General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Stop Telling Women How to Not Get Raped [View all]Tansy_Gold
(17,847 posts)that rape is perpetrated by strangers. Some guy who goes around checking for unlocked doors or lurks around hiking trails.
What we're talking about here is a culture that (not so) subtly says, "Hey, guys, if she's in a bar, she's easy. Ask her if she needs a ride home, and if she does, that's a good as saying she's ready to climb in the back seat in the parking lot."
When people right here on DU say that well, maybe if women don't want to be raped, they shouldn't go in bars, should wear make-up, shouldn't have a social drink, those people are saying women who do these things are consenting ahead of time to sex and have no defense. It's their own fault. If they didn't want to have sex with anyone and everyone, they shouldn't have gone to the bar, because it's not the rapists' fault! It's the woman's! She could have prevented it by not going in the bar!! Duh!"
What the Ebony essay and some of the rest of are saying is, that's wrong. It's NOT the woman's fault. It's the rapist's fault, and what we need to do is a better job of teling men, who are overwhelmingly the rapists of women, that no means no. It means no now, it means no later. No means no.
What part of that don't you get?
Is it so much to expect that men learn to control themselves in bars and at parties? They're able to control themselves on public sidewalks and in grocery stores and offices when they see a woman in a short skirt. So it's not that they physically can't control themselves; it's that they believe they've been given the right to behave differently.
That's an education thing.
A guy I know believed for years and years and years and years that there was no such thing as rape, period. Women consented, all the time. There was no such thing, because his mother (!) had always told him, "A woman can run faster with her skirt up than a man can with his pants down." One day I said to him, "What if there's nowhere for her to run to? What if he has a knife to her throat? What if he threatens her children? Is it rape then?" He didn't like admitting his mother was wrong, but he did.
For those who would like to read about my experience in a classroom academic discussion of rape in which a law enforcment professional defended his own right to have sex with a date, whether she consented or not, please see http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002100430#top
For the rest of you, here's the text of the flyer I handed out in that class:
No is a complete sentence.
What part of No dont you understand?
No means No. Period.
If you have problems with those three lines, you may be a potential date rapist.
Is that a harsh statement? I dont think so.
When a woman says no, it is up to you to accept her no and stop. At that moment. Unequivocally. If you do not, if you exercise your right to pressure her into having sex with you, whether that pressure is verbal, physical, sexual, or any other kind of pressure, you are stating very clearly that her wishes are ignorable. You state that you dont believe her or that you dont care if shes telling the truth. If you persist in your seduction, you are saying that your desires are more important than her integrity, her personhood, her wishes, and that you, for whatever reason, have more of a right to have sex with her than she has the right to say no.
You may say that when she says no, she really means not now, and that the key to your success is maintaining the pressure until she gives in. Thats force. Thats coercion. Thats rape.
It is also a denial of her integrity as a person. You are saying that her words dont mean what she says they do. You are also saying that you know her mind better than she does. Would you allow her the same liberties? Would you allow her to persist long after you had lost interest in her?
Many women have been so thoroughly conditioned and socialized by our society to think that they can be held responsible for someone elses actions that they have lost the ability to say no. They have been taught that saying no doesnt mean anything. They have been taught that their integrity doesnt mean anything, because it can be overridden by your desires and you are more important than they are. So they dont speak, they live in fear, even if it is not a palpable fear. And they allow you, by their frightened silence, to do things to them that they dont want.
Nothing a woman has done with you in the past, even if she has had sex with you on a regular basis, even if she is your wife, nothing justifies your overriding her simple no. Nothing. You have no more right to continue talking her into something she doesnt want to do that you have the right to shout fire! in a crowded theater. When your right infringes upon someone elses right, you lose that right.
Does this mean you are going to have to give up some of your male privilege, your right to seduce and/or rape the women you desire? Yes. That you are going to have to learn that you are not more important than the women you date? Yes. That you have no right to pressure her, to coerce her, to force her? Yes.
Yes, in this case, is a complete sentence.
What part of yes dont you understand?
Yes means yes.