Yes means Yes, dumb idea. Women should quit lying about 'rape."

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

@Spice_Weasel

Just to be clear, while I like the idea of affirmative consent, I’m not terribly sold on the idea that it should be codified into law.

But this law as I understand it really only sets the affirmative consent standard in cases where the alleged victim is incapacitated. (I might not be understanding that properly) and it’s only applying an already existing law to college campuses. That’s a far cry from, ‘‘All sex without affirmative consent is rape.’’

It applies to all sexual encounters. In any situation where the university has to make a determination about whether activity was consensual, affirmative consent is the standard.

It applies especially to incapacitated people in the sense that if I get accused of sexual assault on a campus in California, I can’t say “I thought she did affirmatively consent!” if the victim was so drunk that she “could not understand the fact, nature, or extent of the sexual activity,” and I reasonably should have known that. It also applies to my own intoxication, in that I can’t say “I thought she did affirmatively consent, but I was drunk!”.

I want to emphasize, though, what it means to say that there was no consent if there was no affirmative consent. This thread was started from the perspective of the victim of the proverbial drunk girl who had second thoughts – an engineered effort to put a guy in jail who did nothing wrong. In practice, if you’re a person who is concerned that this could happen to you, there’s one question you need to be prepared to answer:

Why did you reasonably believe affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity existed during this encounter?

That’s it. That’s the additional burden that’s being placed on people having sex. I think that’s entirely acceptable. Everyone forgets that there is such a thing as a defense, like as if, if you can be accused of something, an injustice has already occurred. All you gotta do, in the unlikely event that you’re the victim of such a campaign, is say why a normal person would have thought she was into it. And I mean, think about what it means if you don’t have a good answer to that! Yeah, I’m pretty sure she was into it, even though she didn’t say so, and she didn’t really participate, and she didn’t really, um, say or do anything at all about it, so I guess she could’ve been, I don’t know, neutral about it?

This is not a high bar. Would a reasonable person have believed that she was expressing agreement with what was happening? If no, are you a reasonable person? If yes, why did you have sex with her?

[Spice_Weasel]

[QUOTE=Forthingay-Phipps]
It’s a mistake to focus on lying vindictive bitches, because that likely obscures the nature of what happens most of these instances. I think a lot of people are prone to retroactively reinterpreting their attitude to things in line with what they subsequently come to feel, and this is especially so in instances when people do things without clearly thought out motivations to begin with.
[/QUOTE]

I’m glad we’re on the same page there, because to hear some people talk about it you would think women were lying crouched in the bushes just waiting for a hapless victim they could falsely accuse of rape.

@Bruce_Wayne

That one labeled under peer pressure isn’t exactly an open shut rape case if one at all.

Based on what little context we have I am inclined to agree. The thing about this Reddit thread, I guess, is that it was completely deleted following an uproar about giving rapists a platform to justify themselves. There are bits and pieces of it remaining here, so the article I linked to, while coherent, actually leaves out quite a bit of context. I actually think it’s a damned shame the original thread was taken down.

[Spice_Weasel]

@Jimmy_Chitwood

It applies to all sexual encounters. In any situation where the university has to make a determination about whether activity was consensual, affirmative consent is the standard.

Just to be clear, when we say ‘‘affirmative consent’’ are we referring specifically to an explicit verbal agreement to have sex? Or is the definition more open to interpretation than that?

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

The definition is “affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement.” There is no requirement that it be verbal.

[andros]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

Not everything is a source. You need to be able to think every once in a while.

Suppose, to make up some numbers for example, a study showed that in 4% of rape accusations the woman retracted the accusation, that would not justify declaring that only 4% of rape accusations are false, and if someone bandied that stat it would be a distortion.

It should be obvious to anyone who had half a brain and no axe to grind that many many instances of rape allegations will not be resolved conclusively one way or the other, especially of the “date rape” sort. That would make it virtually impossible to pin down the true percentage of false accusations, so no answer as to your “magnitude” question. But the point is that if a particular study attempts to answer this question by using a restrictive definition of false accusation, then those stats will certainly understate the level of false accusations, by some unknown magnitude.

Thank you for explaining your position. I’m sorry that my questions make you doubt my intellectual capacity and my objectivity. Perhaps I deserve your condescension, but when you approach the conversation with the assumption that more women lie about being raped than the statistics indicate, I’m curious about how you reach that assumption and what further conclusions you draw from it.

I hope you would agree that asking you to explain and support your claims, even when they seem patently obvious to you, is not unreasonable and not necessarily indicative of having “half a brain” or “an axe to grind.”

[VinylTurnip]

@Spice_Weasel

I’m glad we’re on the same page there, because to hear some people talk about it you would think women were lying crouched in the bushes just waiting for a hapless victim they could falsely accuse of rape.

Furthermore, I challenge anyone to lie crouched!

[ZPG_Zealot]

@Jragon

ZPG, you said sometimes you shake hands while gloved. Please explain how being gloved is “a safeguard designed to protect other women from abuse and harm”. I doubt that thin veneer of cloth is doing much to protect you unless they’ve coated their hands in anthrax or something.

Edit: My point isn’t that your culture is wrong. It’s that it’s a cultural thing, it’s not a perfectly logical advancement of human thought.

There is no touching of flesh, but the act of clasping hands to show an agreement has been reached in situations usually business deals where a handshake is accepted as a contract is perserved.

[Spice_Weasel]

@VinylTurnip

Furthermore, I challenge anyone to lie crouched!

Great, now they’re even lying about lying.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@andros

Thank you for explaining your position. I’m sorry that my questions make you doubt my intellectual capacity and my objectivity. Perhaps I deserve your condescension, but when you approach the conversation with the assumption that more women lie about being raped than the statistics indicate, I’m curious about how you reach that assumption and what further conclusions you draw from it.

I hope you would agree that asking you to explain and support your claims, even when they seem patently obvious to you, is not unreasonable and not necessarily indicative of having “half a brain” or “an axe to grind.”

It seemed to me, based on your inserting incorrect premises into your questions, along with past interactions, that you were JAQing. However on rereading, I see I may have been a bit too cryptic.

My apologies.

[ZPG_Zealot]

@iiandyiiii

What safeguard is she destroying? She’s saying that she prefers if men offer her a handshake and don’t ask. That’s the expected custom and standard in some communities. It doesn’t mean men can’t ask, but it means that if men want to minimize the risk of offense in those communities, they should not ask.

This is just a math problem. How do I minimize my risk of causing offense to a woman? In my community, the lowest risk solution is to offer a handshake without asking. In some other communities, the lowest risk is to ask. And in others, it’s to not even ask or offer at all. But there are some communities in which the best solution to minimize the risk of offense is to offer the hand without asking.

How do these facts that exist in some communities “destroy a safeguard”?

The safeguard is the principle: Men do not touch women without first securing affirmative verbal permission. You do not assume under any circumstances that a woman desires you to touch her body. If you maintain this safeguard you will not offend any random women you encounter nor will you risk being afalsely accused of rape.

[ZPG_Zealot]

@raventhief

So why is it rude for a man to extend his hand to you, but not rude for him to not extend his hand to me? I should understand differing cultures, but you don’t have to?

It’s the difference between asking permission to touch someone’s body and demanding they touch you regardless of their religious, cultural, philosophical, etc. It’s the difference between asking someone to participate in a game or demanding they participate. Which would you perfer (and which do you think should be socially acceptable) a man asking if you would like to dance or a man pointing at you and saying “get on the floor, bitch.” And ultimately, it’s the difference between making sure your intimate partner actually wants to have sex with you and just assuming that because they don’t violently push you away the sex is consentual.

[andros]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

My apologies.

Cordially accepted.

[iiandyiiii]

@ZPG_Zealot

If you maintain this safeguard you will not offend any random women you encounter

This is false. Women in this thread have piped in that this is not true for them. There are in fact many women in many communities that will be offended if you do not offer a handshake, and if you ask whether they shake hands.

Sorry ZPG Zealot, but you can’t read the minds of all the women on the planet. Some actually disagree with you on this. Some women on Earth really feel differently than you do about handshakes. And their feelings on handshakes are equally valid as yours. Their cultural standards and expectations are equally as valid and equally as worthy of respect as yours.

[raventhief]

@ZPG_Zealot

It’s the difference between asking permission to touch someone’s body and demanding they touch you regardless of their religious, cultural, philosophical, etc. It’s the difference between asking someone to participate in a game or demanding they participate. Which would you perfer (and which do you think should be socially acceptable) a man asking if you would like to dance or a man pointing at you and saying “get on the floor, bitch.” And ultimately, it’s the difference between making sure your intimate partner actually wants to have sex with you and just assuming that because they don’t violently push you away the sex is consentual.

That did not really answer my question. Why is a man violating YOUR social norms by extending a hand (note, not forcing you, or bullying you - just extending his hand and then dropping it if you say no) a rude action that is offensive, but a man violating MY social norms by refusing to shake my ungloved hand is NOT being rude or offensive? Why do your norms trump mine?

[Anaamika]

I just wanted to come back and say a few more things -

1. While I have had men catcall me, grab me without permission and do all kinds of not very nice things, no one has ever forced me into a handshake. I mean ever. I’ve seen one or two people get mildly surprised, but it’s just not high up on their list of things. I have on occasion said, “I’d better not shake hands - I have a cold” - and men and women alike have been grateful I withdrew my hand.

2. I want men to continue respecting me and offering to shake my hand. Because no matter what a crazy lady says, shaking hands is a sign of respect. Maybe they want to be all creepy-like but trust me when I say even if you don’t shake hands Creepy McCreeperson will find a way to creep anyhoo!

3. What I would like is to not be regarded as far as my gender, as much as possible, in business circumstances. You start asking me if it’s OK if you shake my hands? Immediately you have focused all attention on the fact that I am a woman and somehow need special attention. I HATE THAT.

Anyway. I don’t have any kind of solution to the drunken rape thing which is why I haven’t spoken about it. I try to ask men to think about what their attentions would feel like if a man was doing it to them. If you’re a straight guy that gets drunk at a party and a man has sex with you, is it his fault for raping you or your fault for getting drunk? If you’re both drunk, then what? This isn’t a black and white issue. It isn’t “all women are lying bitches” - you’d be surprised how many times we’ve been touched or even violated and have never said anything about it to anyone. Sure, some women lie, but I bet lots of women just never even say anything. Lots of times it’s because we know the first reaction is going to be “Why were you there/drinking that/doing that?” And we know that even staying home and hiding in our houses won’t actually protect us from predatory men, and we kind of wonder where the line is drawn, and why we can’t have any fun.

I have never forgotten MOL’s story about the date who needed to wait for a taxi and was expressly told “You can wait in the apartment but NO SEX” and he still tried to make passes at her…and she was STILL told that inviting a man up to your apartment was tantamount to inviting him for sex, no ifs ands or buts.

I feel like the attitude of “Well if I don’t read her reactions right I might miss out on sex” is a big part of the problem inasfar as the non-violent rapes and molestations. Well, so fucking what? Yes, some women do play games. You know what men can do? Refuse to play them, absolutely. If she says no, even coquettishly? Don’t have sex with her. She’ll learn eventually that games don’t work for her. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t have sex! Just leave. Trust me, if she wants to fuck you enough, she’ll find a way to tell you. We get horny too.

Oh yeah. : shakes hands with everyone :

[Acsenray]

This Salon article — http://www.salon.com/2014/10/02/americas_sex_abuse_surprise_why_our_search_for_monsters_is_blinding_us/ — talks about a recent case in which an editor prominent in the alt literature world was called out as a rapist — originally it was anonymous, but his behavior was so widely recognized by women in his circle, that it became obvious who it was.

The guy sent out what seems might have been a sincere apology. Taking that apology for face value it seems to me that there is a real issue on the way that a significant proportion of men have been socialized in our society—some men still don’t know when they are being rapists.

They still don’t know all the forms “no” can take. They still think it’s their role to help a woman turn a “no” into a “yes.”

They still think that if she gives in, that there was consent. They still think that if she hasn’t gone straight to the police, then that means it wasn’t rape, if she still talks to you, it wasn’t rape. Forgetting all the other reasons that a raps victim might want to pretend it didn’t happen, or not make waves, or not suffer professional or financial consequences, or not be socially ostracized, or not have a rape define her identity in the eyes of the world.

Portions of this comedy bit — If Girls Got Embarrassed By The Things Guys Get Embarrassed By — illustrates some of the troubling features that still exist in our culture that certainly are related to ongoing problems of no consensual sex—

A: Actually, we just ended up talking.
(Record scratch)
B: You couldn’t close!
C: You had whiskey vag?
A: It was nice!
D: No! You couldn’t close!
C: I can’t believe you didn’t sleep with him. That’s so embarrassing!

…

A: it’s been, like, six months since I’ve been laid.
B: Yeah, that’s just embarrassing. It’s no fault but your own. You have to get your vag wet.

Now, this is a joke, reversing male and female roles, but it’s funny because it’s at least partially true.

These kind of male-culture-reinforced expectations must have a role in the consent/nonconsent disconnect in cases like these.

[MyFootsZZZ]

So I think people are swaying my beliefs on this topic. I just feel awful that it has to come to this. Maybe I’m coming out of denial.

I know these issues aren’t directed at me, or even men who are more ‘assertive’ than a dude like me, but I somehow feel defensive.

It’s honestly very scary for me, being someone that’s (briefly) been accused of trying to take advantage of a girl when she was inebriated… I mean, that might be a rare thing, but it’s happened to ME before. If you knew me, you would know how silly it is.

I kind of feel weird that I know great guys who miss out on a lot of what certain people take for granted, (sex/fucking and intimacy).

I hear a lot about abuse and I can’t figure out why people of any gender often gravitate towards hanging out with abusers, dating and marrying, people that would disrespect them like that.

[MyFootsZZZ]

Eh, I don’t like how I came off there. I am blaming the victim. I am wrong.

[Kimstu]

I think this is all part of the process of dawning social recognition of a crime that didn’t used to be considered a crime.

I’m old enough to remember the same sort of thing happening with the emerging concept of spousal rape starting back in the 1970s. In many cases there was exactly the same sort of rhetoric being used by people resisting the change:

"This goes too far." I.e., reasonable concerns have crossed over into absurdity, because “if you get married you’re presumably agreeing to sex”, “a married person has less expectation of personal autonomy”, etc. etc.

"It will be too difficult to establish the facts." “How can you tell if a married person’s been raped if they’re also having consensual sex with the rapist?” “If it was making love on Friday and Sunday, then how was it rape on Saturday?”, etc. etc.

"Unscrupulous women will exploit this by making false charges for their own advantage." That is, women wanting to gain leverage in divorce or custody proceedings will claim their husbands raped them, etc. etc.

Despite all that rhetoric, there are nowadays comparatively few people who believe that if one person violently assaults and forcibly rapes another, the law has nothing to say about it as long as they happen to be married to each other. As a society we have generally accepted the notion nowadays that raping your spouse makes you a rapist.

I think the same process of adjustment will lead to general acceptance of the notion that having sex with someone incapable of consenting to sex, even if you’re not trying to be violent or hurtful to them, even if you know them personally, even if previously they were or seemed willing to consent to sex with you, makes you a rapist too.

But it’s likely to take a while for people to wrap their heads around it.

[Spice_Weasel]

@MyFootsZZZ

It’s honestly very scary for me, being someone that’s (briefly) been accused of trying to take advantage of a girl when she was inebriated… I mean, that might be a rare thing, but it’s happened to ME before. If you knew me, you would know how silly it is.

When I was in college I had two guy friends (really a friend + an acquaintance) who had a bitter unending rivalry toward one another. Basically Friend A had a female friend who was spending time alone with Friend B, and according to her, Friend B got pushy.

Friend A confronted Friend B and not only did Friend B categorically deny that anything had happened, he henceforth despised Friend A for daring to suggest that he’d been inappropriate toward this girl.

I have no goddamn idea what really happened and I stayed the hell out of it. But one thing I arm reasonably confident about is that Friend B truly did make that woman feel uncomfortable and refused to consider his role in making her feel that way. He was a pretty handsy/physically aggressive guy, not intentionally, but I definitely had more than one moment in our acquaintanceship of thinking ‘‘whoa buddy, that’s awfully familiar of you considering we just met.’’ I think it’s unfortunate that rather than examining his own behavior he let it ruin a friendship.

I guess this speaks more to Ascenray’s point that you don’t have to be a monster to be a sexual aggressor, you just have to be a little bit clueless.