Thanks for this post.
I was--at 16--raped by a friend/boyfriend. I said no. Took about 5 years before a friend, a rape counselor, heard my story & said directly: that's rape. I had told others. No one named it. Keep naming it.

i know you wrote that "rape can be confusing" but in this case: "I started gagging and choking, and I couldn’t really breathe," there's absolutely NOTHING confusing or gray about the scenerio. frankly, if they wanted to perpetuate this crazy notion of "gray rape" they shouldn't have used THIS as an example!

She said no, and he refused to stop. That's not confusing! The only confusing thing is our screwed up rape culture, the culture that tells us that if you were on his mattress you wanted it.

I was raped at a party in college-- and I didn't think it was rape until I heard a rape survivor story that could have been my own.

Thanks for posting on this.

I used the word confusing because that's the word that the young woman used. And let's face it, in rape culture women are taught to blame themselves so no matter how clear cut the assault, women may be confused.

"There is nothing fucking gray about "choke on it." "

Anyone want to take bets on the type of porn he watches?

Jessica: "And let's face it, in rape culture women are taught to blame themselves so no matter how clear cut the assault, women may be confused."

I totally agree. While it might not be confusing to others, the person who was raped might indeed be confused.

This new gray rape makes me sick. Rape makes me sick. Call it what it is: Unacceptable.

Boondoggle: "Anyone want to take bets on the type of porn he watches?"

Ugh. seriously. I don't even want to think about that.

On a side note, I fucking hate cosmo.

Yet another reason why "Yes Means Yes!" will be such an important book. Still working very slowly on my submission, but it'll happen!

Thank you for posting this, Jessica. It really upsets me to see major media organs propogandizing women not to define rape as rape.

One thing I want to point out, where I think the antiporn activists have it exactly right:

[TRIGGER WARNING]

there is a subgenre of porn that has centered and normalized the face-fucking, gagging, forceful blowjob. I'm not going to drive traffic to it; you can find it yourself if you feel so compelled. But there's plenty of it.

I'm certainly not against gagging blowjobs in a BDSM context. But context is everything

There is stuff out there that, as far as I can tell, does not contextualize this stuff as BDSM at all, but presents it as normal. When we as a society tell our young men that a blowjob is grabbing a woman's hair and forcing his cock down her throat until she gags and them coming on her face, we're training them to abuse. When we present that as something they should expect and do without discussion, we're training them to rape.

I'm talking to my fellow BDSMers here, and if it makes me a moral scold, then toss me in the Jensen bin and ship me to Austin: don't patronize this and don't condone it. What we do should be presented as what we do; consensual, first last and always.

It's bad enough that porn normalizes all kinds of harmful body standards. That has far-reaching effects, but those effects are diffuse compared to this kind of horrifyingly direct scenario. I may not be able to prove causation in a way that would survive peer review; maybe that can't be done. But I also don't buy that it isn't a causal factor to normalize force, resistance and violation.

This rapist probably tells himself, and may believe, "hey, what's the big deal? Forced blowjobs are totally normal now." But they are not. They're totally normal in porn, and among BDSMers using it as a scene element. But if it's not something the suckee want to and agrees to do, then it's rape.

I too fail to see what is so "gray" about that encounter. Also, I'm confused - if you believe you were "gray raped" are you not supposed to press charges?

"[The young woman] calls what happened to her something akin to “gray rape,� a term she learned from an article in Cosmopolitan written by Washington Post journalist Laura Sessions Stepp." I find it really overwhelmingly disheartening that the term is spreading like this.

I fucking hate Cosmo too, but I have to admit that if I read this article several years ago, when I was with my last boyfriend, it would have given me pause.

My bf liked forced bj porn and I'd sometimes watch with him. When he'd force me later, it wasn't something I enjoyed, but I didn't tell him not to, because it seemed so normal. It was in porn! It clearly got him off! It was just one of those girlfriend-y things you do. If someone had told me that porn isn't the best indicator of what "normal" sexual behavior is, or that (gasp) it's Ok to say no to things you don't like to do (things I didn't learn for a long time), it would have been a help. So Cosmo sucks, but this crappy article may have some benefit.

Snappy, the entire culture owes you a big apology. I'll start: I'm sorry.

Snappy: I'm so sorry, nobody should have to deal with things like that. Maybe more awareness about these issues would be good. More articles in more magazines, defining it as rape. Things like this should NOT happen,to ANYONE. Hugs to you!

There must be a large contingent of women who, like previous posters, have been fooled by porn into thinking this is normal and expected. Because if a boyfriend tried to force his girlfriend to give him oral, and shoved it in and made her gag and said "choke on it", I think the only reason she wouldn't bite down hard and twist is that she thinks he's entitled to do this and it would be wrong to assault his penis in order to get free.

I mean the moment a guy told *me* "choke on it" I would bite the fucking thing off. Unless he had a gun or knife. But if he's just some guy I'm sleeping with? He's gonna learn what happens when you gag a woman and choke her WITH THE MOST SENSITIVE PART OF HIS BODY. I mean seriously, attacking a woman in a body part that has teeth with a penis is like attacking someone's fist with your eyeball. *If* she realizes that it's okay to retaliate and fight back.

I've really never comprehended how it is that so many rapists without weapons can force women to give oral until I read this thread and saw that women have been tricked by porn into thinking this is a "girlfriendy" thing to do. I can totally understand how, if you think a man is entitled to choke you with his dick, you wouldn't think you were entitled to retaliate by biting. I never understood why there weren't more rapists with partially severed penises where someone bit down before.

Sometimes rape is confusing for the victims because of the trauma, because of the betrayal, because so often it involves someone they trusted.

But sometimes rape is confusing because of articles like this one. Words can't even express how angry I am at this effort to normalize rape (maybe it's more accurate to say to reinforce the normalization of rape that's already part of our culture). The only logical conclusion from this theory is that rape is simply a part of the female experience. That is NOT ACCEPTABLE.

This entire "gray rape" shit actively hurts rape victims by making it that much harder to acknowledge and deal with rape.

Taking personal confusion and using it to say that those rapes weren't as bad, weren't as real, weren't as damaging, is just another tactic of the patriarchy.

Of COURSE women aren't going to be able to call it rape when you tell them it isn't!! The young woman in the article got the idea from Cosmo. Maybe if they had done more to educate about rape, maybe it could have helped her with her confusion instead of adding to it.

From the article: “Once things got pretty violent, I didn’t know how to get out of it. . . . I’m a pretty strong person, but I didn’t know what to do.�

That just breaks my heart.

To all of you at Feministing, let me say it again loud and clear.

THIS IS PORN APPLIED TO THE REAL WORLD. PORN IS DIRECTLY (though not exclusively) RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS

Yes, Alara, because if a man has his hand in your hair and is shoving his dick violently (or even just aggressively) down your throat, the thing to do is cause him pain and piss him off in what may be the most major way possible. At least, it's a great thing to do if you have a weapon, if you know you can escape immediately, or if his arms and legs are going to suddenly disappear and he won't be able to hurt you.

Sometimes girls and women know that these things are wrong, and they happen anyway. Not all victims are unaware. Some are all too aware of the danger to themselves.

Ugh, I'm so fucking annoyed. I fucking hate Cosmo. And I second j. helene, I can't believe this term is spreading like this. Seriously, a woman's magazine is helping to normalize rape?? I feel like punching something.

And did anyone catch this in the article?

?“This is a bigger issue,� he says. “And what my friend said is he thought, too, that with some groups of people, I was sort of becoming a fall guy for a lot of, you know, female anger, which is understandable.... Not that I’d be a fall guy, but that they’d have [anger]. I think about it a lot in terms of just what it would be like to be a woman that got hit on all the time....�

Right, because being the victim of abuse is the same thing as being a rapist. I don't even understand what he's saying here.

“I don’t think he’s a predator,� says Matt Poole, a senior who is also friends with Shaw-Fox. “I don’t think he actively seeks out victims. I think he has a problem, and he can be helped.�

No, he is. That's what predators do. They prey on people. Which is what he does. He sexually assaulted half a dozen women. And no shit, he has a problem. What an astute observation. Just another example of the normalization of rape. Isn't this what we call rape a rape apologist? He admits the guy has assaulted women, and yet it's not his fault?

I think that sometimes the victim is too shocked to do anything. She said that she's a strong person, and when you feel strong and capable and it's taken away from you so quickly, it's hard to know what to do. It's such an unfamiliar situation. I blamed myself... I'm glad she was strong enough to do something about it.

Y'know, I'm strong, feminist, and all that good stuff.

I can easily see how this could have happened.

My first sexual encounter in college eventually involved a guy who put me into a similar (physical) position and wheedled and begged for oral sex, eventually, "just kiss it, then, please?" Ugh.

I was not fully sober, and up until then had been having a lot of fun. I just stopped cold and said, "I'm uncomfortable right now b/c I feel like you're trying to force me." Ice water on the situation. Pure luck, too, that I pulled out the right words to slow him down without making him angry, etc. I can see how in a different situation, different people, different experiences, the whole thing could have turned out differently.

When I eventually left his place (never to return) I realized how close that really was, and the whole thing gave me chills.

ugh, that gave me chills, when i was 14 something smiler happened to me, i was at a party and more than slightly inebriated ( a stupid move, i know) and an older guy took me to a back room and forced me to give him head. Anyway when i tried telling my friend at the party that it happened she said i had to be lying because there was no way for somebody to force me to do that. I never reported it and to this day the only people who know that it happened are my best friend ( not the one at the party) and my current boyfriend... I never really identified it as rape, more almost rape just because for a long time i thought it was my own fault because i shouldn't have been drinking, that would probably be why i never told anyone who could have helped me.

I realize this isn't a popular opinion, but my experience just makes me wonder why we get hung up on terms like "gray rape" (and trust me, I'm a woman who likes to get hung up on terms). My ex-bf wasn't a "predator"--he was a 22-year-old guy who grew up in a culture that told him it was okay to act this way and I didn't correct him. I wasn't a "rape victim"--I was a girl who had received a lifetime of mixed messages: say no to sex! good girlfriends are game for new things! bodily integrity! be fun and sexy! I was just doing what I thought I was supposed to do.

I hate to say that this wasn't rape, because that makes me sound like some kind of apologist. But speaking as someone who was also stranger-raped, it just doesn't feel the same. In the first instance, I gave consent. There was no malice. My ex did what he thought was okay to do. I believe he's a good person who didn't know better and would have stopped if I'd asked--but I didn't. We're still civil today, and when we have talked about the past, he seemed genuinely surprised that forced sex wasn't cool with me. There's a big difference between a regular bf who thinks his behavior is okay with you and a stranger or acquaintance who forces it and expects it to be fine without any discussion.

The bottom line is that I'm strong, feminist, and anti-rape, but the insistence on calling something rape when it doesn't feel like rape seems counterproductive. Why can't we just run articles like this one without using the terms "rape" or "gray rape" and let women see themselves in the stories without running the risk of negative knee-jerk reactions to those terms?

There's a big difference between a regular bf who thinks his behavior is okay with you...

Why would the guy from Lewis & Clark (who was neither the woman's regular bf or a stranger) have thought she'd wanted to gag and choke? "Choke on it" is not a sweet nothing; it's a violent demand.
They were not in a consentual BDSM relationship so there is no basis for claiming he may have just thought it was OK with her.

Every woman who claims her rape (there's a definition at the bottom of the article!) was partially her fault (and therefore, only "grey") perpetuates the normalization of rape.

Disgusting. Dunno what's worse, the regressive bullshit of "gray rape" or that it was published in a "women's" magazine.

Alara: I'm a 6'6" guy, and I loathe physical confrontation. It doesn't happen that often because of my size, but when it does the blood rushes to my head and I feel myself mentally and emotionally receding from the situation. I seize up and, though normally eloquent, start to stammer. Just saying, it's not always easy (setting aside whether it's right) to physically defend yourself. Even if you seem to be in a good position to do so.

Re confusion: Trauma is confusing. This is the case even when one experiences something universally agreed to be traumatic, like a gunshot wound. People aren't sure what happened; they doubt, they blame themselves ("I shouldn't have been wandering aroudn that corner at night). Think how much worse it must be to experience something that NOT everyone agrees is trauma, that a magazine that's supposed to be for you says is something else?

This is not the woman's problem, it's her rapist's. It's Cosmo's.

And did anyone catch this quote from scumbag:

"I’ve maybe deserved some females’ being frustrated with me because I can see where there’s been times where I was maybe too aggressive in my flirtation."

Hmmm... last time I check forcing "a female" to give you head was a little more than flirtation...

Snappy:

I could be wrong, but I think the distinction between "rape" and "gray rape" isn't "non-consensjual" vs. "consensual but uncomfortable." What you're describing doesn't sound like rape to me, it sounds like the result of our seriously fucked-up and buttoned-down sexual culture.

"Gray rape" is meant to refer to insances where the woman withdraws her consent at some point in the course of an otherwise consensual sexual encounter between two people who know each other. This is supposed to be somehow different from rape, more of a gray area.

I think what people, me among them, are reacting to is the attempt to dilute the definition of "rape" by parsing different forms on non-consensual sex.

I agree that they should not be calling this “gray rape� because I think terms like that will only make the victim even more confused. But I can definitely relate to Snappy and others by saying that the article did shed some light on a problem that I have personally kind of dealt with and really didn’t think it had happened to anyone else.

Years ago I was throwing a party at my house while my parents were out of town. I invited over this guy that I was kind of seeing and at one point we snuck away up to my bedroom. We started to fool around and I’m not going to lie but my mouth definitely lingered down there for a bit. But after a minute or two I somewhat gained my senses and realized that I was leaving a bunch of drunk teenagers to party in my parents house and had no idea what they were doing down there. So I told him we should go back to the party and I pulled away. All of a sudden he grabbed me by the shoulders and threw me on my bed. He forcefully held my head down while forcing me to give him a blow job. It all happened in a matter of seconds and when it was all done I was so confused. I had been physically resisting and trying to push him off of me, but he was much stronger and I had never technically said the word “no.� When he was done he lay there smiling as if nothing bad had happened. I didn’t know what to do so I just got up and went back down to the party pretending nothing was wrong.

I was confused about the situation for a while because this was a guy that I had already slept with and I hadn’t actually said no. Did I do something wrong? And I know so many girls would always say if a guy ever forced me I’d just bite down and that’s something I even used to say myself, but while it was actually going on I just couldn’t think straight.

When I finally opened up to a few friends (years later) and told them what had happened some of them said I was not raped while others were horrified and agreed with my assessment of rape. It’s still very hard for me to talk about but about a year ago I semi-confronted the guy about it and he just pretended like he didn’t remember anything. But it definitely helped me move on from that horrible experience.

So I agree that calling it “gray rape� is bad. But it’s at least helps me to know that others have gone through the same thing as me and that’s the positive I took away from this article: I’m not alone.

Chalk up another one for Cosmo, eh? Disgusting.

I had a lot of experiences like Snappy in high school, and while I never withdrew consent and do not consider my experiences rape, the choking bjs were so highly unpleasant that every oral experience since has been preceded by "Gladly -- but if you touch my head, it's over." It might dampen the "romance", but just like a condom, that's the price you pay for protecting yourself. And the line has worked like magic.

There's a big difference between a regular bf who thinks his behavior is okay with you and a stranger or acquaintance who forces it and expects it to be fine without any discussion.

I don't think that there is at all. A boyfriend who thinks that they can force you without any discussion is the same as a stranger who does so. Whether or not you want to forgive your rapist is your own decision and I wouldn't try to take that from you. But to say that rape is not so bad when it's a boyfriend but really bad when it's a non-boyfriend is just dangerous, in my opinion.

This is probably my damage, Kimmy, but if I were being forced to give oral sex until I choked, it would not *matter* that the guy still had hands and feet. Because when I've been physically attacked (never raped or sexually assaulted, just attacked) by men in the past, it doesn't matter that I'm five foot 0 and usually weigh much less than them -- my vision starts to tunnel and I become consumed by rage and panic and I do *anything*, anything at all, to hurt them and get free. This has happened to me many times, against opponents much bigger, stronger and better at fighting than I am, including circumstances where the man in question was play-attacking like my husband trying to tickle me or my dad trying to I forget what, prove some kind of point maybe. And I attacked them both like they were major league threats, and hurt them because they didn't expect me to get violent when they were playing.

So you're probably right, I need to understand that my tendency to go to violence first is just *my* tendency, and other people may have totally different reactions. But when I read the description of the attack posted in the article and then Snappy's recounting of her experience, I couldn't stop imagining what it would be like to be attacked like that, and I kept reflexively biting down and twisting my hand because the visceral image, the rage I felt at such men, was so overwhelming... even though such an attack has never happened to me.

I'm sorry. I don't mean to denigrate women (or men) who don't have the same reaction to violence that I do. There are certainly circumstances where violently attacking the person attacking you is actually the worst thing you could do... and I'm pretty sure I'd do it anyway because when I'm frightened and panicked by physical violence that's what I *do*. It's not a rational choice.

But I do wonder... I cannot be the only woman in the world whose reflexive response to being forcibly choked by a penis would be to bite it. Given that, and given the male fear of the vagina dentata, I gotta wonder... why *do* rapists think it's safe to do that if they don't have a gun to your head? Do they seriously think that their physical strength is so overpowering and cowing that they cannot possibly get hurt by a woman? I realize that many women won't, in fact, respond by trying to bite it off... but I would, and I can't be the only one, so wouldn't you think they'd be worried about that possibility before they tried it?

With all due respect, Snappy, all those factors you listed are exactly the kinds of things that lead to rape. I wouldn't try to label your experiences, but to use your experience to say nothing similar is rape is inappropriate.

Why can't we just run articles like this one without using the terms "rape" or "gray rape" and let women see themselves in the stories without running the risk of negative knee-jerk reactions to those terms?

Because the girl in the article was raped. She felt assaulted. It was against her will. And one of the reasons she doesn't feel comfortable calling it rape is because she has been told it isn't. Standing up and saying this is rape and it's unacceptable is an important part of feminism.

And.. it isn't rape if a man feels entitled to his partner's submission to whatever he wants to do? That really defeats the point of demanding respect for women's active consent.

There's a big difference between a regular bf who thinks his behavior is okay with you and a stranger or acquaintance who forces it and expects it to be fine without any discussion.

I want to clarify that I'm not disagreeing with your experience or your feelings about them, because I'm not arguing that you shouldn't feel that way about your experiences. But I do disagree with the way you extrapolate from them to a bigger picture.

If the behavior that the boyfriend thinks is okay is forced sex that is uncomfortable and/or painful, (outside a clearly consentual BDSM situation) how is that okay?

Every woman has the right to process their own experiences. But just as you don't feel it was rape, another woman might. And if we call all forced/coerced sex rape maybe more women will be able to say no to sex they don't want and not feel like they're being a bad girlfriend.

llevinso, your story illustrates why "It wasn't rape because she didn't say no" is soooo problematic and leads so many women to feel confused and blame herself after being attacked.

I mean, these things happen and clearly we are blurry and confused and shocked in the moment so how are we supposed to have the clarity to yell out, "No!" when we've already voiced our disinterest but have just been physically forced out of nowhere.

"I'm going back to the party" is the same thing as saying "no!" But currently the standard is that if we have not said the SPECIFIC word "no" then we haven't been raped!

Yeah. I had a similar experience with a boyfriend and the forced and/or gagging oral sex in high school. I didn't realize it was assault until recently. That's several years. I didn't equate it with porn. I think I was just too naive and trusting of the guy. I think that sites like feministing and comment threads like these do a great deal to inform people. And to let us know that we aren't alone in our experiences.

"I cannot be the only woman in the world whose reflexive response to being forcibly choked by a penis would be to bite it. "

No, you're not. I've used teeth and I'll do so again if the need arises.

I don't think they consider the teeth beforehand because they know they can scare her with violence or the threat of it. And for the most part, it seems like they're right.

What is so hard for these people how invented the phrase "gray rape" to understand? Consent really does mean consent, period. This is a legal concept that has been honed through the cauldron of the common law for centuries, yet somebody selling a woman's magazine comes along with this fanciful phrase -- as if she can reinvent a long-settled concept.

To assess whether there was consent, the question is whether from the reasonable male's perspective (assuming the male is the one accused of rape, which is almost always the case), the female manifested her assent to the particular sexual act undertaken. Her secret, subjective intent, wishes or desires are of no import, and her consent may be verbal or it may be implied-in-fact by her conduct based on all the surrounding circumstances. At a criminal trial for rape, once the affirmative defense of consent is raised at trial, as with all crimes, the state must prove the absence of consent beyond a reasonable doubt. If the male does not reasonably believe there was consent, it is rape. It is an objective standard, not a subjective one. If the male reasonably believes there was consent, then it was not rape.

People in the business of selling magazines would do well to NOT make this concept, for which there is no serious debate, so difficult or pretend it is controversial. It is not. Rather, the concept of consent -- not someone's idea of what consent should be -- ought to be taught to young men and young women, because there is obviously confusion.

I think I can understand the desire to have something other than "rape" to call our experiences, especially in the case of acquaintance or rape by a friend, which it sounds like this case was. No one wants to necessarily think their friend is a rapist. I also think that rape is such a loaded word that people want to be careful where they level it. Also, because sex is such an emotionally laden act, when consensual or not, that it really confuses people.

So even if what happened was wrong and a form of rape, I can understand that girl being confused and wanting to find something else to describe it. I often find that while language is one of the best forms of communication, it is completely inadequate.

Ditto to SarahMC. If it's clear you didn't want it, saying "no" is redundant and probably wouldn't do any good. I think we like to believe we had more control over this kind of situation. Maybe sometimes blaming ourselves instead of the rapist is a way of coping with that loss of control, by maintaining some illusion of it.

"the male reasonably believes there was consent, then it was not rape."

Funny thing is, there's theres human beings called women that know there are men out there who don't even take into consideration her consent, like the rapist in this example.

What's the deal with men liking gagging BJs anyway? Do they want teeth and vomit and tears on their penises? And why are BJs popularly considered a male power thing, with the stereotype being a kneeling woman and a pounding man? It can be a very empowering experience for a woman to give oral sex, especially when the receiver is lying down and the environment is relaxed. And consensual, of course.

Maybe I'm alone in thinking this, but I consider oral sex to be more intimate than vaginal-penile intercourse. Bumping uglies can be done with fairly little in the way of involvement and with a great deal of mental detachment... not so when giving oral sex. How can people even consider forced oral not rape?

Michelle: ""I'm uncomfortable right now b/c I feel like you're trying to force me." Ice water on the situation."

Exactly. That was about what I was taught to say if I felt uncomfortable with something, because as soon as you suggest to a guy that the situation is rape, if he's normally a decent guy who's a bit confused in his sexuality and what is right and wrong, he will understand that he is heading into rape territory. Most guys who think this is okay don't think rape is okay, they just don't realize what rape is or that they are a rapist. It's not always going to solve all problems, but it can help sometimes.

As for gray rape-- I think there is a gray rape category, where, while the rapist should still be punished, his punishment should be less than it might be otherwise. It's when there was a misunderstanding, like a person withdraws consent mid-act and the other person doesn't hear it, or doesn't understand (and there is no physical pushing or such that would indicate that the person who withdrew consent did so), or when both partners are drunk and they wake up in the morning together because their judgment was impaired (one person drunk always = rape), or when a 15 year old lies and says she's 18. BUT if there was violence, it's NEVER gray. This is firmly in the rape category. No question. I hope someone explains that to this woman, and she listens.

What geek said.

Also, what Betty Boondoggle said. Rapists don't confine themselves to physical force (gun, knife, fists, rope, etc,). They much more commonly use mental and emotional force, like bullying, or the threat of voilence, or the threat of not being loved, or of being ostracized.

Hard to remember to bite when your head and heart are in the grinder.

""I'm uncomfortable right now b/c I feel like you're trying to force me."

I really like that. I think every girl should be taught that line and told that it's good and appropriate. It's just good communication, and teaches them to respect their own feelings and to expect that others do the same.

Good call, Geek. Let's teach all the boys about not forcing someone once someone changes her mind, too.

I hope that the woman in the article at least threw up on his bed afterward. I hope it's not wrong for me to hope that. It very likely would have been my unstoppable reaction (and once in fact was).

Basiorana-

Really? So it's not quite rape if someone says "no" but didn't say it loud enough? It's not quite rape if she didn't push or otherwise physically resist? Those standards are regressive and dangerous.

One of the big cultural changes that needs to happen is to change the way the burden of consent is borne. Right now, it is up to the woman to object. She needs to communicate it to him, to be sure he understands clearly, to be sure she communicated effectively. In what other situation do we impose such a shoddy standard of care relative to the potential damage? BOTH partrners need to take the time and effort to MAKE SURE that everyone is on board EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.

To continue the above a little, since I realize the standard of care thing might be a little opaque to non-lawyers:

When you're driving a car, you have to look out for pedestrians. Everywhere, not just in the crosswalks. You have to avoid hitting them no matter how stupid they're being, how flagrant their jaywalking, or how wasted they might be. Why? Cause if you hit a pedestrian you're fucked. Because every driver knows that, we are extra special careful to keep an eye out for pedestrians, for kids chasing balls, for blind little old ladies who might not see us coming.

We strive mightily to avoid hitting those people because we know that a) if we do hit them it's gonna mess them up something awful, and we don't want to do that; and, b) we're gonna get screwed five ways from Sunday by the courts and our insurance companies.

That's called a standard of care. It exists legally; hit a pedestrian and you're in for it even if they were jaywalking. And it exists socially; if you were drivnig like a jackass and hit someone, your friends and family are likely to tell you how much of a jackass you were.

Why don't the law and the society impose the same standard of care for our sexual partners? The potential damage is just as severe.

In response to everyone that's saying I would just bite down...

As I said in my post, that's what I had always said too, and I'm sure that that would be some people's gut reaction. But I was in such shock and it was all happening so fast...I never even thought to bite down.

It just upsets me when people are like, "Why didn't you just bite down?" And it's like "Gee, really? Why didn't I think of that? Oh maybe cause I was in complete shock and scared and wasn't thinking clearly!" ...Sorry if that sounded angry but this topic is obviously very upsetting for me...

And I agree that saying "I feel like you're trying to force me" might work in some cases. But I think with a lot of guys they'd just kind of laugh that off. Or in my case you don't even get a chance to say anything because all of a sudden it's happening.

jfaustus: Situations like I am talking about are rare. And we as a society and culture need to make them LESS rare-- by encouraging women to speak up, and more importantly, encouraging men to actually listen to their partner and pay attention to their needs.

That said, I think it is rape, but a lesser crime, if it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt that the rapist had no idea that consent was withdrawn, or that it was unable to be given in the first place. Like a teenager who lies about their age. Or a woman who withdrew consent, but did so softly or muffled, and didn't pursue it when the guy didn't hear or understand her. We need to teach guys to pay more attention, but until society changes, I can't see putting a guy who didn't hear his partner say "stop" in the same category as this asshole, who had to know this woman wanted him to stop, she made it quite obvious, and he continued anyway.

Also, in my area, the punishment for hitting a pedestrian who darted out into the street at the last minute when it was impossible to see them tends to be less than hitting a pedestrian who was just jaywalking. In many cases it's considered an accident, and the driver is not prosecuted because he or she could not have predicted there was going to be a person there, or couldn't have stopped once the person appeared.

llevinso: "And I agree that saying "I feel like you're trying to force me" might work in some cases. But I think with a lot of guys they'd just kind of laugh that off. Or in my case you don't even get a chance to say anything because all of a sudden it's happening."

If I wasn't clear, that was sort of exactly my point. It was sheer luck that I came up with the right words, that particular guy listened to them, gave me the opportunity to actually *speak* them, etc. I don't think (or claim) that it would work in every situation-- I just think that under different circumstances, that situation could have turned into something similar. I find it terrifying to think of what a close case that situation was, and how much of what stopped it from becoming violent was just lucky coincidence of people, timing, etc. Not everyone is so lucky.

My brother saw me reading this and was like, "you looked pissed off."

I responded "apparently cosmo thinks there's such a thing as grey-rape, where you consent to one thing, and another is forced on you."

He said, "What the fuck?! That's like saying, "ok, nurse, you can draw my blood," and then getting murdered!"

Basiorana-

I can't agree. In the first place, the situation you describe in your earlier post:

a person withdraws consent mid-act and the other person doesn't hear it, or doesn't understand (and there is no physical pushing or such that would indicate that the person who withdrew consent did so)

is way more common than rape by a stranger using physical force to restrain an obviiously unwilling woman.

Beyond that, I'm not 100% clear on your point. Do you mean that we shouldn't prosecute for conduct that doesn't meet the current legal definition of rape? To that narrow contention I would have to agree on the grounds that you can't prosecute someone for something that wasn't illegal when they did it.

If you mean that we shouldn't presently hold them morally and socially responsible because although you agree things shoudl change, they haven't yet so we have to allow some wiggle room. Can't agree with that.

In the first place, I'm a straight guy and have never in my life had a sexual encounter where I didn't go out of my way to make sure that both of us were into what was happening. I did that even before I understood myself as a feminist, even before I was exposed to different theories of rape and consent. So we're not talking about some martian moral code that no one's ever heard of.

Furthermore, how do you understand social change to happen? You seem to be suggesting that we can't hold people responsible until things change such that there is a new state of affairs where they can be held respobsible. So how do we get there? When do we start? I think that a guy who pays insufficient attention to his partner and allows the sexual encounter to cross the line into something she doesn't want is a rapist. And I, for one, am willing to call him such today. The rest of the world will catch up eventually, I hope.

Re: Tim

Here's the thing: for certain stupid men, gag bjs are the norm. Even based on reading this thread, it sounds like various women have belabored under the misconception that they are the norm as well. Beyond a certain point- it becomes the norm.

Now, in my view, any act which basically prevents the other person from withdrawing consent should require gaining consent ahead of time. And regardless of what is 'typical' this is what should always be regarded as reasonable.

But I can see a difference between a rape act that specifically ignores a woman clearly indicating a lack of consent and a sex act that the participants regard as being typical that removes the woman's opportunity to demonstrate a lack of consent. Even pushing against his torso is probably typical during any choking bj unless the woman is really into some kind of BDSM.

It is still totally unreasonable and very wrong, but I think from our screwed up sexual norms and practices emerge a new type of rape: if you receive choking bj's frequently from your gf and she never indicates that she has a problem with it, it seems like that wouldn't be rape. But if you do the same thing with a new partner, it should be presumed to be rape b/c she's never given the opportunity to consent. So the act requires a (perhaps only slightly) more subtle understanding of context to differentiate between rape and not rape than your typical forced rape - even typical forced date rape.

llevinso: I have to totally agree with you on the not biting down thing. I've definitely had people ask me that before, as if they were questioning that I didn't want it to happen. Oh, she didn't bite down, she must have secretly wanted to do it. side note: A gun or a knife isn't your only weapon. The entire time I was being forced to do oral, the guy has his hands wrapped tightly around my throat...so, biting didn't seem like a good idea.

Hey all, I'm running around like crazy today so I haven't been able to comment back much, but I just wanted to say thanks to those who are sharing their stories.

Thank you FemiDancer.

And Michelle, I do understand that you weren't saying that would work for everyone. I think it would definitely work with some guys as like an "Oh shit, I didn't realize I was being that kind of a guy."

Will anyone here be writing letters to the editor? I think it would be good to point out to them that they are a "women's" magazine and should not be helping to normalize and make excuses for rape.

jfaustus: "The situation you describe...is way more common than rape by a stranger using physical force to restrain an obviously unwilling woman."

Yes, but it's more common that a person one knows or was in an intimate relationship with will force sex on an obviously unwilling woman, or a person one knows or was in an intimate relationship will be having sex and then continue once the other person obviously withdraws consent than either stranger rape OR the situation I described. Stranger rape IS rare compared to acquaintance rape but it has nothing to do with anything.

They should be held responsible. They should be prosecuted. I just don't think we should hold them to the same level as acquaintance rapists who are fully aware of what they are doing. Intent is still a factor in the legal system, and it should be.

Also, if social change could come from making something illegal, drugs would be gone by now. If we want to change society, we need to change the way we educate young people. Period. I advocate changing the way kids can access porn-- make it so they can get all the porn they want as long as it only shows safe, consensual, loving sex-- and teaching them how to recognize bad relationships and situations in schools.

One of the most infuriating things in the world is when people (almost always men) say that there is no such thing as a forced blowjob because "you can just bite down." Oh right, I must have wanted that scumbag to shove my head down on him, it's not like I was terrified of him hurting me worse if I bit him. No, I was asking for it.

Argh! Sorry, this isn't the kind of thing I can take sitting down.

"I'm uncomfortable right now b/c I feel like you're trying to force me."

I really like that. I think every girl should be taught that line and told that it's good and appropriate. It's just good communication, and teaches them to respect their own feelings and to expect that others do the same.

-----

I wish, wish, wish someone had told me this before I started dating. As it was, I was young, stupid, and way too trusting. No one ever explained to me that I ought to never be forced into a sexual encounter, that I shouldn't just give in when he pressured me because I didn't want to fight, or that a decent boyfriend wouldn't painfully grab my breasts or roughly finger me and make me bleed, despite my protests.

I was so young, I didn't know what a healthy relationship was like. I thought what he did to me was normal. It was only when a speaker for a local domestic violence group came to speak in our Allied Health Science class that I realized the thing she was describing had happened to me. She was describing molestation. She was describing rape.

The label "grey rape" seems so derogatory to me. It's saying that just because you are unaware that the violence done to you was rape, somehow means that it isn't a real rape.

Starknut: Yeah, that's exactly my point. I didn't have that kind of experience, but my first time was basically giving in to the nonstop pestering of my boyfriend at the time and unfortunately I didn't have the courage or the tools to deal with it.

This is another reason why the conservative brand of abstinence only education is a huge disservice to women. Most of the advice focuses on how to fend off the evil sex-obsessed men so you can retain your self-respect (read: virginity). It's patronizing and for me it just didn't reflect my feelings. I wasn't trying to fend off the evil man. I wanted to have sex and didn't understand why I was uncomfortable about it or how to know I was ready.

(Another wonderful myth of the scolding pearl-clutchers, that even if you aren't required to wait until marriage, there will be a magical time when you just know you're ready and that's when it's okay to say yes!)

You're completely right, Jessica; that is not gray rape. Hell, even without the violence it still wouldn't have been gray rape, but when you add that in it's just like DUH! God, I feel bad for young women out there reading Cosmopolitan right now like it's their personal Bible.

What's especially ironic about the whole situation to me is that in certain contexts, I personally would like having my hair pulled to the point of pain - I'm into being dominated. The problem is that our society eroticizes violence against women to the point that some men blur the line between a controlled BSDM situation where you STOP when the other person says to and an actual violent encounter. If a guy did that to me randomly in the middle of a sexual situation, I would fucking FREAK and be terrified even though in another scenario it might be exciting.

Does it disgust anyone else how much men think they are ENTITLED to get pleasure from women's bodies however they so choose? I can't think of a single woman I know who would even begin to presume that she could do something like to a man for her own pleasure. But according to this one poll 1 out of 12 guys on my college campus has done something sexual to a girl without permission - it's just absolutely disgusting. I'll stop rambling now, but damn I'm mad.

Basiorana:

You mistake me, and perhaps I you. I wasn't making a legal argument. Law and social morality are not, as you point out, coextensive. I was saying that regardless of what the law says, men who behave the way we're describing are rapists in the same way as if they had used force on someone obviously unwilling. I mean this in the same way that one might say, "High corporate muckity-mucks are scum-sucking kleptocratic theives, even if the loopholes their cronies in Congress wrote make what they did technically legal." I read you as making a non-legal argument that such men shouldn't be held quite as responsible as other rapists as a matter of social morality. That's the contention I disagree with. But maybe you were making a legal argument all along, in which case I got you wrong.

As it happens, though, we also disagree on the purely legal argument. Intent should NOT be a factor in rape (although it is, at present). I ascribe to the theory that maybe, in an ideal world, one would take intent into account somehow. But we don't live in an ideal world. We live in a world where it's ok to choke your partner on your dick while she's gagging and trembling, eyes wide in fear. Or was that ecstacy? A world where we want to say it's ok if, in the heat of the moment, someone overlooks those cues.

I think that state of affairs is way skewed to the detriment of women like those who have shared their stories with us today. We shouldn't look to the ideal law in this instance because the cultural definitions that determine the law's application (what is reasonable) are themselves skewed. Until those are straightened out, I would much rather have a law that restricts men by forcing them to take a second to stop thinkiing with their dicks than one that restricts women by forcing them to endure having sex they don't really want to have.

And the relationship between law and social change is a helluva lot more complex than you suggest. Since it's a social rather than scientific phenomenon, pointing out an instance that disproves a 1:1 relationship of logical necessity (the case of drugs) doesn't actually disprove the main contention (that law can be a tool of social change). Far too little space here to go into that, though.

Last bit: In talking about frequency, I was responding to your statement that the situation you're talking about is rare. It isn't. Comparing its relative frequency to other forms of rape would be difficult given the reporting problem. But it's worth noting -- anecdotally, at least -- the number of women posting similar stories on this thread.

I think part of the confusion over whether rape can be confusing, is that many posters seem to use rape as a description of a moral transgression. Rape does not refer to any morally condemnable sexual action, it refers to sex without consent. Rape is a serious crime because it harms its victims profoundly; however, you can be manipulative, controlling, and damaging of a sexual partner without ever committing rape. And I would even venture to say that some men who commit rape can overcome their issues and achieve meaningful relationships with women. The term "gray rape" seems to address the hesitation of the victim to apply a term that is also a moral indictment. The problem is not that rape can be ambiguous in terms of victims' and rapists' responses; it can be. Other posters have acknowledged that the victim's feelings about the rape are legitimate. The problem with the problem with the term is that it denies that a crime was committed; it clearly was. The logic of "it's rape therefore it's unforgivable or it's not rape therefore it's fine" should not fly anymore.

Sham Payne, I just wanted to say one thing to you: getting "slightly inebriated" at a party is NOT a "stupid move." What IS a stupid move is forcing a girl to go down on you. Period. You did nothing wrong. Most people drink at parties.

Think of it this way: if a little kid were at a party and had run around the whole time and had completely exhausted herself, and then some guy took her in a room and forced her to give him head and she was too tired and shocked to think clearly and say no, would you blame the child? No. And I'm NOT saying women are children; I apologize if I'm being an armchair psychologist, but I've read that in a situation where you've been abused it's best to think of yourself as you were when you were a child because we see children as blameless. So you are blameless, Sham; you did nothing wrong and did NOT deserve to be treated that way.

Sorry for all the long posts today. I'm back at college before anyone else and consequently have too much free time...

LizM: I, for one, wouldn't have any room to criticize you for long posts... Couldn't help myself, great and necessary discussion. Glad you're here.

There's a great book I read in a class I took in college called 'I Never Called it Rape.' I think every person - man or woman - should read it. This 'Grey Rape' bullshit is just that, bullshit. Rape is rape is rape. I don't think I have anything else to add to the conversation that hasn't already been said, but I do want to say one thing about BDSM and 'rape' scenes:

I'm a kinky girl. I'm involved in the S/M community. I like to play with consensual nonconsensuality, but I know and my partner know what is REALLY nonconsensual and what is just fun playtime. I don't like to call what we sometimes do as 'rape' play at all, because it's not rape. Forced sex (of any kind) is rape. Consensual non-consensuality play is not and I don't even like to use the word 'rape' to describe it.

"Grey rape" my ass. She was pounding on his chest to stop! She was choking!

There should not be any question as to whether or not this was rape, ERG!

I am also sort of shocked that so many people think biting down will help women get out of forced oral sex.

Think about it: You are being forced to give a BJ to a rapist. And you think biting his dick isn't going to send him into a tailspin?

I would be concerned with getting out alive, and I don't think biting his dick while you are in a vulnerable position physically is going to solve the problem.

"Bite his dick!" is just another way to do Monday morning quarterbacking after a woman's been victimized.

Maybe this is just a naive hope but if this stupid "gray rape" term is going to enter the language I hope it goes the way of date rape. It seems to me that was once an attempt to minimise rape, to say "Oh that was just a date gone a bit wrong, not really rape". And yet it became a way to say to women yes you were raped even though you went on a date with him. So maybe we can try and turn this term around with discussions like this one?

At a criminal trial for rape, once the affirmative defense of consent is raised at trial, as with all crimes, the state must prove the absence of consent beyond a reasonable doubt.

My understanding of an affirmative defense is that it means the burden of proof shifts to the defense. In the affirmative defense of insanity, it's up to the defense to prove that, yes, the defendant was insane and therefore not leagally culpable. Isn't that the point of calling it an affirmative defense? I could be mistaken about this, but I really didn't think that the burden of proof was on the prosecution to prove that the defendant was sane.

I don't know. Maybe because I've never experienced rape/assault (thankfully), but I don't even think it's confusing. If you didn't say yes, it's rape. Even if you were "asking for it" by getting drunk/wearing a miniskirt/walking alone at night.

How in the world were they "hooking up" if the guy was obviously intoxicated from the beginning? That's the thing that confuses me about the article.

I have been making a legal argument. I think "gray rape" should exist in law as akin to negligent homicide, that sort of thing.

I think that if we allow intent to be a factor--but not a get out of jail free card-- in other crimes, like murder, we should treat rape as a crime that is just as bad. And that means we have to consider intent.

That said-- I'm not talking about planning it out, that sort of thing. I think that someone who PLANS a rape should be punished more, because they are malicious and require intensive therapy. But a "heat-of-passion" rape is not an excuse, nor should it be. I agree that we shouldn't make it so.

When I talk about lack of intent, I mean that the guy honestly DID NOT REALIZE he was forcing the woman until AFTER the act ends. That's what I consider to be gray rape. When the guy thinks the woman consented wholy and was into the act, she gave him no clear, obvious sign and no resistance that would indicate it. Not that he thought resistance was normal or OK-- ignorance is not an excuse. Only if he actually got no resistance, and there were no obvious indicators that she was no longer consenting.

I have not read a single case here where the woman fits my description. All of them refer to choking or other resistance. The second a woman begins to choke, that's a sign that she no longer consents unless she agreed ahead of time to choking and has some kind of safeword. Thus far, none of the situations I have read are anything but actual, straightforward, black and white rape (though perhaps I missed one).

I have always believed that it is best to change society before you change law, and to do it through education. That's my personal philosophy and conviction and unlikely to change. Sorry.

Basiorana-

Just wanted to say that I'm enjoying this debate immensely. We disagree, but I loves me some passionate, well-reasoned disagreement! Hope I haven't conveyed the opposite impression.

I understand your point about intent, but just can't agree. I also think that there are many parallel tracks to social change. Education is a big one. Political advocacy, impact litigation, and legislative reform are others. Different ones are more or less useful in producing change on different issues.

Anyway, looks like we're agreeing to disagree.

Peace and respect.

Thomas's post was about 80 times more eloquent than I can be right now, as I am about to throw up in disgust.

I am in the process of beginning research for my undergraduate thesis project. The topic is on the vein of pop culture and mainstream social attitudes of rape and sexual violence and the way it impacts women's perceptions of themselves and their experiences- both socially and legally. I am exploring stuff like Cosmo's "gray rape" bullshit, social "rape myths", and the mainstreaming of violent sex, including "rape porn." I think a lot of porn influences violence against women and perpetuates the idea that women like rape, and I think more people have access to it than ever. But that's not necessarily the point of my thesis.

How do these things affect women? What does it make them think about themselves and their experiences? What effect does this have on the legal discourses used in courts? And on social discourses?

It's fucking tragic.

PS: Basiorana- I am too upset to address your other points [I agree some; I disagree some], but I think it's interesting to think you have to change society before law. While I am 110% in favor of wider education in many issues so society can begin to change, I think of instances where law has done a much better job than waiting to change social perception would. Brown v. Board comes to mind immediately. I think it's important to PROTECT PEOPLE, first and foremost, and the law is designed to do that. Law and society are reflections about each other- sometimes one changes first, sometimes the other.

Basiorana, Since you are making it a legal argument, how can it be proven that the rapist was not aware that the victim wanted them to stop?

The reason why that makes me nervous is because I see it as another way for a rapist to walk or get a lesser charge. For example, a woman and a man are having sex. She initially consented but wanted him to stop for whatever reason. She says no and he hears her, but ignores it and continues. If she decided to press charges, he could easily say that he wasn't aware that she said no and be given a lesser charge.

I understand what you are saying completely. I do believe there are some people who can cross a line when it comes to sex and rape someone without really knowing what they did. That person seriously needs to rethink their idea of "consent" and become more considerate of another person's well-being, especially the well-being of those who they sleep with. I wouldn't want to punish them for a crime they didn't commit. I don't hold them on the same level as someone who willingly, knowingly and intentionally rapes someone.

As for a legal case, however, I just don't see how that could work. I can imagine that it could work against rape victims more than it would protect innocent people.

I was gonna move on, but since others are picking up the discussion...

Rape is different in kind from murder and other major crimes where intent comes into play, because of the issue of consent. Generally speaking, there's no consent to murder or assault. But obviously there's a lot of perfectly legal consensual sex. Legally, we need a way to distinguish between the two. We're used to focusing on intent, because consent is irrelevant in most other forms of violent crime. We're so used to it, in fact, that it becomes an unreflective default.

Also, of course, it's the case that focusing on intent makes rape about the guy (what did he know about what she felt) rather than about her (what did she feel). No accident, hmmmmm?

tofutti: I think it should be assumed that the perpetrator knew what he was doing until there is some kind of proof to the contrary, like someone else in the room, a camera or the woman says herself that she spoke very softly or didn't resist. So really, "gray rape" situations would be hard to prove and probably rarely come up. I'm just saying that there should be a distinction, socially and legally, even if it is one that is almost never used. I'm arguing that gray rape does exist, even if it would be hard to prove and rare-- but that it is not the same thing as the situation described above, and that it should not be touted as such.

Just because something is disliked, misunderstood, hard to prove, etc doesn't mean that we should pretend it doesn't exist at all. I think that it's important not to just dismiss gray rape situations-- either as all "normal" (I'm sorry, I don't know a good word) rape or all not rape, but rather to educate young people about gray areas, clear up confusion, clear up questions, that sort of thing. Many rape situations AREN'T black and white obvious and I think we need to help people understand how to interpret situations. If you just tell women "If you don't consent it's rape" then what does not consenting mean? Not saying yes? Saying no? Not enjoying it? We need to teach people that there are different kinds of rape so they understand what rape is, when they are raped and what to do about it.

And jfaustus, why can't intent and consent both be used in rape cases? Any crime is about two people-- the victim and the criminal. Thus, I think intent (the criminal) and consent (the victim) are both incredibly important.

i'm with some of the other women...
she should've bit it.
hard!

I get that it could be confusing it a situation where you're unsure of where to draw the line of what you consented to... but for the most part, if you doubt, do something to make it stop.

I was six years old when my uncle forced himself upon me in a freakishly similar way, and I knew then that the only way to get that thing out of my mouth was to bite, hard, with all those little baby teeth. And it worked.

If you just tell women "If you don't consent it's rape" then what does not consenting mean? Not saying yes? Saying no? Not enjoying it?

Currently, the assumption is that women's default status is "yes" as far as consent is concerned.

This is evidenced by the fact that people demand to know whether rape victims "said no" and refuse to consider it rape unless she either said the word "no" specifically.

Consider how absurd and sexist it is to view women as consenting to sex 24/7 unless they are literally saying no.

If someone walked up to a woman and stuck a pencil in her ear, we would not ask whether she told him not to before s/he did it. We'd assume that she didn't want it because women's bodies are not public property!

But when it comes to sex, the assumption is that she wanted it unless she used the specific word "no" prior to the incident. Grabbing an unsuspecting woman's head and shoving it onto your dick does not leave her much time to cry "no!" Yet we place that burden upon women when we consider whether or not she's been raped.

For that reason, among others, "consent" is not the absence of "no" but the presence of active, willing participation - without the threat of violence.

A silly connection maybe, but I think it's my new favorite catch-phrase: A Kiss is Not a Contract. It's a song by the Flight of the Conchords, they're all over YouTube these days. Anyway, if anyone wants to check the video, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iSlPoQm2XY&feature=related

It's worth it just for the perspective (which I feel a lot of these 'grey rape' advocates would benefit from)

Ugh. I really, really wish that in high school, someone would have told me that I was allowed to say no. It didn't occur to me.
There was a guy that I had a big crush on, and I talked to on AIM. He kept pressuring me to "hookup" and I told him no over and over again because I didn't want to fool around without dating. He finally told me that he would date me. So he came over, I gave him head, and then, I didn't hear from him again for months. That sucked, but not as much as what followed.
After that, three of his friends (on three separate occasions) forced themselves on me. They didn't use their fists or a weapon. Two of them found ways to be alone with me, then pulled their pants down and shoved my head down. I begged both them to stop, but they just kept going. The third one pulled out his penis when I was giving him a ride home, and proceeded to masturbate while reaching over and GRABBING (squeezing, kneading) my breasts and rubbing the crotch of my pants. He ejaculated on the door, which I had to clean up later when I got home.
Apparently, giving consent to the first guy (under false pretenses) made my body public property. Then, of course, I was known as a big slut. I was so ashamed.
When the car guy committed suicide a couple years ago, I can't say that I felt bad.

SarahMC: I agree. And I think a major step towards decreasing the occurrence of rapes is teaching that to both women and men-- that she has to actively consent for it to not be rape, and more specifically, that she has to actively consent TO THE SPECIFIC ACT. One of the more troubling problems I've seen in news reports and personal stories is things like forcing oral intercourse on a partner who only actually consented to vaginal, or even worse (in the sense that it is often painful, not in an emotional sense) forcing anal sex on them. A top priority needs to be to teach people to set limits before beginning intercourse, and teach them that permission to do one sexual act is not permission to do another sexual act-- even if they think the first one is "more" than the second. I'm not sure the best medium for that though-- schools, movies, what.

Of course, if consent was never given in the first place, it can never be considered gray rape at all in any sense of the term, and they should be made to understand that.

Nerdalert, I am crying. So, so sorry that happened to you.
I am sorry all the other women who commented were put through their ordeals as well.
How can people live with themselves after treating women (or anyone!) that way?

One of my friends went on a vacation with a guy. They shared a hotel room, fooled around, and she fell asleep. She woke up (some indeterminate time later) to him screwing her up the butt. She tried to tell him to stop, and he told her "Shut the f- up, b-." She became quiet, lay there feeling dirty and used (and like she had asked for it, having gone on vacation with him) and cried in the shower later on as his semen ran down her legs.

A year later, she told me about it. A bit later (not immediately), I referred to it as the time she was raped. It stopped her cold - she had never thought of it as rape, since it wasn't vaginal intercourse and she didn't fight. It helped her heal to label it for the atrocity that it was.

I've had men try to force me. I've gotten out of it by sarcasm - I've been lucky.

There may be degrees of mens rea in rape - deliberate or reckless - but there are not degrees of harm, really.

It's the examples like Oenophile's that should demonstrate to all that requiring women to say "no" is an impossible-to-reach standard for women who have been sexually violated.
As her story demonstrates, women are raped when they are not even in the position to say "no." The man in her story did not begin raping her when he said "STFU" and kept thrusting. He raped her when he penetrated her in her fucking sleep.

SarahMC - I like your points, as usual.

I really think the emphasis should be on enthusiastic consent.

My first bf in high school used bullying, threats, and emotional/psychological manipulation to make me have sex with him.

He didn't use weapons or fists. I never said 'no' or fought physically. Plenty of people (including friends and therapists) were happy to dismiss my experience as "bad sex" that I "later regretted" or "a lover's misunderstanding."

How do I know it was rape? I know because I didn't want it. I know because I have spent the past five years of my life in and out of the mental hospital for PTSD. I know because of the multiple suicide attempts. I know because I feel like I lost a huge part of myself that night that I can never get back. I know because it was the most searing pain ever, and I cried, and he yelled at me and didn't stop. I know because I still have a hard time being intimate with new partners. These are not the results of a "miscommunication," thank-you.

"gray rape" is a dangerous term. It seems to me though its just reflective of the gray area a lot of "regular" people see in rape prosecutions. People, in general, will give you a pretty good approximation of what rape is on its own but put into a specific context its much harder.

In the legal arena, since the focus is very much on consent there can be a lot of confusion as to what does and does not constitute consent. Even the posters above say that permission should be asked for and received for each specific act, doing that still leaves room to create reasonable doubt in the mind of a jury. She or he consented to vaginal/anal and then withdrew consent for oral, without an overt act that is incredibly hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

That person would indeed be a rapist but most likely not a convicted one.

Should we change the law so that in the case of a she said/he said the alleged rapist has the burden of proving her/his innocence? Seems so hard, on the one hand we can see it, know it to be true but that is leagues away from putting a rapist behind bars. How do we change laws to protect us all but also protect our rights?

Well I am confused.

I thought if one party was sober, the other was intoxicated, then the sober party was guilty of rape?

or does that not fit the current agenda?

In all seriousness, everyone on this board would be crying rape if the situation was reversed and she had to leave to the room to vomit in the middle of the act.

By all definitions, vomiting from drinking is alcohol poisoning.

She gave consent by saying "at the end of this BJ, I want to remain a virgin"

That is clearly consent.

She never once removed consent. Most BJ's I have seen in porn or performed, came with pushes on the stomach, be it to direct my partner to slow down, use less thrusting, etc.

Yet he has to leave the room to vomit from alcohol poisoning, but yet she claims rape?

AlicePaul,

First of all, I'm terribly sorry to hear about what happened to you.

Second, and a much more minor point for your life (at this point), but something that may be helpful for other young women: why is bad sex acceptable?

Granted, I am the last person on the planet who could really ask this question, knowing nothing personally about the difference between good sex and bad sex. Onwards, though:

Why is it okay for a man to touch a woman in a way that is bad for her? While I am not saying that every man should be perfect, he should be sensitive to what he is doing.

I dated a borderline abusive man once. I don't mean this to sound flip, because it's not meant that way, but one of the things about our relationship (my first) was that the kissing was horrible. Revolting. Slobber all over my face. When I told him that I didn't like it (and people are supposed to like kissing, right?), he said, "My mouth is a lot bigger than yours." (I do have a small mouth; Julia Roberts am I not.) He didn't change his technique to make it (less bad? more appealing?) for me. That was KISSING, and it took me years to figure out that I actually do like to kiss men.

Real men don't use women's bodies, in any way, for their pleasure only. Unless it's mutual, there is something morally wrong going on there. When it comes to intercourse, that moral wrong is rape.

This is a terribly long way of saying this: "bad sex" doesn't dismiss the immorality of his actions. A man who does that is still using a woman's body for his own gratification at her expense; it's just with her consent. It's still WRONG. People are not to be treated as means to an end or as goods. We're worth more than that; sex is but the physical manifestation of how we treat others.

/late night ramblings

I thought if one party was sober, the other was intoxicated, then the sober party was guilty of rape?

No. The law, as I understand it, is that:
1. meaningful consent (in the contractual sense) cannot be given when drunk or otherwise impaired; and
2. voluntary intoxication does not negate mens rea.

Here, she is not a voluntary participant in the act, so she can't be guilty of anything. More than that, let's break it down logically:

You cannot GIVE consent when drunk, but you can still act wrongly towards others. We see this with other areas of law. You don't get out of a drunk-driving charge by saying, "But I was drunk! It's the pedestrian's fault for walking out in front of my car!" We just don't let someone exploit you when you are drunk.

You can rape when drunk, and be raped when drunk. The intoxication is actually IRRELEVANT in terms of the perpetrator - you can't use intoxication as an excuse. Sobriety, likewise, does not a criminal make: otherwise, my sober pedestrian would be the criminal party after being smacked around by a car.

You first look at the flow of action - who did what. You then see if alcohol changes anything - and it only states that consent is not meaningful. Following the analysis, we first see that he forced himself upon her, and she refused. Alcohol does not change anything, as its only effect, legally, is to deem consent to be not consent.

" “So eventually I was like, ‘All right.’ But I said to him, ‘I’m still a virgin, and I want to keep it that way.’ And he said ‘OK,’ and he was like, ‘You know, I’m not interested in any relationship.’�

That is clearly consent, which then makes her the perp, does it not?

Have a question to ask, would appreciate any insight. Its nothing as horrendous as whats been posted above or what happens every day but here goes:

When I was in high school one of my friends was with a guy she liked and she performed oral sex on him. She asked him to let her know before he ejaculated since she hated for a man to ejaculate in her mouth, she used the tap on the shoulder method. He didn't do that though and ejaculated in her mouth. She felt incredibly violated and if I remember correctly, after researching it we learned it was indeed a crime but how the heck can that be prosecuted? Can he not simply say "no, she didnt say that and she agreed to oral sex"? You could extrapolate this to more serious crimes and it still works. Of course we were only in our early teens and we tried to help her with this but didn't know what to do, it was a crime but what, if anything, can be done about that kind of thing?

Scilian, you're disgusting. I am actually surprised at quite how revolting your comments on this thread are: god knows why.

For the record, I am uncomfortable with a blanket rule of no drunken sex or all sex with one drunken party = rape. I like to drink half a doz then jump my bf; I wouldn't like that to be rape. But that is SO NOT THE FUCKING POINT ARSEHOLE.

Oh, and Basiorana? There are very, very, VERY few times I think it's even remotely acceptable for him "not to notice" her withdrawing consent. If he was moments from orgasm, maybe. But if intercourse (for example) continued for even minutes past her withdrawal of consent he should fucking well notice if she goes unresponsive! Without saying no, without pushing him away, just her expression and lack of active participation in the act should make it pretty bloody clear she's no longer interested - if he's not sure, he can ASK.

God, this entire discussion is making me feel like being sick.

Scilian, thank you for reminding all of us what a rape apologist sounds like.

“It started happening, and then he, like, twisted his fingers around my hair and started pulling it and being just kind of violent. I started choking because he was just, like, pushing my head.… I started gagging and choking, and I couldn’t really breathe.�

What part of that sounds like what she actually consented to?

What Fenriswolf said.

I can't believe the lengths people will go to to excuse reprehnsible behavior by men. Seeing the signs of non-consent, even if they aren't verbal, is not hard when you treat your partner like a human being.

Scilian: I did not realize that he was drunk. Thus, she would have been guilty of the offense of sex with someone who couldn't consent. HOWEVER, the second he forced her, a more serious crime was committed.

Imagine a woman has sex with a teenage boy. That's a crime, the boy can't consent. She should be prosecuted. But then imagine the boy violently rapes the woman shortly afterwards. Are you still going to prosecute the woman, despite what she's been through? More importantly, are you going to ignore the boy's crimes? The woman would at most have a severely reduced sentence and some counseling; the boy would be imprisoned for rape (Unless you're in one of those areas where "teenagers can't rape people" or other bullshit).

Her actions were inappropriate. HIS WERE WORSE. By a lot. Thus we have to consider his crimes before we look at hers.

Fenriswolf: Many people are simply unresponsive during sex in general, because they're used to bad sex. Or he could think she was simply not moving at the moment, sometimes people just let the other person do everything. Or maybe he could be very inexperienced in sex and thus not pick up on her physical cues. My boyfriend and I both have trouble with that, and because we know each other well, we know we have to flat out SAY back off, because otherwise the other person will misinterpret things. Not everyone is experienced in sex and not everyone can pick up movement cues, in sex or otherwise. If my boyfriend stopped moving, and lay perfectly still, staring at the ceiling, I would assume he was concentrating, not that he had withdrawn consent, because that's what he DOES-- and if I had a different partner after him, I might not be able to pick up on that partner's cues because I would get confused (that's why I always use words, not movement). That's not even considering impairment by drugs or alcohol.

However, as I have said before, I think it's a rare occurrence that such a thing could happen and could be justly considered rape. I just think it can happen and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.

Okay, I scanned the posts, so if I'm repeating something forgive me. I can't help but weigh in on the legal stuff.

Please note that I'm a public defender, so (a)I'm coming at this from a relatively pro-defendant angle, and (b)I need to cover my ass and say that none of this is actual advice that should ever be relied upon by anyone for any reason. Anyway, at least in MA, consent is an element of the crime of rape, which must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. I think the reason people sometimes think of it as an affirmative defense is because that most of us think the alleged victim's testimony that she did not consent is enough to prove that absent some pretty presuasive evidence to the contrary. I was reading the jury instructions, and what they focus on is the alleged victim's (AV for short) ability to freely exercise her will. The state also has to prove "force," which means "to constrain or compel by physical, moral, or intellectual means." The court thinks that this broad definition of force takes care of most cases in which a defendant might have made a mistake of fact regarding consent. Also I'm pretty sure rape is a general intent crime, which means the defendant must intend the act, but not necessarily the consequences, i.e. it is still rape even if the force was not applied with the conscious intent of overbearing the will. On first blush, that does seem to do a good job of capturing rapists who really think what they are doing isn't rape.
Finally, MA, like most states, has different degrees of rape. We have aggravated rape for when there is violence, etc. and indecent assault and battery for when it is an unconsented to sexual touching short of penetration. I think this does some of the work of capturing some of the ambiguity in force, consent, relationship, etc.. I know these different standards have been criticized because they somehow imply that rape without some + factor of physical violence or coercion is less morally blameworthy, but frankly I think that argument only works if you are saying the government is some sort of controling moral authority.

But the questions of what to behaviors should be criminalized and what behaviors should be considered rape are different. This is a huge problem I have with calling the act and the crime by the same name. They get conflated. If an alleged rapist is acquitted, that doesn't mean the rape didn't occur or that the rapist is somehow less morally blameworthy. It just means that the government couldn't prove it. Ultimately, I think this is one of those places where the criminal law can't really reflect our moral standards. I think the law does a pretty good job of protecting the rights of the accused while making it explicit that rape is far more complicated than overwhelming physical strength. The MA jury instructions specifically say that an AV need not have resisted in any way to have been raped, but an AV's physical resistance can be evidence of force. How the courts treat rape is constantly evolving, and I really do believe they are doing the best job they can. That being said, there is absolutely no way we can effectively punish rape and still keep the high standards of proof we are so committed to. I think that is really hard for most people to reconcile. It's part of our nature as humans to seek fairness, and that includes punishment. Frankly, I think part of the problem is that there is this victim's rights rehtoric that if a rape victim steps forward and prosecutes she will be all empowered and get justice and protect other women. Then when the rapist is not convicted she feels like it was a moral judgement against her and feel like she failed to grab the brass ring of empowerment and vindication. I think the solution may be to call the crime something else, and keep the word "rape" for our moral outrage and the more demanding standards of conduct we want to hold people to but that the law can't practically enforce. This may be the problem all the "grey rape" BS is trying address, albeit in an incredibly ignorant way.

scilian (and anyone else making similar arguments): we don't tolerate rape apologists and i will ban anyone who derails this thread. i'm just not having it. so think carefully before you type, folks.

Jessica: What is a rape apologist? Er, nm, I will wiki it. But really, are you saying that a reader cannot disagree with the context of state if or if not and why or why not the topic is rape is cause to be banned?

Are you saying that only people who agree with you have the permission to post?

Or rather, are you saying that anyone who clearly tries to say nothing is rape is bannable?

Well, for the record, I think it is absolutely rediculous, ignorant, and harmful to proclaim that all rapes are equal. One of the foundations of justice is that the punishment should fit the crime. Making the false and foolish statement that all crimes of a certain class are exactly equal is a sophmoric way to try to get around the basic requirements of justice.

Of course certain rapes are worse than others. Consider a violent rape by an aids infected bus-driver against a 5 year old girl that has been intrusted into his care. Absolutely chilling. Then consider the other end of the spectrum: Boyfriend-girlfriend having consentual normal sex and just before her climax, the bf says 'stop' right after they hear a noise in the hallway. The girlfriend knows the noise was just her dog and finishes anyway, but the bf is mad, and asks feministing.com if it's rape.

Maintaining the standards of justice in feminism will help keep the anti-sexism movement alive and with strong backing. Be strong and be just!@

Almost every single woman on this thread has such horrifying stories to tell, and I know there are more out there. As a man there is nothing I can say but I am sorry. And I am sorry that it is such a difficult crime to punish.

"Anyone want to take bets on the type of porn he watches"
True, when there are no form of sexual teaching to young ones, the only form of teaching they may get is through porn. I'm sure that if you ask your male friends what they think about this story, you may sadly heard an equivalent of the "gray" porn language...
Wonder what could be done? Putting an "Warning" saying "this is not true life"?
Anyway, in such case, women, please do not hesitate. Bite :D

Stephen, a rape apologist is someone who minimizes or excuses rape to some degree. For example, but suggesting a scenario that has nothing to do with the discussion and carries an implication that the rape in question is as silly as the hypothetical scenario.

Looks like you win!

Simply saying there are different levels of rape isn't really excusing it. I mean, I think someone should be punished more if they commit a violent rape (like what happened to this woman) than when they commit rape through coercion, because there is the additional element of injury to the physical person as well as the emotional pain. Does that excuse or lessen the crime of a person who commits a rape through threats or coercion? No. That's still horrible and he shoudl be punished severely. But to say they're the same thing is to lump all experiences into one category, to tell people that once there's an element of nonconsent, you might as well smack the victim around or severely injure them. You're telling victims that you don't care if their rapist physically hurt them in addition to the emotional trauma, it's all the same to you.

Saying not all rape is identical, or not all rape shoudl warrant equal punishment, is not being a rape apologist because I, at least, am not trying to excuse rape, or claim it doesn't happen, or even claim it happens less often. All rapes are terrible crimes that should be prosecuted, but I think some rapists deserve extra punishment because of what they made their victims endure.

The problem with insisting there are different levels of rape is that 1) that isn't what the post is about and smacks of defending "gray rape" and 2) you're just defending the status quo. The law already treats different sexual attacks differently. We're already up against a society that says some rapes are bad and some aren't so bad.

So it doesn't matter what your intentions are. When so many of us are fighting just to be able to say THAT was rape, it was an attack, not a misunderstanding, coming into that conversation with "but it wasn't the same as X type of rape" DOES sound like a rape apologist.

back on the thread after mingling elsewhere a bit.

SarahMC, Fenriswolf, and Meaghan - thanks for great comments.

Seems like the first thing we should clarify is whether we're talking about how things are now, or how we think they should be. Personally, I'm more interested in the latter 'cause I think the way things are sucks super big time.

Meaghan, can you tell me what we would lose if consent were made an affirmative defense that the defendant had to prove (and can you remind me what the standard of proof is for affirmative defenses)? Because that makes lack of consent the default, as it should be (see SarahMC's excellent post upthread). If the defendant can't prove consent because he can't point to the affirmative, mutual communication that things were all good -- if he can't do that, then he should be convicted. Why? Ok, here's the kicker:

BECAUSE IT IS MORALLY INEXCUSABLE FOR SOMEONE TO PROCEED WITH SEXUAL ACTS WITHOUT KNOWING THAT THEIR PARTNER CONSENTS.

By "knowing" here I mean having affirmative knowledge based on actual interaction with the partner, not "like I totally knew she was into it cause she told Cindy last week that she thought I dressed hot."

Basiorana, I know you disagree. You want to excuse people with poor communication skills who (sniff) just might not notice (sniff, sniff) that their partner is no longer consenting. Query which is worse: forcing people with poor communication skills to work a little to find a way to get affirmative consent, or continue to support a system that is perfectly happy with the kinds of experiences reported on this thread? You and your bf are actually a counterexample to your argument: although you are both uncommunicative, or undemonstrative, or no particularly clued into what's happening with the other, you have developed a system that prevents you from having nonconsensual sex.

When a woman has sex that she doesn't want to have, she has been raped. Period. We don't want women to be raped. Period. Yet our present laws do not recognize as rape many (perhaps the most common?) instances where a woman has sex that she does not want to have, because in many instances a woman is to terrified or confused to voice her non-consent sufficiently clearly for the law to recognize it as lack of consent. To me, that makes it pretty clear that the law needs to be changed.

And boo-fuckin-hoo to all the MRA's who will whine about the burden this puts on men. Deal with it. I have, always, and have no complaints about my sex life.

Geek: Ah, you argue in one sentence that my post is off topic, then in another say that my post is really about Gray Rape, which is the topic.

And yet, you cling to the belief that all rapes are equaully bad, and so in my example the girlfriend who raped her boyfriend is just as bad as the aids infected child molester. Can you even see it? The girlfriend is guilty of rape, by law! Without even discussing whether the rape laws are too weak, she is still guilty. The boyfriend can toss her in jail with sentencing that is as severe as murder.

By bringing in to the equation that feminists need to very carefully consider that the punishment should fit the crime, I seek to promote justice, which helps stabilize society, kills the gender war, and thus prevents rape.

Just so you know who you are arguing with: I am not a rapist, I do not personally like rough or mean sex, at the first sign of pain from my partner, I instinctually go limp. I hold in deep contempt those that enjoy causing discomfort or pain in others in intimate settings. On the other hand, I respect those girlfriends that I have been with that have relished being squashed by me against rocks, truckbeds, sand, darkened fields, walls, stadium seats, amusement park rides..... I have always been amazed at what the female form can willingly endure and enjoy! On the other hand, these were exceptional girls and all went on to complete postgraduate degrees from respected universities.

Anyway: my point is to keep the standards of justice high in feminist discussions. It serves your purpose. I see in this thread alone two tenants that fail the punishment meets the crime objective: 1)All rapes are equal, 2) Permanently disfigure your sex partner if at any point in you giving him oral sex he grabs your head and pushes causing you to gag.

Ya know, I am not a real proponent of girls giving oral sex, but it is absolute instinct for a man to grab, hold and thrust as he nears climax. The logical result is that the female gags and has trouble breathing. Thus my lack of fondness for that type of oral sex.

I come from an animal breeder family, and have watched the copulation of dogs, cats, mice, rats..you name it. The female frequently tries to get away just when the male is losing control. Male cats use their claws to dig in and hold the females! Male dogs clamp their paws around the female with such strength that they get dragged all over the yard! lol

I am not saying that women should be treated like dogs or cats, rather, just be a little compassionate that males can instinctually get a little rough as they lose control. It does not mean that they need to be sent to prison. Keep that line for when they get rough long before they should be losing control!

I never accused you of being a rapist, but I'm finding your comment on the female form and comparisons to animals a little creepy.

I haven't once said every single rape is the same as another. But you completely ignored my actual point that I won't bother to repeat.

But thank you for coming here, sir, with your voice of reason and justice to set us girls straight. And for letting us know that boys will be boys and sometimes just can't help getting a little rough because it's their nature.

/snark

To the above commenter:

I'm going to take your points one by one:

-- Rape *is* legally different than child molestation with an intent to transmit a disease. Child molestation is not the same thing as rape, and if you can prove that someone intended to give someone AIDS, I'm sure that adds an extra element of aggravated assault or something. Moving on:

--Why are you talking about what former girlfriends have liked in bed in a debate about rape? Creepy.

--Even if all that *was* instinctual, we ignore instinctual cues on a daily basis in order to not do immoral, horrible things. Also, I have never experienced any anecdotal evidence (let alone seen any actual scientific statements) that back up what you're saying.

-- If I ever find myself wanting to decapitate and consume my lover post-sex, I'll be sure to remember that if it happens in the animal world, then it must be excusable in the human world.

Geek -- I definitely did not see your post before I posted mine. Nice to be accidentally backed up on the "creepy" thing, heh :)

He's a troll. Ignore him.

the_becca -- great minds ;)

Geek: I think there are gray rape areas, just that gray rape is still rape. "Gray" meaning that there was no intent (and again, to make sure no one misunderstands, I think Cosmo's idea of gray rape is quite clearly wrong). The post claims that gray rape does not exist in any form. I disagree.

Also, what's wrong with defending the status quo if you truly believe the status quo is right? I'll say it should be illegal to have sex with a child. That's the legal status quo. Doesn't mean I can't say it's a good status quo if someone said "we should make it legal to have sex with a child!" That of course is an extreme example; and I do have many aspects of how the law regards rape that I want to change. Just not that one.

All rapes are bad. I will fight to make people understand that. I just don't think all rapes are the same.

jfaustus: I don't want to excuse them, I just don't want them held on the same level as if they knew what they were doing at the moment. I advocate punishment, just more along the lines of minimum sentence, lots of counseling. Mostly, I advocate educating people about rape so they can recognize it and they'll be a little less confused, and giving them more support services so they'll be a little less terrified.

My boyfriend and I developed our system after many mistakes and much confusion. If he had been as unforgiving as you suggest he should have been, I'd probably be in jail right now because he's my first serious boyfriend and I haven't a clue what I'm doing, and he didn't want to disappoint me by telling me he didn't like something. If you taught people in school, and it became common knowledge, that you need to have such a system in place from day one, I would agree with you and such elements could disappear all together. I also advocate such education. But as long as there are people who would not know such a thing, we have to be a bit more understanding of them than of someone like the guy in this article.

Also, it's somewhat frustratingly vague when you say "sex she does not want to have." It's rape when she does not actively consent without coercion or impairment to the specific sexual act performed. She may not want it but still agree to it and even act really into it for some ulterior motive, like making the guy happy. Guys are not psychics.

Yeah, the law needs to be changed-- we just disagree how. I think the law needs to be changed so active consent is required, instead of active nonconsent, unless consent has already been given in which case active nonconsent should be provided to end the act. Also, someone should have to consent to the specific act, so consenting to oral sex does not mean consenting to deep-throating, etc.

Ugh. Got signed out and totally lost my post. I get signed out so quickly.

I think what you are not getting is that whatproponents of gray rape are doing is perpetuating the blame the victim mentality.

"In gray rape, the girl who may have come on like the hunter becomes the hunted. Whose fault is that? For older generations, it seems clear that it's the guy's if she resists in any way or is drunk. Girls ... aren't quick to say that, so reluctant are they to see themselves as powerless."

They are using confusion and psychological coping mechanisms to say that this confusion and denial means the rape is in a "gray area."

"She may not want it but still agree to it and even act really into it for some ulterior motive, like making the guy happy. Guys are not psychics."

I think two things are being conflated. Social concern for girls who are pressured by all kinds of various influences to participate in sexual activities they don't want is a valid topic for discussion> I don't think anyone is saying it's always rape.

BUT it doesn't take a psychic to know that you are repeatedly asking and pressuring someone to do something they're reluctant to do until they give in. That is wrong, but not probably not criminal in most cases. And considering the pitiful number of rapes that are prosecuted, we're not exactly in danger of widespread prosecution of the poor boys who just don't understand that trying to get a girl to do something she doesn't want to do is wrong. (Yes, that last part was sarcasm).

It takes social change to deal with that. Until the coercion involves threats, or is abusive. Then it is rape, pure and simple, and the guy deserves to be prosecuted.

What should be clear from all the comments is that we aren't in danger of calling too many experiences rape, we are in danger of not calling rape what it is.

This site really should stop asserting that alleged rapes definitively happened, if for no other reason than to avoid a defamation lawsuit. Even if you're right 99 consecutive times on nationally publicized rape allegations (which, given feministing's performance on the Duke case, is awfully generous), it still could be defamation the one time out of 100 you--shocking, I know--get it wrong.

From the article I see only an allegation, followed by a denial, and a bunch of students knee-jerkingly making a facebook group that calls someone a "piece of shit rapist" by name. That is the very definition of a rush to judgment. Being suspended from school is in no way a legal judgment on the matter.

I agree that there's a good chance this allegation is true, and I agree there's no such thing as gray rape. No means no, and forcibly preventing someone from saying no is rape, if that happened in this case.

On the other hand, putting an affirmative obligation on men to prove consent doesn't just "make them work harder" to obtain consent; it also puts the people who are somewhat less proactive or knowledgeable about the law in prison. I can't understand for the life of me how people who would describe themselves as liberal can be so breezy about things like incarceration and the presumption of innocence.

Oh, please. The plaintiff would have to prove actual damages in a defamation suit. Actual damages as a direct result of a post here at Feministing. Very unlikely.

And since you don't seem to have much actual knowledge of the law, it is customary to lay the burden of proof of most affirmative defenses on the defendant. Whether consent should be treated this way is a matter of debate, but it's not exactly something to get outraged about.

I think the mention of the Duke case pretty much warrants disregard of anything you have to say anyway. Jesus fucking christ, that is tired old shit.

"And yet, you cling to the belief that all rapes are equaully bad, and so in my example the girlfriend who raped her boyfriend is just as bad as the aids infected child molester. Can you even see it? The girlfriend is guilty of rape, by law!"

Why would a man pausing to listen for a possible intruder during sex (just the cat), going to claim he has been violated, as in your hypothetical?

"I am not saying that women should be treated like dogs or cats, rather, just be a little compassionate that males can instinctually get a little rough as they lose control. It does not mean that they need to be sent to prison."

Why is a little rough, or going beyond what is consented ok?

"But thank you for coming here, sir"

There's a poster with exactly the same handle at the Glenn Sacks site.

"On the other hand, putting an affirmative obligation on men to prove consent doesn't just "make them work harder" to obtain consent; it also puts the people who are somewhat less proactive or knowledgeable about the law in prison."

Maybe sex ed should include issues of consent and prevention of rape/accusation of rape, as well as rehearsals of clear Q+A sessions as in some colleges I used to hear about where men were expected to ask things like, "May I touch your breast?" and getting affirmation before moving on. It's what I would be willing to do to be safe if I were in the dating game again.

"some colleges I used to hear about where men were expected to ask things like, "May I touch your breast?" and getting affirmation before moving on."

A give and take session like that would be way kinky.

Tom, you do realize that we are (mostly) laypeople, and more importantly this site never attempts to portray itself as an impartial news site. What we are doing is no different than two people on the street talking about a local case and assuming the guy is guilty.

Geek, I disagree with many definitions of gray rape but I have often heard the term gray rape used to define where there was an honest belief in willing consent of the victim. Like many terms, it has many different common use definitions. I agree, and have repeatedly said I agree, that what Cosmo is touting as gray rape is not gray rape. That means they are wrong about a definition, not that the original term is completely fabricated.

I also have never said that gray rape is not rape. "Gray" is a kind of rape, like "statutory" is a kind of rape and "spousal" is a kind of rape. I'm calling it what it is-- rape-- I just am using a more precise term.

As regarding boys not understanding-- ignorance of the law is not an excuse for crimes in a court of law, though intent is. If they intended to do something that was illegal, it doesn't matter if they knew that something was illegal or not. However, comments like that seriously reinforce my belief that we need better education about relationships and sex, just like Dads for Choice suggested.

"However, comments like that seriously reinforce my belief that we need better education about relationships and sex, just like Dads for Choice suggested."

I think a lot of the abstinence only crowd (male and female) are going to be in a world of trouble when they start having sex.

Ah let's see, I have been called a troll. Would that be someone who joins a discussion for the sole intent of distracting in and being contentious?

Well, I assure you, that is not my purpose. I am Stephen M Weiss. It is not a handle, it is my name. I am posting to attempt to have a positive effect. I witness that there is a gender war. I see some of the reasons, and they are not one gender's fault or another, but genuine cultural evolution due to technological changes.

However, both sides of this gender war conduct heavy vilification of the opposing sides, and are guilty of logical errors legendary!

And Geek, if you think that using my own experiences to talk about the rape/sex/instinct issue is creepy, well, at least you may understand that I am honest and open in my views. Is Geek your real name? Are these your real views? Or are you rather just irresponsibly posting your hatred? Stand behind what your say. Use your real name, or be seen as a hater in a white hood!

"Use your real name, or be seen as a hater in a white hood!"

Um, wut? Like the KKK? Because I use a handle like 90% of the people who comment on blogs? Yeah, okay. I'm having a hard time taking anything you say seriously, now.

And.. a few thousand years of oppression of women by men and both groups are equally responsible for the so-called "gender war."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

wait.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, oh I have to laugh or I'll cry.

Stephen M Weiss: Many of us do not use our real name online for our own safety. I never state any information online that could be tracked to me because it's really not safe, it's a good way to attract stalkers. It's not that we aren't owning up to our opinions.

By the way, the second anyone references the KKK, Hitler and the Nazis, or a Zionist conspiracy when the post is not about those things it's safe to assume they are a troll. If you are truly genuine, avoid such references.

Basiorana, I'm going to have to disagree. I just don't see how the term "gray rape" is at all helpful.

I think it's always helpful to distinguish between intentional rape-- where the person is clearly malicious and needs extensive, long term therapy and incarceration until the therapy begins to take effect-- and unintentional rape, where the person needs some incarceration so they understand the severity of what they did and to give the victim time to heal apart from them, but more importantly, they need education and counseling to prevent them from ever making such a mistake again. We would need to treat those who did not realize their partner had withdrawn consent as dangerously ignorant/negligent (like manslaughter) instead of malicious (like murder). Until a better or more widely accepted term than "gray rape" can be found that would cover situations where there was negligence, not malice, on the part of the rapist, I think it should be kept.

Who does it help? "Negligent" rape can't even be prosecuted under the sexual offense laws in many states, to my understanding. For example, Ohio where I live:

For Rape: "No person shall engage in sexual conduct with another when the offender purposely compels the other person to submit by force or threat of force." Ohio Revised Code sec. 2907.02(A)(2). (Emphasis mine).

And for Sexual Battery:
"(1) The offender knowingly coerces the other person to submit by any means that would prevent resistance by a person of ordinary resolution." 2907.03(A)(1)(empahsis mine).

There are no provisions for rape that is not done with intent. (With the exception of victims unable to consent).

I checked California as well, since it's a more liberal state. Other than when a victim is unable to consent, rape is:

" Where it is accomplished against a person's will by means of
force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful
bodily injury on the person or another." California Penal Code 261(a)(2). To have any of those things I think makes it clear there was intent and can not include "gray" rape as you have defined it.

Other sections require threats.

I was unable to locate a section that defined sexual battery or rape as you have defined "Gray" rape.

The situations you're talking about aren't even punishable in the first place. So while many of us are fighting just to get these things considered rape by society, which by and large still blames the victim, it still seems counter productive to say "Now wait, it's still not REAL rape, it's just gray rape."

disclaimer: I am a paralegal and I deal with administrative law. Criminal law is not something I'm experienced with.

If I ever find myself wanting to decapitate and consume my lover post-sex, I'll be sure to remember that if it happens in the animal world, then it must be excusable in the human world.

PWNED! Best. response. ever.

Granted, gray rape doesn't exist.
I get that - either you've been raped, or you haven't.
There's no gray.
I think most of us understand that.
But it would seem that everyone doesn't realize that this kid has yet to be convicted of rape by a court of law. Therefor calling him a rapist is a false statement.
He was found guilty by a private institution because he had been drinking; they refused to even really consider what he had to say - as everyone else seems to be doing.
When waiting to give his statement to the four teachers presiding over the hearing, he was told he would be suspended for 1 semester, period.
He was guilty before being proven so.
Even now, a private issue, has been made public without him being allowed to say anything otherwise.
It's a shame; everyone keeps crucifying this kid, without hearing his story.
Or mine - someone else who was there that night.
Let me ask you - if you were in a situation where someone had just shoved their cock down your throat - or if you just simply felt very uncomfortable, out of place, and perhaps slightly threatened - would stay in someone else's apartment for a minute longer?
How about 10?
Or an hour?

What no one seems to be asking here is what happened.
What were the facts.
It's her story. Period.
I think as journalists, or people living in a society where we are "innocent until proven guilty by a court of law" we should be asking the right questions.
Not stringing him up.

healthyparanoid

Thank you for coming. I believe it shows courage when people personally involved in issues discussed come forward on this website.

I share your concern that BOTH parties are having their reputations damaged by gossip and accusation. I cannot continue reading the comments at the link to the original story. Much of it is the typical blaming the victim.

I for one am VERY interested in hearing what really happened. And if he were willing (what are you claiming he is not allowed to say?), the accused would comment for the story or reply even privately to the reporters' questions, instead of coyly alluding to how he has "made mistakes" in his life, and admitted even "a lot of friends have sat down with me and asked me really just to reflect on my actions," while flat out denying wrongdoing of a sexual nature at any time, particularly in this case. Do not blame the media for only taking up "her side" of the story, if your roomate/friend does not wish to comment or otherwise defend himself publicly. I do not know if there will be a court trial, where hopefully, this truth you seek will come out, but it would be very convenient for the accused if there were none, and he would be able to maintain his silence. It seems even the friends the reporter found for the story are not sure of his innocence.

It is too bad his reputation is also on the line, but there is means for redress in the civil courts if he believes his reputation is worth fighting for, or if he can make the case for the accuser lying. It would seem that people that can afford an education at that school can also afford an attorney. The burden of proof is much easier in the civil courts. We will see if he is willing to take that step if he believes his reputation is worth defending.

As for why the accuser did not come forward sooner, maybe has not filed a criminal complaint yet*, why she was willing to maintain contact for over a year with a man who seemed so aggressive since the beginning and ended up allegedly raping her, or why she did not leave the scene as promptly as you believe a rape victim "should" have, you have quite a bit to learn about the effects of sexual violence. She admits to feeling guilty and confused to this day, including about the nature of what happened to her.

* It is too bad for her that the accused is someone she might still consider a friend, a “well-known, well-respected young man� who may have come off as a nice guy back when she was interested in him the previous year, to result in such confusion and guilt. Maybe she does not want him jailed, just no longer in that school, where reputedly no sexual violence was reported. She is very courageous to have have identified herself and be photographed for the story. It is pretty inconceivable that she would come up with such a "confused" account, if it was not what she honestly recalled happening.

This is another story I would like to see followed up on.

healthyparanoid

I have been to your blog and read the current and most recent archived blog entries. You have shown considerable restraint here. You say in your blog you have not reached a conclusion, but you question the account's credibility based on what the reaction of someone with a "cock" forced down their throat should be. Particularly because I am a man, I would probably do whatever it took to get out of the situation alive, and take the secret to the grave.

As a matter of fact, I was abducted and sexually assaulted by a stranger when I was a college student 21 years ago, and never reported it to the police or anyone else, out of shame and fear, because I'd given him my name, he *claimed* to know my father, and I didn't want to be thought of as "gay." Not only was I so shocked that I did I not attempt to escape, I also did not use the knife I made a habit of carrying, to defend myself or exact revenge on my attacker, when I could easily have killed him without any witnesses, and probably enjoyed it. (As a matter of fact, Hawaii law allows for lethal self defense against rape or sodomy.) I told my psychiatrist about this assault just a few months ago, probably the only person I've told other than one college roommate about 19 years ago. My doctor sat frozen in his chair with his eyes and mouth wide open, and his pen frozen in midair. He looked so funny.

What would you do if you'd had a "cock" forced down your throat by someone you had a thing for or considered a friend? Could you just run off, cut all ties with them, and go straight to the police, perhaps to have them jailed for years for something they did while drunk enough to be ill?

You also called the linked article a BS article. After reading your account, seriously, I believe the woman was concerned enough for your *roommate's* well-being to stay and make sure he was alright after him drinking too much, leaving only after you returned. Perhaps she was simply too drunk or confused to escape the scene. Also, I do not know the law in Colorado, but a woman who appeared drunk as you say, is probably too impaired to give consent, which would be a serious strike against your roommate. Perhaps he should remain silent until a trial. But if there is a trial, he'd better be prepared to speak for himself, because a jury will probably have his ass, as the woman's story and the man's apparent reputation, are certainly enough. Don't go on FaceBook saying your hobby is "copin a feel" [sic].

In your previous blog entry, you mention your own relationship issues with women, and your own shortcomings. That also takes courage. Accepting yourself is the first step. If a healthy relationship is what you seek, I recommend talking to a professional about your concerns. There is no shame in seeking help, considering the potential benefits. I was simply fortunate enough to meet by chance, a woman who changed my mind and my ways, when I was starting to feel old enough to lose hope, particularly after my previous break up.

"Let me ask you - if you were in a situation where someone had just shoved their cock down your throat - or if you just simply felt very uncomfortable, out of place, and perhaps slightly threatened - would stay in someone else's apartment for a minute longer?
How about 10?
Or an hour?"

You know what? I don't care. I don't even care if she spent the night. Incidently, I also don't care too much what the "court of law" has to say, because frankly it is the same court of law that fails to convict countless rapists and abusers each year. The ol' court of law hasn't exactly been the best advocate for women and other oppressed groups historically. So forgive my skepticism - perhaps when a much larger percentage of rapists are punished, I may have a little more respect for this "court of law."

What I WILL pay attention to is the woman's account of her own experience. Cause, ya know, it happened TO HER. I have absolutely no qualms about calling the rapist a rapist, whether or not the Daddy State agrees with me. The guy forced his cock inside her. There is NO further information that is relevant here.

jfaustus: Generally, there is no "burden of proof" for the defendant raising an affirmative defense. There is a burden of production, i.e. the defendant must produce "some evidence" of the defense at which point disproving the defense beyond a reasonable doubt becomes the prosecutions burden. I don't know if that is the case with every defense in every state.

The reason lack of consent must be an element of the offense of rape is because of the burden shifting. Without lack of consent as an element, what would the elements of rape be? You're pretty much only left with sex. We then end up with a situation in which every single sex act constitutes per se probable cause for a charge of rape. Obviously that wouldn't work and we don't want that. It seems like what you're envisioning is some sort of lower burden placed on the prosecution to offer some evidence (maybe probable cause?) of a lack of consent, a burden which would easily be met by an AV saying there was no consent. Then the burden would shift to defendant to prove in some way the lack of consent. This would get really logistically messy. Also, even if we phrase the legal definition of rape in as victim friendly a way as possible, say "sex is a crime unless both parties consent," you still need lack of consent to be an element of the crime unless you are going to accept that any sex is probable cause to charge both partners with rape. If it is an element of the crime, the state has to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. There's just no way around that. So it strikes me that changing lack of consent from an element that the government must prove into an affirmative defense for which the defendant must (at least) produce some evidence would not only be practically unweildy, but would run afoul of constitutional law. The only alternative I can think of is a statutory provision stating that a woman saying she did not consent raises a permissive inference (i.e. the jury is allowed, but not required to infer) that the element of force is met. I don't think I like that, but my public defender and feminist brains need to discuss it more before I can articulate why.

troll gone.

also, healthyparanoid seems to be the accused rapist's roommate who has a blog post titled, "Ricky Goes Cooter Punching aka Morgan Shaw-Fox is not a rapist," with the lovely following quote:

Basically, one girl puts herself into a situation she didn't enjoy and tells everyone she was raped...

So, healthyparanoid, fuck off. You're a rape apologist.

hmmm, why is it that whenever I approach a feminist site, and try to reason with everyone there, try to insert my opinion; insert the fact that I not only have first hand knowledge of the incident you all keep speculating on, that I am met with "troll gone" "fuck off". People telling me to not speak; when all you advocate is for people to speak up, tell their story. Be heard and not silent.
my blog is my blog - i use it to vent. i am angry, that doesn't mean i can't be civil.
I asked only for you to perhaps question what's been put in front of you, rather than immediately call someone, I love dearly, a rapist.

hmmm, why is it that whenever I approach a feminist site, and try to reason with everyone there, try to insert my opinion; insert the fact that I not only have first hand knowledge of the incident you all keep speculating on, that I am met with "troll gone" "fuck off". People telling me to not speak; when all you advocate is for people to speak up, tell their story. Be heard and not silent.
my blog is my blog - i use it to vent. i am angry, that doesn't mean i can't be civil.
I asked only for you to perhaps question what's been put in front of you, rather than immediately call someone, I love dearly, a rapist.

Plenty of rapists are dearly loved by their family and friends, healthparanoid. Doesn't mean they're not rapists.

I wonder how quickly your tune would change if what happened to the woman in question happened to YOU.

why is it that whenever I approach a feminist site, and try to reason with everyone there, try to insert my opinion; insert the fact that I not only have first hand knowledge of the incident you all keep speculating on, that I am met with "troll gone" "fuck off"

There's nothing wrong with sharing your opinion, or your "first hand knowledge", but referring to it as "cooter punching" just doesn't seem like a respectful way to present the truth.