# Rape, Republicans, and Coercian **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 18, 2013, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538 "2013-10-18T01:09:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/61 "2013-10-18T16:21:45Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Am I the only one who read the title, “Rape Republicans, and Coercian” and thought… Okay, I think they deserve to be mocked, but raped?? Is that a Democratic off year elections strategy now? And who the hell is Coercian and how is he/she involved in all this? > > I’m not down with this at all. > > Only one, eh? > > Carry on. I was tempted to look up when exactly Coercian was the Emperor of Rome, but that’s about all… ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/62 "2013-10-18T18:41:37Z")
Christ on a pogo stick - a vaginal ultrasound is not rape. It is a medical exam. I get a medical exam once a year, including getting my tits smashed in a frigerator door - mammograms are NOT comfortable. I have had at least 6 vaginal ultrasounds over the years [a tendency towards ovarian cysts and finally a tumor that was just waited for.] Get the fuck over it, if the morons in our government want women to get ultrasounds, ultimately the damned insurance will end up paying for it, so it is coming out of their pockets. If you go in with the mindset that it is NOTHING MORE THAN A MEDICAL EXAM, it is not rape. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/63 "2013-10-18T19:05:28Z")
[ul] [li]If you want me not to kill your family, you have to undergo the ultrasound.[/li][li]If you want me not to blackmail you, you have to undergo the ultrasound.[/li][li]If you want the police to protect you, you have to undergo the ultrasound.[/li][li]If you want to use public roads, you have to undergo the ultrasound.[/li][li]If you want to keep receiving food stamps, you have to undergo the ultrasound.[/li][li]If you want to get this brain surgery, you have to undergo the ultrasound.[/li][li]If you want to have an abortion, you have to undergo the ultrasound.[/li][/ul] Where exactly is the line when it stops being consent in those scenarios? I haven’t heard a coherent answer to that question yet. And yet I agree this is not rape. Which I think suggests this isn’t really about consent and coercion, and has something to do with other factors that we haven’t clearly identified. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/64 "2013-10-18T19:05:36Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Christ on a pogo stick - a vaginal ultrasound is not rape. It is a medical exam. I get a medical exam once a year, including getting my tits smashed in a frigerator door - mammograms are NOT comfortable. I have had at least 6 vaginal ultrasounds over the years [a tendency towards ovarian cysts and finally a tumor that was just waited for.] > > Get the fuck over it, if the morons in our government want women to get ultrasounds, ultimately the damned insurance will end up paying for it, so it is coming out of their pockets. If you go in with the mindset that it is NOTHING MORE THAN A MEDICAL EXAM, it is not rape. I think you’re overlooking that medical procedures are done for a medical purpose. Without that, it does become a bit more gray. ---
**Author:** ![Oliveritaly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oliveritaly/32/15233_2.png) [@Oliveritaly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oliveritaly)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/65 "2013-10-18T19:07:32Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Cool, thanks. Just wanted to get you on record as supporting the arrest of your political opponents, for the next time I want to point out what gutless little Nazi you are at heart. You fucking sicken me. Miller, that was obscene. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/66 "2013-10-18T19:15:42Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > In those cases, at least, there is simply no argument – “rape by deception” is long-settled law. I don’t think it is, actually. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/67 "2013-10-18T19:39:15Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Christ on a pogo stick - a vaginal ultrasound is not rape. It is a medical exam. I get a medical exam once a year, including getting my tits smashed in a frigerator door - mammograms are NOT comfortable. I have had at least 6 vaginal ultrasounds over the years [a tendency towards ovarian cysts and finally a tumor that was just waited for.] > > Get the fuck over it, if the morons in our government want women to get ultrasounds, ultimately the damned insurance will end up paying for it, so it is coming out of their pockets. If you go in with the mindset that it is NOTHING MORE THAN A MEDICAL EXAM, it is not rape. For someone who has had a number of these things, you sure seem to lack empathy for women who don’t want things jammed up their vagina for no good reason whatsoever. I’ve had one transvaginal ultrasound, completely uncoerced, due to unexplained severe cramping, and it is one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. One major reason I may never give birth is because I know these things are medically necessary in that event. The thought of the constant intrusiveness and pain just makes me nauseated. Every year I dread my annual exam. I feel sick and I shake. It’s _always_ painful. It’s something I go through with because the alternative to no birth control is the pain of endometriosis. The fact that I have PTSD as a result of past sexual trauma does not help one bit. It really doesn’t matter _why_ people are fucking with your private parts when you’re going through a flashback. It doesn’t feel like a choice in that moment. It may not fit the legal definition of rape, it may not be as \*traumatic \*as rape, and I certainly don’t blame the doctors for trying to do their job, but it really fucking sucks. It’s great that it doesn’t bother you all that much, but you don’t get to decide how unpleasant it is for the rest of us. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/68 "2013-10-18T21:24:20Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I haven’t heard a coherent answer to that question yet. And yet I agree this is not rape. Which I think suggests this isn’t really about consent and coercion, and has something to do with other factors that we haven’t clearly identified. I feel like there is some element in this of, “This is _really, really bad_ and potentially traumatic. What’s one of the most traumatic and awful things I can think of? Well, rape. So this has to be rape, in order for us to acknowledge how awful and traumatic it is.” But IMO this dilutes the definition of rape and makes it a less useful term. Can we not agree that this procedure is unnecessary, traumatizing, and frankly an obscenity, without calling it something it really isn’t? That’s all I’m saying. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/69 "2013-10-18T21:36:09Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > I feel like there is some element in this of, “This is _really, really bad_ and potentially traumatic. What’s one of the most traumatic and awful things I can think of? Well, rape. So this has to be rape, in order for us to acknowledge how awful and traumatic it is.” > > But IMO this dilutes the definition of rape and makes it a less useful term. Can we not agree that this procedure is unnecessary, traumatizing, and frankly an obscenity, without calling it something it really isn’t? That’s all I’m saying. Yes, of course. I’m suggesting that the reason most people have the intuition that this is not rape has nothing to do with reasoning about consent and coercion. How many people can look at the list I offered and honestly say they know exactly where to draw the line before thinking about it, and can offer reasons to support that line? Few, I would guess. But most people have an immediate instinct about whether mandatory transvaginal ultrasound constitutes rape. So I think, contra **Kimstu** , that this isn’t really about consent. Instead, it’s not rape for two reasons: (1) the doctor is required to do this by law; and (2) there is no suggestion of gratification, sexual or otherwise, for the doctor. I think if you take away those elements, then most people would think it’s rape. In other words, let’s say this doctor is in a place where the law does not require this (but other doctors are somehow unavailable just as it would be in a place with this law) and this doctor personally gets off on performing unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds. If the doc says, “no abortion unless you let me probe you,” is it rape? Sure seems like it. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/70 "2013-10-18T22:45:11Z")
Sorry, been date raped once and violent/assault raped once. Vaginal probe ultrasound is done with lubricant, and nobody is holding you down with a knife at your throat. Sorry, the 2 do not compare at all. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/71 "2013-10-18T22:49:21Z")
I understand your point, and I don’t mean to trivialize either this topic or your experience by trying to talk about it in the abstract. But I do think it is interesting to closely examine why it seems so obvious that one is rape and the other is not. I’m sure you would agree that even a rapist who merely drugged his victim and used lubricant is still a rapist. ---
**Author:** ![yams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/848f3c/32.png) [@yams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yams)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/72 "2013-10-19T01:59:36Z")
I am pro-choice, and think the only person who has any say over what goes in or out of my vagina is me. However - a transvaginal ultrasound is often the first step in a surgical abortion, both to determine the presence of a viable intrauterine pregnancy, and to ensure that the embryo/fetus is of an appropriate size (once you get over about 12 weeks, the procedure may not be suitable for a clinic). Transabdominal ultrasounds are often not sufficiently reliable/accurate in the first trimester. If the law requires a second, earlier transvaginal ultrasound in which the tech centers the heartbeat on the screen and makes the mother gaze upon it while singing lullabies, then that is for sure unnecessary. But, having a transvaginal ultrasound before a surgical abortion is often medically appropriate. That said, I still think this law is terrible. love yams!! Cite: I spent a day at an abortion clinic. So, one day, one clinic, one provider, mileage relevant but variable. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2013, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/73 "2013-10-19T03:37:42Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > If the lady goes to the doctor knowing full well that this will be required, is it still rape? I think so. As I said in my followup–I am willing to stipulate that the woman is, in effect, being raped by the “law” rather than by the doctor. It’s effectively the same kind of coercion as blackmail, if you ask me. “You don’t HAVE to give me a hundred grand, it’s totally voluntary. But if you want me to keep quiet, I’ll need it in cash.” “You don’t HAVE to have a hard phallic object inserted into your reproductive tract. But if you want to have an unrelated legal medical procedure, spread 'em wide.” > [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > So, if there’s some reason why it makes sense to classify acts of assault or battery that involve sex organs as sexual assault, so be it\*. I’m not seeing how in particular, but I’m ready to believe. But to me the term rape still doesn’t fit. > > The time that the kid in gym class punched me in the nuts - would that be sexual assault? Would that be rape? I’d argue, personally, that an undesired penetration of a woman’s vagina by a phallic-shaped object is sufficiently sexual that it ought qualify regardless of the motive of the person doing the penetrating. > [@aruvqan](#): > > Sorry, been date raped once and violent/assault raped once. > > Vaginal probe ultrasound is done with lubricant, and nobody is holding you down with a knife at your throat. Sorry, the 2 do not compare at all. I would like you to say that, with a straight face, to anyone who’s been drugged and raped. No force, no holding down, no knife. Hell, she didn’t even feel it happening, so it probably wasn’t that bad, huh? Your viewpoint is abhorrent to me. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2013, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/74 "2013-10-19T03:55:46Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > I’d argue, personally, that an undesired penetration of a woman’s vagina by a phallic-shaped object is sufficiently sexual that it ought qualify regardless of the motive of the person doing the penetrating. :rolleyes: Gee, I wonder why there aren’t more gynecological devices that are basketball shaped? Or computer monitor shaped? You know, hoo has exist for things other than doing sex to. When I was a kid and I was in the hospital waiting for surgery the next morning, a nurse came in and, without warning me or telling me what it was, she gave me an enema. A vaguely phallic-shaped object, which I did not want, went into my anus. I suppose that the motives of the nurse were irrelevant. I must have been raped. This kind of thinking is behind the moronic thoughts of insecure men who think that tampons deflower girls. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2013, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/75 "2013-10-19T04:08:36Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > . . . I would like you to say that, with a straight face, to anyone who’s been drugged and raped. No force, no holding down, no knife. Hell, she didn’t even feel it happening, so it probably wasn’t that bad, huh? Your viewpoint is abhorrent to me. Or how about people who have been lied to and raped? It has happened to people: someone masquerades as a doctor, and they trust him enough to allow him to “examine” them. Even though it is “voluntary,” it is under false pretenses, and is rape. The word covers a very wide spectrum of abuses. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2013, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/76 "2013-10-19T05:25:53Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > When I was a kid and I was in the hospital waiting for surgery the next morning, a nurse came in and, without warning me or telling me what it was, she gave me an enema. A vaguely phallic-shaped object, which I did not want, went into my anus. I suppose that the motives of the nurse were irrelevant. I must have been raped. As a kid, your parents are both legally and (IMHO) morally permitted to give consent to medical procedures, at least in my state, so there are circumstances there that may have rendered your specific consent somewhat irrelevant. That said: If you were my kid, and I didn’t give informed consent to it as a necessary medical procedure, you bet I’d be pressing charges on that nurse. Even if I had, if I found out that kind of idiocy (no warning, no explanation) happened to my kid, that nurse’s job and/or ass would be mine. Based on experiences I’ve had with stupid, pushy, rural Ob/Gyns and my PTSD-from-being-gang-raped wife, as well as experiences my parents had with a stupid, pushy, rural pediatric nurse, it’s perfectly plausible that I’d win in either circumstance. None of this is particularly grey at all to me, and I have a hard time understanding why it is to anyone else. If you do things that are reasonably close facsimiles of sexual actions to my sexual organs without my consent or with my coerced consent, you are committing sexual assault/rape. “Elective” abortion can be a strong enough perceived need that “fine, violate me with the damn wand” falls well within my personal standards of coercion. And frankly, quibbling the specific shade of meaning between “rape” and “sexual assault”, as others have in this thread, is basically trying to make a “legitimate rape” argument. A close second is attempting to conflate “indicated, but poorly executed, medical procedure” and “unnecessary, deliberately-chosen-to-be-humiliating ‘medical’ procedure”. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2013, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/77 "2013-10-19T05:45:26Z")
On the one hand, I kind of like the “if a woman defines what happened to her as rape, then it was rape” type of definition, because it would be awfully arrogant of me to come up with definitions for bad things that happen to other people. Who am I to hold myself up as the definer of other people’s pain? On the other hand, it’s pretty easy to take that too far. If someone had the (admittedly unpleasant) experience of having someone brush up against her on the subway a bit hard, and she THINKS it was intentional, but she’s not sure, and then she spends the rest of her life describing herself as a “rape survivor”, and trying to claim that her experience was pretty much the same as violent forced intercourse, well… ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2013, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/78 "2013-10-19T05:54:12Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > And frankly, quibbling the specific shade of meaning between “rape” and “sexual assault”, as others have in this thread, is basically trying to make a “legitimate rape” argument. I think it’s important to remember the context here. Sure there’s some quibbling and some hair-splitting going on here, but that’s because this is a message board on the internet, and a thread whose avowed purpose is to discuss what is and is not rape. Which is, fundamentally, something that can be done. After all, whatever rape is, there has to be SOMETHING that isn’t rape… so there IS a boundary. And there’s a huge difference between doing that sort of quibbling purely academically in a message board thread, versus confronting some poor woman who just had a really unpleasant experience and refusing to sympathize with her until you’ve all agreed on an objective way to decide what word she is or is not allowed to use. I’m sure that some time in the past year there has been some woman somewhere in the world who had an experience that she described as rape, that was horrible and traumatic for her, but which I would probably not describe as rape, per se. And you know what? I would sure as hell NOT tell that to her face, or even behind her back, if I knew that women in person (or on the SDMB). ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2013, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/79 "2013-10-19T09:18:00Z")
So…every internal examine requiring a speculum is a rape? It’s got to be more than just the insertion of an object, obviously. I don’t like the exam but understand it’s need. Oh, and I consent, whether I like it, agree with it’s use, or not. I hate this legislation, as much as the next person. But it ain’t rape. Overreacting and counter productive hyperbole, in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2013, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538/80 "2013-10-19T11:52:59Z")
Every thread on this board even tangentially related to the subject of rape inevitably deteriorates into a tooth-and-nail contest to decide who’s the most outraged by rape. There can only be one winner, and all the runners-up (who weren’t \*quite \* outraged or strident enough) are awarded official “rape apologist” medals. And here we are again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rape-republicans-and-coercian/671538.md?page=5)