Uncomfortable feelings about the teaching of "consent"

[Tootickyandsnufkin]

I hope I explain this ok. I'm not entirely sure this makes sense, or if I'm expressing something obvious.

Consent comes up a lot on here/MN. Usually the discussion is around whether consent is confusing etc. Everyone is familiar. I hope isn't is prompting the usual debate. But I guess maybe that where it goes.

The idea of teaching "consent" to boys/young men bothers me. I wonder what it says about men that they have to be taught. Then i think about what else we teach our children. Thinking on the go....I guess we work to develop empathy in many areas but how do they develop naturally otherwise? isn't there some sort of innate compassion that stops people, eg, committing acts of violence? Or is it consequences that shapes behaviour. Which of course there is generally a lack of in terms of non consensual sex/sexual acts.

And if we try to teach our sons about consent, are those who have ignored a lack of consent simply those who weren't adequately educated?
Is it depressing to think there are a huge group of boys/men for whom its an educational issue? Or is that a very negative way to think?

I do wonder Too if any of my male friends from the class had been in the group whether it might never have happened. I think they would have stopped it, or the original conversation might not even have occurred.

I also wonder if I'd been standing in a mixed group whether he would have done it. Probably not.

But I was a women, that these men didn't care one way or another about, standing in a small group of women.

We often say to men, how would you feel if it was your Mother or your sister. Because their relationship (ownership) of those women make that behaviour unacceptable.

In the deep, dark heart of our culture we still haven't accepted that all women are as important as all men. Even the women you aren't related to, even the women who aren't pretty, even the women you aren't attracted to.

That's why women spend so much time worrying about their appearance. Because attractive women have a tiny bit more power. Or feel like they do.

I think there are some men who do yes, and I think they're backed up by the fact that they are physically stronger/taller and have fewer physical limitations (in terms of periods/pregnancy/vulnerability) that allow them to exercise that desire. I don't think that proportion of men is especially high, or even much higher than women even, I just think they're more successful at it due to a natural advantage and due to the fact that men who don't engage in that behaviour benefit from it nonetheless and therefore do nothing to change things.

However, the aim of feminism isn't to just accept this behaviour and then work to control it. It's to change society so that the benefit of behaving that way becomes less, and so that the men who aren't hopeless megalomaniacs also stand up to those men and their bit to achieve a fairer society. The fact that women are no longer perpetually burdened by childbirth/childcare has already tipped the balance hugely IMO.

I do wonder Too if any of my male friends from the class had been in the group whether it might never have happened. I think they would have stopped it, or the original conversation might not even have occurred.

Can't speak 100% for your classmates,but my experience was they sat by and did nothing,despite my screaming and obvious upset. Meh.

They (and I assume we are in 'NAMALT' territory here) seem to have an inherent desire to control things (territory, people, resources), and they use violence to achieve that control. Don't you think?

No.

Rebel I'm so sorry that happened to you.

Cat same to you. It just shows that men won't police other men. Women turns out won't police other men either sometimes(in my case every time). Men need to police themselves. This is wrong so I won't do it. That's the mentality that should be expected.

I think that some men will Rebel. Not enough though.

From my experience a lot of men pretend the world is a fair place where sexual assault is rare. Any evidence to the contrary is ignored because that would disturb their world view too much.

From my experience a lot of men pretend the world is a fair place where sexual assault is rare. Any evidence to the contrary is ignored because that would disturb their world view too much.

Too true Sparrowhawk.

That's why women spend so much time worrying about their appearance. Because attractive women have a tiny bit more power. Or feel like they do.

To make an object of oneself gives only an imaginary power, because a person is, by definition a subject. In locating oneself as an object, one is mis-locating oneself, as it were. Or in being objectified, one is alienated from what one truly is.

This is why one if an adult gives a child so much as one inappropriate touch - especially if that adult is the child's parent - then incalculable damage has been done. From that point forward, that child is potentially a stranger to itself, which is a terrible fate.

Sexual assault is a terrible crime.

It's a coping mechanism. I think most women realise how flimsy that superficial power is.

Part of the problem is porn, which subliminally conveys the perception that women like being forced - that propagate rape as a normal sexual fantasy. That's what's dangerous, and what has to be countered by education.

It's a bit chicken and egg. I think porn depicts rape as pleasurable because it suits men to believe that women are passive/no doesn't mean no. Depiction of rape in porn is influenced by all the same rape myths that make rape s9 hard to prosecute anyway.
I think porn is possibly exacerbating an underlying problem but I don't think it caused the problem

From my experience a lot of men pretend the world is a fair place where sexual assault is rare. Any evidence to the contrary is ignored because that would disturb their world view too much.
Yep. Already on this thread someone's posted that the vast majority of men don't commit sexual assaults. Doesn't matter what the stats say, doesn't matter what their female friends/relatives/partners say, they can't believe it's common and a sizeable minority of men do it.

I think porn is possibly exacerbating an underlying problem but I don't think it caused the problem

Agreed. Maybe it's more the case that porn completely depersonalises sex - removing all the empathy, tenderness and mutuality from it. Combined with all the pre-existing rape myths, that has a toxic effect on the developing sexual psychology of boys - who are now on average first exposed to porn aged eleven.

At least in the past you were supposed to buy a girl some flowers; now many boys just go to straight to asking her if she likes anal.

When I was younger we certainly felt it necessary to at put up some sort of resistance to sexual activities, no matter how welcome, for fear of appearing 'easy'. It was up to boys to demonstrate their keenness in order to 'persuade' us. Looking back, it was a fucked-up way of thinking for everyone.

(missed out the word 'least' between at and put)

When I was younger we certainly felt it necessary to at put up some sort of resistance to sexual activities, no matter how welcome, for fear of appearing 'easy'.

Bingo. How did the word 'easy' get to be a term of abuse? 'Nice' girls require work and effort to get sex out of, and are therefore higher prized. Easy girls give you sex without a fight so don't count for much.

The lyrics of 'baby it's cold outside' come to mind.

At a fundamental level an 'easy' woman is of less value because of she has sex with multiple men you can't guarantee (or at least you couldn't in the past) that any baby that resulted was yours. Hence the value of virginity - a virgin's procreative ability (the only value women carry in a truly patriarchal society) is fully under the control of her owner.

we certainly felt it necessary to at put up some sort of resistance to sexual activities, no matter how welcome

And if men expect women to say "no" when they mean "yes, I just need to be persuaded", where does that lead?

Oh hello Mr Collins

As I must therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall choose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females."

I see there's a few posts upthread which have brought up the issue of men admitting to rape when the act is described without the word "rape" being used. I'd really encourage people to look up the work of American criminal psychologist David Lisak.

He's done a lot of the pioneering work in this area. As I recall, when he merely describes behaviour (have you ever had sex with a woman when she's said no, but held her down/used your body weight to restrain her?), he gets about 6% of men admitting to acts which meet the legal definition of rape. Interestingly, and scarily, when he repeats these questionnaires (remember, they're anonymous), but actually uses the word "rape", 5% still admit to rape. So the "confused about consent" argument only holds good for a small minority of rapists - most know exactly what they're doing, and don't care because they know they're unlikely to get caught, and if they do, unlikely to get punished (Lisak has also looked into the way rapists deliberately plan upfront to target women who fall into categories which mean their testimony won't get taken seriously - women who've been drinking, or where the rapist makes sure the barman sees him flirting with the woman before they leave the bar, etc.) The other thing Lisak's found is that these "undetected rapists" as he calls them are serial offenders, with an average of about 6 rapes each. In fact, their offending profiles are almost indistinguishable from those of rapists who've been caught and incarcerated.

I recommend reading the David Wong article www.cracked.com/blog/how-men-are-trained-to-think-sexual-assault-no-big-deal/ referred to upthread.

The way he describes the pervasiveness of anti-consensual culture in the 70s and 80s chimes exactly with how I experienced it while female - young men felt they ought to be grabbing women and pushing the agenda, or they weren't 'real men' - with the corollary that 'real men' got sex and if they weren't having any, then they were doubly damned as 'not real men'.

MOstlyHet thank you for the David Lisak link. I've just been reading what I can find of his work online and it's really interesting. Especially the similarities of those surveyed with convicted rapists.

The repeat offending is so significant it feels really frustrating because there is a clearly a way for rape prosecution to move away from the he said/she said scenario.

wiilma I went back and read your post again.
It does feel like a huge mistake to think the issue is about confusion and consent.

There have been lots of very interesting posts.

There was an interesting piece where men were shown quotes from convicted rapists, along with others found freely available in 'lads magazines'. They were asked to try and distinguish between the ones from rapists and the ones from the magazine, which they failed to do.

All the quotes were fairly grim, but I think that in context, they were supposed to be ironic or funny. But it certainly suggests that the obnoxious mutterings of a rapist, can be also be found across mainstream media as banter 'n' shit for 'everyday men' to consume.

When the men found out the results of the test, interestingly they suddenly found the magazine less legitimate. Indicating that once you hold up a mirror, it makes for uncomfortable viewing.

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/science/lads-mags-rapists-students-psychology-study-hostile-sexism-donald-trump-a7358481.html%3Famp

I'm really keen on consent classes for all girls and boys. I dont think we're trying to target rapists as much as change the way we think as a society.

Coleman's experience isn't out of the ordinary and I'm not trying to minimise it - it was awful and shouldn't have happened - but how everyone reacted is sort of worse than the original act. I've been in a bar with friends and a man came up to the table and snatched my friend's bag and ran off. Bystanders ran after him, others asked her if she was ok - did she need help getting home, was she shaken, let me buy you a drink on the house, what a horrible thing to happen, some people etc.

When a stranger harassed me on the bus when I was coming home from work late at night - repeatedly coming on to me and touching me while I told him to stop - people acted as if I was making a scene and should stop making everyone uncomfortable by making a fuss about something that didn't matter.