"Rape...is not caused by rapists" WTF!?!

[Unacceptable]

If you aren't aware of the rapist Brock Turner and the campaigners who think he's getting a hard time, have a read of this guardian link.

AIBU to think that the statement from Leslie Rassmussen decrying political correctness that harms poor boys like Brock is the dumbest piece of shit I've ever read?

Even in their drunkest, most ridiculous states my Husband, Brothers and adult sons would not rape a woman because, and I'm sure Leslie wouldn't want to entertain this notion, they wouldn't rape somebody because they aren't rapists!!!!

Brock clearly is.
Having sex without consent is rape.
Forcing yourself upon an unconscious person is rape.

You don't have to be a stranger in a dark alley to do that, just your normal, average, everyday twat.

I know it is hard to accept the wrongdoings of a loved one.
I know we'd all fight to protect those we care about but you can still fucking accept the mistakes that people make...even if you can't get your head around it, don't bury your head in the sand and pretend it's less of an abuse because 'he's a nice guy'.
When will people wake the fuck up?

Link: gu.com/p/4kk46/stw

Rape is about someone forcing themselves on a person (of either gender)

No it isn't. In the UK, rape is about someone being penetrated by a penis against their consent. So, only men can rape.

^The elements of rape are: A) intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis;
(B) does not consent to the penetration, and
(A) does not reasonably believe that (B) consents^ (www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/rape_and_sexual_offences/soa_2003_and_soa_1956/#a09)

Coercion and manipulation into sex against someone's will is still rape. See this section of the CPS Rape Myths. In fact you should read the whole page gone. There is also some good stuff in there about drunkenness and consent.

www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/rape_and_sexual_offences/societal_myths/#a5

I really wish you would stop pushing these myths on threads like this. Consent is not difficult. Saying it is and promoting myths like rape requires force is rape apologism and if you care at all about victims of rape you need to stop.

Consent is not difficult. Saying it is and promoting myths like rape requires force is rape apologism and if you care at all about victims of rape you need to stop.

Quite.

Yy to Felas

FelasCloak, I have just been reading the CPS page you linked. It is a very good thing that these statements are made by the CPS to make it more possible for people to understand the seriousness of rape and to give victims the chance to report it and prosecute it. In practice though, many people in a desperately unhappy state following unwanted sexual encounters will not be considered to have been raped even when these statements make it seem as though they might be.

rapists use many manipulative techniques to intimidate and coerce their victims
If a manipulative technique were something like "There is something wrong with you, you're cold"; "You wouldn't be with me here in this car of you didn't want it"; "You've led me on and you're a bitch if you don't finish it" "You obviously don't love me", then the person went ahead with the sex, not wanting it, I don't think a court would accept that as rape. Tragically it happens a lot when people are young.

If a girl liked a boy and they were kissing and fondling each other and he began to go further, and she said 'No' but he carried on and she just gave in, even though that was not what she wanted, I think probably the defence would still argue she had consented because she had liked the man, gone into the space with him, been enthusiastically engaged up to a certain point, did not say 'No" vehemently enough, perhaps went on seeing the person in some way later (according to rape myth this should not happen when someone has been raped but in reality the victim is trying to minimise what happened). In actual fact she may be in a terrible state for years afterwards.

Facts:
reactions to rape are highly varied and individual; and
many women experience a form of shock after a rape that leaves them emotionally numb or flat - and apparently calm I think in practice, in many rape cases, the defence appeals to the commonly held myths and juries are swayed by them, at least to the point of having too much doubt to give a guilty verdict. There was a rape case recently involving students where the defence said surely the last place the girl would have gone back to would have been the room where the (alleged) rape had occurred. (It was her room, and she had been drunk and it has been very late when they got back there). The man was acquitted.

Also, in regard to drunkeness, although everyone concedes that someone did not deserve to be raped because they were drunk, their memory of events about a rape may in practice be questioned and the jury may not believe the alleged victim knew whether or not they consented. Similarly, I think I have seen a case where the victim was doubted when she had a history of depression (and think how many young people do.)

Please be clear. What I have said here is not rape apology. also I have used 'she', but the same might apply to boys and men.

kind Please be clear. It absolutely is rape apology. Unfortunately juries don't always find guilty because they've been surrounded by the same culture as the rest of us and are likely to be made up of people with beliefs like you and gone who could acquit them. Doesn't mean that it wasn't rape. If someone didn't consent to penetration by a penis, they've been raped.

If a girl liked a boy and they were kissing and fondling each other and he began to go further, and she said 'No' but he carried on and she just gave in, even though that was not what she wanted, I think probably the defence would still argue she had consented because she had liked the man, gone into the space with him, been enthusiastically engaged up to a certain point, did not say 'No" vehemently enough, perhaps went on seeing the person in some way later (according to rape myth this should not happen when someone has been raped but in reality the victim is trying to minimise what happened). In actual fact she may be in a terrible state for years afterwards. This is disgusting victim blaming. In your hypothetical example, maybe the defence would follow that line, but only because they know there's a high chance that jurors will buy that the poor man got carried away because she led him on. If jurors listened to the guidance and found guilty in those cases, defence barristers would stop trying to use those arguments.

"If someone didn't consent to penetration by a penis, they've been raped. "

Felas, I don't think she's victim blaming. In the example you quoted, the woman 'went along with it' but it wasn't what she wanted. I think she's pointing out the difficulties that someone else may have in determining whether her partner was genuinely under the impression that the woman had consented. It's going to be difficult to prove that she didn't really want to consent.

Mumsnet's We Believe You Rape Myths Busted

Coercion and manipulation into sex against someone's will is still rape.

If you think I don't know this, you are so hyper defensive that you cannot read what's being said.

You are not in a position to decide who gets to think what and speak what felas and I'm not sure I care very much about you 'wish'. I will post exactly what I think on this issue and FWIW, you're not a good judge of what that is, even after apparently reading my posts.

As for what is the legal definition of rape, I'm not going to rubbish the law but let's not be disingenuous. Sexual assault, coercion - it can happen to both genders and doesn't necessarily mean penetrative sex, but is still worth talking about.

olivia if you are trying to close down any discussion on this issue, please say so because I cannot see who is being insulted or not believed on this thread.

felas You are being completely irrational. No one is trying to say that it would be ok to make the argument referred to above - it was specified that the defence would argue this.

You come across as being afraid to think and afraid to allow anyone else to think. And frightened about what might be going on in the heads of other women.

I think you need to relax and realise that other women don't want rapists to be acquitted. You and your feminist friends here on the board aren't the only women, or the only people who care about women.

If there are decisions for a jury to make and they are difficult - such as huge sections of memory missing from a victim's experience, that is a problem but I think a great deal of men and women would want to arrive at the truth and see justice being done. I also think that seeing manipulative pressure for what it is could raise the bar on consent issues.

At the moment, if someone gives verbal consent, many people assume that indicates enthusiastic agreement. Yet that consent could have been given in an atmosphere of coercion which would make it more complicated than whether or not the victim said 'yes' or 'no'. Yet you, for your own reasons, seem devoted to the idea that acknowledging any kind of complexity like this will weaken a victim's case and constitute that one size fits all phrase (which has now weakened through inappropriate over-use) 'rape apology'.

Even if you don't agree, you aren't the oracle. We all have sex. We all have to negotiate that. We're mostly all women and we all have consciences. There's something coercive about a small group of women trying to tell every other woman what's good for them and what's 'right' - what to think about all sorts of issues relating to intimacy, principle and conscience. It's not on.

@gonetoseeamanaboutadog

olivia if you are trying to close down any discussion on this issue, please say so because I cannot see who is being insulted or not believed on this thread.

Never ever here to close down discussion not what we're about at all.
We had a request via a report, for the WBY myth busting, it is VERY busy this evening and so we quickly obliged
HTH and apols for brevity.

FelasCloak I did not say I would acquit them. How do you have that impression?

I have been reading of cases where one person after another is acquitted by the judge and jury.

In the Stanford rape case, had the two Swedes not seen what happened, and if say the girl had woken up in the middle of her assault and reported it, Brock Turner would have been acquitted I am 100% sure.

In the case I posted (with the CCTV video) of the girl in Cambridge where the two men carried her off unconscious to rape her and she woke up in a strange flat with her knickers on backwards, she was bruised and she realised she had been raped, had the CCTV not had a film of them carrying her unconscious, they may have been acquitted (if they had been found).
You will see she said people blamed her for being drunk. I didn't.

An Oxford University girl woke up being raped while after she had been unconscious and the police would not even prosecute. She had to see the man day after day, and he was perfectly open about the fact that he'd 'scored'.

In the case I cited of the other student acquitted at Cambridge where the girl went back to her room after the (alleged) rape where he still was, the man got off because "surely she would not have done that'. I was not the prosecution barrister I was not on the jury. I know she might well have done that.

I read a case recently where the girls bi-polar condition was brought to bear on the case and was a factor in discrediting her allegation. That was not my personal choice!

In the stories I related of girls I have known who have gone through with sex owing to manipulation I know it was a horrible for them, and I think of it effectively as rape. They would have felt themselves, however, that they had chosen. if they had tried to make an allegation of rape, I am 99% sure the CPS would either have refused to bring the case to court, or the accused would have been acquitted.

In the case of the girl who said 'No' but then did not stop what happened next etc, there would not have been a case because there would have been no proof - only witnesses that she had liked the person and gone off willingly with him. I meanwhile know she was sexually assaulted/raped.

In the case of the footballer who sexually assaulted the fifteen year old and was convicted, I know he would not have been convicted if he had done exactly the same thing, but when she was sixteen - even if that had been a day later. I did not cite that in an earlier link because that I think that is right. No, I do not think it is.

On other posts a girl wrote about the anal sex their boyfriend expected and how he would watch porn at the same time and how she had felt that is what she had to go along with. I feel that is rape by social pressure.

All these things happen in spite of what is written on the CPS website.

Blimey, some of you have very low expectations of sexual encounters, at minimum.

Like in the case of the previous thread I was on where gone was sharing the knowledge of the grey area, I had sex earlier (yay me). And, again, find myself reading a rape thread where people are arguing for nuances. So, recent encounter leads to reflection.

I don't get it. My willing sexual encounters are so far removed from those that were unwanted (none of which I reported). The difference between my shag tonight & those unwanted encounters is so vast as to be almost a different activity.

What is going on that so many men are so shit at sex that they risk being rapists? I am talking about the grey area argument here, not about the rapists whose focus is rape. The grey area is all about those rapists who don't think they are. But who thinks that the pleasure of the woman they are with is irrelevant when they have an alternative to a sock to masturbate into? What kind of mindset is that? It's not difficult to play the mutual pleasure game. And who can be aroused by being with someone who is not as into it as you are just for your own ends? If you have, you need to have a good look at yourself.

If your reasonable belief in consent is the other party not saying no, you need to get a lot better at the whole sex thing.

Well I don't understand your point then kind. I thought you were saying consent is complicated and using examples to demonstrate your point.
I believe consent is simple and all the situations you describe are rape, no complication about it.
I linked the CPS guidance specifically to respond to gones incorrect point that rape is about force and either gender can be rapists.
I also didn't say you would acquit them, if you read again. I do think that people are more likely to acquit if they believe consent is complicated and that men can innocently find themselves raping someone because of that. Those are the beliefs I thought you held from your post.

gone I'm not defensive or irrational. I think that is called projection

first I totally agree.

This is a circular argument. Those of us who think that rape is almost certainly the most under-reported violent crime, who think that's not a great situation and do what we can to change it also understand that consent isn't a grey area, it either exists or it doesn't.

Those who have some kind of vested interest in the status quo seem to think that consent is massively complicated, with enormous grey areas.

This has absolutely nothing to do with feminism, just by the way. This has to do with a basic understanding of sex, the law and human behaviour.

Suggesting there are grey areas with respect to consent is by definition rape apologism. You are being an apologist for all those men who make that excuse for their rape of women and men. That apologism for violent criminals helps to normalise that behaviour. That normalisation of rapist behaviour perpetuates rape myths. The perpetuation of rape myths means that juries are extremely leary of convicting men of rape. It epitomises the "how can you ruin his life, for 20 minutes of action/a simple mistake?" idea.

It also serves to perpetuate a distinction between Rape Rape and a kind of rape that is in some way different. Not quite rapey enough. And yet, what Brock Turner did was Rape Rape in anyone's book and there are still people trying to find grey areas as a get out clause for him. Go figure.

It also serves to perpetuate a distinction between Rape Rape and a kind of rape that is in some way different. Not quite rapey enough. And yet, what Brock Turner did was Rape Rape in anyone's book and there are still people trying to find grey areas as a get out clause for him. Go figure.

^^

And you know, I have three sons. I understand why people are afraid of any ambiguity and why it feels very threatening to see a "nice boy" who looks like "one of us" in this situation, and why they want to believe that it must be the victim's fault.

This is a powerful statement from a man on why we need to stop so much obfuscation around "grey areas".. around saying "of course it's wrong".. and following it with a BUT....:

www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/stanford-rape-case-irish-males-reaction-to-victim-impact-statement-goes-viral-404531.html

Because what is the function of all this "exploration" of whether women do have bodily autonomy or not, or when they have it, or where they have it, or how they need to assert it, or what lives they need to be allowed own it, or what experiences must they not have had in order to be believed? We can say it's "discussion" or "debate" but as women when we start the whataboutery we are feeding into narratives that no doesn't always mean no, or consent is complicated.

Charging rape as a crime is complicated... but there are many, many women enduring harm for crimes they KNOW can't be reported in our current culture because of these ifs and buts and maybes.

When it happened to me, I was in the process of coming out as bisexual. To my porny rapist, this meant I was up for anything. My short hair. My piercings. My unusual, non-conforming dress. As obviously, if you are not playing along with society's view of the "nice girl" you have the "soul of a whore" as James Baldwin once wrote... you don't deserve the same respects as someone who might be considered better "wife material".

These are old and deep stories in our culture and there is a disproportionate amount of sexual violence against sexual minorities, people of colour and people living lifestyles that are otherwise non-conforming to views of "femininity" that reflects harmful narratives around who is "worthy" of saying no, and how. These are facts. That is what "The Accused" with Jodie Foster is about.

Let's not kid ourselves that it's all so complex or that making it worthy of debate is bringing anything of any value to the world.

Good point fusion rape is not complicated,consent is not complicated. Prosecuting and convicting is complicated.

You are strangely blinkered in your understanding of how many women live and react to the pressures of society. Feminists are good at saying what they want and despite wanting to protect other women, don't seem able to understand how many women (who are often not as assertive and non-people pleasing in their choices) actually behave. The only kind of sex you seem to know about is enthusiastic sex. Anything else must be rape. Yet people sadly do choose to have sex without feeling enthusiastic about it, and not because their partner has coerced them. Perhap that is simply outside your ken. I can't imagine it happening to you.

It's great that you want to change society, the justice system etc but not great that you are trying to control other women's beliefs and thoughts. You don't know what's best for all women anymore than I do. You're not in a privileged position to pass judgement.

Interestingly on another thread I noticed a women say she'd had some kind of unwanted sexual experience while drunk on several occasions. I understood her to she'd never report it because she simply didn't have the information that either she or the police would require.

fusion thanks for posting. I'm sorry that happened. FWIW though I'm sure your rapist would still have found an excuse why his behaviour was OK however you dressed/behaved. Horrible man.

gone why don't you post your experience of sex on the relationship board and see what response you get? Because this really isn't a feminist thing. It's a human decency thing. No one needs to be having sex they don't really want and/or don't really enjoy.

Also I really don't understand this It's great that you want to change society, the justice system etc but not great that you are trying to control other women's beliefs and thoughts. You don't know what's best for all women anymore than I do. You're not in a privileged position to pass judgement.

I think what most of the people posting here want is for women who are raped to get justice. This doesn't happen at the moment because the system is so weighted in favour of the man.
If someone is having consciously giving consent to sex they dont really want and dont enjoy that's their choice and I'm not judging them. I also think it's very unlikely ever to be reported as a rape so it's really irrelevant to this debate
But for the women who realuse they were coeerced, that it was rape and they do report it, I want them to know that they are supported and believed.
Coercion and sexual abuse is a feature of abusive relationships and no one has to live like that if they don't want to.

I also think it's very unlikely ever to be reported as a rape so it's really irrelevant to this debate

What it if is, though?

If someone is having consciously [sic] giving consent to sex they don't really want and don't enjoy

You've got to look at why they're doing that. What sort of consent they're giving.

I absolutely agree that coercion and sexual abuse is a feature of abusive relationships and is unacceptable and like you, I think most decent people would agree. There are interesting questions around it though.

If someone is been in a coercive relationship where they aren't listened to, they might well give up putting up a fight about everything in the relationship. When it comes to sex, they might simply going through the motions without objecting, even saying 'yes fine' if asked specifically about consent. In those circumstances the presence of consent would not make the sex consensual. It's more complicated.

• Someone who has recently come out of the relationship above and has no clear understanding of what happened to them may be very submissive and compliant in future sexual encounters. They may have no clear understanding that they have a right to refuse their boyfriend sex, or that there are men out there who will accept a rejection without leaving or punishing them. In that situation they have internalised the coercion and their consent isn't given freely. I would call that complicated consent because they don't really see consent as a choice that can be taken up. I feel for those women and I also feel for the men who are with them because they are being placed in a powerful position that they may not fully understand and haven't asked for.

There are men who think an impressive, confident performance in the bedroom is expected of them. That may be the perceived cultural expectation they are labouring under. They may only have experience of sex that was casual with women who felt able to be transparent about what they wanted. They may not realise that asking is a 'thing' and may assume they're expected to go ahead as has always happened before. They may even pride themselves on feeling that they would always stop immediately, like in the campaign.

That's the situation that I fear for; the woman who isn't used to articulating her wishes but is used to complying and the man who misinterprets compliance as willingness. The responsibility to ensure he has consent (regardless of what he thinks he knows) may not be a responsibility that he fully grasps. He may see no reason to question what he thinks he knows about her feelings and she may see no option to speak up. Not having been the oppressed gender in society, he may not realise the pressure that women may feel to do what men seem to want them to do. He may assume that she feels the freedom that he feels himself.

It may sound like a contrived situation but given how many women feel under pressure to have sex and the pressure upon women in our society to be compliant, I think there is a possibility that women may have genuine unanswered questions after some sexual event 'Was I more of a spectator than a participator in that?' Again, not something I can imagine a feminist struggling with. I have no desire to get a rapist off, to excuse coercion or to make women who have been abused feel responsible. I think some women do 'yes' to sex when they don't mean yes and it's important to look at why they do that and to what extent the partner they're saying 'yes' to is responsible for it. If verbal consent can be given in situations that are coercive then obviously the situation is more complex than 'yes' or 'no' and it is in women's interests to recognise that. I don't have much patience with the feminist refusal to see the dangers to women of saying this issue is simple.

At the same time I realise that the danger is rapists claiming rape was 'a misunderstanding' and deplore that. However, it doesn't change my belief that women may give consent that doesn't really amount to consent and it may be because society has made women feel unable to act with agency, not because the person they're with is a rapist. I do think that feminists telling women this is impossible and any imbalance in the power dynamic must have been a deliberate act of coercion could potentially lead to miscarriages of justice. That's not apologising for rape at all - it's a disagreement about definitions of unwanted sex and rape.

he may not realise the pressure that women may feel they have to do what men seem to want them to do.

What does any of that have to do with rape though?

Either a woman doesn't give consent, feels coerced and reports it as rape.... It aas a rape.
Or she gives consent for whatever reason, doesn't report it, it wasn't a rape.

The only way what you are saying is relevant to a debate about rape is if for some reason she gives consent that later she withdraws and reports it. There is still a defence mechanism there though, which is the reasonable belief.

Again it gives me an impression of rape myths as it implies women are likely to change their mind about sex and withdraw consent.....ie they are lying.

I'm totally baffled as to what you are trying to say. If you want to talk about unwilling consent then start another thread as that's not relevant here. If you want to talk about rape, well you need to make your point more clearly because what you describe isn't rape .

Gone, you repeatedly try to read into my posts that:

"The only kind of sex you seem to know about is enthusiastic sex. Anything else must be rape. "

No. In fact it's incredibly weird and obfuscatory of you to keep saying I am saying this when I have said exactly the opposite over and over again. When I have said that there is a clear difference between "sex that you regret" is not rape, and sex that is rape and that the vast majority of people do actually know the difference on a felt, lived level because there is a clear difference in FUNCTION if not in FORM.

And in any case, it's more or less irrelevant because however anyone subjectively experiences some of these things, in general any unwanted sexual experiences are going to be held between the man and woman and almost none will get to the level of prosecution.

It is also interesting that you think as someone who has been raped I can't claim any privilege in knowing what rape is or might be.

It seems you're moving to the "all PIV is rape" sort of argument while simultaneously saying but that has nothing to with men and it would be unfair on them to say so?

"However, it doesn't change my belief that women may give consent that doesn't really amount to consent and it may be because society has made women feel unable to act with agency, not because the person they're with is a rapist. I do think that feminists telling women this is impossible and any imbalance in the power dynamic must have been a deliberate act of coercion could potentially lead to miscarriages of justice."

As for this:

"It may sound like a contrived situation"

Well, there's a reason it sounds like it. Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.

Again you are focusing on form, not function. When someone is moving inside someone else's body, there are very many ways in which what's happening can and are interpreted at any one moment in time. But all action is an act within a context. People may feel their experience is clumsy, bored, weird, painful, regrettable, annoying, irritating, enraging, sad, kinky, devastating, objectifying, degrading or whatever and still know it's not rape.. because an act in context is defined by all the events leading up to it and all the events after it and in general relationship (where all usual caveats apply), the difference between someone having sex to harm you and having sex with any other intention is really very clear.

You really, really don't want to hear that and I wish I knew more about the context of why it is so important to you to believe men are "accidentally" raping women all over the place.

"Yet people sadly do choose to have sex without feeling enthusiastic about it, and not because their partner has coerced them"

Well of course! And that's not rape!