In terms of the financial crisis, I'm willing to say some poor judgement went down; but more than that, unnecessary risk was present in droves. And it was a situation where more than just the primary, or even secondary, players were to be greatly and acutely and intimately affected. That is a risk I am not willing to take, but that is because until I got to college, I had a tendency to shake after making a very large purpose and have immediate buyer's remorse, even for things that were necessary. However, it is also a greater risk because its effect went beyond those making the original assessment. The amount of risk in terms of life-destroying financial decisions should be, I think, couched in part by how many lives will be destroyed. It's an inexact science, to be sure.
But then, there is the risks that, generally, affect only ourselves. The risk of wearing a miniskirt in 1960s America. The risk of riding the subway whenever as a woman. The risk of talking to a stranger at a party.
There are all sorts of risks that are both greater than the average and exhibit poor judgement, without being immoral or criminal. Lighting one's own head on fire. Taunting a group of Hells Angels with your police badge. Yelling at a police officer. Getting a piggie back ride from an extremely drunk friend. Doing anything ever first demonstrated on Jackass.
Talking to a stranger at a party, going to another room with a new acquaintance at a party isn't on that list. Even while drunk. There is a risk factor, yes. But there is (a) also the risk of reward, and (b) the assumption your companion isn't about to break the law. Does (a) or (b) always hold up? No. But it is there, and it is the counterbalance. It is the thing that makes the risk worth the reward, meeting someone new.
Rape is frequently compared to muggings or walking down dark alleyways. And while a post by someone else I can't find at the moment details the problems with comparing a violation through sex to the removal from your possession of your wordly goods, there is a deeper issue at hand. What happens if your life includes that dark alleyway? I don't mean, "Oh, I'm going to wander down a dark alleyway I don't know tonight!" but "That dark alleyway is in my neighborhood, and it is a way of getting from place to place". You could still say it is stupid to take it, but is it really? If it is your neighborhood, if walking through all of the other streets is just as risky? Women get drunk. Women drink. The people women drink around are not always going to be people they know. And women are, generally, in the presence of men. If a drunk man is a dark alleyway, the chances are a woman has been alone with multiple ones over the course of her life. Because she has to interact with that dark alleyway sometimes. Because rape doesn't happen with strangers leaping out at us from dark alleyways. Rapists are most often the people close to us, and the people close to the rapists are most often their victims. And because, all things considered equal, talking to a drunk guy alone isn't that much more risky with talking to any guy unfamiliar to her alone. Which is to say, it could go rather poorly - or he could be wonderful and end up as her not-boyfriend before the week is out, and everything in between.
I don't go to parties, and I never much enjoyed them in college. My risk ratio was that I don't like people, I don't like large gatherings of people, even among those I know, and I'm not the most fun person to meet at parties. I prefer to hang out with my friends, the people I know and can talk to. But, if I were someone who enjoyed people and hanging out with a whole host of them when we were all drunk, the risk-reward ratio would shift. A lot.
And then there is the other part of this, and that is that with all of the concern Amy and others have placed on how this girl exhibited poor judgement, the actual criminal and his criminal act gets lost in the shuffle. We're not talking about his risk-ratio, his poor judgement, his criminal actions. We're not talking about how to talk to men about rape, committing it and how to not. We're talking to a woman, and to all women, about their poor judgement, and the rapist suddenly disappears from the conversation.
No.
The rapist should be front and center. The rapist should not have as a comfort the "rape is always wrong - but" going on. The rapist needs to be the focus, because otherwise we're just having another conversation about women and how they get raped. Women don't "get" raped. Women are raped, by other people. Most often, by men. And the way we help victims isn't by foisting upon them some idea of agency, some idea that if we can teach them how they've done wrong and they have to own their poor judgement. We have to talk about how, by being raped, someone didn't acknowledge their agency, didn't recognize their humanity. We have to change the conversation. Because for too long, it has been about women, and what they do or don't. For once, it really is a "what about teh menz?!" issue.
11 comments:
I actually agree with a lot of this, but I have a problem with your conclusion.
In my mind, this is all about how you conceptualize rape. The issue of judgment is important because alcohol is often cited as a date rape drug. A man gives a women too much alcohol, it impairs her judgment, and she becomes unable say "no." Thus, the man is a rapist.
A few years back, the U.K. even passed a law which proclaimed that a woman could not give 'drunken consent' (depending on their level of intoxication). If a man had sex with a heavily intoxicated woman, he was committing a crime.
To me, it's not difficult to imagine a situation in which a woman says that she's not interested in sex, but then willingly engages in sexual activity hours later after getting seriously inebriated. Alcohol lowers inhibitions, and the things we say when we're sober aren't necessarily the rules we follow when we're drunk.
Does "taking advantage" of a girl whose judgment is impaired constitute rape? The issue of female agency is essential in cases like this.
As Katie Roiphe wrote:
"MEASURING rape is not as straightforward as it might seem. Neil Gilbert, a professor of social welfare at the University of California at Berkeley, questions the validity of the one-in-four statistic. Gilbert points out that in a 1985 survey undertaken by Ms. magazine and financed by the National Institute of Mental Health, 73 percent of the women categorized as rape victims did not initially define their experience as rape; it was Mary Koss, the psychologist conducting the study, who did.
One of the questions used to define rape was: "Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs." The phrasing raises the issue of agency. Why aren't college women responsible for their own intake of alcohol or drugs? A man may give her drugs, but she herself decides to take them. If we assume that women are not all helpless and naive, then they should be held responsible for their choice to drink or take drugs. If a woman's "judgment is impaired" and she has sex, it isn't necessarily always the man's fault; it isn't necessarily always rape."
Why aren't college women responsible for their own intake of alcohol or drugs?
Women are responsible for their own intake of alcohol or drugs. If I get caught smoking pot, a legitimate defense is not, "He gave it to me, I would have never taken it if he hadn't willingly handed over that joint." Women are not responsible for the actions others take - or force upon them - once they've imbibed. If I've drunk enough to fell a horse, and a guy whom I've repeatedly said "no" to throughout the night, even in the course of inebriation, sleeps with me, that is rape.
It is rape because the guy (a) knows that I am not into sleeping with him. It is rape because I do not have the cognitive ability to say "no". It is rape because the guy, in the case of plying a woman with alcohol after the point where she has the cognitive ability to stop drinking it - and that isn't gender-specific; plenty of men and women get so drunk they lose the ability to stop drinking, especially if someone is handing them the drinks - for the sole purpose of having sex with her he knows she would otherwise not engage in. And, it is rape because some of these women are raped after they've blacked out or have passed out.
The problem I have with Kate Roiphe is that she uses the "bad sex" argument, as if women are being manipulated into 'crying rape' when all they've really had is sex they either regretted in the morning or sex - the act - they really didn't enjoy. That's not what is going on, and I find it disengenuous to continually push that conclusion. You know what? Plenty of women have sex after getting drunk. A lot of them initiate it. And many of them aren't going to the police the morning after to report a rape. Because the sex was consensual. And feminists aren't saying no consensual sex can happen when the parties are inebriated. What they are saying is that men do rape women when women are vulnerable, that is a problem, and the answer isn't to deny women the opportunity to eat, drink, and be merry in a mixed gender environment. That men have to be part of the solution, and part of that is acknowledging how they are part of the problem.
I actually agree with a lot of this, but I have a problem with your conclusion.
My conclusion is that the culture at large focuses a lot on women - what can women do to prevent getting raped, what can women not do that will prevent them from being raped, what are women not doing that is causing them to be raped. You know who's missing in that conversation? Men. Men, and what they can do to not rape. Men, and issues of their poor judgement and their lack of agency that makes a woman alone with a man subject to rape. Men, and how we remove them from the conversation completely, to the point where women seem to be getting attacked by phantom penises. I'd like that to stop, please. I would like just as much attention being paid to men as the issuances of "poor judgement" we throw at women who are ALREADY victimized.
People's preferences aren't fixed. It's not clear that a "no" several hours before negates a "yes" several hours later, simply because of alcohol. What if the situation were reversed, and a man who had been drinking heavily slept with a woman he'd said "no" to several hours earlier? Do you think people would typically consider this rape?
What if both are drunk and consent is given? Are they both rapists? Is the man a rapist, and the woman a victim? Your argument seems to rest on the premise that intoxicated men still have agency, while intoxicated women do not.
The problem I have with Kate Roiphe is that she uses the "bad sex" argument, as if women are being manipulated into 'crying rape' when all they've really had is sex they either regretted in the morning or sex - the act - they really didn't enjoy.
This is not what Katie Roiphe is arguing. She is arguing that most women – when they are asked directly – do not consider these encounters rape, but that the "rape crisis" movement ignores women's experiences and nevertheless defines the encounter as rape.
You know who's missing in that conversation? Men. Men, and what they can do to not rape. Men, and issues of their poor judgment and their lack of agency that makes a woman alone with a man subject to rape.
This is just not true. For the past decade, rape awareness campaigns have been increasingly focused on educating men not to rape women. This is especially true on college campuses.
At Ramapo, for example, fraternity members had to attend a sexual violence prevention workshops, in which men were explicitly asked, "How do you not rape a woman?" They had to generate a list of ways in which they could avoid sexual violence toward women.
This is just not true. For the past decade, rape awareness campaigns have been increasingly focused on educating men not to rape women.
I'm not talking about rape awareness campaigns, although a lot of them still focus on women. I'm talking about the societal conversations. I'm talking about the columns like Ask Amy and the Guardian articles about how drunk women are being raped. I'm talking about how when there are a string of rapes, the articles that are normally produced are about what women are doing wrong, and what women should be doing.
At Ramapo, for example, fraternity members had to attend a sexual violence prevention workshops, in which men were explicitly asked, "How do you not rape a woman?"
And that's good. But not every guy is in a fraternity. the WC did a good job having pamphlets on hand about rape and domestic violence, but in general, most of the conversations I had in classes and in that freshman Z-whatever class we all had to take one of, the conversation was mostly about women.
People's preferences aren't fixed. It's not clear that a "no" several hours before negates a "yes" several hours later, simply because of alcohol.
People's preferences aren't fixed, you're right. But it is quite clear to me that a guy who has gotten continuous "no"s over the course of the evening should - at the point the woman is thoroughly wasted - think long and hard about how qualified that "yes" is. That isn't denying women agency. That's saying, "if you are constantly pressuring someone for sex and watching them imbibe something you know will lower their defenses, how much pressuring does it take before you're just a predator?"
What if the situation were reversed, and a man who had been drinking heavily slept with a woman he'd said "no" to several hours earlier? Do you think people would typically consider this rape?
I don't think people typically think when it happens to a woman it's rape. I think men are in a bad position in society when it comes to rape, because they are always supposed to want sex. I think that makes it harder for men to recognize when sex they didn't want has been forced upon them. I think it makes society at large less likely to take a man's assertion he has been raped seriously. I think that is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, and I think that the fact that men generally don't see themselves as rapeable may explain some of the reluctance to acknowledge when women are raped, because if a similar situation happened to them, they wouldn't have the... ability to call it such. Obviously, I'm speaking generally, but that's my feelings on that.
I would consider it rape. So would a lot of the feminists I respect. Those I respect who would not see it as rape are, I think, dead wrong.
TBC...
Cont...
Your argument seems to rest on the premise that intoxicated men still have agency, while intoxicated women do not.
Then you're reading my argument wrong. I don't know what to do about that, except to say it like this:
If Party A refuses to have sex with Party B when both are sober, and Party A continues to refuse to have sex while both are becoming increasingly intoxicated, and if Party B continually pressures Party A for sex and uses Party A's inebriation to push the issue, and if Party B makes sure Party A's inebriation is greater than Party B's, then Party A's level of intoxication and Party A's continued refusals for sex throughout the evening make Party B's refusal to accept that answer and Party B's amorous advances culminating in sex very likely rape, if not simply predatory behavior. If Party A wakes up in the morning and feels forced into the sex the night before, it was rape.
If Party A answers a survey question, "Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because [the person] gave you alcohol or drugs?" with a yes, then Party A was raped. Because of the words "didn't want to". "Didn't want to" means, generally, "no". And there are plenty of reasons why Party A would not feel as if it was rape, stemming from the argument of poor judgement and having to "own" going someplace with Party B, or because of the argument that Party A could have at some point said yes to sex during the night.
But if we accept that we can't do certain things while severely drunk - driving, operating heavy machinery, playing with nail guns, etc - then it stands to reason that at a certain point we cannot give meaningful consent to sex. If being drunk is a reason for annulment of a marriage or to make invalid a contract, then I think it is a reason to genuinely confirm that the person you're getting down and dirty with really, truly, and enthusiastically wants to be getting down and dirty with you.
TBC...
What if both are drunk and consent is given? Are they both rapists?
No. If they wake up the next morning and the only thing regretted is the beer goggles effect, then no one was raped.
You can have sex while drunk. If you feel forced into sex at any time, then it isn't sex and it isn't consent. It's rape. And that's not taking away from women's agency.
This is not what Katie Roiphe is arguing. She is arguing that most women – when they are asked directly – do not consider these encounters rape, but that the "rape crisis" movement ignores women's experiences and nevertheless defines the encounter as rape.
First and foremost, there are many reasons women might not consider what happened to them rape, and yet those experiences could still be rape. Just like I said. But more than that, she's distorting what other feminists are saying on the issue. One, she's lumping all of the feminists she considers "rape crisis" feminists into one box, and then argues from there that those feminists don't think women are capable of making the decision to drink or have sex. Bull, is what I say to that. All of the feminists I know and respect make a clear delineation to sex while intoxicated and a rape that uses the victim's intoxication against hir. Feminists I don't really like on a personal level make that distinction as well. And that's my problem with Roiphe's argument.
Most feminists are good enough to recognize the difference between sex with a person you regret the morning after, and someone raping you while you're intoxicated.
Most feminists are also good enough to recognize that some of the reasons some women don't call what happens to them "rape" is partly because of what they are being told, and how poor judgement and other arguments are tacked onto the "rape is always wrong" disclaimer.
In other words, feminism is much more complex than "drunk sex=teh rape!" It is the "didn't want to" part that makes it rape, drunk or not.
You can have sex while drunk. If you feel forced into sex at any time, then it isn't sex and it isn't consent. It's rape. And that's not taking away from women's agency.
Let's take alcohol out of the equation for a moment. Based on your standard, how could a man be expected to know whether a woman feels forced, unless she articulates that? What if a woman says yes, but she feels socially pressured? What if a woman says yes, but changes her mind without saying so?
How is this an enforceable legal standard?
Here is a good op-ed from The Guardian on why it's common sense to tell women they should exercise good judgment.
In other words, feminism is much more complex than "drunk sex=rape!" It is the "didn't want to" part that makes it rape, drunk or not.
If this is true, then why do feminist "studies" of rape continue to include questions like the one Roiphe pointed out? Questions that are so vague they can easily be interpreted to mean that regrettable drunk sex is equivalent to rape.
Maybe you're right that most feminist don't believe this -- but feminist groups continually cite rape statistics that rely on this assumption.
If this is true, then why do feminist "studies" of rape continue to include questions like the one Roiphe pointed out? Questions that are so vague they can easily be interpreted to mean that regrettable drunk sex is equivalent to rape.
I don't find that question to be so vague. I would have a problem with the question being used to support rape statistics if it were worded as "sex you regretted". There are tons of reasons to regret sex - it wasn't very good, the guy turned out to be an ass, the guy wasn't attractive - and yet still have the acknowledgement that the sex was consensual. I don't see any ambiguity in the "sex you didn't want" question. "Sex you didn't want" is rape.
Here is a good op-ed from The Guardian on why it's common sense to tell women they should exercise good judgment.
I don't care what the Guardian says. Seriously, I don't. What I care about is how "good judgement" is based on norms that I think need changing. I don't think the prevailing common sense is all that sensical, and I don't like that it is common. So I'm going to write things that point out what I think is wrong with the common sense notions. You may not agree; that's all well and good, but I'm going to continue to argue that you're wrong.
Based on your standard, how could a man be expected to know whether a woman feels forced, unless she articulates that? What if a woman says yes, but she feels socially pressured? What if a woman says yes, but changes her mind without saying so?
How is this an enforceable legal standard?
That is a question I don't have the answer to.
I can offer some suggestions, but most of them you're not going to like, because you've already shot them down in the past. Those would be, individually, using "yes" as a starting off point instead of the absence of "no". It would be maintaining open lines of communication. It would be making sure your sexual partner is comfortable with stopping at any point, and having that be clearly articulated.
And on a societal level, it would be working to change the "man as actor" romantic system we have still going down; it would be to change the idea that "no" is negotiable. There are other options and other ideas floating around out there.
But really, the prosecution rate for rapes - let alone the conviction rate - is pretty low. So asking about an enforceable legal standard in a system that already doesn't process rape kits in a large amount of cases seems like you're complaining about how small the portions are when the food's already rotting.
I don't care what the Guardian says. Seriously, I don't. What I care about is how "good judgement" is based on norms that I think need changing.
We've been here before, haven't we?
What's the point of having a discussion about this if your position is unchangeable? Why comment on my blog posts -- or write responses -- if you don't care to consider sensible counter-arguments?
What's the point of having a discussion about this if your position is unchangeable?
My position isn't unchangeable. I've changed from the Guardian type position. I've done a lot of research. I've read a lot of stuff. I read what you write, and I disagree, but I'm also willing to let you have your say in what is essentially my space (albeit my space I don't pay for) and engage with it and discuss it with you.
Why comment on my blog posts -- or write responses -- if you don't care to consider sensible counter-arguments?
I comment on your blog posts because I want to indoctrinate you into thinking women have no agency and are constantly victims of society.
Come on. I listen to you. I explain my point and I read when you explain yours. I don't agree with you on this issue, or many others. I'm still interested in how you come to its conclusion. That doesn't mean I agree. It doesn't mean you can throw up a Guardian post and expect me to go, "Well, that's a sensible argument" when I don't think it is sensible and have told you so already.
I write responses to your blog posts when I feel you are wrong - or when I feel like you're right, or when I'm personally ambivalent to the argument at hand but think you've made an interesting point. I write responses to your blog posts when I feel there is something else to be said you have missed. I write responses to your blog posts because you have written a response or two to mine. I write responses to your blog posts because I'm far left, and you're not. I write responses to your blog posts because I don't think discussions mean you or I are automatically going to have a "Eureka!" moment and suddenly take the other person's position. And I write blog posts because, frankly, I'm an opinionated asshole who likes having my thoughts and feelings out there in the world.
Why do you comment on my blog posts? Seriously, I want to know. Is it because you consider me a friend, or is because you're interested in what I write and because you're interested in what I write want to engage with it even if you'll never agree with it? Because I don't read your blog just because I consider you a friend. And if that's only why you read mine, I'd suggest you stop. If you comment because every time you do, you expect me to change my position to yours, I'd also suggest you stop. But if you comment because you want to have an actual discussion with me wherein we may understand each other better, then great. Because that's what I'm looking for, and that's why I respond to you. Because I'm interested in engaging with you. If I wanted to engage with The Guardian, I'd comment there.
Why do you comment on my blog posts? Seriously, I want to know. Is it because you consider me a friend, or is because you're interested in what I write and because you're interested in what I write want to engage with it even if you'll never agree with it? Because I don't read your blog just because I consider you a friend. And if that's only why you read mine, I'd suggest you stop. If you comment because every time you do, you expect me to change my position to yours, I'd also suggest you stop. But if you comment because you want to have an actual discussion with me wherein we may understand each other better, then great. Because that's what I'm looking for, and that's why I respond to you. Because I'm interested in engaging with you. If I wanted to engage with The Guardian, I'd comment there.
I comment because you're my friend, I'm interested in what you say, I want to have an honest discussion, and you may introduce some points that I haven't considered. You've changed my mind about things in the past, particularly when the position that I'd staked out was too strident.
I posted the Guardian article because I feel the author articulates my point very well, and I thought you might engage with it. I don't expect you to agree, but I thought you might be interested in his reasoning. The point wasn't to show that some dude from the Guardian disputes your point -- it was to lay out a logical premise, supported by counterarguments.
Next time, I'll just make the case myself.
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