in particular.
There is a very widespread belief that acknowledging a woman's sexuality, and/or appreciating it, is inherently "objectifying", as though to be human one has to be a-sexual. This is rather preposterous on the face of it, as only living things can be sexual. The ability to reproduce is in fact the definition of a living organism. Inanimate objects can not be sexual.
Furthermore, no one (well, very few people) prefer to get
sexual stimulation from inanimate objects.
Men prefer women over Love Dolls precisely because they are alive and
conscious, they think and feel and react.
To acknowledge someone’s sexuality is literally the opposite of objectifying them.
To acknowledge someone’s sexuality is literally the opposite of objectifying them.
The idea, though, is supposed to be that by playing up the
sexual aspect of a person, you are valuing them SOLELY by that aspect.
And in some cases, this is no doubt the case.
But celebrating someone’s sexuality, and acknowledging their strength or intelligence or kindness or inherent self-worth are in no way mutually exclusive. There is nothing about, for example, a photograph of a healthy naked female, which inherently suggests that her sexual attractiveness is her only relevant attribute, any more than noticing any other one attribute implies exclusion of all others.
And in some cases, this is no doubt the case.
But celebrating someone’s sexuality, and acknowledging their strength or intelligence or kindness or inherent self-worth are in no way mutually exclusive. There is nothing about, for example, a photograph of a healthy naked female, which inherently suggests that her sexual attractiveness is her only relevant attribute, any more than noticing any other one attribute implies exclusion of all others.
This is particularly apparent in cases where a strong female
protagonist’s attractiveness is played up in a media portrayal, and critics
denounce it as sexist or objectifying.
Examples stretch from the movie Barbarella of 1968 to the video game
Bayonetta in 2010. Both feature strong and
capable female protagonists that offer more help to male heroes and challenge
to male villains than they receive from them.
And both are also sexy, and this is played up in the story medium. To many people the latter fact negates the
former, and makes them sexist. Contrary
to the intended goal of making society respect women more, the idea that female
sexuality automatically detracts from a persons strength and independence
inherently implies that any woman who actually has sex deserves less respect.
Judging a female solely by her sexuality is demeaning. But insisting that it shouldn’t be considered at all is equally demeaning, and at least as dehumanizing.
Ultimately, both of them originate from the same ancient patriarchal view that women are naturally inferior to men. Consider, for example, the part of the modern world still governed by literal readings of the ancient Jewish/Christian/Muslim texts, those countries who’s law is based on Islamic law. Women are required to wear the burka in order to prevent men from seeing them as sexually attractive, in order to downplay their sexuality and make it irrelevant. If everyone looks the same, they can only be judged by their individual actions and no individual can be “sexualized”. It would seem this to be an ideal solution for people who complain about sex appeal in media, marketing, and fashion – and yet those same people will condemn the restrictions on women imposed by the Islamic world. Their preferred solution is for people (men in particular) to simply pretend that sexy females aren’t sexy. At least the Islamic solution is realistic…
The law here has changed, what we say publicly has changed,
but in some form, this belief is still lingering on in our collective
consciousness - even in those who are most adamantly opposed to it on
principal. It has become so deeply ingrained in our culture that almost
nobody notices all of its forms when they occur - and they occur constantly -
perhaps even more often from those who are adamantly feminists or who otherwise
wish to protect women than from the rapidly dwindling old guard of people who
will defend their position that a woman's place is in the home.
The purpose of change was to make life better for women, to protect them, and this has largely been accomplished. The America of today bears little resemblance to that of 100 years ago. Women have the right to vote, hold office, own property, sign contracts, sue for damages, initiate divorce. Almost all laws affect both genders equally, and almost all jobs are open to both. Discrimination in housing and employment is a violation of law. Socially the change has lagged, but in popular media it has mostly caught up, as well as among most random people in urban areas and on the coasts, at least.
The purpose of change was to make life better for women, to protect them, and this has largely been accomplished. The America of today bears little resemblance to that of 100 years ago. Women have the right to vote, hold office, own property, sign contracts, sue for damages, initiate divorce. Almost all laws affect both genders equally, and almost all jobs are open to both. Discrimination in housing and employment is a violation of law. Socially the change has lagged, but in popular media it has mostly caught up, as well as among most random people in urban areas and on the coasts, at least.
Despite the massive changes in a relatively short time,
(much like with racism
activists) how little institution prejudice is actually left hasn't been
entirely realized by some, and they keep pushing for more.
The result of being reactionary is often going too far in the opposite direction. Ironically, it maintains a fundamental portion of the status quo - the unspoken assumption that women are inherently victims and lack any sort of agency.
The result of being reactionary is often going too far in the opposite direction. Ironically, it maintains a fundamental portion of the status quo - the unspoken assumption that women are inherently victims and lack any sort of agency.
Taken together, the very deeply ingrained sub-conscious
belief that women really are inherently in need of protection, plus the
conscious belief that society is sexist and needs to be changed further, leads
to things like the current extremity of government and corporate
anti-harassment policies, the objection to women ever being shown as sexy in
media, and the idea that a woman should be able to get into bed naked with a
man after flirting, making out, and drinking with him, and have a reasonable
expectation that he will not initiate sex because he has been trained not to by
society.
This belief that women are inherently weak shows up in areas
totally removed from sexuality as well.
Probably the best example is the near universal belief that
it is dangerous for a woman to walk alone at night in bad part of town. Not that it is dangerous for anyone to walk
alone at night in a bad part of town, but for a woman specifically. This is basically taken as a given, by
everyone, with no need for any sort of evidence to support it. A woman, if she is going to be out after dark
at all, should try to go with a man, or at least with several women in a
group. Just common sense, right?
It isn’t even remotely true.
Men are at significantly higher risk of being assaulted by a stranger, and this has always been true:
Men are at significantly higher risk of being assaulted by a stranger, and this has always been true:
Violent crimes included are rape, robbery, and both
simple and aggravated assault.
Violent
crime rate per 1,000 persons age 12 or older
|
|||
Total
population |
Gender of victim
|
||
Males
|
Females
|
||
1977
|
50.6
|
71.3
|
32.5
|
1987
|
43.8
|
57.0
|
32.1
|
1997
|
38.7
|
45.8
|
32.1
|
2007
|
20.3
|
22.6
|
18.1
|
2008
|
19.0
|
21.4
|
16.7
|
The trend has been for assault against males to drop faster
than against females, so while it is no longer more than twice as dangerous for
a man than a woman, it remains approximately 30% more dangerous, on average,
nationwide.
Many will say, when presented with these facts, that while
men may be at higher risk of assault, women are at higher risk of rape, and
that rape is inherently worse than any other form of assault.
But just like there are various degrees of assault, the form and impact of rape is a variable as well. Not everyone who experiences it feels it is as traumatic as society says it must be. I learned this because several women I have known have personally confided as much to me, in confidence. In one case the victim – while in no way forgiving the perpetrator for his actions – said that to be honest, the experience left her more able to appreciate and enjoy sex than she ever had before. The experience had been negative at the time, though not extremely so, and in the long run it had perhaps been worth it. This was something she almost never shared with anyone, because few people were really willing to listen and accept her own account of her experience. Another friend has shared with me times that were non-consensual for her, but which she considered not terribly big deals, but, again, she was rarely willing to talk about it with anyone, because they predictably attempt to convince her that they should be. In 1973 a landmark book called “My Secret Garden” was published of anonymous women sharing their own sexual fantasies with a (female) author, in which 5 of 16 themes deal with some variation of force or coercion, one of which is specifically rape. Some of those fantasies were actually recollections of real life experiences, one which the victim saw, on some level, as having a partially positive aspect. I wonder if, given the modern environment, that book could get published. The mere fact that it contained these stories would be claimed to be apologizing for rape, or making it seem more ok.
Exactly the same as people who oppose sex-ed in school, the preferred way to deal with the topic is to just pretend it doesn't exist.
And just like pretending that teens won't figure out how to have sex on their own does not stop teen pregnancy and STDs, pretending that everyone experiences rape the same, or that consent is always as simple as "no means no" does nothing to reduce the occurrence of rape.
But just like there are various degrees of assault, the form and impact of rape is a variable as well. Not everyone who experiences it feels it is as traumatic as society says it must be. I learned this because several women I have known have personally confided as much to me, in confidence. In one case the victim – while in no way forgiving the perpetrator for his actions – said that to be honest, the experience left her more able to appreciate and enjoy sex than she ever had before. The experience had been negative at the time, though not extremely so, and in the long run it had perhaps been worth it. This was something she almost never shared with anyone, because few people were really willing to listen and accept her own account of her experience. Another friend has shared with me times that were non-consensual for her, but which she considered not terribly big deals, but, again, she was rarely willing to talk about it with anyone, because they predictably attempt to convince her that they should be. In 1973 a landmark book called “My Secret Garden” was published of anonymous women sharing their own sexual fantasies with a (female) author, in which 5 of 16 themes deal with some variation of force or coercion, one of which is specifically rape. Some of those fantasies were actually recollections of real life experiences, one which the victim saw, on some level, as having a partially positive aspect. I wonder if, given the modern environment, that book could get published. The mere fact that it contained these stories would be claimed to be apologizing for rape, or making it seem more ok.
Exactly the same as people who oppose sex-ed in school, the preferred way to deal with the topic is to just pretend it doesn't exist.
And just like pretending that teens won't figure out how to have sex on their own does not stop teen pregnancy and STDs, pretending that everyone experiences rape the same, or that consent is always as simple as "no means no" does nothing to reduce the occurrence of rape.
Pointing out that rape is not always experienced by everyone the same is NOT to say that rape isn’t a big deal, or that
victims should “try to enjoy it”. My
point is that, while it can be extremely traumatic for many, it is also not a
given that it is inherently worse than any other form of assault could possibly
be.
I would go so far as to say that entire concept of the word "rape" is flawed, and totally unnecessary. All throughout this entire essay have been various examples and thought experiments, and always the conclusion is that any reasonable, common-sense analysis of given situation would not be considered a case of coercion or assault, or that the victim played a role in what happened to them, or whatever, but if an equivalent situation involves sex, it is considered to be a special case, and none of the usual rules are supposed to apply.
And I have pointed out repeatedly how society assumes women
are, by the fact of having a vagina, inherently potential victims, basically
helpless and needing protection.
If we instead assume that all people are people, no matter
what their genitals happen to be like, and take all of the mystery and stigma
and drama and moralizing out of it and stop giving sex more significance than
it actually deserves, then sex just becomes a regular thing, something people do
because it feels good, and occasionally to reproduce, just like we eat food
because it tastes good and also so we don't die.
We are biological creatures. We do things like eat
food, drink water, breath air, pee, poop, sleep, and have sex. Sex is no
different than any of those other things. If two individuals both
consent, then there is no issue, no matter what details there are (actually, I
would make an exception for reproduction
- this can absolutely be amoral, but that is a totally different
topic).
If one person does not consent, and the other forces them to
submit, this is immoral. Not just about sex. About anything.
The only circumstances where one person can force ANYTHING on another person
are in a caretaker - dependent relationship (and then only if the thing being
forced is genuinely in the dependent's best interest), or in the case of a
government forcing compliance from an individual for the sake of the common
good.
That's it.
If one person forces another to go somewhere they don't want
to, to hold their hand if they don't want to, to give up a possession, or
whatever else, by means of force, threat of force, or some other form of harm
or threat of harm wherein the victim does not have, (or reasonable feels they
do not have), the option of saying “no”, then this is immoral, as well as a
crime.
The crime is called "assault". If it
specifically includes physically touching another person in any way against
their will, it is battery, in addition to assault. If we fail to glorify
sex as neither dirty, disgusting and detestable nor profound, holy and pure, but
just see it as an manifestation of being a multi-cellular
life form, then there is absolutely no reason for cases of assault and
battery that happen to involve sex to get its own special category while every
other conceivable act of one person imposing their will on another
involuntarily are all summed up as assault.
Of course there are gradations of harm, violation, and
trauma, that assault and battery can inflict. Rape is undoubtedly far
more traumatic, both physically and emotionally, than, for example, being
pushed by a drunk guy at the club. At the same time, non-consensual sex
in the context of, say, the situation descried in the original blog post, while
being unambiguously assault, is most likely not remotely as harmful, emotionally
or physically, as being beaten so severely that you end up in the hospital,
unable to see or walk, barely able to breathe.
The worst possible crime that one can be a victim of is
murder. For a man the chances of being
the victim of murder are almost 4 times higher than for a woman (in 2005)
Of course, most murders are not committed by strangers in a
dark alley, they are committed by people known personally to the victim, and
those murders are irrelevant to the question of walking around alone at night.
Breaking those stats down farther, it turns out that a man
is at dramatically more risk of being murdered by a stranger: 2.8 in 100,000
versus 0.4, or 7 times more likely.
Why is it, if in reality a man is 30% more likely to be
attacked and 700% more likely to be murdered, that people regularly suggest
that a man should walk a woman home at night to keep her safe, and not the
other way around?
I don’t propose that this is a deliberate conspiracy, but
one has to wonder if on some level it is a method to officially grant women
freedom, while at the same time preventing it from being taken advantage
of.
In some Islamic countries a woman is not allowed to leave the home without a male escort. In this country we achieve the same end result, but do it by an almost universal “common knowledge” that is 100% opposite reality.
In some Islamic countries a woman is not allowed to leave the home without a male escort. In this country we achieve the same end result, but do it by an almost universal “common knowledge” that is 100% opposite reality.
Some other examples of our collective sub-conscious belief
of female weakness include the idea that a man should never hit a woman (ironically,
a likely reason why it is in fact safer for women in public than for men, and
also an example of sexism in it’s own right),
both the feminist and mainstream view on "men's rights", and
the attention given to detecting, treating, and finding a cure for breast
cancer, in light of a lack of a similarly visible campaign for prostrate cancer. Men contract prostate cancer at a higher rate
than women contract breast cancer.
Because it’s survivability is higher, the odds of a man dying from prostate cancer are almost exactly the same as the odds of a woman dying of breast cancer: (see previous link, or http://www.bookofodds.com/Health-Illness/Cancer/Articles/A0006-Breast-and-Prostate-Cancer-Odds )
However, even though the risk is nearly identical, funding
for breast cancer research and treatment is almost twice as high as that for
prostate cancer, and public awareness campaigns are much more than twice as
prevalent for the former.
This to, is of course not done with any conscious agenda –
people working towards early detection and more effective treatment of breast
cancer are genuinely good people, working for a genuinely good cause.
I mention it only because, taken as a whole, it is an indication of societies overall view of women needing to be protected from reality more than men.
I mention it only because, taken as a whole, it is an indication of societies overall view of women needing to be protected from reality more than men.
Yet another example is all of the forms of
"protecting" women for their own sexual choices.
I just recently addressed this as relates to prostitution in it's own post (written long before I ever read the article that inspired this one, but by coincidence only published yesterday: http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-oldest-profession.html)
Another example is the condemnation of porn, regardless of whether the actresses in it sought out to appear in it. There are a lot of people who distinguish between the stereotypical mainstream commercial porn and various alternative and/or independent and/or amateur forms, but there are still those who claim that ALL porn, by virtue of depicting sex, is inherently demeaning to women. Which, obviously, implies that the act of sex itself is inherently degrading to women, which is itself a pretty blatant example of misogyny.
Beyond that, there is the frequent criticism that porn is harmful because most of the actresses have a certain body type, and that can lead to unrealistic expectations in men and low-self-esteem in women.
That could be a legitimate argument, but it is sexist if it is never made together with an acknowledgement that it works both ways. Male porn actors are overwhelmingly young, tall, muscular and well endowed. In any event, they are always able to get hard on command, last for twenty minutes or more (with bright lights on them and camera men watching them, while being told what to do by a director, with a woman they may or may not even be attracted to), and finally cum on command, no sooner, no later.
This obviously does not describe the average man.
However porn is never condemned for presenting unrealistic portrayals of men or endangering their self-esteem.
At the same time, porn is often condemned for portraying women as a sex objects. Yet most porn, especially the mainstream variety, spends a lot more time focusing on the woman's face than the man's, and much more of the audio consists of her vocalizations than his. He is essentially a prop, nothing more, (which is why he gets paid so much less). I am not lamenting the poor treatment of male porn stars. I am just questioning the mindset that maintains that when two consenting adults choose to have sex on camera for money, one is being degraded and the other isn't, or that when actors of both genders are cherry picked for certain physical characteristics, this is an issue worthy of objection to one gender but not the other.
Another differentiation we make along gender lines is the common (and sometimes legal) view towards statutory rape and the social assumptions we make around it. As one commenter on the blog put it:
I just recently addressed this as relates to prostitution in it's own post (written long before I ever read the article that inspired this one, but by coincidence only published yesterday: http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-oldest-profession.html)
Another example is the condemnation of porn, regardless of whether the actresses in it sought out to appear in it. There are a lot of people who distinguish between the stereotypical mainstream commercial porn and various alternative and/or independent and/or amateur forms, but there are still those who claim that ALL porn, by virtue of depicting sex, is inherently demeaning to women. Which, obviously, implies that the act of sex itself is inherently degrading to women, which is itself a pretty blatant example of misogyny.
Beyond that, there is the frequent criticism that porn is harmful because most of the actresses have a certain body type, and that can lead to unrealistic expectations in men and low-self-esteem in women.
That could be a legitimate argument, but it is sexist if it is never made together with an acknowledgement that it works both ways. Male porn actors are overwhelmingly young, tall, muscular and well endowed. In any event, they are always able to get hard on command, last for twenty minutes or more (with bright lights on them and camera men watching them, while being told what to do by a director, with a woman they may or may not even be attracted to), and finally cum on command, no sooner, no later.
This obviously does not describe the average man.
However porn is never condemned for presenting unrealistic portrayals of men or endangering their self-esteem.
At the same time, porn is often condemned for portraying women as a sex objects. Yet most porn, especially the mainstream variety, spends a lot more time focusing on the woman's face than the man's, and much more of the audio consists of her vocalizations than his. He is essentially a prop, nothing more, (which is why he gets paid so much less). I am not lamenting the poor treatment of male porn stars. I am just questioning the mindset that maintains that when two consenting adults choose to have sex on camera for money, one is being degraded and the other isn't, or that when actors of both genders are cherry picked for certain physical characteristics, this is an issue worthy of objection to one gender but not the other.
Another differentiation we make along gender lines is the common (and sometimes legal) view towards statutory rape and the social assumptions we make around it. As one commenter on the blog put it:
Danny says:
December
13, 2012 at 1:06 pm
…
And not just in personal coversation either. You can see it in law books where a male against female sex crime is called rape but a female against male sex crime is called something else (usually “sexual battery” or “sexual assault”). You can see it in media coverage (where male teachers rape female students but female teachers have sex with or have affairs with male students).
…
And not just in personal coversation either. You can see it in law books where a male against female sex crime is called rape but a female against male sex crime is called something else (usually “sexual battery” or “sexual assault”). You can see it in media coverage (where male teachers rape female students but female teachers have sex with or have affairs with male students).
When one hears the term “pedophile”, you know without having to ask that they are talking about a male perpetrator. It is probably true that women forcing boys to have sex with them is much less common. But it does happen - and it is not just limited to young women and post-pubescent boys. In these cases, even though some will state it is "just as bad", because of a principal of equality, many will consider the young boys lucky, and for those who don’t, it still rarely generates the same level of outrage and anger. While it may be considered a mitigating factor for the male if he initiated it and/or enjoyed it, people will insist a female was a victim even if she feels she was not.
Of course, all that being said, everyone knows that rape is
almost exclusively an act men commit against women.
There are the occasional man-on-man rapes, mostly in prison,
the rare cases of women forcing sexual contact on women, and possibly even
extremely rare cases of women somehow forcing men to have sex with them.
Perhaps this difference in numbers of perpetrators and
victims is due to cultural factors, perhaps its because of hormonal
differences, perhaps it is due to the power imbalance due to natural strength
differences, or maybe it is just the biological reality of how sex physically
works.
For whatever reason, the fact that forced sex is almost
entirely something men do to women, and that the reverse is almost negligibly
rare, this is just common knowledge.
Even part way through writing this
essay, the one you are reading right now, I myself would have acknowledged
that.
There’s just one thing about that:
It’s wrong!
As it turns out, the only reason “rape” is almost
exclusively something men do to women is
because of the way that term itself is defined. If a woman forces a man to have sex with her,
it is not considered “rape”. And when
various organizations compile statistics, conduct surveys, or write reports,
they almost always focus only on “rape” specifically.
In 2009 a relatively neutral organization, the US CDC,
set out to do a comprehensive survey on all forms of sexual assault. While they still define “rape” specifically
as involving penetration, they also included categories for “being made to
penetrate” as well as non-penetration forms of sexual assault. In the text they consolidate the rape stats,
(“1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men”) seemingly validating the “common knowledge” version of reality, but
fortunately they include all of the data, so it can be analyzed more closely.
They break down sexual victimization into several categories: rape, made to penetrate, sexual “coercion”, unwanted sexual contact, and “non-contact sexual experiences”.
They break down sexual victimization into several categories: rape, made to penetrate, sexual “coercion”, unwanted sexual contact, and “non-contact sexual experiences”.
While this is unquestionably a less biased study than most,
there are still a few problematic assumptions made by the study’s creators.
The category of rape, for some reason, includes “attempted
rape”. This is not explained. If you come home to find scratches around your
door’s lock from where someone attempted, but failed, to break in, would that
be equivalent to having someone actually break in and take all your stuff? It would be unnerving, of course, and you
would file a police report, but the two would not be interchangeable,
right? Would anyone reasonably consider
the impact on the victim of attempted
murder to fall under the same category as completed
murder?
Also problematic is the definition the study used of the
word “coercion”.
Early on in the same report, when looking at issues of domestic violence, examples of “coercive control” are “behaviors that are intended to monitor and control an intimate partner such as threats, interference with family and friends, and limiting access to money” and is listed beside the similar psychological abuse of “expressive psychological aggression” which “includes acting dangerous, name calling, insults and humiliation”
Early on in the same report, when looking at issues of domestic violence, examples of “coercive control” are “behaviors that are intended to monitor and control an intimate partner such as threats, interference with family and friends, and limiting access to money” and is listed beside the similar psychological abuse of “expressive psychological aggression” which “includes acting dangerous, name calling, insults and humiliation”
And yet, when the topic changes from domestic abuse to non-consensual
sex, all of a sudden the previously reasonable definition of “coercion” gets
changed entirely, to match the current politically-correct /
corporate-training-video / radical-feminist version of the word:
“In NISVS, sexual coercion refers to unwanted vaginal, oral, or anal sex after being pressured in ways that included being worn down by someone who repeatedly asked for sex or showed they were unhappy; feeling pressured by being lied to, being told promises that were untrue, having someone threaten to end a relationship or spread rumors; and sexual pressure due to someone using their influence or authority.”
There is that “being asked repeatedly” again.
A partner can repeatedly remind you wash the dishes or
take out the garbage, can repeatedly ask you to stop smoking or to go out
dancing or to be nicer to in-laws, and that is either normal relationship
negotiation, or, at worse, nagging. If
it’s about sex, then apparently its coercion.
Even more insane, the definition includes “showed they were
unhappy”! So not only must you never ask
your partner for sex more than once (once per day? once per week? once per year?) but if you are disappointed
by them answering “no”, you have to hide your actual feelings from
them, or else you are coercing them into sex!!!!!!
Its not enough to avoid ever seducing your partner, you have
to make sure that they never feel the slightest bit guilty for you feeling
unsatisfied, by pretending that you never even want sex, unless you already
know that they want it too. And since we
are dropping the gender bias, that means neither party can ever express any
dissatisfaction with their sex life.
Then there is the form of “coercion” of “being told promises that are untrue” – except that, if a person is agreeing to sex on the basis of a promise, unless that promise happens to be “I will love you forever”, it sounds a lot like non-monetary prostitution, which is still illegal even if the exchange isn’t for cash. “Being lied to” could mean “I’m not married” when really one is, and that would be manipulative and assholeish – but it wouldn’t make the sex into rape or sexual assault, and it doesn’t make any sense to group it with forms of violence or non-consent. If you go on a date with someone, and later find out they are married, and you wouldn’t have gone if you knew, that doesn’t retroactively make the date kidnapping or any other form of non-consensual interaction. It makes the other person a creep, but it doesn’t make you a victim.
As covered above, a person has every right to end a relationship for lack of sex, just like they have every right to end it for any other reason. The person being left is not being forced to comply, because they have a choice. They can say “ok, if I mean that little to you, fine, goodbye”.
Because the study’s’ definition of coercions consists almost
entirely of things which are not in fact coercion (and it isn’t broken down any
more than that in the data) the entire category has to be disregarded.
After that there is “unwanted sexual contact” which covers
everything which is not actual penetration of an orifice. Because, you know, having
ones external genitals manipulated by hand against one’s will is a
qualitatively different experience than having any body part or inanimate
object put in any orifice against one’s will… While this might reasonably go under the
category of “rape”, just as oral sex is included in rape, at least the category
exists at all in this study, so we can add in all the forms of forced sexual
contact that don’t count as “rape” but are the equivalent of it.
Finally there is “non-contact sexual experiences”. A case could be made for the examples of
being forced to appear in porn, and maybe even being forced to expose one’s sex
parts (since our culture is so insanely uptight about not just sexuality, but
even mere nudity). But it also includes
flashing.
Come on.
Seriously?
That’s just plain silly.
I can not even find the words to express how little sympathy I have for
someone who is “subjected” to accidentally glancing at a semi-naked human. A young child would not think twice about it,
because they haven’t had time to learn how terrible society thinks sex is
yet. And any adult who does not know
what a naked adult human of both genders looks like has much more serious
issues going on than dealing with a flasher.
In fact, I would say the flasher just did them a major favor by giving
them at least this tiny bit of sex education.
We are all supposed to collectively pretend that seeing someone’s sex
parts for a second is potentially profoundly disturbing or harmful, but I have
trouble believing that anyone actually
believes that. And it is only a second
at most, because if you really don’t want to see it, you simply look away. Problem solved.
I kind of feel like the boy looking at the emperor’s new clothes even having to address this (especially for a major study undertaken by the CDC!), except that everyone else is all pretending that it is a big deal that he’s walking around naked, when obviously it really isn’t at all.
I kind of feel like the boy looking at the emperor’s new clothes even having to address this (especially for a major study undertaken by the CDC!), except that everyone else is all pretending that it is a big deal that he’s walking around naked, when obviously it really isn’t at all.
The category includes more which is not really an issue of
violence or victimization as much as annoyance, and so it, too, has to be
culled from the analysis.
So, after subtracting the stats that don’t deal with real
victims, and adding sexual assault stats in, here is what we are left with:
For women, all forms of unwanted
sexual contact (inc. rape):
|
39.5% ever
|
2.7% in 2009
|
For men, all
forms of unwanted sexual contact:
|
17.4% ever
|
3.4% in 2009
|
The lifetime number for women is still over twice as high as
for men. But it is nowhere remotely near to the 14+ times as high
numbers that are typically claimed, by using the narrowly defined term “rape”,
as opposed to looking at all forms of non-consensual sexual contact. And in fact, when looking only at the recent
past (which excludes anything that may have happened as a minor) the numbers
for males are actually HIGHER than those for females.
I realize that sounds completely unbelievable. You don’t have to take my word for it:
I realize that sounds completely unbelievable. You don’t have to take my word for it:
So, the myth that only women are the victims of sexual
violence: Busted.
Its also “common knowledge” that the vast majority of perpetrators are male, and that female perpetrators (if they exist at all) are extremely rare.
The study looked at that too:
“Most perpetrators of all forms of
sexual violence against women were male. For female rape victims, 98.1%
reported only male perpetrators. Additionally, 92.5% of female victims of
sexual violence other than rape reported only male perpetrators.”
No surprises there.
“For three of the [non-penetration]
forms of sexual violence, a majority of male victims reported only female perpetrators: being made to penetrate
(79.2%), sexual coercion (83.6%), and unwanted sexual contact (53.1%)”
Obviously female on male forced sex would not involve
penetration of the male, because of how sex works. But less than 5% of males reporting forced
sexual contact reported penetration anyway.
Of the relevant categories (I’m not counting sexual “coercion” for
males, for the same reason I didn’t include it for females), fully 60% of the perpetrators were female.
That still means men force sex on others (of both genders)
significantly more frequently than women.
But it is not the overwhelming disparity (99.999...% to 0.00...1%)
we have all been led to believe our entire lives. Common knowledge is wrong. Just as with the incorrect, but nearly
universal, belief that women are at higher risk of being attacked by strangers,
the belief in an overwhelming disparity in perpetrator and victim by gender in
sexual assault has much more to do with our baseline bias and assumptions about
gender and sexuality than it does with any actual trend observed in the real
world.
Once we have decided to see something, all it takes is
selective observation and carefully chosen definitions to ensure that what we
want to believe is confirmed, and it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. All it takes to break it, though, is an
ability and willingness to look at the facts, even if they don’t fit the
narrative we have chosen to believe.
People are people, some are good, some are bad, and almost all are
somewhere in between.
