A month or so ago, Anita wrote a fantastic post at Kiwipolitico: Friends don’t let friends rape, calling on men, and all of us, to call out rapists. She made what was to me an unremarkable statement:…

There was a suggestion on kiwipolitico that arguing that rapists are not strange scary other people, means accepting and normalising rape. Quite the opposite, the only way to fight rape is to face it as it exists, not as we construct it. The first step…

You’re reading ‘know” in a different sense from the way Anita used it. Think of it this way:

You know say, 150 people. Not necesarily well. Just people you work with, friends and acquaintances. Of those 150 or so, statistically, some will have been raped, and some will have raped. You probably don’t know which ones they are. But given the stats, you will know someone who has raped, and someone who has been raped. You don’t know that some particular person has raped, or been raped, for certain, but of the 150 or so people that you know, will be some who have raped, some who have been raped.

This is satire, right? Because otherwise it’s a weirdness too far. Way, way, way, too far.

Best of luck with your approach folks. I genuinely wish that propagating the view that anyone, even the “feminist man and anti-rape activist” or the “nice lady next door with the little dog” is “quite probably” a rapist would serve to reduce the incidence of rape in the world (that’s Earth this time, Lew), but y’know, I kinda don’t think so.

Thanks, that sounds challenging. And hopefully rewarding.

You were the first person in this thread to mention coercion

You’re right. I was trying to work out what exactly you meant. You seem quite comfortable to live with vague generalisations leading to very specific but unprovable allegations. We’re back to “we all know rapists, and people who’ve been raped”, for uncertain senses of the terms involved. Which is a bit meaningless.

To me, knowing someone well enough to know that they have raped/been raped means knowing them quite well indeed, and once you bring science into a discussion my understanding of “know” rises significantly. I know it’s been hot in Nelson this week, casually speaking, but if you said “compared to Nelson’s normal climate how has the weather been” I’d say “uh, I dunno, maybe hotter?” because that’s a very different question.

So, I know famous people, in the sense that I’ve met Jimmy Barnes once but he would very likely not remember me or recognise my name. Do I know Jimmy Barnes in the sense that I would be surprised if my opinion of his rapist-ness was wrong? Not even close.

So when you say “Moz knows a rapist” I have a very short list of names. No more than ten. Now, which one of these people is a rapist? Well, now that I think about it, there’s a lot I don’t know about my mother, best cross her off the list of “know well enough” since the standards for rape have changed so dramatically since she was young and wild. Would I be surprised if she qualified under the “have you had sex with someone who didn’t perfectly consent”… no. OK, she’s out. And so on.

So basically you’re accusing either my partner or myself of rape. I find the suggestion offensive.

If you said “everyone has met someone who has committed rape by failing to get explicit consent every time”, that I’d agree with. No question. I’ve almost certainly also met pedophiles, former prisoners of war, people who are now dead and millionaires.

If that’s what you meant, then I’m sorry for assuming you were trying to do more than generate vague alarm.

Given that that is a change, the situation now is what?

It’s not so much about violence and coercion as empathy. I don’t understand how anybody can be abusive to someone violently/verbally/sexually without first dehumanizing them.

It’s easy to hurt someone if you don’t think their pain matters. You won’t think their pain matters if you don’t think anybodies pain matters. You wont think anybodies pain matters if you don’t think your own pain matters. You won’t think your pain matters if people don’t act as if your pain matters.

His pain matters. Everybodies pain matters in our household. I try to use as little coercing and bribing as I can (but still some, I need the occasional sleep in) and instead try to make him understand why I want him to do whatever it is I want him to do.

I always try to make sure he has a choice (or at his age the illusion of a choice) to give him a sense of empowerment. I never want him to decide to do things because its what I want. He does them because he knows its the better choice. He understands why he can’t have too many treats (saw the promo for an obesity documentry, when I explained what had happened to the person he was horrified) he has great road safety (we’ve discussed the squashed hedgehogs and decomposition) and he’s even started getting upset at fast drivers because of the danger they are putting everybody in (he’s seen the alac ads too).

I’m not just raising him to be non-violent I’m raising him to have good decision making skills.

Anyone whos interested in how we can raise our children not to be criminals should read Nigel Latta’s books especially ‘Into the Darklands’. He’s worked with those criminal ‘monsters’ we prefer to think about when we talk about rape as well as children.

You were the first person in this thread to mention coercion (at least that I can find) and the only other person was me in my comment just above asking what you meant by coercion :)

I agree about reaching agreement on the definition of consent with ones partner, but the point is that it’s a mutual agreement. IME with a new lover one starts off relatively careful about explicit consent, and as both people get used to the other consent becomes more understood and implicit. I don’t think anyone in this thread (although someone might be about to correct me) believes that the people involved must explicitly check for mutual consent every time they have sex.

I keep asking that of you lot, but all I get is “coercion is wrong”, so I give options varying from the above “clear lack of consent” that Deborah objects to (she prefers some form of active consent but has not clarified what is acceptable to her) to the Dworkin one (”women can’t”). Since the studies given allowed everything up to the Dworkin one and you haven’t clarified, I’ve been tending towards that.

My personal definition is IMO irrelevant – what matters is the definition I reach with my partners. I have dealt with everything from “I will never admit to liking sex, because nice girls don’t” through “I’m a horny drunk” to “if I want to say no, you’ll know about it, now quit pissing round and…”. So when people like you say “if you don’t get consent that meets my standards I call it rape”, I want to know what you mean and in some detail. I’d also like you to explain how your ideas relate to my relationships, because I don’t think you’re working in a reality-based framework.

Because to antirape activists, coercion around sex is always unconditionally wrong. Doesn’t matter how trivial it is, coercion is wrong. Coercing someone into having sex makes it rape. Even the implicit coercion of “I might be grumpy later if you don’t have sex with me now, but I’m not going to say that”. Still rape. Still wrong.

I’m struggling with your definition of “coercion” as you seem to be straying a long way beyond compulsion or manipulation.

To me there is a huge difference between giving your partner, who had a shitty day, head when they ask for it because you know will cheer them up and you will enjoy making them happy, and giving your partner, who had a shitty day, head when they ask for it because you know that if you don’t they’ll hit your (or the children).

How are you defining coercion?

I think any definition that lets you argue that someone has been raped regardless of what they think happened is dodgy.

While I agree with you in many cases, there are some individuals where it is rape even if they believe otherwise. The easy examples are children and some people with severe intellectual handicaps. In both cases it is held that the individuals simply do not have the capacity to consent (or withhold consent).

As a complete aside… there is some fascinating research and discussion going on within the intellectually handicapped community about sex and consent. Many advocate moving from the traditional no-sex approach to attempting to give intellectually handicapped individuals the information, education and skills they need to have consensual sexual relationships. Part of the challenge is how to assess someone’s capacity to consent.

It’s my objection to Dworkin, it’s my objection to the studies you quote. This is not identity politics or postmodernism, it’s attempting to let people tell their own stories.

I think we touched on this further up thread (and then got distracted by the louder arguments) when there was a brief discussion about what to do when someone tells us they’ve been raped but doesn’t want to go to the Police.

Wrong way around. To be usable law, it must be possible for the participants to know that what they are doing has been consented to. That is, there must be a positive act of consent, not just the absence of dissent.

Rape is when the victim thinks it’s rape?

I think any definition that lets you argue that someone has been raped regardless of what they think happened is dodgy. It’s my objection to Dworkin, it’s my objection to the studies you quote. This is not identity politics or postmodernism, it’s attempting to let people tell their own stories.

It’s all very well you saying we have to listen to women, but when you turn round and say “unless she says it wasn’t rape”…

I’m also quite keen on a distinction between legal rape (because that requires clear guidelines that a disinterested observer can recognise in advance of the event[1]) and colloquial rape (which is up to the people involved). Partly because I still have no idea how to tell whether my partner is actually consenting to sex according to your definition. In that respect you seem to be quite clear that I can’t believe what she says, or accept what she does. A higher standard of consent is required to ensure that she’s not being coerced into giving false “consent”. In fact, one thing that would amuse me a lot is seeing you discuss exactly this topic with her. You see, she has quite definite ideas about sex, consent and the stupidity of these discussions so she won’t join in.

[1] in other words, to be usable law it must be possible for the sex participants to know that what they’re doing is not rape.

I’m not sure that was my main point.

Yes rape is a pretty common event in our society, and yes and some level it is perhaps “normal”, but… . My point is that we can (and should) act to denormalise it and make it less common.

If “less-than-perfectly-consensual sex” was not the definition of rape, what would it be?

maggywelly, hitting people is not the be-all and end-all of coercion. Refraining from actually hitting a child is just the bare beginnings of providing a decent upbringing (I suspect you know this). But bringing up a child without coercion means accepting a high mortality rate. So we use non-violent coercion. Which is fine, sometimes.

But this means that you’re bringing up a child to believe that coercion is a normal part of a loving relationship. ooops. Because to antirape activists, coercion around sex is always unconditionally wrong. Doesn’t matter how trivial it is, coercion is wrong. Coercing someone into having sex makes it rape. Even the implicit coercion of “I might be grumpy later if you don’t have sex with me now, but I’m not going to say that”. Still rape. Still wrong.