Deconstructing Rape Myths: On Short Skirts (On Lesbians)
A couple weeks ago on the Sexist, we discussed why wearing a short skirt is not an invitation to be raped. Still, doubts lingered. The two main arguments for why women must still protect themselves from rape by ditching the short skirt:
a) Rape is just one big misunderstanding. The proponents of this argument believe that women who wear short skirts are signaling that they are interested in sex. Therefore, rapists will naturally gravitate to these women and proceed to fuck them without their consent, because, hey—the skirt already gave them the go-ahead.
b) Short skirts are just too sexy to resist. According to this view, rapists are well aware that every woman in a miniskirt isn’t down to fuck. But they just can’t help themselves when they catch sight of those gams, so be a good girl and don’t tempt the rapist.
Let’s see if we can’t address both of these theories at once with the help of star commenter Frankie.
Here’s the situation: Frankie was giving her girlfriend a good-night kiss when three men attempted to intercept the PDA. She writes:
After walking [my then-girlfriend] home, three guys who were hanging out around the block of flats where she lived approached . . . I think it was pretty obvious we were a couple, as not only were our arms around each other but they’d just watched us kissing.
“Hey, do you have boyfriends?”
My girlfriend looked confused. “No. I’m a lesbian”
“So you won’t show my friend some love then?”
“No.”
They shouted a few sexual comments as we walked off, until I shouted back. “Lesbians means no fucking men. Literally.”
Their response? Weirdly, it was, “You’re just chicks with dicks anyway.”
Gay couples are not unaccustomed to this particular flavor of street harassment. “After speaking to a few of my friends about this, it seems I’m not alone in having this experience,” Frankie writes. “All of us have noticed that if out and about as part of an obvious same sex couple that we seem to attract more attention, and often that this attention is negative. However . . . if both members in the couple are conventionally ‘feminine’, by which I mean thin, average or short in height and dressed in ‘girly’ clothing, then that attention is nearly always from men and nearly always sexual in nature.”
Adds Frankie, “I think I have had a lot more hassle off guys trying to pick me up when I’ve been out in public with a girlfriend than when I’ve been out with a boyfriend, a group of friends or even on my own.”
What can account for this? There’s no “misunderstanding” of Frankie’s sexual willingness here—Frankie and her girlfriend were clearly demonstrating that they were exclusively interested in each other, not the men. It’s not that Frankie’s body was just too hot to be resisted—she experiences sexual harassment at a much higher rate when she’s clearly coupled up with another lady, and far less when she’s out alone (and, we can assume, equally attractive). Of course, Frankie’s harassers aren’t rapists (as far as we know), but they are exhibiting some analogous behavior—they are attempting to gain verbal sexual dominance over someone who clearly doesn’t want it. So, what is it?
Perhaps it’s time to float another theory: That some rapists rape because they see women (or gays, or trans people, or other groups who are marginalized) who have autonomy over their sexuality, and they just really, really hate them for that. They seek to return control of that sexuality to its rightful owners—heterosexual men.
The sexual advances Frankie has experienced are clearly hate-motivated. If she’s out in a same-sex couple that’s perceived as insufficiently feminine, she’ll get negative attention. If she’s out in a same-sex couple that’s perceived as fuckable by the standards of some heterosexual male passerby, she’ll get negative sexual attention. And if she dares to reject that negative sexual attention (”lesbians means no fucking men”), her harassers will compound the negative sexual attention with some good old-fashioned homophobia—and labor to place the women back in the “insufficiently feminine” zone (”you’re just chicks with dicks anyway”).
There is no confusion here; there is only hate. On a recent post, a commenter wrote: “If short skirts signal sexual willingness, then it is reasonable to hypothesize that women who wear short skirts are more likely to be raped.” In reality, “sexual willingness” is exactly the opposite of the signal that rapists are looking out for. If rapists zeroed in on sex partners who appeared to be “sexually willing,” then they would abandon their advances when the woman in the short skirt said “no,” or struggled to fight him off, or tried to escape. Instead, sexual rejection only fuels the hateful activity. It is the rapist’s desire to inflict pain upon people who are sexually unwilling.
That brings me to the third argument against women wearing short skirts that I’ve heard over and over again over the last couple weeks. It goes like this:
c) Short skirts prevent women from successfully prosecuting cases. These types claim not to believe that a woman who wears a short skirt is “asking for it.” However, they know that a lot of their fellow citizens do think this way—citizens who are likely to be sitting in the jury of a rape trial. So: If a woman is raped while wearing a short skirt, no one will believe her, and therefore wearing a short skirt is irresponsible. Women who want to protect themselves won’t wear short skirts.
I wonder what these people might tell someone like Frankie. Don’t date women, because it’s too dangerous? Date women, but don’t flaunt your queerness by kissing or holding hands, because it’s too dangerous? Don’t reject men’s sexual advances, because it’s too dangerous?
The reality is that the well-meaning types who propose solutions like (c) are no different from the rape apologists who perpetuate rape myths like (a) and (b). The end result is the same: They accommodate rapists by forcing women to arbitrarily modify perfectly reasonable behaviors (wearing a skirt, kissing other women in public)—and then discrediting rape victims’ legal cases by situating those perfectly reasonable behaviors as irresponsible. These attitudes only work to reinforce the rapist’s attitude toward his victims—that their sexuality needs to be controlled.
Don’t accommodate rapists.
12:35 pm
YES! A thousand times YES. I could not agree more – excusing and shifting the blame off of rapists (and rapey behavior) is FAR too common, and this is a well written piece breaking it down in no uncertain terms. Thank you!
12:54 pm
Your article proceeds from the false premise that rape is about sex. It’s not. Never has been. Never will be. Rape is a power game and although it’s executed sexually, it has nothing to do with sex or arousement.
1:24 pm
Blame Girls Gone Wild: Straight girls in short skirts (or less) engaging in suggestive PDAs with each other, for the purpose attracting male attention.
That’s what these guys thought of when they saw Frankie and her partner.
1:34 pm
Yes, Jordan, sometimes rape is about sex. Usually it’s not.
Also, the article is RIDICULOUS and sets up various straw man arguments.
Wear a miniskirt if you want, but realize, it puts you on the psycho radar. Do what you want with that knowledge.
1:46 pm
rape-apologist-argument-deconstruction articles: now with bonus rape apologists!
1:56 pm
I have to disagree with you John. I have been out with female friends and been accosted by men who thought two+ women together automatically = ladies cruisin’ for (their) boners. On one occasion, some young men were being intolerably aggressive. I am bi, my friend is not, but I lied and told them we were together, the strategy being they would lose interest and leave. (Yes, this was a stupid idea, but after three gin-and-tonics it *seemed* logical.)
Their response was similar, but to my mind much worse, to the one given Frankie & her partner: “You’ll like mean after I make you go down on me.”
I 100% agree with Amanda’s reading of this sort of response: a (straight) man sees a woman whose sexuality is not only “off-limits” to him *at that moment* but presumably *forever*, and that situation is intolerable to him. Yes, the young men I’m talking about were also drunk (we were at a bus stop on U street) and I think their sober-selves wouldn’t have said that, but I guarantee you they would have thought it.
2:02 pm
Yes! Another excellent article!
If rapists zeroed in on sex partners who appeared to be “sexually willing,” then they would abandon their advances when the woman in the short skirt said “no,” or struggled to fight him off, or tried to escape.
Perfect.
2:04 pm
And I’d add to K’s argument that the fault lies not with the often-intoxicated, often-underage, often-mislead women featured in Girls Gone Wild tapes, but with the straight dudes who presume that any two women together in a sexual context MUST be there for their enjoyment.
2:18 pm
@Jordan, I think you and Amanda are on the same page. I really don’t think that she is saying that rape is about sex. I think she is actually arguing against that claim.
For instance, she brings up the example of the lesbian couple being harrassed as just what you are saying: that them men feel like they can have control over the female couple’s sexuality, so they can say whatever they want. Or that the couple is there for their amusement. Or at least that’s what I got, and that may be because I have been in situations JUST like that before.
2:25 pm
You know, I totally agree with all of the logic behind this, but I tend to have trouble with this myself. Although I know it wouldn’t be my fault or anything wrong if I went out alone at night wearing something sexually provocative, I would honestly be scared. I think that’s the logic behind some people who advise women not to do so…
Anyone else a ’scaredy cat’ like me?
3:09 pm
“Some rapists rape because they see women (or gays, or trans people, or other groups who are marginalized) who have autonomy over their sexuality, and they just really, really hate them for that. They seek to return control of that sexuality to its rightful owners—heterosexual men.”
Bingo. Another post with which I couldn’t agree more. And the idea that lesbian couples don’t count as real couples, but are just there to be hot for guys, is disturbingly pervasive. I have a friend who’s bi who, when men hit on her in bars or whatever, would truthfully inform them “I have a girlfriend.” Rather than interpreting this to mean she was taken, they would be all like “do you guys want to have a threesome?” I suppose the idea is that you only have to leave an uninterested woman alone if she has a man around to kick your ass. Gross.
3:12 pm
I would be scared too, Nicole. Though that doesn’t make it right or mean that we SHOULD be scared. I think a large part of our fear comes from the idea that men’s sexuality is a force of nature that cannot and should not be reigned in and therefore, we must brace ourselves for what nature throws our way accordingly.
A rapist isn’t a hurricane. :/ Men have consciences and are just as capable of making decisions about their actions as women are.
3:50 pm
Perhaps these men act the way they do toward a lesbian couple because this isn’t a “man” in the mix for them to respect or intimidate. In my experience, as a mid 20’s man in a straight relationship, in a bar/club situation, men who are intimidated by me will immediately and strongly ignore my girlfriend when they determine she is with me, while men who are not intimidated by me will not. I find men who are this forward in their sexual advances don’t respect women.
4:17 pm
So, my comment has nothing to do with this article. Sorry about that.
I have been patiently waiting for someone (anyone) to at least mention that Ben Roethlisberger has been accused of rape. Again. He’s hired an attorney, even though he hasn’t been charged with anything. And it looks like it’s going to be a Kobe-type argument: he says it was consensual, she went rushing to the ER and cried for several hours after. With a bonus, she dropped out of college and moved back home. I…. don’t understand why no one is talking about this, outside of sports blogs and news releases. I’m guessing it’s because nobody has noticed. I hate to say it, but if this were a black athlete (say Ochocinco) on a first time accusation, it would be front page news (it might have even cut through all the Oscar crap at Jezebel and Salon). Or is it just that no one wants to discuss what seems to be a developing pattern? And I know, innocent until proven guilty. It should still be news. In fairness, I should point out that the comments on the sports blogs haven’t been by rape-apologists.
4:22 pm
@Mario – and similarly along those lines, these aggressive men are following the age-old tradition of thinking about women as some man’s property. If a woman has a male partner, she belongs to him, and it is up to the outside aggressor to determine if he either drops his pursuit in deference to the “owner,” or, like, fights the guy for “his woman.” In the case of lesbian couples, these men apparently get confused when there are *two* “belongings” and nobody to bestow the proper amount of male control over them.
6:29 pm
Don’t accommodate rapists.
HELL YES. Thank you Amanda. That is something our culture does constantly, and I’m so fucking sick of it.
Nicole – I have barely manageable anxiety problems so I feel uncomfortable anytime I’m out walking after dark. Actually, during the day too, if I’m alone. I go from “uncomfortable” to “freaked out” if I encounter male strangers or male police officers, which is like all the time, so it really sucks and I feel your pain.
But this fear doesn’t make me want to stay in the house, stay sober 24/7, and wear only abstinence-approved garb. It isn’t because of my attire or behavior, it isn’t because men are wild dogs or sadistic supalovahs, or anything else those rape apologists say. Sexual harassment and sexual assault are never the survivor’s fault. It is 100% the attacker’s fault, every single time. I hate rape culture, not my clothes.
7:54 pm
I’m with Jordan on this. The syllogism presented falls apart from lack of evidence. It’s about men wanting to return power to WASPs, or at least to males? Honto desu ka?
Or how about another possibility. rapists do it for their own evil, selfish, twisted, (did I mention evil?) motivations; and targets are picked for whatever motivates the individual rapists without any care about how it affects things larger than themselves(their in a major state of narcissistic behaviour).
Naw. It’s gotta be a conspiracy.
8:29 pm
Rape has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with power. A rapist is not interested in a relationship, just interested in conquest and creating fear in the process.
I honestly don’t know if men who cat call and harass women in bars, or anywhere for that matter, know that their unwanted attention creates discomfort and fear. If they do not know it, surely a woman’s simple “no” would be followed with a casual “OK” and the man would move on.
If men do know it and enjoy the discomfort and fear then there is potential for further harassment and even violence. Certainly alcohol or drug consumption can play a role in how a man acts and reacts. This seems to be mentioned less often than a woman’s consumption of substances. It seems that for men, it is an excuse and for women it is a reason.
I will admit these are just observations from what people describe and not my experience.
9:29 pm
People look sexy to attract other people, from those people who are interested they make their choice. For all those people who weren’t chosen they still gave visual pleasure so make them feel good.
Someone who looks sexy isn’t signalling they want sex with everyone any more than a shop displays it’s stock seductively so you can steal it all.
I find the notion that wearing a short skirt is asking to be raped totally outrageous.
9:47 pm
It’s so frustrating that these points have to be made over and over again and STILL people can’t sink it into their thick skulls.
this should really be part of the school curriculum at an earlier age (or ANY age) because it seems that by the time men and woman are in their twenties it is too late.
People say they are concerned about rape and harassment, school officials just love talking about how troubled they are by recent statistics, but instead of doing anything about it, like including it in the sex ed curriculum, they send out some stupid e-mail or flyer about how to protect yourself and avoid getting raped.
10:29 pm
For far too long women were seen as open holes, always ready to be used by men. To educate men to respect the fact that gratuitous sex is not a right they have over women takes more than half a century of laws regarding rape.
The fact that the legal system makes criminals “innocent until proven guilty” doesn’t help much either. It just reinforces that the victim has to prove what happened, in most cases, the women has to prove that she was raped and that she did not consent. If the tables were turn and the aggressor had to prove he didn’t rape the victim, rape would be seen a lot differently. Instead of always focusing on the victim with questions like: did she enjoyed it, did she hint towards wanting sex, did she dressed in a sexy way and whatever. We would be analyzing the aggressor: what was his state of mind, what hinted you towards wanting sex, what is his marital status etc etc
I just think it’s about time we start being interested by questions like; Who rapes and why? Why not masturbate?
We’ve taught women to respect themselves, to carry pepper-spray, to be ready to run, to always think of the possibility of an assault. Now it’s time for the men who respect and love women to teach other men that it’s not an option, ever. That women really don’t enjoy being forced into. That consent is needed at all steps in a sexual relationship. That women are no longer open holes who spread their legs at command!
12:59 am
@Nicole – Yep. I wear conservative clothing because it’s comfortable, functional, often lasts longer (think long corduroy skirts) and because I want control over who sees what parts of me. Always.
And I don’t trust how people will react or what I will feel if they see more than I want them to. Just imagine being a guy and being able to walk around without frequent street harassment – the closest I can get to that freedom is to dress conservatively, with my hair under a warm winter hat.
Also, I am a wuss in the cold, which doesn’t hurt.
1:27 am
I’m new to feminism but I support it because I support intelligence and human rights. That said, I notice a certain undercurrent in feminist rape commentaries that I will never support. Andreand makes this undercurrent fairly explicit:
“The fact that the legal system makes criminals “innocent until proven guilty” doesn’t help much either. It just reinforces that the victim has to prove what happened”
I know that the burden of proof allows many men to get away with rape. I don’t take this fact lightly. If I were a woman it might weigh even heavier on me, but this wouldn’t change my position. It’s better that ten guilty go free than one innocent be convicted. I will join the fight against rape culture, but not if it entails weakening the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
4:03 am
There is a point that I would like to make regarding the short skirt myth. I think it’s important to note that things like provocative clothing signal the way a man thinks not necessarily in terms of the sexual availability of the woman, but immediately calculates the woman’s worth by what she’s wearing. When SOME rapists view a woman as worth less than most women, he may feel as if he deserves to control her and in a sense punish her. He also feels less responsible for his actions because he does not see his victim as a person. This is certainly not most rapists, but a particular example I’m thinking of is the rapists that hunt prostitutes/strippers/etc., (which of course are not most rapists since they generally don’t rape strangers). It’s important to note this subgroup of rapists, (and we certainly can’t classify all rapists in having all the same mindsets- there’s sadists and drunk rapists, etc.), that are indeed motivated by a women’s “worthlessness” in their eyes, which they perceive by observing the way a woman may be dressed.
I’d also like to mention that this is only ONE subgroup of people, and it is never the victim’s fault. I personally am in college and of course go out wearing short skirts or low tops or high heels (although in the Madison weather this isn’t really viable…). It’s just important to note that there are indeed some rapists motivated by this image of the short skirt. Not most, but we shouldn’t ignore those that are because if we do, we can’t tackle the problem at large.
4:11 am
@Rudie
Innocent until proven guilty and guilty until proven innocent are not the only 2 choices available. Some jurisdictions are looking into modifying how defences to rape are handled.
There are 2 basic defences: 1) it wasn’t me 2) it wasn’t rape. Widespread use of DNA testing has made defence #1 moot in most cases, which leaves defence #2. This one has proven effective with the most common kind of rape: acquaintance rape. The burden on proof is on the victim to show she did not consent.
What if you changed the rules such that in order to use defence #2 the defendant had to show that the victim consented in some affirmative way? He’s still innocent until proven guilty, he just has to meet a higher burden to utilise the defence of choice.
It’s no panacea, of course. This still leaves us with the usual problems of misogyny in society seeping into the courtroom. It’s still her word against his. But at least he would have to get up on the stand and say ‘she consented’ and be cross-examined, rather than be able to sit at the defence table in silence while his attorney rips the victim apart.
8:12 am
Thanks for writing this article. It’s clear from a lot of the responses that this isn’t something experienced by just my group of friends but is something much more widespread. I thought that would be the case, sadly and bceause it is what you had to say about it is really important.
11:26 am
you know what would stop rapists. fucking capital punishment. rape someone, get your dick ripped off. end of story! what the men of this world need is some godamned Fear!
5:00 pm
I am a male who was raised with very strong female role models. I was taught to trust women and to understand that concept of rape to be reprehensible. I was also shown by 2 women that women DO lie about rape. It can and is used by some few (I know 2) for the emotional response it evokes. I wish to god I could believe that ever time a man is accused of rape it was because he was guilty. This however is not the case. While I do believe that most normal healthy minded people would never do this I can also never fully believe a woman at her word when this accusation comes up.
- short skirts don’t equal rape.
- rape isn’t about sex it IS about a power dynamic
- women can and do lie about being raped for many f*cked up reasons.
- if we kill or castrate all men found guilty of rape, lets also kill every woman that is found out to have used rape as a shield for a behavior she regrets.
I apologize if this comment upsets or triggers any survivors here, but I felt compelled to speak out.
5:40 pm
I can’t believe that in 2010 we are still living in a world that asks us to justify wearing a short skirt. Have we not evolved? Bravo for such a thought provoking article.
6:17 pm
@Celeste:
You would think so, right? But rape used to be a capital offense and women’s groups lobbied to change the law because juries wouldn’t convict rapists because they didn’t think rape was a crime that warranted execution, boys will be boys and all of that. Blergh!
9:34 pm
I think it’s misleading when you say heterosexual males. I don’t think it has to do with sexual preference, but, and it is an important but, dominance. Dominance is a trait that can be found in anyone. It’s akin to female wanting to turn gay men straight and all that bullshit. It’s not about sex but FORCED submission and domination. It’s power-play/ego thing.
8:13 am
‘if I went out alone at night wearing something sexually provocative, I would honestly be scared. I think that’s the logic behind some people who advise women not to do so…’
I think the logic’s more complicated than that.
Firstly, it is a way of focusing on stranger rape that happens outside rather than the more common kinds of rape that happen in the home or in institutions.
It’s a way of talking about what women are wearing when they are walking home alone at night, rather than what sex workers have to wear in order to earn a living, rather than what people are made to wear in prisons or in mental institutions or in schools, what people are given to wear in residential homes and sheltered housing, or what adults and children are wearing in the home when they are attacked by their partners or their families.
Basically, I think it’s a way of pretending people have more control than they do. A lot of men find this comforting because it absolves them of responsibility for any rape-ish sex they have ever been involved in. I think women like the idea because it gives the illusion of control. But plenty of women get raped wearing conservative clothes, and plenty of people get raped in situations where they have limited control over what they wear.
10:44 am
So…A woman should change her actions because some men can’t control themselves? It’s perfectly ok for a man to give in to his urges to rape and harm a woman but it’s not ok for a woman to wear “sexy’ clothes or show affection to her partner? Make since? I say if you can’t keep it in your pants cut it off.
1:01 pm
Perhaps it’s time to float another theory: That some rapists rape because they see women (or gays, or trans people, or other groups who are marginalized) who have autonomy over their sexuality, and they just really, really hate them for that. They seek to return control of that sexuality to its rightful owners—heterosexual men.
That seems unlikely given that women engage in the same behavior described above with gay men. The more likely explanation is that people — men and women — take issue with those who do not fit their presumptions about “proper” behavior and they feel it is their “right” to make that known. The more unconventional the gay person, the more likely the response will be verbally and physically hostile. The more conventional the gay person, the more likely the response will be sexual in nature, typically stemming from the notion that once the gay person has sex with the “appropriate” gender the gay person will be “fixed.”
That behavior is not analogous to rape as the motivation has nothing specifically to do with sexual dominance. It is almost always about cultural and social norms, hence the reason butch lesbians receive a specific set of insults while masculine gay men like my brother receive a different set of responses, namely overt sexual harassment from women.
That said, one’s argument about mini-skirts fails to acknowledge a very basic point: socially speaking, a short skirt is still considered sexually provocative. One could argue that should not be the case, but at the moment it is, which is why people looking for explanations for rape latch on to that article of clothing. The connection people are making is:
a) sexually provocative clothing indicates a desire for sexually-based attention
b) rapists are motivated by sexual desire
c) provocative clothing is more likely to draw rapists’ attention
which in turn leads to d) rapists assault people wearing sexually provocative clothing because they wore those clothes.
Again, one could argue about the truthfulness of the connection people made, but that is the logic behind their responses. Trying to tie those assumptions in with homosexuality is a much trickier task since most of negativity towards gay people stems from the perceived violation of social norms or religious mores, not necessarily a desire to sexually dominate others.
5:16 pm
‘I was also shown by 2 women that women DO lie about rape.’
Frustrated, how exactly do you know that these women lied? Did they tell you this?
Toysoldier, I’m not sure how this works.
‘a) sexually provocative clothing indicates a desire for sexually-based attention
b) rapists are motivated by sexual desire
c) provocative clothing is more likely to draw rapists’ attention’
Do you mean that people think rapists are drawn, out of some kind of philanthropic generosity, to women they think want sexually-based attention? HOW NICE DO PEOPLE THINK RAPISTS ARE?
3:52 pm
@ Hannah
#1 was a GF I had broken up with whpo wanted me back after we’d broken up over me going on a road trip. I was 19 she was 22. Told me a freind of mine raped her when I went on my road trip. Never told me who. Later told me she was preggo…then that she had an abortion…then that she didnt…then that she did….then that she didnt…end result is I assumed she lied about all of it. Her rape story always changed, and not in small ways…BIG ways…refused to go to cops with me. took phone from my hand when I called them for her when she told me.
#2 different ex GF. When we started dating told me her ex had raped her. she went over there and “fell asleep” on his bed and he rapoed her. Never let me confront him. Never called the cops. Never even talked abad about him. Would down play the sitaution. I belived her…who LIES about something like rape. 1 year after she and I had broken up ran into her at Uni…she wanted to come to a fire pit at my house…we enjoyed each others time. She stayed the night… in my bed…we took turns “driving” that night…next morning started sex again…she wasnt into it mid way…I stopped…asked her what was wrong…told me she felt bad about cheating on her current BF…had TOLD me they were taking a break…I comforted her…we had breakfast…then lunch…then took her home…found out from mutual friends that she was telling people I forced myself on her….I confronted her…made her talk to me about it….this confrontation was in a coffee shop around 2pm…she told me that she knows I didn’t push myself on her but that she had STOPPED WANTING SEX that morning and I had continued….so she classified it as rape…cause in the MIDDLE of CONSENSUAL SEX she stopped wanting it and I didn’t stop soon enough…no “stop”, no “No”, no “Hey I don’t want to do this” just her getting quiet and me taking a second to realize it….she told all my friends…she told my FAMILY…
..4 years later she wrote me a letter and apologized..but Im sure she lied about the first “rape” as well….I have NEVER believed a woman’s story since and have been SURE to tell other guys who trusted unquestionably like I did the same story.
7:24 pm
Trigger alert
Frustrated, you raped this woman. She stopped wanting sex and you carried on. You had sex (for whatever amount of time) with a woman who did NOT want sex. What else do you think that is? Clearly it wasn’t regular sex. Regular sex doesn’t make women cry and talk to their friends about how you raped them. How can you be so casual about having not ’stopped soon enough’? Have you no remorse?
As for, she didn’t say ‘no’, have you never been a situation where you have been scared and you find it hard to talk? Or you’ve been nervous so your voice kind of disappears? Or you have been repulsed and you go silent?
I’m glad she told all your friends and your family, a lot of women feel silenced by men like you.
9:27 pm
Frustrated,
As Hannah pointed out, what you did is a pretty big deal. How exactly did the sex start the next morning? Did you ask her? Was she clearly into it at first? People are complicated. Sometimes people’s minds change about intimacy, especially when there are major upheavals in their lives, which sounds like what she was going through here. Maybe you didn’t do anything legally wrong, but you were clearly involved with someone who was dealing with some major issues in her life and her pain and confusion certainly sounds real. She wasn’t trying to be vindictive or anything to you, she sounds like she was genuinely hurt by what you did in bed.
As for #1–COME ON, man!!! Do you realize how scared many women are about going to the police to report their rapes? Do you realize how traumatic that is? And you assume that because she wasn’t going to the police that it wasn’t “real” rape? And that she panicked when you tried to FORCE her to report this to the police? This woman just had a very traumatic experience when someone wouldn’t listen to her wishes in a very personal way, and what do you do? You ignore her wishes and try to force her to do something!! Smart, man!
You’re really surprised that someone changed her story? Dude, people have a LOT of conflicting feelings about how much they’re willing to share about something so private. People especially start to close up or try to seek approval or “gloss over” things when they feel they’re being judged. Given the current political climate over abortion, don’t you think there would be some pretty conflicting emotions about what she could and couldn’t tell you??
9:29 pm
Let’s say a short skirt is “sexually provocative.” If so, then putting a “for sale” sign on your car is also provocative. If you put the sign up, that means you hope someone is going to be interested in buying your car. That doesn’t give them the right to steal your car, nor does it oblige you to sell your car for any price they offer just because you “provoked” the car-buying public into making offers in the hopes that someone would propose a deal you thought was worthwhile.
2:44 pm
Hannah: You’re saying that if someone has sex with another consenting individual, and that second individual suddenly decides part-way through that they don’t want to carry on, the first person is a rapist if they don’t instantly stop – even if said second person says and does nothing to indicate “stop!”, and even if the first person realises the second is unhappy and stops within a couple of seconds. That’s an absurd standard, given that no-one has psychic mind-reading powers.
3:19 pm
Mamomk – yes, that’s what I’m saying.
I don’t know where the idea that you can hump away at anything until it says no comes from. For the rest of life, people rely heavily on non-verbal cues even if they are hearing and verbal. People smell thunder, test bath water with their elbows, feel or smell when babies need changing, know when someone has been crying, judge the temperature of oil with their palms, know from the way people move their faces whether or not they are enjoying their food, can sense when people are angry and recognise people they know from the vibration of their footsteps and the smell of their perfume. But for some reason, when it comes to sex (or rape), it’s all ‘YOU DIDN’T SAY NO, WHAT AM I, PSYCHIC?’
11:32 pm
Hannah, he DID realize she didn’t want to and he DID stop. Just seconds after. He couldn’t know *before* she stopped wanting sex that he should stop, which is why he isn’t “psychic”. I agree that that is a ridiculous standard. As a woman that has been in the exact same situation with my ex-boyfriend, wherein we were having consensual sex, I for whatever reason lost interest, and it took him 30 seconds or so to realize my lack of enthusiasm and then he immediately stopped and asked me what was wrong. I would not consider myself a rape victim because of that incident (and many like it, we were just not the best couple in that regard). But he meant well, and he did not want to do anything if I wasn’t into it. Sometimes these situations are ambiguous and having a cut and dry standard for when consensual sex turns into “rape” would be convenient, but not realistic.
I have also known a girl who accused multiple people of raping her and we knew beyond doubt that she was lying about it. This girl is not representative of women in general, in fact she had mental issues and I hope she did end up getting help. So in some rare cases, people will claim to be victims of abuse when they are not. It does happen, but is no where near standard or normal.
Um all that said, I agree 100% with the article.
5:10 am
Oh come on. A ‘few seconds’ is Frustrated’s judgement. This is the same guy who tried to force his ex partner to tell the police about having been raped, the same guy who goes round telling his friends to never believe rape victims, the same guy who now does not believe in anyone’s rape ’story’. I don’t think he’s really the best person to judge when it’s consensual and when it’s not.
Crazy, I know, but I’m going with the woman who said he raped her.
What she said was ’she had STOPPED WANTING SEX that morning and [Frustrated] had continued….’ Sounds like rape to me.
9:25 am
I think the question here is how the sex initiated in the first place, and how consent was obtained or otherwise. Either, when he suggested it in the morning, she said she was fine with it, then lost interest half-way through, in which case I agree with Amanda’s analysis, or the other possibility is that he didn’t ask her the next morning, and just presumed that because she was ok with having sex the night before, that she would still be ok with having sex the next morning. If consent was not re-negotiated the next morning, and just presumed to carry on from the night before, then yeah, that sounds a bit like rape to me.
I’d go on, but I think LeftSidePositive said it better than I did just a few posts upthread.
2:41 pm
Thanks, Alex.
One little quibble (and it’s a small one): could we not use a term like “re-negotiated” to discuss consent?! It sounds very sterile, and I don’t want to give any ammo to those “but getting consent is a mood killer!” claims. Maybe “if consent was not given” or “if consent was not re-affirmed” or “If he didn’t know for sure what she was in the mood for,” etc.
9:41 pm
It’s that fine line between being informal and being ambiguous, and I always tend to err on the side of accuracy.
In hindsight perhaps “re-affirmed” would have been a more positive sounding alternative, but to me that would suggest that a “yes” response was assumed at that point, which only needed confirmation, rather than starting again from a neutral perspective and anticipating a response that could go either way… maybe I’m putting too much on one word here.
As to the whole getting explicit consent/ wearing a condom/ whatever “is a mood killer” argument… if any guy cares more about “the mood” (ie his pleasure) than a woman’s mental or physical wellbeing, IMO, he should not be allowed out in charge of a penis. But that’s a bit off topic, sorry.
9:44 pm
Also, I’m in the UK and it’s about 1am here (as it was last time I posted), so appologies if I’m not being the most eloquent of people…
10:51 pm
if someone is completely smashed, says no repeatedly after being forcefully and physically coaxed into sex but then finally gives in, at which point during it is clear that the boy has absolutely no respect for the girl- behaving pretty roughly, does this make it an act of rape? or just a bad experience leaving the person perhaps uneccessarily emotional afterward.
1:42 am
I agree with Frankie’s comment on getting more attention when clearly out with your girlfriend. I have definitely noticed more attention than when alone. One time I find a bit confusing, as I was walking to the store with my girlfriend and some recognizably male voice(s) yelled out of a passing truck “faggots”. I don’t really see the purpose.
1:46 am
In response to “S”. YOU say “NO”, it’s rape.
1:48 pm
I agree with this so much that I’m going to repeat it and put it in bold:
As to the whole getting explicit consent/ wearing a condom/ whatever “is a mood killer” argument… if any guy cares more about “the mood” (ie his pleasure) than a woman’s mental or physical wellbeing, IMO, he should not be allowed out in charge of a penis. But that’s a bit off topic, sorry.
WELL SAID!!!!!
2:19 pm
I always find a VERY big problem with people such as Frustrated who say, “I can’t always trust a women is actually raped when she says she is. Women make these sort of things up.”
How many women does it take to construct a generalization? How many stories? If five women do something, is it enough to challenge the credibility of a million? THOUSANDS of guilty men get away with rape simply because our society thinks it’s okay to make assumptions about how much women lie based on several anecdotes (that may or may not be true). I’m sure there have been hundreds of incidents where men are lying and accuse others of stealing from them, but never have these incidents been used to discredit the honesty of their entire sex. One man’s folly is his own, but one woman’s folly is every woman’s burden. It disgusts me.
8:24 pm
Thank you LSP :)
5:54 pm
Really great article.
I’ve not commented on here before, but I just wanted to say I’m confused about LeftSidePositive and Hannah’s response to Frustrated’s comment where he said…”next morning started sex again…she wasnt into it mid way…I stopped…asked her what was wrong…told me she felt bad about cheating on her current BF…had TOLD me they were taking a break”… “so she classified it as rape…”
In the past, I’ve had sex before and lost interest halfway through. If you don’t convey this to the person you are with, are they supposed to know that very second? Can we really expect men to realise the very instant we have second thoughts/feel ill/feel guilty/are bored/just don’t feel into it anymore? I would never consider it rape if I changed my mind during the act of sex, and the guy I was with carried on. But I WOULD consider it rape, if I asked him to stop and he ignored me and carried on.
Am I wrong?
11:58 am
I feel that the lack of male perspective on this issue is unfortunate. How can we truly understand rape in a forum dominated by the female perspective? We can’t.
There has been no mention here of the fact that psychologically speaking men are more visually stimulated than women. As a male who struggles every day with trying to keep my eyes to myself I wonder why so many women take such efforts to make themselves so visually distractive – from short skirts to low-cut tops – I feel it is disrespectful to men like me who try to show respect women by looking them in the eyes when I talk to them, and not at their chests. Its not a man’s fault that we’re visually stimulated and easily turned on by what we see, that’s just how our brains work. I’m not saying men are blameless when it comes to rape, they should be punished severely. But isn’t it more important to combat the problem from both directions?
On the one hand shouldn’t we be educating men about the importance of consent, teaching respectful values towards sexuality and cultivating a culture shift?
And on the other hand, should we not be educating young women about the psychological effect of how they dress and present themselves has on men? I wish we lived in a society where women could wear what they please and be fearless around any man, but based on my experience of being a man in locker rooms and in pubs and bars, I know that we males are more often than not caught off guard when a pretty woman in suggestive apparel walks by.
8:08 pm
Mike: I suggest you go and read this post: http://www.thetalentshow.org/2005/06/17/i-am-not-my-cock/
The cliff-notes version:
Even if women dressing or behaving in a particular way elicits a certain impulse from men – never mind that we live in a society which expects women to dress and behave in that way, and criticises and shames them when they don’t – it is highly disengenuous to both sexes to suggest that men *have* to act on those impulses.
We are all more than just a product of our biology, people. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that 2000+ years of civilisation, philosophy, morality and ethics means absolutely nothing.
11:50 am
Rox,
‘If you don’t convey this to the person you are with, are they supposed to know that very second? Can we really expect men to realise the very instant we have second thoughts/feel ill/feel guilty/are bored/just don’t feel into it anymore?’
I definitely think women are taught that it is impossible for men to notice our feelings all the time during sex.
I think the emphasis on verbal non consent (’if I asked him to stop’), apart from being completely unaccessible to people who are deaf and non verbal, comes from the idea that men are free to carry on until someone says no, or that rape becomes rape at the point where someone says no.
This just does not pay attention to the reasons why people might not be able to say no: disabilities, fear, shame, embarrassment, guilt, resignation, etc.
Various people have commented that it is unreasonable to expect men to notice that women are not into sex THE SECOND they lose interest. Not one person has given a time frame for how long they think women can be disinterested in sex before men should REASONABLY be expected to notice. How long is long enough? A minute? Five minutes? Ten minutes? Two hours?
I think it makes far more sense to expect men to be in touch with the feelings of the woman they are having sex with 24/7.
3:51 pm
Various people have commented that it is unreasonable to expect men to notice that women are not into sex THE SECOND they lose interest. Not one person has given a time frame for how long they think women can be disinterested in sex before men should REASONABLY be expected to notice. How long is long enough? A minute? Five minutes? Ten minutes? Two hours?
I think that all people being on a spectrum…some men would figure it out almost immediately (5-10 seconds), some connected and yet caught up men more time (30 seconds-1 min)some could be much longer…
Hannah…I you think it needs to be instantaneous I recommend that woman refrain from having sex (or in my case initiating) till they have some ownership over the situation and them selves. Things happen to people that can give them roadblocks…to say that all the blame is attached to the man not noticing first sells women way short…2 people consensual acts…means both people have a responsibility.
I pray Hannah that any man not possessing jedi like skills of emotional linkage stay far far far away from you and your casual labeling of rape.
6:47 am
Unfortunately Frustrated, such men do not stay away from me. I was raped when I was fourteen. It was a horrific experience. Luckily, as the man was a complete stranger, and I was dressed conservatively, I was sober and I was relatively young, nobody thought my labelling was casual. Maybe you disagree.
‘to say that all the blame is attached to the man not noticing first sells women way short…2 people consensual acts…means both people have a responsibility.’
I’m confused. You had sex with woman who did not want sex. How is this consensual?
One thing that I thought about a lot after I was raped was, what was turning him on? I was crying and screaming and kicking before he exerted further force on me to shut me up and keep me still. Was my distress arousing to him?
What was turning you on? Her disinterest? Her upset? What was making you want to have sex with this disinterested and upset woman?
1:20 pm
Hannah,
I’m fighting back the desire to be sarcastic with you as obviously you and your twisted perspective are the product of a horrible violation. Thank you for explaining how it came to be, it helps explains your willful misunderstanding and your inability to see the tragedy of a momentary mis-communication between lovers.
I pray that some day you are able to understand and experience a consensual and fulfilling sex life.
good luck
11:48 am
Now, hang on a sec, before we dissolve into personal insults… “a momentary mis-communication between lovers”? Obviously it’s nothing of the kind. Because she’s calling it rape, and both parties are obviously still sensitive (to say the least) about the whole episode. That’s not a “momentary mis-communication” that’s a bucketload of misunderstanding, trauma and conflict which is obviously still relevant.
To label it a mis-communication shows a remarkable flipancy about what happened here, a worrying dismissal of experience, and a possibility that no-one is exempt from the possibility of “willful misunderstanding”…
I really think that this post here is starting to become relevant: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2010/03/24/why-rape-isnt-one-big-misunderstanding/
7:24 pm
Where is the moderator on this thread? Frustrated should not be allowed to comment anymore (after using “I pray that some day you are able to understand and experience a consensual and fulfilling sex life” as a comeback to a previous commenter’s completely logical cross-analysis of the strange stories he was telling – could you be any more condescending and patriarchal!! this is the “you just don’t understand because you’re not getting enough dick” line of argument. and it’s stupid.)
First of all does anyone else notice that he said the woman had not been into sex since that morning? It’s a reasonable assumption to make that she had no more interest when she woke up that morning and was sober. Therefore all this argument about exactly how long after you’ve been fucking someone who does not want to fuck you back are you raping them (which is a ridiculous argument to be having FYI and just more rape apology) is null because she hadn’t wanted sex since the morning, before he had even initiated it. A lot of people don’t feel comfortable just saying “I dont want to have sex with you” and signal this in many other ways, which doesn’t take rocket science to figure out. If you are not mature enough to understand that people communicate this way in sexual situations then you are not mature enough to be having sex. Any sexual contact made after her feelings changed that morning was NOT completely consensual and therefore plain NOT consensual. And here we have arrived at the definition of rape.
1:43 pm
I apologize for the sarcasm…I truly do wish Hannah discover true sexual intimacy with someone she can be loving and unguarded with.
This conversation is pretty much over…I can see that many of the people here are pretty mystified at what I went through with this false rape accusation. I admit that gives me some faith in humanity.
Those who wish to call it rape…considering this woman herself doesn’t herself consider it such and has apologized to me since (please read all the parts I wrote)…are allowing themselves to be stuck in a cycle of willful denial… and here are some of teh details from what Ive already written here.
…she and I both initiated…as in..she climbed up on me…
…she stopped and moments…within 15-30 seconds of me realizing it I stopped as well…
…she stayed with me and I was her shoulder to cry on talking about her ex-bf most of the day!!!!
For this to be called rape by her was self serving, and a sign of her mental and emotional instability.
For someone in this forum to call it rape by shaping it into whatever twisted fantasy they have in their own minds is further evidence proving there are some women/men out there who will invalidate the true horror of rape by trying to classify this within it.
THIS IS MY WHOLE REASON FOR POSTING! We all have an idea of what rape is…the 1.5 seconds of “I don’t want it anymore” after 15 minutes of mutual sex…IS NOT RAPE when the other partner stops when he figures it out (and yes this happens pretty quick, some faster {1 -10 seconds?} than others {11-30?})
What a sad sad situation this is…
5:08 pm
Yes please someone moderate this thread.
Frustrated, thanks for your concern re: my sexlife. I’ve never had consensual sex with a man but that’s probably more due to my lesbianism than me having been raped and ruined for life as you seem to view it.
I did read all your thread, including the part where you provided a shoulder to cry on for the woman who didn’t want to have sex with you. Who said chivalry was dead?
I just don’t understand, even with the details about her climbing on top of you, and apologising for her accusations (more on that later), how you think this ’sex’ was in any way normal. Does it not bother you that you had sex with someone who burst into tears?
Really, does this seem normal to you?
Are you going to put this all down to ‘mental instability’?
Is there not a tiny tiny bit of you that thinks that maybe, perhaps, you did something not quite right?
As for her climbing on top of you, ‘Yes means yes!: visions of female sexual power & a world without rape’ has a brilliant introduction by Margaret Cho which explains the reasons that women initiate sex that they have no desire for. Please read it.
As for her apologising for her accusations, this is the kind of thing you do when you want to smooth over something socially. Have you never apologised for something you didn’t feel sorry about? I do it all the time – at work, I do it about ten times a day. It doesn’t mean she doens’t think you raped her.
If someone accused me of raping them, and then later they apologised for it, I definitely would still not feel right about it.
Does the fact that this woman said you raped her not incite a tiny inkling in you that feels uncomfortable with what you did? Any inkling at all?
8:32 pm
I was at first appreciating “Frustrated’s” side, until he got to the point where he believes “No woman’s rape story.”
@Frustrated Personal experience does not cancel out facts, and the fact is that the majority of women who are raped and report it are telling the truth.
One third of all the women in our armed forces will be raped. Most do not report it exept to medical personel, and when they do even with proof, most are raped by their superiors, who then beat the charges, and *the* *majority* *of* *those* *CONVICTED* receive *ONLY* a SLAP ON THE WRIST, SUCH AS REASSIGNMENT.
The Pentagon has aknowledged this, and is working to better it.
The civilian statistics are slightly better-*only* one out of six women in the US will be raped-FAR more worldwide.
Rape is INCREDIBLY common, and for you to assume otherwise based on your own bitterness, is the same as someone who once had a bad experience with a black person stating that all black people are lazy, shiftless liars, or, in your case, that all women are liars.
In other words, you pass the misogyny test, my friend.