Well, yes. I certainly wouldn’t blame any woman that makes a bad call. But that doesn’t change the fact that date rape and stranger rape are very different situations in terms of what the risks are, and women should (“should” as in “it would be best if they” not “are obligated to”) take this into account.
Yes, that’s right. Since I don’t agree with The Official Position Regarding Date Rape, I must not understand what it is. :rolleyes:
Do you think you could respond to differing viewpoints without condescension? Is that too much to ask?
Not completely, no. Go back an look at PunditLisa’s story:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=48990
I’ve been trying to find Mary Koss’ original questions used in the well known survey commisioned by Ms. magazine. I suspect that the event described above would qualify as rape. Now there may be no jurisdiction in the U.S. where this Jeff would have been tried. Were I Jeff’s father, I would not proud of him, the way the story has been told. But in this story PunditLisa was aware for several minutes that:
Now, it sucks to be in this situation. The regret when you make bad decisions that come back to haunt you is horrible.
Nobody likes to be in a situation where all courses of action seem to be bad. It sucks that you may have to embarrass yourself in an effort to get out of the situation by: Calling the police who may not end up helping you, or if they do help you will not do it without hassling/challenging/embarassing you; knocking on the doors of strangers to ask for a phone; making up a lame excuse to walk up and down the aisles of a convenience store for an hour; go off running randomly into the night and find some place to sleep for a few hours (This would suck: even someone used to camping very light has a sleeping bag, tent, pad etc. To just find an overpass to sleep under without any cover would suck, and it is not something that most of us would consider doing normally).
And yet they are options, and there exist many more options than I can know about. So given that none of these options was chosen, and the story happened as it did, I am lead to this question, which I know can sound too rude/blunt/insensitive if not set up correctly (PunditLisa, I am sorry to use your story in ways that you may not like. If I were to ever ask this in person, I would wait until I knew you very well and would try as best as possible to be sensitive…actually, I probably would never ask this in person…), and the question is “What does the choice of action taken tell us about the decider’s ranking of her options?”
djbdjb, Ryan,
I’m starting to lose a sense of where the debate is going here.
Are you trying to say that women should fight back, early and often?
Are you saying you would be more likely to believe a woman who fought back was actually raped, and more inclined to doubt someone who didn’t fight back?
Are you trying to point out the difficulties in prosecution when so often it comes down to a “she said, he said” situation?
Is anything the women are saying in this thread sinking in for you at all? IE, that the problem with date/acquaintance/friend rape is that the victim intially trusts the perpetrator, and that things can get very ugly very fast, and that sometimes they react differently than they might if it were a stranger?
I don’t think that any such blanet statements would be appropiate.
That’s part of it.
Yes.
How is that relevant to what I’ve said?
I just know that I shouldn’t even touch this thread.
My son - who is almost 21 - actually gets this concept of even if a woman is buck naked on your bedroom, even if she’s spent the last 15 minutes sucking your dick, when she says “no” you should respect that choice. As far as I know, no male has ever died from “blue balls”. Do I understand that given all possibilities you would much rather have sex with the woman concerned than say “goodnight” and relieve your sexual tension by masturbating? Sure I do. What I don’t understand though - given that men have the same capacity for self-gratification as women do - is why you would even want to manipulate or coerce someone into having sex with you. If sex is not freely given and enjoyed by all participants, then what value does it have over and above masturbation?
It’s long been said by feminists that rape is not about sex, it’s about power. Given that all of us on this planet can provide ourselves with orgasms, forgive us women if we don’t totally understand why some guys feel that they have an absolute right to use our bodies to get their rocks off. Rape is about someone saying they have more right to determine what I do with my body than I do. Have you guys actually read the JDT thread where he said that someone hadn’t been “raped” because there was no penile-vaginal sex involved, she’d only been sodomised and she would heal? (it’s TMI, but I actually like anal sex - it is also one of the most painful experiences you can imagine if it is forced : think along the lines of being kicked in the balls if you want a reference point for the pain factor).
In this country at least, the vast majority of rapes and the vast majority of sexual assaults comitted on children are perpetrated by someone known to the victim. The vast majority of rapes and other sexual assaults here are committed by men. Having read Gavin De Becker’s books, I have reason to believe that the same is true in the US.
I’m not saying that women never send out mixed messages or never change their minds; I just don’t get why having sex with that woman at that moment in time is so important that anyone would over-ride the standards of human decency and manipulate or force someone to participate in a sexual experience.
BTW - one of the reasons that forensic scientists scrape fingernails is because even when women don’t “fight back” according to whatever arbitrary rules define “fighting back”, they do generally at least scratch enough to accumulate skin cells under their fingernails.
FWIW. I was brought up in the generation which regarded testes as untouchable, no matter what. My daughters have no such illusions; I have taught them to go for the balls first, the eyes second - I also hope that they never have to put those principles into practise.
This post sounds far more hostile than I intended. the very fact that you guys are asking the question on this board in the first place means that you are thinking about the issue. It’s just that those of us women who have a history which includes being raped are a little bit touchy about this subject. 
reprise,
> Rape is about someone saying they have more right to determine what I do with my body than I do. Have you guys actually read the JDT thread where he said that someone hadn’t been “raped” because there was no penile-vaginal sex involved, she’d only been sodomised and she would heal? <
Sodomy is a general legal term that means some sort of sex other than vaginal. It could be oral, anal, or a lot of things. It doesn't just mean anal. At the time that someone was claiming to have been raped without being vaginally penetrated, I only pointed out that at best it was sodomy. The poster never said what really happened so it might not even have been sodomy.
> It’s long been said by feminists that rape is not about sex, it’s about power.<
Yeah, power for the feminists leaders, you mean. The feminists leaders refuse to help in the fight against MGM even though they have been asked to help on many occasions. This even though it is well known that MGM is a necessary factor for FGM to exist (ending MGM will necessarily end FGM). In the end, you will find that MGM is the reason for rape in most cases. The mutilated man needs exciting physical stimulus to replace the erotic sensations that were denied him. The feminists leaders want women to be hurt, though.
Your lousy, unattractive, lesbian, feminist leaders love MGM and don't care in the least about women except to use them as sex toys and political power. Straight women turn to lesbianism because they can't be properly satisfied by mutilated men. Feminist leaders really like that and even if the feminist leaders are so unattractive that they can't get one of these straight women, at least they can have the peace of mind of knowing that that which they envy has been destroyed---a man's penis.Geez, I would respond to JDT if I could figure out what I could say that would help. Perhaps the best thing is this: Dude, get some therapy to work out these issues. I don’t mean that in an insulting way; I mean it with all due concern and seriousness.
I’ve started a Pit thread for what I wish to say to JDT.
If anyone is interested in responding in kind, feel free to join me. Thank you kindly.
Jack, I . . . I don’t know what to say. I’ll leave it to others who are less . . . infuriated to the point of speechlessness by your statements.
“Yeah, power for the feminists leaders, you mean. The feminists leaders refuse to help in the fight against MGM even though they have been asked to help on many occasions. This even though it is well known that MGM is a necessary factor for FGM to exist (ending MGM will necessarily end FGM). In the end, you will find that MGM is the reason for rape in most cases. The mutilated man needs exciting physical stimulus to replace the erotic sensations that were denied him. The feminists leaders want women to be hurt, though. Your lousy, unattractive, lesbian, feminist leaders love MGM and don’t care in the least about women except to use them as sex toys and political power. Straight women turn to lesbianism because they can’t be properly satisfied by mutilated men. Feminist leaders really like that and even if the feminist leaders are so unattractive that they can’t get one of these straight women, at least they can have the peace of mind of knowing that that which they envy has been destroyed—a man’s penis.”
You wanted your one-trick pony?
[hijack]
I would kill myself on the spot if my mom was ever that sexually explicit:)
[/hijack]
Ok…
As a man who is engaged(and is happy to be out of the dating scene), here are my impressions.
I think the men in here agree with the ladies.
I think men on the whole get a little “scared” that they will unknowingly “date rape” a woman. I think the burning question is whether or not the guy knew 100% what they were doing. Nobody wants to grill someone who feels they have been raped, but nobody wants to contribute to a something where they might unknowingly become the bad guy in one of these situations.
I think this fear is a little blown out of proportion, but I am sure there are isolated cases where the guy really had no clue and the rape was more a case of the victim changing their mind after the fact. I think this exception becomes the rule(or at least a possibility) in the men’s minds when discussing date rape.
All the dumping on the guys who are willing to engage in this discussion is the type of thing that discourages a better understanding of this subject. No guy wants to talk about this, so when does, I would suggest you cut them slack, even if they make the most jack-ass statements possible. Use the opportunity to edducate them.
And for the record…
If anyone ever raped (or tried to) a women I loved, I wouldn’t be worried about the vagaries of he said/she said. Of course…that assumes they lived through the experience. The women in my life are pretty damned tough.
Man that whole last exchanged just popped in there.
Please exclude JDT from my post. It is not possible to post something that covers all possibilities, and covering JDT is beyond my abilities.
Please consider my post without including JDTs participation in this thread.
Freedom -
I think it’s safe to say most of us exclude JDT when we consider “most men.” 
> Please exclude JDT from my post. It is not possible to post something that covers all possibilities, and covering JDT is beyond my abilities. <
Thanks Freedom, I was breaking out in a cold sweat wondering if my testosterone level had suddenly dropped until I read your retraction.I don’t know about often or early, but yes, in cases where it is less likely that the rapist will
seriously injure her for fighting back. This might be the case when the rapist is well known to her, is known to mutual friends, etc. As I have said earlier, I don’t think this course can be recommended as much in the case of stranger rape, because of the higher chance of getting seriously injured, and because of the easier presumption that the sex is non-consensual with a stranger.
yes.
Don’t you think the question “Is accepting the word of a woman who says she was raped over the word of a man who says the sex was consensual going to result in too many false convictions of men?” worth thinking about?
That is a mental image I doubt any of us needed, JDT:)
Don’t harass Jack. He’s just discovered hair growing in strange parts of his body, his thing keeps waking up at the most embarrasing times, and sometimes he wakes up to find the sheets cold and sticky. He needs your support in this difficult time of his life.
Hello Jack. I have some questions for you rregarding the assertions made in your most recent post. I hope that as this is Great Debates and not The Pit you will provide me with relevant answers.
Rape, as the term is defined in the English language, means to force an unwilling partner into a sexual act. I checked with several online dictionaries to make sure that my definition is not unnecessarily vague. It may be that the term has a more specific definition in the American legal system, but given the context of the conversation I cannot see why you object to the use of this term. It was the correct term to use for the situation described. Why do you object to it so strongly? Is your objection semantically or politically motivated?
Another question. What difference does it make whether we are talking about “rape” or “sodomy”? For you to be so concerned over this terminology, you must believe there to be a serious reason. Is there a difference between the two in terms of trauma to the victim? I should mention that I will not consider your own personal opinion to be a valid answer to this question, unless you have yourself been both raped and sodomized, in which case I suppose you would count as a single case study.
How is this so? You seem quite certain that this is the case. Is this an extrapolation of your theories on circumcision, or has evidence been collected which supports this assertion? Do you have evidence of a correlation between MGM and FGM? If so, has causation been demonstrated? Is there a case study of a society in which the elimination of MGM can be seen as the direct reason for the elimination of FGM? Providing references for specific research which supports this point would be most helpful.
You say “in most cases”. How is it that this has been determined by you? It seems to me that the cause of any given rape cannot clearly be determined; there have been numerous debates on this board about “rape as power crime” vs “rape as sex crime”. I would like to know more about your assertion that rape is, in most cases, a circumcision crime.
Is this something which you have gathered evidence for, or is it a conclusion which was extrapolated from your theory about circumcision? If this is mere speculation, don’t you think that some empirical evidence is needed before you start expressing this assertion as fact? (I mean, of course, evidence for the specific claim that rape is caused by circumcision) If on the other hand this is an idea which you have gathered evidence for, I have several questions about your methodology.
First of all, do you have any evidence that there is a correlation between circumcision and rapists? Where did your raw data come from? How was the data analyzed statistically? You seem awfully sure of these points, so I am certain that you have either done the work yourself or are thoroughly familiar with existing studies. What other variables in the raw data were found to be significant? Finally, how was causation determined? What controls were placed upon your analysis of data to guard against bias and misinterpretation? Has the study been replicated?
I am sorry, JDT, but it seems to me that this last paragraph does not belong in Great Debates. At the very least it doesn’t belong in this thread. You make a number of ad hominem statements, groundless speculations, and outright insults. This sort of language does not, in my opinion, belong in an intelligent discussion. If you had a relevant point to make I am certain that you could do it without resorting to base accusations. In any case, I do not even see what the above paragraph has to do with the topic of this thread.
If it is your desire to speak in this way, kindly take your vulgarity to the Pit where it will be more appreciated by the locals. If you wish to remain here, please try to constrain yourself to facts and details relevant to the conversation. And if you wish to defend the assertions made in the paragraph above, start a new thread with that subject rather than injecting irrelevant comments into this one.
I look foreward to your reply.
I did not make a bad call. I believe that I made the best call in the circumstances. I do not regret making the call I did. My friend the cop and my doctor do not believe I made a bad call. My husband does not believe I made a bad call. And a friend who did fight back, got raped anyway and ended up with internal damage and in the hospital wishes she’d made the same call I did.
Knowing where balls and eyes are, would I make the same call again - maybe. One thing I have learned from going through this and other awful “but if that ever happened to me” situations is you don’t always react like you thought you would. One thing I got from self defense training is living is more important than virtue. Do I plan to knee the guy in the balls, well, lets see - if the guy has a weapon, no. If he out weights be by a factor of two, no. If I think my escalating to violence will make him violent, no. Does my distaste at escalating to physical violence make it not rape? No. Does it make it unprosecutable - probably - I don’t consider that my problem.
You say you wouldn’t blame me, but use of the words “bad call” here sounds mighty judgemental. Try “I certainly wouldn’t blame any woman for not fighting back, but they should stop and use logic during this heated moment (that I have never experienced) to determine the actual risks involved and then they will see that there is only my answer.”
djbdjb and Ryan,
Thanks for answering my questions - I felt like things were getting out of hand and I wanted to make sure I was understanding you correctly.
You both raise very legitimate points. Date Rape is harder to prosecute than stranger rape, because of the he said, she said element. It’s much easier to believe the “she said” side when there is evidence that the victim fought back, and fought hard. The idea of someone being wrongly convicted of date rape because a woman “changed her mind” after the fact and falsely accused him is sickening to me, and I believe that I’ve said more than once in this thread that “drunken, regrettable sex is not rape.”
What Beth, Dangerosa, and others in this thread have been trying to tell you is that the problem with date rape is that it IS ambiguous. The rapist starts out being someone you trust. Heck, the rapist starts out being someone you might fuck of your own accord a few dates from now. Some women fight back, some women freeze like deer in headlights because they fear being hurt even worse if they struggle, some don’t fight back because they figure that way it will be over more quickly, and they can get the hell out of there.
You don’t know what you are going to do in that situation until you are in it. I agree with whomever said that “trained reactions” are the answer - women who are trained to fight back in a threatening situation will be more likely to fight back when danger does actually strike. I can see the points you make - from a prosecution standpoint, it all becomes much clearer if the victim fought back. But that doesn’t mean that women who didn’t fight back weren’t raped.
I usually hate when people use their own horrible experiences as pity fodder for their arguments in GD, but maybe this will clarify:
Although I did talk to the police and go to the emergency room, I never pressed criminal charges against the guy. Because I could see how hard it would be to prosecute, and I didn’t want to devote a year of my life to dealing with it. Because I was unconscious for most of it, and couldn’t remember any chain of events clearly enough to make a case. Because I was a virgin, and still didn’t understand entirely what was happening to me, and I was too disoriented to fight. Because I didn’t have good answers when the police asked me “Why didn’t you struggle?” “But people saw you kissing him at the party!” “So, do you get drunk often?”
So no one’s life got ruined, no unsupportable accusations were brought. If I could magically transport myself back to that moment knowing what I know now, would I fight, would I scream, would I drink less, would I make sure a friend walked me home, would I be smarter about it in general? Yes. Do any of these things change the fact that some guy stuck his dick into an unconscious and obviously incapacitated person, against her will? In your opinion, does that “count” as rape?
Finally, djb and Ryan, I’m not trying to attack you, and I am glad that you are discussing it honestly. You are raising good issues. Freedom2, you said some great things, thanks. The point I keep trying to make is that “date rape” or “acquaintance rape” is perpetrated by someone the victim trusts, and he/she might not fight back as immediately or as hard as in a case of stranger rape. It is by definition messy and ambiguous. Nod if you are willing to understand that.
End of sermon.