Was this woman raped or not?

[CrazyCatLady]

@Richard_Pearse

Well presumably she’d passed out so there was nothing for her to remember. What people remember when drunk seems to depend a lot on the person. I, unfortunately, seem to remember every little detail until I collapse into a bed somewhere (yes even that one time when I lost control of my bodily functions), other people I’ve known profess to not remember things that have happened when at the time they seemed relatively sober. You can’t make any assumptions about what she can, can’t, or should be able to remember.

Maybe she passed out, maybe she blacked out–we don’t know, and neither does she. She might remember every single detail with crystal clarity and total accuracy, and then again she might be remembering disconnected snatches that give us a totally inaccurate picture of what happened. We don’t know, and neither does she. As you say, we can’t make any assumptions, and that means any assumptions, good or bad. Just as we can’t assume that she changed her mind and told him to fuck her, we can’t assume that she didn’t, either. We can’t label him as completely innocent, or as a rapist, because we can’t make any assumptions.

Otara, people are spinning scenarios that seem to defend this guy for 2 reasons. One, what we have is a completely one-sided story, and those are almost never an exact and unbiased accounting of what really happened. Three sides to every story, and all that; so human nature is to assume that his version of the story is very different, and the truth is somewhere in between. Two, labeling someone as a rapist is an awful, life-destroying thing, and most people feel a need to be really, really sure about their facts before pulling the trigger on something like that.

I certainly can’t condemn this man in the court of my own opinion. Everything up to and including taking off her pants happened at her instigation, and pretty much everything after that is a blank, during which anything could have happened. He could have forcibly raped her while she begged him to stop, he could have fucked her while she was demonstrably unconscious, she could have said “Fuck me now, big boy” and encouraged him to rough her up the whole time, he could have fingered her so roughly she was bruised and sore and had some bleeding, they could have both been abducted and probed by aliens. What I think of him varies wildly depending on what, exactly, happened during that crucial period between him asking if she still wanted him to make her come and her waking up with both of them half-naked–and she has no idea what happened during that period. I can’t in good conscience assume somebody is a rapist based on that. I just can’t.

[treis]

@Richard_Pearse

@treis

Just quoting myself because I forgot to add that she didn’t even remember having sex! How anyone can give any credence to what she says transpired is simply beyond me.

Well presumably she’d passed out so there was nothing for her to remember.

Why should we presume that?

@Richard_Pearse

What people remember when drunk seems to depend a lot on the person. I, unfortunately, seem to remember every little detail until I collapse into a bed somewhere (yes even that one time when I lost control of my bodily functions), other people I’ve known profess to not remember things that have happened when at the time they seemed relatively sober. You can’t make any assumptions about what she can, can’t, or should be able to remember.

shrug I just don’t believe it. People have a remarkable ability to reconstruct memories of things that never occurred. I suspect that this is what is happening when you say you remember every little detail. It’s likely that you don’t remember everything, and what you do remember likely isn’t exactly what transpired. Either way, the idea that the author can remember precisely a conversation and not know if intercourse occurred 30 seconds later is ludicrous.

[villa]

@Polerius

@villa

She says: I want you to make me come
He says: OK… starts to take his pants off
She says: No sex
He says: Why not?
She says: List of reasons…
He says: Do you still want me to make you come
She says: Yes

But there is no way to know that the following didn’t happen:
She says: I want you to make me come
He says: OK… starts to take his pants off
She says: No sex
He says: Why not?
She says: List of reasons…
He says: Do you still want me to make you come
She says: Yes
He says: OK, I’ll make you come without intercourse.
[He then gets to work. A few minutes pass]
She says: Damn it, stop with the oral, I want you inside me!
He says: OK.

Since she was so drunk she can’t remember things, there is no way to know the above, or something like it, didn’t happen. We cannot say either way what happened, or what it should be classified as, without more facts from someone who wasn’t so drunk.

Which is why I said pretty much every time that the analysis was dependent on the story being as she remembered it. It’s kind of pointless to discuss otherwise. It could also have happened in an infinite number of other ways as well.

[villa]

@treis

@villa

Indeed. Presuming they are sober enough. Or not scared.

If they aren’t sober enough to say no then they are effectively unconscious and it is rape. If they are too scared, absent any threat by the man, then they are abnormal and the one to blame for the non-consensual sex. I object to the notion that is acceptable to treat normal men as threats.

But presumably you don’t want to have non-consensual sex? So isn’t a sensible way of ensuring that to ask for consent?

People don’t want to because it reduces the likelihood of having sex. If I am with someone who, if I asked them, would say no, I think I would rather masterbate later than have sex with them.

It’s not treating men as threats automatically. It’s giving a shit about one’s partners wants.

@villa

Except nobody has ever said a man has done something wrong because the woman regretted intercourse the next day. That’s an accusation simply made up. I’ve never seen it suggested and certainly not in this thread.

Of course they are. If even sven or the author didn’t regret intercourse the next morning then there would be no issue.
[/QUOTE]

Bollocks. It isn’t the regret the next morning that creates the rape. That isn’t the case under any law, and I have never seen anyone suggest it should be. It’s a bullshit accusation put out by those who don’t want to take the prevalence of rape seriously. Of course, if a woman doesn’t regret having sex the prior night, then she is highly unlikely to report it. But it doesn’t alter whether there was consent or not, or, by extension, whether there was rape or not.

A sexual act is consensual or is rape at the time it happens. And whether it is reported or not does not change that. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of rapes aren’t reported. That doesn’t mean they aren’t rapes. In fact, in a very large percentage of cases the victim does not realize she has been raped (to the extent that societal and media portrayals of sex makes people think that sex with force after a no isn’t always rape).

The world isn’t full of vindictive women willingly participating in sex then waking up the next morning and trying to ruin the man’s life. Does it happen? Yes, of course it does. But it also happens with other crimes as well.

[villa]

@RaftPeople

So, is there a way to make someone come without having sex? (I know I know, there’s a video on the internet of a woman having an orgasm on a roller coaster, but this story does not seem to have a roller coaster in it so I don’t think that applies) Generally all types of sex are still sex, right?

Ask Bill Clinton.

Also, under rape laws, there is often a distinction between different types of sexual contact.

[QUOTE=astro]
Your expectation that there should be some formal declaration of the willing intent to engage in sex, i.e. “do you want to have sex” prior to actually having sex is both absurd and somewhat silly expectation with respect to the way mutual seduction normally progresses between human males and females. That an adult man (or woman) should be expected to throw this glass of legalistic ice water onto the proceedings of a mutual seduction is nuts. If a man was to make this declaration it would assumes a level of infantilization on the part of the woman so extreme it would be insulting to most women.

Please tell me where in an evening of mutual enjoyment you would insert this little bon mot without looking and sounding like a stiff, tentative, world class jackass.
[/QUOTE]

It’s absurd and silly to expect a person to be reasonably sure their partner wants to have sex with them???

There are different types of affirmative consent standards. I personally support a soft one. I don’t think the Antioch College hard affirmative consent requirement is necessary - though, incidentally, the students of Antioch College overwhelmingly supported it, despite the press mockery.

Instead there are many steps that can be taken as sufficient to establish affirmative consent. “Do I need a condom” is a pretty clear question, that one should probably be asking anyway (I’ve also said earlier I think the consent standard is different for a first time hook up and sex as part of a relationship).

If I ask a girl “should I use a condom?” as we are going upstairs, I have created a situation where she can then reply…

1. Yes - in which case a reasonable person can reach the conclusion she has consented to penetrative sex

2. No - in which case a reasonable person can reach the conclusion she has consented to penetrative sex, but should probably be a little concerned that the girl he picked up in the club might be bad for his health

3. No, because we aren’t having sex - in which case a reasonable person can reach the conclusion she has not consented to penetrative sex

4. Yes, but just oral, ok? - in which case a reasonable person can reach the conclusion she has not consented to penetrative sex

There’s also no requirement that you ask. Sex with a willing partner wouldn’t become rape just because you didn’t ask for consent beforehand. It’s a shift in the proof standard - rather than the victim having to prove she expressed non-consent, you would need to prove she consented. By far the simplest way of doing that is by asking. However, if you are willing to have sex with someone that you are too embarassed to ask if they want it, you can still rely on her behavior to prove to a court, if she accuses you of rape, that she consented.

Such questions aren’t that uncommon, you know, and probably make for better sex. If I want oral sex, I tend to get a better response by asking the girl I am in bed with to blow me rather than grabbing her head and pushing it between my legs. Well the first time at least, anyway.

[villa]

@Mtgman

Please note I didn’t use the term “date rape” in the second sentence. To me date rape is rape. I understand if it’s one of your hot buttons, but the word date was immediately followed by a sentence saying it was, without prequalifiers, rape. I’m not sure where you are getting a sense of a value judgment based on types of rape out of my post. I certainly didn’t say anything about a date rape not being a big deal.

You’re right. I don’t like the term particularly (acquaintance rape is better). But I misread things into what you wrote and that was wrong. My apologies.

[OpalCat]

@villa

It’s not always a requirement, depending on the jurisdiction. But why isn’t it a real world expectation? Is “do you want to have sex” such a hard question to ask?

I’d far prefer my husband just start making moves and I’ll either go along with it or tell him I’m not in the mood. It would feel stilted and bizarre if he asked me flat out every time we’re getting frisky “do you want to have sex?”

Similarly, we’ve both gotten drunk and then had sex any number of times, and I don’t consider myself to have been taken advantage of.

That said, we’re in a relationship that by definition defaults to one of sexual consent. All of this would be different if he were an acquaintance or a stranger, or if we didn’t have a sexual history.