Acquiescence

[AgeingGrace]

Not sure whether this counts as a feminist discussion, but I'm giving it a try. I mentioned on another thread that, after seeing last year's TV programme about black-cab rapist John Worboys, I realised he 'had' me, too. I rang the helpline and the police were brilliant - they confirmed my story and discussed the case as much as I wanted to.

Bizarrely, the discovery was actually helpful to me. I'd been struggling with "denial of abuse" issues so, for me, this single episode (which I barely remember) represented all the other half-remembered and anxiously dismissed incidents of abuse that kept me questioning myself. I now accept that I have been more seriously abused, and more often, than I can consciously recognise. This denial is part of the issue I wish to discuss.

John Worboys sexually assaulted upwards of 400 women: probably hundreds more. His method was always the same - a little story, a little drinky that was drugged. Now this is what bothers me: up to 700 of us accepted that drink.

We trust London cabbies, sometimes literally with our lives. Worboys abused that position of trust. But - still! A cab driver gives you a drink, and you don't smell anything fishy? I bet none of us would have smiled and said "cheers" if an illegal minicab driver had done it. Not a single one of us rang the police, or the taxi office, to say "Driver number XXXX has just done something weird."

We trusted hansom cab drivers - rightly so. But why did we allow this trust to override our common sense? We all registered that this was "odd" behaviour, so why didn't we just get the hell out of there and press Dial? What happened to our natural alarm bells?

Answering for myself, I have to assume I was so deeply programmed to TRUST A MAN IN A POSITION OF HONOUR that I had no self-preservation instincts to go with that. In my case, this is the factor that led to my putting up with abuse in many situations. I was also, as mentioned, extremely willing to forget, deny, tell myself I'd got it wrong, etc, etc. I can trace this directly to my parental background. Did all 400 of Worboy's passengers come from families like mine?

How did Worboys know which women to trick?

I asked the cop how come so many women had bought his story. He said he wished he knew that - as more & more evidence came to light, they found it hard to believe he was getting to first base as easily as he did.

As some of you know, I'm committed to helping women in abusive relationships re/gain a sense of their own right to respect and safety. Most of you know at least something about the dynamics of abuse. Many people are conditioned to consider themselves less important than others; it's common for a woman to count herself less than a man. But 400 Londoners, each with enough independence to be getting a cab on her own at night ...? That's a lot!

If self-abandonment and self-denial are THAT prevalent amongst women, then feminism has a far bigger problem than I ever suspected.

I'm not sure if anybody's able or willing to pick this up - it's more of an emotional/psychological angle than this board's usual. It's both personally and politically interesting to me - what do you think?

yes, its a political and personal justice issue, little to do with 'rules of sexual engagement'. Thats just the symptom, IMO.

I see both prolesworth and dittanys pov regarding stopping rape. On the one hand the onus shouldn't be on women to prevent rape but on the other there won't be a wholesale change in attitudes overnight so in the meantime we must educate girls to be safe and how to say no without fear of being rude or what have you.

I don't think anybody can confidently say why rapists rape. Surely that is as varied as human nature itself.

I believe that some men rape to assert power, but not all. I believe some rapists are the product of dysfunctional homes, but 1, how do you define dysfunctional, and 2, again, not all. I also think HerBeX has a good point with the legitimate grey area, perhaps some confusion exists here (although admittedly the man would have to be either stupid, unobservant or lacking in empathy) - but stupid, unobservant and non-empathetic people do exist, so what can be done about this? (Hypothetical/discussion point, btw, not a shrug of the shoulders oh-well.)

And then yes, there is this socialisation of men and boys that they can expect sex, that if they treat a woman in the "right" way that she should have sex with him, or she is "frigid" or has a problem. I don't really understand it, but there seems to be an expectation that a man has a right to the use of someone else's body for sex - see prostitution, affairs in a sexually dead marriage, coercion into sex... and yet if a woman is single, in a sexless marriage, etc, the expectation is she will buy a vibrator and sort herself out. She doesn't automatically assume she has the right to use another's body, if only it has been earned.

I'm not sure if that makes sense or not, anyway.

I thought your last pararagraph was great, the idea that society sees men as having a right to sex but women as not having that right.
But I don't agree that rape just "happens" because a man happens to lack empathy. I don't actually think there is a grey area between sex and rape.
If a man is unable to empathize with women, then he's a sociopath. Actually the definition of psychopath is someone who cannot empathize. If a rapist can't put himself in another person's shoes then it follows that he must be completely dysfunctional in all areas of life, including work and friends... .
ANd yet, rapists are not dysfunctional outcasts. Many are married, have jobs. You need empathy for all those things. The empathy "gene" doesn't just disappear when it comes to violating the victim you have chosen. This tells me that they are either a) dangerous sociopaths who cannot empathise, do not see women as human, and need locking up ASAP or b) dangerous -non -sociopaths who know exactly how the women are feeling during the rape but do not care and do not see them as human, and who also needs locking up

Don't you think though that a lot of people truly believe that men (as a homogenous group) are inherently not as empathetic as women. Therefore they are starting off at a different level to a woman when a man and a woman meet. So following on from that it is already the woman's role to make her position clear in words of no more than one syllable because the man won't understand any body language. He won't pick up on the fact that the woman is engaging.

You see it a lot on the rape threads statements that go along the lines that maybe the man didn't know you that the woman didn't want sex. Maybe he wasn't able to read her body language. I am certain that most men can tell when a woman doesn't want sex. It is a very clear line and society upholding this myth that woman are "more caring" than men puts them on the back foot immediately.

Sorry a bit of a ramble but hope you get what I mean.

"the woman is not engaging."

Proles - exactly!

SAF - that is such a horrible way to look at things isn't it. Again the woman is taking on the role of the empathiser, not the man.

...and depressingly while we are debating this Plan B are performing their lovely rape accuser song on the Brit awards complete with mocked-up courtroom :( cos the bitches make it up

The standard of proof in criminal justice is Beyond Reasonable Doubt and the fact is that rape, unlike other crimes, is rarely witnessed.

While I would celebrate more convictions for rape, having a presumption of guilt clause for any crime is flawed from a natural justice/Liberty perspective. Legislation definitely changes culture and attitudes. The drink-driving example is a good one, except that this crime is capable of absolute proof, unlike rape.

It surprised me however on a recent couple of threads when it emerged that very few posters knew that 8 years ago, the law changed and put the onus on males to gain consent. Having worked with a lot of police officers around that time, this change was celebrated by investigators who were intensely frustrated by the CPS's low prosecution rates and then when they would prosecute, the high acquittal rate by jury.

On the more general point, I agree that the onus should be on men ceasing to rape and less on women trying to prevent it. In many ways, I think the reverse approach perpetuates another harmful norm, which is that men pursue sex and women ration it; a norm that is harmful to both men and women and relationships generally. I see definite links between the two and if women are taught from a young age that men are predatory and can only be contained by evasive action, it is no surprise when there is a cross-over into healthy relationships.

That said, my ethos about most things in life is that a holistic approach works best, when producing cultural and behavioural change.

I agree that the vast majority of men know when a woman doesn't want sex and furthermore, would find the idea of sex with an unwilling partner repugnant. However, we cannot ignore the porn culture that has shaped and transformed attitudes to sex, in both men and women, over the past 20 years. I think it would be interesting to find out the ages of the women reporting on that recent thread, that they had often had, what they describe as "ambivalent sex". It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the vast majority fell into the 20-40 age bracket.

I do a lot of work with secondary schools now and I think the approach they are taking is sound - educating boys about reading signals AND gaining verbal consent; educating girls to feel able to say no, safely.

I have often said on threads that while I support the schools' overall approach, the danger of it is that the positive aspects of consensual sex are sometimes lost. This is a gap that parents can address by being open and positive about sex.

I also think that educating men about rape and not women is flawed, because while we still have a culture of women denigrating men for being "unmanly" if they are considerate about consent or where female sexual desire is rooted in men taking control and dominating, this perpetuates the problem. One female poster recently observed that men asking for penetrative consent was "deeply unsexy" and I despair of that view - and others, that imply that "men ought to be men".

Handdivedscallops, what is outrageous, is that if we accepted the notion that men are less able to read body language than women - let's just say that it's true, that they are starting on the back-foot, that they have that disadvantage - then the obvious advice to men, is that as they can't be sure they've read the body language correctly, they'd better make sure that they have actually got consent by asking properly. And that means asking in a non-coercive way, where women can feel safe to say that yes, they like this, but no, they don't want it to go any further than this.

But instead of that, we have the logic that says men aren't good at reading body language therefore they rape women by accident. Whereas in every other area of assault, people are presumed to have a duty of care to each other.

I thought it was implicit that I meant "independent" witnesses Dittany.

The only people I teach about this issue, are my son and daughter - and it is a shared responsibility with my H Dittany. However, in answer to your question, yes of course I endorse the school's message that if verbal consent is not given, all attempts at coercion should stop. That was our message long before our son's school opened up the subject for discussion.

I'll have a think about your other points and come back to them, as I don't have much time at the moment.

Yes you are right HerBex. It is so infuriating (well more than that really!) that no matter which way a sexual relationship between a man and a woman is viewed the onus is always placed on the woman, by society, to provide the communication.