She has been offered a choice, and can decline if the bargain is not to her liking.
Two possibilities, either she believes in the power of Voodoo, in which case he has committed assault, and any subsequent sexual activity is criminal, or she does not believe in Voodoo, and again she has been offered a choice, and may accept or decline voodoo sex.
She has legal action against the employer whether or not she has sex with him, but sex, if it takes place is consensual.
Same as example C.
Still the same.
He is guilty of a crime, whether or not she consents, and if she she consents, he is guilty of rape, as well.
When I was seven years old, I was raped by my baby-sitter’s son (our next door neighbors). I blocked it out for twenty years - all I ever saw in my mind were small bits and pieces of what had happened - mainly because I didn’t UNDERSTAND what had happened. I was seven years old! I had no idea what sex and rape were at the age of seven! But I knew that what had happened to me was wrong and I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I don’t know if you necessarily would call it a repressed memory, but I did my best to make sure it stayed way down in my psyche where I couldn’t see it.
I’ve never had therapy for it. With the help of an incredibly wonderful and amazing friend who managed to get me to talk about it when he realized that I was scared to death of sex or even being TOUCHED by a member of the opposite sex, I remembered what happened to me that day. I’ve managed to heal in the past five years, amazingly. I also know it happened because I finally got the nerve to bring it up to my mother and she remembered it the same way that I did. The memory was always there, I just chose not to look at it. Sometimes, it chose to show itself without my permission, though.
I don’t know if the whole repressed memory issue is an attempt by psychiatrists or others to discredit victims. But I do think that if there’s a memory, there’s something to it.
I’m torn on Zabali here. I know that there’s a big difference between a 7 year old and a 13 year old, mentally. A 13 year old is able to discern what’s happening to him or her, and has more of an opportunity to fight back. Whereas I had no clue what was happening, so I didn’t know to fight back. And when I did realize that I needed to fight back, it was too late. Part of me feels like Zabali SHOULD have fought back more and had the opportunity to leave, but on the other hand, she was thirteen and terrified and probably thinking more ‘what ifs’ than ‘what should I do?’.
Not in a defense, but a question - I had no idea what was happening until it was too late. So it didn’t start as forceful - it started as ignorance on my part. Yes, what happened to me was definitely statuatory rape. Was it legally forceful rape? I do remember trying to fight back when I realized that what was happening was bad, but it was past what most would consider the time of consent. And for those who would consider what happened to me rape, but not Zabali, why? I didn’t fight back because I didn’t know what was happening, but she didn’t fight as hard as she could have because she was scared of what was happening. What’s the difference?
Zabali, you have my sincere sympathies for what happened to you. I hope that you’re able to find some comfort for it.
Nothing about what you said, or what he said is germane. You were thirteen, He was sixteen, you were raped. Even if you begged him to do it over and over for a month, and threatened to tell everyone he was impotent, or whatever. You were thirteen, he was sixteen, you were raped.
Had you been twenty one I see no crime. (I still think he was an asshole, but not a criminal.) But you weren’t.
As to the question of when a woman can say no, If you tell the seventeenth guy at the gangbang to stop, and he doesn’t stop, then it’s rape. A prostitute who says stop is being raped if the guy doesn’t stop. But she is still guilty of prostitution.
And every woman who says no, and then says, “You should have tried harder.” is an accessory before the fact to a million cases of rape. And as hard as it is to accept, if you want a man to overcome your verbal objections to sexual activity, you are asking to be raped. That doesn’t make it legal to rape you, but it does make it more likely.
Zabali is obviously going through an emotional time right now. If you haven’t picked up on that, her report that she was literally crying as she typed her OP was the first clue. The intensity of her posts was another.
While I suspect her present emotional turmoil has a cause way more complicated than an trauma that happened years ago, I also believe her distress is genuine. For that reason, I think speculating about the veracity of her story is impolite. I know this is the Pit, and Zabali twice brought the issue up, but I personally feel very uncomfortable kicking someone when they’re down, no matter why they’re down.
Zabali, I hope you took the advice to take time away from The Pit if you find yourself getting more and more upset. I also hope that you can find a way to stop dwelling on crappy things that happened to you in the past. Neither is particulary healthy for your self-esteem.
One, why is it so important to Zabali for this board to say that she was raped, to the point that a) her story changed considerably from first telling to last, b) she was absolutely vitriolic in her attack on astro for daring to give his opinion that she had not been raped when * she had asked for that opinion in the first place*, and c) she claims to be crying hysterically about being questioned as to terminology (although in my experience the people who feel more talk about it less).
Two, Zabali seems to be blaming a lot of the rest of her life on an event which took place quite a few years ago, and which, given that she was not physically harmed or even overtly threatened, one would think would have taken its place in the “shitty stuff happens” file of her life by now. I mean, let’s look at what Zabali herself claims in the worst of her versions to have happened. She ended up having sex at an earlier age than she would have preferred with her boyfriend because she was confused and overwhelmed and didn’t seem to be able to get across that she really didn’t want to. OK, that sucks. But she seems to be very eager to make this single event responsible for the bad things that have happened since, which are therefore not “her fault,” just as having had sex at the age of thirteen is not “her fault.”
I guess what I’m driving at here is that regardless of what you call the experience, at this point Zabali would be better served by dealing with her present reality than by trying to make sure that everything in her life can be blamed on this one event. Zabali, you had sex before you were ready, you were scared, shaken up, and felt guilty. OK, fine. But you’re at least in your twenties now, and you can put the event in its proper perspective - as something lousy that happened to you, period. You weren’t injured or permanently damaged physically, and the emotions you may have had at the time can be viewed now and retained or discarded as appropriate or not. What do you gain by holding on to this rage and misery, except a convenient vehicle for blame when things go wrong in your life?
I’m sorry if I come across as cold, but when I run across someone this determined to be assessed as a victim, I have to wonder why. And victimhood, IMHO, is most often useful as an excuse. The problem is, as long as you remain a victim, things never get better for you.
That’s if you get immediate counseling, and don’t curl up inside in misery, shame, and self blame. If you don’t get help, your self esteem stays low, and you put up with “shit” without giving it a second thought. Many women do just this if they have been date/acquaintance raped.
Calm Kiwi’s post is a very good illustration of just such self blame. She apparently hasn’t sought help to deal with this, and still is simmering in self blame. I was too, for years. She doesn’t want to be a “victim” (btw, I’m not, I’m a survivor) so she refuses to consider that what other people see is might possibly be true.
For what it’s worth, she was raped. This is a glimpse of what I was going through, denying it happened, blaming myself, “not thinking about it” because it hurt so much. Instead of placing the blame where it belongs, squarely on the shoulders of the guys who took advantage of her, she blames herself “I was stupid”.
THAT is another thing that needs correction in this society. The fact that women/girls/men/boys are so willing to blame themselves and also MANY OTHERS, (as in this thread) also say “you were also culpable”, or “to blame”. That is why date/acquaintance rape is a “hidden crime”, and doesn’t get reported, or prosecuted, and the laws concerning it aren’t good enough to help either. This too, needs to be looked at honestly, and work done to “unlearn” such behavior.
Calm Kiwi He picked me up, was basically grappling with me in order to grope me (I did resist, and take his hands off) and physically exhausted me. He ran me into the ground, so he could get sex. I don’t think you’ve ever experienced such an onslaught. “Octopus” doesn’t cover it. He very clearly was using more than one way to “wear me down” so he could get sex. He hit me up on the emotional front, he very definately physically molested me, and intellectually he bumfuzzled me because I could not comprehend such utter lack of regard.
I did not “whine” as Thea Logica (ironic name that) so melodramatically implied, and I was actually very clear and “adult” in my tone when I said “I’m not ready” (though it was quiet, it was firmly and clearly said, I read the Scriptures, was a Lector in my church at that age and spoke very well.) I was VERY emphatic, and clear with my wishes, but he did not care to accept them, and dazed me with his emotionally charged verbal onslaught, combined with groping hands, lifting/carrying and squeezing me.
I felt my throat tighten as I said my last “I don’t want to” but it was apprehension, not petulance. I looked him in the eyes for Og’s sake, and said that. That’s pretty damned clear, even for an adult. You need to re-examine your perceptions of just how clearly an overwhelmed 13 year old can form thoughts and act on them. I did take action, to the best of my short circiuted 13 year old ability. Of course it wouldn’t be a supremely logical thing, I was human, and only a child at that.
I was not thinking clearly, I can see that now. I was in a haze, and didn’t leave. That is true. But, what good would it have done? This is what I thought afterwards, “It was my fault, it must have been, I must have done something wrong.” Then, “but what good would it have done, he’d have caught you easy.” He could outrun me, with no effort. We’d played laser tag, and a rule had to be made that he couldn’t sprint to make it fair. He knew where I lived, knew what route I’d blindly head for.
It wasn’t a “tangible” thought in my head as it was occuring, but later it came to me as part of my fractured thinking. In other words, it came to mind, but not to the front of your mind where you notice it, across the back of my mind. Like things you “know” but aren’t aware until later how, because you’ve subconsiously taken notice of the things. I was so overwhelmed, so confused by all the input, outside and the turmoil inside, that I became numb, frozen. Hopeless.
This quote from one of my posts here is the short version of what I’ve said:
AHunter3 No, although I mostly say use the female gender in this thread, I’ve also said “anyone”. Boys/Men can be raped too. ANYONE can. Anyone has the right to change their minds about sex, and the reasonable right to expect that due respect will be given their decision.
Diane, believe this is a very hard topic for me to discuss. I’ve barely slept, and the pain that has welled up again is costing me dearly. However, I wanted to open this discussion (since the other thread brushed what happened to me, and nudged the wound) so that fellow Dopers would be aware of the way this society’s veiw is so twisted. It’s so willing to blame the victim, and if a person is raped, they are likewise willing to blame themselves. It’s a vicious cycle that can only be broken with open honest discussion, and a clear understanding of what truley happens. I’ll endure this anxiety and pain if it means that this problem is closer to being corrected.
As I said at the end of my OP, I will work to let go of my anger at the people who tried to place blame on me. I am also putting old wounds to rest, and will eventually have peace again, and will take up healing once more. Though, this is cathartic for me, and also a bit of a healing process too. I feel a need to get people to think and discuss the “grey areas” that are in rape, so they can help spread understanding of all that goes on. This is part of my battle to get well, facing up to the ugliness, standing “nose to nose” with society and working to clear up the myths.
Catsix It wasn’t my house. His parent’s made it very clear they didn’t want their TV shows to be interrupted. I was still at the “awe” of adults stage, and simply wouldn’t have dared to consider locking their door. OMG, I still asked permission to go through their house to get to the bathroom!
I didn’t want to be a “victim”, and didn’t even want to think about what happened at all. It wasn’t until I my veiw was turned inwards, towards the pains, that I began to understand there was a problem there, and discuss it’s aspects. I was the first one, dumbfounded, to finally call it what it was “rape”. I looked at the chart of what constituted rape, and checked off plenty of the items.
No respect for my feelings: check
Wouldn’t take “No” as an answer: check
Unwanted touching: check
Emotional pressure: check
Feelings of helplessness to even try to stop it: check
and on and on. The advocate was just trying to help me look at my life, and find the events that contributed to my vunerability to abusive relationships. That event was part of it. It’s not “soley to blame” for all of my life problems, but it contributed to weakening my resolves and self esteem, so I was more likely to let things slide. It’s hard to articulate well, but this is (I hope) a comprehensible explanation of how battered women come to be. I was rebuilding my life, picking up my shattered pieces, and trying to learn why this happened so I could strengthen myself, heal, and hopefully bypass future abusive relationships. It’s worked.
yosimitebaby Exactly.
AvHines I’m 31. I’ve just had that much crap go on in my life. I was in a terribly abusive marriage, and I was lucky to get out of it alive. I’m re-married happily now. I’m still learning, and growing, and starting over again. My husband is 21, but we are an excellent balance. We are both just starting out. (Me anew, him for the first time.) Don’t you agree, that in order to “inoculate” yourself against something like this, you need to look at what contributing factors weakened your self esteem/resolve in the first place? This is what I was speaking of. I’m not a victim, I’m a survivor. I’ve been through hell, but it’s over now, and I’m looking forward to the journey ahead. I already like the veiw from where I am.
I think if a person feels traumatised, it is certainly reasonable to treat her (or him) emotionally as if she has been raped, even if legally it is not appropriate to prosecute the other person involved.
Emotions are funny things. They don’t recognise things like laws.
Yeah, I’ve been there too. Found myself stupidly and trustingly in a car with a kid from my senior class in high school (I was an exchange student to Mexico), who was suddenly all over me, hands up my dress, down my dress. What with the cultural differences, maybe he really did think I was “asking for it”. He took no for an answer, but that didn’t make me less traumatised. There have been times over the 20 years since that I’ve been nearly immobilised by flashbacks of emotions from the situation. And it wasn’t rape. Hell, there wasn’t even penetration…just violation.
Zabali, I feel for you. Whatever the definition of the situation, it still sounds like it sucked.
I think this is what Diane and a couple of other posters who still have doubts are talking about with the continual worsening of the story. First he took her to a dark corner of the yard, then he carried her, now he’s ‘grappling’, ‘physically exhausting’ an worse than an ‘octopus’ in his ‘onslaught’.
The story gets more and more dramatic with each telling, which has raised the suspicions of a handful of posters.
It is because the recounting changed to cover every point brought up by every poster who did not have the opinion that you have that I am having such a hard time disbelieving you. Now there are new points to cover why you did not go inside. Sorry, but I’m still doubtful of a story that gets ‘worse’ with every new post.
Glad to hear it. It certainly wasn’t what it sounded like before.
I wish you the best of luck, but I think you also owe astro an apology. Based on what you had said at that point, what he said was perfectly within bounds.
And this is what makes me find it more credible. People give more detail in response to more questioning. People do not typically give every last detail unasked. In fact, many details are only likely to be remembered with prompting.
But, believe her or not, she’s still entitled to feel whatever degree of trauma she experienced. And I hope she can find a way to process it and move on.
Perhaps sometimes they do. It is also very possible that prompting causes people to ‘remember’ things in a way different than what actually happened. I’m also not referring only to details, but to the choice of words becoming more and more dramatic in each post.
It’s kind of like the difference between ‘The car hit the other car.’ and ‘The car smashed into the other car.’ Both statements could describe exactly the same car accident, but there will be more of a reaction from ‘smashed into’.
Prompting can be useful, but it is not always useful because it can dredge up details that never really happened.
I don’t think she has no right to feel pain about the experience because I don’t believe that, through what has been posted here, this would fit the definition of aggravated rape*. Statuory rape, yes, but in my opinion (and opinions were solicited by Zabali), it does not seem to constitute aggravated rape. I hope she can heal and move on from what was obviously a painful and traumatic experience. My disagreement that ‘emotionally traumatic sexual experience’ doesn’t automatically qualify as aggravated rape does not mean I wish her anything less than to be able to heal from it.
*I’m using the term ‘aggravated rape’ to distinguish from ‘statutory rape’
I’m just going to say two more things before bowing out of this trainwreck.
#1. I consider myself a pretty damn good judge of character and I think you’re full of shit. Your posts clearly show that you’re manipulating us but I don’t know why.
#2. Assuming I’m wrong and you are telling the truth; try to see this with a little perspective. If that’s the worst thing that ever happens in your life then you’re not doing so bad. You’ve got it better than me, a lot of my family, a lot of my friends, and a whole hell of a lot of people on these boards. I know things like that are terrible and hard to come to grips with, but worse things happen all the time and I rarely hear other people crying “poor me, poor me” 18 years later. Life is hard. A lucky few have it easy but for most of us things like this (maybe not as specific as physical rape) are bumps in the road that we HAVE to deal with. Are you going to let that stop you from living your life?
Mind you, people are going to take this the wrong way and be mad at me, but I’m trying to be positive in my own honest and blunt way. Stop and think about it for a minute.
kiwi, I am not just talking about a legal offense here. I am talking about this fucking disgusting sense of entitlement that is getting worse every year. And I don’t just mean “these kids today”; there were spoiled assholes in my generation too.
Look at zabali’s story, for crissakes. The whole thing started because her b/f decided he was entitled to sex because it was his birthday. This wasn’t something they’d talked about earlier and agreed upon, as in, “Hey, Saturday’s my birthday…do you think we could…um…?”. No, it was just, “Hey, thanks for the t-shirt, but I want a really special present!” Just. Like. That.
She didn’t mention his using a condom, or asking if she was using birth control, so presumably he hadn’t even thought that far ahead, nor had that much concern for how the incident would affect her life. He did not care how she felt. All he wanted was pussy.
I’m past caring if people call what happened to Zabali rape or not, or to what degree. There are too many guys who think that the world owes them a lay. Zabali’s b/f was/is one of them, and he was/is a piece of shit for being that way. I don’t care what might or might not happen in a court of law. I care about what happens in cars, and dark backyards, and basements and frat houses and on secluded beaches.
Sex is not something to “get”. It should not be a goal, like getting a driver’s license or making the varsity squad. It should not be the measure of one’s “manhood”. It should be a decision worked out and agreed upon by both parties. And there are valid reasons why a girl would say no, like not wanting to get pregnant, and saying no does not make her a “tease”. It makes her a young woman who doesn’t want to jeopardize her future, and wants her first time to be special, with someone she cares about.
Sex should be an act of love. And if it has to be forced, that’s not love. It’s wrong.
I’d wager that you had it right and your mother was wrong. Whatever you were remembering was likely to have been less important to your mom because it was a “kid thing”. Perhaps she remembered it in terms of what she had to yell at you kids to stop doing, whereas you remembered it in terms of the funnest thing you ever did.
I could fill a thread with the ways my mom’s memories and mine have failed to coincide, but here’s a specific example. For years, I carried the memory of once having been on the field at Shea Stadium. I knew it was likely to be a real memory, because I saw it, in my mind, from my own point of view at the time. I didn’t see myself in the scene; I saw other adults around and in front of me, the infield grass under my feet, and the scoreboard way above my head.
My mom, naturally, dismissed this out of hand. “No one ever goes onto a baseball field, unless they’re a crazed fan or a streaker, and I think I’d know if you’d been one of those things!” I remained open to the possibility that the “memory” was a dream or something I’d seen on TV or in a movie, but never quite accepted her dismissal. Finally, my dad dug up a box of forgotten photos, and there they were. “These are the pictures I took on Fan Appreciation Day, 1974! Remember?”
So you had the perspective of a kid (knew it was a rare occurrence, but didn’t otherwise understand the situation), the perspective of my mom (who simply forgets everything, even the names of the attendants at her wedding), and the perspective of my dad (who always takes photos of Important Events, but is too lazy to organize them in any way). Luckily, photographic proof bore me out.
Just out of curiosity, what was the “something” your family used to do, and what was the “significant detail”?
Well I certainly have to agree that the guy was a total asshole who behaved in a jerkish manner.
I don’t see where people are saying he didn’t act like a world-class fucktard of a sixteen year old guy, just that people understand how a horned up teenage guy could act like a jackass.
I can understand how that would happen, and I don’t think that excuses him from being a fucknugget. I just draw the line before thinking it makes him a rapist.*
*Rapist as in the violent, disgusting, name-on-the-registry kind of sexual predator that comes to mind when people say ‘rapist’.
I already said that I’m leaving the “was it rape or not” debate to others. What I’m getting at here is that too many people, for too long, have been “understanding how a horned up teenage guy can act like a jackass”. It is far too often accepted, or met with a blind eye, in American society, and it needs to fucking stop.
The pressure always seems to be on the girl, to avoid boys who are “bad news”. There’s not enough effort being made to raise boys to be decent young men.
We need to start condemning assholish behavior, even when it doesn’t qualify as legally actionable rape. And I mean condemn as in telling our sons, “I’d better never find out that you pushed a girl beyond what she wanted to do, even if you were so horny that it physically hurt.” the same way daughters are told, “I’d better never find out that you went all the way with a boy, even if you thought you were in love with him.”
I hope you will also be teaching them that, although not as common, it is not fair for a girl to push a boy into sex or for a boy to feel that he must give it up in order to please a girl.
Those situations, I believe, are much more rare than the other way around, but they do happen.
Well, from what I’ve picked up on Loveline, someone who was victimized at 13 was probably “set up” to be a victim even earlier in their lives. Adam and Dr. Drew believe that victimization is part of a cycle like that, and they consistently amaze their callers by asking about and revealing earlier trauma. I don’t want to speculate about the OP’s childhood, but I admit it has crossed my mind that her response to the situation might not have been the typical 13 year old’s response, and there might be a reason it wasn’t.
Apparently, in the Netherlands, where the age of consent is 12, kids do have that emotional capacity at 13 years of age. What is it about American teenagers that makes them so much worse at judging whether they really want to have sex - lack of education? Something in the water? Shouldn’t we be doing something about it?
I hope you will also be teaching them that, although not as common, it is not fair for a girl to push a boy into sex or for a boy to feel that he must give it up in order to please a girl.
Those situations, I believe, are much more rare than the other way around, but they do happen.
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Fine, whatever. How 'bout this, then: Nobody, male or female, is entitled to get exactly what they want, right when they want it, just because they want it. And I’ll admit that there are some girls who will use sex as a means of manipulation.
But I still maintain that there are one hell of a lot of guys who think that they are entitled to sex. And a guy forcing himself on a girl has more traumatic effects, in a longer term, than a girl blowing a guy so he’ll vote for her for homecoming queen. Sure, it’s wrong, but what does he lose from that? And, don’t even try to tell me that there aren’t more parents who will condemn their daughters for not being virgins, than condemn their sons for the same thing.
And you’ve dredged up a memory from high school…see how these things can get dislodged after years in the subconscious? A friend, who was going with a very wealthy guy, told me of her plans to conceive his child so he’d “have to” marry her. I told her that I thought that was a Very Bad Idea. Besides being a purely selfish reason to bring a child into the world, I thought the odds were more in favor that his parents would simply offer hush money for an abortion or for child support, but nix the idea of marriage. I didn’t think he’d want to marry her either, and in fact, they broke up before this “plan” could come to fruition.
Sure, it would have been wrong for her to do that. But if she had gotten pregnant, well, it wouldn’t have happened without his cooperation. He still had the aggressive equipment, after all. It would take a woman much more skilled in the boudoir arts than my friend was at 15, to entice a guy into sex against his express wishes.