Aibu to think rape is not merely about power and sometimes is just about sex?

BastardBernie sorry to hear about what happened. You articulate very well the mindset in such attacks. I think the power is always there and the abuser is always aware of the power they hold; the choice to carry out the attack is a choice to exert that power.

I don't want to derail the thread to focus on Ched Evans case, but it's being used here as a case that highlights so called problems or misunderstandings of consent (like the current thread about Bill Crosby). In the transcript X was reported to have said "fuck me harder".
If there's potential for what I'm loathed to refer to as mixed messages regarding consent, then there's an understanding that there's power play going on.

In the NHS, patients have to give informed consent to essentially give up some of their autonomy - i.e. be made vulnerable by taking their clothes off or being held unconscious for surgery. I don't fill in the blanks or infer things from patients because I recognise that 1. they have personhood and 2. are particularly vulnerable in that setting. We used to just "I won't understand Dr, you know best just do whatever". That's not good enough.

Men aren't upholding those above principles when they take a woman who is drunk back to a premier inn, tell their friends to join them, leaving her with your friend whilst telling the night clerk on the way out look out for her as she's too pissed and unwell.

Bastard, sorry to hear about your experience.

I think that any time one human attempts to exert their will over another's to that person's detriment, it's about power. They may not obviously be thinking 'hey, I'm on a power trip' but that is what they're doing.

To take another example: a teacher wants a pupil to sit down and be quiet. (I'm a teacher, so this isn't a teacher bashing example). They have a certain amount of power over that child because of the teacher/pupil scenario. A bit like men have more power than women, so it's easier to exert their control.

The act of making a child sit quietly is not a bad thing, and can be a good thing (just like sex) but there can be times when it's not the right thing, or the teacher does it in a wrong way, or even when the teacher is doing it just to prove that they have the power to, and they even embarrass the pupil in how they do it. BUT - in many, many of the possible ways that a teacher can make a pupil sit down, the only one which engages the pupil respectfully and includes consent is the teacher saying "would you like to sit down?" and the pupil saying "yes". It is ONLY if the pupil gives consent that it isn't some tacit display of the power differential between teacher and pupil. When the teacher actually engages with the pupil, and asks, and listens to the pupil's response, it isn't about a power play.
That's what we need to teach about consent. Any person who has more power/authority than another, and just carelessly assumes that then can exert it, no matter how much they do so gently, is in a power play situation.

I'm a sufferer of an attack many moons ago as a child.
I'm common as muck ( ) so excuse the lack of correct terminology; the only way I can try and digest it is that the abuser shows intent, their advance gets rejected, embarrassment/frustration for abuser "how dare they refuse me" harder show of intent (be it coercion or otherwise) and finally attack.
It may not start as a power trip but what they resort to and the journey to the attack is.
Sorry if I'm on the wrong track here.

This thread isn't about a specific case. That poster seems quite obsessed with it and keen to divert the discussion though.

In his witness account Ched Evans said that the complainant enthusiastically consented.

Of course, because it was his word against hers and he was going to get done for rape. That doesn't mean he's not lying.

He may well have lied. But the complainant said she couldn't remember the incident. So who said that he didn't talk to her ? I can't recall now what the original co-defendant said.

More important

If I remember right That poster always pops up whenever Ched is mentioned.

I have 2 DS, they are 12 & 10.
I have already started conversations about consent.

Rape is always about power, as it is disregarding another human being's wishes because you feel your needs are more improbably. You can do this because you are stronger.

That poster appears to be quite an odd individual, especially cropping up on a thread about rape purely to make that comment.

In his witness account Ched Evans said that the complainant enthusiastically consented.

Of course, because it was his word against hers and he was going to get done for rape. That doesn't mean he's not lying.

Isn't it possible that for some men they simply want sex and don't actually give a shit one way or another what the victim is thinking.

But that's still all about power. Taking sex from someone whether they want to give it or not

If it was just about sex they could masturbate but they don't, they assault a woman and do things to her body against her will.

I've been known to enthusiastically eat a doner kebab when plastered.

In his witness account Ched Evans said that the complainant enthusiastically consented.

'Because men dont get it' or 'because men use a lot of porn and think thats what sex is' is not a good enough reason to change the legal definitions.

There are 3 kinds of rape. Anger, power/control, and sadistic.
The type of porn fuelled rape you are talking about is a power rape. He wants what he wants and he's going to get it, regardless of consent. If you say no he wants to win you round or wear you down.
Plus he gets the thrill of exerting his 'dominance'.

Anger rapes tend to be the 'jump out of a dark alley' type of rape. He wants someone to take it out on.
Sadistic rapes involve using the victim as a receptacle for various bodily fluids, and inflicting injury. They tend to be the rarest type but also used to have the highest rate of prosecution, because there tends to be so much evidence.

Ched Evans is not a good example of someone raping "without realising it".
Ched Evans is a good example of just how crap some men are at getting consent, or a good example that some men don't care if they have consent.
He didn't even bother to speak to his victim.

But rape is an exertion of power, control and an expression of contempt for women and girls, no matter the circumstance it occurs in. It's a complete disdain for women and girls and lack of respect for our bodily autonomy and us as people. Whichever way an individual looks back on rape, it was control and he had the power to exert to carry it out.

If men who rape their partners or women they meet on a night out aren't seeing it that way and are seeing it as "they just really wanted sex" then they're denying the reality. If all they want is sex and they'll go to any lengths to get it then they're happy to use and exert power and control over women and girls. This isn't making it easy to see them as monsters in my opinion but shows how worryingly common this is amongst normal men.

Some men they simply want sex and don't actually give a shit one way or another what the victim is thinking.

They don't care what the women are thinking because the women that they rape are objects and objects aren't afforded personhood. I agree that these men and of course many women, might not think that this is rape, but this is because of the myths and notions of "natural order of things" which underpin why women are subjugated based on the biological realities of being female.

The first time I was sexually assaulted (I've been groped more than once), I was walking to school in my school uniform and was dragged down a residential cul de sac by three men; my Grandma still says things like "well if you lead a man on by going to his house then you are obligated to give him what he wants" and "oh goodness I'm so glad I've got all granddaughters, they'll get married and not have the pressures of making decisions in life like you have with boys".

Teaching consent fights the cultural notions that men should be sexually assertive as to demonstrate their masculinity; that forcing women to have sex is part of a broader "natural order of things"' - not only for men as something that they must do because biology, but also the notion that the little erratic woman indoors can be controlled and rationalised by it and actually ask for it/deserve it and then as we see with Scarlett O'Hara, they'll actually enjoy it.

TLDR: In teaching men about consent, we're teaching them that women are not biological objects designed for male sexual gratification.

On the relationship board you'll see men who try it on nicely at first and then move on to coercion which makes me think again that this is just sex for them because they'd happily get it the easy way if possible.

But that's power. That's not taking no for an answer, not considering what the other person wants or valuing their wants/needs.

Is it possible for a man to rape without realising it? Well - Ched Evans.

Tbf I think it was a tie in (no pun intended) to 50 shades of shit

I find this kind of thing very worrying. I have no issue with people expressing their own sexual desires and being free to do so, but this book and film seem to have enforced the idea it's natural for women and girls to crave being submissive and controlled by men which is extremely worrying. Why is it only this brand of "kink" which has become mainstream, not women and girls being dominant?

I think the messages being absorbed by mainstream pornography are extremely worrying. There is a lack of understanding of consent generally - this doesn't simply mean consenting to sex but that acts within that also require consent. Consenting to sex doesn't mean consenting to a boy acting out any violent scene he's learnt from pornography, or all kinds of sex. Kissing isn't giving consent. There is a concerning lack of awareness of this amongst many in my opinion.

At the same time, rape jokes and use of them and comments about rape are used regularly by some boys, showing they've already learnt rape is about power and control, their power over women and girls, something they will always hold over us. A reminder that no matter what, it's an option open to them.

I don't see rape as a generational thing in general. A man who attempts to initiate sex with a partner, is declined, persists and makes the decision to rape is knowingly using his power in that situation and showing his contempt for women in viewing them as existing for his own gratification.