There are two things every Macintosh user knows:
1) Unlike Windows computers Macintoshes never crash
2) Mine is the only exception
It’s extraordinarily difficult to write a nuanced post about date rape because it’s such a hair-trigger issue and the last thing you want to do is be misconstrued as dumping on men, misconstrued as blaming the victim, or misconstrued as playing the one-note “gee but us men have it tough too” MLA tune.
And when you’re an hour or so into such a post, based on what you feel is an incomplete narrative of a typical “hookup” session between to social groups in this radio segment on NPR’s Weekend America you return to your computer from a break only to be locked out of your machine by the evidently-much-dreaded OS-X spinning wheel of doom/death/and-so-on “hourglass” cursor, for the second time that day (up from “only” once a day for the 10 days you’ve owned the machine) there’s just not much chance you’ll have the emotional energy to write the whole thing all over again after holding down the elegantly designed power button for six seconds to force a restart.
It seems dumb to have to go back to saving my work every five minutes since I’d pretty much forgotten to do that after upgrading to Windows 2000 back in, well, 2000, since unlike my expensive new Macintosh it really never crashed.
That is all.
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Sat, 2006-09-23 19:23.
I had gotten use to my son's outburst at least twice a day, but I thought it crashed because he was editing multi-track music samples on his G5. Word processing? It needs to go back. BTW can't you set up your software to automatically save every so often?
[I talked to a different Apple tech who says I need to replace the battery. (Frankly I'm a little skeptical since the one I spoke to yesterday didn't go *anywhere* near equipment problems.) Anyway I removed the battery as recommended and I'll just run on wall current till the replacement comes. Who knows? It could work. Thanks, Five. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Sat, 2006-09-23 19:34.
I hope your post wasn't going to follow this theme. http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2005/03/degrees_of_slav_2.html
I was annoyed with his position with both subjects.
[Although I haven't read enough of the theme he's trying to develop (and so don't feel comfortable commenting fairly on its merits or demerits) I can say I wasn't going to follow his theme. Thanks, Five. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Sat, 2006-09-23 23:09.
Timing is everything, sayeth your Muse. Obviously She prefers that this post haunt your dreams for a while longer. She is by nature sadistic, as evidenced by the fact that she inspired you to buy a Mac.
Sleep well. Write tomorrow.
[Looking ahead in the comment list it looks like I'm going to have to rewrite it after all. Thanks, Kochanie. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Sun, 2006-09-24 05:14.
I guess it's time to decide which philosophical views are wrong by figuring out which ones annoy us.
So much for presenting arguments for positions and responding to the arguments of others by figuring out which step in the argument is fallacious or which assumptions are false.
[Hannah Arendt pointed out, in a difficult-to-argue way, that it may not be possible to say a particular philosophy is *wrong.* If you and Five of Nine have issues there are probably better places to air them. As I have not yet read your argument nor (successfully) posted any of my own it's probably premature to object to anything here. Thanks, Jeremy. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Sun, 2006-09-24 06:38.
Jeremy Pierce, the concept of "begrudging consent" annoys me and I think it's philosophically wrong, a self-contradictory expression. It presupposes an oppositional sort of game, maybe a zero-sum game, which is a wrong frame in which to look at sex. Begrudging isn't consent, this makes me think of a high pressure salesperson trying to get someone into an adjustable rate mortgage, not someone who is proposing an encounter of mutual enjoyment.
[I mentioned earlier that "I guess so" constitutes *formal* consent, but pragmatically speaking too many "I guess so's" lead to "never again," and that doesn't benefit anybody. So yeah, begrudged consent, even in a long-term relationship, is going to tend to be problematic. Thanks, Humbition. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Sun, 2006-09-24 08:07.
Jeremy Pierce, someone may argue against your points, if they were points to argue against. You seem to know exactly what women think in those moments of coercion. How can one argue with a mind reader? You have created a pseudo-philosophical argument for how to determine rape. Yes, I'm annoyed. I can't deny your speech, I believe in your right to speak. Since it would have been a topic of this post, I felt it important that others, should be informed of your point of view.
[I apologize again for being so slow to reply to comments this weekend. I don't object to the debate, its terms, or the way its being conducted but I'm not sure it's most appropriately conducted here. Thanks, Five. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Sun, 2006-09-24 08:57.
"Date rape" is not "just a little bit rape." If you look at the usage of the word on web sites concerned with rape prevention, it means "rape by someone with whom you are already acquainted." So the contrast is not between a lesser degree of coercion and a greater degree of coercion, but between "date rape" and "stranger rape." The point being that if you are forced to submit to sex when you don't want to, it's still rape if you already know the person, still rape if you agreed to go out on a date with the person, and still rape if you had made out with the person, but weren't willing to have intercourse, or if you had previously had sex willingly, but are no longer willing to have sex with the person.
An article that explains this well.
[Agreed. My post *definitely* wasn't about anything as unambiguous disregarding "no means no." No (or, in very particular circumstances, an agreed-upon safe word) always means no. Thanks, Lynn. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Sun, 2006-09-24 17:09.
Five of Nine, I never claimed to know anything anyone felt in any particular situation. All I did is set up a continuum of cases according to which things begin to seem less and less like consent and more and more like coercion. I happen to think the cases I would call coercion extend much further than most people I know do, but my point had nothing to do with where you draw a line and everything to do with the difficulty of drawing a line. Do you deny that there are cases when it's hard to agree on whether something is coercion? If not, that suggests a vagueness in the term.
I don't think it's fair to describe my post as giving criteria for when exactly something counts as rape. That's exactly the opposite of what I was doing. I was pointing out that vagueness in our language infects this moral concept, just as it infects the moral concept of wrongness (since something can be more wrong or less wrong). I'm not sure why that idea should attract such ire, and I'm especially unsure why you might treat this as if I'm trying to tell anyone how to determine which cases are rape, since my conclusion was that it's hard for me to know what we should say about borderline cases.
humbition: I know women who describe their response to their husbands in exactly these terms. Maybe you don't want to do that, and that's fine. I happen to agree that sex is not ideally looked at as the zero-sum game that many people view it as, but the fact is that many view it that way and will excange sexual favors for other favors, even on the ordinary level of household tasks in a marriage. That doesn't seem to me to be absent of all the elements of coercion, and therefore it doesn't seem to me to be the same thing as a fully consenting choice to have sex. Thank you for confirming my point.
Since you agree with me that the cases I have in mind are not fully consenting, the only way I can conceive of you as disgreeing with me is if you go all the way to the other side and treat these cases as tantamount to forced rape. Any other position is pretty much in the middle area I'm trying to defend.
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Sun, 2006-09-24 17:28.
Augggggh ! Computer crashes and freezes drive me crazy !!! My sympathies, Figleaf !
Sincerely,
Anne Elizabeth of MakeMyCopCome
[Thank you, Anne Elizabeth. Sympathy helps. :-) --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Sun, 2006-09-24 17:36.
How fun! Does this count as "multi-gender social mixing"?
[We'll find out. ("Multi-gender social mixing" is a more gasious way to say what happens when two groups, one group men and the other women, encounter each other *as groups* at a bar and jointly agree to continue drinking together. With mixed results. More on this later though. Good question by the way. I think it's the crux to understanding how non-hilarity results. Thanks, Gander. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Sun, 2006-09-24 18:40.
Hey, would recommend re-formatting the hard disk in case some crap has accumulated. My mac hardly ever crashes.
Sorry to hear about your trouble.
[Thanks, Tickle. It's only 10 days old so it's probably too early to reformat. If this keeps up, though... :-) --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Sun, 2006-09-24 21:25.
I have not had a blog long, so it was not on my mind when I replied to Pierce's comment. I'm sorry, I did not think to send him there.
[I'm definitely not upset about it. When I said it's better to take posts up where it's posted (actually I didn't say that but I kind of like it) I just meant it's easier to track the flow if everyone engages it there. (And yeah, I know what you mean about sort of forgetting when you've got a new blog. I totally remember the feeling.) Thank you, Five. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Mon, 2006-09-25 04:44.
Lynn, a pile with 700 grains of sand is less a pile than a pile with 1000 grains of sand, even though both are piles of sand. Along the continuum between things that a piles and things that aren't, the one with 700 grains of sand is closer to the things that aren't piles even though both are piles. That's all I meant when I said rape with formal agreement is less rape.
Date rape, by the way, is an unclear notion. Some people define it as acquaintance rape, but most people define it as rape with pressured formal consent. Acquaintance rape is the most common kind of rape, and I'm pretty sure the point of coining the term 'date rape' was originally to contrast it with physically forced rape, not to contrast it with rape by a stranger. Either way, the term is irrelevant. I was talking about formal consent by pressure, which undermines the extent to which the consent is real.
Now figleaf has a good point. Isn't it better to raise concerns about my post in the comment section of my post? As long as the criticisms are here, the most natural place to respond is here, but if figleaf doesn't want this conversation here it's probably best just to leave comments on my post or write your own post on it on another blog.
[Thank you, Jeremy, at least in textual/narrative terms it *would* be better if this debate were conducted closer to the source. (I'm a big fan of an archival approach to blogging, but then I believe blogging is the modern equivalent of the historically invaluable diaries and letters of the pre-internet era.) --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Mon, 2006-09-25 06:28.
My take is that the term "date rape" was actually originally meant to convey the concept of "acquaintance rape," rather than the concept of "pressured consent." And that "acquaintance rape" came to be used later, when people kept confusing "date rape" with a lesser degree of rape. In some ways, I'd rather drop the whole term "date rape," and use "acquaintance rape" for the one case and "impaired or pressured consent" for the other case.
Anyway, I'll wait for figleaf's actual post for further comment. And if I have further comment on your post, I'll take it to your post.
[Thank you, Lynn. If and when (more like when, by the way) I reconstruct my post I'll keep in mind everyone's comments here in mind even if continuity-wise they're better made elsewhere. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Mon, 2006-09-25 09:34.
Lynn, I'd be fine with that if those are the actual origins of the term. This is an important distinction that I don't think we should want to confuse, and I'll try to keep it clearer in the future.
[Thanks, Jeremy. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Mon, 2006-09-25 10:36.
First, thank you to Lynn Gazis-Sax for the link to the article on acquaintance rape from The American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress.
Secondly, while I have usually found Five of Nine's comments to be thoughtful and considered, I recommend that she reread Jeremy Pierce's post, Degrees of Slavery, Degrees of Rape. The author wrote those posts to test his own thinking on the definitions of consent and rape:
Upon reading this same post, I did not find any indication that the author seem[ed] to know exactly what women think in those moments of coercion. If I have missed your point, Five of Nine, please help me out.
Third, I would like to present a real life example that may clarify some of the questions raised about consent and rape. The example is a discussion that took place among a group of adults, most of whom were women, whose ages ranged from 35 to 70. The subject of the discussion was the novel, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, or more specifically, the scene in which the drugstore employee named Skeet gives the unmarried, pregnant Dewey Dell a bogus abortifacient. Since she does not have the money to pay for the remedy, Dewey Dell pays, unwillingly, by engaging in a sexual act with Skeet.
Some members of the discussion group argued that this was clearly a case of rape. Others, like myself, asked if this was better defined as sexual harassment. If it was rape, I asked, how would it be defined by statute and what evidence would be required to legally prosecute it?
I do not know if Figleaf or the other readers/commenters are interested in pursuing this line of inquiry here or at your respective blog sites. However, I would be very interested in reading your thoughts on this.
[I'd never thought of this distinction, Kochanie, between rape and harassment. I'm not meaning to sound blithe when I say this but it has powerful rhetorical and maybe even philosophical appeal. First, by extending the scope to actual sex acts as well as the more commonly cited wolf-whistle/pinups-in-lockers/unwelcome comments it's rendered *more severe.* It also strengthens the core concept of rape as violence or threat of violence. The distinction doesn't change the fundamental outcome since both types of crime have always been about power. And in the context of my actual post (now up) the expanding the scope of harassment might help resolve some of the otherwise inexplicable ambiguity of social sexual assault that Elizabeth Armstrong discusses. Thanks, Kochanie. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Mon, 2006-09-25 11:33.
If rape is sex without informed consent, then the fact that it's a bogus abortifacient would make it uninformed at the very least, even apart from whether she consented to something. What she consented to (if she consented) is not what Skeet gave her.
In the case, when you say she was unwilling do you mean that she was forced (or that Skeet just simply did something to her) or do you mean that she willingly engaged in a sexual act with Skeet but that she wouldn't have done so if she hadn't been in a desperate situation. If it's the latter, you might say she consents but that he was immorally taking advantage of her desperate situation. If it's the former, I'm not sure how she's consenting in any sense.
[While the example is radically complicated by the fact it involved resolving an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy, but in more general terms I think Kochanie's distinction between rape and sexual harassment works very well here. Individual A needs access to something that individual B will allow only in exchange for sex. In the absence of a strong definition of harassment a defendant might (successfully?) claim his victim was "only" prostituting herself. With a strong definition of harassment the defendant goes straight to jail without passing Go. Thanks, Jeremy. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Mon, 2006-09-25 13:58.
Are you willing to do a separate post on this issue? I've been interested for some time in whether it's rape if someone eventually consents/gives in and haven't been able to find info about it from any of the rape crisis websites. My belief is that it is rape or some form of sexual assault that leaves someone feeling disempowered, but I think it's largely an unaddressed issue. I thought date rape refers to social situations in which the victim's word about consensuality may be questioned, not whether he/she was pressured into it, at least that's the definition I was familiar with years back.
[I have now recreated the post I'd intended to do. And more and more I'm liking Kochanie's Harassment/Rape distinction since it lets you raise questions early on that simplify rather than complicate the situation you describe. In dating situations people evidently feel ambiguous about whether consent is present when someone says "Of course you have to give me a blowjob! Everybody else does and I'll break up with you if you don't." Whereas it's difficult to incorporate that situation into a definiton of rape that doesn't attenuate it, it's going to be visible as sexual harassment no matter which side you view it from. Thanks, CC. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Mon, 2006-09-25 15:29.
Kochanie,
I based my conclusion from his last paragraph. As far as mind reading, in his discussion he didn't appear to think a young wouman could understand consent. I am writing a post about this now, should be up tomorrow. I don't approach a lot of subjects academically, my response may be more emotional.
[Thanks, Five. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Mon, 2006-09-25 18:26.
Five of Nine,
I look forward to reading your post. I am not an academic, and if I appear to be rather plodding in analyzing this issue it is because there is a lot at stake. I do not want victims, be they male or female, to be denied assistance or legal redress if they are assualted. Nor do I want a man or woman to be unjustly prosecuted, lose her/his reputation, or face incarceration because a law was written hastily and/or enforced arbitrarily.
Again, I look forward to discussing this with you.
[Thanks, Kochanie. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Mon, 2006-09-25 18:49.
...do you mean that she willingly engaged in a sexual act with Skeet but that she wouldn't have done so if she hadn't been in a desperate situation.
Jeremy Pierce --
This is precisely what occurs in the novel. Dewey Dell is in a desperate situation, she suspects that Skeet is not giving her a bona fide abortifacient, and her father has appropriated the money she had received from her lover to pay for the abortion. To pay for the remedy, as Skeet refers to it, she has nothing to offer except her body.
Does this fall into the category of grudging consent? I would think so, and my question to you is whether this should be considered rape and, if so, prosecuted under the law?
(If you wish to continue this discussion at your weblog, that's OK. Just tell me if I should submit this comment in response to the March 2005 post).
[Thanks, Kochanie. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Mon, 2006-09-25 19:32.
Figleaf, I hope it was OK to link to this post, fom mine.
[Hi Five of Nine. Yes, it's absolutely fine. There's been a darn thoughtful conversation going on here and you deserve the credit for bringing it up. It wouldn't be fair for you not to link back to it. You didn't need to but thanks for asking. --fl]
Submitted by 945 (not verified) on Tue, 2006-09-26 04:54.
OK, so it's a case of Skeet taking advantage of her desperate situation. But is it also a case when Skeet doesn't deliver on the promised goods, or does she actually receive the genuine abortifacient after the sexual act?
If she does receive it, some would argue that it's a genuine financial transaction. Those who think it's ok to hire a prostitute who is selling sex because of her desperate situation would have a hard time seeing these two cases as anything but equivalent. I happen to think it's immoral to take advantage of such a desperate situation. But you can think that and still disagree on why.
One view is that the desperate situation undermines the formal consent, but it's hard to see how. It's not undermined by the lack of information, the way it is in deception cases. It's not undermined by the lack of options presented. There are in fact more options. She can now get the abortifacient on the condition of engaging in the sexual act, something she didn't have the option to do otherwise.
One response is to say that it's wrong to take advantage of someone's desperate situation but not to count it as coercion (and thus not to count it as rape). It's wrong for other reasons than the reasons rape is wrong. I'm not committed to that view, but it's an easy way to explain why this is wrongwithout expanding the definition of consent beyond just ordinary choice.
In such situations, clearly there are reasons someone might be more easily manipulated into sex, but it's not as if the person making the offer created that situation. Skeet just takes advantage of it. But maybe taking advantage of someone's limited options makes it count as coercion.
[*Whatever* he was withholding is a red herring as is whether it was authentic. All that matters is that he was withholding it. Consider a different case where an employer promises an employee a promotion in exchange for sex. In terms of actionability it's absolutely irrelevant whether the employer actually gives the employee the job afterwards, or whether job in question is a good job or a bad one. Thanks, Jeremy. --fl]