Can I ask a for your opinions on an aspect of rape?

[mayorquimby]

Hey I'm a man and just wanted to see if this was ok with the ettiquette (sp?) of this section of the board. I didn't want to be guilty of trolling by accident (that's not my intention) nor do I want to be seen as trying to post in an area which I'm not wanted or to give the impression that I was trying to encroach on an area which I could understand if other posters wanted to keep it female only.
I was just looking for some feminist perspective to a question I have on an aspect/type of rape (so there's no secrecy it pertains to the issue of consent wrt a man saying he'll wear a condom and then not doing so) and AIBU can often turn into a bit of an argument merry-go-round plus I'm looking for other opinions to perhaps shape or clarify my own perspective as I feel there may be issues I'm missing.
However as I said above I don't want to post somewhere that isn't suitable or where perhaps my posting may seem unintentionally antagonistic or as though I'm just stirring, so if this is not the place for that I'd be greatful to be told so before I jump in two-footed.
cheers either way

You can take it one step forward and say "well she consented to it with Darren, so that means she'd consented with Gary too, doesn't it?"

And you may think this is far fetched, but there are still masses of people who think that if a woman has had lots of sexual partners, that means men are entitled to penetrate her whether she wants them to or not.

It's not far fetched.

The problem is that people still weigh up the inconvenience to a man of having to check, maybe several times, whether or not his penis is wanted, against the assault to a woman that might occur if it's not wanted ... and conclude the man's inconvenience is far more important.

They may not be making that judgment consciously but the debates around continual consent make it quite clear - you only have to mention the idea of continual consent and someone will pipe up to say it's impractical and we can't possibly expect anyone to go through such an inconvenient process.

Yes when you get into those discussions, you can really get down to the bare bones of people's real attitudes to the value of women and men, versus the attitudes they think they have.

Anyone who thinks it's too inconvenient for a man to occasionally check that he's not raping someone, a) has an extremely low opinion of men (most lovers are continually checking in either verbally or otherwise, to make sure you're enjoying it) and b) has absorbed the notion that women's feelings really, really don't matter that much at all.

But if you mention that, they'll go mad with you.

No ffs.

That is not what I said. You look at the pubic hair, it aint pink, you say no, it's rape.

I am saying that if in that moment you consent to penetration and your partner has lied about being married, being bald, having the first name John (when really his forst name is David) etc then they are telling a lie, but not about the penetration by a penis.

The 'consented with Darren and that means that she consented with Garry too' is a straw man. I never said that.

I kind of agree with SGM, in that the risk you are being exposed to makes the consent compromised between condom and no condom, but you are still consenting to penetration. Does that not make it different from when you have said no, I want no penetration, and then he penetrates (rapes) anyway? Especially as the scenario presented was that the woman does not know that the condom was not there, and so did not withdraw consent. If she realises and withdraws consent then it is rape under anyone's definition?

But isn't the point that the attitude you describe (which might seem absolutely reasonable) leads to and reinforces the much more obviously nasty attitude that ER describes? It's not a straw man if the one leads to the otehr (though you may not agree that it does).

Personally I think because a condom is on the penis, it's presence or absence can't really be considered separately from the presence/absence of a penis.

Honestly. I am talking about E&W law (I am not a lawyer, or legally trained). But to say that consenting to penetration and that not being linked to lies that someone has told you about their marital status, name, wig wearing or financial status is the equivalent to:

"'well, she's consented in the past and I assumed she would want it this time' or to 'well, we're married and that means she's implicitly consented to sex whenever I feel like it', or 'well, she consented but then it was obviously hurting her, so I carried on anyhow'"

is deeply and unfairly unrepresentative of what I said. Of course the things that LRD said are a whole different thing. They are rape.

How are the two even slightly comparable?

OK, since OP wants different opinions, I'll have a go at being devil's advocate:

Not wearing a condom after agreeing to do so is not rape, nor should it be; also, it isn't even that bad morally.

Sex is sex, with or without condoms. It is a simple choice - agree to have sex, and open oneself up to the chances of pregnancy or disease, or avoid all risk by refusing. It is binary - either put a penis in you, with all the risks that the condom could break/the pill doesn't work/he doesn't pull out, etc, or don't. Anything in between is just arguing about percentages of risk, and not the fact that there was risk to begin with.

Furthermore, it is the woman's duty to check that contraception is in place if she is the one who makes it a pre-condition, just as a man must check the woman if he has made such a demand.

No Norma you never said that, but the point is, the standpoint that says a woman doesn't have the right to set conditions on being penetrated, is the standpoint that leads to the widespread justification of rape.

It seems to me really clear that if I say I don't want sex without a condom, then it is a total violation to penetrate me without a condom. The only basis on which I consent to penetration, is that you are wearing a condom, you take away that condom and you are taking away my consent.

It's that simple for me.

I don't think they're equivalent. But 'equivalent' and 'comparable' are very different.

Of course you can compare an attitude that it's ok to lie to someone in order to get sex, and an attitude that it's ok to lie about wearing a condom while having sex. They're not equivalent attitudes or of equivalent seriousness, but both are selfish and come from the idea that, for this person, getting some sex is more important than not lying.

And also it re-inforces the idea that for this person, his right to inveigle sex, is more important than a woman's right to have her bodily integrity respected and the conditions on which she is prepared to have penetrative sex, respected.

I really don't see why it should be a big deal to expect men to respect women laying down the conditions by which they have sex. I just don't see the problem.

I still say that telling untruths about your name, hair, monetary worth, HIV status, marital status, age, contraceptive condition, etc do not compare to rape.

And they are not comparable to

"well she consented to it with Darren, so that means she'd consented with Gary too, doesn't it?

And you may think this is far fetched, but there are still masses of people who think that if a woman has had lots of sexual partners, that means men are entitled to penetrate her whether she wants them to or not."

I do not think this is far fetched. I do not think it is acceptable. It is the horror o the treatment of many women who have been raped and then get blamed for that by the criminal 'justice' system.

But having sex without a condom when you have said you are going to wear one is not itself rape. It is mis-representation, it is possibly assault of some sort, but not rape. If the woman knows that you are not wearing the condom and withdraws consent then it is rape.

Well actually there was a case where a man pretended to be his twin brother in order to gain sexual access to his brother's wife.

He lied about his name.

Are you seriously going to argue that that's not rape?

Was it on here that I read a long thread discussing the Palestinian man who was jailed for the rape of an Israeli woman after claiming he was Jewish? Now that was a hot potato of an issue.

What ER says. I can't put it any clearer than her, so I won't even try.

If I make it clear that the whole basis on which I consent to penetrative sex is that the man wears a condom, how can him not wearing a condom be anything other than having sex without consent?

In every other area of law, it is accepted that if someone stipulates that Y will only be done if the case is X, if someone fraudulently pretends that the case is X, then the contract is null and void.

Only in rape, is consent so loosely defined.

Norma, when you say they're not comparable, what do you mean?

You can compare any two things. These things aren't the same, or similar, or equivalent, but I've given (badly) and ER has given (much more eloquently) reasons why comparisons between them can be drawn.

Why do you say they can't? What are the differences that invalidate the comparisons we make?

Sorry, I don't mean to sound interrogative, but I've got a suspicion there's some miscommunication going on here and want to get to the bottom of it.

Someone did this to my friend a few years ago. She certainly felt raped.

And the thing is, even while you're saying we can't compare these things ... it's the same argument people made about rape within marriage. People argued you could never compare a husband forcing his wife to have sex, with rape. Because they were making assumptions about what rape was (violent, by strangers, etc. etc.) and about what men deserved (not to have their right to sex restricted by conditions).

I know that there is a spectrum, and all ways of breaking consent aren't equal. But tthey all speak to the same problem about how we value consent from women during sex. IMO.

You are all brilliant - v good for making one think.

I think that I am trying to seperate the act of non consentual penetration by a penis from whether it has a condom on or not.

Sorry, that doesn't really explain fully. Too late for eloquence.

yes, I agree with Leningrad. If "Only with condom" was the stipulation, then removing the condom removes the consent, and therefore it is rape.

Whew, glad you're not pissed off with my tone norma, which I was worried about!

I am also thinking a lot about your posts, lenin and ER, thanks very much.