Miami U flier: 'Top ten ways to get away with rape'

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

The "willful" in amigocabal's post has a meaning closer to "deliberate" than "under one own's will". He's denying that you can rape without deliberately intending to rape and Serafina is demanding proof.

[Academia Nut]

Serious question, Serafina, does that mean it's rape if a woman thinks a man is going to rape her who was not going to rape her? By that logic, someone feeling intimidated (whether from active intimidation by the other party or simply by possession of an intimidating physique) can then retroactively make a sexual encounter a rape despite a lack of intent to rape from the other party. To me, that seems to open up a quite unpleasant can of worms.

This is pretty much exactly what is meant by 'rape culture'. It is where the cultural attitudes make it so that women don't speak up when they are uncomfortable and thus allow men to go on being oblivious as to how uncomfortable they are making women. If there was a cultural attitude of "Speak up women, we want to hear what you want to say!" then this would never be a problem because the men would be able to hear loud and clear that the women want nothing to do with them. Instead we have cultural attitudes that allow women to be bullied and pressured by men and society. Imagine a world where a woman could tell a man to fuck off with his advances for any reason and not get called a bitch by her peers. We're getting there, but there's still all sorts pressure and expectation from society that make the whole thing problematic. Again, its the fact that there is an inequality in the capacity to communicate that makes the situation you raised objectionable. It's not that you can have one party not intending to rape while the other perceives it that way, its that the victimized party feels unable to speak up because of intimidation.

[Thanas]

But rape has always required a willful act on the part of the rapist.

Says who?

My lawbooks. Heck, the very word rape (rapere - to seize, capture) implies directed willful force. Doesn't make him any less of an idiot but please let us keep the definitions straight if we argue about legal terms.

You cannot jail people for something they are not aware of unless they should have been aware of. That too is a staple of legal tradition.

[Serafina]

I'm just denying that "it's not rape unless the person committing it intends it to be rape."
So for example a husband who has sex with his wife against her will is still a rapist, even though he wants normal sex instead of rape and may not even be aware that he is committing rape.
Basically - even if the rapist just wants normal sex, it is still rape if the other person does not agree to it. To mee it seems that amigocabal was denying that, and i vehemently disagree with that claim.

All the other stuff - that a person can under some circumstances (drugs, psychiatric issues etc.) not be held responsible for ones own action - is not what i am denying here.

[Losonti Tokash]

You cannot jail people for something they are not aware of unless they should have been aware of. That too is a staple of legal tradition.

People get punished for breaking laws they were ignorant of all the time, though?

[The Yosemite Bear]

also law books there is abig differnce between sexual harrassment (how did you make the other party feel) and rape.unlawful intercourse through force or threat or with a person not capable of giving concious consent)

[The Yosemite Bear]

or a better analogy closer to the op and serafina's point, college party someone has added drugs to the communal drink bowl, 19 yearold female is very intoxicated without knowing it, 19 yearold male is somewhat intoxicated without knowing it. because of societal rules boy thinks sex with clearly wasted girl is consentual, and doesn't have awareness to know that he's committing rape of an unconcious person. underr CAb dram laws, the people hosting the party are at fault for the guests levelof intoxicaqtrion.

[eion]

Okay, I feel we're mixing our arguments here. Let me see if I can clear myself up here and make myself look less like the rape enabler you all seem to think I am.

One, I am not talking about a situation in which a victim consents to sex under duress to prevent violence. That is an astoundingly clear case of rape. Whether a victim can make such a judgment based solely on otherwise casual actions like an arm on the shoulder, or leaning over someone I am unsure about, but I shall defer to the life experiences of others on that. What I am talking about is retroactive rape. Where a person gave their meaningful consent (meaning they actually wanted to engage in the act) and later regrets the action and so retroactively withdraws the consent and insists they were forced to participate. How does one easily distinguish between the two? I have no idea, but it does indeed happen and innocent people (Well, men since 99% of reported rape perpetrators are male) go to prison because of it. That’s why I thought victim was a loaded word because it is for retroactive rape. There was no victim, only a person who didn’t want to take responsibility for their actions.

Two, Broomstick. All those scenarios you described are violations of sexual harassment laws under the hostile workplace conditions. Employers can be held liable for the actions of their customers if they are aware, or should be aware of such actions (Lockard v. Pizza Hut, 162 F.3d 1062, 1073). If your employer has stated that accepting the repeated and hostile unwanted advances of a customer is a condition of employment, or just turns a blind eye to it, then I wish you well in your action against them and congratulations on owning your own shoe repair shop

Three, Sexual Harassment as a legal definition is about mandatory interaction. In order to sexual harass someone, I have to have either authority over them, or someone else who has authority over both of us must allow the harassment to take place as a condition of employment. You cannot sexually harass a total stranger on the street, because nothing is preventing that person from leaving the area (you can sexually harass a clerk in a shop, but barring any other crimes you commit while doing so the employer would be the one responsible) If I then grabbed the person and continued to make sexual advances, or otherwise prevented them from leaving, then we're in attempted rape territory, but no sexual harassment ever took place.

Four, if we want to dive into the rape culture, then we can start talking about the blind eye still turned to male on male rape. Prison rape is almost entirely unprosecuted. You want to talk about a culture in which rape is not a crime? And that’s before we start talking about how police still treat gay domestic violence different from heterosexual DV. But you’ll say, “But we think all rape should be prosecuted.” Okay, fine, tell that to the culture.

Five, a little legalism is a good thing, since we are talking about crimes

(a) Rape.— Any person subject to this chapter who causes another person of any age to engageing a sexual act by—
(1) using force against that other person;
(2) causing grievous bodily harm to any person;
(3) threatening or placing that other person in fear that any person will be subjected to death, grievous bodily harm, or kidnapping;
(4) rendering another person unconscious; or
(5) administering to another person by force or threat of force, or without the knowledge or permission of that person, a drug, intoxicant, or other similar substance and thereby substantially impairs the ability of that other person to appraise or control conduct;[2]

Now I assume that “putting your shoulder around someone” would fall under (3), but I would hope that the victim would have other signs that violence would occur should they try to leave besides just an arm around the shoulder. My personally favorite part of Rape law discontinuity is that if I physically tie you down and rape you I can get life in prison, if I slip you a muscle relaxer and then rape your while you are unable to resist then I can only get 15 years.

[Serafina]

One, I am not talking about a situation in which a victim consents to sex under duress to prevent violence. That is an astoundingly clear case of rape. Whether a victim can make such a judgment based solely on otherwise casual actions like an arm on the shoulder, or leaning over someone I am unsure about, but I shall defer to the life experiences of others on that. What I am talking about is retroactive rape. Where a person gave their meaningful consent (meaning they actually wanted to engage in the act) and later regrets the action and so retroactively withdraws the consent and insists they were forced to participate. How does one easily distinguish between the two? I have no idea, but it does indeed happen and innocent people (Well, men since 99% of reported rape perpetrators are male) go to prison because of it. That’s why I thought victim was a loaded word because it is for retroactive rape. There was no victim, only a person who didn’t want to take responsibility for their actions.

Yet another perfect example for Rape Culture:
Because actually, what you describe here happens very very rarely - rape is falsely reported less often than most other crimes.

And what you are doing here is a huge part of rape culture - because that notion leads to huge social pressure against rape victims, because in the most common instance of rape - by people the victim knows - there will be a lot of societal pressure and assumptions that she's just claiming it was rape, attempting to smear the rapist and so on and so forth. It's a major reason why rape is so rarely reported.

Also - neither your statements nor the context did in any way show that you were supposedly talking about false accusations. So much in fact that i smell backpedalling.

Four, if we want to dive into the rape culture, then we can start talking about the blind eye still turned to male on male rape. Prison rape is almost entirely unprosecuted. You want to talk about a culture in which rape is not a crime? And that’s before we start talking about how police still treat gay domestic violence different from heterosexual DV. But you’ll say, “But we think all rape should be prosecuted.” Okay, fine, tell that to the culture.

Guess what, that's ALSO part of Rape Culture - and is in fact regularly mentioned in feminist discussions of the topic.

[eion]

Yet another perfect example for Rape Culture:
Because actually, what you describe here happens very very rarely - rape is falsely reported less often than most other crimes.

I've seen reasonable statistics anywhere from 1.5% to 8% (The FBI's rather consistent number over the years) of reported rapes as "unfounded", which is very much different from "untrue", but still has some use. False accusations for other crimes in the same report are around 2%. So rare, but still existent, and at least as common as false accusations for other crimes, and possibly higher.

And what you are doing here is a huge part of rape culture - because that notion leads to huge social pressure against rape victims, because in the most common instance of rape - by people the victim knows - there will be a lot of societal pressure and assumptions that she's just claiming it was rape, attempting to smear the rapist and so on and so forth. It's a major reason why rape is so rarely reported.

Yes, Rape is very underreported. But along with the societal pressure to underreport rape, there is also the societal pressure on women to abstain from casual sex. Both have an effect on the actual rates of rape vs. the reported rates of rape.

Also - neither your statements nor the context did in any way show that you were supposedly talking about false accusations. So much in fact that i smell backpedalling.

Lots of boys have consideration, but being young their hormones run away with them. And the same is quite often true of girls. They let their hormones get the best of them and perhaps sleep with a guy they wish later they hadn't. And so they convince themselves that they were in some way forced or coerced. And so we’ve taken a regretted, but entirely consensual encounter, and rounded it up to rape.

My fifth post in this thread. I am not backpedaling.

Four, if we want to dive into the rape culture, then we can start talking about the blind eye still turned to male on male rape. Prison rape is almost entirely unprosecuted. You want to talk about a culture in which rape is not a crime? And that’s before we start talking about how police still treat gay domestic violence different from heterosexual DV. But you’ll say, “But we think all rape should be prosecuted.” Okay, fine, tell that to the culture.

Guess what, that's ALSO part of Rape Culture - and is in fact regularly mentioned in feminist discussions of the topic.

I'll take your word for it, being a male I'm not regularly invited to the feminist discussions. Which ought not to be construed as a disagreement with feminist objectives, so long as the goal is equality, not matriarchy I am all for it.

I have a little diagnostic question for those who think I’m way out of line. Boy and Girl, in a dorm room. Making out, Groping, etc. Pants come off. More making out. Boy, without any verbal question, gently puts his hand on the back of Girl’s neck, and gently guides her down to his crotch. She does not resist his guiding hand or say “no”. Fellatio ensues, and a good time is had by all, apparently. Later, Girl says she was forced. Is this rape? If she resisted in some way, Boy let up, but then they continued to make out, and later Boy guided her down again and she allowed it this time, could she later claim rape?

[Thanas]

You cannot jail people for something they are not aware of unless they should have been aware of. That too is a staple of legal tradition.

People get punished for breaking laws they were ignorant of all the time, though?

Bolding mine.

Also you are messing two things up.

[Stark]

Are you aware date rape often involves no violence, and is 'merely' a case of men applying pressure on women? Where do you think the whole 'no means no' thing came from - men listening to women refusing sex?

I'm not sure what the word root for a crime has to do with its legal definition. The word root can never change, but the legal definition is changing all the time.

[The Yosemite Bear]

note the term can more easily described to us guys as "Blame the victim", She was wearing provocative clothes, he shouldn't have been smoking that one joint.

[Academia Nut]

It's actually shifting to "Yes means yes". In Canada at least, consent is defined in the positive sense in that it's not enough to not say 'No', but a 'Yes' is required and can be withdrawn at any time. If at any time a person loses the capacity to say 'Yes' then consent is automatically withdrawn and any sexual activity is legally rape. Now, while the enforcement of these laws is still badly lacking, this means that lack of positive encouragement towards activity is sexual assault here. So yeah, this is something that basically everyone needs to know about considering that it is the law and therefore any lack of knowledge on the matter is an educational, and thus cultural issue.

In Canada at least.

[Stark]

That's a pretty interesting idea. I imagine it helps to make rape less difficult to prosecute, but it leaves the power asymmetry of intimidated women alone with a man and deciding to blow them just to get out of that situation.

Then again I've heard people seriously say that going on a date is implied consent for sex, and consent cannot be revoked during the date, so our culture is fucked.

[Losonti Tokash]

You cannot jail people for something they are not aware of unless they should have been aware of. That too is a staple of legal tradition.

People get punished for breaking laws they were ignorant of all the time, though?

Bolding mine.

Yeah, I saw that bolded part, that's why I quoted it. But I don't see how it's relevant here, unless you're arguing people shouldn't need to be aware that coercing someone into sex is rape.

[Block]

It's actually shifting to "Yes means yes". In Canada at least, consent is defined in the positive sense in that it's not enough to not say 'No', but a 'Yes' is required and can be withdrawn at any time. If at any time a person loses the capacity to say 'Yes' then consent is automatically withdrawn and any sexual activity is legally rape. Now, while the enforcement of these laws is still badly lacking, this means that lack of positive encouragement towards activity is sexual assault here. So yeah, this is something that basically everyone needs to know about considering that it is the law and therefore any lack of knowledge on the matter is an educational, and thus cultural issue.

In Canada at least.

The problem with this is where do you draw the line for capacity to say yes? One drink? Two? Slurred speech? Unconsciousness? Obviously the last one is a clear determiner, but other than that you're basically taking away all possibility of sex in a normal social setting, unless you're going to start banning alcohol. For example, in California you can't legally give consent if you're under the influence, well that means millions of rapes happen every night, and will continue to happen unless men are trained to ask if sex is ok at the beginning of a date, which is of course ridiculous.

[Block]

People get punished for breaking laws they were ignorant of all the time, though?

Bolding mine.

Yeah, I saw that bolded part, that's why I quoted it. But I don't see how it's relevant here, unless you're arguing people shouldn't need to be aware that coercing someone into sex is rape.

How does one know they're coercing someone if the girl doesn't speak up or in any way resist?

edit: Further, how can someone be reasonably expected to know? I mean I think I've had one girlfriend say offhand when we were watching tv, "You always have my implied consent unless I specifically say no," but generally it's never even come up.

[Stark]

What it means is that if you are in doubt, DON'T FUCK SOMEONE. It means 'someone curled around the toilet seat said sex was ok as they vomited' isn't an excuse. For any law around consent, its pretty obvious the limits of ability to give consent are pretty important.

And if the net result is people dating women they don't know very well start avoiding the wholesale consumption of alcohol, I'd argue that's a pretty positive result. Laws about rape and sexual assault shouldn't be designed to make men feel safer about risk-taking behaviour that puts women at risk anyway.

EDIT oh derrrrrrrr

[Block]

What it means is that if you are in doubt, DON'T FUCK SOMEONE. It means 'someone curled around the toilet seat said sex was ok as they vomited' isn't an excuse. For any law around consent, its pretty obvious the limits of ability to give consent are pretty important.

And if the net result is people dating women they don't know very well start avoiding the wholesale consumption of alcohol, I'd argue that's a pretty positive result. Laws about rape and sexual assault shouldn't be designed to make men feel safer about risk-taking behaviour that puts women at risk anyway.

EDIT oh derrrrrrrr

That's a whole other level than what I'm talking about Stark, and I would be perfectly fine if less alcohol were consumed in general, but it's pretty obvious that legislating that hasn't really worked in the past. The whole frat boy fuck a girl who's barely conscious thing is clearly wrong and needs to be punished, but again, saying that a single drink taking away the legal ability of someone to consent seems excessive to me. Especially in the context of a relationship, where a lot of women would be upset if you turned down sex because they're too drunk.

[Stark]

I don't even know what you're talking about. Are you saying you believe laws exist which make having sex with your wife after she has had a glass of wine rape?

Seriously now. How do these fears of yours even relate to the cultural power disparity that leads to women's organisations simply telling women to never be alone with a man if you don't think they'd take no for an answer?

[Block]

I don't even know what you're talking about. Are you saying you believe laws exist which make having sex with your wife after she has had a glass of wine rape?

Seriously now.

Yuh, California's laws on consent are written that they can be interpreted as such depending on the judge. The way AN just described Canada's law on permission it could be read the same way.

[Block]

How do these fears of yours even relate to the cultural power disparity that leads to women's organisations simply telling women to never be alone with a man if you don't think they'd take no for an answer?

I think that's more of a safety concern no? If you don't think that person will take no for an answer, your physical safety depends on not being alone with that person, I'm not sure what that has to do with a cultural power disparity.

[Thanas]

Are you aware date rape often involves no violence, and is 'merely' a case of men applying pressure on women? Where do you think the whole 'no means no' thing came from - men listening to women refusing sex?

In all those cases the perpetrator involved is aware that he is doing things against the victim's will or without consent. unlike what serafina was arguing for. So yes, I am very aware of that.

[Stark]

Oh I see we're just talking about your personal paranoia. Steering the conversation back to protecting women from sexual assault...

I don't think you understand the issue, and thanks for splitting my post, I appreciate it. Women at risk are taught that trusting men is not the default position and that they are not safe unless they others create a safe 'space' for them to be in. Do you seriously not understand what this means, or what it says about rape and our culture? Women in many situations are at risk, not because what they are doing is risky, but because BEING WITH A MAN is risky. As a man I don't have to deal with the idea of constantly having to conduct myself in a way to reduce the chance of being sexually assaulted.

EDIT - cool Thanas I wasn't sure where the discussion was at