Pyrrho, excellent post, well-thought out response, but you might as well hang it up if you think you’ll get JDT to give you any kind of logical answer with cites. He’s a one-trick pony and can typically provide no backup for any of his claims except some site from the “cirps” site that is his pet project (In case you didn’t read the long, sordid “Circumscision” thread, the “cirps” site is an anti-circumscision site.)
In JDT’s view, MGM is responsible for all wars ever fought, poverty and hunger in Sudan, the flooding in China, and the bad weather we got here in Michigan. It’s no surprise that he should equate date rape as being a result of MGM. He tries to hide his misogyny but it doesn’t work.
If it is “date/acquaintence rape”, that is not “boyfriend/SO rape.” How well do I really know this guy? If I fight him, how do I know that he won’t really hurt me, or even kill me? I don’t really know the guy, it could go either way. I for one might be too scared to go for his balls. What if I only hurt him, but didn’t incapacitate him? Would he be so angry that the violence would escalate?
Of course, rape by a stranger is a total crapshoot.
I have not said any thing to the contrary, and let me say again, that I agree with the above statement. My point has always been that bruises and injuries are indicators that consent was not given that are visible to people that did not witness the consent (the rest of the world).
Yes.
In your case, you know from the particular fact that you did not consent. However, in a different set of circumstances, A person might consent, black out and later not remember consenting, then press charges. It would look to outside observers like the case you describe
I think I lend weight to the “rape is about power” point of view. I have had what I consider an abnormal appetite for sex, even an addiction, ever since I used to mess around with my babysitter when I was, ahem, quite young. When I got to college, I was ready for lots of action as many, nay most all, freshman are. Yet I can remember hanging out with a girl at a party that I knew to be, um, often willing to have sex. I knew her to be intoxicated to some degree, as I was. We went back to her room and messed around. We got all the way to complete nudity, and I even was “knocking on the door” and about to engage in all-out intercourse. Then she said “no” (actually, I think she said something mild but to that same effect). Then I said “ok.” Then we continued to mess around, without intercourse, until we passed out. Point being, I personally cannot understand, even as a man with an abnormal appetite for sex, how any person can press for sex after it has been made known that one of the involved parties doesn’t want to.
This is sort of immasculating, but I feel that I’ve been date raped several times before, but of the variety where I thought I wanted to, decided I didn’t, but the person persisted by force and we did. I had many of the same feelings of, um, ickyness. However, I also wondered what was wrong with me. I mean, a woman forcing sex on me, isn’t that supposedly every man’s dream? Wasn’t that supposedly my dream? Isn’t that what every man is trying for anyway? Which lends me to think that the issue is much more about power. How can a woman date rape a man when a man could obviously overpower a woman in most situations? I have to say that I did use some amount of force to repel the person, but they used force back thinking that I was playing. It would have taken much force to successfully deny them, which would have been too much and would have gotten me in an awful spot, I’m sure. (Imagine a situation where sex is within the realm of physical possibility, and the female comes out with the bloody nose. What are the police going to say about that?)
Now my point is not to hijack the thread, but illuminate the fact that the rape issue ultimately has very little to do with physical force or other violent measures in repelling the person desiring the sex except in exacerbating the situation. It’s about power, which is why I think many men boast of numbers of partners to other men. In the end it’s the conquest and perceived power, not the physical gratification for them. (I actually agree with Tom Robbins that women enjoy sex more than men to further support this point, but that’s another debate entirely ;).)
Well I was 15 and went with a girlfriend to a couple’s house. I was a virgin. There were a couple of guys there that my friend knew but I didn’t. We drank some wine and I soon passed out on a bed in the spare room. I woke up when I felt the pain of him shoving his dick in me. I screamed and shouted no, I’m a virgin, I’ve never did this before. He continued until the man who lived there came and pulled him off of me and threw him out the door. He said “when a girl says no she means it. I heard her say she was a virgin? Why didn’t you stop?” His reply “well she ain’t a virgin no more”
I was in shock and bleeding profusely from between my legs. I didn’t fight back. There were no visible signs of trauma, but the damage to my psyche was immeasurable.
Just because you can’t see the scars does’t mean that they aren’t there. Was it rape? Oh yes. Was I damaged? Yes, in more ways than you could ever possibly know.
My first experience with rape came during high school. I had set up a friend of mine with a friend of the girl I was dating (He was a med tech. They were both students at a local college.) We went as a group to a movie, had a few beers at a local club, then split up.
The next day I got to visit the girl in the hospital. She had been raped. And beaten. Her left eye was swollen shut. She had lost a tooth. She had cracked ribs. She said she tried to fight back. I had, and have, no reason to doubt her.
Second hand anecdote – discount it if you will. I do not.
First hand experience, though, from someone who taught martial arts for a decade and led more than a few self-defense seminars: do not rely upon soft eyes or tender testicles. Yes, they are sensitive targets. Yes, they can be incapacitating if struck cleanly and forcefully. No, they are not a “get out of trouble free” card. “Rational” reaction in a stressful situation is not only unlikely, it is undesirable. Rational reaction is slow. Rational reaction is not adaptive to the rapidly changing situations of personal combat.
The time for rationality is before action. Situational training and experience are the only ways I know to foster this. Having a “bag of tricks” will not help you control the adrenalin rush, the tunnel vision, the fear, and the rage that physical confrontation can generate.
Once the confrontation begins, rationality is a hindrance. Trained reaction, conditioned response, and physical abilities take over.
Frankly, I consider instructors who tell an untrained woman to resist rapists with eye gouges or keys in a fist to be guilty of horrendous malpractice.
If you don’t think that you made a bad call, then why do think that a statement about people who did make a bad call refers to you?
Oh, grow up. There are such things as good decisions and bad decisions, and it’s rather immature to chide someone for acknolodging their existence.
“my answer”? Just what is “my answer”? I don’t recall ever saying that women should fight back in one situation, or that they shouldn’t in another. All I said is that date rape and stranger rape are different situations, and people should take that into account.
Don’t you think this statement is a bit too broad to cover every possible situation? My wife use to teach self defense training for women and eye gouging, sack grabs, and smashing ankle bones were all part of the course. But part of the course also dealt with situational awareness. My wife taught that if you choose not to resist because of the presence of a weapon or a large assailant that there was nothing wrong with that. Indeed it might be the best choice given the circumstances. But the teaching of self defense techniques gives women one more tool to use if they find themselves in a bad situation.
It is a foolish belief to think that in all cases not resisting won’t bring injury or death anyway. The assailant might already have the hole dug for the body. There comes a point when you have nothing to lose.
I don’t think this is overly harsh criticism so much as it is missing the point: I have not been advocating resistance against strangers, only in cases of acquaintance rape. Some might claim that an acquaintance that refuses to stop raping you after being told the sex is unwanted is automatically antisocial enough to be driven psychotic with rage when eye-gouged and ball-grabbed. Clearly a woman’s judgement of this must depend on the nature of the acquaintance, the place where the rape is happening etc., but for cases I was thinking about (unwanted sex by a man who is known to the woman, has common friends, is known to have a job, home, i.e. things that mark him as not being a sociopathic drifter) I think the judgement is wrong: most acquaintance rapists will not attempt to murder a woman if she claws his eyes.
A woman may get hit, and that is sort of the point:It will be an obvious mark to parties that did not witness the negotiation of the sex that the sex is unwanted.
No. Please note the use of the adjective “untrained”.
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My wife use to teach self defense training for women and eye gouging, sack grabs, and smashing ankle bones were all part of the course. But part of the course also dealt with situational awareness. My wife taught that if you choose not to resist because of the presence of a weapon or a large assailant that there was nothing wrong with that.
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Good for her. If she also told the participants that the eye gouges, etc. are unreliable techniques, then I commend her.
As a tool, it is a glass hammer. It might drive the nail, if you’re lucky, but you only get one shot and the situation is guaranteed to become dangerous.
I do not argue against giving someone a trick to use once the violence starts. I argue against instilling a false sense of confidence in unreliable tools.
As to the difference between stranger rape and acquiznance rape, I have known women badly beaten by acquaintances and women who chased off strangers who appeared intent on rape. Anyone who places their trust in a blanket rule rather than a personal assessment of the situation is a fool.
I suppose it depends on your definition of “untrained.” I would still consider anyone who had attended just one self-defense class as basically untrained.
Certainly no technique is guaranteed, just like being passive is no guarantee of safety.
I also think you give too much credit to the capabilites of the rapiest. There certainly are some power trained frightening individuals out there. But there are also rapiest who are simply cowards and will flee at the first sign of determined resistance.
But Blackclaw, how do you know? How do you know which kind of rapiest (sic) you are dealing with? It could be that fighting will drive someone off, like the old schoolyard rule that a bully will back off at the sight of his own blood. It could be that fighting back will escalate the violence of your attacker. You just don’t know. Any woman who gets through a rape alive and with a minimum of permanent damage made the “right” decision for her, under the circumstances, at the time.
To djbdjb and The Ryan,
Both of you seem to be saying “If you were date-raped and you didn’t fight back, don’t be upset or surprised if we don’t believe you. We want to see bruises! Too bad you didn’t think of that at the time.”
Is this a correct assessment of your views? What is the debate here? What should women who were raped and didn’t fight back (for whatever reason) do? Do you automatically not believe them? Do you blame them for not thinking about how their response will look to a jury while in the midst of an attack?
Well if the woman manages to stop it while getting a little beat up that would be better. It all depends on what you think the best course of action is.
Perhaps we would make more progress if instead of the contributors’ own experiences, we looked at a more emotionally neutral case. In the Wall Street Journal today, (editorial section) there is a story about a man named David Schaer, who was a student at Brandeis University when he was accused of rape. Here is a link, although I think the WSJ has more info:
So your point would be that if Ms. Smith had fought back, there would have been more evidence that there was rape? Fair enough. This sounds like a very ambiguous situation.
djbdjb, no one in this thread is condoning women who lie about rape, or who change their minds after the fact and accuse innocent people. No one in this thread is saying that the woman should always be believed in “he said, she said” cases.
The interesting thing about the article you posted is that it talks about standards for campus rules, not criminal laws. There is a quote from the university that they hold their students to higher standards than the courts do, in order to put the onus on students to get a clear consent. Should universities blindly believe women every time? No. Should the university have acted as it did? I can’t say without hearing all the evidence. By both students’ admissions, Schaer continued sex when it was painful to his partner and after she asked him to stop, so that he could “finish.” The message the university was trying to send in this case seems to be “If in doubt about someone’s willing participation, DON’T have sex.” The burden of proof is different in a criminal court.
The message that you and The Ryan have been sending in this thread, which I have asked again and again for you to confirm or clarify, is that if a woman didn’t fight back she made a wrong decision or might not “really” have been raped. Surely you can understand where that might rankle with those of us who have been assaulted, and for whatever reason chose not to or could not fight back. Is it my job to make it clear to someone that I am not interested in sex if in fact I am not? Assuming I’m conscious, yeah. Is it my job to fight to the death to prevent the rape in order to get my message across or make myself more “believable”?
Maybe I am to emotional about this topic to debate it dispassionately. I can admit that. But until you and Ryan clarify yourselves, I am going to keep asking the question:
In your opinion, are women who don’t fight back lying about being date raped? Because that’s what your posts seem to add up to.