You seem to be indicating that, in the case of a woman and a man involved in sexual activity, the woman need give no express indication to the man that she does not want to participate in that activity yet may consider herself to be raped nonetheless.
My issues with this are severalfold:
First of all, you're suggesting that all women should live with the expectation that they do not have to say no if they don't want to have sex. This idea seems to me liable to create many more heterosexual rapes than it could prevent. Words remain a far more effective means of communication than telepathy.
Second, you're turning all heterosexual sex into potential rape. That opens up a cultural ground we shouldn't set foot upon: if a woman can decide that she was raped after the fact when she did not say no at the time, and that woman is fully supported in her decision, she actually loses some of her power to control her own body. Instead of, "I made a bad decision," a self-controlled thought that leads to determination to say no next time, she may instead think, "I am a victim," which leads to any number of psychological problems.
Third, we have enough issues with sex in this culture. If, as I mentioned above, all heterosexual sex becomes potential rape, that is a backwards step in our progress towards doing away with those issues. I can't imagine the numbers of men and women who would develop neuroses from not knowing whether the sexual activity they'd participated in constituted rape. How many would wonder if the sex about which they fantasized was of rape? How many would blame and guilt themselves for that?
Side note: how long before what constituted rape became so ambiguous that we started "protecting" women from rape by creating new social or legal restrictions on sex?
Fourth, and last for right now, if we accept that a woman may determine herself to be/have been raped without having said no, we do indeed take into account that the man may have pressured her into sex in such a way that she felt unable to refuse. However, there's also a possibility you're overlooking that she may be forced later by other social pressures into believing and/or saying that she was raped.
I'm aware that I'm not addressing rape or sexual assault in which a woman attacks a man or one member of a sex attacks another, and I ask pardon in that; I am entirely willing to discuss it, but the example given above made me think of a general case involving male attacks against females.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-18 05:58 am (UTC)My issues with this are severalfold:
First of all, you're suggesting that all women should live with the expectation that they do not have to say no if they don't want to have sex. This idea seems to me liable to create many more heterosexual rapes than it could prevent. Words remain a far more effective means of communication than telepathy.
Second, you're turning all heterosexual sex into potential rape. That opens up a cultural ground we shouldn't set foot upon: if a woman can decide that she was raped after the fact when she did not say no at the time, and that woman is fully supported in her decision, she actually loses some of her power to control her own body. Instead of, "I made a bad decision," a self-controlled thought that leads to determination to say no next time, she may instead think, "I am a victim," which leads to any number of psychological problems.
Third, we have enough issues with sex in this culture. If, as I mentioned above, all heterosexual sex becomes potential rape, that is a backwards step in our progress towards doing away with those issues. I can't imagine the numbers of men and women who would develop neuroses from not knowing whether the sexual activity they'd participated in constituted rape. How many would wonder if the sex about which they fantasized was of rape? How many would blame and guilt themselves for that?
Side note: how long before what constituted rape became so ambiguous that we started "protecting" women from rape by creating new social or legal restrictions on sex?
Fourth, and last for right now, if we accept that a woman may determine herself to be/have been raped without having said no, we do indeed take into account that the man may have pressured her into sex in such a way that she felt unable to refuse. However, there's also a possibility you're overlooking that she may be forced later by other social pressures into believing and/or saying that she was raped.
I'm aware that I'm not addressing rape or sexual assault in which a woman attacks a man or one member of a sex attacks another, and I ask pardon in that; I am entirely willing to discuss it, but the example given above made me think of a general case involving male attacks against females.