a disturbing thought

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The various blow-ups around Todd Akin’s comments and the accusations against Julian Assange and all the rest of it mean that a lot of the internet is talking about rape right now. And one of the posts I just read got me thinking about the topic from an angle I’ve never considered before — a deeply disturbing one.

I know that I know women who have been raped. I know that I probably know more of them than I think, because not all of them necessarily have mentioned it to me — or to anyone. This is horrifying, but it’s a kind of horror I’ve gotten used to, in the sense that I understand this is a real thing in my life.

Tonight, I found myself thinking that I may very well know one or more rapists, too.

I can’t be sure, of course, because it’s the kind of thing people bring up even less than they bring up being the victim of rape. But I may know a guy (or a woman, but that’s uncommon enough that I’ll go with the assumption of a guy for now) who has raped someone. Not the hold-them-at-knifepoint kind of rape, maybe, but the sort where the other party didn’t consent — which is, yes, still rape. I may know a guy who slipped roofies into a woman’s drink (or a man’s), or just got her too drunk to know what he was doing. I may know a guy who climbed onto a sleeping woman and fucked her against her will. I may know a guy who coerced his victim with words, who did any one of the hundred things that guys write off as “not really rape” and therefore rest secure in the knowledge that they aren’t rapists.

But they are. And maybe I know a guy like that.

It’s easy for me to think, when I read about those kinds of cases, that the guys in them obviously deserve condemnation. That it doesn’t matter whether they’re “nice guys” the rest of the time; what they did is still rape and should be called such, without prevarication. That their friends need to accept that somebody they know and like did a horrible thing, and not try to defend the guy by shifting the blame onto the victim.

Then I wonder how I would react if somebody told me one of my friends raped them. How long it would take me to move past the “but he wouldn’t do that!” reaction, and listen to what the victim has to say. To believe them, at the cost of what I believed before.

I hope I could do it. I hope I could, if the situation arose, swallow questions like “are you sure?” and “but didn’t you . . . ?” and other things that would hurt somebody who’s already been hurt too much. I think I could do it after a while, but in the moment itself, I’m not sure if my principles would beat out my partisan bias, my loyalty to that friend. I hope they would.

I hope that, if one of you ever comes to me and says somebody I know and like did a horrible thing to you, I will be able to face the fact that there is a rapist among my friends.

Because there might be one among them right now. And that’s appalling in ways I’d never really thought about before.

0 Responses to “a disturbing thought”

  1. rosefox

    (trigger warnings, etc.)

    To add another layer of complication:

    The last time I saw the guy who date-raped me–let’s call him Lou, since it’s his name–it was at a dear friend’s wedding. Lou was the best man. We still have many friends in common. When I saw him at the reception, I gave him a hug, rather to our mutual surprise. I was actually glad to see him. We hung out and chatted and caught up, as any two people might do when they haven’t seen each other in ten years, and we parted on friendly terms, though neither of us has made any effort to get in touch with the other since then.

    I don’t think of him as “a rapist” (though I was furious when one of his later partners yelled “How dare you call the man I love a rapist!” at me when I dared to speak up about what he had done, and I do… retain the right, I suppose, to apply that label if I feel it fits). I do think of him as someone who emotionally blackmailed me into having sex I didn’t want. Maybe he’s still the sort of person who would do that. Maybe not. I don’t know. But I’ve changed a whole lot in the past 17 years–half my lifetime!–and I expect he has too. I like to think he’s probably become a better person, smarter and kinder and more mature. I like to think he’s become someone who now cares a great deal about passionate active consent and “yes means yes”, and who would no longer respond to a not-tonight-dear with weeping wailing misery that forces his partner to soothe him one way or another. It would have been entirely fair to call him a rapist when he was 18 and truly did not value my bodily autonomy over his own hurt feelings; I like to think he isn’t one now.

    So I would distinguish between “has raped someone” and “is a rapist” while still being quite uncomfortably aware, as you now are, that people in both categories are probably among my friendly acquaintances, and possibly among my friends. And while I don’t mind that Lou and I have friends in common, if someone told me that I could not be friends with both them and the person who raped them–no matter how long it’s been, or how that person has changed–I would respect that, because every survivor gets to decide which labels fit their particular situation and the person who caused them harm.

    • Marie Brennan

      (I figure trigger warnings are more or less a given for the entire comment thread, given the topic of the post.)

      Yeah, that’s complicated. There’s a difference between somebody who did something they knew was wrong (but decided, for one reason or another, that they didn’t care), and somebody who didn’t realize what they were doing was wrong. And, of course, it’s difficult-to-impossible to decide where the line between those two things is — because while we’d like to think all these things are clearly and obviously Not Right, that is clearly and obviously not the case to enough people. There have been enough studies showing that guys will admit to rape if you don’t call it that in the question to prove that point.

      I was thinking, after I posted this, about how I would respond not only to the victim, but to the perpetrator. What I would say to them — presuming, of course, that the victim doesn’t ask me not to say anything at all. And I really don’t know. I hate confrontation, so having that conversation . . . a very huge part of me would want to chicken out on it. But I need to be willing to look somebody like that in the face and say, “what the ever-living hell, dude, that is not okay.” Because if we want to make rape a thing that happens less often, we need people who are willing to point at “less rapey” ways of raping and say, nope, sorry, that’s rape, and you have got to mend your ways.

      • rosefox

        I can’t imagine anyone being eager to have that sort of conversation with a friend. But I keep imagining a friend of mine feeling unsafe in my home because of the presence of another friend of mine who caused them harm–and that’s simply not a scenario I can tolerate. I’m usually really serious about not choosing sides in breakups, but in this case I would choose a side and I would make it stick.

        A lot of the conversation around the Readercon debacle helped to crystallize this for me. It’s very easy to be in my own head and be all, “I would be denying this person my friendship and hospitality just because they made one mistake a long time ago! Is that fair and just and reasonable?” Because of course in my world I am the most important person. But in their world… I’m just one person. And if I turn out to be just one person who can’t be friends with them anymore because they raped someone, then that is actually not a very big sanction. There are six billion other people they could be friends with, about 5.99 billion of whom (let’s be honest here) really won’t care that they raped someone, or at least won’t care enough to let it get in the way of being friends. No matter how awesome I am, denying someone my friendship and hospitality is small potatoes. Regardless of whether you want to talk about consequences or punishment or deterrent, it ranks really low on the scales of possible consequences or punishments for raping someone, and even lower on the scales of deterrents for raping again in the future. The more I think about it, the more angry I get that all I can do to this person is deny them the pleasure of my company and the comfort of my home.

        On the other hand, making a safe space for someone who’s been assaulted, and pledging to them that that space will never be invaded by the person who assaulted them? That is a big deal. That is an amazing thing to do. People who talk about being raped are shamed and blamed and made to feel like crap, whether they’re reporting it to the police or just telling their friends. Those same 5.99 billion people who wouldn’t hesitate to befriend a rapist also wouldn’t hesitate to say awful things to the rapist’s target, because rape culture is pervasive and horrible. Offering any kind of help at all to someone who’s been raped, even a moment of listening and support, is a glorious bounty of kindness compared to what they get from most people. Going a bit out of my way to make a little oasis of safety for them is pretty high on the mitzvah list.

        So to run the cost–benefit analysis from this perspective, with all numbers on a scale from 0 to 10:

        Cost to the ostracized rapist: .0001
        Cost to me (sadness over the loss of a friend, the effort of the “we’re no longer friends and this is why” conversation, the effort of making sure that person does not enter any spaces I have say over): .01
        Benefit to me (knowing I’ve done the right thing, cementing a friendship): 2
        Benefit to the rape survivor: 1000

        The conclusion is obvious.

        Because if we want to make rape a thing that happens less often, we need people who are willing to point at “less rapey” ways of raping and say, nope, sorry, that’s rape, and you have got to mend your ways.

        Yes, very much so.

        • Marie Brennan

          Even if you think the guy regrets what he did, has learned better, etc — you should still be willing to promise the survivor that you won’t ever put them in the company of somebody they don’t want to see again. It’s basic decency, like not feeding them food they have an allergy to.

          • rosefox

            you won’t ever put them in the company of somebody they don’t want to see again

            I run events on a scale where this isn’t actually possible as a blanket policy. But specifically in the case of someone having been assaulted–whether it’s sexual assault or not–I agree completely.

        • lowellboyslash

          I think this is brilliant, and I would really like to repost some of it in my journal. Would that be okay? Also, hi, I know you in real life! and I am finally friending you on LJ. (The icon is my real face.)

          • rosefox

            Sure, go ahead. I’d been meaning to post it to my LJ anyway.

            And hello! I’m afraid I’m pretty faceblind and photos are useless to me, but feel free to email me your name; I certainly know your handle from various places around LJ.

      • nonnycat

        I think this is actually a really important statement. Because most people’s inclination is to call rapists “monsters” — which is dehumanizing and makes it SO harder to believe that nice friend of yours may have done something horrible. Considering that enthusiastic consent is not something that is taught, and that many people (even women) don’t realize that people can’t consent under influence, and even more people don’t realize that talking someone into something is rape…

        IDK, I’m not trying to say “save all the rapists!” here, which I’m sure some people would take it as, but consent isn’t something people are properly educated about. So somebody will say “rape” and the other person will be like, “I didn’t jump out a bush at nobody, wtf!?”, and it’s just a mess. Whereas they need to be told (NOT by their victims) that it’s NOT OKAY.

        There’s also the attitude, at least in US culture, that criminals of pretty much any sort are un-rehabilitatable, and I don’t entirely agree there. It’s a complex topic I can’t really cover in one comment but I SERIOUSLY wish that enthusiastic consent and consent in all its forms were covered in sex ed, because I have seen so many people NOT GET IT. And with the way rapists are dehumanized, it’s going to be really tough to “get through” to the rapist after the fact (because nobody thinks they’re a monster).

        (And obviously, there are rapists that know what they’re doing and just don’t care. But I know at least one who… really didn’t and was totally horrified after the fact when it was explained, because he THOUGHT that it was consensual. And I think some people expect that this stuff should just be automatically known, when it’s never taught, and I certainly wasn’t aware until I started hanging out in feminist groups. Going to edit to add here also that this is someone I know online and not like I took his “side” over a friend who was his victim.)

        Argh, I hope this came across the way I meant. I’m really, really not trying to say that rape shouldn’t be taken seriously or punished or etc (because I am a survivor myself) but I think between dehumanization and lack of education regarding consent (plus the whole male privilege thing that’s all through our culture), it’s just setting situations like this up to occur with very little chance of actually rehabilitating the perpetrators.

        • Anonymous

          From “HG”.

          ” Considering that enthusiastic consent is not something that is taught, and […] and even more people don’t realize that talking someone into something is rape…”

          The trouble is, that if the term ‘rape’ is expanded to cover misunderstandings like this, and the ‘perpetrators’ are to be rehabilitated and re-educated instead of condemned — then rape using physical strength will also be considered not a monstrous act, and the term ‘rapist’ will lose its meaning.

          • Marie Brennan

            You’ve been making a lot of statements of that sort — “if X, then Y much more distant effect.” And I keep on really, really not agreeing. If you look further downstream, at cepetit’s comment, you’ll see that our laws are moving toward a model where there is a category of “criminal sexual assault,” with gradations within it based on the circumstances. Calling all forms of killing another person “homicide” doesn’t erase the distinction between hitting somebody with your car when your tire blows out, and planning a brutal serial murder. Likewise, calling all cases of non-consensual penetration “rape” doesn’t mean that holding somebody at knifepoint and raping her until she nearly dies will somehow cease to be monstrous.

        • Marie Brennan

          This post covers several incidents that illustrate, all too well, the failure to understand the need not only for a lack of refusal, but the provision of consent. Including one where, as you say, the rapist didn’t understand until it was explained to him that yes, he was raping her.

          Rehabilitation is, as you say, something we are sadly very bad at.

          • nonnycat

            When I was in my teens, I was part of a young feminists board founded by a pair of YA writers. I was about 16 and the age range was 13-20ish at the time. The number of young women who truly, honestly believed that it wasn’t rape unless they fought back or outright actively said “no” (and sometimes not even then) was shocking. Many said nothing like that was even covered in school sex ed (if school sex ed covered anything more than just abstinence and horror stories about STIs).

            If young women believe these things and often don’t learn otherwise until college (if then; I’ve gone back to abovementioned board and found folk I knew who were members back when I was still there and spouting crap like if a women wears a skimpy dress, she’s responsible)… the impression I’ve gotten is that it’s even less talked about among men. It’s just a mess all around, and education about enthusiastic consent starting in school would help a lot, I think.

            Rehabilitation in general is something we in the US are bad at. It was interesting to me to read the news coverage and commentary in various communities on the mass murderer in Norway; folks here in the US were basically calling for blood and questioning why Norway thought there was any chance of rehabilitating ANY criminal, of ANY sort. The folks over in Norway, who have a very good rate of rehabilitation, were all o.O

            American society in general is very revenge based, which I can understand on an emotional level, but it leaves some huge issues with criminals who might be able to be rehabilitated. Certainly not everyone, but other countries have proven it’s possible.

            It’s really complex and something I’m not sure of even how to start to put into place with all the issues with society as it is, but something needs to change.

  2. brooksmoses

    I did see this idea used to make a point about why rape jokes are bad: Not only because of their effect on victims, but because of their effect on rapists [1] (which is to reinforce their feeling that it’s not a big deal, that it’s funny rather than horrifying, etc.). And often you don’t know that none of the people listening to your jokes are rapists.

    • Marie Brennan

      A very good point. And also part of why I posted this: not just to work through my thoughts publicly, not just to make other people go “shit, maybe I know a rapist, too” — but to maybe, just maybe, get somebody who’s generally a nice guy, who didn’t think that thing he did was really so bad, to stop and realize that yes, it was.

      And then not to do it ever again.

  3. la_marquise_de_

    Very personal.

    I’m pretty sure two men I know are rapists. I’m also pretty sure one of them is in denial about it. The other… aware, concerned, makes a show of how he’s changed and I don’t trust him an inch.
    I don’t let either of them into my home. One, I haven’t seen for 20+ years, so that’s not hard. The other is a friend-of-a-friend, which can be a bit difficult. But I know women who have suffered serious harassment from both. I’m with Rose on this.
    One of these men coerced me into sex by bullying, blackmail and threats. It wasn’t exactly rape, because I said ‘oh, all right’ under the pressure. I find it unforgivable, all the same. I’m not the only woman in my social circle to whom he did this.

    • Marie Brennan

      Re: Very personal.

      It wasn’t exactly rape, because I said ‘oh, all right’ under the pressure.

      This is a good example of a grey zone. You did, in fact, consent — but your consent wasn’t freely given, and when all’s said and done, what that guy did wasn’t right. The remedy for something like that isn’t, I think, to try to pursue it as a legal matter (even if we lived in a world that handled rape prosecutions better); what we need are better social sanctions that tell people it isn’t okay to do that.

      • la_marquise_de_

        Re: Very personal.

        Yes, that’s my feeling, too.
        It would start, I suspect, with letting girls know that it’s okay to say know, however much pressure is put on them, that it’s okay to shout and order a man to leave and call for assistance, that they are the only person who gets to make decisions for their bodies in this respect.

        • rosefox

          Re: Very personal.

          I would add that it’s crucial to teach everyone (not just girls) ways of handling such a situation besides shouting. The compulsion to “not make a scene” is very strong, and positioning one’s options as either shouting or giving in just leads to more people giving in.

          • Anonymous

            Re: Very personal.

            From HG.

            Yes. There are many ways to say “No” or “Okay so far but nothing further”, verbally or non-verbally, which are not shouting, not offensive, and not exhausting. Even getting up and leaving the room need not be traumatic.

    • Anonymous

      Re: Very personal.

      I prefer to think of it as you conceded, but you did not consent.

  4. celestineangel

    People probably think I’m too quick to believe someone’s been raped. :/

    I have a friend who was raped by the guy she’d been seeing on and off for several years. There was a lot of “fooling around” going on, and he asked her at every stage if she was okay with things, and she always said “yes, with what we’re doing now, but I still don’t want to have sex.” He refrained from asking her before penetrating her.

    I told her to go see a therapist. I don’t know where she found the idiot, but that person convinced her that it wasn’t rape. That it was a misunderstanding. She believes this now with 100% of her being. She’s married to him. They have a daughter. She and I don’t talk much because I still believe 100% that he raped her, and that the therapist is a raging moron who should never be allowed to talk to other people, and she just can’t understand why I’m holding a grudge for so long. He hates me because I said, flat out, that he’s a rapist. She’s told me that I’m the only one of her friends who holds out and still thinks of him as a rapist.

    I don’t care. He’s a rapist. She married her rapist, because someone convinced her that what happened to her was a misunderstanding that was at least partially her fault because she let it go so far.

    I guess I’m babbling about something that really doesn’t have much to do with your post, but… I’ve been holding that frustration in for a long while now.

    It is very disturbing to think that someone you know may be a rapist… someone you know and like. And the more people you know, the more likely it is to be true.

    • Anonymous

      Perhaps the therapist, and the woman herself, know more about the situation than an outsider does. I think when such a bare-bones summary is given (as here and as in the stories from Sweden), each woman hearing it may project her own imagination of what in her own experience might have fitted a similar bare summary. (Like a script that gives only words: different actors may play it differently.)

      In my experience as a woman, it seems a reasonable progression. The man asking … then when things get hotter, forgetting to ask, and relying on the woman to say No if she still isn’t interested.

      I’m from an ‘indirect speech’ culture, so I’d express a No non-verbally; but it’s still my responsibility to communicate it clearly.

      • wshaffer

        While it’s true there may be more to the story than we know, a man who consistently asks for consent and then suddenly doesn’t ask does not sound to me like a man who has “forgotten” anything – it sounds like a man who isn’t asking because he knows what answer he’ll get and doesn’t like it.

      • Marie Brennan

        If you could choose some kind of alias to sign your anonymous comments with, I’d appreciate it. I want people to be able to join the discussion without having to identify themselves (given the topic, it only makes sense), but we may have more than one anonymous commenter, and a moniker at the end is easier to notice than the IP address.

        I do agree that it’s hard to judge things from the outside, when we may not have all the information . . . but I also agree with that asking, asking, asking, asking, and then not asking sounds like “she’ll forgive me for it later” logic.

        And it seems that she did, in fact, forgive him. Maybe for good reasons; I won’t judge her for that. But scenarios like this one are why I’m in favor of pushing “yes means yes” as a meme — not putting the burden on people to speak up with a rejection (which can be really problematic in a lot of cases), but encouraging everybody to express their enthusiasm for what’s happening, and to check for it if it isn’t there.

        • ckd

          [S]cenarios like this one are why I’m in favor of pushing “yes means yes” as a meme — not putting the burden on people to speak up with a rejection (which can be really problematic in a lot of cases), but encouraging everybody to express their enthusiasm for what’s happening, and to check for it if it isn’t there.

          Yes, absolutely this. (Enthusiastic consent to this…discussion thread? 🙂

          • Anonymous

            From HG.

            But if “Yes means yes” means “Silence means jail”, then there’s a burden on the woman at every moment to express (or pretend) enthusiasm. But with “No means no” and “Silence means probably”, she only has to express the occasional “No”. And it will never be completely safe to rely on every man always accepting “Yes means yes”; for safety she must learn and be ready to actually say “No”.

          • Marie Brennan

            But if “Yes means yes” means “Silence means jail”

            It doesn’t. Silence plus the other person feeling violated means jail — maybe, assuming they decide it’s worth pressing charges, and get other people to believe them (which right now is sadly rare). Nobody is going to play Big Brother and require everybody to file a consent form before they get it on. But shifting from “no means no” to “yes means yes” means that people will look differently at a lot of scenarios that, right now, don’t get recognized as rape and should.

            Case in point: this post, with three instances that might all have been prevented if the guys had been taught — not just told, but raised in the solid understanding — that they need a green light before they proceed.

            Because the problem with “she only has to express the occasional No” is that such defenses do absolutely no good for women who are asleep or drunk or otherwise incapable of expressing their refusal.

        • Anonymous

          Thank you for accepting my anonymous comments. To way overstate things, I’ll use the alias “HG” from the Hermione Gingold character in Gigi, as I’m a very old lady who has had lovers (and wannabes) in a variety of cultures and continents.

          Always, however, for my own sincere pleasure. At some stages it may be necessary to encourage the man with some positive feedback. But at the stage being talked about here … well, a requirement of words or even non-verbal ‘enthusiasm’ would, what do they say, ‘frost’ my own silent passive bliss. Such a requirement is invasive.

          When uncomfortable, to learn to say “No” is a needed safety habit.

          • Marie Brennan

            Thanks for adding an identifier. Sorry for not unscreening your comments sooner; I didn’t notice in e-mail that they had been held for moderation.

            Yes, we need people to feel comfortable saying “No.” And I think the entire yes/no thing does need to be read in the context of the individuals involved: one person’s enthusiasm is another person’s show of disinterest, if that makes any sense. And once you get to know the individual you’re getting it on with, you’ll recognize the signals. But I have to say that if you’re ever in the slightest bit of doubt — whether because your partner is new to you, or something has changed, or whatever — then it’s better to dull the mood a bit by saying “you okay?” or something like that, than to risk hurting them by pushing forward at the wrong time.

      • celestineangel

        It’s the responsibility of anyone seeking sex from you to ask for a yes. It’s the responsibility of anyone seeking sex from you to proceed only after receiving a yes, whether that yes is verbal or non-verbal.

        And it is the responsibility of anyone seeking sex from you to back off and leave you alone if you give a no of any sort.

        If they proceed anyway, then the assault or rape that happens after is not your responsibility, or your fault. Ever. Ever.

        Laying the responsibility on the victim is part of rape culture, and is never okay.

        • la_marquise_de_

          Yes, absolutely.
          We live still with a culture that trains women to feel insecure in their bodies, to blame themselves, to accept outside judgements over their own, and to feel that they are somehow in the wrong when they deny a man access to them. It’s not healthy, and it’s harmful and it’s wrong.

    • Marie Brennan

      That’s really hard, yeah. If I had a friend in that situation . . . if she was happy, I would try to be happy for her, but it would never lose that stain. I’d always be watching for other signs of abuse.

  5. maladaptive

    The estimates put the number of rapists at anywhere from 1 in 13 (Lisak and Miller’s study) to 1 in 6 (McWhorter’s study)*, and the numbers suggest that it’s probably on the higher rather than the lower side. Given that most of us know at least 13 men… yeah.

    IME, it was pretty damn easy to condemn the rapist in our midst when he came to light. I think my reaction was “holy fuuuuuuuuck” when my friend told me what he’d done, no question. It meant I lost a huge section of my friend’s group, but I was so grossed out that they’d keep a rapist among them that I didn’t even mind that much. I do, a little, now– I’m pissed off and disgusted with them and even kind of worried, because he gave me the heebie jeebies (he never hit on me, out of the entire group, “because you’re such an alpha!” another friend said, which I found weird and super-creepy and they thought was kind of charming because I intimidated him). They thought I was reactionary and jumping to conclusions (buh?) but I was like, it’s in my own best interest not to hang out with a rapist. I’m still friends with the victim, but it wasn’t even about supporting my friend and “picking a side.” I mean, I did because that’s what people should do, but quite simply: I was friends with a rapist and he had to go. For my own safety. I would never be able to let my guard down around him, and that defeats the point of being friends.

    I’m sure I have another rapist in my social circle. It just feels so inevitable.

    *These numbers really only studied college-age men.

    • Marie Brennan

      Yeah, I read a post about both of those studies (in fact, I’ve been meaning to post the link). They’re a part of what made it clear to me how much of this boils down to guys not seeing what they do as rape.

      Which . . . I dunno; in a way I find that encouraging? It makes me think that positive education and having a conversation about this can actually make a difference. Maybe that’s optimistic of me, but it helps me get through the day.

      • maladaptive

        I admit I’m not as optimistic, because the studies also show that while the guys don’t think of it as rape, they did know it was wrong and did it anyway– esp. McWhorter’s study (hence why most rapists drug their victims and many of the rapes are premeditated with a lot of setting the scene). They know it’s wrong, or at least, not acceptable, but they justify it to themselves to make it okay.

        I’d like to be optimistic! You know, “all people are inherently good” is a credo I really want to get behind. But I’ve found that people tend to be inherently lazy and really unwilling to call their raping, harassing buddies to task. Which I find almost more hurtful.

        • Marie Brennan

          And that’s why I decided to post this: because the more we say, publicly, that things like that are rape, the more we as a society agree on that fact, the harder it will be to “justify” it, and the easier it will be for people to believe somebody else will have their back if they say what happened was rape.

          Progress may be slow. But it used to be that a lot more people believed there was no such thing as marital rape, and we’ve changed that — not 100%, but a lot, compared to before. We can and will keep pushing.

  6. electricpaladin

    I definitely know a rapist or two. I know guys who have had sex with women who were drunk, or guys who were “fooling around” with girls, and didn’t ask before initiating penetration. I know some girls who have behaved the same way.

    Even though it’s politically useful to say “rape is rape” over and over again, I don’t really think it’s that simple. If both partners are drunk, and in the morning one of them wakes up and feels violated and the other wakes up and recalls, blearily, that it was awesome, does that mean that the first was not raped? If one person feels raped, does that mean that the other person is automatically a rapist, regardless of the circumstances? Heck, what if *both* partners feel violated in the morning? Does that make them both rape survivors and both rapists? What about situations where someone doesn’t *give* consent, but also doesn’t have the guts to vocally *deny* consent? I know that it’s generally helpful to consider that a bad idea – I’ve been to all the college sex talks – but what if neither of the partners feels violated?

    The problem seems to be that on some level “rape” is the crime, and commensurate penalties for the perpetrator and support for the victim, that we attach to the feeling of “sexual violation.” In very few other situations do we attach permanent labels like “rapist” to the consequences of one party’s feelings. If I cut you off in traffic, no matter how mad and frustrated you are I don’t have to spend the rest of my live laboring under the label “jerk” or “bad driver.”

    Now, this is getting complicated, because I don’t really mean to compare rape to poor traffic etiquette. Sexual violation is a terrible thing that has the potential to haunt a person for a very long time. And, of course, when I say that there is complications or a gray area, I’m only talking about complicated cases. There are many extremely uncomplicated cases of rape.

    The thing is, I recall a lot of weird stuff. I recall how in some states if a man and a woman are both drunk when they have sex then the man is automatically a rapist, because drunk people can’t give consent, and of course it’s the man’s fault, right? And I think about all the times that anyone has ever had a feeling that didn’t match my interpretation of reality. I like to think “well, I’m way too scrupulous about acquiring consent all the time for anyone to ever accuse me of being a rapist.” But then, I’m also pretty scrupulous about saying what I mean and being straightforward with my friends, and I have ex-friends.

    I’m also aware that there was a lot of male privilege in that paragraph, because my concern is whether or not I’m going to be unfairly accused of a crime, not whether or not I’m going to be coerced into sex through emotional or physical violence. I’m still comfortable with my statement – being wrongly accused of a crime would really suck, and I don’t think anyone would disagree with that – but I thought it was a good idea to acknowledge it.

    It seems to me that we should disentangle violation and rape. Violation is a feeling that requires love and support to overcome – sometimes a lot of it. Rape is a crime with civic penalties. One person can feel violated in a situation in which there is not a clear enough case for civic penalties. One person’s feelings don’t necessarily reflect another person’s reality. If civic authorities judge that rape has occurred, than civic penalties should be pursued. If someone feels violated, than they were violated and deserve all the support they need, regardless of the situation’s “reality.”

    That said, the political problems are a lot denser than this, because as long as there are douche-nozzles like Todd Akin out there we are going to have a hard time getting those civic penalties and needed support to the right place. I don’t think disentangling violation and rape is going to happen until we have something that more closely approximates justice.

    • lokifan

      What about situations where someone doesn’t *give* consent, but also doesn’t have the guts to vocally *deny* consent?

      If someone doesn’t give consent, it is in fact rape. That is the definition. And ‘the guts’ is a fairly loaded, unpleasant term.

      Plus, the idea that a woman’s feelings don’t match reality… it has a lot of unpleasant baggage. It’s also worth remembering that the rate of rape reportage is so low that the chance that a woman reports the crime based on vague feelings is tiny – I’ve tended to go over and over things in my mind, ‘did that actually happen? Did I do this? Does that really count?’ when I’ve been molested/harassed, and I think the same is true for a lot of women.

      Look, I don’t want to attack you or anything, but – the idea of rape as something that happens in the rapist’s mind/body as opposed to the victim’s, who just gets vague feelings of violation, just has so much unpleasant baggage and is strongly tied to all this ‘violent rape is rape, other kinds not so much’ rubbish.

      • brooksmoses

        Plus, the idea that a woman’s feelings don’t match reality… it has a lot of unpleasant baggage. It’s also worth remembering that the rate of rape reportage is so low that the chance that a woman reports the crime based on vague feelings is tiny – I’ve tended to go over and over things in my mind, ‘did that actually happen? Did I do this? Does that really count?’ when I’ve been molested/harassed, and I think the same is true for a lot of women.

        As I understand it, that’s kind of the point. The idea that a woman can feel violated, regardless of whether it was “actually rape” or not, means that that you can address the violation without having to have a solid answer for “does it really count as molestation/harassment/rape/whatever?” or “is this something that would get taken seriously if reported as a crime?”.

        But this also only works in a paradigm in which one considers that things in people’s heads matter, deeply. If a person is suffering from PTSD, that traumatic stress is really real, regardless of what caused it. If a person is suffering from PTSD because of a sexual act, does it matter whether it was consensual or rape or something borderline? Should we require that the sex be non-consensual and be able to clearly say “you were raped” before we treat that violation and harm to the victim as real?

        Edit to add: I recognize how this can come across as minimizing the rape as “feelings of violation”, if you aren’t coming at it from a perspective where you aren’t using “feelings of violation” to mean “all the damage that happens to a person when they are raped”. Which is a bit of using it as a term of art, and why I wouldn’t make this point except in thoughtful conversation with lots of caveats.

    • Anonymous

      “It seems to me that we should disentangle violation and rape. [….] Rape is a crime with civic penalties.”

      I’m a woman and a feminist, and I agree with this. The government should stay out of my uterus — and not try to read my mind, either. Whether a man committed a crime, should not depend on my secret thoughts and feelings at that time, if I couldn’t be bothered to try to communicate them at that time.

      Perhaps the definition of a ‘crime’ shouldn’t depend on either party’s intentions, but on both parties’ objective actions.

      • Marie Brennan

        “If I couldn’t be bothered to try to communicate them at that time” doesn’t at all match the description I’ve heard from rape survivors, though. That makes it sound like oh, it’s such a hassle to say “please don’t do this.” It wasn’t a hassle. They were intimidated or scared or too drunk/drugged to be clearly aware of what was happening.

        The government isn’t going to try to read your mind, anyway. They aren’t going to come busting down the door to prosecute a guy for raping you unless you tell them you were raped. That’s your decision to make. If you don’t think what happened merits that kind of response, then you’re 100% free to not press charges, or even tell anybody about the incident. But if you do feel like you were raped . . . well, right now we have no shortage of people who will tell you that you misunderstood what was happening, or really wanted it, or are to blame for how things went. And that’s a problem.

        As for intentions vs. actions, we have a lot of differences about that enshrined in our laws, not just in the case of rape. Negligent homicide and pre-meditated murder are very different things, and get prosecuted differently. But if we push the idea that “yes means yes,” that can reduce the fuzziness a lot: if one of the parties involved doesn’t take the action of indicating consent, then you have turned the wrong way down that particular street.

        • Anonymous

          From HG.

          “If I couldn’t be bothered to try to communicate them at that time” was a reference to the Swedish police record in the Assange case. One of the women had a conversation with him about condom and HIV, but then dropped the subject, later telling police that she “couldn’t be bothered” or “couldn’t be arsed” to tell him to stop (depending on which translation of her Swedish report to the Swedish police).

          A simple “No” or “No condom, no sex” could have prevented a cross-cultural tragedy.

          • Marie Brennan

            Okay, that’s one case. It does not describe the vast majority of rapes.

          • mollydot

            My understanding is that she had communicated that a number of times already. I would take couldn’t be bothered/arsed to include the reasoning that there was no point, he wasn’t going to pay attention anyway.

    • maladaptive

      I recall how in some states if a man and a woman are both drunk when they have sex then the man is automatically a rapist

      Actually, I just took the bar so I know this, and generally if a man is drunk he can’t be a rapist because rape is a specific intent crime, and drunk people can’t form mens rea. So while this may be true in some states because state law can diverge from common law, they’re unusual enough that it makes me raise my eyebrows. I sincerely doubt it’s that cut and dried.

      And the false claims of rape happen at about the same rate for false claims of other crimes, so if you’re not worried about being falsely accused of robbing somebody with a gun, you probably shouldn’t worry about being falsely accused of raping someone, either.

      What about situations where someone doesn’t *give* consent, but also doesn’t have the guts to vocally *deny* consent?

      The person who acted without first getting consent is a rapist. Full stop. Consent is never, ever assumed as something that must be explicitly withdrawn– it’s something that has to be given in the first place. This is also a good rule of thumb for interacting with other people! i.e., don’t touch them before you have their go-ahead that you can. The idea that “she didn’t say no loud enough” buys into the idea that women (generally, though men can be victims of rape too) are public property and you can do what you want with them unless otherwise specified.

      • rachelmanija

        Actually, I just took the bar so I know this, and generally if a man is drunk he can’t be a rapist because rape is a specific intent crime, and drunk people can’t form mens rea.

        Wow, so if a man rapes someone while drunk, he can’t be charged at all? (Let’s assume in this case that the victim was not drunk.)

        • maladaptive

          The laws are, different by state and you can probably be convicted of something or at least have civil penalties, but for the MBE (multistate, so essentially fed common law), yeah. The question was essentially: “dude gets drunk. Girl gets drunk. Dude leads girl to a bedroom and forcefully engages in sexual intercourse her. Which crime can he be convicted of?” The options were “rape,” “no crime,” and two others I don’t remember.

          Hint: the answer wasn’t “rape.”

          I was literally screaming in fury in my living room.

          • rachelmanija

            That is really depressing.

            So if he murdered her, beat her, or stole her wallet while drunk, being drunk wouldn’t let him off the hook for the usual charges, but it would for rape?

            By that logic, is it also impossible to be commit a hate crime while drunk?

          • maladaptive

            If he’s drunk he will still be on the hook for murder/manslaughter, IIRC. Just about each state has a different definition of murder and most of us can’t remember what the degrees are for the exam and I definitely can’t remember them a month after. XD (At least I remember my own state’s….)

            But it’s the difference between intent and not– you can still be reckless and kill someone. All being drunk does is remove the intent. Imperfect self-defense/intoxication are mitigating factors that reduce the degree, but don’t erase the crime itself.

      • Anonymous

        Just a couple of side notes; I don’t want to derail the rest of the conversation.

        (1) As is usual for the MBE, this is an overstatement due to the variance in state laws. In fact, at least fifteen states technically no longer have an offence called “rape” in their statutes; there has been a steady evolution toward graded “criminal sexual assault” — of which statutory rape is one variety, and for which intoxication is not a defense — since the early 1980s. Further, there is usually at least a misdemeanor akin to “inappropriate touching” (and, just like in football, all it results in is the legal equivalent of a five-yard penalty… as, since it’s a misdemeanor, it’s not considered either a sex offense or a “crime of moral turpitude”) for which intoxication is not a defense.

        In short, this is another example of the overemphasis of law school on commercial law taking away from the time necessary to explore foundation topics in criminal law. But that’s a rant for another time.

        (2) At its core, the legal problem is not consent, which is a defense. It is the reliability and admissibility of evidence for both the state of mind and the objective conduct/context at the time “wrongful sexual conduct” took place. Admittedly, understanding this is buried very deeply in parts of the law (and practice) that are not apparent until one is a decisionmaker having to deal with the aftermath.* Remember the old saw that there’s your story, my story, and the cold, hard truth? It’s nowhere near that simple. Rashomon is a vast oversimplification of the problems faced by “nonparticipants” in the aftermath.

        * * *

        None of this is intended to excuse wrongful sexual conduct. It’s not excusable. It is only to point out that in reality, evaluating things after the fact is never as simple as any forward-looking declaration concerning what behavior should conform to makes it seem.

        One could argue — with more than just “some justification” — that law specifically, and society in general, disserves victims of wrongful sexual conduct by not providing an imprimatur of validity to the victims. The problem here, as in so many circumstances, is that punishment and aspiration are not two sides of a coin, but are instead not even in the same currency. It’s silly, and more than a bit counterproductive, to expect law (or society as a whole) to fix after the fact what it couldn’t prevent.

        And I thus cut things off, because going any farther is going to hijack this thread. What I’d like people to take away from this is that there’s a huge difference between “nobody should, and doing so is inexcusable” for anything and actually dealing with a specific instance in which there is an accusation (however well-founded and incontestible) that “x, a real person, did.” And further bound up in all of this is the problematic view of consensual sexual relations in the law… and in society…

        * I was, long before law school. As a commanding officer, I was forced to deal with several sexual-misconduct matters by and against my “children” over the years. After the first incident, I told the wing commander that I’d start enforcing the misguided “homosexual orientation” ground for administrative discharge for consensual thought-patterns just as soon as the Air Force effectively kept the overmacho pilots in other squadrons from preying on my “children.”

      • Anonymous

        From HG.

        “And the false claims of rape happen at about the same rate for false claims of other crimes, so if you’re not worried about being falsely accused of robbing somebody with a gun, you probably shouldn’t worry about being falsely accused of raping someone, either.”

        Unless he often asks people for money, and always carries a gun.

    • celestineangel

      If both partners are drunk, and in the morning one of them wakes up and feels violated and the other wakes up and recalls, blearily, that it was awesome, does that mean that the first was not raped? If one person feels raped, does that mean that the other person is automatically a rapist, regardless of the circumstances? Heck, what if *both* partners feel violated in the morning? Does that make them both rape survivors and both rapists?

      This is why no one should have sex while drunk, ever, period. But people are going to anyway.

      I’m also aware that there was a lot of male privilege in that paragraph, because my concern is whether or not I’m going to be unfairly accused of a crime, not whether or not I’m going to be coerced into sex through emotional or physical violence.

      Which is why it’s easy for you to say it’s not so simple. And you really should not be comfortable with your privilege.

      It seems to me that we should disentangle violation and rape.

      How can we distangle violation and rape? Rape is a violation, of the body and often of the mind and spirit as well. There is no distangling them from each other.

      One person’s feelings don’t necessarily reflect another person’s reality.

      It’s the victim’s feelings that must be the basis of reality in these cases. It is the only way we will ever be able to dispel rape myths and take apart rape culture. This is, again, male privilege speaking. You really should go read ‘s posts on rape… he’s a man who actually gets it.

      It’s a very, very slippery slope when one starts saying “well what about the perpetrator’s feelings? Does he feel like a rapist?” How many rapists feel like rapists? How many men who take advantage of rape culture and rape myths feel like rapists? How far from this until we’re back to “well look at what she was wearing, anyway, obviously he’s not a rapist because the way she dressed made him feel like she wanted it, and his feelings are more important than hers”?

      • Marie Brennan

        How many rapists feel like rapists?

        We’ve got an answer to that question, and it’s a depressingly small number. If you ask guys whether they’ve ever raped a woman, they generally say “no.” If you ask them whether they’ve ever had sex with a woman without her consent, more of them say “yes.” If you ask them whether they’ve ever had sex with a woman in [scenario that involves her not giving consent], a lot more will say “yes.”

        • celestineangel

          That is true, and now that you’ve mentioned it, I do remember reading this, but I don’t remember where. And it just bolsters my point; it has to be the victim’s reality, not the rapist’s, that matters in these cases, because the likelihood of the rapist saying “Oh, yeah, I raped her,” is zero to zilch.

    • Marie Brennan

      I have to ditto that there are a lot of problems with saying “What about situations where someone doesn’t *give* consent, but also doesn’t have the guts to vocally *deny* consent?” If you need “guts” to do something, then you’ve been put into a threatening situation, and the entire thing has already taken a seriously wrong turn.

      I read — I think as a part of the gun-control debate — something pointing out the massive shift in our attitudes toward drunk driving, as a result of concerted social campaigns. It used to be a stock figure of humour, the driver weaving back and forth across the road, narrowly avoiding pedestrians and other cars. That isn’t true anymore, and it isn’t true because we worked hard to make people see it differently. I think the “no means no” campaigns tried that, but I agree with those who say it would be more effective to push “yes means yes.” People should engage with their partners, look for positive confirmation that they do indeed want what’s happening. And then absence of refusal (which can happen for a lot of reasons, many of them bad) won’t be taken as presence of consent.

  7. lokifan

    🙁 Ugh.

    There’s a woman I’m still friends-of-friends with who raped a woman and then publically shamed her when the woman privately accused her of rape. And it’s really shameful and confusing when I (v rarely) interact with her, because I don’t want to be friendly with her, and yet I fear the fight. More significantly, I know this happened is that the rapist forwarded the private email to hundreds of people at their shared arts college and then complained about it to our mutual friend. So there’s something genuinely difficult about making it public or reacting publically, I think. Dunno. 🙁

  8. mrissa

    It is my observation and my personal experience that every time someone in your social circle commits a crime, violent or otherwise, the circumstances vary, and what you have to do varies. Really quite a lot. It’s a good thing to start with the resolution to put the victim first. Sometimes there are peripheral victims who need to be put second, and who they are and how that goes and what it means will vary so much that…yeah. It’s good to have general principles that are sound, but the thought-experiments of what-would-I-do are really not going to get to the heart of the reality of the matter, because the details start to matter so very much.

    • Marie Brennan

      As I said to last night, the reason for running the thought experiments is that it prepares me for the notion that I might actually have that conversation someday. Whereas if I leave it at the vague principle of “We should always listen to the victim and not assume that nice guys wouldn’t do something like that,” I’m going to imagine Generic Nice Guy Who Isn’t Actually Somebody I Know.

      My brain flinches away from even trying to do this. But that’s exactly the reaction I need to be prepared for, so that I will pay attention to the details when they come.

    • mindstalk

      And social circle ranges from “person I play games with or see in groups” to “childhood best friend who saved my kid from drowning”. Not all people can be so easily cut off. And if a former rapist shows remorse or repentance, should they have normal friends again, or should the rest of their lives consist of hanging around other rapists?

      I’m free-associating to why we have the state do law enforcement, rather than vigilante feuds, and whether in social spheres we need more nuanced response than “you did X I’m cutting you off” / “you’re not cutting off Bob who did X, you condone X”.

      • nonnycat

        “and whether in social spheres we need more nuanced response than “you did X I’m cutting you off” / “you’re not cutting off Bob who did X, you condone X””

        Agreed, though I’m not really sure how possible this is in US society with its fucked up attitudes towards rape (clarifying: in relation to survivors coming forward and how they are villified and constantly questioned). I said in an above comment that I think that rehabilitation isn’t impossible, and enthusiastic consent is NOT something that is covered in any sort of education.

        At this point, survivors have been fucked over so much, not taken seriously, etc, that there is a bit of an extreme reaction in the other direction in some circles. I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing, because survivors need support and should absolutely come first. It creates a difficult dynamic, though, in which rapists that may not have realized that what they did actually was rape (because of aforementioned lack of consent coverage; seriously, as a woman, I didn’t know that a lot of things were rape until I got involved with feminist groups, so I really don’t see how we expect x random person to know either) are basically demonized. Because cultural narrative is that rapists are monsters. I don’t think this helps ANYONE, because once you narrate somebody that does “x” as a monster, you make it all the more difficult for ANYONE to address what happened; friends won’t want to hear that someone they care about that may be a kind caring person in other areas is that, and the perpetrator certainly won’t, and on top of that it makes it all-around difficult for survivors to address what happened to them, too.

        • Marie Brennan

          I don’t deny that there are groups and individuals whose reaction is more extreme — for values of the word that include “not caring about the rehabilitation of those who have erred.” But I don’t think I’ve seen anybody arguing for that here. Indeed, the cutting off of people who have done wrong is, within our current context, sometimes the only means of pushing for rehabilitation: the rapist has to believe that what they did was wrong, and one of the ways you communicate that is for there to be negative consequences for him. If everybody else is justifying it and waving it off, such that the guy isn’t getting the message, then maybe all you can do is say “I’m walking away, and here’s why.”

          • nonnycat

            I was actually speaking in regards to general society vs here on your personal blog 🙂

            I definitely agree though. I think rehabilitation is possible but there are a lot of factors that make it difficult to impossible, and they would be way too many to list. I should have clarified I was speaking more on a societal basis vs a personal basis. On a personal basis, no, there’s not a lot of option there and I agree that cutting the person off is often the only reasonable choice.

          • Marie Brennan

            Ah, okay. Thanks for clarifying. 🙂

      • Marie Brennan

        I think it’s going a bit far to equate the kinds of social sanction we’ve been discussing with “vigilante feuds.” Whether or not to cut an individual off depends on the circumstances: the person, how well you know them, what exactly they did, what signs they show of understanding their error and making amends, etc. What’s been under discussion here has generally been “Hmmm, Friend A feels unsafe around Friend B because of what Friend B did. Who takes priority here?” Assuming equal weights of friendship, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying we should prioritize the needs of Friend A.

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