Posts Tagged ‘consent’
Advice Columnist Tells Victim She Wasn’t Actually Raped, And Should Have Aborted Her Not-Rape Baby
Daily Telegraph advice columnist Lesley Garner is faced with a doozy of a conundrum this week, a situation so horrible that it could only possibly be made worse by . . . the recommendations of Daily Telegraph advice columnist Lesley Garner!
The situation: “Eva,” a married woman, is raped by her boss on a business trip. She becomes pregnant. She decides to get an abortion. Her husband is supportive of the abortion, but not of Eva—”He drove me to a clinic for a consultation and waited outside in the car because he ‘didn’t want to hear me talk about conception dates,’” she writes. Eva later decides not to go through with the abortion. Her husband leaves her. She raises a beautiful baby boy on her own. Now, seven years later, she wants to reconnect with her ex. But there is a complication: “What happened on that trip wasn’t quite rape but I wasn’t exactly willing either. The man was my boss and he was very drunk and forceful. I tried to push him away without upsetting him, but he was too strong and I didn’t fight him.”
Now, if I were the advice columnist here, I know what I’d say: “your ex-husband is a dickwad.” But I’m not an advice columnist. Lesley Garner is. Her advice is of the “stop lying about getting raped and admit that it was selfish to not get an abortion” variety.
Rapists Who Don’t Think They’re Rapists
You know the guy who “accidentally” rapes women? The acquaintance who “misreads” the situation and “goes too far”? The longtime friend who genuinely thought you had consented, and is shocked when you tell him that, no, it was rape? Well, we’re not going to take that guy’s bullshit anymore. Thomas MacAulay Millar over at the Yes Means Yes! blog has crunched the numbers on “undetected” acquaintance rapists to figure out who this “accidental rapist” actually is.
Legal Consent, Morning-After Regret, and “Accidental” Rape
Over the past few weeks, this blog has hosted some really productive discussion threads about rape prevention, victim blaming and new models for sexual consent. I’d like to thank everybody who has participated, but I’d also like to directly address a few theories that have arisen over the course of these discussions. And I would like to begin the process of debunking them.
Debunked, after the jump:
- “Yes means yes” is dangerous in a world where “no means no”
- Women exploit rape laws to criminalize consensual sex they later regret
- Some rapes just happen on accident
Read More “Legal Consent, Morning-After Regret, and “Accidental” Rape” »
On the Difficulty of “Saying No”
Kathryn Holmquist’s little piece of horrific sex advice—sometimes, girls, it’s “too late to say no”—has evolved into a more advanced discussion on this blog. The question: Why should women be required to say “no” in the first place?
Writer to Rape Victims: Sometimes, It’s “Too Late to Say No”
As long as we’re all airing our half-baked theories about why rape happens, Kathryn Holmquist has got an idea: Rape happens because girls think they can say “no” whenever they want. According to Holmquist, the date rape problem begins with girls who want to get physical—girls who deliberately drink, flirt, and engage in “deep kissing” in the club—and then don’t want to have sex. She writes:
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Sexist Comments of the Week: Do Drunk Girls Deserve to Get Raped?
Last week, I wrote about some disturbing Internet comments posted in the wake of the Richmond gang rape that blamed the victim for drinking alcohol. The post inspired some really positive responses . . . and more disturbing Internet comments.
Alex makes the case for victim-blaming—at least girls will now know “the possible consequences of decisions.” Decide to have a beer, maybe you’ll get gang-raped: A valuable lesson for young girls:
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Drunk Girls Deserve to Get Raped
Don’t believe me when I say that people actually think drunk girls deserve to get raped? Let’s take the case of the 15-year-old California girl who was brutally gang-raped at her homecoming dance for hours in front of dozens of onlookers. Apparently, the victim had been drinking. For some people, that turns her horrific rape into a valuable morality tale that will put the fear into our nation’s drunk girls. Helpful Comments points us to some not-atypical online reactions to the story:
Sexist Beatdown: Date Rape Drugs And A Couple of Beers
Earlier this week, we looked at the popular fear of date rape drugs, and how that fear helps distract us from acquaintance rapes that involve willingly ingested substances, like beer. Beer, you say? In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I talk booze—the most common date-rape drug, the cause of a shit ton of other problems, and a pretty fun thing to drink, in moderation. After the jump: we bemoan the double standard of passing out, yearn for a consentalizer test, and check in on how our femininity is holding up—it’s tipsy, thanks for asking!
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Roman Polanski Defense: Rapists Are People, Too
French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévi is back to explain why Roman Polanski ought to be released from prison already. Add this one to the long list of Polanski defenses: Polanski is a human!
Lévi writes for the Huffington Post:
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The Date Rape Drug Is An Urban Myth. Let’s Put It to Rest.
This week, a study in the British Journal of Criminology announced that “date rape drugs” are “largely an urban myth,” as “there is a stark contrast between heightened perceptions of risk associated with drug-facilitated sexual assault and a lack of evidence that this is a wide-spread threat.” Several sites for women met the news with skepticism. Feministing suggested that the study may have engaged in victim-blaming. The Frisky warned that the study “needs to be viewed with caution. I don’t think we want women to start leaving their drinks unattended, just because the chances of getting roofied are slimmer than they may have thought.” TresSugar hailed the report as “depressing.”
I, for one, am celebrating. First: the research suggests that women aren’t regularly being drugged on their night out—wonderful news! But it also means that we may finally retire all the media scare-tactics, the girls-night-out drink protection strategies, and mercifully, every single absurd product that has arisen out of society’s inflated concern of drink spiking—and has dangerously distracted the rape conversation from addressing the real experiences of victims.
Read More “The Date Rape Drug Is An Urban Myth. Let’s Put It to Rest.” »
