Well, duh. Because otherwise it would mean that our wives and girlfriends would be disgusting degenerate whores! And we can’t have that in our homes. Better to stray occasionally to the wrong side of the tracks to satisfy male needs than encourage our upstanding women to debase themselves in that way.
Starving Artist: despite your insistence that “consent” is some mood-killing disruptor of sex invented by liberals for some nefarious purpose, most people most of the time (yourself included, I imagine) manage to have consensual sex all the time. It’s not that hard (heh).
The most important part of this whole consent thing is simply to recognize that just because our partner(s) of the moment are not screaming bloody murder and calling the cops, it doesn’t mean that they consent. And as a compassionate human, one should want to know that a sex partner is not just acquiescing because she’s afraid or confused.
It’s not a ‘liberal’ issue. It’s not a ‘social justice warrior’ issue. It’s just about being a human who is concerned about not hurting another human. Not to be overly dramatic, but the fact that you (and others) have chosen to make this a political issue (silly pansy liberals foisting their consent on us) is jaw-droppingly awful. You’re so invested in being “anti-PC” or “anti-liberal” that when a no-brainer-positive focus on making sure your sex partners want to be there instead of just assuming it because you managed to get your dick in there without a physical altercation, you double down on it being a bad idea because people who vote Democrat came up with the idea.
If you have sex with someone who doesn’t actually consent to it, it’s rape. That’s the definition of the term, it’s amazing that someone would argue that it’s ‘perversion’ to insist that you get actual consent before fucking someone. “Oh, she was dressed slutty, so clearly she wanted it” “Well, she said no, but I decided that she really wanted it so I banged her anyway” “She knew she’d be out of a job if she complained so she didn’t say anything” are not remotely OK.
It’s interesting to me how conservatives like to talk about putting people in jail for ‘rape and murder’, and Trump even specifically talked about Mexican immigrants being rapists at the start of his campaign, but turn around and virulently object to even calling rape ‘rape’.
I pointed this out in my earlier response to you (post #24).
Well I was talking about the “out of context” part, but what you say is also correct as a general rule.
Some people have a need to feel smugly superior, and they try to meet that by seeking out negative aspects of about their ideological opponents that they can contrast themselves to. (That’s the main purpose of threads like this one.) It’s natural that they would attempt to put the worst possible spin possible when they get the chance.
I believe you’re wrong about most or all of these things, legally. You need consent for sex itself, and initiating or returning a kiss or taking off clothes do not constitute consent for sex. (Not under the new “yes means yes” standards, nor under the old “no means no” standard.) What exactly does constitute consent for sex is sometimes ambiguous, which is why many people - including but not limited to conservatives - seize on the last example.
I’m pretty sure Left Hand wasn’t saying that if someone kisses you or takes off her clothing, that gives you permission to go ahead and do whatever you want with her. But rather, that cooperation implies consent, as long as the cooperation continues. Consent need not be verbal.
Properly asking is the only way any man I have ever seen for romantic purposes had ever been able to kiss me without receiving a swift knee to the groin in response. You need to hang out with some different women, Starving Artist.
Here’s what the Canadian Criminal Code says about consent
You’ll note the law is much more specific in listing those activities that fall outside of it’s framework of “voluntary agreement”. Just about everything LHoD listed would fall under “voluntary agreement”
I may not agree with you about the “spoiled” part but I definitely concur that in many ways US society is better, in terms of acceptance and respect for individual rights and diversity, than it’s ever been before. (In other ways, of course, it’s not necessarily better, but there’s always room for improvement.) And people taking the issues of sexual assault/aggression and consent seriously is part of that positive trend.
What you describe is not any different from what anyone else is saying. The idea that “once you have consent” is enough is wrong. Consent can be withdrawn at any point. He’s saying only liberals care about that, but it’s not just liberals.
The implication others mention is also there–that these are of the same level of impropriety. That seems to be an issue with you–not picking up on the implications of what is said, rather than just the literal meaning. It’s why you get into a lot of arguments here.
He does not mention verbal consent, and the Trump quote he is talking about does not reference any sort of consent. It references “letting them do it,” which is not consent. That just means not actively resisting, not that the contact was wanted.
It doesn’t have to be verbal. But you can’t steal a kiss. We were taught in drama class the non-verbal signals that happen with kisses, and there is consent involved. There are things you do that indicate your desire to kiss and then look and see if the other person also does them. It’s not something we tend to think about–it was only brought up in drama class because you wills sometimes have to fake it.
Finally, there’s nothing wrong with using past information about a person or about patterns of argument to inform your interpretation of what someone is saying. Rush is now aware that people have understood him in this way. It is then on him to clarify that this is not what he means.
This morning while I was laying in bed my husband started rubbing my arm on his way out the door to work. My response was something like, “moan… Moan… Moan… You’re the greatest person ever.” BAM! Consent. Seriously I have to wonder what kind of sex people are having that the idea of verifying your partner is into whatever you’re doing is such a difficult concept.
It’s trivial to imagine all sorts of scenarios along the lines of what you describe happens, and this will generally be what actually happens. But I don’t believe that there are many people for whom something as explicit as what you describe happens every time and every step of the way.
The reason the vast majority of people don’t get accused of sexual assault is not because they fit the legal definition of consent every time. It’s because they’re guessing right, even in the absence of explicit consent. In particular, people in long term relationships or who are married have little to worry about – they will be much better attuned to their partners’ subtle messages, and their partners are less inclined to accuse them in any event, for a variety of reasons. The people at risk are the ones who are part of the casual sex hookup culture, who are more likely to find themselves in situations where they misinterpret subtle signs from unwilling (including retroactively unwilling) partners.
Raping an unconscious woman is such a astonishingly rare occurrence that we can just ignore it? Really?
A woman who is too drunk to resist or say no is not giving consent. Maybe you should read the statement written by Brock Turner’s victim.
Consent isn’t a difficult concept. “Allowing something to happen” is not consent. Saying nothing and freezing up is not consent. “Weakly” saying no is definitely not giving consent. Enthusiastically responding and participating in the process *is *consent. Saying “yes” is consent.
That argument would support either “explicit verbal consent” or “no means no”.
The argument is essentially that requiring affirmative consent but relying on non-verbal communication will frequently fall short (most commonly in precisely the situations that are the focus of these rules).
Basically what it comes down to is that people operate by different standards of what is meant by “consent.” I believe my standard diminishes the chances of someone having sex with an unwilling partner. One of the key things we teach in prevention ed is that consent is a continuous process, not a one time event. We do this because we want to prevent people from being raped. It is my understanding that most people who rape have such distorted concepts of what constitutes consent that they do not view themselves as rapists. We need to raise the bar. What legally constitutes consent is certainly a valid consideration, but my personal standard is “What reduces the odds that someone will feel powerless in a sexual situation?”
Hard to know how that shakes out. On the one hand, a lot of clueless guys are going to remain clueless. And conversely, there may be women who feel less compelled to be explicit by virtue of the “yes means yes” standard, which would create even more of these ambiguous situations.
Then perhaps one part of this education might be teaching women how to feel comfortable voicing their non-consent. We (women) are so culturally conditioned to be pleasant, not to make waves, to avoid conflict, or even to internalize blame for our own sexual assault, that we DON’T speak up for fear of the repercussions. As I said in the other thread on sexual assault, I froze up completely during my abuse out of sheer terror. As much as we need to change the standard of consent, we also need to teach women that is okay to say no, that nobody is entitled to our bodies, whether they bought us a drink or dinner or are a really good teacher, father, etc. In my view preparing girls and women for those situations will achieve the same end, and educating both genders in their own way would be powerful indeed.