Attn: Sleeping Means No

A response by Amelia Harnish to a controversial post about rape.

Reprinted with permission from The Miniskirt

In case you missed it, a web-site-formerly-in-our-good-graces known as The Good Men Project published this piece called “Nice Guys Commit Rape, Too”, which also ran on XoJane.com, by Alyssa Royse.

Royse argues that rapists are rarely of the back-alley variety (Yup, good point!) and tells the story of how a male friend of hers, who’s a nice guy, really, penetrated a mutual female friend while she was sleeping and that this was without a doubt rape. (Yes, exactly!) But then it all falls apart when Royse contends this guy is only an accidental rapist, and that it’s not his fault but society’s fault that he didn’t know a sleeping woman, by definition, cannot consent to sex.

As many other high-profile bloggers and writers have already pointed out, this is an example of one of the most sinister rape myths, which is that rapists commit their crimes not because they’re truly predators but because they’re just confused about what consent means. In fact, research shows that rapists and abusers on the whole really do know what they’re doing, and they use rape culture—society’s willingness to blame the victim and believe that the rapist just thought she wanted it—to keep getting away with rape.

While I actually appreciate Royse’s commentary about the inexcusable messages we send about sex to young people—for example, that being aggressive is a justifiable way to go about getting sex and if a girl says no she really means yes—the rapist she’s trying to use as an example here is someone who started having sex with a sleeping person. Period.

This is why feminists say rape is about control. It’s not just about the violent, predatory need for control that we associate with back alley rapists, rape is also about the victim’s lack of control. And that’s the kind of thing we do need to talk about (even though feminists have been explaining this forever) because we need people to understand that rape is rape whether your rapist is a violent stranger or a seemingly “nice guy” who thinks acting upon you in your sleep is a-okay.

Royse’s attempt at analysis of this issue is this:

To a large degree, my friend thought he was doing what was expected. And while he was wrong, weeks of flirting, provocative dancing and intimate innuendo led him to believe that sex was the logical conclusion of their social intercourse. Many people watching it unfold would have thought that, too.

Of course they would all be wrong. But if something walks like a fuck and talks like fuck, at what point are we supposed to understand that it’s not a fuck? Our binary language of “yes means yes” and “no means no” doesn’t address the entire spectrum of both spoken language and body language, which mean different things to different people.

I would love for “no means no” to work, but it doesn’t.

I mean what in the actual f*ck, you guys. In what universe does sleeping count as body language at all, much less body language that says, “put your penis in my vagina”?

“No means No” and “Yes means Yes” does work, but only when the person saying “No” or “Yes” actually gets a chance to say it. Sex means there are two active, consenting participants. If I were a man, I would be disgusted and offended by the assertion that men aren’t smart enough to figure out that sleeping means at best, “maybe later, but definitely not right now.”

If Royse and The Good Men Project really wanted to encourage dialogue about why rape happens and actually do something about stopping it, if they really thought men were confused about this specific thing, they should have just posted a PSA on their site. Something like, in case you didn’t get the memo, Good Men out there: Sleeping means No. Sleeping means wake her up and ask. If she’s laying there with her eyes closed, that means tap her on the shoulder and ask, “Wanna have sex?” And if she says no, she means no. If she says yes, by all means, proceed. Instead, they chose to continue the pattern of dismissal, minimization and myth that allows rape to continue. Way to be good, GMP.

Ps–In case you need a reminder that FACT: Most men are not rapists, and many men do want to help us stop it, go check out Men Can Stop Rape.