Still, your statement says that I (the hypothetical I) am consenting to something that doesn’t involve keeping my clothes on:
Do you mean to say that you will take someone coming back to your place as implicit consent for you to take their clothes off?
implicit consent: no
implied actions on returning to room: yes
If asked that question I don’t expect board games or a tour when I get there, nor if I ask that question am I expecting that no “shenanigans” will occur once back at my place or wherever.
Nobody has been defending rape, what people take issue with is your idea that when two drunk people have sex its the man who is somehow doing something wrong. If i spend the evening hanging out at a bar and i meet a girl and we spend the night drinking and talking and we end up having sex i don’t feel like i’ve done anything wrong. I’m not a rapist, i’m not dishonorable and i sure as hell don’t think i should be under any responsability to not have sex just because we have both spent the last few hours drinking at a bar. I don’t think a single person in this thread has said that fucking an unconsious girl isn’t rape, or having sex with someone after they said no.
This, to me, is just one more violation of some women. After being violated and being told how to react to the crime, then they’re made to feel responsible if their reaction isn’t sufficient to warn off all other potential victims? (As to your hypothetical of the little sister, that seems a little unlikely since it would be easy enough to warn someone so close. I’m thinking of other victims that are further away in their sphere of influence.)
If someone was stabbed and got a small 1/4 " cut that required 3 stitches and felt OK about it and told their immediate friends and family, but decided not to press charges because of the hassle, should they then feel responsible if someone else got stabbed later and suffered PTSD from it? If your answer is different than in the gray rape case, why is it different? If it’s the same, does it extend to all victims of all crimes and all victims of every tragedy that they’re responsible to warn every other potential victim. . . foreseeable or not?
I’m also curious about your statement that there’s an idea that women’s bodies are public property. Could you explain that a little further? It sure wasn’t the case that women’s bodies were public property in the past. I can’t think of where this notion came from. Do you mean because some women’s bodies are used as advertising and that sex appeal is used heavily in the media that this is now the standard in public for all women’s bodies?
On a slightly off-topic but related note, I once read a guy on another message board who said that he worked with many molested girls in his job. His theory was that if society didn’t stigmatize the crime as heavily as it did, many of these girls would be less traumatized. He was banned from the message board for his aggressive defense of these ideas since he was so heavily opposed. And judging from the reactions on this thread, if something happened to me like it did to the women described in the OP, I’d want to avoid this entire issue as well because I think it adds additional trauma to an already difficult event. If renaming my experience would do that, it would be worth a try. The only other response would be to deny that it happened to avoid this whole controversy.
I’m not sure how it’s pertinent here, but I’ve espoused the same theory on this board. To me, it’s part of the same issue. Rape and molestation happen in many ways, with many different results on the survivor (the more I think about it, the more I prefer that word to “victim”, so thank you to whomever shared it way back on page 1 or 2) and the important thing is that we find some middle ground between “Ah, get over it, Uncle Louie is just a friendly guy, y’know! What’s wrong with you? Stop making such a fuss.” and “Oh my god, you must be devastated - he’s ruined you and you’ll never have a normal life again!!!1111”
I just don’t think we need to come up with more different words to label people with. The labels simply give people a shorthand to Assumption Land, and instead of asking the individual how s/he feels, the label leads people to assume they already know. And too often, those assumptions become self-fulfilling prophecies, once you’ve heard them enough.
Yes, I’ve read it. It’s one of the reasons I joined this message board. Thank you.
And yet “survivor” still has the connotation that a tragedy occurred. We don’t say burglary survivor or theft survivor or mugging survivor. But we do say shipwreck survivor. And the assumption that a tragedy occurred brings with it the whole set of assumptions that people are sometimes trying to avoid.
Agreed that this is the important thing. But how society will go about this seems to me a pretty complex issue. And I think that creating labels is at least one attempt to find a way to do this. I’m also agreed that in this case, it probably doesn’t work very well.
Because of the sexual nature of the crime, people are pretty reticent to ask about the details. Without details, assumptions are just human nature. And at this point, I think that people are now just assuming the worst. And if they find out that it’s different, they can sometimes be disappointed or feel that the person misled them.
And even if people did ask, the whole event is so complicated that it would take such a long time to unravel all the details that people would lose interest long before all the pertinent parts of the story were revealed.
I think it’s because of this that people are trying to differentiate between different types of experiences in order to give a soundbite of their experience so that people can relate without going into all the details. And because some people don’t want to have to replay their experience all the time.
I’m at a loss to think of any other ways to head people off from Assumption Land. Do you have any ideas about that?
Even this word, to me, is tainted. I was having a very long conversation with my husband last night about how ANGRY I am for the way I was treated in therapy–not because my therapists were not well-meaning, but because at this point I think most counselors for rape/abuse/PTSD are suffering from some kind of mass hallucination NOT based on solid scientific research.
I went through years and years trying to come to terms with the shit hand I was dealt in childhood, doing everything the therapists told me to do. People cannot possibly comprehend how much effort I put into this, because I was so desperate to recover. But I kept getting worse and worse. My whole life went to shit–and it never had to be that way.
Finally I made the RIGHT decision for myself (CBT), despite reservations from my therapists, and felt better within months. Why? Because I was not sitting around feeling sorry for myself, meditating on my past and what it ‘‘means’’ about my present. That’s all bullshit. It’s fucking bullshit.
Why was nobody paying attention? Did it not raise serious red flags that I never had regular flashbacks, self-injured or was hospitalized until after I started therapy? ‘‘It’ll get worse before it gets better,’’ they told me. Did anybody ever stop to wonder why that is? What strong person could I have proven myself to be, if it weren’t for people whispering into my ear, ‘‘It’s normal to be weak’’?
I’m so angry, you have to understand. I’m sitting from a position of perfect clarity, looking back on the last 6 years of my life, wondering what I was doing. It’s like I was a whole other, very deluded, very pathetic person. And I feel so cheated.
You’re very welcome. I’m glad you found it valuable.
I agree 100%, and if you have a better word, please let’s use it! I just prefer (for the moment, I always reserve the right to change my mind) it not as the ideal word, but as a better choice than “victim”. “Victim” has all the same connotations as “survivor” re: tragedy, but in addition is a passive, depressing word.
Well, like I said initially, make it more widely known and accepted that rape and the aftermath have very different faces and experiences and outcomes. I’m not trying to shut these “gray rape” women up, believe me. No, I want them to shout out their experiences if they want. I want **olivesmarch4th **to keep telling people that it happened to her and she remained okay through it, and that you don’t have to be messed up by it, but it’s also okay if you are. I want us to broaden our cultural understanding about all forms of rape, not, as you say, distill things into soundbites. I want us to share a million faces and a million experiences using the same word, because then anyone who thinks that word applies to her can find some other similar experience and know that she’s okay and “normal”, no matter how she feels about it or acts as a result. The common denominator is sexual contact without consent.
And I guess the other thing that’s niggling at me is the idea that somehow creating additional “soundbite sized labels” is a way to stop listening. Like you say, most people don’t want to hear all the gory details. Well, okay then, but why then do you need to know anything? A person feels what she feels regardless of whether or not you know why that is. Miss Manners has always said that “Why?” questions are some of the rudest. It’s none of your business, unless it is, but if it is your business, you’ll be willing to hear the gory details 'cause you care about the person or it’s your job. I’m not sure any of that made sense. But basically, giving fine-tuned labels to things just seems like a way for others to pass judgment without getting all the information.
“Why’s Jamie crying in the stockroom?” 
“Oh, I guess she was raped last night.” :o
“Oh, my god, is she okay?” :eek:
“Well, it was only gray rape, you know.” :rolleyes:
“Oh.” :rolleyes:
WhyNot, before I take off for a while, I just wanted to say that I’ve admired just about every post you’ve made in this thread, and I think you are really eloquent, and I’m glad you’re here. Thank You.
miss elizabeth,
I have a scenario for you:
I am having a party over at my house, and a girl I had been talking to for a while comes over. We play some drinking games, and both of us end up very drunk. Both of us can communicate and neither of us are stumbling around, but it is also unlikely either of us has a full recollection of the night. We are sitting on the couch when she gets on top of me and kisses me. I ask if she wants to move this to my room. We are making out on my bed and I begin to take her shirt off. After it is off she stops me and says, we are not going to have sex tonight. I tell her that is fine and continue kissing her. Eventually she asks if I have a condom because she changed her mind. Is that rape? She was quite drunk, and I did supply the alcohol. But I neither forced her to drink or to have sex. Would she have had sex with me if she was sober, I would like to think so.
Now here is another:
I get a call from a girl I met a few days earlier asking if she can come over. I have been drinking for hours and just finished smoking a few blunts with friends. I say, I guess you can. Oh, and by the way, she is completely sober, not a drop to drink. She comes over and immediately asks to go to my room. We have sex, however, I have to stop in the middle so I can go throw up. This doesn’t faze her and after I brush my teeth we continue. Did she rape me? I wouldn’t have had sex with her had I been sober.
Are either of those situations rape? I don’t see how either possibly could be. Both were consensual, even if alcohol was a major player. As long as both parties are functioning I don’t see how drunk consent isn’t consent. People who have sex with unconscious women are scum, but people who have drunken sex aren’t.
Not everyone sees sex as a sacred thing that needs only be shared between two people in love, many people see it as a better alternative to masturbating. If you meet a woman out in a bar and she decides to come home with you, how are you supposed to know that she wouldn’t have had sex with you sober? I don’t see drunken sex as taking advantage of someone, but maybe that is because at my age the girls that I am after are the ones out at parties and bars looking to hook up. How is it disrespectful to have sex with someone who consents(even if she is drunk) unless you consider being sexually active something to be ashamed of to begin with?
Nope. I’m the one who asked. And not for sex. He agreed, and managed to get through life fine when we didn’t have it.
For the former, I’m not sure what responsibility rape victims have versus the victims of other crimes. If a friend of mine stole from me and I didn’t report it because I didn’t want him to get in trouble and I could afford the loss, then mugged an old lady, I’d sure as hell feel bad. I do squirm when Law & Order’s Jack McCoy asks rape victims to testify to put some guy away, as if all women are part of some support network. I guess they have no more or no less responsibility, though in my experience, when a guy in my network molested a girlfriend of mine in her sleep or penetrated without permission, everyone heard about it.
For the latter, the media definitely plays into the idea of women’s bodies being public property (e.g. endless speculation on which starlets, or even politicians, news anchors, others in the public eye, are ‘too skinny’ or ‘too curvy’). I doubt an abortion debate could take place without someone assuming women aren’t solely responsible for their own bodies (not to mention pregnant women who suddenly find their every move being subject to criticism from strangers and friends.) Rape isn’t just a crime against a woman, it’s shaming to her family (albeit largely outside of North America). And the very same men who yell at and grope women guilty of ‘being female in public’ would never dream of doing the same to a man strolling by in a business suit.
What it means to a female and what it means to a male are often very different things.
You might have meant ‘go upstairs’, but it’s implied in your ‘managed to get through life’ comment that he heard ‘have sex’. He may not have told you that he was disappointed about the outcome, but I’d bet he told his friends he was.
These are the restroom toe-tappings of the college house party.
Read my post #170. My experiences with sexual assault failed to automatically lead me into a life of misery and ongoing mental trauma. I’m an emotionally stable, happily married person living a life absent of perpetual pain resulting from having been the victim of a violent crime.
My issues ('cause we all gots issues) are unrelated - and largely pre-existing conditions, anyway.
It’s my own personal belief (and, as always, MMV) that a large contributing factor in the rape=fucked up forever pattern is the societal expectation that it should be that way. But then, I hold the unpopular view that at a certain point after devestating life events, one needs must get the fuck over it; whether this means professional help, non-professional help, no help at all, etc. is a personal decision based on whatever works best for the person - but get over it, one must.