No, it's not difficult to avoid raping people. Provided that everyone says what they mean and nobody is influenced by cultural expectations and assumptions, there is no reason why it shouldn't be easily avoided. But then there are situations like the one that happened to a good friend of mine, who had sex for the first time purely because the woman made it clear that she expected him to keep going and he, for complicated reasons to do with insecurity and not wanting to cause hurt, didn't feel able to state that he'd rather not.
Since it hadn't occurred to her that he might want to stop, she didn't know he felt coerced. But nevertheless she was coercive and he felt manipulated. His body performed but his mind was wretched. He felt so upset afterwards that he threw up and still can't really talk about it.
Also, I think some people are vested in insisting that consent is a very complex thing that hardly anybody understands so nobody can be blamed for being a rapist
That's not why I'm interested in thinking it can be complex. I can't see why any woman would want to get a rapist off. If our culture understood that consent can be complex, we might be able to raise our expectations of men. Simplifying things right down to 'no means no' lets a lot of coercion go on under the radar and I'm not sure all of it is consciously perpetrated by the male individuals in question, because our culture is so messed up to start with. A first step to untangling things might be an acknowledgement that any shared decision can be complex.
At the moment, it seems like the best we can do is to insist on men's immediate acceptance if we say no to tea. A better understanding of consent might lead to wider definitions of rape - for example, we have discussed that it's sometimes coercive to even offer a cup of tea to someone who is no fit state to refuse it, or who has already made it obvious they don't want it.
I feel it's a also a big issue that some women don't feel able to refuse tea, especially if someone has gone to the trouble of putting the kettle on, as it were. She may not feel able to refuse because she has been consciously manipulated into a situation in which she won't feel able to refuse, in which case the man is being coercive and his actions should be part of our conversation about rape. But that is much too complex for the tea analogy. Or he may have nothing to do with her reluctance to refuse tea and her feelings are down to something else entirely. It may be that even if he asked a straight question, she would not have felt able to refuse. In those circumstances, he is not guilty of trying to get her into those circumstances but he would still be having sex with someone who doesn't want it and doesn't feel able to say so. She may (accurately) define it as rape but I'm not sure that it would make him a rapist.
Yes sparrowhawk I absolutely do think that there are men out there who would recognise resistance but genuinely can't always pick up on a lack of enthusiasm. Perhaps that's because I come from a straight-laced culture where men are expected to take the lead and women aren't necessarily expected to contribute much. Combine that with a perceived cultural expectation by men that women expect them to keep going unless asked to stop and perhaps a woman who doesn't feel able to say she wants to stop for reasons that are more to do with the culture than any specific man, and you have a sorry mess.
In response to your question about my sex life, I appreciate your concern but genuinely don't think there is a problem. The incident I described was indeed an example of spectacularly bad communication which is why I still remember it. My DH is like yours in hating the thought that I mightn't be keen, hence his shocked reaction to my tears. I find it hard to think of nothing else, even if I'm really enjoying sex and don't think this is unusual. Sometimes we're in tune with each other, sometimes not so much and we do work on that.