I understand that faffing about consent looks like unforgivable rape apology when the crimes against women are atrocious. I don't have an agenda to be forgiving towards rapists, not at all. I just genuinely think - know - that consent is usually simple and occasionally not.
Does anyone remember the thread last month by a woman who was thinking back on a university experience and wasn't sure if she had been raped?
I don't want to say much about the details because it was her thread and clearly difficult to talk about.
She had chosen to make sounds to imply she was enjoying the petting that preceded the sex. He took this to mean she had given non-verbal consent for penetration. She hadn't intended to indicate she wanted to take things further, just that she was enjoying what was happening. Even though she wasn't.
I don't see how that's simple. Unless there is some kind of universal agreement that verbal consent is a must, regardless of how much the person seems to be enjoying it.
And she didn't automatically know she hadn't been raped. She was still trying to work it out. How can it be always simple when even she wasn't sure if she'd given it and no one can quite agree about what he should have done, only what it would have been wise for him to do if there was any reason to doubt?
Certainly, it's not an example of the most painstaking attempt to get consent. But that doesn't make a rapist, especially when there is this refusal to spell out what the lower bar is in terms of getting consent. And no, I'm not saying that men should aim for a lower bar, but we should be able to define when someone hasn't sought consent adequately, for everyone's sake. Most of the time, it's easy.
Saying that consent is always easy assumes (among other things) that (a) women won't give the impression they're enjoying something that they're not and (b) there are never misunderstandings about whether 'I'm enjoying this right now' means 'I want to take things further' or 'I'm happy for things to continue at this level' and (c) people who are very drunk will always present as very drunk.
The feminist response seems to be ''Well, if there's any doubt, you should check verbally.' But again, that's brushing an 'ambiguous' case aside by putting forward the 'gold standard' for consent. Which is only reasonable if you're going to say seeking verbal consent is what should always happen. Perhaps more importantly, it assumes that everyone will see reason to doubt in the same set of circumstances - I simply don't think this is invariably the case. One man may feel that checking verbally is always necessary, another may genuinely see no reason for doubt (or further checks) if the person seems to be behaving enthusiastically (and monitoring enthusiasm is in itself is a subjective thing). And even if they did check verbally, who is to say the person isn't more drunk than they appear? If this is all so very simple and it's so very obvious, why can't we have some obvious, simple rules? Like 'if she couldn't drive you home, it's sexual assault'? I can understand why we might not choose to impose a rule but surely it would be theoretically easy to agree on some, if it's all really so simple?
The feminist response seems to be brushing away the 1% of cases in which this may happen by saying that 99% of the time consent is simple so the 1% of complicated cases are impossible. That's illogical. Likewise saying that no situation about which there was ambiguity would be reported as rape so this is not an issue - if threads are started saying 'Was this rape?' and many posters are genuinely not quite sure, it's clear that occasionally even the potential victim does not have clarity. If she did come to a decision after so much uncertainty, she might well follow it up and it's hard to see how her story would support the idea that everyone definitely always knows exactly what seeking and giving consent is supposed to look like. In a similar vein, saying that your DP finds it simple is useless. My DP thinks it's usually simple but ludicrous to suggest that no potentially confusing situation could occur. The fact that he thinks this proves nothing.
I would absolutely agree that women who say they've been raped usually have been. I wouldn't want to see the issues raised here making it harder to get a conviction and I can see how they could be exploited. But I can't pretend to go along with the idea that consent is always simple and if you think otherwise, you're trying to excuse rape.