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Author Topic:   diluted definitions of rape?
Rei
Member (Idle past 7013 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 5 of 13 (146631)
10-01-2004 8:18 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Silent H
10-01-2004 6:55 PM


quote:
Was the guy supposed to just assume or was he supposed to ask?
Of *COURSE* he's supposed to bloody ask.
quote:
One of the girls I talked about who wanted to be coerced started normally then after a problem in the relationship began to act like that.
And naturally, you just started having sex with her and pretending that you didn't care that she seemed completely unresponsive to you, right?
BTW, you're ignoring the central point here, which is *fear*. You keep talking as if the person involved is being nonresponsive for no particular reason. That's not what we're talking about even in our already "assuming the minimum case" argument.
quote:
Cornered is also suggestive. Are you trapped? Then that is an action of aggression. If the same guy just comes up to you on a subway platform and says that, wouldn't you say something?
If I'm already in the corner?
Look, you're dancing around the issue. The issue is that there are situations where people are, quite reasonably, too afraid to speak out. Heck, *entire countries* have been kept in such states for years, let alone individuals.
quote:
Our fears are not capable of transforming a situation into something or into "in a way" something. Yes our fears are able to make us do something we might want because we think it might lead to something worse. That is OUR problem.
And often it is a *REALISTIC* fear.
quote:
Again I am only saying this as your current model involves no actual violence or overt threat of violence, only a person's aggressive (perhaps hostile) attitude and physical build.
And knowing that he behaves this way, you still claim "no overt threat of violence"? Are you kidding?
quote:
I said his argument was the same, not what his actual actions ended up being. His argument WAS the same. And it is STILL the same, and you heard it expressed again in the debate.
No. It's not the same. Bush was arguing for fighting based on threats. The victim here is arguing (with themself) for *giving in* to the threats. It is the complete opposite of our current situation.
quote:
Saddam actually was making demands of us and more importantly our allies (remember I put allies in my post). In particular he was threatening Israel (even if physically he couldn't do much about it) as well as oil supplies, and trying to force policies on both. Bush could claim that doing nothing was allowing him to make further demands and one day act against us on them.
Idon't really want to get into the Iraq war here, bt Saddam only issued counterthreats, and even relatively rarely at that. They were generally of the form, "If you invade, we will.... (insert action here)" So technically you could call it threatening, but I'm not sure how much a threat conditional to the target carrying out a threat of their own counds as a threat
quote:
Yeah it happens. How is he supposed to know what to make of what she is doing? If she's sticking around he could just be assuming she isn't as much into sex anymore, but she'll say something if she doesn't want it.
Again, I don't know that she didn't. But I still find it crazy to think that a person could consider themselves in a relationship with a person, the person stops talking to them and blanks out when you're having sex with them, this is completely different from the past, and you don't think anything of it. You disagree. I don't think this is going to get resolved.
quote:
For the sake of argument then, it just is no where close to rape.
That's just an assertion. We're debating the details here; there was no need to stick in an unbacked assertion like that.[/quote]
quote:
Why is it wrong to say she had a really miserable sexual relationship with a guy that was callous and might have raped her though you are not sure?
That's pretty much a rewording of what I did say.
quote:
I said it was possible to broaden and add terms, but argued that was less useful than just creating new categories.
And these categories will have *what* meaning to perpetrators? Rape has a meaning to perpetrators. In fact, telling someone that you consider what they're trying to do to be rape is a recommended action I've seen on a number of information sheets on what to do if someone is trying to rape you. Sometimes, it gets the person to stop; it carries weight. Throwing in some new, meaningless term, seems counterproductive. Why not just classify the existant term that already has meaning?
quote:
My whole argument has been with full knowledge that you did not say rape, but "in a way" rape. It appears you played a semantic game to make the situation worse than it was, and are now defending that move.
And you see, from my point of view, you're the one arguing semantics, since you started an argument based on my terminology. I consider rape to not be some absolute, narrowly defined phenomina (and neither does the law, nor do most rape councelling services, etc). So, I made it clear that, from the information I know, it would fall on the milder side of rape (although was repeated regularly). You have a problem with this concept. That's the fundamental difference. Really, it is a semantic argument, and one which I did not start.
I think, for the rest of this post, and in future posts, I'll ignore all semantic debate, and try simply to address any other issues that are unresolved. Because I don't think we're going to come to an agreement on semantics, and it's kind of a pointless thing to waste our time arguing over.
This issue is something that holds a lot of meaning to both of us; we just have a different perspective on the terminology. You see broadening the terms as degrading the worst case. I see narrowing the terms as legitimizing acts that may not be quite as bad, but are still horrible.
quote:
quote:
Seing as she didn't use the term - and heck, I hardly even did - I'd say that this one belongs in your imagination.
Please do not shift into this form of argument. You are combining two almost wholly separate arguments.
You stated:
There is power in the term rape which people want to use, even if innocently and indirectly, to heighten the gravity of their experience
You implied that she was using the term to try and heighten the gravity of her experience. She was not. She did not use the term, and I never stated that she did - and furthermore, I only used a weakened form of the term. That's why I take affront at what I hope you can see, from my perspective, is a clear insult to my partner - claiming that she used the term to try and heighten the gravity of her experience.
I had to convince her to tell me what happened. *I pressed* to find out. She cried. I later wished I hadn't. I hope you can see why I find your presentation of her as somehow trying to manipulate her past for some sort of secret advantage as being completely insulting. And I know you probably didn't mean to have it come across that way, but it did.
quote:
A partner is drunk (though not passed out), is moving to have sex then with an unwilling partner should later the partner say she wouldn't had she been sober?
A partner is passed out drunk or sleeping. If this situation is taken advantage of is that for sure against the will of the person? What if they started to mess around before passing out?
The former isn't rape. The latter is. But it shows how there's no clear dividing line.
(ack, I need to go - finish this post later).

"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Silent H, posted 10-01-2004 6:55 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by Silent H, posted 10-02-2004 7:44 PM Rei has replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7013 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 7 of 13 (146875)
10-02-2004 9:53 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Silent H
10-02-2004 7:44 PM


Before I start off with my response, I should mention that this conversation kind of forced me to bring up the subject again with my partner, something I did not want to have to do. At least it was a *little* easier for her to talk about it, now that it's been so long (5 1/2 years). To paraphrase:
Me: Did you tell him you didn't want to have sex?
Her: Yes..
Me: Often?
Her: ... Yes, repeatedly.
Me: Did you physically resist?
Her: No.
(pause)
Karen, I know he may not have looked very strong, but he was. And he was a lot stronger than me
[ed: I never thought he didn't look strong - but that's besides the point]
Me: Ok. What if I told you that I was debating with someone online who thought that it shouldn't be called rape if the victim doesn't physically resist?
Her (shocked): That's horrible.
(You did imply earlier that it's not rape if the woman doesn't resist, although the current conversation is focusing on whether or not the perpetrator has sex with someone that they know does not want to).
Anyways, back to the discussion.
quote:
quote:
Of *COURSE* he's supposed to bloody ask.
Double standard noted.
How on earth is this a double standard? Where did I ever say that a woman shouldn't do the same if her SO goes limp and refuses to talk to you when you try to sleep with him?
quote:
quote:
you just started having sex with her and pretending that you didn't care that she seemed completely unresponsive to you, right?
I did start, I was confused, I wondered what was happening. I didn't know if I was doing something wrong or she was just tired or she had lost interest in sex in general.
And then you continued, and did it repeatedly, day after day, and never once asked her about it, right?
quote:
I stopped because I don't like lousy sex. Others might not. It took me several times before I said something. She wouldn't talk.Several times more and then she said I should just keep having sex (but I didn't because I don'tlike lousy sex). A few times more I was let in on the rape thing. Oh.
That's not the situation we were debating here.
quote:
No I'm not. I'm saying a guy can't tell why a person is not doing something.
That's what the larnyx is for.
quote:
How the hell is a person supposed to know something WITHOUT communication?
Who the hell *doesn't* try and communicate when they're not the one who is scared to death?
quote:
Your own "minimum case" has a person repeatedly stepping back into a situation in which there was NO overt violence or threat of violence...
Yes, there indeed was the threat of violence. His behavior was already discussed.
quote:
Why on earth did you corner yourself? Oh okay, for sake of argument... You try and step around. If he moves to block then the action indicates what you are facing.
You may not fear enough, to try and step around someone who is acting like a mugger, and is physically the equivalent of a 7'2" bodybuilder in comparison to your average man. I am not that way, and many women even less so than me.
quote:
I am not dancing around anything. If a guy that "looks scary" comes and says "give me money" then it is my fault for giving it to him if that is all the criteria of the situation.
So, for a comparison, exactly when are tellers taught that if a person is acting like they have a gun in their pocket when trying to rob a bank, and there's something gun shaped in there, that they should demand that the potential robber pull the gun out and make sure that they can get a clear look at it? You have this strange insistance on escalating the conflict merely to prove that the situation is dire. I don't. You're making it out that if a person *doesn't* choose to escalate the conflict to prove that the situation is dire, that it's almost as if it's their fault. I find that horrible.
quote:
The appropriate analogy would be continually cornering yourself on the same subway station again and again and giving away your money to the same guy.
Right here, sitting at my computer, this second, I am cornered. Every day, where I work in my office, I am cornered. Every day I wait for my ride home, I am effectively cornered.
Where on this planet do you live in which you always have an escape route?
quote:
No. There is no such thing as an overt threat just because a guy is overly aggressive and maybe hostile in general. Unless you are suggesting that he was incapable of any conversation or being turned down without engaging in completely violent acts?
quote:
I'm sorry but I think this is beginning to get ridiculous. Especially as she stayed with the guy.
Yeah. She should have ran off from college and disappeared, right? Seing as they lived in the same bloody dorm and went to the same bloody classes...
quote:
quote:
Again, I don't know that she didn't.
Remember my whole point is based on the fact that YOU SAID SHE DIDN'T. If your position changes to that she may have, or that she did, then there is no longer any argument from me... except that it still would not be "in a way" and become "might have included".
I spoke incorrectly. It had been over 5 years since I had previously discussed this with her, after all.
quote:
That's pretty much a rewording of what I did say.
"In a way" rape, is quite different than "she may have been raped, but I don't know".
"In a way" means "maybe yes, maybe no, depending on how you look at it."
God, I hate semantid debates, and you keep picking wierd choices of semantics to argue about.
quote:
quote:
In fact, telling someone that you consider what they're trying to do to be rape is a recommended action I've seen on a number of information sheets on what to do if someone is trying to rape you. Sometimes, it gets the person to stop; it carries weight.
Yeah, sounds like a good idea. What I said would not change this.
Yes, it would. You're suggesting that people use a term which currently has little or no meaning - some newly coined term which has little social, and no legal, bearing.
quote:
Can I point out the irony that I was saying someone should say something and then you argued they don't have to because they might be afraid?
For god's sake, I was arguing about the relevance of semantics with you, and the importance of a term having weight.
quote:
The problem with the broad use however is not BEFORE the act, but AFTER. Women can scare the hell out of men all the want with rape charges, its the claim of rape after, when it isn't really accurate, which is not good. It connotes a level of criminal activity which a person may not have actually done, and it devalues the term for what others have suffered.
And not using it devalues when people *do* suffer.
quote:
Milder side of rape. Yes that says it all. I have a problem with that concept.
And I have a problem with you trying to narrow down the concept, which from my view legitimizes other horrible actions. We've already agreed that we disagree on this one - how many times do you want to beat a dead horse?
quote:
Just as "sexual offender" or "sexual predator" has come to equivocate and so implicate as equals a violent serial rapist, a random window peeper, a sock sniffer, and a porn voyeur, the broad use of rape entangles people of many different crimes (or midemeanors) and totally devalues the term by equivocating between people who were through a violent sexual ordeal, and those who went through something "milder".
I completely disagree with your list. A sex offender carries the connotation of someone who has conducted sexual assault. A sexual predator carries the connotation of someone who has conducted serial sexual assault or is considered at high risk for repeat sexual offenses.
Dictionary.com agrees with me (it only has the first term):
Sex offender Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
(searching on google for the second term, heres the first hit
http://www.defiance-county.com/dcso/SORN/Sexual Predator Definition.htm
Once again, you argue against the dictionary - on a semantics debate, at that!.
quote:
Having been a victim, and seen what use the broadening of the term has been put to, I find it less than useful.
And my partner, after our last discussion, finds narrowing it less than useful. Why are we even still talking about this?
quote:
quote:
I see narrowing the terms as legitimizing acts that may not be quite as bad, but are still horrible.
I have shown you in what way it devalues the worst case.
And I have shown you in what way narrowing the terms legitimizes the non-worst case.
quote:
I have not seen how using terms like violation and assault instead of rape "legitimizes" anything.
As I stated before, and you didn't address:
1. Sexual assault *IS* the legal term for rape. Do you want us to use the legal terminology for everything?
2. Violation is a euphemism for rape - and one which does not carry weight. In the situation described earlier, can you honestly say that this bears weight:
Victim, to perpetrator: "I consider what you're doing to be violation."
quote:
I did not imply this except when I was saying what I could do if I was going to be unfair. You have since continued to act as if I meant it.
Why the heck did you say it at all then? I'm sure you knew how it would be taken. How would *YOU* have reacted if I had accused you of lying about *your* experience? Never ONCE have I doubted or even slighted your experience. Not once.
And if I sound like I'm taking this harshly, it's because I am.
quote:
Maybe my statement was so offensive that it was hard to shake the idea that I was not actually meaning it?
Try this on for size.
"If I wanted to be unfair, I could suggest that you're just making your sexual assault story up so that you can try and push your issue of restricting the definition of rape. Perhaps you never were assaulted, and this is just a cheap story you've concocted."
Hurts, doesn't it?
quote:
I wasn't asking which was rape but how would will be known? Or moving against another's will be known?
Once again, back to my original point: Few things in this world are black and white. There's a continuum.

"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Silent H, posted 10-02-2004 7:44 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by crashfrog, posted 10-02-2004 9:55 PM Rei has replied
 Message 10 by Silent H, posted 10-03-2004 6:41 AM Rei has not replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7013 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 9 of 13 (146932)
10-03-2004 4:17 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by crashfrog
10-02-2004 9:55 PM


Crash, if you're not going to follow the conversation, don't butt in.
(in all quotes, emphasis mine)
quote:
There is a big difference between saying something and putting up resistance, and going along with something you don't happen to like because you THINK something might happen.
quote:
Rape is having said no and tried to stop the sexual activity and the attacker overcoming that active resistance.
quote:
I would say that rape is the crime of forcing sex AGAINST the will of a recipient, not merely on an unwilling or unresisting recipient.
He *did* state that if the victim isn't *actively* resisting, it's not rape. The only person putting up a strawman is you. You just wanted to come in here and use that word, didn't you? Next time, check the conversation first, will you?
This point is probably what I find most disturbing about Holmes's argument. Holmes, a good portion of (a significant majority, I believe... I'd have to check...) rape victims *don't* resist. Once again, perhaps you don't have a sense of fear - but that's *not normal*, particularly for women.
People are scared of being beaten - and *realistically*. People are scared of being killed - and *with reason*. The sort of person who will force sex on another person is capable of all of that, quite easily. Combine that, with the perspective (tall man to an average woman = over 7 foot tall bodybuilder to the average man), and something you don't seem to take into account - the lack of the testosterone-driven "fight or flight" reflex - and you should be able to see *why* many women fear their attacker enough to take the actions that they do.
Is fearing enough not to resist a good course of action? Probably not, unless they're armed. However, I want to you understand *why* many women don't, instead of your denigrating their suffering for the sole reason that they didn't. I find what you're doing just horrible... simply horrible. I would have left this conversation long ago (and cried less, at that), if it weren't for this fact.
You would have had my partner put herself at risk for getting beaten or worse. You would have had her leave school to get away from him (either that, or stay in town and go to the same classes as a person like that, right after breaking up with him). You would fault her - who never had any teaching, read any pamphlets, or whatnot, on what to do in such a situation - for being afraid.
Well, you know what? I don't care what you think. I back her 100% on this, and if you disagree.... I really don't give a damn. Go second-guess someone else's reaction to a traumatic event; I don't want to hear yours any more.
(end of conversation)
This message has been edited by Rei, 10-03-2004 03:41 AM

"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by crashfrog, posted 10-02-2004 9:55 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by Silent H, posted 10-03-2004 7:20 AM Rei has not replied
 Message 12 by crashfrog, posted 10-04-2004 5:02 PM Rei has not replied

  
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