It may be comforting to believe that all rapists are bad people, but in truth, rape most often happens between friends, lovers, acquaintances and pals.
We see it all the time in the movies and on TV.
There’s a guy and a girl, and you know they’re gonna end up together. They have a super-hot dynamic that consists of witty banter, challenging each other, and doing things to really piss each other off. They may fight, but they also watch the other walk away with a combination of both longing and disgust.
Eventually, there’s the scene where the two of them hook up. They’re arguing, and it’s intense. There’s a lot of sexual tension. They watch each other, connecting through their eyes. They’re both fired up and have flushed cheeks. Maybe she bites her lip…
He steps forward, grabs her arms and tries to kiss her. She says, “No, stop. I can’t—”
He interrupts, “You can. You know you haven’t stopped thinking about this since we met.”
“I have,” she says. “It’s just…” She turns away from him. She’s torn.
He spins her back around, pushes her up against the wall. She turns her head, but she doesn’t pull away entirely. He takes her face in his hands, his body pressing into hers, turns her lips to his, and kisses her forcefully. She pushes him off for a moment, then she gives in to the passion, kissing him back and wrapping her arms around him, maybe her legs too.
At this point, they may move to the bedroom and have the best sex of their lives, fueled by conflict and heat and challenge. Or maybe she walks away, conflicted but breathless.
Either way, we know they’re going to end up together.
One thing we know for sure is that she’s not going to press charges against him for sexual assault.
But what actually was it that happened between them? Regardless of whether she walks away or consents to glorious sex, she said “no” and he didn’t stop. In fact, he pressed her against the wall and held her arms. Or maybe he did something more forceful, like in the scene below between James Bond and Pussy Galore.
It’s a scene so common I bet you can think of 5 or 10 movies and TV shows where it happens. Moonlighting, 9 and a Half Weeks, Boardwalk Empire, An Officer and a Gentleman, Goldfinger, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and almost every made-for-TV movie and soap opera.
And it has everything to do with Alyssa Royse’s article, Nice Guys Commit Rape, Too, where the author tells the story of a guy she knew well—a guy whom she believed was a nice guy—who was accused of raping a woman by penetrating her while she was asleep.
How are the two things related? Because the forceful kiss is an easily-relatable example of how our society actively teaches people about consent in a way that is incredibly dangerous.
She says “no”? Nothing to worry about. Just push her up against a wall. He says he doesn’t want to? It’s okay, just take off your top and press your breasts into him.
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My husband and I recently watched an early release of the film Save the Date. In this sexy, fun, edgy drama, Sarah (Lizzy Caplan) goes through a big break-up but quickly becomes interested in a new guy, Jonathan. When Jonathan (Mark Webber) goes to her house for a date, it’s clear the two are interested in one another. Sarah acts adorable, Jonathan acts adorable, they flirt, and she makes eyes at him. He smiles and says something like, “I really want to kiss you right now.”
She replies, “Then why don’t you?”
“Because you just went through an awful break-up”
“I want you to kiss me,” she says.
And he does. And it’s hot.
I turned to my husband and said, “I believe that may be the first time I’ve seen a model for sexy, healthy communication about consent in a film. I mean, maybe ever.”
Now, I’m paraphrasing the dialogue above, but he told her what he wanted, how he felt, and was considerate of her emotional state. She replied, communicated directly and clearly what she wanted, and he gave it to her. And it was sexy as hell.
But Save the Date is a rare exception among thousands of forceful TV and movie kisses. And it’s the direction we need to be moving in. As Jamie Utt explains in his piece Want The Best Sex of Your Life? Just Ask!, enthusiastic consent is hot because it helps us know what will turn our partners on, and makes very clear the fact that we are desired.
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Since the publication of Nice Guys Commit Rape, Too both here at GMP and at our content partner magazine, xoJane, Alyssa Royse has experienced a lot of fallout. She’s been called a rape apologist by people like Ally Fogg, and been told that she is making excuses for a rapist, by GMP’s own Matthew Salesses.
The truth is, Alyssa Royse is not apologizing for her friend having raped a woman. In fact, she puts blame squarely upon him many times, including saying, “what happened to her was wrong. My friend raped her.” But there is a misunderstanding in some of the response pieces and many of the comments, about the way in which responsibility can be divvied up here.
Alyssa’s guy friend is 100% responsible for the rape he committed. In saying that society is also partially responsible, we aren’t now making Alyssa’s guy friend less responsible. Responsibility is not a pie to be divided. Instead, these are overlapping responsibilities. The space where they meet is what we need to talk about.
Alyssa’s guy friend AND society are responsible. It’s not an either/or, it’s a both/and. Below are two wildly crude diagrams I just scribbled on my legal pad. I hope you’ll forgive the elementary school-quality of my artwork and handwriting.
On the left we have our either/or pie. In this model, when we give some responsibility to society, we are taking some responsibility away from the rapist. This is wrong. It is a false binary.
On the right, we see how the two different forces come together to create a rape. Alyssa’s guy friend entered that situation with problems, clearly. His ideas about sexuality were deeply flawed and his ability to empathize with another person was probably also lacking. Along comes society, with James Bond (the model of successful masculinity) and Pussy Galore and every other forceful kiss that leads to super-hot sex, and it overlaps with this guy and his issues, and what we’re left with is a grey area of consent that leads to a woman being raped.
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Matthew Salesses may be right. Alyssa’s guy friend may have never actually been a nice guy at all. He may have been a guy that seemed nice but was actually really bad. I don’t know him, neither does Matthew. But I’m more likely to believe Alyssa that he was generally a good dude. A good dude who had a very messed-up idea about consent. A good dude who raped a sleeping woman.
See, he can be both. No, seriously, he can.
Let me tell you another story. I had this guy friend in high school whom we’ll call Rob. Rob was a cool guy that everyone liked, not a jock but very popular. He came to me one afternoon, confused. At a party he’d hooked up with a girl named Maria, whom he’d gone out with a few times. They were making out heavily, rolling around, and engaged in heavy petting. He was cool with her putting her hand down his pants, but when she lifted up her skirt and pulled over her underwear, he got nervous and said, “No, I don’t want to do that.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked, flabbergasted. He’d had sex with girls before.
“I didn’t want to have sex with her right then. I don’t know.”
“But why not?” 17 year-old me couldn’t quite grasp it. I mean, he wasn’t a virgin, wasn’t a born-again Christian who was waiting for marriage. And he liked Maria.
“I just didn’t. But she sat on top of me anyway and, like, shoved me inside her.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I pushed her off and said I didn’t want to.”
It was disturbing, but also confusing to me.
I don’t think Rob felt like he was raped, but it definitely seemed fucked up . And while he didn’t go out with her again, he wasn’t exactly mad at her. He just felt weird and sort of irritated about it. I’d guess that if you’d asked him if he’d been raped, he would’ve said, “no way.”
But if you ask me, she raped him. Did she know she was raping him? Almost certainly not. Did she set out to rape him? Definitely not. In fact, I asked her about it a few years later. She told me that she regretted it terribly and felt like a horrible person. She was 16 when it happened and had been fed a story her entire life about how all guys want is sex, and how guys will screw anything that walks. She also had a profound problem with insecurity and only later did she realize that her main sense of validation came from being sexually desired.
Maria simply couldn’t conceive of a guy saying “no” and meaning it. Not a guy like Rob, at least, a guy whom she knew had hooked up with, and even had sex with, a few girls from our school. She also thought it would make him like her more if she were sexually dominant, like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, whose no-panties leg-crossing scene was considered the sexiest thing ever in the 1990s—when in reality, it is disturbing and intrusive.
Is Maria a bad person? I don’t think so.
Did she do a bad thing? Absolutely. And in my opinion, it was rape.
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Does this story sit with you differently than the story of Alyssa’s guy friend and the girl whom he penetrated while she was asleep? Why or why not? Be honest with yourself here.
If it does, it’s probably because of a number of factors. First, in our society, a woman raping a man seems impossible. I mean, if he didn’t want to have sex, why would he have an erection?
Also, don’t guys always want sex?
The truth about male sexuality is that contrary to what we’re taught, guys do not always want sex. As much as Rob desired Maria and was enjoying their make-out session, he didn’t want to have sex that day. His desire may have given him an erection, but an erection does not equal consent.
We might also ask why he didn’t stop her before she forced penetration? Wasn’t he stronger than her? It doesn’t matter. His “no” should be enough to make her stop. But it wasn’t.
So what do we think of Maria? Should she have been tried in a court of law? Should she have gone to jail and been put on a sex offenders list?
God help me, I have no clue.
There are a number of factors that make Alyssa’s guy friend different from Maria: First, and foremost, he was an adult. And the situations were different.
But what else? Alyssa’s guy friend is a man and Maria was a young woman?
Maria got a clear “no” when she proposed sex, but did it anyway. Alyssa’s guy friend put his penis inside a sleeping woman with no warning at all.
Both seem equally bad, for different reasons.
But are either of these people “bad people”?
I don’t know what the rest of Maria’s life has been like. We’re in our mid-30s now, and I know she is married and has a family. Even at 19, she was hugely regretful of how she’d violated Rob, so I assume she never did that again. And while I know nothing about Alyssa’s guy friend, I believe Alyssa when she says that he was truly remorseful about committing rape. I looked in Maria’s eyes and saw her pain and remorse, and I do not think that Alyssa’s guy friend’s maleness makes him exempt from feeling the exact same way.
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So, does saying Alyssa’s guy friend is a good guy and a rapist excuse his rape? Certainly not. As we said before, I believe a person can be guilty of these types of rape and be good. Would I trust him alone in a room with me? Probably not. Would I set him up with my little sister? Absolutely not. But would I say he’s all-bad? No. Or at least I would say, “I don’t know.”
I understand some critics’ fear that saying Alyssa’s guy friend isn’t necessarily a bad guy might cause people who have raped, or will rape in the future, to think it’s okay. I think both Matthew Salesses and Ally Fogg believe that saying a rapist could be a nice guy might minimize the act of rape he committed, and I respect that. I understand it. What would happen if a person thought he could rape a woman and then walk away as a good guy? That would be a dangerous precedent to set.
But I also think it’s dangerous to continue framing rape as a “bad guy thing” for many reasons. First, when we say “only bad guys commit rape”, we’re disengaging any guy who thinks he’s a “good guy” from having a conversation about how he can help prevent rape. And we’re also disengaging all women from that conversation.
That’s why our understanding of who rapists sometimes are needs to change. First, we need to have active, engaged conversations with everyone—young people especially—about consent. We need men like Jamie Utt speaking and writing about sexy ways of communicating desire, boundaries, and limits. We need mainstream media examples of healthy, sexy conversations about consent—like in the film Save the Date—to be replicated everywhere, and we need the forceful, non-consensual kiss to no longer be an example of what’s hot. Let James Bond and Pussy Galore’s scary sex scene die with Sean Connery’s reign as 007.
And we need to be able to recognize the nuances of humanity. That a good person can do a very bad thing. That people can see the harm they’ve caused, feel great remorse, seek help and make real change to become a good person once again.
If we say “only bad guys commit rape” we’re actually creating a more dangerous society for both men and women. We need everyone to recognize the fine line we dance when we engage in sexual acts with another person. We need women to realize that guys have as much right to sexual autonomy as women. We need good guys and girls to realize that even if you’re not trying to hurt someone, without clear, direct and specific consent, you could still rape them.
Because the truth is, as Alyssa Royse said, the majority of rapes don’t happen in dark alleys where predatory men wait for a victim to pass. They happen between friends, between lovers, between partygoers and schoolmates. Rapes sometimes happen when someone thinks their partner really means “yes” when he or she says “no”. They happen when girls are taught that guys are sex-obsessed animals. They happen when people aren’t taught the communication skills that educators like Jamie Utt, Alyssa Royse, Cliff Pervocracy, Scarleteen, and others are trying to teach.
They happen, sometimes, when good people do bad things.
♦◊♦
For articles and resources on enthusiastic consent, please visit the pages below:
Want the Best Sex of Your Life? Just Ask! by Jamie Utt
Driver’s Ed for the Sexual Superhighway: Navigating Consent from Scarleteen
The “Yes, No, Maybe” Chart – A Tool for Talking About Consent by Jamie Utt
A Concise Kink Worksheet by Cliff Pervocracy (a consent tool for the Kink community and others)
Lead photo: Flickr/pheezy
The problem I have with the first part of this article is with how it sends a conflicting message to what other women are saying. Where does the ravishing end and the rape begin? Does the acknowledgement that the line has shifted, so that what is now called rape was once called exciting, demonstrate some kind of support for rape? Was this always rape, or is this a shift what women think of themselves, of men and of social interaction (did the woman in the white uniform consider herself sexually assaulted, or was it an exciting, if somewhat unexpected, kiss?)?
“They happen when people aren’t taught the communication skills that educators like Jamie Utt, Alyssa Royse, Cliff Pervocracy, Scarleteen, and others are trying to teach.” Hmmm, the same Cliff Pervocracy who keeps telling people that if there’s no such thing as non-verbal consent, that you have to play a “mother-may-I” verbal permission-getting game for each and every sexual act? That’s the “communication skill” we need to be “educated” in? In other words, micromanagement of communication style by so-called “educators” who are completely tone-deaf to nuance or anybody else’s style of sexual play or communication besides their own. I give a… Read more »
It may be comforting to believe that all rapists are bad people, but in truth, rape most often happens between friends, lovers, acquaintances and pals. Agreed. It’s a rush to judgement that people are quick to make for whatever reason (personally I think they make that rush to judgment in order to distance themselves from it and make themselves feel superior but oh well). Instead of attaching the stigma to the person it might be better to attach it to the act or else the badness of the act could get lost (and I think this might be why people… Read more »
Eee! In the past few weeks, after spending a fair amount of time on this here website, I’ve come to the conclusion I’ve been the victim of rape on a dozen occasions and the perp on a dozen occasions. Wow. who knew? How do I feel in my anonymous place, my identity safe as do-gooders and lawyers try and convince me that I’ve been damaged in hideous and irreparable ways? Should I float accusations in the local news destroying a presumably innocent life? Or, on the other hand, should I be the person in the crime reports posting my birthdate,… Read more »
Between the two stories, the legal question is quite easy. The guy and the sleeping woman: rape. Penetrating someone while unconscious is rape (curiously, probably even if they consent to it beforehand, e.g. “I want to wake up with you inside me.” But that’s a different issue.). Having sex with someone who says, “No,” when they are not intoxicated to the point of being unable to resist, where you do not use force or the threat of force – not rape. Good article. Just wanted to clear up that point.
http://www.lexisnexis.com/lawschool/study/outlines/html/crim/crim25.htm
Having sex with someone who says, “No,” when they are not intoxicated to the point of being unable to resist, where you do not use force or the threat of force – not rape.
Wait – what? Was this poorly worded or did you mean to say that having nonviolent, non-forceful sex with a sober person who says “No” is not rape?
Legally (at least under California law), under the definition of rape, the intoxicated person must be so intoxicated that they cannot “resist.” Intoxicated people are legally capable of consent. Cal. Penal Code 261. http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/PEN/3/1/9/1/s261 Having sex with a sober person who says “no” is rape (legally) if you use force, threats, or duress. Often, the victim will say no, but then not resist because they are afraid of being hurt. This is still rape under the modern definitions of rape. (It didn’t used to be. 50 years ago, many statutes said that the victim had to physically resist or was… Read more »
Please be very aware that in most states this is not the case and intoxicated persons are not able to consent to sexual intercourse.
Also, having sex with a person who says “no” is rape. The end. It doesn’t matter if you use force, threats, or put them under duress. If they say no, and you continue to have sex with that person anyway, you are raping that person.
I don’t know where, you’re getting this, Tara, but what Sarah says about California law is true of most jurisdictions that have any legislation on the subject at all. I think there are few *if any* jurisdictions with a “one drink” rule, that any degree of intoxication whatsoever nullifies consent, which is a rather extremist view in my estimation. Ethically, one shouldn’t take advantage of somebody who is falling down drunk and out of control (much less passed out) no matter what the law is. But simply tipsy and disinhibited? Sorry, no harm, no foul.
I’m getting this from what we were taught in our SAPR classes, courtesy of the military. I happen to believe that there is a huge grey area, but someone who is just tipsy can also be led to make a decision that they normally wouldn’t make sober as well (pulling that information from personal experience with 5+ years as a bartender).
“someone who is just tipsy can also be led to make a decision that they normally wouldn’t make sober as well”
Of course they can, and often do. That does not make it rape. Doing something different from what you’d normally do does not equal lack of consent, or lack of ability to consent.
Are you kidding me with that right now? So, you’re saying that you would sleep with someone who was a little tipsy, and then the next day if they told you, “well, I wouldn’t have slept with you if I was completely sober” that you wouldn’t feel bad?
That’s skeezy. And gross.
If I was you, I would be more concerned about the person who uses a little bit of alcohol to excuse their own choices. “I was a little tipsy when I got behind the wheel of that car, so I can’t be held responsible for the outcomes” I don’t think so. Consent is consent. If your inhibitions are so drastically swayed by alcohol, perhaps that’s a sign to avoid alcohol instead of accusing anyone you have sex with while under the influence of it of raping you. Having sex with someone who is passed out drunk is rape, plying someone… Read more »
Does your reasoning work in reverse? That is, if a guy who’s “a little tipsy”, say a slight buzz after two slowly-consumed beers, has sex with a woman and tells her the next day he wouldn’t have done it without his beer goggles on, then the woman should feel bad for raping him? Because if that’s not what you mean, I don’t see see why it should only hold true if the woman is the tipsy one. (Or what if they’re both a little tipsy?) To answer more directly, if a woman told me the next day after being “a… Read more »
BTW, violation of PC 261 applies to “sexual intercourse” which is defined elsewhere in the code as penetration of the genitals by a penis, but men can be the victims of what is called unlawful sexual penetration by women, under PC 289. The language about consent, intoxication etc. in 289 largely mirrors 261 and penalties are similar.
My first comment is awaiting moderation. Sorry
Whether a person is good or bad is determined by their actions. Hence people who commit rape are bad people by definition of their bad actions. It’s why you don’t generally hear people saying things like: “that child molester is a really good person.” Language has a social function and by trying to challenge whether raping someone makes someone bad (which it obviously does) you lose the very understanding of the words within the dichotomy. More importantly, you also lose all ideas of redemption. A bad person can become a good person, a rapist can redeem themselves by doing right… Read more »
I think we need to acknowledge that people are good or bad on a scale. Somebody who commits rape because of poor decision making, and feels remorse afterward, is not nearly as bad a person as someone who knows they are committing rape at the time, and doesn’t care, and will do it again. This distinction is important because the poor decision maker would choose not to rape if they were accurately informed about consent. Rapes by this kind of rapist can be prevented by education. Perhaps we should say not that this kind of rapist is still a ‘good’… Read more »
I’ve had trouble mustering the courage to post this comment. A lot of people flat-out refuse to consider the possibility that the man in the original story honestly did not realize his actions were wrong until after the fact, or imagine that in just the right (wrong?) situation they could make a similar mistake. I don’t have to use my imagination for this. I am also a rapist. Here is my story: Sometime over 20 years ago (the details are fuzzy), when I was in my 20’s, I was in bed with my then wife. It was early; the lights… Read more »
Do you think you would have made the same mistake if she hadn’t been your wife? If she had been a woman with whom you had NEVER had sex… who had NEVER give you permission to penetrate her before… with whom you were not in a relationship with… would you still have thought it was a good idea to penetrate her without permission, for the VERY first time that you are penetrating her? I don’t think it’s likely that you would have. And I don’t think it’s likely that anyone would have. Did you truly believe you had her consent… Read more »
Lilith, I read a comment elsewhere from Alyssa that read: “There are many women who have been victimized by men who didn’t realize that what they were doing was wrong.” Perhaps she originally did not intend to focus exclusively on the scenario of her friend, but the conversation took on a life of its own. That said, in reviewing comments from earlier, I seem to have had one of your comments in mind when sharing my story. In my case, I was naively trying to initiate sex in a playful way. I wasn’t trying to use her unconscious body for… Read more »
I think it’s safe to say that Alyssa spent less time vetting her protagonist than she would have, say, shopping for the next Jane Roe.
HTML fail. Jane Roe
(A comment preview feature would be nice.)
Arium, thanks for sharing your comment. I know it probably did take a lot of courage, especially considering the knowledge that people would probably attack you for it.
I think you’re so right that we don’t talk enough about the risks involved with using intoxicating substances. What is it about being drunk and high that makes people more likely to rape, when they wouldn’t have otherwise? We must explore that.
In Vino Veritas. Because people lose inhibitions, because when inhibitions are lost, people act without thought. Because if the core cultural messages are “I should have this” we take what we want. Because they can use “I was drunk/she/he was drunk” as an excuse. Those all come to mind. I guess we should also look at people who have been really drunk and really high and HAVEN’T raped, assaulted, stolen, driven.
So what kept those particular core inhibitions in place?
I’d say if we could identify that, we’d have more luck teaching it to more people.
The few times I’ve been really drunk “I’me drunk, so I can get away with it” has never come to mind. The only time it does is when I’ve been buzzing (IE not drunk) and I’m considering doing something out of character, I consider “I was drunk” could be a fallback excuse. I also think that core cultural message isn’t one sent to young men, and it has only been sent to young women over a very short period of time. The cultural message to men is “you must earn, and continue to earn, anything you want”. And I’m sure… Read more »
In light of this post I feel the need to share a story as well…I am a rape victim, and here is my story… A year and a half ago I was seeing a guy and we had messed around, but never actually had sex. He was very good to me, very great guy, but I did know that he had ‘been around’ prior to us starting to see each other and it made me uneasy. I wasn’t completely ok with it, but he drew me in, we had been friends for almost a year and I had had a… Read more »
Are we really still having a conversation about why he came to the thoroughly considered conclusions that his actions were okay while he was heavily intoxicated by both alcohol and other drugs?
No – the conversation has moved well beyond that. Please Do Try To Keep Up. P^)
I don’t know. The argument seems to have been reduced to “Alyssa believes her friend thought it was okay for him to have sex with a sleeping woman and Ally believes he knew it was wrong but did it anyway.”
From either side you have the assumption that he was able to consider his actions.
But I will Try To Keep Up, Thanks.
As I said – It has all moved on a long way from limited views and ideas of Good Vs Bad etc. But then again, It seems that the bigger conversation has been going on, even if some just keep on attempting to make it Binary and One Dimensional. Even bad people exist in Three Dimensions.
You seem to be missing my point, as it was neither about limited views or ideas of Good Vs Bad.
But after the condescending “Please Do Try To Keep Up” comment, I’m not particularly interested in continuing on, so we’ll just let it go.
Well Drew – there is that thing about Humour from different countries. Some assume good faith and practice it, others don’t. It’ all a matter of choice. Anglophone does not mean just the USA.
P^)
Ah. Well then, I’m the one guilty of missing a message.
Mea Culpa, sir.
Why it’s dangerous to say only bad girls abuse their kids……only bad girls commit murder…..etc, etc. This topic is getting really stale really quickly. The fact is rates of sexual violence, domestic violence, random violence, and violence of all types have never been lower in the states. Incarceration rates for nonviolent crimes in the states, on the other hand, especially those for men of color, have never been higher. How about a piece or three on that?
I do agree that the “Bad” label is both under used – used excessively. It’s also used as bad shorthand and it’s just assumed that people understand that and don’t need it spelling out. People don’t want talk prison or prisoners, which is odd given that this whole site is built on those experiences.
By the way, I’m unclear about the reference to Sharon stone’s leg-crossing scene in _Basic Instinct_ and what it has to do with the issue of “nice guys” and rape. When you say “disturbing and intrusive,” do you mean that it was intrusive of the viewer to look there or intrusive of her to flash herself that way? Or disturbing to you that society might find this sexy? Theoretically, Stone’s character could be charged with indecent exposure to police officers and therefore become a registered sex offender. I don’t think of it that way, and most other people wouldn’t either,… Read more »
I keep wondering if some have got such large issues, that if they believe they are being denied control of a man they have never met, that they will seek to control Alyssa? If they can’t have him as a bad man, they will still have to get blood so Alyssa had to be bad. It’s bizzare conduct and worst still the people displaying it can’t see it – or themselves.
MediaHound, Your insinuation that people who disagree with someone are trying to ‘control’ them is more than a little unpleasant. No one ‘has to be bad’ – but the individual we were original discussing is. Alyssa isn’t, but the assertion she made, to my mind, is a dangerous one. Lynn, I’m incredibly sorry to hear your story. Reading it, the question still seems to be about consent – that you consented to sex, but not the violence you sadly experienced. You weren’t raped, by the legal definition of rape, but you were abused – consent is a concept that transcends the legal. Anyway,… Read more »
@Samuel Palin – I do love it when people start displaying Righteous Indignation on the net ….. and they say that there is no issue with control but then say “I will control communication by not communicating”. It is comical how people keep saying the same things and not recognising themselves! P^) At times the only way to cope is accept the absurdity that gets let loose upon the Net on a daily basis and find a way to articulate it’s presence. When you see a Witch Hunt you call it just that – so Here’s an example of what… Read more »
Responses still in mod land?
I am going to wade into this one because I find the parsing and arguing about consent painful and infuriating. By my standards, the man in this story was probably a nice guy, and o he did not have consent. He did not have consent. Now, let me tell you about a guy who did have explicit enthusiastic consent and nearly killed me. By all the parsed out definitions here, I was not raped, and the woman in this story was. Yet I ended up needing transfusions and emergency surgery. You can read the whole story here: http://www.rolereboot.org/sex-and-relationships/details/2012-12-why-consent-isnt-everything But I… Read more »
@ Lynn Beisner – Brava – thank you Lynn for doing the same as Alyssa and being brave and working to open up issues so they can be seen and addressed – not closing everything down into a Micro View and enforced control over people in a micro lens around one word!
Lynn, thank you for telling your story. It has been haunting me all morning. I am sorry the police would not help you because even if you agreed to sex, you did not consent to the vicious mauling you endured. As an attorney, I think he could have been charged with aggravated battery at the very least.
Alyssa, you seem to be saying that your knowing this guy gives you an insight that the rest of us lack. In fact, I would argue the opposite – that your knowing this guy is blinding you to a basic truth: that rape is not the act of a ‘nice guy’. He can be sensitive and kind and never forget his mother’s birthday and be great with the kids, but he is not a nice guy if he rapes someone. That doesn’t preclude a debate about the social environment – how we approach dating, how we think and talk and act about… Read more »
That’s a legitimate interpretation. But hers happens to be different. Fact is, none of us truly know whether he believed he was committing rape or not. Maybe he had a brain tumor that impaired his higher cognitive function for just a fraction of time? Maybe he is a sociopath who spent his entire life seeming “normal” and “nice” and was actually just waiting to make out with a girl all night and then rape her in the morning. Or maybe he was a good person who did a deeply fucked-up thing because his particular dysfunction caused him to lack understanding… Read more »
Alyssa, you seem to be saying that your knowing this guy gives you an insight that the rest of us lack. In fact, I would argue the opposite – that your knowing this guy is blinding you to a basic truth: that rape is not the act of a ‘nice guy’, @Samuel Palin – Hmmm?????? – now isn’t that an interesting little twisty? BUT sorry – cos I know nothing about this person except what has been made public, and I agree with Alyssa. You see for your “Alyssa to not know her mind and own cognition” gambit to work… Read more »
MediaHound,
“If you are going to tell anyone that they don’t know their own mind” – I’m not, I’m merely pointing out that there is a reasonable counter to Alyssa’s assertion that knowing this man gives her a special insight. She said:
“That said, I do have the added benefit of having been there, and knowing this person very well. So I think my opinion might have a bit more information in it’s formation on this particular issue.”
Being in this particular position cuts both ways. Your agreeing with her doesn’t change that. And disagreeing with someone isn’t “being controlling”.
Samuel – It’s the way language gets used that is the controlling issue. But then again, you are careful in what you type, so you will know that.
Trying to understand why people rape in order to prevent more rapes is NOT rape apology any more than trying to understand cancer in order to prevent more cancer is cancer apology.
Congratulations – you have just gone to the very root and foundation of Rape Culture and why it was given a name. It was there to allow study, understanding and to address both the causes and effects of rape – including where do rapists come from. Praise the lord and happy, happy for Loretta Ross, Yulanda Ward and Nkenge Toure. Of course so many will miss that one and keep filling the gaps. I was thinking of marketing a new tool to spread wet gap filling material – “The Man Splane”. It comes with a built in spoon to help… Read more »
Perhaps this would be just semantic wordplay, but another word for “asleep” is “unconscious.” Is penetrating someone who’s “sleeping” really at all different from penetrating someone who is “passed out” or “unconscious” or “in a coma”?
Well raping someone who is only asleep is certainly more risky for the rapist.
No one is purely “good” or purely “bad”. We are all human. Rape is an evil act, as is killing someone. It’s a false pretense to say that “good” guys commit rape because no human being is purely “good”. We all do bad, even evil things to some extent or another. And at least in my view even the worst of the worst have the chance at redemption. That is why I started the GMP book tour inside Sing Sing sharing with 12 life-time inmates, most of them murderers. They made me cry not because they are purely on thing… Read more »
Well Tom – it’s interesting what happens when it’s people talking about you, and if you are good. I do prefer to hear people speaking for themselves. I like stories that come from real people about their lives, their experiences and their views of events they live through – and I’m not that keen on what turns into lectures, wild speculation fests and worst of all Gossip.
I’d love to see more of the first and a reduction in the second. The first opens up dialogue, the second only promotes it’s own dogma.
That is why I’m horrified by the assumption that one person can tell another’s story — without having met that person.
Alyssa’s friend has a story that goes with this rape. It’s complicated, it’s ugly, it’s not good vs evil. And we’re not equipped for that type of story. We want to believe that he *has to be a bad man* to have done that. Because… Well, not only is it what we’re used to being told, but it means that *we* will never do anything bad. Because we’re good, right?
Wrong.
Joanna – it is possible to look at a story, see recurrent patterns and attempt to fill in gaps. It becomes a Statistical Game and some folks are terrible at craps or is that crap at statistics? I am equally horrified (But Not Remotely Surprised) at the easy with which so many want to fill in gaps – will take anything they can lay their hands on in an attempt to fill in gaps – they will even take other people’s speculation about filled gaps and then repeat it as fact – and the insanity goes on until it’s impossible… Read more »
I think I need to transition into becoming more of a gap-filler, if only so as to avoid serving on a jury.
I guess this raises the question of what a “bad man” is, then. If not all rapists are bad men, some of them are good men, then I’m not sure where we should draw the line. I tend to think rape is pretty clear watershed divider. Is the difference that a good man feels some guilt about raping someone and a bad man doesn’t? Or maybe a “good guy” rapes only if there’s a real gray area? I’m tempted to say that there are no bad men or good men, just good and bad behavior, but I know that sounds… Read more »
“So what do we think of Maria? Should she have been tried in a court of law? Should she have gone to jail and been put on a sex offenders list?” Should she have been tried: Not so sure about that. I think she should possibly have been given the opportunity to rethink her actions before being given a criminal record (and it sounds like she did). Also, unless she confessed to the police I don’t think she should be tried on his word against hers. Should she have gone to jail: Only if there was a likelyhood she was… Read more »
If you draw a Venn diagram of relevance between Alyssa’s rapist friend and society’s mixed signals, there would be two circles not touching and very far away from each other… on separate pieces of paper even.
Love this.
I find glib two dimensional analyses highly informative – as they just illustrate over and over again why they are not the way to model, look at, discuss or understand complex issues. As one of me professors said Some use Occam’s Razor and achieve nothing but insisting they can reduce everything to the point of cutting their own intellectual throats.
A.Y. – because society doesn’t influence people’s choices?
Ridiculous.
Saying that someone’s flirtations have nothing to do with rape and then going on and on about the flirtations and potential “mixed signals” and then repeating that it’s definitely rape is rape apology. This is like someone seeing a friend steal money off a sleeping a person and then saying “You know, she was flashing that money around a lot all evening. It was still theft. My friend stole from that person, but I wonder what made my friend think it was okay to steal from that person. Maybe society is sending mixed messages about stealing. She did flash money… Read more »
How do people keep missing this. Her actions did not make her in ANY way responsible for the rape, nor do they diminish his responsibility as the rapist who made the choice to penetrate a sleeping woman. However, her actions bring to mind a discussion that needs to be had -NOT a discussion about why women shouldn’t do what she did (people should be able to do whatever they want while flirting, that doesn’t impinge on another person’s safety/security/autonomy — but a discussion about how society has taught people to receive messages about others’ sexuality. Join us in the world… Read more »
Because Girls Can Do it Too? Wild Guess from just the title trope!
“Alyssa’s guy friend is 100% responsible for the rape he committed. In saying that society is also partially responsible, we aren’t now making Alyssa’s guy friend less responsible. Responsibility is not a pie to be divided. Instead, these are overlapping responsibilities.” I think of responsibility the same way that you do, but it’s not a philosophical point that is all that common in today’s culture. You’re right, responsibility is not a finite thing that gets diluted by adding people to the list of those who are responsible. It’s not like a pie, where the more people who have a slice… Read more »
I think your armed robbery example is PERFECT and I was trying to think of how to explain that when I was writing this, but you’ve done it perfectly.
Also, you gotta love my graphs.
I did like the graphs. They warmed my antiquarian heart. Very old school pen-and-paper. I remember when Venn diagrams were part of the “New Math” and all the rage in elementary schools. (I think we’re on the fourth “New Math” by this point, so the phrase is pretty meaningless. Yay, innovation for the sake of innovation!) I think what gets conflated in people’s minds are “responsibility” and “attention.” The attention about an event can definitely be divided, and in general attention to one person’s role takes away from attention to someone else’s role. But, that doesn’t mean the person with… Read more »
P.S. Another way to put it: there’s a difference between explaining and excusing.
Agreed – and there is also a big difference between running away and exploring. Some seem to want to represent Alyssa and others are running away from reality and yet she’s saying let’s explore reality – there may be more to find.
Some folks just can’t accept wide open spaces, or that they may even exist. P^)
“He smiles and says something like, “I really want to kiss you right now.””
That’s the kind of thing a Nice Guy ™ would say.
What does that even mean? What are you getting at?
Joanna, are you asking me or Emulator to clarify?
Emulator.
I agree completely with Ally. He sums it up perfectly in his article with this quote: “He became a rapist at the moment he decided to rape. Whatever we mean by ‘nice guy’, whoever a nice guy is, he is not someone who knowingly rapes.” Alyssa uses a very specific example – that of her friend, who had intercourse with a woman whilst she was asleep. She then claimed he “was genuinely unsure”. I don’t see how that is possible. Inserting your penis into a sleeping woman is rape. To do so is not the act of a nice man.… Read more »
I agree that Alyssa’s friend is 100% responsible for what he did. I don’t doubt that our society’s rape culture is also partially responsible. However, I do NOT accept the claim that “misread signals” played any role here and I do not accept the claim that her friend “didn’t know” it was rape. I think addressing the way society teaches men to interpret women’s actions is a very valid and important issue. I just don’t think it has ANY bearing here. In fact, I think equating this rape with “confusing” “gray” “mixed signal” rapes is very dangerous. And it’s so… Read more »
Let’s talk about misread signals, let’s talk about society’s role, but let’s not pretend that the guy in Alyssa’s story had ANY question of whether or not he had consent. Okay, let’s stipulate that Ally’s friend knew exactly what he was doing, thought it was okay to penetrate a sleeping woman, and should be dealt with accordingly legally and morally. Now consider some hypothetical guy in a similar but not identical situation. This other guy has all the same circumstances as Ally’s friend leading up to the rape, from the extensive flirting to the drinking (and drugging) together and falling… Read more »
I think this is a very good point and a good example of something that could be primarily a miscommunication or mistake more than an intentional disregard of her consent. (Note that a man can do both, not only one or the other.) The “go-ahead” may be partly the product of some wishful thinking and hearing what he wanted to hear in his interpretation.
I think in that hypothetical situation, it’s still rape, because she did not consent. However, I could at least understand if someone made the argument that he didn’t really know he was raping her. (I wouldn’t necessarily agree, but I could at least understand that argument.) It’s a much murkier, grayer example than the one Alyssa has given us and I think it could be a jumping off point for the larger discussion about implied consent vs. explicit consent, about interpreting signals, about society at large, etc. However, I don’t think the example Alyssa has given us is the appropriate… Read more »
This conversation HAS TO go along with real-world examples, otherwise we don’t have a firm grounding for challenging the notion that the guy was a “nice guy”.
Think of it this way, I suspect that if we presented 3 hypotheticals about this, and made judgements, people wouldn’t engage emotionally.
But this really happened, so we know it’s true. That’s what makes it so fucking hard.
Yes, use real world examples. But when you use a real world example of a man penetrating a woman while she SLEEPS to bring up the question of “misread signals”, it comes off as rape apology because a woman does not give off signals while she sleeps. Use a different example to make that point. Or use that example to make a different point. Or make both, respectively, but SEPARATELY. What irks me the most about this whole situation is the repeated times I’ve seen reference to your/Alyssa’s critics “not understanding”, “not reading thoroughly”, “not grasping the concept”, “not being… Read more »
Sure. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe we are truly too stupid to grasp how problematic this situation is. And we ran that risk in discussing rape in a way that almost nobody ever does. But to us, it was worth the risk. Call us rape apologists. Fine. You know what? I’d rather be called a rape apologist while working my ass off to change the way we discuss consent, because the way we’re discussing it in this society right now isn’t working, than to assume that Alyssa’s friend is a lying scumbag who just wanted to get his jollies off… Read more »
Just to be clear, once more, I NEVER said you or Alyssa WERE rape apologists. Only that I understand why it’s coming off that way and I disagree with the choice to address this issue in this way. I don’t think that the questions you’re asking are new or unusual or controversial – I only think they don’t apply to this situation in the way that they have been presented.
I can respect that, and appreciate your ability to engage with us in this dialogue.
Ultimately, we need to remember that we all have the same goal and to respect the people who are our allies in this mission. Even if our paths toward that goal aren’t the same, the first way to engage in healthy discussion is to go into it **in good faith**.
I found you a real-world example!
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2012/09/19/is-it-rape-if-you-dont-mean-for-it-to-be-rape/
Thoughts?
WOW this is a great example of how NOTHING in this conversation is black and white.
In this case, she never for a moment intended to violate him, but he felt violated.
Both things happened. We have to judge each situation individually, really.
There is no room for black and white here. I think we’re only harming our progress in thinking that there is.
For some it is very black and white: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2012/09/19/is-it-rape-if-you-dont-mean-for-it-to-be-rape/#comment-526368
Let’s talk about misread signals, let’s talk about society’s role, but let’s not pretend that the guy in Alyssa’s story had ANY question of whether or not he had consent.
I’m shocked at this because the only way to communicate with such absolute certainty is to ahve been a witness to very specific events. If you have witnessed events so closely that you can be so 100% certain on the consent issues, I would advise you to contact the relevant police and make full report – it’s the rational course of action.
MediaHound, I don’t want to presume that this is what Ally means, but I don’t know how else to interpret it… As I said above, it seems to me that for some reason Ally assumes he knows better than Alyssa what her friend thought/felt/chose to do.
I just can’t see how he could presume this. I honestly don’t get it.
But Joanne – I was responding to Lilith Not Ally – and I’m lying down in a dark room, having had to use the word mansplaining for real. Scheesh ! … I may be some time! I keep guessing why other people keep filling in gaps, but it gets so hard to keep up because as soon as they find the gap filler does not fit, they try something new – and even more bizzare, mixed up, contorted and off the wall. I’m sure that there is an Internet Axiom in there somewhere – and it does rival Poe’s law… Read more »
OK, I’ll clarify then. This is not a situation of “I didn’t know she was that drunk” but rather “I KNEW she was asleep”. He has ADMITTED this much. Perhaps he really truly BELIEVED that he had consent to penetrate a woman for the first time, without her being conscious…. I find that so hard to believe because common sense tells us that sex is something both partners participate in. If she is unconscious, not only can she not consent, but she can’t participate, so why he would think that this was okay is beyond me. I find it extremely… Read more »
OK, I’ll clarify then. This is not a situation of “I didn’t know she was that drunk” but rather “I KNEW she was asleep”. He has ADMITTED this much. There is a second hand report, which you as a third party are interpreting and extending upon – the Common name for such behaviour is Gossip! I would use Idol Speculation, but you are far too active to be idol! You really do need to learn the boundaries of rational and even socially acceptable discourse. I hope you never get called for jury duty or as a witness to a serious… Read more »
Alyssa has not claimed that he didn’t know she was asleep. She has made it clear in the original blog that he knew she was asleep. I’m not interpreting that fact, I’m simply repeating it. Alyssa has not tried to claim that it wasn’t rape or that he wasn’t responsible, this is her interpretation – one I agree with – based on the facts as they were presented to us. What I AM interpreting is the likelihood of a sane, rational, adult male thinking that it’s okay to penetrate a sleeping woman without her consent. It is POSSIBLE that the… Read more »
Lilith, where is your evidence that the vast majority of men who rape a woman by penetrating her while she is asleep consciously know that what they’re doing is wrong? No, seriously. What is that based on? Do you know any men who penetrated a sleeping woman? Does Ally? I don’t. Alyssa does. Also, WHERE IS THERE APOLOGISM in examining the rape in a broader context?! Seriously, I need this explained to me by SOMEONE. When does Alyssa take blame off her friend? When does she place blame on the victim or make her responsible? When do I? Examining the… Read more »
Also, WHERE IS THERE APOLOGISM in examining the rape in a broader context?! Seriously, I need this explained to me by SOMEONE. Joanne – there is no apologism in it, so no one can explain to you anything. It’s back to front! I may have to stop guessing now! A great many need to be explaining why they are so deeply emotionally, socially , psychologically and Dogmatically immersed in their tropes of rape, that they can’t do anything but be grossly reactionary and blinded by their own arrogance. They are so empowered by their self appointed rectitude that they don’t… Read more »
What I AM interpreting is the likelihood of a sane, rational, adult male thinking that it’s okay to penetrate a sleeping woman without her consent. Did I just see someone introduce a negative mental health trope? If he was not sane – I mean Totally LOONEY TUNES would it alter your argument? Why not say able bodied or are you worried the crips might complain they are being treated negatively and as none rapists? Why did you miss out white? Too controversial there is it? That sort of using a minority is a negative way is pure Black Washing –… Read more »
It would alter my opinion, yes. I might be more prone to believe him that he “didn’t know” or “misread” signals. It’s not a negative mental health trope – I know people who struggle with mental illness and perceive the world in a way that does not match reality and are not always capable of rational decision making or consent in the ways that you and I are. As far as I know, Alyssa has not claimed that his capacity to understand or reason was diminished. I don’t think being or not being “able-bodied” or “white” would absolve someone of… Read more »
OK, so my comment above was edited without an editor’s/moderator’s note, which I find inappropriate. If there’s something wrong with what I said, I apologize, but I don’t think anything I wrote was less offensive than MediaHound’s “looney tunes” comment.
But I’ll rephrase – I find your use of “looney tunes” to be EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE and insensitive and self-righteous and disrespectful.
I’m OUT of this conversation right now because apparently the moderators of this site accept slurs like that, but don’t accept calling them out. Later
We don’t want you to leave the conversation, and I just asked MediaHound to tone it down above.
Both of you need to knock the name-calling off. I’m not a moderator, but I see it unfolding and it will go to a bad place.
Let’s redirect and refocus on what matters here.
Using disability in a negative connotation as a frame to add emphasis to your argument is abuse! If I was to say that a women was neurotic or acting insane because she had been treated badly – of that any sane person would not at ash she did… Well those oppressive views and ways are terrible and slip out when people least expect them! Worse still you state ” I know people who struggle with mental illness and perceive the world in a way that does not match reality and are not always capable of rational decision making or consent… Read more »
While I don’t disagree that we should be careful with our language regarding ability, let’s try to keep on topic here. We’ve already diverged enough.
Let’s all try to be respectful of one another, and honor others’ points of view.
Where was your moral outrage when Alyssa used the term “insane” in one of her comments? “And to write them off as a small number of sociopaths is just insane given the number of sexual assaults that are committed by “normal people” all the time.” https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/why-its-dangerous-to-say-only-bad-guys-commit-rape/comment-page-1/#comment-381161 “Sanity” is a legal term — one that can be used as a legal defense to crimes such as rape. I don’t view all people with mental illness in a negative way and I was NOT framing the situation as such. But it is FACT that some people with certain kinds of mental illness… Read more »
I called him a Jack*ss because he was behaving like one. Trying to derail the conversation by claiming that I am bigoted against the mentally ill – and using the term “looney tunes” to do so is OUTRAGEOUSLY OFFENSIVE. There is nothing inherently wrong with the legal context of term “sane” which is the context in which I was using it. I didn’t say “it’s crazy to think that” or “it’s insane” (like Alyssa said). I said I find it hard to believe that a man of legally sound mind would not realize that he didn’t have consent. I can’t… Read more »
Alyssa has not claimed that he didn’t know she was asleep. She has made it clear in the original blog that he knew she was asleep. I’m not interpreting that fact, I’m simply repeating it. This has been asserted many times over, and I even think it accurately characterizes how Alyssa interpreted what her friend admitted to, but I don’t get why people accept this as a given. If it’s a given, it was not phrased in a way to make it so. The most damning line from the article that speaks to this point says: …And by all accounts,… Read more »
Oh, no, I knew you were. I was just building off of what you said. I see now how unclear my last comment was!
Lolcat Axiom “The higher the divergence from reality there is in contributions to a discussion, the more attempts at correction is an example of herding cats”.
Turning cat and mouse in to rape, is over the top for me.
Explain this please. Because I don’t understand how this example is “cat and mouse”. If a woman falls asleep and you have sex with her without permission it’s rape. What’s over the top about that?
Lilith – you are dragging ideas and views from one thread to another. You may find it easier to leave one set in one place and deal with just what a single thread is addressing. P^)
I replied directly to TraceyD’s comment “Turning cat and mouse in to rape, is over the top for me.” I fail to understand what that comment has to do with this blog or the issues described within. This blog and Alyssa’s original blog are both primarily about a guy who raped a woman while she was sleeping. So I’m asking TraceyD, what her comment on this blog is supposed to mean, because I fail to see the relevancy.
Actually, most of this blog post concerned our cultural narrative that men must “win over” or convince women to sleep with them – sometimes forcefully. In that narrative women don’t know (or cannot admit) what they actually want, therefore men must intervene. This narrative, sometimes called “cat and mouse” is what TraceyD is responding too, when they assert “Turning cat and mouse [into] rape is over the top for me”. Which is why MediaHound replied that you are dragging thoughts over from a different thread, namely “Nice Guys Commit Rape Too”, when you brought up the raped-while-asleep example. The “NGCRT”… Read more »
Tracey, if a person enjoys “cat and mouse” all that person has to say is “I love a ‘cat and mouse’ game” and then establish a safeword or boundary points at which they want to stop “playing”. But a person saying “no” and then being held down or forced into a sexual act without a previous conversation about boundaries and expectations? That’s sexual assault. Someone said to me, “Daniel Craig can forcefully kiss me anytime he wants.” And I said, “And by saying that, you’re giving consent, and it’s no longer sexual assault.” We’re not trying to remove aggressive sexuality.… Read more »
I just don’t understand what that has to do with this example… unless she’s implying that the victim was playing cat and mouse IN HER SLEEP.
Someone said to me, “Daniel Craig can forcefully kiss me anytime he wants.” And I said, “And by saying that, you’re giving consent, and it’s no longer sexual assault.” We’re not trying to remove aggressive sexuality. We’re trying to make it safe. Unless Daniel Craig was there when she said it, then, no, it would still be sexual assault because he would have no reason to believe he had her consent, unless he goes around assuming that of every woman…which is the kind of bad guy behavior we’re talking about. If she (or women generally) think unexpressed consent makes it… Read more »
Well, it was a joke about BDSM and the kink worksheet.
So no, not literally do I think that Daniel Craig, somewhere in the world, was just given permission to forcefully kiss Alyssa Royse!
But if she were in a room with him, and said, “Hey, Danny, go ahead and shove your lips into mine whenever you damn well please” I’d call that consent fro a forceful kiss.
And I meant it when I said that Daniel Craig can forcefully kiss me anytime he wants. Although, what I really said was “take me.” And if I saw him, in person, I’d look him in the eye and say it, and we’d be good to go. (Okay, I’d have to check with my husband, check STI statuses etc…. but….) But what Joanna and I were talking about was that there is nuance, and people’s tastes do vary, and what people want varies. That matters, a lot, because what is typical and understood behavior for one person may not be… Read more »