Coerced sex IS rape

[EatsBrainsAndLeaves]

This thread comes out of a discussion I had with a friend who didnt seem to think coerced sex is rape. I think coerced sex clearly is rape. If a man has to persuade, cajole and pester you for sex, you are not consenting. Non consensual sex is rape.

What do others think?

It's the situations you describe, quietones, Bertie and chips, that I was talking about. It may be very hard to prove that your exes ever raped you in the legal sense of the term, as it could be argued that you gave your consent and were never actually forced to have sex. Thing is, if you look at it sensibly, you were, definitely forced, not through any violence but through much more subtle ways and your consent was never truly freely given. You didn't have sex for pleasure or to have a baby, you had sex to avert your partner's negativity. You were worn down, made to feel like you didn't really have a choice, bullied, threatened in a subtle way and generally put in a position where having sex you didn't want was easier than putting up with the intimidation.

Women should be brought up knowing what to expect from a partner and not put up with any less than that. That's partly why I object to all the secrecy our society tends to have around sex - we should be talking about it openly with young teenagers, being frank about how great and fun it can be with a good partner but how utterly shit it can be with the wrong person. The first time a man whines for sex, or gets in a sulk the woman should be saying "hang on a minute, you can stop that shit now or this is over" and mean it. Sex is a 100% optional activity. You could go your whole life without it. There is no need whatsoever to ever have it unless you actually want it. A lot of women seem to have lost that notion somewhere along the way, and have picked up the message that sex is their duty, that a man has a right to demand it, that they owe it in a relationship. Our daughters need to know that is not the case- they have absolute and total control over what happens to their body and if anyone tries to take that control away they don't have to accept it.

Yes Cailin, totally spot on :)

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"The only people in whose interests it would be to blur the line between 'coersion' and 'consent' are rapists."

Absolutely. Exactly.

If you own a shop and someone coerces you to give him a packet of crisps, would the shopowner be able to take the coercer to court? Of course not, unless the coercian what threatening behaviour.

I think much of the discussion on semantics is diminishing the fact that real rape is a terrible crime.

What do you mean by 'real rape', zippy?

Rape isn't comparable to shoplifting.

I'm interested to know what "real rape" is too zippey. Also if someone is coerced to give something to someone else then that is known as theft and you would of course be able to bring the coercer to court. Or do you think it's fine for people to be coerced into giving away things to bullies?

"real rape"

Ah, that's when a man drags a virgin kicking and screaming down a dark alley, ties her up so she can't fight, gags her so she can't scream and rapes her at knife point, isn't it?

She'll have been coming back from a Bible Studies class, and wearing a a long skirt, a high necked long sleeved loose top and flat shoes.

Having your body invaded, against your will, putting you at risk of disease or pregnancy, quite possibly causing you physical pain and certainly causing you emotional pain, is not quite like having a bag of crisps nicked from your shop, is it?

Very interesting thread, thanks everyone for a great read this morning.

I think this is why 'yes means yes' is so much more of a powerful message than 'no means no'. I was talking to a Father-of-2-daughters about it this weekend, as my 2 year old son bowled over his 2 year old daughter, and I pulled him up, and explained that if the little girl wasn't having a good time, he wasn't allowed to keep bouncing at her. He did the polite "oh, it's okay, she's not hurt" and we're quite good friends so I took it a bit further.

We'd been talking earlier about teaching our children about sex and contraception and consent in an age-appropriate manner and he'd said (in a 'good-guy' way) "surely every decent man knows that no means no." So I used our children playfighting as an example and said "it's not enough for your DD to not object, my DS has to look for her enthusiastic consent. He's bigger than her, and he 's going to be a very tall person. If I don't tell him that sometimes people say "oh, alright then'' because they're intimidated by his size or his potential for physical domination, how will he learn? He's going to be bigger than most people he dates. He's got to learn that badgering someone until he hears either 'oh, go on then' or 'GET OFF ME!' isn't okay. He's got to learn to pay attention and make sure he's hearing 'yes' a lot, not just taking a lack of 'no' for yes.''

On a more personal note that may have been better put upthread: last night I was tired, grumpy, and feeling quite run down with a list of chores that had to be done before bedtime. DS needed shushing and patting to sleep, and it took nearly an hour (ARGH) - but when I crept out of his bedroom DH had done all the dishes, packed DS's lunch for tomorrow, cleaned the kitchen, walked the dog, tidied the lounge and shaved. He grinned at me and I suddenly remembered how extreeeeemly attractive he was, and dragged him off for an early night. Was my mind changed from 'urgh, no too tired to sex' to "well hello there, you're very lovely" - yes, absolutely. Was I coerced? Not a bit. I jumped that man's bones! But some of the things I've read upthread are examples of how people blur boundaries and coerce in a manner than seems like rape to me. Because it's hard to parse consent when you think 'no means no' I like the 'yes means yes' model.

That makes so much sense. Thank you.

[basks in praise]

Seriously, though: some of the partners described on this thread are just out-and-out abusers, and it's unlikely that a significant cultural change from "well she didn't say 'no' out loud at the moment of penetration therefore I am not a rapist" to "if I'm not hearing 'yes! more!' every step of the way, why would I even want to have sex with that person?" would change an out-and-out abuser's mindset. BUT some men, perhaps manipulative, needy, unpleasant-but-not-actually dyed-in-the-wool rotters, need to learn the extent to which our rape culture is excusing them coercing their partners into sex. Men are as saturated in rape culture as we are: culture that tells them 'women are the sex class' and 'women exist for men' - christ, every advert showing a skimpily dressed woman draped over an item on sale gives us these messages!

We fought so many battles to establish "no means no" but what it has left us with is the responsibility to say no loudly, clearly, repeatedly - and be called a bitch, moody, asked why we don't love them any more, be blamed for making them feel unattractive, asked where is our commitment to this relationship, be cold-shouldered, sulked at, nagged, passive-aggressively threatened that the relationship is in trouble - from men whose response to a discussion about the ethics of coerced sex is always "she didn't say no, so I am not a rapist. I'd never keep going if a woman said no. I'm not a bad man."

this article is about something slightly different but addresses that idea that men 'don't intend' to coerce when research indicates that actually, they know exactly what they're doing.

I'm sure you guys could generate all the excuses on your own: Claiming that men don't really know what's appropriate and what's not because women make it so complicated. (This has been demonstrated untrue with research, though common sense should also apply.) Denying the difference between flirting and cornering women in hopes that the implication of fear will grease the wheels for you getting your dick wet. Claiming that introducing a whiff of coercion and fear into a situation is okay as long as you're willing to take no for an answer at the end of the day. In sum, men who corner women know what they're doing. And yes, they are relying on the fear of rape to grease the wheels towards getting laid. Rebecca may not have put it that way, but being a mean ol' feminist bitch, I'm happy to say it.

Getting away from "I understand that 'no means no' and so I am a good guy! That time I whined until my partner let me do sex on her even though she wasn't in the mood - that was totally okay because she never said no!" is vital for our sexual health and relational happiness. It's not my responsibility to say "no" all the time, or risk being pressured into sex I don't want. It's my partner's job to seek a "yes God yes!!", and not think any other kind of sex than sex with a willing partner is acceptable. *

But we have to start teaching that right now, in schools, homes, to everyone we talk to. And it's depressingly hard for some people to get their heads around. "She didn't stop me" isn't enough.

*And that's true in a reversed situation, incidentally - I think the onus is always on the person initiating sex to get that enthusiastic 'yes!' - regardless of gender.

Hear hear blackcurrants. Well said.

Eats "I would sympathise with you that he had zero libido. But as you said you wanted him to want you. You didnt want him just to have sex with you just so that you didnt get annoyed or didnt leave him. And that is the difference. "

I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case for the majority of men who nag their partners about sex. So is there really a difference other than that people are being given the benefit of doubt or not depending on whether they're male or female?

Wow some excellent posts on here. Yes blackcurrants you have articulated what I wanted to say. This manipulative, bullying behaviour is an extension of the rape culture we live in.

"dragged him off for an early night. Was my mind changed from 'urgh, no too tired to sex' to "well hello there, you're very lovely" - yes, absolutely. Was I coerced? Not a bit. I jumped that man's bones!"

"Jumped his bones"?! Imagine if a man had used a phrase like that about a woman. Ditto "dragged him off". Some rather cavewoman like language from someone lecturing men on how to be supersensitive. If you want to start equating persuasion and cajoling to coercion, an awful lot of men are regularly coerced into sex. I think there is some dual standard here in assuming men are "up for it" all the time.

Please point me to the places where I lecture anyone on haw to be supersensitive

Larry it was already said by quite a lot of posters earlier in the thread that persuasion was not the same as coercion. In fact I don't think any poster agreed with the assertion that they were the same thing.

On the subject of 'not really wanting to, but doing it anyway' - if you don't feel coerced, I suspect there are two extra factors. One, you are with someone who'll stop if you say 'no, I really mean no'. Two, there'll be some give-and-take in the relationship, and your partner will do some things because you want them even if they'd rather do something else.

larry, I kinda think that's what she's gently hinting at, isn't it? That you can put women into the active sexual role, almost as if we enjoy sex too.

It's ironic you're lecturing someone who's explained persuasively (!) about the importance of enthusiastic consent, on whether or not she's able to check her DH's enthusiastic consent. C'mon: what do you think she did?!

Also, Larry, those phrases demonstrate my enthusiastic consent - a response to an earlier overture. an entirely. different scenario to that kind of phrasing being used to describe the opening move. fgs.

Blackcurrants,

That may have been the case but the way you posted it implied you were the initiator unless you assumed he wanted sex merely by his grin.

And your whole phraseology is taken from what could be termed "rape culture". Why should a consenting adult need to be "dragged" anywhere? And why would you need to "jump" someone who was enthusiastically consenting?

If a man had posted those phrases, he would at the least have been termed a rape apologist, maybe even a rapist (although it would have been completely ridiculous and erroneous to do so).

'jump your bones' is slang, larry.

She's not actually planning on defleshing him, either.