Date Rape and Popular Culture [Archive]

12th April 2009, 18:47

The clip is totally disgusting and definitely not funny...

...Unfortunately the only people in the two clips who are "not taking rape seriously" are the Feministing bloggers and not Seth Rogan.

So people don't have to waste the several minutes of their lives watching two clips in order to participate in the thread, (both of which I think are in extremely bad taste), I'll summarize the relevant bits:

The first clip is a trailor for Jody Hill/Seth Rogan's film "Observe and Report". The part relevant to the thread (and the second clip) is this: Seth Rogan is basically humping Anna Faris, says her name 'Brandi' in a raunchy voice; she doesn't respond and has her eyes closed; Rogan stops, looks concerned, says 'Brandi' in an inquisitive voice; Faris says "Why are you stopping mother fucker?" in an annoyed voice without opening her eyes or turning; Rogan says "Oh I'm sorry, god I'm sorry" and 'starts' again.

It seemed obvious to me that sequence the very short couple of second bit of the clip was meant to convey (and did convey) was that 1. Rogan stopped immediately when he became concerned Faris may be passed out 2. Faris was in fact aware the whole time and wanted to continue 3. Rogan continued only when Faris affirmatively and explicitly consented after asking for clarification. Faris was extremely drunk, and Rogan was less so, and the feeling is one of emotional alienation, the sort of sex more comperable to masterbation then any sort of expression of affection. She was also clearly aware and consenting and Rogan checked to make sure this was the case.

Rape is non-consensual sex. Its not sex between an attractive woman and an unattractive man, between a drunk woman who would not have likely consented were she sober, and a less drunk man, or sex thats probably a lot more amusing to the male demographic the film is aimed at then women watching the same clip. Its non-consensual sex, and when you eliminate that distinction, call things that are not rape, rape, you are actually failing to take rape seriously by diluting the meaning of the word and therefore lessening the severity of the injury inflicted by rape. Thats not seen as "rape" because its not rape, not date rape, not stranger rape.

Even beyond the fact that calling drunk but consensual sex, "rape", trivializes rape, it does something more disturbing: it trivializes consent! To suggest that a drunk woman's explicit affirmative verbal consent is non-material to whether or not she's being "raped" is to treat women as if they're children, to suggest that the crime is not to violate her will but to violate her body without regard to whether she was willing or not. This is objectifying and dehumanizing and the fact that it has so much currency among feminists suggests that despite all of the Feministing blogger's protestations, the ideological assumptions of patriarchy concerning male-agency and female-non-agency in sex are still very much present.

p.s. the clip also contains a bit of a scene depicting (as if funny) the white male uniformed lead character tasing a black (or possibly south Asian) man who clearly poses no threat. What does the absence of a critique of humor from white police violence against defenseless and harmless black men suggest here? The part that most disturbs me perhaps is that the (primarily white female) bloggers don't identify with the black man who is the victim of the actual violence, they identify with the white woman who is consenting, but were they in her position, would presumably not consent. In other words, they seem to identify with her for her body, but not with her mind, and they do not identify with him at all. Its as though she matters to them as an object to stand in for women in the abstract, not a person with her own mind and will, and he doesn't matter at all.

Edit: to clarify, it seems that a lot of the comments on the feministing blog are either misinterpreting the scene that she was 'passed out drunk' or they didn't watch the clip. She wasn't; she speaks clearly and distinctly and obviously knows whats going on; she simply has her eyes closed (people close their eyes during sex and sex acts all the time). Clearly had she actually been passed out cold, it would be rape, but thats not what the scene depicted.

Dimentio

12th April 2009, 18:50

All I could see is a guy who has sex with a girl which he then thinks is asleep but she is'nt in fact.

But otherwise, I think the film should be banned on basis of bad taste.

Killfacer

12th April 2009, 19:02

All I could see is a guy who has sex with a girl which he then thinks is asleep but she is'nt in fact.

But otherwise, I think the film should be banned on basis of bad taste.

Banned? Really?

It's pretty shit i agree, but it shouldn't be banned. That's like cracking a nut with a sledge hammer.

12th April 2009, 19:11

It should be defacto banned because in a socialist society where all films are publicly financed ridiculously bad films shouldn't receive funding :-p.

Pirate Utopian

12th April 2009, 19:27

What is with comedies these days?, seriously almost everything is horseshittingly lame.
Atleast it's not another one of these Date/Epic/Scary/Disaster/Superhero/Spartan/*insert term here* movies.

As for the date rape aspect, I agree with TC on this.

Dimentio

12th April 2009, 20:27

bcbm

13th April 2009, 00:05

The part relevant to the thread (and the second clip) is this: Seth Rogan is basically humping Anna Faris, says her name 'Brandi' in a raunchy voice; she doesn't respond and has her eyes closed; Rogan stops, looks concerned, says 'Brandi' in an inquisitive voice; Faris says "Why are you stopping mother fucker?" in an annoyed voice without opening her eyes or turning; Rogan says "Oh I'm sorry, god I'm sorry" and 'starts' again.

I thought the bits where he is buying her loads of shots and she is walking around puking on herself were pretty relevant too, but apparently getting people so wasted they can barely function and then fucking them isn't taking advantage or messed up at all.

Module

13th April 2009, 00:21

I think that scene in the video was borderline - I feel genuinely uncomfortable watching this woman who is so drunk she is throwing up and almost falling over being taken home by this apparently sober man. We see nothing of her actively instigating sex with this guy; it looks totally one sided. I would question the presence of informed consent if this was a real life situation, just from what we're shown in the trailer. I don't think you can do much more that simply question, however, and it's a little rash to brand it a 'date rape' scene, simply because I don't think enough of the scene is shown in the trailer to come to a conclusion. Seth Rogen is generally not very funny, though.

13th April 2009, 01:07

I thought the bits where he is buying her loads of shots and she is walking around puking on herself were pretty relevant too, but apparently getting people so wasted they can barely function and then fucking them isn't taking advantage or messed up at all.

Of course its taking advantage and messed up. Its also not rape. This is precisely what I mean: when you fail to differentiate between sexually taking advantage of someone's situation and violating their will you act as if consent or lack of consent is immaterial. Its not. Consent doesn't necessarily make something tasteful or considerate, but its the absence of consent not the tastelessness or inconsideration that differentiates rape from sex.

Like Desa, I feel genuinely uncomfortable watching it, but I feel genuinely uncomfortable watching lots of things that aren't rape. Its okay to condemn a sex act without failing to differentiate it from sexual violence deserving greater amounts of condemnation.

Lets put it this way.

What if instead of saying "don't stop" as she did in the clip, she said "stop." If she's raped either way, you are suggesting that her agency and explicit willingness or explicit unwillingness are not consequential to your analysis. In other words, the act is against her as a body, an object, and not a person with a mind. That to me is fucked up and thats where the conclusion seems to lead.

bcbm

13th April 2009, 01:16

Of course its taking advantage and messed up. Its also not rape. This is precisely what I mean: when you fail to differentiate between sexually taking advantage of someone's situation and violating their will you act as if consent or lack of consent is immaterial. Its not. Consent doesn't necessarily make something tasteful or considerate, but its the absence of consent not the tastelessness or inconsideration that differentiates rape from sex.

If you're vomiting on yourself in public I'm going to have to question your ability to give informed consent. The consent obtained (if any, we aren't shown how the sex was initiated after all) wouldn't hold up in a court. I don't think all drunk sex is rape or you can't make any kind of consent while intoxicated but I think the scenario presented here is over the line.

Idealism

13th April 2009, 01:27

With the movie, if you actually take the time to see it, the guy (seth rogan) is made out to be an manic-depressed bipolar asshole, and this is one of the scenes that shows how much out of his mind he is. Imo after seeing the movie, it wasn't meant to be funny, it was just meant to show how bad the character is.

Hoxhaist

13th April 2009, 03:10

I think the movie looks funny and i dont think that was rape. I'll prolly see the movie on DVD

13th April 2009, 03:12

If you're vomiting on yourself in public I'm going to have to question your ability to give informed consent.

I'd question whether someone was able to correctly judge whether they'd regret or be embarrassed by anything they consent to, afterwards, but I wouldn't question their ability to give simple consent. This is why for instance you can be convicted of an intentional tort while drunk but could have an affirmative defense against the enforcement of any contract you sign while drunk.

The consent obtained (if any, we aren't shown how the sex was initiated after all) wouldn't hold up in a court.Thats just not true at least not definitively, it would depend on the specific facts and the jurisidiction but thats probably just not the case most (common law) places. I don't think that bourgeois courts provide any definitive definition (for our purposes) of what words mean but after surfing westlaw casehistories and American Law Reports I doubt you could get a rape conviction in a US federal court. Even if she was in fact asleep (and thus in fact not-consenting) most jurisidictions afford an affirmative defense for the accused of mistake of fact of consent. This often doesn't even have to meet a reasonable person standard (i.e. in many jurisdictions a jury can find in favor of the accused where they find he mistakenly had a good faith belief in a victims consent even where that belief was not reasonable).

I don't think all drunk sex is rape or you can't make any kind of consent while intoxicated but I think the scenario presented here is over the line.Its over the line of decency, sure, its not over the line of rape, because that line is simple consent and she appeared to express explicit, affirmative consent.

Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor

13th April 2009, 03:17

Feminists curse a lot and really like dirty jokes, according to the video. I'm probably making too much of it, but I don't how generalizing about feminism helps anything. It's supposed to be a joke, I guess, but some feminists might not like cursing and dirty jokes - although I'm not one of them, I admit. As for the rape issue, I agree with TC as well. I think active resistance has something to do with the qualification of rape.

I don't drink, but I have been under the influence of substances for medical purposes. I assume cognitive function is similarly decreased. I know a lot of people engage in this behavior, if we believe the media, so I'm wonder what the moral line is here.

If a person consents to sex while drunk, you should assume they wouldn't want to have sex with you while sober. For that reason, you protect their interests as best you can. However, I think it's a confusing issue. If someone wants to swallow knives when drunk, you stop them. If someone wants to have sex, stopping it seems to imply that there is something wrong with sex.

However, what if the individual is someone you know and regularly have sex with, but they never brought up the issue of drunkenness. Does the situation change? Law often uses the idea of a "reasonable person" to cast a verdict. Do we apply that?

If I tell you to have sex with me after I get drunk, we would probably say it is alright. However, what if I would've changed my mind. I am only able to engage in the act because I am drunk. Is it wrong then? If I tell you that when I am drunk you can kill me, because I'm suicidal let's say, and I further encourage you when I'm drunk, do you kill me? The period between when you lift the gun and ask again "do you want this" could be the period of time where I would have changed my mind had I not been drunk.

I would say that you probably should kill someone in that situation. They wanted to create a situation where they could accomplish something they otherwise could not do. For instance, Odysseus had his men tie him up so the Sirens wouldn't lure him away. Once he heard them, he wanted to be released. I would say we should not have released him if we think we are following his interests.

If a women goes to the bar, drinks heavily, and goes home with a man, he has no right to assume she intends to have sex? I'm inclined to say no, but I think a lot of people would say yes. If you can induce concept, based on a "reasonable person" standard, what are the guidelines?

If you induce that a drunk person would've wanted a drive home, or their keys forcibly taken, that is a reasonable assumption. That a person would've wanted sex, I think, is an unreasonable assumption. Sex requires prior consent, exploitation requires no consent, and rape requires opposition. That seems like the safest route to take when approaching these matters. However, you also run into the issue of "how many drinks." The sarcastic jerk will ask if they have to give a girl a breathalyzer before sex, but it's actually a legitimate concern.

If we allow people to induce, based on a "reasonable person" standard, that might work, I suppose, but then we wonder why they aren't allowed to induce when it comes to concept while drunk, in general.

Luckily I don't get any so I don't have to deal with such philosophical questions. I just doing something harmful unless I am very confident the person, had they not been drinking X amount they drunk, would want to have sex (this implies sex is harmful, though, which is a worry). To be confident enough, I would probably need evidence of rationality, I suppose. Ability to carry on a legitimate conversation without slurring. I don't attend the bar scene, as you might be able to tell.

Pirate Utopian

13th April 2009, 03:19

I think the movie looks funny and i dont think that was rape. I'll prolly see the movie on DVD
You gotta be kidding me.
How earth do these cliched dickjokes look funny?

Hoxhaist

13th April 2009, 03:23

You gotta be kidding me.
How earth do these cliched dickjokes look funny?

I guess I'm uncultured and I want to piss off that annoying feminist and I thought the taser thing and the Asian twins look funny but like I said I am a Philistine and I know it... oh well and I know my friends will see it

Idealism

13th April 2009, 03:55

You gotta be kidding me.
How earth do these cliched dickjokes look funny?

If you actually see the movie its also partly a character study of the seth rogan, he's manicly depressed, and has bipolar disorder. He has what looks like an inflated ego, and tends to be a "dominant" asshole over all. Thats why i said the "date rape" scene isn't bad, because first of all he didn't secretly drug the girl, the girl took the drugs, the medication he takes for bipolar, from him; without his offer. Second i think the "rape" scene goes along with the character; his intention is not malicious, but instead shows just how big his ego is. In the scene just previous, you see the girl is not able walk straight she's so drugged (by her own choice), and it kind of shows him imagining her asking him for sex; because that is what he wants and he has such an inflated ego that he almost hallucinates.

13th April 2009, 04:06

Thats just not true at least not definitively, it would depend on the specific facts and the jurisidiction but thats probably just not the case most (common law) places. I don't think that bourgeois courts provide any definitive definition (for our purposes) of what words mean but after surfing westlaw casehistories and American Law Reports I doubt you could get a rape conviction in a US federal court. Even if she was in fact asleep (and thus in fact not-consenting) most jurisidictions afford an affirmative defense for the accused of mistake of fact of consent. This often doesn't even have to meet a reasonable person standard (i.e. in many jurisdictions a jury can find in favor of the accused where they find he mistakenly had a good faith belief in a victims consent even where that belief was not reasonable).

I agree with everything you've said above but I don't think this is true at all; it definitely is possible to get convicted for having sex with a drunk girl, and has happened. However, the only case I can find at the moment is this one (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/30/2530293.htm), although I do remember hearing of someone getting convicted of sexual assault for it but currently cannot find any info on it.

TheCultofAbeLincoln

13th April 2009, 04:45

I hate Seth Rogan. How many times can he make the same fucking movie?

Anyway, I agree with TC.

13th April 2009, 04:52

I agree with everything you've said above but I don't think this is true at all; it definitely is possible to get convicted for having sex with a drunk girl, and has happened. However, the only case I can find at the moment is this one (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/30/2530293.htm), although I do remember hearing of someone getting convicted of sexual assault for it but currently cannot find any info on it.

It might very well be different in Australia (though I doubt it) where your case takes place, but in your case there was no trial, they pleaded guilty (to "unlawful intercourse") and she was 15 where the age of consent is 16, so that case is not relevant to the question of whether what was depicted in the clip could result in a rape conviction.

bcbm

13th April 2009, 09:26

but I wouldn't question their ability to give simple consent.

Which is why I said informed consent. I don't think if you're completely blacked out and puking on yourself you can give informed consent for somebody to do anything to you or with you.

13th April 2009, 10:03

Which is why I said informed consent. I don't think if you're completely blacked out and puking on yourself you can give informed consent for somebody to do anything to you or with you.

"informed consent" standards differ depending on what "information" is relevant to the situation. The concept itself is essentially a legal fiction: what information is relevant isn't logically derivable on any positivist level its only what a justice system recognizes.

There are really only a few instances where an informed/simple consent issue is even relevant: where statutes outright and arbitrarily declare lack of sufficient consent (i.e. minors below a certain age to sex in general, women to abortions without adiquate pro-life propaganda, etc) or at common law when the consequences are not plainly obvious in the act itself, i.e. simple vs informed consent to medical treatment. This distinction is relevant in determining the extent of a doctors liability: they're liable for assault without simple consent, for malpractice without informed consent if simple consent has been granted. This distinction isn't relevant for sex because the material consequences of the act are apparent while assenting to it (you can see obviously why this might not be the case in medicine).

If someone is literally blacked out, they can't consent at all, because they're not aware. People who are so drunk as to be stumbling/puking etc, speaking with some first hand experience with the condition, may be more likely to make decisions that they later regret but they are still capable of making decisions, including sexual ones. Rape isn't deciding to have sex with impared judgment, its having sex without deciding to.

bcbm

13th April 2009, 10:20

If someone is literally blacked out, they can't consent at all, because they're not aware. People who are so drunk as to be stumbling/puking etc, speaking with some first hand experience with the condition, may be more likely to make decisions that they later regret but they are still capable of making decisions, including sexual ones. Rape isn't deciding to have sex with impared judgment, its having sex without deciding to.

In the video clip she pukes on herself and isn't even aware that she puked 4 seconds later. That's blacked-out drunk. That's too drunk to consent. Again, I am not saying all sex while drunk or whatever is rape. I've never said that and, indeed, said the opposite, so I am not sure why you point that out. But in the scenario presented here, I don't think there is much of a question.

Dimentio

13th April 2009, 10:24

If you're vomiting on yourself in public I'm going to have to question your ability to give informed consent. The consent obtained (if any, we aren't shown how the sex was initiated after all) wouldn't hold up in a court. I don't think all drunk sex is rape or you can't make any kind of consent while intoxicated but I think the scenario presented here is over the line.

Most people in that age (20 to 25) to my experience do have sex in a drunk state.

Sean

13th April 2009, 10:34

I thought the bits where he is buying her loads of shots and she is walking around puking on herself were pretty relevant too, but apparently getting people so wasted they can barely function and then fucking them isn't taking advantage or messed up at all.
It didn't show that he encouraged her to drink them, in fact it looked like she was stealing his shots too from the serving tray just after popping pills.

Seth Rogan's take on it is:

when we’re having sex and she’s unconscious like you can literally feel the audience thinking, like, how the fuck are they going to make this okay? Like, what can possibly be said or done that I’m not going to walk out of the movie theater in the next thirty seconds? . . . And then she says, like, the one thing that makes it all okayI'll probably not watch it, and the whole outrage about this was calculated to get the movie column inches for fear that people would just think of it as the second mall cop comedy. Feminist bloggers are boosting the viewing figures and if everyone didn't play into the hands of marketing, it would have faded into obscurity.

I'm not sure if this law (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462614/Sex-woman-drunk-soon-rape.html) ever passed or not, on the subject of sex and alcohol.

bcbm

13th April 2009, 10:42

Most people in that age (20 to 25) to my experience do have sex in a drunk state.

Did you even read what you quoted? I explicitly stated not all drunk sex is rape. I have drunk sex all the time. But fucking someone who is blacked-out is not consensual.

Seth Rogan's take on it is

I don't think it makes it okay at all.

Rascolnikova

13th April 2009, 17:02

Pawn Power

14th April 2009, 01:33

First, I will say that people shouldn't be punished for having sex while drunk nor should restrictions should be made which take away an individuals agency in making decisions of consensual sex. The conversation here is about that last point-- 'consent.'

Now there are legal questions that are being debated and questions involving 'intent.' However, this thread boils, what determines 'consent.'

We all agree, I hope, that the presence or absence of 'consent' is the determining factor of rape. A good indicator of consent is a verbal "yes" in response to the question, "Do you want to fuck?" However, human interactions aren’t always so cut and dry.

While I have been to more then one 'consent workshops' where it was stated that consent only comes verbal confirmation at each 'escalation' of intimacy we all know that sexual encounters and relationships are not always that open. Obviously, there are cases when consent is not verbalized, which I am sure many of us have encountered. I have even been told by male 'feminists' that verbal consent must be given each time one has sex with their partner, no mater how long term the relationship. Certainly, this would ruin the mood in some instances. Moreover, it is framed in a way in which we men must always be making sure ('fragile) women are not engaging in acts of compulsion. This way of thinking of 'consent' gives way to a loss of agency of women and is generally patronizing (to both parties).

That being said, we also know that consent isn't just the absence of a verbal "no." Sexual assault and rape do occur even when there is no verbal 'no' or physical struggle. In some cases the assailants’' 'intent' might not even be to rape and in some cases the threat of future violence, humilation, etc. are understood and are not actually enacted in the act. I don't want to fear monger but it is not all that uncommon for women to be drugged and rapped. I would be surprised if anyone who went to college in the US didn't know someone who was.

This talk of consent might seem straight forward but I thought it might needed to be clarified judging from some of the comments made.

Now, to get to the point, can someone 'consent' and not mean it? Or, can some one say 'yes' and it not be consent. I would say yes, this can happen, though I defiantly understand where TC and others are coming from in regards to agency. Clearly, this is a fictional case and we don't know the entire fictional context, however, I think when someone blacks out or is passed out/practically passed out verbal confirmation gets a bit hazy, like everything else, and the conscious participant should not err on the side of unwillingness or at worse assault or rape.

I'm not really too interested in this particular fictional case. I do think it shows how unclear we still are on what constitutes consent, even on the left. Though, I agree with TC's generally analysis that one can consent when high/intoxicated I think that TC's goes a bit to far in making the point in rejecting the reality that people can be so fucked up as to not be able to clearly make that choice. Apparently, in this fictional case, it is not clear if the character was able to establish consent as bcbm has pointed out, who I know has plenty of experience with large quantities of booze, and as the liberal feministing bloggers have articulated.

To be sure, we had this discussion before (http://www.revleft.com/vb/uk-women-lose-t52326/index.html) when the UK was attempting to pass or did pass a reactionary law which basically prohibited women (not men) from giving consent while inebriated-- and not even that, just a few drinks could put one past the legal limit to engage in consensual sex.

My position is generally the same; women are not little children which need to be protected and can make these decisions with out the states input, not that I even need to confirm this. However, men, at least from my experience in the US and in college don't understand consent or even worse don't even care.

Last point. I don't want to trivialize rape. I don't think that is what I have done in titling this thread. I don't consider all sexual acts that aren’t completely planned out to be rape. To TC's point in particular, I understand the definition of rape as non-consensual sex but it is how consent is defined which determines non-consensual. I appreciate TC’s point in regards to the dichotomy between violating a women’s body and will and the moralizing and objectification associated with that.
Also, the person being tassered is completely fucked up and I am not surprised that the feministing bloggers didn’t comment on it since they don’t seem comment on intersection between gender, class, race, etc. and are obviously working in with a liberal frame work. Not that that is a good excuse to ignore racism and police brutality.

Pawn Power

14th April 2009, 01:36

I'll probably not watch it, and the whole outrage about this was calculated to get the movie column inches for fear that people would just think of it as the second mall cop comedy. Feminist bloggers are boosting the viewing figures and if everyone didn't play into the hands of marketing, it would have faded into obscurity.

That seems unlikely. The 'controversy' appears only to be in the blogosphere. The people who hear about the movie from reading online 'feminist' blogs, weblogs, etc. are probably not the demographic who will increase ticket review.

Hoxhaist

14th April 2009, 01:55

so feminists might not see a movie targeted to young men, shucks... :crying:

this all seems to be a tempest in a teapot

Hoxhaist

14th April 2009, 02:04

the film does point out racial discrimination in the police in the USA and makes the police appear ridiculous. all in a humorous way, of course

Louise Michel

16th April 2009, 17:32

I agree with a lot that Pawn Power says, particularly that consent is often not that cut and dried in real life.

Here's a real case I know of. There's a party. Lots of people are pretty drunk/high. After the party 7 or 8 people (guys and girls) crash in a bedroom. A guy has the only bed. A young woman at some point in the night climbs into the bed with the guy. The guy takes this as an invitation and they have sex. In the morning the woman says she was raped. The guy is vilified as a rapist.

I wasn't at the party but I knew the guy quite well and when I was told he was a rapist I was stunned. He was off-limits, ostracised but I talked to him anyway. He said the woman didn't say anything at all. He was wasted and all he knew was she climbed into his bed. The woman basically confirmed his account but said she only climbed into the bed because she thought it would be more comfortable than the floor. She was wasted also.

I don't think this is rape. But there are two points here. Firstly, if you want to stay in control don't substance abuse. Secondly, some women are too intimidated/confused to say 'no' sometimes. I believe that the woman didn't want sex and I also believe that the guy didn't know this.

Sex should be part of an affectionate relationship - even if the relationship only lasts a few hours. If you like someone you don't need to ask, 'do you want sex' because you're focused on treating them well and you won't do something to hurt them. But in our society sex is often about power, dominance, abuse, physical release and both men and women are caught up in this.

Of course there are cut and dried cases of rape but there's a big grey area to do with sex gender roles and how we do and don't communicate.
Sometimes women have sex even though they don't want it (to please the guy). This is self-abusive - it's not rape but it does show how complicated this issue can be.

Dimentio

16th April 2009, 20:47

17th April 2009, 06:17

I agree with a lot that Pawn Power says, particularly that consent is often not that cut and dried in real life.

I disagree; inappropriate use of language doesn't mean the words and corresponding experiences don't have distinct content and meaning.

Here's a real case I know of. There's a party. Lots of people are pretty drunk/high. After the party 7 or 8 people (guys and girls) crash in a bedroom. A guy has the only bed. A young woman at some point in the night climbs into the bed with the guy. The guy takes this as an invitation and they have sex. In the morning the woman says she was raped.
I agree.

The guy is vilified as a rapist.
sounds fair.

I wasn't at the party but I knew the guy quite well and when I was told he was a rapist I was stunned. He was off-limits, ostracised but I talked to him anyway.
thats cause you're an asshole.

He said the woman didn't say anything at all. He was wasted and all he knew was she climbed into his bed. The woman basically confirmed his account but said she only climbed into the bed because she thought it would be more comfortable than the floor. She was wasted also.

Dude she was in a room with 7 or 8 people looking for somewhere to pass out, he was occupying the only bed, the only people who take that as an 'invitation' are uh, rapists. If there were 7 or 8 people who were there who say he's a rapist, well...maybe you should look into that!

I don't think this is rape.
big surprise there!

But there are two points here. Firstly, if you want to stay in control don't substance abuse.
You are such an asshole I can't believe it.

Substances that lower inhibitions don't remove people's ability to control their actions and choices they just lower the social barriers that normally restrain their freedom of action; they wont make someone do something they don't, on the balance of it, want to do.

Thats pretty clearly not what happened here from the obvious inferences you can draw.

Secondly, some women are too intimidated/confused to say 'no' sometimes. I believe that the woman didn't want sex and I also believe that the guy didn't know this.

I can see how if you're both male and an enormous asshole you can interpret that behavior as being 'confused' or 'intimidated' but really a lot of times when faced with a guy who acts like he's entitled to sex and will be insulted and humiliated and alienated if you defeat his expectations, the experience I think is closer to feeling guilted out of obligation and embarassment...

...and it sucks...

...but when that happens people don't cry "rape" because that just magnifies the embarrasment and alienation.

If you like someone you don't need to ask, 'do you want sex' because you're focused on treating them well and you won't do something to hurt them.

I agree, in that, Pawn Power's 'consent workshops' sound insane and insanely patronizing; I don't however see the application to this post.

Of course there are cut and dried cases of rape but there's a big grey area to do with sex gender roles and how we do and don't communicate. Sometimes women have sex even though they don't want it (to please the guy). This is self-abusive - it's not rape but it does show how complicated this issue can be.
No, not really. I know that whenever people debate "social issues" that amount to how much control the state/men should be allowed to exhert over women's sexuality and reproduction, whether we're talking about abortion, sex, rape, pregnancy, nursing, infant care, child care, etc, people like to make it out into all a fuzzy 'grey' case of moral ambiguity conveniently avoiding a general and percise critique of the patriarchal ideological assumptions of the terms of the debate. Its bullshit though, it would be obviously bullshit if it was over analogous issues with men but because our society has this schitzophrenia over mutually exclusive liberal and patriarchal values it seems oh-so-complicated with women.

Yes sometimes women have sex even though they don't want it, to please the guy. Know what doesn't 'please the guy'? Alleging rape after the fact. No actually those two behaviors are pretty much incompatible but you (as a consequence of taking an exclusively male perspective on the issue) avoid the obvious.

You conflate someone agreeing to have sex despite not wanting it and someone not agreeing to have sex because they don't want it. You act as if women are just bundles of emotional impulse and not deliberate actors who can act inspite of their immediate preferences, or because of them.

The difference between consensual sex and non-consensual sex is not between good sex and bad sex, and this is percisely the problem with people acting as if bad sex is 'non-consensual' sex: you get people like Louise Michel acting as if rape is no worse than bad sex.

Rascolnikova

17th April 2009, 08:39

Decolonize The Left

17th April 2009, 09:20

I understand that this is a matter of taste, but I would vastly prefer to live in a society where sexual coercion is considered incredibly unacceptable. Under such a conception, there would be few to no "grey areas."

There is no "gray area." Those who think there is don't understand simple respect and bodily autonomy.

- August

Sean

17th April 2009, 10:24

There is no "gray area." Those who think there is don't understand simple respect and bodily autonomy.

- August
So should the sexual consent form be in triplicate? I really don't want to be having sex without my lawyer present.

Of course there are grey areas - as there are in everything else in life, if it involves more than one person there will be some form of persuasion even if both people want the same thing.

I've been taken advantage of while drunk, nagged into sex and even had sex to appease one psycho girlfriend who I found intimidating. In the black and white view of sex, I've been raped many times over the years. If a prostitute has sex for money and the man short changes her, he has broken the unwritten contract on which consent was given. Is this consent then rescinded and has the interaction retroactively become rape? People have sex in many different scenarios for many different reasons all of which are grey areas and we could list them all and philosophise forever, but you still won't create a black and white system because real people aren't robots and real situations aren't perfect.
If a man masturbates in the woods and there's noone around to give consent, does it make a rape? Do two rapes make a right? How long is a piece of rape? An electric train full of rapists is travelling at 188mph north and a wind is blowing north east at 33mph which rape does the rape rape....etc. And no, I'm not trivialising rape or being "reactionary" or pro rape, or what ever other passive aggressive attack someone is thinking of writing as a response instead of accepting this basic fact of life.

Those who think there are no grey areas when two people do something don't understand common sense and social interaction.

Pogue

17th April 2009, 10:26

I know of one guy who effectively raped a paraletically drunk girl. He was a BNP supporter, too. Everyone who knew seemed to find it quite funny, which disgusted me.

*EDIT*

When I said everyone I knew, I meant the people who knew about it, none of whom were my friends. Everyone I actually like agreed it was disgusting.

Rascolnikova

17th April 2009, 10:36

So should the sexual consent form be in triplicate? I really don't want to be having sex without my lawyer present.

If you can't figure out consent, don't have sex.

Sean

17th April 2009, 11:06

If you can't figure out consent, don't have sex.
Its funny how it looks like I don't know what consent is when you just quote one line from my post and disregard the rest! Anybody with developed reasoning with regards social interaction can figure it out case by case. Sometimes they may be wrong. I can give consent but not mean it or resent it for a number of reasons. I can persuade someone into consenting to have sex. There are subtle gray areas in the way you can persuading someone, in the same way there are in attempting to persuade others of my argument in this very debate.

Pawn Power

17th April 2009, 14:35

I've been taken advantage of while drunk, nagged into sex and even had sex to appease one psycho girlfriend who I found intimidating. In the black and white view of sex, I've been raped many times over the years.

I don't consider this rape, and I think you will be hard pressed to find other who will, assuming that you 'consented' after being nagged. Again, to make at least my position clear, I understand the definition of rape as sex without consent- not sex on the terms of all participants. Sure there can be unequal power in sexual relationships and encounters but that doesn't necessarily constitute rape. The reason there is a discussion on whether or not this fictional Seth Rogen scene demonstrates 'rape' is not because the women was 'pressured; in sex but because there is disagreement on whether she was able to 'consent.'

If a prostitute has sex for money and the man short changes her, he has broken the unwritten contract on which consent was given. Is this consent then rescinded and has the interaction retroactively become rape? People have sex in many different scenarios for many different reasons all of which are grey areas and we could list them all and philosophise forever, but you still won't create a black and white system because real people aren't robots and real situations aren't perfect.

I agree, it is possible for 'grey' areas but the situation here is again not rape. The sex worker here would have 'consented' at the time of sex.

If a man masturbates in the woods and there's noone around to give consent, does it make a rape? Do two rapes make a right? How long is a piece of rape? An electric train full of rapists is travelling at 188mph north and a wind is blowing north east at 33mph which rape does the rape rape....etc. And no, I'm not trivialising rape or being "reactionary" or pro rape, or what ever other passive aggressive attack someone is thinking of writing as a response instead of accepting this basic fact of life.Are you sure you are not trivilizing rape?

Sean

17th April 2009, 14:55

Are you sure you are not trivilizing rape?I'm trivialising the ridiculousness of having to list a thousand and one different scenarios in which it may or may not be rape, because there are an infinite number of them and trying to somehow create a black and white list is pretty futile. I was parodying Biting Beaver's rape checklist (http://kubatana.net/html/archive/women/061001bb.asp?spec_code=07120516days&sector=WOMEN), actually.

Pawn Power

17th April 2009, 19:33

I'm trivialising the ridiculousness of having to list a thousand and one different scenarios in which it may or may not be rape, because there are an infinite number of them and trying to somehow create a black and white list is pretty futile. I was parodying Biting Beaver's rape checklist (http://kubatana.net/html/archive/women/061001bb.asp?spec_code=07120516days&sector=WOMEN), actually.

Wow, that list is completely ridiculous, a complete distortion of the word.

Louise Michel

17th April 2009, 21:36

Dude she was in a room with 7 or 8 people looking for somewhere to pass out, he was occupying the only bed, the only people who take that as an 'invitation' are uh, rapists. If there were 7 or 8 people who were there who say he's a rapist, well...maybe you should look into that!

There weren't 7 or 8 people there who said "he's a rapist." They were all completely comotose - it's just your imagination that has them saying anything.

Substances that lower inhibitions don't remove people's ability to control their actions and choices they just lower the social barriers that normally restrain their freedom of action; they wont make someone do something they don't, on the balance of it, want to do.

Had the woman said she didn't want sex or pushed him away he would have accepted that, I guess. So why didn't she say or do anything? We don't know. I mean, you don't know anybody involved, you don't know the woman, you don't know know the guy. So you're making a lot of assumptions.

You conflate someone agreeing to have sex despite not wanting it and someone not agreeing to have sex because they don't want it. You act as if women are just bundles of emotional impulse and not deliberate actors who can act inspite of their immediate preferences, or because of them.

I don't conflate the two things at all - I just understand that women are oppressed and, guess what, oppression produces fucked up behaviour. I also understand that a young guy in our society has little or no understanding of his own sexuality let alone what a woman is feeling. If you add a few substances to the mix you're asking for trouble.

In the case I described there was no intention to harm at all and insofar as he was thinking at all he thought there was consent. I know this guy and you don't.

Yes sometimes women have sex even though they don't want it, to please the guy. Know what doesn't 'please the guy'? Alleging rape after the fact. No actually those two behaviors are pretty much incompatible but you (as a consequence of taking an exclusively male perspective on the issue) avoid the obvious.

I don't know how to take 'an exclusively male perspective.' My biology probably prevents me from doing so. I respect your impulses and intentions here but you are massively oversimplifying.

Louise Michel

18th April 2009, 22:38

I think Louise Michel's post illustrates our current cultural problem with regards to rape extremely well. We have not yet generally accepted the need to demand a substantive understanding of consent from ourselves and those around us.

I understand that this is a matter of taste, but I would vastly prefer to live in a society where sexual coercion is considered incredibly unacceptable. Under such a conception, there would be few to no "grey areas."

I agree, but such a society is a long way away. Rape is a physical attack. I helped out in a rape crisis center for a while - I made coffee, answered the phones and so on, I'm not trained - and I did talk to some of the women who had been attacked and also some of the counselors at length. Rape is not adolescent fumbling and misunderstanding, it's far worse and far more damaging than that. Much of the abuse begins in childhood. Many of the women were deeply traumatized. There's a lot of sexual coercion and manipulation going on - but rape is different. You can and should oppose sexual coercion and manipulation but this is not rape. Rape is far worse, far more damaging.

WhitemageofDOOM

20th April 2009, 10:44

If you're vomiting on yourself in public I'm going to have to question your ability to give informed consent. The consent obtained (if any, we aren't shown how the sex was initiated after all) wouldn't hold up in a court. I don't think all drunk sex is rape or you can't make any kind of consent while intoxicated but I think the scenario presented here is over the line.

People remain responsible for there actions while drunk.
If i commit say murder while drunk, or cause an accident, or well rape someone. I remain fully responsible for that action.

Therefore one can consent while drunk.

synthesis

20th April 2009, 11:56

That part of the clip definitely made me cringe a little bit. The female character gave consent, but the scene was more than likely written by a guy, and that fact seems to trivialize rape more than anything.

But then again, as TC pointed out, the word "rape" can also be trivialized by "the other side," so to speak, when it is expanded to mean acts that are unethical but clearly not "rape" in the classic definition of the word. When the word loses its outwardly violent connotations, it loses a lot of its power.

And I don't think Louise Michel is necessarily the one doing the trivializing in that situation. When people are drunk, they do things they regret, and sometimes easy answers are found in otherwise positive efforts. Sad fact of life.

bcbm

20th April 2009, 15:25

People remain responsible for there actions while drunk.
If i commit say murder while drunk, or cause an accident, or well rape someone. I remain fully responsible for that action.

Therefore one can consent while drunk.

You're seriously comparing being raped to murdering somebody?

But anyway, while you are responsible for killing someone while drunk or crashing into another car it has nothing to do with consent. I think its a world of difference between getting fucked up and making a poor decision and get fucked up and taken advantage of.

synthesis

20th April 2009, 16:00

You're seriously comparing being raped to murdering somebody?

But anyway, while you are responsible for killing someone while drunk or crashing into another car it has nothing to do with consent. I think its a world of difference between getting fucked up and making a poor decision and get fucked up and taken advantage of.

I don't think he was equivocating anything. It's just an analogy. Either you are responsible for your actions while intoxicated, or you aren't.

Obviously there is a distinction between having a drunken sexual encounter you later regret (all the time for me) and actually fucking someone who is passed-out drunk (rape by anyone's standards). Here's my own analogy: if I were to trick a drunk kid into buying a PSP that didn't work, it would be bad, but not as bad as robbing him at gunpoint.

At the same time, the act of becoming intoxicated is still an individual choice and therefore there has to be some unwritten standard of personal responsibility. Otherwise, you're denying victims any sense of agency. They become an object, nothing more than a source of moral outrage rather than a person just like you and me. Not good.

bcbm

20th April 2009, 16:32

I don't think he was equivocating anything. It's just an analogy. Either you are responsible for your actions while intoxicated, or you aren't.

The issue is, once again, the ability to give consent. If you get behind a car wheel and run someone down while you're drunk, there is no consent involved- you're the only person making a choice. If you're blacked out drunk and basically incoherent, you're not in any position to be making a choice that requires even a minimum of thought out consent.

Obviously there is a distinction between having a drunken sexual encounter you later regret (all the time for me) and actually fucking someone who is passed-out drunk (rape by anyone's standards).

No shit. I've made that distinction multiple times in this very thread.

At the same time, the act of becoming intoxicated is still an individual choice and therefore there has to be some unwritten standard of personal responsibility. Otherwise, you're denying victims any sense of agency. They become an object, nothing more than a source of moral outrage rather than a person just like you and me. Not good.

This seems like a blaming the victim kind of mentality. Yes, people have personal responsibility for what they do when intoxicated. When they're too intoxicated and somebody takes advantage of that, however, I don't think its their fault.

Pawn Power

20th April 2009, 23:41

People remain responsible for there actions while drunk.
If i commit say murder while drunk, or cause an accident, or well rape someone. I remain fully responsible for that action.

Therefore one can consent while drunk.

I think you are missing the point. I don't think anyone here is denying that one can consent to sex while inebriated. And certainly one is responsible for their actions as well under such conditions. One should be held accountable for rape, assault, etc. in all states of mind.

However, that is not what we are talking about. One also has the right not be taken advantage of, assaulted, or raped while drunk. Women should be able to get plastered and not have to worry about others taking advantage of their state or disregarding their physical autonomy.

I don't think he was equivocating anything. It's just an analogy. Either you are responsible for your actions while intoxicated, or you aren't.

Obviously there is a distinction between having a drunken sexual encounter you later regret (all the time for me) and actually fucking someone who is passed-out drunk (rape by anyone's standards). Here's my own analogy: if I were to trick a drunk kid into buying a PSP that didn't work, it would be bad, but not as bad as robbing him at gunpoint.

At the same time, the act of becoming intoxicated is still an individual choice and therefore there has to be some unwritten standard of personal responsibility. Otherwise, you're denying victims any sense of agency. They become an object, nothing more than a source of moral outrage rather than a person just like you and me. Not good.

We have to be careful when using the word 'agency' here. It is one's choice to get intoxicated, as you say, however, when you deny them that choice, by taking advantage of their physical state, say by sexually assaulting them while they are unconscious, you are taking away their agency to do what they want because they cannot be sure that their anatomy will be respected. That is, unless I am misinterpreting what you have wrote, you are saying one 'chooses' to get drunk so by consequence 'chooses' to be open to violation. A very reactionary notion indeed. It is not a woman's 'responsibility' to make sure that others understand consent when she is sloshed but the responsibility of men to understand what consent is and what it isn't.

21st April 2009, 01:12

I think its a world of difference between getting fucked up and making a poor decision and get fucked up and taken advantage of.

And there is a world of difference between getting fucked up and taken advantage of and getting fucked up and getting raped.

Rape is when someone unambigiously and overtly refuses and their assailant disregards their will, or they disregard their will because they've lost conciousness and are unable to regain it to refuse. This is not whats happening when someone exploits the complaciency of someone who is drunk or otherwise out of it. Thats shitty. Its not rape. And for rape to have the sort of shock value needed to effectively discourage it, its important to retain the distinction.

synthesis

21st April 2009, 03:46

Rape is when someone unambigiously and overtly refuses and their assailant disregards their will, or they disregard their will because they've lost conciousness and are unable to regain it to refuse. This is not whats happening when someone exploits the complaciency of someone who is drunk or otherwise out of it. Thats shitty. Its not rape. And for rape to have the sort of shock value needed to effectively discourage it, its important to retain the distinction.Yup. There is a world of difference between this:

13. You are a rapist if you “nag” her for sex. Because you manage to ply an eventual “yes” from a weary victim doesn’t mean it’s not rape.And this (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020923/talvi20020909).

Rascolnikova

21st April 2009, 12:36

I can see your point, but I think the more productive approach would be to view sexual coercion as a spectrum--and to take the position that the decent thing to do is to stay well to the correct side of it, without excessive concern for what technically doesn't qualify as rape.

Let's examine your definition.

Rape is when someone unambigiously and overtly refuses and their assailant disregards their will, or they disregard their will because they've lost conciousness and are unable to regain it to refuse.
By this definition:

It is not rape when any mature adult has sex with any child who is old enough to be concious and fails to "overtly and unambiguously refuse their assailant," regardless of social factors, authority structures, age gap, lack of understanding, etc.

It is not rape when, in a place where gang membership offers the only secure means of (relative) physical safety as well as the most accessible foundation for identity, a fourteen year old consents to be "jumped in" by pulling a "train"--perhaps having immidiately consecutive sex with thirty or fourty males, who partake in order of seniority so the most powerful can avoid each other's STDs

It is not rape when a woman who is (and/or, depending on the circumstances, whose children are) routinely beaten by her husband, brother, or father chooses to have sex with him rather than risk invoking a bad mood

It is not rape if someone puts a gun to your head (or more commonly, similarly threatens someone you love--this is a common scenario for programattic war rape) and you never resist physically or say no

It is not rape if you're starving to death and you accept an offer of food for sex

________________

Perhaps it is time that, rather than concerning ourselves with the technicalities of rape--so that we can retain "the sort of shock value needed to effectively discourage it"--we stopped trivializing sexual coercion, wherever it falls on the spectrum. Your approach belies a troubling lack of care to prevent behaviors that aren't quite rape.

People who trivialize rape like this:

13. You are a rapist if you “nag” her for sex. Because you manage to ply an eventual “yes” from a weary victim doesn’t mean it’s not rape. are decontextualized from the background of violence that can make such "nagging" so problematic, and should be drowned out by louder, truer voices. Almost all the lines that can be drawn are arbitrary. Some experiences of what you call rape would not be as apparently traumatic as experiences of what you would merely call coercion, and it makes little sense to base all our ethical and retorical decisions in this matter on such a shallow and exclusive distinction.

Ultimately language fails us if we aren't willing to take a hard line that no level of sexual coercion is healthy, and that, regardless of arbitrary benchmarks, any flirtation with the deeper end of the spectrum is unacceptable.

Pawn Power

30th April 2009, 04:22

Rascolnikova

1st May 2009, 12:12

'I Was Raped' Should Horrify -- But Our Culture Has Stripped the Word of Its Power (http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/138667/%27i_was_raped%27_should_horrify_--_but_our_culture_has_stripped_the_word_of_its_powe r/?page=2)

Here is an article discussing some of the issues we have been talking about but in a somewhat different context. The misuse of the word 'rape' not in cases of sexual assault and violence but as a general pejorative which the author rightly points out dilutes the actual significance of the word.

I find the definition of rape offered in that article incredibly disgusting; according to that, we shouldn't consider something to be rape unless it's unlawful.

Possibly we should use the word rape only for events satisfying some stringent and horrifying definition, but I have two reservations about this. First, none of the definitions proffered are remotely appropriate for this*. Second, you've yet to suggest a satisfactory response about when someone is "taken advantage of, but not raped." The attitude you propose seems to be "tough luck, but the experience of being 'taken advantage of' doesn't matter much." I find this to be an extremely poor cultural, psychological, and linguistic foundation for healthy sexual relationships.

*One of my favorite essays--incidentally a convincing argument for the primacy of language--is on this topic, I shall try to find it and post the information when I can.