I would add: the ability to have a discussion purely in theoryland about such subjects (rape, racism, heterocentricity, transphobia, whatever) is a pretty sure sign that the person in question doesn't have to wrestle with the problem on an intimate personal level. "This is just an abstract, theoretical conversation" not only doesn't play with actual life stuff, it can't; as soon as real people with actual experiences come into play, the theory needs to be tested against reality, and if reality conflicts, the theory has to go.
And part of the cost of being those people with actual experiences is being told by the people with the theories that those experiences are atypical, exceptional, don't count, didn't happen the way they were reported, or, as in this case, that mentioning those experiences is a sign that we are too emotional to have the conversation in the first place.
I am glad that other people took up the conversation, honestly, and were competent to express the points that I felt needed to be made; I am not someone who is well-suited to teasing out alternate interpretations of theories that appear to me to be primarily about making space to blame victims of crimes for allowing themselves to have been harmed.
Looking at some quoted phrasing, meanwhile, there's an interesting and relevant question:
Who determines that people are "participants in a sexual situation"?
I know in my own experience with assault and harassment, the "sexual situation" was something that was created externally and inflicted upon me from the outside. I was not a "participant in a sexual situation" any more than the victim of a pickpocket is a "participant in an act of commerce".
I'm entirely willing to grant that participants in a sexual situation have some level of reasonable obligation to communicate about their boundaries, but that still does not cover situations in which nonparticipants are dragged into such a situation. This isn't even getting into the question of whether or not those nonparticipants are capable of expressing consent clearly - it's noting that one person's sexual desire does not obligate anyone else to perform.
The idea that someone can unilaterally create a "sexual situation" that conveys obligations on other people is one I think ... dangerous.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regna
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-19 01:34 am (UTC)I would add: the ability to have a discussion purely in theoryland about such subjects (rape, racism, heterocentricity, transphobia, whatever) is a pretty sure sign that the person in question doesn't have to wrestle with the problem on an intimate personal level. "This is just an abstract, theoretical conversation" not only doesn't play with actual life stuff, it can't; as soon as real people with actual experiences come into play, the theory needs to be tested against reality, and if reality conflicts, the theory has to go.
And part of the cost of being those people with actual experiences is being told by the people with the theories that those experiences are atypical, exceptional, don't count, didn't happen the way they were reported, or, as in this case, that mentioning those experiences is a sign that we are too emotional to have the conversation in the first place.
I am glad that other people took up the conversation, honestly, and were competent to express the points that I felt needed to be made; I am not someone who is well-suited to teasing out alternate interpretations of theories that appear to me to be primarily about making space to blame victims of crimes for allowing themselves to have been harmed.
Looking at some quoted phrasing, meanwhile, there's an interesting and relevant question:
Who determines that people are "participants in a sexual situation"?
I know in my own experience with assault and harassment, the "sexual situation" was something that was created externally and inflicted upon me from the outside. I was not a "participant in a sexual situation" any more than the victim of a pickpocket is a "participant in an act of commerce".
I'm entirely willing to grant that participants in a sexual situation have some level of reasonable obligation to communicate about their boundaries, but that still does not cover situations in which nonparticipants are dragged into such a situation. This isn't even getting into the question of whether or not those nonparticipants are capable of expressing consent clearly - it's noting that one person's sexual desire does not obligate anyone else to perform.
The idea that someone can unilaterally create a "sexual situation" that conveys obligations on other people is one I think ... dangerous.