"Teaching men not to rape"

[Opshinz]

I been noticing more and more people spitting rhetoric like this. I love freedom of speech and surely they should be allowed to say this, but.. rather then describe my feelings perhaps I can give an example.

Imagine I was giving a lecture and said "We really need to teach women to stop killing children", or "We really need to teach black people not to eat so much fried chicken".

Anyone have any thoughts?

[CailinDana]

Well yes Buffy. The underlying belief is that men can and will do whatever it takes to get their penis inside a woman and it's up to women to not give the impression that they'll be easily breached. The idea that women might actually want sex and seek it out, but then turn it down if it isn't satisfactory in some way, doesn't seem to even enter into it. If they send the signal that their defences are down (by wearing revealing clothes, or in my case, having sex with the guy previously and happening to be asleep when said guy wanted to stick his penis in) then they're fair game. It comes up on MN threads all the time, where women say that their partners sulk and bully to get sex, and posters don't seem to recognise how fucked up it is for someone to enjoy "sex" with someone who has no interest. I say "sex" because to me, a man shoving his penis into an inert, frightened or angry body is not sex. It is something entirely different. Yet society seems to accept that as long as there's a penis in a vagina, sex is happening regardless of the complex social interaction that surrounds the putting of the penis in. It reduces women to receptacles and denies that they are people who rightly are possessive and protective over their own bodies and don't want them to be used for someone else's satisfaction.

[confuddledDOTcom]

I think there's also the people who think you really will enjoy the cake if they just make you try some. Maybe they don't think they're forcing you to eat it and think you're just making the diet noises.

[CailinDana]

Sorry that should say "yet when it comes to sex there seems to be the belief that...

[CailinDana]

It's often bandied about that rape isn't about sex but about power yet I don't think many people stop to think what that means. To call on the poor worn out cake analogy again. You offer cake to someone because you like them, you want to share something with them and you want to give them pleasure. If they refuse, no big deal, it's just cake, you can have some on your own, and while that's not quite as nice as sharing, it'll do. That's sex.
Rape is different. Here you are offering cake because you get a kick out of making someone do something and humiliating them. There is no giving or sharing of pleasure, just one person asserting power over another. It seems ridiculous and quite cruel to expect someone to eat cake against their will - why would you even do that if not to hurt that person and get a kick out of hurting them? Yet when it comes to sex that a man can and does get genuine sexual pleasure out of "having sex" with someone who has been bullied into participating. Why? Why is it necessary for a man to feed cake to an unwilling woman when he could just eat the cake himself? The only answer is that he gains pleasure from the fact that she is unwilling and from the process of forcing her to eat the cake.

[CailinDana]

It's interesting you say there's nothing in it for the cake coercer except power. Because that's exactly the case with rape isn't it? There's nothing in it for the rapist except power. They could easily orgasm on their own (ie eat the cake themselves) - the pleasure and enjoyment comes from doing it to someone else.

[confuddledDOTcom]

There are feeders though.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

I think the cake analogy falls down a bit because there's "nothing in it" for the cake coercer other than power.

It shouldn't fall down though. I do see that.

[CailinDana]

I don't think it's about wisdom Dad, because in the cake analogy it seems blatantly obvious that you wouldn't force someone to eat cake, doesn't it? I mean, if someone bullied another person into eating cake,they'd be seen as a pretty nasty aggressive individual.
Yet if a man bullies a woman into sex there is always the argument that she didn't have to do it, he's been denied sex too long etc etc. What's at play is the underlying assumptions. It is assumed that a person can refuse cake at any time, it's totally optional.
There is an underlying assumption that women somehow owe men sex and if men have to use tactics such as a sulking and manipulation to get it then that's fair. More than once I've seen threads on mumsnet where a woman describes being coerced by means other than violence into having sex and other women tell her that it's not rape and make excuses for the man's behaviour. They even say it's ok for women to regularly have sex they don't want into order to avoid their partner's sulking and bullying. Yet if the same woman described being coerced in the same way by a friend of any gender into eating cake people would be very quick to comment on the friend's bizarre bullying behaviour and tell them to get away from that friend quick smart. There is some disconnect there. Somewhere along the way sex has become seen as a duty women perform rather than as an optional fun activity that they are entirely entitled to refuse if they so wish, for whatever reason, at whatever time.

[confuddledDOTcom]

50 Shades is glorified abuse anyway, but as long as there is an accepted safe word then no doesn't have to mean no, but that is a different situation!

[DadWasHere]

Dad, again it's all about body language, along with nuance of verbal language.

Yea, I know this now CailinDana, its one of the few benefits of being old. But even into my early 20's, though I did nothing bad either by intention or mistake, I still had little clue what girls were communicating. Fast forward to today I saw a guy with my daughter a months back and I knew in under 10 seconds that he was quite attracted to her, and I did not even need to hear him speak, it was just his body language. But despite him being in their wide circle of friends for months do you think my daughter had any idea how he felt about her? Yet she is as clued up about other things in the world as you could possibly imagine.

The idea of Enthusiastic Consent is the best notion for young men and women to come out of feminism in many years, because the notion of women as the gatekeepers of sex with 'No means No' inscribed on the gate needs breaking up, along with burning ideas in fiction like 50 shades that it is erotic spice when 'no' is just another boundary to be trampled. The cake analogy, what nooka said- 'I think in those circumstances you put the cake down and say "it's here if you want it" and see what happens next.' is absolutely the correct answer and it is a good analogy as she says. Trouble is its not a simple correct answer, its a very wise correct answer and that level of wisdom is rare on the ground, especially regarding cake.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

confuddled.

[confuddledDOTcom]

OK, that makes sense. I guess the he said/ she said comes before court really. Both parties say sex happened, one says it was consenting, the other says it wasn't. If he had tried to deny it they had his DNA (especially as it was unprotected) so it would have been easier. At 19 this guy was a known rapist but it was irrelevant and my sex life wasn't - as innocent as it was in those days Men should be made to take the stand because it is in a sense, as I put it earlier, a case of who is guilty. Both parties should be defending themselves (not that I think that a rape victim should defend herself, but in essence that's what happens)

Sadly I know someone who was pulled off the street and raped, who refused to report it because of what happened to me. It only came out because she was bleeding and as she's had a hysterectomy thought she should tell the GP. I was so angry when I heard, a little at her but at the man who raped me and the system that meant she was too scared to report.

[FloraFox]

confuddled I'm not telling you your rape was a fallacy. Not at all. The fallacy is that court cases are "he said / she said". This belief is used to justify the low conviction rate, people in general believe that the court heard both sides of the story and couldn't decide who to believe. A lot of people think nothing can be done about this, that it is a natural consequence of events happening when there are no other witnesses and therefore cannot be solved. This seems reasonable at first glance but in fact, often jurors don't get a chance to weigh up the credibility of the accused because he doesn't testify. I believe if the accused had to testify, there would be more convictions because he would be seen to be not believable.

This impacts cases like yours as well. If the CPS knew that the accused would have to testify about his claims that you consented and why he thought you did, they should take more cases like yours to court because the court would have the opportunity to decide who is telling the truth. As it is, they know the victim will be cross-examined and, in all likelihood, the defendant will not be cross-examined. It is not necessarily the case that the CPS took his word over yours, they may have entirely believed you but thought they would not get a conviction. If the man who raped you would have been compelled to take the stand, perhaps the CPS would have decided to go ahead with the prosecution.

[confuddledDOTcom]

FloraFox - in my case it was he said/ she said. I said no, several times. I moved out of his way (we were in a car and I kept moving to the other seat and he moved over - it was locked, I didn't know where we were and it was pitch black so the middle of no where for all I knew and I didn't think it would get to rape). I told him that I didn't believe in sex outside of marriage (I didn't then!) I told him everything I could think of to make him understand I didn't want sex. He told them I consented, he told them I hadn't said all that. The CPS took his word over mine.

So do you want to tell me where this fallacy is? I wish it had been because maybe I could have had the closure of knowing he had gone to court. Hopefully the teenager who turned the skin of an experienced rape officer would have had the same effect on the jury.

Please don't tell me my rape was a fallacy.

[FloraFox]

Beatrix I don't know if there are statistics, I might check. Anecdotally, friends who are crim defence say they almost never put their clients on the stand.

I think defence lawyers should not be able to question the complainant on issues relating to consent unless the accused is going to testify. Although not quite the same, there are other defences which cannot effectively be raised without evidence. Alibi is an example - if defence counsel puts forward alibi in cross-examining crown witnesses but does not adduce any evidence to support the alibi, it's hard to see how the court would give any weight to the defence.

The justice system is broken when it comes to convictions for rape claims. We need to look at effective solutions to address this.

[CailinDana]

The basic message is if you're going to put something in someone's body make very sure they want it. That's not too harsh a standard is it?

[Beatrixparty]

Doc

I think it's right to teach enthusiastic/respectful/considerate /ongoing consent even if that's not the legal benchmark, don't you?

Yes, I do.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

Seriously? There are situations in which if someone's a bit hesitant about the cake, you might shove it in their mouth anyway because you're not sure?

Silly.

[CailinDana]

I mean with all the normal body language you would expect of someone who is keen for a close personal interaction - smiling, eye contact, approving noises or phrases, engagement (rather than submission, unless that's an agreed part of the interaction). It is easy to tell if someone is comfortable and happy or not but if you're not sure then the normal thing is to ask.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

Beatrix

I think it's right to teach enthusiastic/respectful/considerate /ongoing consent even if that's not the legal benchmark, don't you?

It might not be illegal for me to feed my kids macdonalds every day but it's inconsiderate, disrespectful and socially unacceptable. The higher the social standard is set, the better, then no-one would think the bronco example above was "a bit of a laugh"