to wonder about the definition of rape

[Justforlaughs]

Partly inspired by the thread about rape being common, I was wondering what people class as rape. Two examples, that I would be interested in your views on. Would either/ both of these class as rape or not.

1. Girl goes to stay at friends house, gets drunk. Friend goes to bed. Girl goes to bathroom, friends DP comes in and wants to have sex. Girl doesn't want to but being very drunk doesn't want to wake her friend up so doesn't scream or fight, just says no repeatedly. She does mean, no, but they have sex anyway.

2)Girl goes to a house party, gets drunk. Goes to bed with her boyfriend and passes out. Wakes up in the same bed, no sign of boyfriend but there are 3 other boys/ men in the bed with her. They say that they all had sex with her when she was out cold. She doesn't remember anything, but they say that she didn't protest.

So what does the mumsnet jury think?

Same thing happened to me tippy. I froze too. I thought for a while i was dreaming.

*The responsibility is for men not to rape. The fault for a rape happening lies 100% with the rapist. There is not one single thing a woman does that can make a normal, decent non-rapist man rape her. There is nothing a woman should have to do to stop herself being raped, because not being raped or at threat of rape should be the automatic default of every second of her life.

Yes, we all take precautions to avoid dodgy situations, but the responsibility for the crime is never the victim's. However they behave, whatever they do, whatever they wear or don't wear, whatever they say or don't say, wherever they go or don't go - they do not make another adult choose to violate them. It really is that simple*.

This. 100% this. Always.

Spikeytree my darling, it was not one iota your fault. It doesn't matter what you were wearing, which direction you were walking, whether or not you had been drinking, what you did or said. All the fault, all the blame, 100% of it, lies at the feet of the despicable rapist scum who attacked you. Please believe us all, and please please get some help. You don't have to live like this. IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT.

Very droll Cailin

No, it was this research. If you choose to rip it to pieces because you believe, on principle, that we should not discuss any potentially risk-reducing information with young women then fine - that is your opinion.
I personally believe that any information or research is beneficial.

No one has said that rape victims are to blame. OR that they are somehow negligent if they have done/not done anything on the list of risk-avoiding tips.

Clearly this is an upsetting subject. However, Picking people to pieces and insulting and chasing off anyone who offers a few more links and a few less 'Huns' does nothing for the cause. THAT is also rather upsetting to see - that people who try to support and inform are being alienated and ridiculed.

You want to use this research to inform when you don't agree with the premise of the research? What information does the research give apart from "don't cry when you're raped?"

OK, I am NOT reading all of this thread because the first & last pages have already made me very angry.

I've averted probable rapes, at various different times, by fighting, by talking, and by running away screaming. One of the talking incidents also involved freezing. The man had a knife on my throat, and I am PROUD of having successfully saved my own life by appearing to submit, then make friends with him.

The rapes I have not averted were conducted once by drugging me, and twice by husbands with whom I was having consensual sex before they decided to force other stuff on me. In the two marital cases, I had to lie still and whimper because any sudden movements would have caused massive internal injuries - I was injured anyway.

HOW FUCKING DARE anybody imply that women who get raped are doing something wrong, and/or that certain responses to attack imply consent, in the name of all that's holy??!

Some commentators, it seems, would prefer me to need a stoma for life than to have submitted. I can assure them I was raped anyway

Gangsters would you agree that rape victims choose to cry and freeze as a resistance strategy?

• No I wouldn't. Why?

Cheers for that, Gangsters. Clearly you'd like me to have been raped then had my throat cut.

Rape isn't a 'sex crime' rape is a violent assault. Perhaps the most violent assault you can commit against another person.

There are no degrees of rape either.

Whether the victim of this violent assault is drunk, drugged etc has no bearing on the crime committed. If a man puts his penis into you without consent it's rape.

I'm sorry OP that this has happened to you and I hope you are supported and are ok.

I can see both sides to this argument, but I really don't think it is a bad thing to think about what you might do before something like this happens. It's pretty useless and upsetting once it's already happened, but there's nothing wrong with making a plan for the future.

I know how it feels. I am pretty confused over what happened to me, but the next time I will shout or do something aggressive. Maybe having a solid plan of action in mind will make it easier not to freeze up. Maybe knowing in advance what you will shout will make it easier to shout it?

I don't know. All I know is, when I was put in that situation, I couldn't think how to get it to stop. It seems obvious now that I should have done this or that, but at the time, I didn't.

I just don't think it's a bad thing to think about what you could do, to have some basic self defense skills. It doesn't mean it will help or that it's your fault if you were too stunned to use them.

I see what you're saying binks but as garlic illustrated every situation is different and doing a certain thing might save you in one situation and get you killed in another. You have said yourself that the advice out there has made you question your actions. So the only effect it has really had is to make you doubt yourself.

I just don't think it's a bad thing to think about what you could do, to have some basic self defence skills.

Those defence skills might not always be what you assume, Binks. I was taught, thank goodness, and a very large part of the training was to try and evaluate how your attacker is thinking. With some rapists, for example, the best thing to do is piss yourself. Others will lose their urge if you play eager to have sex. There's a bundle of different styles, and nobody can tell if you'll be able to appraise the threat correctly ... until it happens. You actually have to trust your fear, as described in "The Gift Of Fear", which makes victim-blaming critics uncomfortable.

The vast majority of rapes are perpetrated by a small number of multiple offenders. They carry on raping, because they believe society condones it. They believe this because so many normal folks say it's not rape if she doesn't fight, it's the victim's fault if she was drunk or pretty, blah blah. The way to not get raped is to stop these rapists raping. And refusing to feed into their social 'permissions' would be a worthwhile start.

Oh, cross-post, Cailin. Yes!

I am sorry for your situation garlic. But that is not the case. Verbally abusing me isn't going to achieve anything so can we cool it down?

Did I misunderstand your reply to Cailin, Gangster?

You've been taught Garlic? And had training?

So you have learnt some self protection skills? We're they not useful at all?

That's not what has made me question it. What has made me question it is knowing that I didn't do what I should have done. I know that doesn't make it my fault - it's a reaction, a secondary action to someone else's primary action. If they weren't trying to do this, I wouldn't have had to do anything ergo I am not responsible for the situation occurring. But I do wish that it had been impressed on me more strongly beforehand that it was ok to shout and make a fuss if I felt put upon.

It's all an individual situation though. You assess the best thing to do in whatever situation. In mine, it could have been helped by me being more aware that I might panic and to have maybe even practiced yelling something so that I could do it as a reflex when I needed to.

I'm a strong, confident woman. I assumed that I'd figure it out for myself if it ever happened. Actually, it all happens so quickly that it's important to think about things you can do to protect yourself so you remember them in that weird state.

Binks when you say "i didn't do what i should have done" what do you mean?

This only happened very recently so I'm still processing it. But I don't feel that I did enough to get away, out of politeness, of all things. So for that reason, I do think it's important that people know it's ok to kick up a massive fuss if someone starts getting fresh with them. And practice something they can say, because their mind might go blank when it comes to the event.

That fact can coexist with it not being my fault.

Well it's a subtle difference but the way i see it is if you could have done something differently you would have. You did what you could to get through. You never know maybe if you were less polite you might have been badly injured or killed. It wasn't and never will be possible to know what the exact right thing was. Nothing you did made him rape you, that's absolutely certain.

Politeness has a lot to answer for in my opinion.

There's no point advising someone not to cry or not to be in fear because neither of these are under conscious control.

I'd go one further grumpy and say it's rather disgusting to say to women "if you're raped don't cry."

The most recently posted is a research article. It is cold and clinical and factual. It's not written as a support document.

If you (understandably) are not able to be removed emotionally from the literature due to prior experience then such an article is possibly not the best thing to read?

Politeness certainly had a lot to answer for, in my case.

I don't want to be disingenuous; I am not convinced that it was a rape. If it was, it didn't progress to it in the traditional sense. I'd rather not go into the details. As I said, it happened very recently and I'm still mulling it over. It didn't feel like a rape at the time. It felt more like an awkward situation I couldn't think of how to get out of.

Which is why some posters have questioned some of the things that have been said or posted on this thread Gangsters. Clearly many posters aren't able to be removed.

So you have learnt some self protection skills? Were they not useful at all?

Oh, you're not bothering to read my posts are you, Gangster. I guess you must be a bit goady.

Blinks - I agree, politeness does have a lot to answer for BUT it can also be protective. Every single high-alert situation between humans has its own unique qualities. Politeness is designed to ease those situations, and there's no saying it didn't ease yours in the sense that things might have got even worse if you'd behaved aggressively. There's just no saying.

FWIW, I was extraordinarily polite to my guy with the knife. When I told people what had happened, they said "But we saw you sitting talking to him! You bought him a Coke!" I did, yes! I needed him to feel like my best friend, and walk away satisfied we had a date the next day ... my instinct said he could flip at any moment, and I acted for all I was worth until he trusted me. (I had actually asked the drinks vendor to call the police, but don't know whether he did. They never turned up.)

Another time, though, I stuck my thumb in someone's eye. Have you read this?