Today, in a surprise press conference, President Obama spoke out about Missouri Rep. Todd Akin’s clusterf**k of a statement in which he said that ”legitimate rape” causes a woman’s body to utilize natural defenses to keep pregnancy from occurring.
President Obama not only addressed the ridiculousness of Akin’s biologically un-founded claim, but also the danger in parsing out what constitutes rape, be it “forcible rape” or “legitimate rape” when talking about definitions or access to abortions.
Obama also went so far as to extrapolate that what Akins said is representative of a bigger problem within the Republican party, in trying to control women’s access to health care and reproductive options.
In the video, Obama concedes that the majority of Republicans are not in agreement with Akin’s statement, which Obama calls “way out there”, but says that there is something reflective about the Republicans in general:
“Although these particular comments have led Governor Romney and other Republicans to distance themselves, I think the underlying notion that we should be making decisions on behalf of women for their health care decisions, or qualifying forcible rape versus non-forcible rape, I think those are broader issues,” Obama said. “And that is a significant difference in approach between me and the other party.”
What do you think of Obama’s statement?
About Joanna Schroeder
Look I don’t condone the “Legitmate Rape” argument either. But Obama is no saint either.
True. It’s no secret that the Republicans are the anti-woman party… but it’s also not like Obama has done anything for reproductive rights either.
Go Green!
I wish I could go into cryo stasis for the next 4 years. It seems like my choices are between Satan and Lucifer.
Oy vey, so typical. Joanna invites discussion. Discussion devolves. So it goes.
For my part, I see Akin’s statements as characteristic of the GOP’s base and their billionaire backers. It’s all pretty much part of a greater push to screw everybody but the rich by making this country into a backwater reactionary state. But I digress…
Obama has always supported people’s rights to control their bodies and their right to decide for themselves whether or not to be a parent. I won’t pretend Obama gets it right all the time but neither will I pretend he hasn’t been anything but good for men in this country. Shoot, getting us back to work by improving the economy, helping us afford healthcare we so desperately need, helping us end homophobia (especially for gay men), and helping to end the senseless death of our military men in costly pointless wars.
Seriously, Obama’s helped men nationwide far more than ANY GOP candidate, including more than Akin, Romney, or Ryan, have ever done in their entire lives.
Overall I’m glad Obama came out against Akin’s statements. It’s twisted ideas of rape like Akin’s that make it so much harder for male rape victims to even get help, let alone be recognized as a true victim of rape. Obama’s statement shows that not every politician is beholden to antiquated ideas of rape which ignores and directly hurts those who’ve been raped, ESPECIALLY men, who comprise the vast majority of rape victims and rapists in this country.
So yeah, thumbs up to Obama. Now would definitely be a good time to push more services and support for male rape victims.
“Getting us back to work by improving the economy” hey Zek, please let me know where you live, because I want to move there!Seriously, I know personally at least 20 or more people who have lost their home or are in danger of it. No, this President cannot run on any record of accomplishments so his only chance is to demonize his opponent and in fact anyone who’s even thinking of voting for him. Please give me an example of something Obama’s done to make the economy better( unemployment was actually LOWER when he took office), or what he’s done to ‘help men’ (NVAW perhaps?)
Bobbt,
http://obamaachievements.org/list
I live in the California Bay Area. My company has been hiring for months now. I don’t deny it’s bad for a lot of people, or that the country has completely recovered from the economic collapse created by the Bush era presidency, but I do know it’s gotten a lot better. Our personal anecdotes aside though…
Obama’s statements help heal the divide Akin’s comments created. And that is something Obama is infamously good at doing — bringing disparate groups of people together, especially over someone else’s BS.
And that’s exactly it Zek. Obama is attempting to clean up the economic mess created by an earlier presidency. It’s not the mess he created, but he’s attempting to clean it up, and in terms of economics, turning the ship around even with the creation of key policies and actions, takes time. The factors that caused the poor economic conditions did not develop and cause a crash instantaneously either, but can individually be measured to start anywhere from 2001 to 2004. I find it laughable that people attempt to pile so much blame onto the current President. I mean, if you damage your car, take it into a mechanic and it takes him time to fix the issue, he can’t exactly be blamed for the damage, can he?
I do remember him stating and emphasizing that the journey to economic recovery would be steep, and potentially long…even without some degree of knowledge of economic cycles and history, these statements should be pretty easy to understand.
My personal issue is one of the poor banking infrastructure that has long plagued the U.S., but then, in a political system where senate candidates make such galling rape differentiations, should I really be surprised???
ThaNk you for pointing out male rape victims. It’s relevant because the logic behind this “legitimate rape” argument is a bizarre notion that a woman’s hormones can reject conception in case of forcible rape. In other words, if a woman gets pregnant that means she “enjoyed it.”
This relates to men because the argument is that an unwilling man can’t get an erection.
To all posters –
Please stay on topic. Many posts have already been deleted for being in violation of our commenting policy.
This conversation is about Obama’s reaction to Akin. From this point on, anything off-topic will be deleted.
I agree with President Obama’s argument that we should not qualify different types of rape, however, as a culture, a nation, and a government, we already do that. All fifty states qualify different types of sexual assault, and in many cases acts that are technically rape are not charged as such due to the specificity of the rape/sexual assault statute in a given state. Likewise, most people only count certain acts as rape. I am certain that most of the left-wingers and feminists railing against Akin do not count what Sandusky did as “legitimate rape” because of the victims’ sex. I am also sure that few of them would consider what Debrah LaFave did is “legitimate rape”.
What I do not like is people pretending not to understand what “forcible rape” means. It simply means physical violence was used during the rape, as opposed to a situation in which the victim is drugged, drunk, unconscious, or coerced. Akin’s comment was stupid enough all on its own; it does not need any help.
First, I don’t think people consider what Debra LaFave did as rape, but they call it Statutory Rape. That’s why there’s a distinction. I’d say the same thing about a Statutory rape of the exact same nature if the teacher had been male, the victim female.
As far as saying “Forcible rape” implies violence as opposed to drugging, I think you’re wrong about that. If a woman were drugged and someone had sex with her while unconscious, that’s still forcible rape. That’s the reason the language was stricken from the initial bill in the first place.
And I would also disagree that ANYONE in their right mind – feminist or not – calls Sandusky’s crimes “not rape”. Everywhere you look people are talking about who Sandusky raped children. I’m not sure where you’re getting this from but you sound paranoid and now you’re accusing other people of things that simply aren’t true, as well as generalizing which I know you realize is a violation of our commenting policy.
In other words, you do not think what LaFave did counts as “legitimate” rape. It is some other type. That is my point. We constantly pick apart what counts, so the outrage over Akin’s turn of phrase is a tad bit hypocritical.
The reason language of the FBI’s definition was changed was because certain types of rape against women that are recognized by all fifty states were not counted. Removing the term “forcible” allows for those other types to be counted.
I did not say people would say what Sandusky did was “not rape.” I said that they would not count it as “legitimate” rape, and it is not difficult to show examples of people qualifying what acts of sexual violence against males (or females) counts as rape. Again, we do this all the time, so the idea that Akin is the first to pick apart what does or does not count is laughable. The way he said it was stupid, but what he said is exactly the way we qualify rape, as you demonstrated in your comment about LaFave.
As for me being paranoid and accusing people of things that are not true, how do you explain CDC’s report on sexual violence excluding certain types of sexual violence against males as rape?
No, I don’t think of it as First-degree rape, Jacob, don’t twist my words.
“Legitimate” is a stupid word that doesn’t work in these conversations because it’s not specific. You’re abusing the word right now to twist other people into things they aren’t saying. I think all rape is legitimate in the form it’s in. If you’re orally raped, you’ve been legitimately orally raped. If you’ve been a victim in a statutory rape, you’re a victim of a legitimate statutory rape. Sandusky legitimately raped boys because the definition of rape includes anal penetration and that is what Sandusky did. If the definition were different I would agree that it is morally considered rape but that legally it would be considered forcible sodomy, and then I would mention that forcible sodomy should be considered rape.
But working within the confines of the law, all forms of rape are legitimate.
Don’t ever manipulate my words or intents like that, again Jacob.
Jacobtk:
“I agree with President Obama’s argument that we should not qualify different types of rape,…”
What do we do, when considering the sex between a 16 and a 21 year old? As the age of consent varies among states in the US (also among countries in Europe), it is sometimes considered rape by law and sometimes not. Arethere any compelling arguments for what the age of consent should be?
Alberich, age of consent laws are a mess because there is not clear definition of how they can be applied. The laws were intended to deal with huge age differences, but they are used when the “victim” and the “abuser” are sometimes just months apart in age. Worse, even in situations in which the victim is above the age of consent, statutory rape laws can still apply depending on the circumstances, rendering the age of consent pointless.
I would either get rid of the laws (since most rape statutes already have age of consent definitions written into them) or modify the laws so they have clear definitions that would prevent cases like two 14-year-olds being charged with statutory rape for having consensual sex.
Noah and I just had this conversation yesterday.
I know this is off-topic but I will diverge for a short moment because it’s really not political or charged and because the conversation seems to have drifted naturally toward the idea of consent and “legitimacy”.
A man posted on an old article about how a 15 year old girl seduced him. He’s been married 24 years so I assume he’s at least 40 years old, and has older children. His wife (whom he says he loves) has left him, his children won’t talk to him and he offered a long paragraph of explanation of how the 15 year old is basically a slut (she “exposed herself” to a teen classmate once and has seen porn) and how he was seduced by her and he had no choice.
He also said that where he lives age of consent is 15 no matter how old the adult is.
Now, of course I deleted the comment because he’s a disgusting pedophile and we aren’t going to allow him to propagandize the notion that a 15 year old child is some how guilty of seducing a 40 year old adult. I don’t care which sex whomever is, it’s wrong.
But it brings up the question – if 15 is the age of consent, is it okay for a 40 year old to have sex with them? Is it rape?
Statutory rape is a disaster because there are so many cases where the age differences make a relationship illegal, but nothing more than possibly a bit dicey. When I was 15, my boyfriend was 19 for instance. I can tell you with 100% confidence that that guy was the most innocent 19 year old, we were very much on the same level emotionally and sexually. Or a 17 year old with a 20 year old… YOu can imagine when he was a Senior in HS she was a Freshman…
Those laws are there to protect the children, but in most cases they’re a way to prosecute a young man who probably was just insecure and possibly give him the “sex offender” label for the rest of his life, which is nothing other than absolutely tragic. Hugo wrote a great article about these “Romeo and Juliet” laws and convictions and how wrong they are.
Either way, statutory rape is distinct from “rape in the first degree” for a reason, but I think everyone recognizes the imperfection of age of consent… Even though I’m not sure there’s a better solution at this time.
I know this is off-topic but I will diverge for a short moment because it’s really not political or charged.
Hmmmmm …. Sorry But! …. Joanna, when I read your potted account of the man’s story, my first reaction was Hyper Sexualisation and acting out, one of the known hallmarks for childhood sexual abuse.
“…“exposed herself” to a teen classmate..” and exposed to porn! Common traits too! Kids who become hyper sexualised post abuse will seek out porn in what may see as an attempt to make sense of their experiences, both past and present.
Rape – Child Sexual Abuse are charged subjects, but no where near as simplistic as so many people would like to believe. I have heard a number of grown men and woemn talk about the activities of a Hyper Sexualised abuse survivor as seduction – and I’ve even been targeted myself in working with the survivors. Many lack the most basic of knowledge on the subject of childhood abuse, including sexual abuse, to recognise behavioural patterns that are significant. There is no gender difference in the behaviour of either survivor or target.
I can’t give you more examples due to Privacy and Confidentiality issue – but believe me I have seen the patterns from kids as young as 12, and even adults with special needs/learning disabilities being targeted. It’s easy to take a simplistic position – and ever so hard to deal with the complexity of reality.
… and if you think about it, I have been quite open that I was sexually abused as a child and further abused for having been sexually abused. So I’ll be a little more open. When I was 15 I was a terror – hyper sexualised and anything in trousers that took my fancy was at risk … and I was such a cute, clean cut, kid who could act like a devil! As a child I was abused by power plays – and when I was 15/6 I was the one using the same tactics against my targets – men in their 20′s, 30′s & 40′s. It was all illegal – they would have gone to prison under UK law – and it was me using the “I won’t tell anyone about it” as the control mechanism against the men I targeted.
I happily used the power strategies that were used against me to facilitate my abuse and I used the against the men I targeted. In so many ways I groomed them and broke down their resistance – I normalised the experience for them.
Hyper sexualistion due to childhood sexual abuse and learned power plays looks one hell of a lot like seduction – and it took me quite a lot of time to get that straight in my own head and get past it once I was 18+, escaped to university. Does it make a difference that I was a 15 year old male targeting grown men in their 20′s, 30′s and even 40′s?
You said: “<b<Now, of course I deleted the comment because he’s a disgusting pedophile and we aren’t going to allow him to propagandize the notion that a 15 year old child is some how guilty of seducing a 40 year old adult. I don’t care which sex whomever is, it’s wrong. I’m not so sure that is valid. I’m happy to plead guilty on all charges to having been on hell of a 15 year old seducer! I was beyond precocious, and made Salome, Scheherazade and even Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct look like amateurs. P^)
When it comes to training workers in the field, I often take the role of the child in role playing exercises – and believe me I’m more than convincing and you should see the blushes. All I have to do is role back the decades and become 15 year old me again. I’m happy to immerse the workers, both male and female, into the dynamics of looking at a damaged child who has far too much knowledge of very adult ways. It’s very unnerving – the candour can be too much for some. If it’s so confusing for the professionals, imagine how hard it is for Mr and Ms Joe Public with no insight to make sense of what is going on.
Oh No, MediaHound I didn’t mean it wasn’t “charged” in general, I meant it didn’t feed into the other conversation I deleted already that was entirely off-topic. This one I thought was on-topic in that it talks about what is rape, how it is defined, and how statutory rape laws with “age of consent” boundaries are dicey.
I agree, this girl may have been abused. Or maybe she was a normalize 15 year old girl. I mean, to have “exposed herself” to a teen boy, that could mean anything. It could mean that she took off her shirt when she and the boy were making out. It could be very innocent. This older man interpreted her telling him that as a sign that she was somehow sexually mature, when in fact she may have been abused. Obviously this guy was looking for reasons to believe that he isn’t a predator who had sex with a child.
The thing is, even if a 15 year old is acting like a seducer or seductress with an adult, the adult has the responsibility to use his or her sound judgement to govern his or her desires. It is probably somewhat natural for an adult to be turned on by a precocious 15 year old who is acting sexy, but as adults we have the moral obligation to leave these children alone, and know that in context, a 15 year old “seducing” a 40 year old is a sign that something unhealthy is happening within the child and we should not only walk away from the child but to tell him or her why it’s inappropriate and that you’re concerned for them.
That’s why these conversations do need to happen, and work like you’re doing has to happen. But this commenter had an agenda—to get other people to tell him that he didn’t do anything wrong being “seduced” by a 15 year old.
MediaHound, I’m curious… What do you think could be done about the age of consent issues raised above?
When it comes to Politics and Sex, there will always be both scandle and dissent! Age of Consent is a legal construct based upon presumed mental capacity. It’s arbitary and man made.
In the UK there are has been a long history of issues over standardisation of Age Of Consent due to Ulster having an age of 17 and the rest of the UK being 16 – gay sex being 21 then 18 and then 16. … then add the rest of Europe with Spain starting at 13 and Turkey and Malta ending at 18… well it is a mess! So many wonder at the concentraion of European pedophiles and pederasts in Spain!
When you have arbitrary borders in both geography and age, which means a person standing 1 inch too far over the line is either a rapist or not, it becomes both a legal and social nonsense. The only option is standardisation across the board and all borders. That’s not hard and fast rules – it’s a starting point from which matters can be assessed and judged – both socially and if needed in court!
Some assumed that lowering the age of consent in the UK for everyone to 16 was a bad move and would lead to dangers for some. As a G.A.Y. man I was born a criminal P^) then the age of consent was made 21 – then dropped to 18 and finally 16! It had to be standardised under The Human Rights Act 1990. At times I’m still shocked at how things can change with the swish of a pen – and I have been campaigning for the changes. When the pen stops it’s odd how the world just keeps on turning and everything just carries on. Law is just a social convention, like money, and change takes time to have an affect.
To create valid and long standing change you have to get to grips with the law and the law makers, who have in fact built in safeguards to the whole legal process. Many in the UK are blissfully ignorant that the law recognises that people who have been subjected to neglect, abuse and sexual abuse from an early age may need longer to mature and, as it were, recover – and that can have implications on their ability to consent at age 16 and beyond.
So there are legal safe guards that under specific circumstances the person can be judged as not able to provide valid consent until 21. That does not mean that at age 16 they can’t have sex – it means that should certain alarm bells ring and issues come to the surface a particular legal assessment (it’s complex with much input and a Judge) allows them to still be seen as a minor up to age 21.
Boundary issues are a complex subject – boundaries of geography – age – and even what the hell consent is and how it is interpreted. How do you judge consent when one party is deaf and mute – the other party is illiterate and can’t read or write – there is no pen and or paper anyway … and the lights are off?
I have had to deal with a cousin with special needs, when he was 30 he met his wife, who was also special needs, and they wanted to get married – and they did that thing that couples do – they started having sex. The Hullabaloo that ensued because they were both being assessed by different teams of social workers who had different rules on assessing how consent had been requested, obtained and acknowledged ….. It was farsical when they came up with thier findings. It turned out that each one had apparently raped the other! It got sorted out in the end, mainly with the arrival of thier first child.
I’m a great believer in having Philosophers debate the issue from all angles. Not just the way a majority is affected, but also the real left field issues and examples which keep highlighting snags and trip wires which anyone can get caught on! Then you put up a sturdy fence to legislate and also allow flexability to deal with the events that the fence has little suitability for controlling. Hard and fixed fences are liked by some, but they get blown over easy. Hurricane fencing is best – it gives you boundaries and is also permiable to deal with the storms.
I have been looking at age of consent issues in te USA, and it seems that the constitution just keeps getting in the way – as does the back yard boundaries being enforced by states. I would recomend a Constitutional Monarchy. All the pomp and circumstance helps to divert from the issues! P^)
Joanna,
I am sorry if I lead a branch of this thread stray, my point was that there are cases of sex, which are legally rape (in some jurisdiction), but in which the victim doesn’t feel raped at all and some reasonable people disagree that there is any crime. If the female body would indeed protect itself from getting pregnant by rape, as Todd Akin claims (not that I think he is right, I am just trying to make an argument), cases, which are legally rape, but are also consensual sex, would have to be excluded.
In general I think that by the nature of laws, something can be legally rape, but not be really nonconsensual sex and vice versa.
Joanna:
“Now, of course I deleted the comment because he’s a disgusting pedophile…”
Why do you people at the Good Men Project keep using the word pedophile, as a slur against people who sexually abuse minors? This is not the meaning. A pedophile is an adult who is primarily sexually attracted to prebuscent kids. This is not the same as a child molester. And 15 year old girls (at least in countries with well fed people) are usually not prebuscent.
I imagine a decent person suffering under his pedophilia, might read this hateful language. What might this do to him?
(btw I am not a pedophile, I just sympathise with decent people, who are seen and treated as monsters).
Alberich,
I think you’re right about the technical definition of pedophilia, and I agree that I should’ve said, “Weak, exploitive, pigs with no empathy and little to no morality.”
As far as what you’re saying about the problems with consent given by minors, I agree. It’s dicey. Can a 12, 14, or 16 year old give consent? To whom? It varies by age and by the child and to whom he or she gives consent. There are no easy answers.
There is, however, one easy answer: If a person feels they were raped, they were raped. If they said “no” to sex and the other person pressed on, then that is rape. I don’t care if that is perpetrated by a man or a woman, non-consensual sex is rape. The end. I’m not saying there aren’t false accusations, but the definition of sex without consent is rape. I don’t care what the perpetrator believes it was, if it was sex without consent it’s rape.
And yes, Todd Akin is a f’ing idiot who didn’t think about what he said.
The presidents comments are extremely problematic because they exemplify the straw-manning of arguments that is preventing America from ever having real dialogue. The president is purposefully trotting out an extremist and making pretend that he is representative of the entire Republican party; i.e. the president is employing a strawman argument.
There are two camps within the Republic party which can be understood by looking at these two very different statements:
1) Women should not have access to contraception.
2) No one should be forced, through taxes or other means, to pay for someone else’s contraception.
There is no question that many Republicans believe in statement 1. Indeed, Todd Akin probably does. These people are horribly misguided.
However, there are also a great number of Republicans that disagree with statement 1 and yet heartily agree with statement 2 (Jon Huntsman comes to mind).
The president is completely ignoring this distinction in favor of the “war on women” rhetoric. He is opting to use a strawman to ignore the actual beliefs of a great many of his opponents. By doing so, he is effectively shutting down discourse: you cannot have a legitimate discussion with someone who calls you names and refuses to see you for who you really are.
What can one say – On balance Obama comes out looking better than Akin – it’s called Politics.
Everyone is recommending, asking and even telling Akin to go home and spend time with his family, and he says he won’t budge …. millions in funding gets pulled from him – he’s thinking of himself and the bigger political players are looking at the bigger picture and control issues. Akin’s a light weight political has been. He’s caused a Seismic shift in the political landscape, but cos he don’t grasp geophysics he aint able to detect the ground trembling.
But then again, when Akin is referring to ideas on sexuality and reproduction that have their roots traced back to Ancient Roman ideas – which made it through the Dark Ages and were kicked out in law back in the 1800′s …. it’s not hard to look good, is it? P^)
It’s also Bizzare how Akin’s ideas on Intelligent Design fit with what he said. It’s used as an argument to bolster Intelligent Design…. God made everything perfect – God hates rape – therefore God designed in a fail safe for women who have been through PIV rape with the fail safe preventing an “Unwanted” pregnancy …. so If women becomes pregnant through rape it’s because she has “chosen” to turn off the fail safe – sex comes with either 100% love or nothing – so pregnancy post rape is proof of Love and desire for the rapist…….. ! Bonkers Dogma built upon Befogged Biblical Bamboozlment. When it comes to Intelligent design, evidently God designed Akin as an intelligent fool!
… and I see Akin bailed last minute on Piers Morgan – which indicates Akin just aint up to dealing with the debate he started. “gutless little twerp” says Piers, claiming it”s what would be used in Britain. I find it hard to say this, but it would seem that Piers is being an English Gentleman and biting his tongue and being polite – Shocking! P^)
Politics Just Aint What It used to be – and with people like Akin about, it gets harder for people to have an interest in reality …. something that Politicians are supposed to deal in!
In my view the phrase “legitimate rape” is not the worst aspect of what Akin said. The truly abominable thing was the outright lie about biology. It wasn’t a biologically unfounded claim, it was a lie.
How would one govern the legitimacy of a man’s rape if pregnancy were the deciding factor? Is ours illegitimate if its at the hands of a woman, and she gets pregnant?
Both statements are idiotic and Obama is being dishonest. IPAB will explicitly make health decisions for women. But many women seem prepared to play along as identity politics have convinced them to be loyal pawns, so politically it was a shrewd press conference. He went out, only discussed the daily SQUIRREL!, and then vanished back into the mancave with Clooney.