NYTime debate: Women, Alcohol and Rape advice

[2xx1xy1JD]

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/20 ... g-and-rape

Here's what I plan to advise my kids:

1. Alcohol can impair your judgment, it can reduce your inhibitions and it can cause you to blackout.

2. There are consequences to your actions, even if you are drunk. Never drink and drive - it's dangerous and it's a crime. Never do anything else that is dangerous or criminal, because the fact that you are drunk is no excuse. This includes sexually harassing or sexually assaulting anyone, of either gender.

3. Sex is only okay if it's with consent. Consent means that the person is old enough to give consent, that they are reasonably sober, that they can understand the nature and consequences of what they are doing, that there is no abuse of trust or power imbalance, and that nobody is being coerced.

4. Consent is an ongoing process. Someone may say no at any stage, and must be able to say no at any stage.

5. Unfortunately, there are people in this world that are not decent, who will deliberately look for people who are in a vulnerable position because they want to have sex even if someone isn't giving consent. This means:

a. You should be aware of anything that may put you in a more vulnerable position. Drinking can make you vulnerable. There is also a risk that a rapist could drug you.

b. You should be aware situations that could put anyone else into a vulnerable position. This could be anything from being a patient, to being a student, to being served by a religious leader, to being a foster child, to having developmental delays, to being intoxicated. It is your moral responsibility to (1) make sure that you never take advantage of someone in a vulnerable position, and (2) that you do whatever you can to ensure that anyone else in a vulnerable position is protected.

This advice will be given to both my girls and my boy.

[doggie]

very good advice.

[RosyDaisy]

From a link on that page:

Our unwillingness to confront men lets this behavior, born of a sense of entitlement and misplaced ideas of what constitutes power, go unchecked. If we stopped blaming binge drinking (or short skirts, or too-high heels, etc.) we could concentrate on having men not just understand that “no means no,†and that all forms of sexual contact require consent, but also learn to reject that force, domination and coercion are natural markers of masculinity and manhood. Until we reckon with those concepts, women will continue being expected to prevent their own rapes.

And the longer we are stuck there, the more we eliminate men from the equation, the further we get from a day when rape and sexual assault are relics of history.

:clap: :clap: :clap: AMEN!!! It is way beyond time we confronted men for their actions and stopped blaming victims.

[thekate]

I read that Slate article that started this whole thing and groaned. As in, it made sense, sort of, from a self-preservation aspect, but victim-blamed and did nothing to actually reduce rapes or rape culture.

This article refuted everything that made me feel icky about it in a much better way with words than I could formulate: http://jezebel.com/how-to-write-about-r ... 1446529386

Also, I don't know why she seems so sure that curtailing female drinking is the sexual assault cure-all. After all, being sober did not prevent her from being sexually assaulted multiple times. http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/ ... lice_.html

(links not broken because, well, it's Jezebel and Slate.)

ETA: Rereading the "My Molesters" story, it's amazing how much she goes out of her way to portray them as "not that bad."

Fortunately for me, my perpetrators were neither rapists nor the kinds of hardcore predators who pick children who are too young, or too vulnerable, to escape.

How does she know that? Just because she happened to escape before it got to "rape" doesn't mean she was the only one they tried this shit on. Does she really think all 3 picked only her? Two paragraphs later, she even says,

The likelihood is that the person who has done it will do it again.

She is not someone who should be writing an advice column, especially since it appears she has a lot of internalized misogyny.

[JesusFightClub]

thekate. +1million.

These people seem to have a really bizarre image of how sexual assault and rape actually happen.

To me, preventing rape is quite simple.

Scenario 1: You're really attracted to someone. That person's had quite a bit to drink. They seem to be both offering themself to you and drifting in and out of consciousness. You say no, because you aren't sure that s/he is consenting. You help them to a safe place.

Scenario 2: The person has passed out either because they were feeling sleepy, because they were drunk or because they were on drugs, or for any other reason. You refrain from having sex with them, however much you want to, because they cannot consent. You help them to a safe place.

Scenario 3: You aren't sure of the person's consent. S/he is saying "Yes! No,I don't want to! Yes! Ummm...". This isn't a scenario planned in advance. You decline to have sex because you are unsure and this isn't usually how you get into it.

Scenario 4: The person says no. You don't want to hear "No". You really want to have sex with the person. However, you respect that no means no and do not persist. This also applies when you know that you have terrified the person so much s/he cannot say no but would not welcome your advances.

Scenario 5: The person says yes. However, it is wrong to ask that person or accept their reply as s/he cannot legally consent. You then back away and do not have sex with that person.

How difficult is this?

[Angharad Crewe]

thekate. +1million.

These people seem to have a really bizarre image of how sexual assault and rape actually happen.

To me, preventing rape is quite simple.

Scenario 1: You're really attracted to someone. That person's had quite a bit to drink. They seem to be both offering themself to you and drifting in and out of consciousness. You say no, because you aren't sure that s/he is consenting. You help them to a safe place.

Scenario 2: The person has passed out either because they were feeling sleepy, because they were drunk or because they were on drugs, or for any other reason. You refrain from having sex with them, however much you want to, because they cannot consent. You help them to a safe place.

Scenario 3: You aren't sure of the person's consent. S/he is saying "Yes! No,I don't want to! Yes! Ummm...". This isn't a scenario planned in advance. You decline to have sex because you are unsure and this isn't usually how you get into it.

Scenario 4: The person says no. You don't want to hear "No". You really want to have sex with the person. However, you respect that no means no and do not persist. This also applies when you know that you have terrified the person so much s/he cannot say no but would not welcome your advances.

Scenario 5: The person says yes. However, it is wrong to ask that person or accept their reply as s/he cannot legally consent. You then back away and do not have sex with that person.

How difficult is this?

The problem with scenario 5 is that it is difficult to show after the fact that it was sexual assault when there was verbal and possibly enthusiastic non-verbal consent. And when both parties are so drunk that they are incapable of making good decisions, it gets more muddled.

[JesusFightClub]

In 5, I'm talking about people who cannot legally consent. Children, or those below the age of consent, would be an example of that.

[Angharad Crewe]

In 5, I'm talking about people who cannot legally consent. Children, or those below the age of consent, would be an example of that.

Thanks for clarifying. Scenario 5 with a drunk girl instead of a child/comatose person is a meme that shows up on MRA sites a lot as "proof" that false rape accusations happen so often that literally millions of men are in prison because a tipsy girl consented and regretted it the next day. Then again, MRAs like Judgy Bitch think that it's okay to have sex with consenting 13 year olds, so I think they are a lost cause either way. :roll:

[JesusFightClub]

Thanks for clarifying. Scenario 5 with a drunk girl instead of a child/comatose person is a meme that shows up on MRA sites a lot as "proof" that false rape accusations happen so often that literally millions of men are in prison because a tipsy girl consented and regretted it the next day. Then again, MRAs like Judgy Bitch think that it's okay to have sex with consenting 13 year olds, so I think they are a lost cause either way. :roll:

Totally agree. Some people are just...worrying.

The tipsy girl regretting it thing is so weird, because I'm not sure about the US, but over here getting a rape conviction is extremely difficult, and when it's one person's word against another, near impossible. If it was "tipsy but willing girl wakes up after night of passion and decides to destroy man's life due to vague feeling of regret and FEMINISM" it simply wouldn't make it to court. The Crown would decline to prosecute.

That's even after you set aside the fact that rape trials are gruelling and pitiless for both parties. It's not something to undergo lightly after sex which wasn't much fun or which you reckoned afterwards that on balance, you'd rather not have had.

Of course no-one would say that there are no false rape allegations, clearly there are. However, if the fiscal won't prosecute, MRAs presume declining to prosecute means that the woman was lying and the fiscal found her out, and prosecution means that the woman lied so well that they didn't find her out. If a rape trial proceeds to a conviction, if it wasn't "The Textbook Rape"* then the jury were influenced by feminism and an innocent man has gone to jail, if the defendant is found not guilty then an evil woman lied and should be sent to jail herself. IOW, the presumption is always that rape almost never happens and women almost always lie.

* "The Textbook Rape" is when it was clearly a rape, OF COURSE. The victim is white, middle-class, preferably a virgin, but if not, she is a married woman who wed her high-school sweetheart. She is young and attractive but sensibly dressed and is shopping (or performing some other feminine chore) in broad daylight. Unfortunately she walks past a bush, behind which lurks a slavering rape-monster. He overpowers her and spirits her away before anyone can hear her cries, and then rapes her violently and repeatedly. She manages to escape and straight away goes to a police station where she reports the crime. Any rape which differs from this script in any way is by definition Not a Real Rape.