It's a really, really good meme to spread that rape is not about sex. It's important for changing the social narrative from "Oh he was just horny" to "He was a criminal". I don't think this culture is ready to step away from that meme.
Oh, I definitely think it's an important meme. I was just trying to explain how I think it becomes problematical as we expand the definition of rape to include all types of sexual activity where the sex-ee feels violated even when sex-or did not intend so. Which I think you've described pretty well in your following paragraph. My personal preferred solution would be that we call the situations where it's not clearly about violence and power something other than rape. But nobody gave me control of the english language yet :)
Is this possibly another area where the experience for the sex-or and the sex-ee can be quite different, so that for one it's the sex and for the other it's about the loss of power/control/agency?
Definitely. I can specifically think of someone I know trying to explain that "I was raped but the person who did it was not a rapist" and that this was a very difficult concept for most people to understand. I don't want to go into any more detail on that example though for fear of violating confidences.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-19 12:08 am (UTC)Oh, I definitely think it's an important meme. I was just trying to explain how I think it becomes problematical as we expand the definition of rape to include all types of sexual activity where the sex-ee feels violated even when sex-or did not intend so. Which I think you've described pretty well in your following paragraph. My personal preferred solution would be that we call the situations where it's not clearly about violence and power something other than rape. But nobody gave me control of the english language yet :)
Is this possibly another area where the experience for the sex-or and the sex-ee can be quite different, so that for one it's the sex and for the other it's about the loss of power/control/agency?
Definitely. I can specifically think of someone I know trying to explain that "I was raped but the person who did it was not a rapist" and that this was a very difficult concept for most people to understand. I don't want to go into any more detail on that example though for fear of violating confidences.