Whoops. Wrong Thread
I’ve known several woman and girls who were raped vaginally and anally, but I’ve only known one who ever pressed charges (and she was raped by a stranger who followed her home and pushed her through the front door). They either started putting the wheels in motion and realized they were going to get screwed again by the system or just didn’t want to consider themselves victims.
(I’m not sure the OP’s somewhat vague and presumptuous questions can all be answered here).
I don’t disagree with that side of things, but it wasn’t the phenomenon to which I was referring. What I meant was that a significant large number of women will describe themselves in surveys as having experienced situations that are legally rape, but do not check the box that says that they have been raped. It isn’t about prosecution or non-prosecution.
The majority of these are after acquaintance rapes, which is unsurprising because the overwhelming majority of rapes are acquaintance rapes.
One of the reasons I have seen is that a person might not want to categorize themselves as a rape victim. Another is that the person may simply not know that what occured to them is rape - there are too many people (both male and female) who still believe that paying for dinner and a movie entitles the purchaser to a little action.
Hmmm, is it violent by nature even when she’s on top?
Okay, question…how often does this scenario happen? This reminds me very much of what a lot of people feared in the thread about children–that is, the thread where a lot of men professed to be afraid of being accused of molestation because they happened to be left alone with a child or helped a child find its mom/dad, etc. A lot of others brought up that maybe this fear is just as overblown as the fear that your child will be molested if it’s out of your sight for even a second.
Also, it’s interesting that here you’re not talking about false rape, exactly, because an overly nervous girl who imagines a threat of force or girl who regrets it, might actually think they were the victim of rape. I read a few cases that involved implied physical threat/intimidation in the Susan Esterich book “Real Rape” and both of those cases seemed really clear cut to me, but perhaps not to a male–one case where a man and a woman in her car after having met in a bar, now at his place, end up having sex, but only after he takes her car keys and then up in his apartment, he puts his hands over her neck (threat or caress?)–she doesn’t fight back. It seemed to me after reading that case, perhaps a lot of the cases where the fear is imagined (in the eyes of the male) are just cases where maybe men don’t realize how intimidating the male’s actions are, and where the female isn’t protesting because she’s afraid that if she yells or says no, she’ll be hurt further.
This was a Maryland case. The conviction was upheld (I think I have the procedural posture right) because of the touch to the neck. That provided the necessary force element. In the interest of full disclosure, the only reason she was in his apartment was because it was late, she had driven him home, he lived in a bad neighborhood she did not know well, and he took her car keys and refused to give them back until she went upstairs with him.
The court’s determination that this would not have been rape absent him touching her neck, despite her repeat statements that she did not want to have sex with him, is a sign that there is a problem with MD law, IMHO.
Indeed. There was also another case in that book where a woman’s boyfriend (previously abusive) saw her in public, and she accompanied him back to his apartment even though she didn’t want to, and had sex, also not wanting to…don’t remember the level of protestation, but she definitely said she felt coerced and afraid to say no to him.
So I’m starting to wonder if when people complain that a very nervous woman can misconstrue anything as the threat of intimidation, just what they mean. A strange man putting his hand on one’s neck and refusing to give back one’s car keys, or an abusive boyfriend basically telling you to do what he says…all this seems fairly forceful. And even in these cases, it takes so much effort to get it to court–are there really all that many cases where a nervous girl assumes that a man’s off color remark is a threat of force? In the cases in “Real Rape,” a lot of them were date or acquaintance rape, but most of them felt very unambiguous.
I don’t understand how Bill can “get me drunk”. I choose to pour the drinks down my throat. Oh, if he physically forces me (you know, ties me up, pours neat vodka down my throat while holding my nose, that sort of thing) then I guess - and although IANAL, it seems to me that that in itself would be illegal in most jurisdictions.
Ok, so if you choose to get sloppy drunk with Bill and are unable to say “no” clearly, then you are consenting to sex, right? I mean, you drank the drinks, so I guess it’s your fault.
I wonder how many men here have gotten inebriated to that kind of level in the presence of other men? How would you feel if you woke up the next morning sore from unwanted sexual intercourse? I wonder if men might see the situation a little differently if that was a threat they might ever actually face.
I hope you have a similar view to a situation where you are walking home drunk, and a person comes up and asks you for your wallet. Your inability to say no should, of course, protect them from the legal consequences of their actions when they relieve you of the burden of said wallet and go on a spending spree.
I am still a bit unclear on how the law sees this but I would think consensual sex requires an affirmative action (which could take a variety of forms) on the part of both parties to count as actual consent (Note: coerced “consent” is not consent in my view nor I think the law’s view).
Not saying “No” does not equal a “Yes”. I find it odd if courts, society or morality could ever suggest otherwise.
I think there’s a difference between someone not saying no and the person just having sex with them, which is what villa and miss elizabeth are talking about, and getting really drunk and actively having sex or saying yes, but then saying you couldn’t have consented due to inebriation, which is what PaulParkhead seems to be talking about. There’s a very different picture between a woman having sex while really really drunk and a woman on her way to passing out who is unable to stop men from having sex with her.
Whack-a-Mole - in the overwhelming majority of US jurisdictions, there is no requirement for affirmative consent for sex to be considered consensual. If a person does not say no, absent certain factors preventing the ability to refuse, the sex is considered consensual.
I don’t know about the law either, but if a woman is very drunk with a man, and admits she didn’t say no, and they had sex, which she later says she would not have consented to, do you think it is likely that the man will be convicted of rape? Or that charges will even be brought against him?
And what about the court of public opinion? Will she be regarded as a victim of rape who deserves sympathy and support, or as a stupid woman who at best got herself into a bad situation and probably “deserved it”, or at worst a liar who wanted to have sex (why else would she be drunk alone with a man?) and later regretted it and is now “claiming rape”?
If someone asks for my wallet (NB asks ) and I am drunk enough to give it to them then yes, I would hold myself responsible. Anyone’s free to ask me for my wallet at any time.
It’s a situation that seems unlikely to arise - but I can see a situation arising where people have varying quantities of alcohol and then proceed to have sex.
My rule of thumb would be that a woman has to be incapable of consent, but sometimes I see this defined more as “gives consent she wouldn’t have given sober”. Sure, though - if a women is clearly incapable of consenting, it is rape.
Thanks for expressing that much more coherently than I did.
I’d agree here, that it’s different when you actually say yes and then withdraw consent, assuming that you were giving consent freely and weren’t being coerced, etc.
So, I think a situation where a woman is drunk and barely conscious and lying on a bed at a party and a guy comes in and starts having sex, and she says no or something barely intelligible…that’s rape. A case where a girl is clearly wasted on the dance floor and a guy asks her if she’d like to get out of here and go to his place and she agrees, but wakes up the next day thinking, “What was I doing?” or “What happened?” isn’t rape, IMHO.
ETA:
No prob!
The difference being is that if someone takes your wallet without your permission, it’s theft. You have to grant them consent. So if you are meandering home, pissed as a newt, and aforementioned footpad says “Give me your wallet” and you, drunkedly, stumble past him, wallet hanging out of your pocket, he will still be committing theft if he takes that wallet.
On the other hand if Bill, when you are totally bladdered, says he wants to play hide the salami with you, and you are too drunk to respond, under the construct you seem to be following (or seemed to be before you redefined it) he could roger that cute little ass of yours until the cows came home, provided you did not say no (and in most jurisdictions he would have to use a degree of force).
The law doesn’t at the moment allow a claim of rape on the basis that the victim has had a couple of drinks, says yes, and then wakes up regretting it in the morning.
That’s not what many will have you believe, and what’s more, many who believe that are all for that double standard.
So are we in agreement that someone who’s too drunk to say yes (or no, or anything) is too drunk for sex. It’s more than just being drunk, but being just way too drunk…