10 Tips to Prevent Rape

[coldwed]

Should this leaflet be handed out to the public?

www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2141096

You can't consent whilst you are sleeping. Thus it's impossible to give prior consent.

Rape in marriage does happen. Women in the situation often go into denial because they will have to upset the whole of their lives if they face what is going on, also the view that men have the right to access their wives' bodies is one that dies hard amongst both men and women.

That would be one thing that I would say this pamphlet is missing, it seems to focus on acquaintance rape or stranger rape. "Don't rape your wife" should be on it.

My DH has sexsomnia. He does not sleep anywhere near anyone but me to ensure safety.

I am fully aware of his condition. Because I understand his condition, love him, trust him and enjoy sex with him, if he has sex with me whilst I am asleep it is NOT rape as he has my prior, full and on-going consent. I always wake up during the sex and enjoy it.

I am aware that rape does happen within marriages, however this is not it.

I have no desire to bang on about sexsomnia either, but just to clarify, it is possible to give prior consent. My husband has my full consent at all times. If I need to change that for any reason (ie after childbirth) we will work together as a couple to come up with a solution.

You cannot give prior consent that is considered valid later on, but if you consent you consent i.e for rape to occur they must be penertration where the man knows you do not consent or is reckless as to whether you consent, AND when you do not consent. So if he has sex with you believing you do not consent and in fact you did, it is not rape, and if you are asleep, but consent then it is not rape. But the proir consent does not make a difference as if you changed your mind it would be rape even if you consented when sex began.

yes, it is, sorry SGM.

Lots of girls grow up being told not to walk about after dark, beware of strange men etc. It's made clear that they are vulnerable and shouldn't take risks. Therefore any campaign focused entirely on girls are likely to be redundant as there's little chance they haven't heard it all before.
People do seem more reluctant to aim campaigns at men's behaviour for fear of causing offence. This one seems to be received quite well, perhaps because of the jokey manner.
Wasn't sure about posting this link here, but I think it really shows where efforts should be focused in order to get any king of result. TRIGGER WARNING especially at 4;20.
In this culture posters are going to have minimal effect regardless of who they're aimed at.

And as WindsorTides said on the other thread "we can do something about it"
The turning of women into sex objects has been achieved drip by drip, no we can't stop it immediately, but we can stop it drip by drip. By focusing on mens behaviour and the way boys are socialised.

Do you really not mind your husband penetrating you when you are fast asleep cat?

I don't think it has anything to do with sex. You have to be awake to have sex.

Basically you're saying your body is available to him at all times. Which underlines my point was about how many men and women believe that husbands have rights over their wives bodies.

"we can stop it drip by drip. By focusing on mens behaviour and the way boys are socialised."

And yet on this thread where a man is admitting to penetrating his wife when she is asleep, it is called derailing to challenge him.

Best to ignore and try and get the thread back on track, thunderbolt.
But yes, I understand what you mean.

But it's not off track.

This poster is about challenging men who rape (penetrate women without consent). We've got a man here who penetrates his wife whilst sleeping and sees nothing wrong with it.

The original question was should this leaflet be handed out to the public. Judging by some of the responses here the answer is yes.

The problem with "yes means yes" is that it conflates rape with sex, as if what was rape can be changed to sex with the addition of the word yes. We can see it on this thread where men who penetrate sleeping women can have their behaviour excused by the woman supposedly giving a prior "yes'.

"Yes means yes" still keeps the focus on what the woman is doing and saying rather than looking at the rapist behaviour, which is what the Rape Crisis poster does.

'Yes means yes' is actually very important as it makes it clear that women can and do freely consent to sex when they want sex, and it emphasies the idea of enthusiastic participation and sex as a collaborative pleasure. Even some people who oppose the idea of rape are still starting from the mindset that women don't like sex and that they 'give it' to men who 'get it' from them. THis helps rapists and rape apologists hang on to the idea that a woman who is lying there saying nothing or even silently crying is not actually unconsenting because she hasn't actually said no whereas the Yes Means Yes viewpoint is that if the other person isn't displaying enjoyment and enthusiasm then there's something wrong and sex should stop instantly.

It still promotes the idea that rape is the result of some kind of confusion on the part of the rapist, like he couldn't really know that his victim didn't like or want what he was doing, and that he wasn't aware that he was harming her. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rapists act with the intent to hurt.

Yes, they do act with the intent to hurt, but in a culture which accepts that enthusiastic participation is the bare minimum you can expect from a sexual encounter the rapist who tries to excuse himself on the grounds that 'she didn't say no' will not get any sympathy.

Yes, there is this idea that men cannot understand the fact thta a woman can say yes to sex, they seem to be told that women pretend they do nto want sex so they have to look for hidden codes like short skirts. A female writer in the guardian complained about the slutwalks saying she wished these women would understand how confusing it is for young men to know if they want sex!!! Considering in any one night a woman may pass tens of men, do they really honestly believe these women are consenting to have sex with every single one of them just because she is wearing a short skirt. It really is as if the idea of a woman having sexual preferences for a particular man is foreign to them as obviously no woman really finds sex attractive.

and to add on to Kelly's post, if women do show an interest in sex then they are often still denounced as sluts. No win. This is particularly insidious as it means women, especially young women who may not be that confident, are stopped from expressing their sexuality.

SGM - I agree it would be good to try and start an MN campaign.

'yes means yes' is good as long as the message is very explicit in what it means. No means no changed from what should have been a very clear message to being used to excuse the rape of unconscious women, or women too scared to actually say the word no. The difficulty is finding something that can't be twisted like that. Slogans can be great, but they can be prone to being twisted due to being too simplistic.

How about "Don't rape women or girls". That's more to the point.

Great slogan. Cue the flurry of posts from offended men.

There's no getting around it, if we want to make any difference then mens feelings can't be the main consideration.

"Don't rape women or girls" will have the wotaboutthemenz contingent hopping mad because, well, wotaboutthemenz who get raped and men get raped too you know, so let's concentrate on them, because the tiny number of rape victims who are male, deserve much greater attention than the much greater proportion of female victims because unless they are in prison, they don't really deserve it and it isn't what they're for wheareas with females... etc. etc.

I think you are just generalising all men now.

We do not look for hiden meaning and if my wife comes on to me I do not call her a slut.

Rape is wrong Simple.

And mens feelings are not the main consideration.

But I have read over my husbands shoulder and watched some of you attempt to savage him on here.

HE posted on here with a sensible post and was called a rapist.

He is actually not particularly fussed about being called a name. But I am fucking enraged at the behaviour of some of you on this thread. Right up to the point where I have created an account of my own and am here to state that I do consent to having sex with my sleeping husband.

I am awake well before he penetrates me and can easily give him a shove and a bugger off if I so chose. I welcome his sleeping sexy side as he has sex in a very different way to when he is awake. Not better sex just different sex.

Well now you know how I feel. hopefully this can be the end of it and this thread can get back to something akin to sense.

Catgirl1976 drop me a line dear you and I could probably share a few laughs.

To be fair, men do get raped. I'm not saying we should obsess about that, but it's a bit daft to exclude them.

I prefer "don't rape anyone."

Get's the point across fairly nicely.

And something that talks about consent. But tricky to work out how and have it be catchy.

Yes, good, let's get back to the conversation we were having before.

Agree that 'yes means yes' is not quite free from the idea it's all about perception and confusion - poor men didn't know that no means no, let's clear that up, sort of thing.