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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Man cleared of rape after having sex with a woman who thought he was someone else

515 replies

Felascloak · 14/05/2016 14:29

metro.co.uk/2016/05/12/woman-realised-she-was-having-sex-with-wrong-man-so-accused-him-of-rape-5876504/

I feel really bad for this woman (although I think if I was on the jury I probably would have thought there was a chance he believed he had consent). The headline implies she was unreasonably upset when she found the person having sex with her wasn't who she thought and so "falsely accused" him. Poor woman probably feels totally violated.
Also, what kind of man shags a woman who's gone home with a different guy, when that guy has just left the room for a minute. Ugh. He says he didn't even want to Confused

OP posts:
gonetoseeamanaboutadog · 23/05/2016 22:39

palmer I didn't post anything to you that was unpleasant...if a post was deleted it was probably because someone found it offensive on the rape apologist issue - not that it was intended as such.

You specifically asked what the reference was for the study that referred to 'opportunity'. That was the one I gave you - simple, yes? I certainly wasn't pretending that it was about anything else or proving any of many points I have made on this thread. I did invite you to specify which points you would like references to but you ignored the post. As you ignored the post requesting that your many sweeping assertions be backed up with some reference to research.

FirstShinyRobe · 23/05/2016 22:41

Gone, it was mainly about me having had sex and thinking about this thread Grin

gonetoseeamanaboutadog · 23/05/2016 22:48

If I was in your field, palmer, I wouldn't entirely dismiss an article that had found its way into the book I mentioned upthread or in fact the way that the main findings are summarised there in exactly the terms presented on this thread. I think you're interested in being right.

Someone mentioned enthusiasm in consensual sex. Interesting. I would agree it's easier to work out if sex is consensual in those circumstances. However I'm not so sure about how clear it would be if the participation doesn't present as enthusiasm as such and it's those borderline cases that could cause problems. In someone who was shy and inexperienced, passivity could be mistaken for acquiescence - I do wonder if someone in those circumstances is always sure themselves at the time if they are going along with something that is unwanted but they are going along with it, or if they're letting it happen, but have done no more to participate than fail to resist. Like Tess.

gonetoseeamanaboutadog · 23/05/2016 22:49

Definitely my favourite post on this thread, first Grin

PalmerViolet · 23/05/2016 23:00

Oh dear gone, you are a little bundle of contradictions, mostly with yourself I grant you. I saw your deleted posts, they were unpleasant toward both Buffy and me, and that's no doubt why they were deleted, as you wrote none of your rape apology in either. You did however accuse both of us of lying.

The study you sent me had nothing to say about opportunity I'm afraid, as I posted this evening.

I have had to stop reading your stream of consciousness posts, as I find blocks of unpunctuated, unparagraphed text difficult to read on a screen. However, as I have consistently asked you where you got your information regarding who rapists choose to rape, you did in fact send me the study I asked for, that it didn't say what you suggested it did is hardly my fault.

I am not aware that I have, as you have, ever stated that I was quoting from research. Nor have I made sweeping assertions. I feel you are now personally attacking my integrity, and doing so purely because you have been shown to be incorrect in your assertions. You have singled out Lass, Buffy and I for your particular ire for reasons best known to yourself.

Perhaps you could tell me what you want backed up? Rape myths? Rape apologism? The statistics of stranger versus acquaintance rape? As these are the "sweeping assertions" I have made without trawling through my posts on this thread. Again, I didn't "ignore" your requests, I simply didn't see them due to being unable to read your latter posting style.

gonetoseeamanaboutadog · 23/05/2016 23:06

No palmer, I've talked to the three of you because you have posted most, you see?

I notice you ignore my reference to the Violence against women publication. But that makes sense if you're not reading the posts Grin

I'm interested that you have disagreed with and attacked my posts without having read them. You're under no obligation to read them and as I now don't even want you to read them, it seems quite pointless for me to write more posts for you not to read, IYSWIM?

If it's all the same to you, given that you are not reading my posts and I'm effectively taking time to have a one-sided conversation punctuated with, yes, unpleasant and passive aggressive interruptions from someone who has no idea what I've actually said, let's leave it there. I refer you again to the Violence against women publication to defend the point I made about opportunity and lust. However, it's not a point I'm particularly attached to.

When you disagreed point blank with everything I've said, I assumed you had a basis for doing so. I did make a list asking for evidence showing no correlations between various things, but you clearly didn't read it. I can't say I'm sorry and I do hope we don't meet again!

PalmerViolet · 23/05/2016 23:10

Exactly what field do you believe I am in, gone?

I have read the study. I have no clue how you want it summarised, but it did not at any point suggest that any of the data within it should be used to prevent rape.

Of course I want to be right! Not for myself, but so that women who have been raped and are reading this don't think that there is a study out there saying that X is why men rape, so those are things they should stop doing in order to stop it happening again because if that study is the one you are using to prove that, that is emphatically not what it says. It is cruel to pretend it does.

I am all for preventing rape, but, as that study concludes we are only going to do that if we teach men not to do it, not by making rather silly comments about pony tails and short skirts.

PalmerViolet · 23/05/2016 23:13

My apologies, I was referring to your last couple of posts before you sent me the study privately.

The rest of your posts I have quite obviously been reading all agog. Hope that clarifies the situation, I believe Lass commented on your sudden change in posting style as well if you're still unclear where you changed it.

I am not clear why you think a summary of the study you sent in a book is going to be somehow clearer than the actual study the summary is based on, could you clarify?

PalmerViolet · 23/05/2016 23:26

Sorry for the multi post, but last one for now, honest.

I am very happy to share the full text of the study with people, if they want to test my analysis of it, I'd probably need to email it to you, and you could easily make a throw away gmail account to preserve your anonymity.

Anyway, let me know via PM Smile

AHellOfABird · 23/05/2016 23:29

From the kindle sample of the book you mentioned, gone:

For example, Albin (1977), in her critique of psychology’s treatment of rape, argued that existing studies were inadequate because they (a) typically regarded rape as victim-precipitated, (b) insisted that it was a crime perpetrated only by deranged sexual psychopaths, and/or (c) had little real-world validity. A new generation of feminist researchers would change this state of affairs. In the 1980s, for example, psychologist Mary Koss named the “hidden” rape victim and identified acquaintance rape as an extremely prevalent phenomenon (see Koss, 2011), and psychologist Irene Frieze wrote about the causes and consequences of marital rape (Frieze, 1983).

Note (a).

I can't see the Kenya study in the contents list but perhaps it's in volume 2.

Extensive sample of book here: www.amazon.co.uk/Violence-Against-Girls-Women-International/dp/1440803358

Felascloak · 24/05/2016 07:59

Yes interesting that the Kenyan paper doesn't appear to be in that book. Confused. One could almost think that gone was being deliberately misleading in their references to "research".
This whole thread has gone very strange.

OP posts:
BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 24/05/2016 08:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Felascloak · 24/05/2016 20:40

Thought this was interesting in light of the conversation about women needing to be aware of risks
m.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/this-is-why-we-have-womenonly-spaces-and-why-i-dont-want-to-hear-your-complaints-20160523-gp253k.html

OP posts:
VestalVirgin · 24/05/2016 22:23

Actually, regardless of what they say, society in general has no interest in women actually taking responsibility in avoiding rape.

This blogger proposed a society that would make rape very, very unlikely:

witchwind.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/utopia-what-would-a-womens-society-look-like/

The blog is currently discussed on AIBU, and some are even demanding that all feminists distance themselves from this blogger, likening her (a single, completely unknown and powerless blogger) to ISIS and, of course, the nazis.

So that's what the reaction to a really proactive approach in preventing rape looks like.

There is no pleasing some people. If you don't do anything to keep men from raping you, you are called irresponsible and victim-blamed, but if you even just seriously think about how you could really keep men from raping you and other women (and children), then you're called an evil feminazi.

Good thing I didn't make a blog post about this women living in a sort of convent with only women and only going out in groups of five idea ... would probably be decreed "man-hating" and torn to shred on AIBU, too. Confused

venusinscorpio · 25/05/2016 00:06

I would genuinely like to know if there are research papers that claim there are things women should do to take responsibility for their own safety in regards to rape.

I have argued about this one on another forum. It's also been refuted point by point many times over by other researchers. All bolding is mine:

www.csus.edu/indiv/m/merlinos/thornhill.html

"Why Men Rape"

"Prevention efforts will founder until they are based on the understanding
that rape evolved as a form of male reproductive behavior"

("(37) Young women also need a new kind of education. For example, in today's rape-prevention handbooks, women are often told that sexual attractiveness does not influence rapists. That is emphatically not true. "

"(39) In spite of protestations to the contrary, women should also be advised that the way they dress can put them at risk. In the past, most discussions of female appearance in the context of rape have, entirely unfairly, asserted that a victim's dress and behavior should affect the degree of punishment meted out to the rapist: thus if the victim was dressed provocatively, she "had it coming to her"--and the rapist would get off lightly. But current attempts to avoid blaming the victim have led to false propaganda that dress and behavior have little or no influence on a woman's chances of being raped. As a consequence, important knowledge about how to avoid dangerous circumstances is often suppressed. Sure-ly the point that no woman's behavior gives a man the right to rape her can be made with-out encouraging women to overlook the role they themselves may be playing in compromising their safety."

" The common practice of unsupervised dating in cars and private homes, which is often accompanied by the consumption of alcohol, has placed young women in environments that are conducive to rape to an extent that is probably unparalleled in history. After studying the data on the risk factors for rape, the sex investigators Elizabeth R. Allgeier and Albert R. Allgeier, both of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, recommended that men and women interact only in public places during the early stages of their relationships--or, at least, that women exert more control than they generally do over the circumstances in which they consent to be alone with men."

There doesn't appear to be any evidence for these specific claims about dress and behaviour or being alone with men (which obviously the avoidance of which is a relatively effective rape prevention method), instead they appear to have extrapolated it all from their reasoning that rape is an evolutionary strategy and grounded in natural biological impulses as is all "sex" and men are hard-wired to pursue sex at all costs.

I think Gone and Thornhill and Palmer would get on.

itllallstillbefine · 25/05/2016 07:51

I think that the only effective way of avoiding rape is to avoid men, which is presumably why there is enthusiasm here for a female only taxi service on another thread.

PalmerViolet · 25/05/2016 08:35

Venus

I think Gone and Thornhill and Palmer would get on.

Not this Palmer!

I've seen that before, and seen it taken apart point, by ridiculous point.

Christ alive, men will do anything to defend their desire to rape and harm women.

again NAMALT

venusinscorpio · 25/05/2016 08:50

Obvs didn't mean you, PalmerViolet! Blush

Some of the debunkings I've read of their book "a Natural History of Rape" ( that my link of their article is based on) are great. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who believe this shit, and it doesn't help when it's labelled "science".

itllallstillbefine · 25/05/2016 09:09

Would a fair summation be that there are actually steps women can take to avoid rape, that statement is logically correct. However, they are unacceptable ? There is a logical flaw with on the one hand saying that a female only taxi service is a perfectly rational thing since it helps women avoid men and men are dangerous to women, and on the other saying that women can do nothing to avoid situations that men might rape them.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 25/05/2016 09:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AHellOfABird · 25/05/2016 09:21

Itll

As rape can only be committed by the be-penised, keeping men separated from women would be a step society could take to avoid a situation where a man becomes a rapist.

I doubt that's an acceptable solution to anyone.

itllallstillbefine · 25/05/2016 09:35

It depends on just how serious you believe the threat to be AHell - i think that some people would regard it as a perfectly acceptable solution, at least in part.

AHellOfABird · 25/05/2016 09:46

You think that society would be happy to help prevent men becoming rapists in that way?

Doubt it.

Anyway, as said elsewhere, you are a pretty disingenuous poster so I will be getting on with my day now. Au revoir.

Dervel · 25/05/2016 14:54

witchwind's blog is a bit of a red herring. I don't think people's objection to it are because it seeks to stop rape, rather that it seeks to euthanize sections of the male population, and bring the population of men down to 'manageable' levels.

Also it makes sense that many would seek to dissociate feminism from such sentiments, for if feminism is the notion of gender equality it is distinctly anti-feminist.

If however if it is a satirical piece that underlines how many women feel in the current paradigm then it does its job. Except perhaps for the part that men sympathetic to women should be running around executing all the men who aren't is remarkably reductive and I would seek to challenge that under the surface all men are given to violence if they have the opportunity.

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 25/05/2016 15:13

I don't get any sense witchwind is writing satirically.

That report by Palmer and Thornhill looks pretty easy to tear apart. I see they are an evolutionary anthropologist and an evolutionary biologists.

I would have expected input from criminologists , psychologists or socioligists.

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