I think that you and cshiley may have had different mental pictures of what was going on in this hypothetical situation. I think that it can clearly be rape, or at the very least have a lot of the same psychological interactions, in a situation like this:
Person A approaches person B and starts having a conversation. The two chat pleasantly, and then all of the sudden person A starts fondling/kissing person B. Person B starts to panic: sweating, trembling, being unable to form words, breathing heavily. Person A says "Oh great, they're into it!" and that's totally a misreading.
When this happened to me, Person A even asked at some point "Is this OK with you?" I tried so hard to say no, but it didn't come out. The experience did, in fact, give me tremendous determination to say no next time (not that it stopped the next person when I did say no, but at least I did) but I don't think calling that rape lost me power to control my own body, I think having a panic attack lost me control over my own body. Saying after the fact "I didn't want that" and working to be able to say it more clearly the next time actually gained me control in a way I think was productive even if I wish I hadn't had to do it in that way.
This particular situation might have been solved by the "enthusiastic consent" model --- you aren't just stopping if you hear no, you are only going when you hear yes. I've found this helpful when I've explored more twitchy or challenging stuff with partners; I don't think it's a solution to rape culture but it's something worth keeping in mind.
In terms of whether something like the situation I described should legally be considered rape? God, I don't know. Maybe this is an issue of separate, overlapping conversations where how people feel about things could be the same but what we do about them could be different?
How many would wonder if the sex about which they fantasized was of rape? How many would blame and guilt themselves for that?
no subject
Person A approaches person B and starts having a conversation. The two chat pleasantly, and then all of the sudden person A starts fondling/kissing person B. Person B starts to panic: sweating, trembling, being unable to form words, breathing heavily. Person A says "Oh great, they're into it!" and that's totally a misreading.
When this happened to me, Person A even asked at some point "Is this OK with you?" I tried so hard to say no, but it didn't come out. The experience did, in fact, give me tremendous determination to say no next time (not that it stopped the next person when I did say no, but at least I did) but I don't think calling that rape lost me power to control my own body, I think having a panic attack lost me control over my own body. Saying after the fact "I didn't want that" and working to be able to say it more clearly the next time actually gained me control in a way I think was productive even if I wish I hadn't had to do it in that way.
This particular situation might have been solved by the "enthusiastic consent" model --- you aren't just stopping if you hear no, you are only going when you hear yes. I've found this helpful when I've explored more twitchy or challenging stuff with partners; I don't think it's a solution to rape culture but it's something worth keeping in mind.
In terms of whether something like the situation I described should legally be considered rape? God, I don't know. Maybe this is an issue of separate, overlapping conversations where how people feel about things could be the same but what we do about them could be different?
How many would wonder if the sex about which they fantasized was of rape? How many would blame and guilt themselves for that?
Some of us are already there.