This is what I wrote:

Absolutely disgusting. There is nothing a woman can wear, nothing a woman can do, nothing a woman can say, and nothing a woman can drink that will ever, ever, ever excuse rape. If she says no, you stop. Not in a second, not when you're done, right then and there. You want to think she's a tease or a bitch? You're problem. Sex is not the same thing as rape. There is no blurry line. Unless you get enthusiastic consent, and maintain enthusiastic consent, do not proceed. The only people who are responsible for rape are rapists. You don't want to be accused of rape? Then don't rape. If she looks too drunk to stand, don't have sex with her. If she can hardly talk, don't have sex with her. If she looks like she's unconscious or falling asleep, do not have sex with her. If you do, it's rape, regardless of how you feel about it. If she changes her mind, and you continue, it's rape. If she stops and you don't, she stopped but you didn't, if she STOPS, but you DON'T, it is RAPE. It doesn't matter if she had your penis in her mouth two seconds ago. It doesn't matter that she went up to your room with you. It doesn't matter that she took off her own clothes. If she stops, and you don't, it's rape. Not sex. Rape.

I don't know if we've taken over the comments section of the campus word, but they're actually NOT making me want to hide in a corner and cry like many other comment boards do!

Sweet.

I would comment at the site, but I just can’t seem to come up with a post that isn’t a curse-ridden rant aimed directly at the ass author and the asses agreeing with her in the comments. Thankfully, there are those like KMP (your move went well I hope) and the nice person after her that can respond calmly and rationally.

The Gray Rape Myth…why won’t it fucking DIE already?!?!

This is what I posted - lengthy I know but I have a lot to say:

I don't really know how many time's I will have to say this in my life - but here I go again - Gray Rape does NOT exist and it does not matter what a woman is wearing/drinking/doing/sucking - unless you have 100% consent you are raping her. Once a woman says no she has withdrawn her consent - and yes, at that point it become's a man's responsibility to stop. If a woman is confused about what she wants to do then she has not consented. If a woman is drunk then she cannog legally consent to sex. I am a rape crisis counselor- I work with survivors every day. It is articles like this that compound the guilt that women are already feeling after being attacked. If anybody reading this is a survivor (I am sure many of you are - as 1 in 4 women will be assaulted in her lifetime) Please do not listen to what the author has to say. Clearly, the author has not done her research and is speaking off the cuff. It is unfortunate that people feel this way - but unfortunately society will always look for a way to blame a woman because it is just too hard to accept the idea that your dad/brother/boyfriend/friend is a rapist. Instead it is much easier to blame a woman who did not say NO loud enough - because if that be the case you can still feel sorry for her without hating her.

I challenge the author of this text to contact her local rape crisis center and meet with a counselor - they will shed a great deal of light on this topic for you. They will confirm yet again that Gray rape does NOT exist. Regardless of circumstances it is never acceptable to put your penis into a vagina withour enthusiasitc consent. In the scenario you described that is clearly not the case.

I'm so sick of this BS.

I work on a rape crisis hotline. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard women saying they don't know if they were raped. Is it really rape if I invited him over? Or if I dated him? Or if the moon is in Aquarius?

I left a rather long-winded comment there, so I won't repeat it, but it's about the same.

When will all of this stop?

Feministique, I'm glad you suggested the author visit her local rape crisis center and meet with a counselor. I hope she gets an earful. This article is garbage!!

Feministique, I'm glad you suggested the author visit her local rape crisis center and meet with a counselor. I hope she gets an earful. This article is garbage!!

God I can't stand this. MEN ARE NOT ANIMALS. Stop giving them the excuse that they are. Men have self control, we need to move the focus to teaching boys to exhibit self control, instead of teaching girls how to steer clear of the "uncontrollable" male sex drive.

And I was sexually assaulted in college while wearing sweat pants and an oversized t-shirt, but even if I was wearing a sheer thong and nothing else, it wouldn't have made his actions any less wrong.

Sigh. So much nonsense surrounds a concept long settled . . . . Excuse the length of this note but the legalities are something I know very well.

First, women are never, ever responsible for rape, period. Should they be careful? We should all be careful of bad people, but that's not the issue. The rape shield laws are an attempt to keep irrelevancies out of rape trials because clever defense lawyers used to make the woman's sexual history the focus of the case. But what is so difficult for people to understand about consent? There is no such thing as "gray rape." Under the law applied everywhere, consent really means consent -- it need not necessarily be "enthusiastic" or verbal or anything else specifically, but it must be consent. Either there was consent or there was not. Consent is a legal concept that has been settled in the common law from time immemorial. The present "gray rape" craze is an effort to sell magazines to young women. But for all their twisting and pounding, they are not going to change a concept long-settled in the law. Nowhere is this seriously debated except when some magazine starts on the "gray rape" craze.

To determine whether there was consent, the question is whether a reasonable person in the position of the male would have understood, from all the surrounding circumstances, including the woman's speech and conduct, that she was assenting to intercourse. The only evidence that matters is the female's objective manifestations of assent; her secret, subjective wishes are not relevant to this determination.

In the situation painted above, the question is this: after the female made it plain that she was inviting and consenting to sex, would a person in the position of the male reasonably have understood that she had suddenly withdrawn her assent? The article states, in conclusory fashion, that the guy "should have" stopped. The facts may or may not support that conclusion, but we'd need to hear more. From whose perspective? The legal standard says -- properly so -- it's whether a reasonable person in the postion of the male should have known consent was withdrawn (and note, it's not what the guy SUBJECTIVELY believes -- rather, what would a reasonable guy believe it?).

This scenario as painted is not the norm because the woman so clearly was inviting sex at the outset but then, the implication is, decided to change her mind literally at the last second. That could happen (e.g., the woman experiences pain, or sudden regret or guilt, or any number of other things) but it's not the typical case. In any event, would a jury find beyond a reasonable doubt that the guy knew consent had been withdrawn? Would a jury find that a reasonable person in his position would have been able to process whatever she was saying at that particular moment? Would whatever she was trying to tell him have sunk in? How long did it take to sink in?

It's not clear based on those facts if, at that exact instant, he reasonably would have known that the consent had been withdrawn, and on those sketchy facts I suspect it would be difficult for the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he reasonably would have beleive consent had been withdrawn when he penetrated. We would need to hear more facts.

I was thrilled to see guys comment on there who were outraged by the article. Here's my comment:

Are you kidding me? If a girl says no, the guy should stop, END OF STORY. What if he had entered her and it turned out to be painful for her? Should he not stop then because she "looks like pure sex"? Every guy I've ever been with has stopped if I show the LEAST sign of discomfort or unwillingness; any guy who does less than that is not just a selfish jerk, but a RAPIST.

Ditto for me Liz. It is pretty well impossible for me or my partner to stay aroused if one of us is displaying any signs of not enjoying things 100%. I just can't wrap my mind around the kind of people who would just disregard a person's wishes like that. God, it's absolutely sickening.

This article is outrageous, but I have to take issue with this response: "If a woman is drunk then she cannot legally consent to sex."

Um, you can consent to sex when you're drunk. I've done it. Many of my friends have done it. Just because you're drunk doesn't mean you're not still an adult.

I wish people would talk about the difference between regrettable sex and rape. You can have completely consensual sex that you regret later, but you know you consented. And really, if you just kind of regret it, WHY on earth would you want to drag it out with reporting rape? No, you just kind of let it go and move on. When you report rape, it's because there was something wrong, not just because you did something you regretted in the (sober) light of morning.

And I am all right with acknowledging that rape is occasionally falsely reported. At about EXACTLY THE SAME RATE as every other crime. Just because a few people lie about being robbed does cast doubt on the reports of other people who are robbed. Rape should be no different.

nice work, everyone. i think we've officially pwned that comment page. i hope at least some of the comments are from outsiders though--that would make me feel encouraged that we aren't the only ones who "get it."

I was thrilled to see guys comment on there who were outraged by the article. Here's my comment:

Are you kidding me? If a girl says no, the guy should stop, END OF STORY. What if he had entered her and it turned out to be painful for her? Should he not stop then because she "looks like pure sex"? Every guy I've ever been with has stopped if I show the LEAST sign of discomfort or unwillingness; any guy who does less than that is not just a selfish jerk, but a RAPIST.

I actually go to BU, and this is only the latest of many sexual assaults on campus. I find it kind of weird that the author of this article chose this particular incident to focus on, because in her eyes, the victims weren't "doing anything" to "encourage" the perpetrators.
Aside from the fact that there is obviously no such thing as gray rape, I really don't understand how the first part of the article relates to the second part. These girls were sexually assaulted in their beds! It wasn't their fault, but if you dress like a slut and get drunk, you're just asking for it! Don't make men rape you! Don't change your mind!
This is just repulsive.

I don't know if mine posted but here's what I said, curse words included:

I feel incredibly sorry for the author of this piece, that she could possibly hate other women and herself so much that she not only wrote this dreck but that she probably believes it to. I'll echo what everyone else has said: RAPE IS RAPE IS RAPE. It doesn't matter that the hypothetical woman in this sick "scenario" was "looking like sex" (excuse my language but what the fuck does that even mean?). By the authors OWN WORDS she said "No" and then the frat guy continued in anyway because HE thought she was having a "moment of insanity". It couldn't possibly be that the woman actually changed her mind, could it Ms. Reiss? Oh no, the frat guy gets to do all her thinking for her because... well I don't know "because" but I'm guessing it's because she's a woman and women are just like that now aren't they? They don't know what they hell they want so men must know that for them.

This article is disgraceful to women and men everywhere. I hate to break it to you, but men can control themselves, it's just that women like the author don't expect them to and give certain assholes passes. If a woman says no, back the fuck off or else it's rape. End of story. You can do all the apologizing and logic bending you'd like but that's the fact.

Pretty interesting how the critical moment is literally elided from that anecdote:

"she changes her mind and says drunkenly “actually…�

Wow, she said "actually"?

Oh wait no, it's "actually" dot-dot-dot...

Would that be actually... no?

Actually... get the hell off me?

Oh well, what does it matter what she said?

Exelizabeth -
Actually it is true - by the definition of the law you cannot consent to sex when you are drunk. Certainly you can have sex when you are drunk - but it can still legally be termed rape. Just like you can't get married if you are drunk - you can do it, and nobody would really question you - but technically it's not legal. When I talk to men about sexual assault I always tell them that the good rule of thumb is to think about whether or not they would let this girl drive their car. If the answer is no, she's in no condition to drive, she's in no condition to have sex.

Also - you should check your facts. According to FBI statistics rape is falsely reported 2-4% of the time whereas general crimes are falsely reported 8 - 10% of the time. That is a significant discrepancy. This also does not account for the women who are intimidated into retracting their accusation by their rapist.

I am not advocating for no drunken sex - I always advocate for enthusiastic response. But if a girl is blacked out or too drunk to say no then it is rape there is just no way around it.

Just added this now:

It's nice to see the author of this article has fallen hook, line and sinker for the virgin vs. whore paradigms that come into play when one invokes the too much to drink, dressed a little too revealing etc. arguments.

Newsflash Kimberly! That's a set up meant to divide women and to take the issue off of where it squarely needs to be - on the backs of men who rape. Everything else is simply not relevant when a woman says no. Period. Provided you have any journalistic integrity, I will await a retraction.

feministique - can you give a citation for those FBI stats. I've been looking for something similar since my own father said "Women have been lying about rape since the beginning of time." Nice huh?

I wrote in with:

Had to come back for a second helping. I just put my baby daughter to bed, and was thinking the entire time how desperately I want her to be able to grow up in a world where the kind of vicious, ignorant, destructive tropes you traffic in have ceased to exist. Where women don't have to cut themselves walking the razor's edge between being 'desirable' (wearing sexy clothes) and asking to be raped (wearing sexy clothes). Where women who opt out of the game aren't called dyke bitches, or feminazis, or castrating man-haters, or whoresluts. Sound like an interesting world to you? We could get there, if the ignorant would stop blindly perpetuating the perception of women as unworthy of basic respect for the sanctity of their bodies.

Go crawl back under a rock and stop polluting my daughter's world.

Mirm,
Heres an older but interesting paper. http://www.sexcriminals.com/library/doc-1002-1.pdf

Just google fbi rape statistics or fbi false rape allegation statistics and youll get a ton of interesting results as well as discussion of these stats and cases over the years on all kinds of sites to include feminist blogs. have fun.

Tim,
Can you help me out and let me know how consent plays out in a trial? I don't have a legal background but how does one prove there was or wasnt consent? I'm just trying to understand how if a man and woman or any combination of two people are together and one accuses the other of rape saying consent was withdrawn, how could that be proved in court? (without evidence of injury or other extenuating circumstances)

feministique - ACTUALLY, it depends on where you are. Each state has its own rape laws and many of them, including New York, where I live, DO NOT automatically equate drunkeness with an inability to consent to sex.

When I was at college briefly we talked about this very issue after reading Camilla Pagina's(sp) piece on how women should basically be blamed for their own rapes by exercising their freedoms to travel, dress or act a certain way and how feminists are misleading women by telling us we can wear whatever we want, do whatever we want and that men should be punished for rape. What really disturbed me was that all of the women and men in the room agree that women were to blame in situations of date rape. It really alarmed me, so I brought up cases where women were clearly not being sexual and were date raped anyways, situations where women were drugged or raped by a friend. They still didn't seem to understand the concept that women don't ask for rape or that women should be able to exercise their freedoms regardless of the rape threat and that men should just learn to stop raping women and using them as an excuse. Pretty scary actually.

@mirm: the big gaping flaw in your father's logic is that it's incredibly difficult to get a rape conviction, and, unless the victim is a child, it's the accuser whose personal life is publicly examined. It'd be highly unusual for any grown woman to volunteer to go through the gruelling courtroom process, with such a dismal likelihood of payoff, out of petty spite.

"God I can't stand this. MEN ARE NOT ANIMALS. Stop giving them the excuse that they are."

Exactly what I was thinking! This is about giving men excuses. I know plenty of men have shown they do have self-control so...why can't that be expected of all?

It is refreshing and sadly strange to see all the comments left. I think anyone who disagrees was scared away!

Of course I don't really get how in her last paragraph she gives the men advice that seems to contradict her story from above.

He certainly got her ass kicked for that. It will be interesting if she writes a follow up and says, "thank you all for giving me a clue". If she does I hope feministing publishes a link to it.

She certainly got her ass kicked for that. It will be interesting if she writes a follow up and says, "thank you all for giving me a clue". If she does I hope feministing publishes a link to it.

"Where women don't have to cut themselves walking the razor's edge between being 'desirable' (wearing sexy clothes) and asking to be raped (wearing sexy clothes)."

Or the line between "too ugly to be tolerated" and "pretty enough to rape"...

Mina: eeeeeeewwwwwwwwww, that hurt. Good one. (Bad one?)

Hmmmmmm. That last comments seems a bit obscure to me, and I just wrote it.

What I meant to say is that I liked your comment even as it made me cringe. The sting of intolerable truth.

dandanddanica

So as not to derail the thread, I have cut back my intended post to this:

Reportedly, Kanin has said of your linked study of his, "Certainly our intent is not to suggest that the 41 percent incidence found here be extrapolated to other populations, particularly in light of our ignorance regarding the structural variables." Then why bother to publish such a report (much less his 1985 100% false claim), and within the study defend his methodology, if he is "ignorant" of the variables? Anyone with an agenda could find a conveniently nameless population where findings of false accusation of rape are an extreme high or low, and apparently, that is exactly what I see.

I have done my own reading on the issue. I, like this university instructor of journalism, have found figures ranging from a low of 2% to a high of (the studies I could actually look into, as opposed to seeing simple claims of percentages) approximately one-third. The truth must lie somewhere in between, but as it stands, I personally go with the FBI figures of 8%, reasoning similar to that discussed below. Also note that the famous FBI figures only apply to "forcible sexual assault," and a complainant refusing to cooperate for whatever reason is not grounds for dismissing the claim as "false":

http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/97/6/rape.asp

The Elusive Numbers on False Rape
by Dick Haws
Columbia Journalism Review
November/December 1997

[start quote]

Sometimes the 2 percent figure appears without any attribution. It simply floats out there, as in a 1994 article in the Houston Chronicle that cites a women's center official as the source for the false-rape-report figure of "between 2 and 3 percent." Period. And sometimes the attribution is vague but credible-sounding, like "federal statistics" or "the FBI." In 1992, The Boston Globe reported that a rape counselor stated the 2 percent rate for false reporting of rapes is the same as for false reports of other crimes - "according to the FBI."

But the FBI has been saying since 1991 that the annual rate for the false reporting of forcible sexual assault across the country has been a consistent 8 percent (through 1995, the most recent year available). That's four times higher than the average of the false-reporting rates of the other crimes tracked by the FBI in its Uniform Crime Report. The agency's guidelines define a report as false when an investigation determines that no offense occurred. A complainant's failure or refusal to cooperate in the investigation does not, by itself, lead to a finding of false report.

For the reporter, the conclusion is clear. Don't rely on one source. Talk to the local sexual assault counselors, talk to the local police, talk to the FBI, talk to the academics. Try to make some sense out of all the different numbers. And be careful.

[end quote]

dananddanica

And I'm busy at the moment, so will have to comment on this actual article or your concern about determining consent later, but neglected to add, the issue of false allegation should never overshadow the issue of rape and real rapes.

This is a really frustrating topic for me, because as a female college student I have friends who've insisted that rape is always "partly the girl's fault." I think they partly believe this because they want to feel like it could never happen to them, since they seem to want to relegate all potential rapists as creepy strangers, not as aquaintences one has a history with. Also, I think blaming the victim is due to a culture that continues to judge women on how they dress and perpetuates stereotypes about women who show more skin. Women blaming women for rape is a form of internalized oppression.

I've only been reading this site for a little while, but I am particularly grateful for this article, and had to comment.

Without even really thinking about it, and with no other source of information, I had fallen prey to the myth of "grey rape" being spread by media outlets like Cosmo. I never really questioned this idea, or challenged others when they referenced it. I'd even used it to personally refer to something that had happened to me. This article has forced me to realize what I should have done on my own as an intelligent, educated young woman and feminist, not to mention as a human being.

I write at this moment feeling even more enraged than I usually do after reading this blog, and leave utterly determined to never let this awful myth slide with the people around me again.

There are no gradations of rape. It is never okay, and it is never "better than it could have been".

I am a first-year college student. For new student orientation in the fall, everyone was required to attend an event called "Sex signals," which is a professional two-person show that uses improv comedy to dispel the myth of gray rape. They took the time to go through a scenario much like the one described in the article, where the woman who initially consented later withdrew her consent. Then they asked the audience if they thought it was rape. I was one of the few to raise my hand. They went on to define consent and talk about gender stereotypes.

I hope that my fellow classmates got as much out of it as I did, and I'm glad that our administration cares about this very important issue.

Read the article. I'd like to say she was sympathetic to women in at least the first half of the article, but she was holding victimized women responsible for not locking their doors, as well. There are reasonable things that people do to protect their property, but because of its intimate nature, there is nothing victims can do including carrying a gun and knowing how to use it, that will stop them from being raped. Only education of males and fear, if necessary, will stop male on female rape.

"Actually it is true - by the definition of the law you cannot consent to sex when you are drunk. Certainly you can have sex when you are drunk - but it can still legally be termed rape. Just like you can't get married if you are drunk - you can do it, and nobody would really question you - but technically it's not legal."

feministique – With all due respect to your experience and expertise, these statements are flat out wrong. Tim’s comment gave an excellent synopsis of the legal standards for obtaining a conviction for rape. Consent is a critical factor that distinguishes a sexual encounter from rape. Intercourse without affirmative consent is rape. Not saying no is not the same as saying yes. So, I agree with your statement that if a woman is too drunk or otherwise debilitated to affirmatively give consent, then any sexual act that follows has been perpetrated without her consent, i.e., rape. But if she does affirmatively give consent to have sex with a man and does not subsequently say anything or behave in a way that would indicate to a “reasonable� male in the position of the man that she has or is trying to withdraw consent, the law would not recognize any subsequent sexual act as rape. There is no legal principle that I'm aware of that says that consent is invalid if given while a woman’s judgment is impaired through voluntary inebriation.

jfaustus,

I read nearly all the comments on the article's board (and believe me, there were a lot of them), but yours I think was the most striking, and I just wanted to say thank you for driving home the point so well.
"Where women who opt out of the game aren't called dyke bitches, or feminazis, or castrating man-haters, or whoresluts."
I particularly like that part because (and maybe I've just been reading to many YouTube comments here), common perception seems to be that we all REALLY want in Maxim, but couldn't quite make it so we went gay and feminist instead. I guess in this case the theory is that we're just mad because no one would ever want to rape US. Wow, I just re read that sentence and thought how horrific it sounded, then realized that I've actually heard that reasoning when explaining my pro-choice stance, or just my regular rape-is-wrong stance. Anyway, to end a ramble, I hope we make things better for your daughter, as well.

My comment on the Campus Word website: (I'd kinda like to hear critique/responses, if anybody would like to take a moment. I'm curious to see how my perspective either fits or doesn't fit around here.)

I'm only one man, but for what it's worth, the article disgusts me too. You can't blame it all on the frat boys or the football jocks, the male portion of society needs to take a damn good look at itself. We are *not* animals. We are capable of making our own decisions, and as such, we are responsible for them. The unconscious woman you decided to stick your penis inside is not responsible for the rape you just committed. The woman who you pinned down after she said "no" is not responsible for your reprehensible behavior either.

(I apologize to the female readers for this next bit.) If you insist on using sex to measure your manhood, how's this: A real man can have sex with a hot chick because she wants to have sex with him. If you have to use alcohol, drugs, force, coercion, or excuses, not only are you committing rape, you're a weakling and a failure.

Sounds reasonable to me, Terry. And men who need to exploit the young or pay to get it are sad, too.

I was about to comment on the original article, but it doesn't seem necessary since hundreds of people got there before I did. I'm glad that only about .0001% of the respondents agreed with her. If I had commented, I would've gone on to add that "no means no" is bullshit, because that makes it sound like the onus is on us to say no, and if you don't hear a know, we've consented by default. It should really be "lack of unmistakable consent means no."

Tuba Terry, that sounds fine except that I would invert "If you have to use alcohol, drugs, force, coercion, or excuses, not only are you committing rape, you're a weakling and a failure" to read "If you have to use alcohol...you're a not only a weakling and a failure, you're a rapist." Because I think that being a rapist is much worse than just being a weakling and a failure.

*Hear a "no", that is, not a "know". I'm tired.

There is definately a meme going around that men "can't control themselves" but I don't really hear opposition in the mainstream about this.

For example, there has been some data claiming that watching violent movies and porn, causes crime rates to paradoxically go down.

http://www.businessshrink.biz/psychologyofbusiness/2008/01/08/watching-violence-and-porn-could-reduce-violent-crime-and-rape/

Of course porn proponents are jumping all over this; but I have yet to see anyone point out the fact that this data (if you believe it) seems to almost prove that would be offenders, to some degree cannot control themselves since they apparently need an outlet to express violent and sexual impulses. Without the outlet, they commit crime. With the outlet crime goes down--if you believe the data, which apparently a lot of people do.

Anyone feel free to comment? For the record, I think there needs to be more research, especially regarding the porn/rape correlation.

A man (or, I suppose, a woman) has two only rights when his (or her) partner springs a surprise "Not going to happen,dear":

1) the right to experience and, I would argue, express disappointment; and

2) the right to vacate the premises.

That's it. She doesn't want to, you go home. Or you go home and whack off. Or you stay there and have a conversation with this person as if she were a person, whether it's about sex or about shoeshines. Maybe you renegotiate in an hour and a half. If not, you go home.

Grown-ass adults experience disappointments on a routine basis. Their train is late; they got turned down for the job; the Orioles have another losing season. What a grown-ass adult does when he experiences disappointment is to say, "oh, well, shit" and move on. This is not a complex concept.

JustAGrrrlGeek:

Thanks! I'm blushing.

"That's it. She doesn't want to, you go home. Or you go home and whack off. Or you stay there and have a conversation with this person as if she were a person, whether it's about sex or about shoeshines. Maybe you renegotiate in an hour and a half. If not, you go home.

"Grown-ass adults experience disappointments on a routine basis. Their train is late; they got turned down for the job; the Orioles have another losing season. What a grown-ass adult does when he experiences disappointment is to say, 'oh, well, shit' and move on. This is not a complex concept."

Right on!

There is definitely a meme going around that men "can't control themselves" but I don't really hear opposition in the mainstream about this.

The "common sense" notion that men, particularly young men, are completely subject to hormones, always want sex (and always with women), and are incapable of real and meaningful human relationships has been floating around in American culture at least since the late 19th c. It's not the only narrative of masculinity, but it's a very, very powerful one.

First, women are never, ever responsible for rape, period.

I'm not picking on Tim's wording specifically, but it just struck me reading all these comments that we're all assuming a men-raping-women paradigm here. That's the focus of the article, certainly, and the majority of rape victims are women . . . but wouldn't it be better to think/argue in terms of the sexual aggressor or attacker--whether they were male or female--being the one responsible for his or her actions? The person who was raped, regardless of their sex or gender, is never responsible for the rape, period.

"The person who was raped, regardless of their sex or gender, is never responsible for the rape, period."

I totally agree. I'd add "regardless of age" too. "Women" doesn't apply to men, but it doesn't apply to girls and boys either.

Mina--agreed!

I commented on the article and sent a sufficiently pissed off e-mail without swearing.

a male,
I linked that paper as it makes an interesting addition to a lot of other articles/papers out there and leads through links and backtracking to a lot of good, informative articles on rape statistics, just as you posted.

to me using stats of almost any kind doesnt do much good as the unsupported 2% so often cited and the 8-9% used, as well as the extremes of .25% and 50+% serve little purpose. also estimates on the number of unreported rapes are notoriously unreliable due to the very nature of the crime as well as the near exlcusion of anything other than male on female rape.

stats will do little good as they are easily rebuked or incomplete.

can anyone answer my question on the consent issue? from a legal standpoint how is it possible to legally prove lack of consent with no extenuating circumstances? should it be possible? im really curious about this. thank you.

crshark:

It depends on your state. For example in California the rape includes:

"Where a person is prevented from resisting by any intoxicating
or anesthetic substance, or any controlled substance, and this
condition was known, or reasonably should have been known by the
accused."

For a fascinating and comprehensive (if slightly dated) review of the law of acquaintance rape see Kramer "Rule by Myth..." 47 Stanford Law Review 115 (1994).

@ dananddanica:"can anyone answer my question on the consent issue? from a legal standpoint how is it possible to legally prove lack of consent with no extenuating circumstances? should it be possible? im really curious about this. thank you."

I can think of a few high profile cases with extenuating circumstances (grave bodily injury and the crime being caught on tape) where consent on the part of the victim was still challenged.

What scares me is the apparent cultural shift going on where more and more people now accept that women merrily consent to extreme sexual violence as part of "fantasy". Yeah, porn I'm talking about you.

So is it just a matter of time before this acceptance weaves its way permanently into our collective psyche?

And will juries see sexual violence as just another blip on the spectrum of "accepted" sexual practice between consenting adults?"

Seriously. Where is all of this going?

crshark

What Kristen said. Incapacitated does not always equal passed out.

And the "voluntary" comment was completely unnecessary. The issue - like driving or signing contracts - is one of capacity, not how they got that way.

The practice of spiking drinks and slipping people drugs is illegal simply because it's another violation of autonomy. Having sex with someone who has been drugged is illegal no matter how they got that way. (provided a reasonable person could tell that the victim was drugged)

A male

As I understand it, those "false reports" stats include false identification, which is extremely misleading - as this usually has nothing to do with whether or not women are lying about the rape itself - and therefore makes calling them false "reports" a misnomer. Most often, false IDs are the result of bad police work/bad DA's.

I also don't really see how they are sure that they have weeded out the false retractions that are a result of the stress of reporting rape or threats made as a result of reporting the rape.

Whenever something more minor, like sexual harassment, happens, most women I know either agonize over what to do for a long time before they report it or decide it's easier to ignore it. I have a hard time believing that not only are women more likely to be liars than men, but that the thing we are most likely to lie about is something that we often feel ashamed to have happened to us, and are very unlikely to lie about (much less bother to report) when it comes to related, lesser crimes. It just doesn't make sense. There's just nothing logical about believing that women are more likely to lie about rape than people in general are likely to lie about fender benders or being mugged.

"There are three kinds of lies in this world: lies, damn lies, and statistics"

Stats are only as good as the people collecting them. Considering what a shitty job law enforcement and the justice system does when dealing with rape, any stats coming from them on the subject are highly suspect, imo.

spike,
very interesting point. its hard for me to get by the consent issue in the types of cases i mentioned if there is a "beyond a reasonable doubt" condition. the point you make is a very important one but i dont think it can all be ascribed to porn. unless you want to see porn as the root of all behaviors that could leave evidence of a crime.

your point still resonates though and what youre getting at will/has already become an issue. i have many friends in the bdsm community and many facets of that community are now "mainstream", there could definitely be some bleed over and it could become like youre talking about if it hasnt already.

to further the question, with your point in mind, if we go with the male/female scenario and the female does have some marks, does that necessarily mean it wasnt consensual? again for me its hard to view it when seen against the beyond a reasonable doubt threshold. have i left marks on someone or has someone left marks on me that could be viewed as markers of nonconsenual sex if a rape charge was brought? yes. was it rape? no. as more and more people experience or are exposed to all the facets of their sexuality, not necessarily by porn, this will get murkier and murkier as far as i can see in a legal context.

Just for the record, rapes and other crime will happen, whether we have porn or not. In fact, I have read about women being raped by sex toys. Anyways, I'm not going any further on the subject.

As for the so-called gray rape -- it doesn't exist. It never has existed. It doesn't matter what the woman is wearing or if she had 1,000,000 sexual partners -- if a man have sex with her after she says no, then it is rape.

It doesn't matter if the man works for the Chippendales, is 120 lbs. heavier, or have had zero sex partners -- if a woman has sex with him after he says no, then it is rape.

And yes, people who are drunk cannot consent to sex, so therefore, having sex with a drunk person is rape, not matter how much anyone slices it.

"very interesting point. its hard for me to get by the consent issue in the types of cases i mentioned if there is a 'beyond a reasonable doubt' condition. the point you make is a very important one but i dont think it can all be ascribed to porn. unless you want to see porn as the root of all behaviors that could leave evidence of a crime."

...or unless you want to see positive erotica that isn't degrading as non-porn.

To clarify the second sentence in my previous post:

I have read about women being raped by men using sex toys on them.

"As I understand it, those "false reports" stats include false identification, which is extremely misleading - as this usually has nothing to do with whether or not women are lying about the rape itself - and therefore makes calling them false "reports" a misnomer. Most often, false IDs are the result of bad police work/bad DA's."

DNA is used to exonerate men who were already convicted beyond a reasonable doubt and serving time in prison, in at least 20% of cases out of 10,000 in which DNA was tested. Considering 70-80% of rapes are those by intimates and acquaintances, there should be little room for error on the complainant or victim's part. How do you reconcile these two figures? Are all IDs of rape by strangers in error?

"I also don't really see how they are sure that they have weeded out the false retractions that are a result of the stress of reporting rape or threats made as a result of reporting the rape."

As pointed out, simple lack of cooperation of a victim is not grounds for dropping an investigation or labeling the complaint false.

"Stats are only as good as the people collecting them. Considering what a shitty job law enforcement and the justice system does when dealing with rape, any stats coming from them on the subject are highly suspect, imo."

No, stats depend on the agenda of the person collecting them.

mickle,
if stats are to be used at all, if you dont believe the ones from law enforcement then what stats do you use?

"a male,
"I linked that paper as it makes an interesting addition to a lot of other articles/papers out there and leads through links and backtracking to a lot of good, informative articles on rape statistics, just as you posted."

Dr. Kanin, "interesting"?

And a cursory reading can tell you that just 41 false accusations out of 109 reported rapes over the course of nine years in a single conveniently unnamed community of just 70,000 (coincidentally, just a little less than my community, tourists included) are hardly applicable to the rest of the US despite his defense of his methodology. Neither is his study of two also conveniently unnamed universities which *claimed* a full 50% of rape claims were false applicable to the thousands of other institutions nationwide, much less the US as a whole. I don't need my degree in marketing or experience with statistics to tell you so. MRAs don't see it.

Most importantly, Kanin tells us within the first few paragraphs of his report that in 1985, he came up with a study that found 100% of reported rapes were false allegations. More than asinine, that is simply insane. And it apparently got published in a peer reviewed academic journal. I read that decades ago, with his research on male sexual aggression, feminists hailed Kanin's research, but his later "work" shows he should be regarded with suspicion. Less than five false allegations of rape a year is nothing more than anecdote. An MRA with Google can do that today.

spike,
i think the reason people were so surprised at the results of that study and others is because it ran counter to what a lot of anti-porn people were saying. is it possible that the anti-porn people who said porn caused more sexual violence were basing on their personal opinions and not evidence?

you only mention people who might be violent but porn and internet sex sites are a big problem for people of all kinds. many marriages and couples are experiencing problems with internet porn addiction.

as far as someone mentioned earlier in this thread about there being no gradations of rape...again thats in a social sense right? in a legal sense that is definitely not true and even in a social sense how do we reconcile the widely held view that a 28 year old man having sex with a 13 year old girl is somehow worse than a 28 year old woman having sex with a 13 year old boy with all rape being rape?

still the term gray rape is idiotic but again id have to use the legal standard mentioned earlier in the thread. what a reasonable person would do.

This is what I meant when I said I did not want to derail the thread. This is not a debate on false allegation of rape. It's about the reality of rape. I was just pointing out to D&D why Kanin's "work" on rape should be questioned.

dananddanica

We can just take the instructor of journalism's advice for what it is:

"For the reporter, the conclusion is clear. Don't rely on one source. Talk to the local sexual assault counselors, talk to the local police, talk to the FBI, talk to the academics. Try to make some sense out of all the different numbers. And be careful."

He suggests we stick to the professionals and use critical thinking instead of just buying extreme, unsupported claims. It is the job of supporters of women's rights to provide support to women, not to weed out or point the finger at the less than truthful. For better or for worse, that is what the law and law enforcement are for.

a male,
yes indeed kanin has been severely criticized and his methods questioned. I've read the back and forth on it but most people haven't, again thats why I linked it, it leads to interesting pages from people of many differnt views.
should i simply have mocked mir for asking fem for a stat that doesnt exist? michelle anderson of 'nova law has said no such % was ever reported.
reading the paper i linked or searching for it would have led you to most of the points youve made later in this thread, the work by the innocence project or the '96 study by DOJ and so on.
i still stand by calling it interesting as it very well is.

a male,
yes indeed kanin has been severely criticized and his methods questioned. I've read the back and forth on it but most people haven't, again thats why I linked it, it leads to interesting pages from people of many differnt views.
should i simply have mocked mir for asking fem for a stat that doesnt exist? michelle anderson of 'nova law has said no such % was ever reported.
reading the paper i linked or searching for it would have led you to most of the points youve made later in this thread, the work by the innocence project or the '96 study by DOJ and so on.
i still stand by calling it interesting as it very well is.

I guess I am speaking to "Dan":

"as far as someone mentioned earlier in this thread about there being no gradations of rape...again thats in a social sense right? in a legal sense that is definitely not true and even in a social sense how do we reconcile the widely held view that a 28 year old man having sex with a 13 year old girl is somehow worse than a 28 year old woman having sex with a 13 year old boy with all rape being rape?"

Why are you bringing this stuff up, in this thread? We are not at Glenn Sacks' board. This article does happen to be about male on female rape, on college campuses. It may not get the legal recognition it deserves in our country, as opposed to in the UK or Australia, but withdrawal of consent for physical discomfort or any other reason, is valid (perhaps you understand a man may also fail to perform after his requesting or giving consent to a sexual act), and lack of consent means the sex is rape. Marital rape and domestic violence weren't illegal either, before lawmakers (we aren't really there with society yet) opened their eyes and ears.

"I have read about women being raped by men using sex toys on them."

Yes, this is why more enlightened rape laws (Japan is an obvious exception) do not limit the crime of rape to forcible insertion of a penis into a vagina. It recognizes that a *person* may violate another with near anything, in a variety of ways.

"It may not get the legal recognition it deserves in our country, as opposed to in the UK or Australia"

Oops. That refers to lack of capacity to give consent while drunk.

A male, is the "70-80% of rapists are acquaintances" referring solely to the convicted rapists? Or does it refer to the number of *charged* rapists?

Because I would find it very, very easy to believe that acquaintance rapists are acquitted about a zillion times more often than stranger rapists. If 80% of rapists are acquaintainces, but only 20% of acquaintance rapists are convicted, whereas 20% of rapists are strangers to their victim but 80% of them are convicted, then 50% of the convicted rapists are stranger rapists. if the false ID rate is 20%, yes, it could be coming entirely from the pool of stranger rapists.

In other words, it totally does not surprise me to find that 20% of convicted rapists didn't actually have sex with the woman they were convicted of raping. Rape is an incredibly difficult crime to prosecute, in part because of ridiculous ideas about "gray rape" and women being unable to withdraw consent, so I would guess that almost all convictions are in fact of stranger rapists and that they would be riddled with ID errors... how likely is a person to be able to pick a stranger accurately out of a lineup after a traumatic experience where he was possibly trying to hide his face from her? I'll bet a *lot* of innocent men get railroaded on rape charges because the cops decide that it's better to nail a guy who probably didn't do it than to leave it unsolved. Which leaves the real rapist at large.

If the rate is instead that 80% of *convicted* rapists are acquaintances... that is a really, really frightening thought, because it says stranger rape almost doesn't exist and rape, as a crime, is a crime of violence by men against women they know. Because the barriers to convicting in acquaintance rape are so fucking high that if 80% of *convicted* rapists are acquaintances, and only 5% of accused rapists are convicted... I would imagine that the rate of accused rapists who are acquaintances would be something like 95% or higher.

AJR,

I'm fairly sure that the 80% statistic is what women report in studies and the like, that is, the percentage of /actual rapes/ where the perp was an acquaintance

This is not what this thread was about, but . . .

"A male, is the "70-80% of rapists are acquaintances" referring solely to the convicted rapists? Or does it refer to the number of *charged* rapists?"

All accused rapists, all reported and unreported claims of rape, or wherever those figures come up. The 70% figure, at least, is almost universal.

"I'll bet a *lot* of innocent men get railroaded on rape charges because the cops decide that it's better to nail a guy who probably didn't do it than to leave it unsolved. Which leaves the real rapist at large."

*IF* a sample of 10,000 is truly random, then we may be talking about 20%-40% of all men in jail for rape. That is fucked up. No rape victim, and certainly no feminists or anyone else seeking justice should be happy about this. All it means is, the real rapists are free, along with every other rapist who was never arrested or convicted at trial.

http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/dnaevid.txt

Convicted by Juries, Exonerated by Science:
Case Studies in the Use of DNA Evidence to
Establish Innocence After Trial

by

Edward Connors
Thomas Lundregan
Neal Miller
Tom McEwen

June 1996

U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice
Jeremy Travis, J.D.
Director

Richard Rau, Ph.D.
Project Monitor

The authors of this report are staff members of the
Institute for Law and Justice, Alexandria,
Virginia. This project was supported under award
number OJP-95-215 by the National Institute of
Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S.
Department of Justice.

[quote]

Every year since 1989, in about 25 percent of the sexual assault cases referred to the FBI where results could be obtained (primarily by State and local law enforcement), the primary suspect has been excluded by forensic DNA testing. Specifically, FBI officials report that out of roughly 10,000 sexual assault cases since 1989, about 2,000 tests have been inconclusive (usually insufficient high molecular weight DNA to do testing), about 2,000 tests have excluded the primary suspect, and about 6,000 have “matched� or included the primary suspect.1 The fact that these percentages have remained constant for 7 years, and that the National Institute of Justice’s informal survey of private laboratories reveals a strikingly similar 26-percent exclusion rate, strongly suggests that postarrest and postconviction DNA exonerations are tied to some strong, underlying systemic problems that generate erroneous accusations and convictions.

[end quote]

I'm glad you can recognize this, because our legal system has a serious problem on both sides of the rape issue. Note that being exonerated on DNA evidence only applies to those who conclusively did NOT leave their genetic material on the victim or complainant. For true cases of he said/she said which is what the issue of withdrawal of consent could easily become (as opposed to drunkenness or drug impairment, which can be proven through blood tests if performed promptly enough), there is no way to assist accuser or accused, without penalizing the other. Average people (as opposed to gonzo pornographers) do not make a practice of recording their sexual activity to prove or disprove assault occurred, and it would be a sad society which did. (How gonzo pornographers such as Max Hardcore stay out of jail or avoid death threats while explicitly boasting of hurting women on camera, and I have seen his site's free samples of his "work," is beyond me.)

Which is what I assume dananddanica is concerned about, when asking about how to "prove" consent when accuser and accused are in disagreement. I am too. Even recent university policies of asking and receiving consent at each stage of the sex act such as "May I touch your breast?" (and I am still unaware of how such could ever be conclusively proven) is not enough, in withdrawal of consent. I do recognize withdrawal of consent as valid, as well as sex being rape after withdrawal of consent.

I just thank God that I and no one I know of are in such a position, and I would hate to sit on a jury in such a case.

I need to make a correction: it may not have been Kanin himself who made the claim of 100% of rape accusations being false. He may have simply been recognizing the extreme range of claims in 1985, from 0.25% to 100%. His own claims are odd enough:

"Widely divergent viewpoints are held regarding the
incidence of false rape reporting (Katz and Mazur, 1979).
For example, reports set the figure from lows of 0.25%
(O’Reilly, 1984) and 1% (Krasner et al., 1976) to highs of
80-90% (Bronson, 1918; Comment, 1968) and even 100%
(see Kanin, 1985). All of these figures represent releases
from some criminal justice agency or are estimates from
clinical practitioners. The extraordinary range of these
estimates makes a researcher suspect that inordinate
biases are at work."

Yes, it all depends on the sample and the agenda of the researcher. Science is supposed to be unbiased. It is a damned shame.

I just left a comment under the article, and I'm going to write to BU since I graduated from there as well. Obviously I'm appalled, disgusted, mad, and everything in between. Just to let you know a little bit about my experience and how these lies/myths impacted my situation, I was assaulted several years back. It was out in public and I did not know my attacker - he pushed his way into the bathroom as I was entering. I happened to be wearing a skirt that night. For the next couple of weeks after - the only thing that had been going over and over in my head was "if I hadn't been wearing a skirt maybe he wouldn't have been able to get 'access'". I've never worn a skirt since. Obviously, and I know now, that it had nothing to do with what I was wearing, he would have done it regardless. But from years in therapy and also talking with other women, I know these types of thoughts are very prevalent in victims. Most women I have talked to somehow all manage to go through a period where they blame themselves before they are able to grasp the idea that it is entirely the rapists fault and had nothing to do with what they did or what they were wearing. My reasons for not prosecuting are exactly the reasons that you would expect, because I know the deck is stacked against us and because for a long period I blamed myself. And even though I was raped and he was guilty and I was in pain, and had bruises all over my body to show for it, and even forensic evidence (photographs and a rape kit done at the hospital)...I was convinced that I could never win a court case. How could I have had any confidence in winning if at that time I was blaming myself? To this day I wonder how things would have been different for myself (and others) if we weren't fed these ideas that women are somehow responsible for being raped. If these lies and myths about the "grey rape" and blaming women who dress and certain way, or act a certain way, were never given credence to, I think things would be remarkably different. It would increase the number of reports made, increase the number of prosecutions and probably even increase the likelihood of more victories in these cases. My thinking would be, yeah, it would most definitely make a big difference. So, it was so sad for me to read that article, knowing the realities and dangers of these myths, it was also hurtful to me that this was coming from a young woman. To me her article seemed like an act of self-hate. It also means that these misogynistic myths have taken hold on a good percentage of people. I guess if something gets repeated enough, even if it's a lie, people will start to believe it. That just means that we all need to be screaming louder and louder.

Kristin – The provision of the California statute you cited is not inconsistent with what I wrote. The “prevented from resisting� language is interpreted quite literally. That is, it applies where a person is physically unable to refuse consent or to act in a way that indicates refusal. Being intoxicated impairs judgment and rational thought and may “lower resistance�, but does not necessarily prevent a person from refusing consent. If a person cannot resist, i.e., cannot say no or otherwise indicate refusal due an intoxicating substance also must mean that the person can not give affirmative consent. As I previously stated, a sexual act that is perpetrated without affirmative consent is rape. But just because a person does not say no, it does not necessarily mean that the person has given affirmative consent. Thank you for the heads up on the law review article. I’ll read it right away.

Jovan1984 – California law defines consent as “positive cooperation in act or attitude pursuant to an exercise of free will. The person must act freely and voluntarily and have knowledge of the nature of the act or transaction involved.� As I stated previously, there is nothing that says that one must be sober in order to give consent.

In Ohio, you cannot give consent if you are intoxicated.
"In the state of Ohio, no one under the influence of alcohol or other drugs can legally consent to sexual activity. Therefore, if someone is under the influence, s/he cannot legally consent to sexual activity in Ohio."

RockStar:

I agree with you, but I think most men who would even consider doing something like that will take more offense at being called weak than being called a rapist.

Some national statistics from the Sex Abuse Treatment Center of Hawaii regarding rape by other than a stranger, with a list of references, considerably more current than those I am normally used to seeing:

http://www.satchawaii.com/statistics.html

"Over 95 percent of sexual assault offenders are male. (Greenfeld 1997)"

"One in six American women report experiencing an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. (Tjaden, Thoennes 2000)"

"One in 33 American men report experiencing an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. (Ibid)"

"Of all sexual assault victimizations reported to law enforcement agencies, 67 percent of victims were under 18 years of age, 34 percent were under 12 and 14 percent were six years old or younger. (Snyder 2000)."

"67 percent of women who were raped and/or physically assaulted since age 18 were assaulted by a current or former husband, cohabiting partner or date. (Tjaden, Thoennes 1998)"

"Over 90 percent of juvenile sexual assault victims reported knowing their attacker: 34 percent were family members and 59 percent acquaintances. Only seven percent of the perpetrators were strangers to the victim. (Snyder 2000)"

"Rape had the highest annual victim cost at $127 billion per year, followed by assault, murder and drunken driving. (US Bureau of Justice Statistics 2000)"

Also from the same site on their information page, Hawaii state law recognizes penetrative sex with one who is "mentally incapacitated" as being sexual assault in the second degree, though chemical impairment is not specified. I assume "physically helpless" refers to semi/unconsciousness or sleep state of the victim.

§707-731 Sexual assault in the second degree.
A person commits the offense of sexual assault in the second degree if:
a. The person knowingly subjects another person to an act of
sexual penetration by strong compulsion;
b. The person knowingly subjects to sexual penetration another
person who is mentally defective, mentally incapacitated, or
physically helpless . . .

As of January 2006, my university, the University of Hawaii, also recognizes the effects of drugs or alcohol as incapacity to give consent. On paper anyway, the university's policy on sexual assault (seven pages) and support for victims looks ok.

http://www.hawaii.edu/svpa/ep/e1/e1204.pdf

The scope of “sex offenses� covered by this policy is mandated
by the Clery Act [34 CFR 668.46]. Sex offenses covered by
this policy include rape, acquaintance rape, and other sexual
acts directed against another person, forcibly and/or against
that person’s will; or not forcibly or against the person’s
will where the victim is incapable of giving consent because
of his or her youth or because of his or her temporary or
permanent mental or physical incapacity (including incapacity
due to drugs or alcohol).

I forgot to add that Hawaii, being one of those places that do not have "enlightened" rape laws, apparently requires "knowing" action or "compulsion" on the part of the offender, for it to be the crime of sexual assault, at any level. My assumption is ignorance, as in, "He didn't know she was drunk," can be used as a defense. My only advice under current law is, have witnesses see you and your "date" leaving together to establish state of mind or apparent impairment.

"Just for the record, rapes and other crime will happen, whether we have porn or not. In fact, I have read about women being raped by sex toys. Anyways, I'm not going any further on the subject."

Sheez. I never made such an assertion. However, if you believe that violent porn is legitimate freedom of expression, then it should be able to stand up to criticism and should be held to the exact same standards that we hold all other media, including the above article. Right?

I am interested in cultural attitudes, because legally I can't see any way of getting around the consent issue in rape. Can anyone else see how to get around this problem?

You can have the toughest laws on the books, but it all comes down to the cultural attitudes of a jury of your and my peers.

The acceptance and popularity of sexual violence in the media along with some apparently scary data suggesting that more crimes happen if people don't have access to this media seemed like a legitimate place to ask some tough questions about ourselves...

@dananddanica "how do we reconcile the widely held view that a 28 year old man having sex with a 13 year old girl is somehow worse than a 28 year old woman having sex with a 13 year old boy with all rape being rape?"

It's called the patriarchy. In the patriarchy, the 13-year-old girl is the property of her father. In theory, the 28-year-old man is basically committing theft of property. Furthermore, teenage girls are considered unstable and vulnerable and their sexuality must be controlled at all costs.

Spike: "I have yet to see anyone point out the fact that this data (if you believe it) seems to almost prove that would be offenders, to some degree cannot control themselves since they apparently need an outlet to express violent and sexual impulses. Without the outlet, they commit crime. With the outlet crime goes down--if you believe the data, which apparently a lot of people do."
No. No more than masturbating to relieve the urge for sex means that if I didn't or couldn't masturbate, I'd HAVE to find a woman and get laid.

In any case, the idea of an irresistible urge is bullshit and irrelevant. Everyone is biologically hardwired to pee, but I doubt anyone would accept an "I couldn't control myself!" defense if I urinated on their leg.

Nerdalert -- I checked the Ohio statute for Rape, Ohio Revised Code 2907.02. The only mention of intoxication is where the offender administers a substance to the victim for the purpose of preventing resistance. The only mention of consent being invalid is when the victim has a mental or physical condition or because of advanced age. I don't know where the language you quoted came from, but it wasn't the Ohio statute that defines the crime of rape.

crshark -
It actually depends on the state that you are in. I live in WA where being drunk means you cannot give consent. Period. I have had clients whose rapists were convicted solely because the victim was able to prove intoxication. Most states recognize that if a woman is drunk to the point of memory loss or black out she cannot give consent.

I also think it is important to remind everybody that alcohol is the number one date rape drug. I am not saying this is a perfect system - but I can say it has helped several of my clients get convictions. That is a nice change - since traditionally if a woman is drunk people are more likely to blame her.

I spend a lot of my time speaking to people about sexual assault and this is something that always comes up with the college crowd. I always have men who want to know "what if we were both drunk" That is a tricky question - unfortunately here there is a double standard.This is why I always advocate to men who are "afraid" of false reports being made against them that if a woman is too drunk to drive she is too drunk to have sex with you.

Oh, so many ways that the system needs to be changed. Sigh.

"I always have men who want to know "what if we were both drunk" That is a tricky question - unfortunately here there is a double standard.This is why I always advocate to men who are "afraid" of false reports being made against them that if a woman is too drunk to drive she is too drunk to have sex with you."

Not being snarky, but since obviously people let friends drive drunk, and people drive drunk themselves, what is the test? Isn't it safest to say men and women who drink should not have sex?

Well you know, I had a 25 yr-old TA who /of his own choice/, would not have sex with a drunk woman.

He actually didn't seem to think it was that unreasonable or unfair of a standard to live by, he actually preferred it.

Huh... funny how that could happen.

And just for the record, A male, I personally don't drunk drive and I don't let friends drunk drive either, if I can help it. I know too many kids who died that way, and I think it's supremely not worth it...

I /have/ had drunk sex, but only when I was sure we both knew what was going on.

That's nice for you, Ninapendamaishi, but despite eight years in university and later nursing school, since I don't really know any people who say they had sex when drunk, I still need to know what the test is to determine whether or not a woman is qualified to give consent, or a man to have sex at all. Obviously, the standards of the average person do not match that of the police or the legal definition, or we would not have such an epidemic of DUI or public drunkenness.

If a man and woman intend to have casual sex, i.e., do NOT know each other well enough to know if they are not themselves at the moment due to the influence of drugs or alcohol, despite being otherwise functional, what do they need to do to avoid committing the crime of rape through impairment?

Obviously intimate partners and friends should know better than to take advantage of impaired people they *recognize* as impaired. I know what my wife and friends look like when drunk. My wife and some others I see become chatty, energetic and "happy," not down or semiconscious. Men who don't know my wife could be excused for believing she was being "friendly," and if she were younger and single, they might well hit on her and something might happen. It would certainly not enter her consciousness that she was being raped. She doesn't even know that most sexual encounters she describes to me since her childhood constitute US legal definition for rape.

I have to say that it's inspiring to see that sensible readers have FLOODED the comments on that article, and not one (that I can tell) is supportive of the author's harmful opinions.

It's one of the few times outside of Feministing that a comment section on a sensitive article has not made me want to bang my head on a wall.

Feministique – Washington has three statutes defining rape in the 1st, 2d, or 3d degree, respectively. The only statute that addresses consent is the one defining the crime of rape in the 3d degree, Wash. Rev. Code 9A.44.060. It makes illegal intercourse where the victim does not consent as defined by RCW 9A.44.010(7). That statute defines consent as, “actual words or conduct indicating freely given agreement to have sexual intercourse or sexual contact.� There’s nothing saying that consent cannot be given if one is intoxicated. I would guess the clients you mentioned that proved intoxication also had to show that their intoxication rendered then unable to “freely give� consent. As I mentioned before, a person who fails to refuse consent does not mean that the person has given consent.

I am familiar with the statutes. I never said that consent could not be given if intoxicated - I have drunken consensual sex all the time. What I am saying is that by law if you are drunk it can be argued that you were incapable of giving consent. My clients simply had to prove they were drunk - and that was enough to show that they could not render consent. The intoxication limit is roughly the same as it would be for driving. I agree completely that a person who does not refuse consent has not given consent. I frequently talk about this in front of large audiences. The idea that just because she didn't say no she must have meant yes is one of the biggest myths that we are fighting to overcome.

I am certain that we are on the same side of the argument. I fail to understand why you see a need to argue with me.

"If a man and woman intend to have casual sex, i.e., do NOT know each other well enough to know if they are not themselves at the moment due to the influence of drugs or alcohol, despite being otherwise functional, what do they need to do to avoid committing the crime of rape through impairment?"

How about both parties agreeing to wait until they are sober?

I think this article is proof that casual sex is more trouble than it is worth.
I agree with spike the cat, that if both parties are so impaired that they wouldn't be able to tell when one of the parties involved has in fact, withdrawn their consent, they should agree to wait until they both sober up before continuing. But, this almost guarantees that one or both of the parties will no longer be interested by the time they are sober.
But, this is more often than not, a wise decision.

I'm a little late at getting to this one, but I was just reading through the comments people posted on the article itself, and it was so great to read. As horrifying it is when you read something like that, and are reminded that there really are people that think that way, it is so inspiring to know that you aren't the only one who is outraged.

I am so proud to know so many like-minded feminists my age!

I guess I kinda have two comments.

1) I, personally, have been in a reversed situation. After meeting up with an old high school buddy for dinner, followed by drinks, followed by "crashing at his place," and an offer to share his bed. One thing led to another and, both consenting, we had sex. After a couple minutes, he said, "You know, maybe this isn't a good idea." Despite how hot and bothered I was, I stopped. I didn't try to pressure him to finish or convince him to change his mind. While this was the first time I've ever been in this situation, it made me think that there's no way I'm the only person to ever be in this situation. But I don't think this role reversal is ever discussed because generalizations about masculinity would have us believe that if a dude's having sex, there's no way he's not gonna finish the job.

2) As a BU alum, I remember many awful stories about BU's handling of rape cases (telling a victim that the rapist had been expelled when he had in fact just been moved to a different dorm, etc.). But I also remember a BPD officer speaking with us at freshman orientation and saying that in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the law says that someone can't give consent if they're intoxicated. So, sex with anyone who is intoxicated is considered rape. Curious about what others think of a law like that or if anyone knows anything else about those types of laws in MA or any other state.

I would like to point out that the writer of the article did note towards the end that under no circumstances is it all right to go forward with sex if either party says no at the beginning (or middle, or end).

That being said, I agree with most of the comments in this thread: it was way out of line, and insulting to women. And, for that matter, men.

If a male strip-o-gram wearing a tearaway police uniform in public is stopped on the way to the job by someone looking for police help, does that obligate him to help them? No. Just like dressing like a "slut" does not mean that anyone can have their away with you.

Hm. Or is that just a really bad analogy, as it relates to job, not personal relationships?

El Jay, I'm not an expert, but I do know the laws vary quite a bit.

I don't see it in MA's statutes offhand, but it could be caselaw. I'm not very familiar with MA and I have a feeling I'm looking in the wrong place.

Just for comparison, in my home state of Ohio it is illegal to impair a person's judgment through alcohol, drugs, etc, for the purpose of preventing resistance. So the intent is important.

In California, a more liberal state, it is rape if the person is so intoxicated that they cannot resist and this condition is known or should have been known.

This seems to me to be different then the idea that consent given when intoxicated isn't valid. Incapable of resisting, to me, means that the person literally can't express whether or not they consent.

But this was a quick look, and I'm not a lawyer.

Shadowen, it's an imperfect analogy because while there are real police officers, there are not actual women who are/should be completely available to every man for whatever sex act he'd like at any time, no matter how she's dressed.

Nothing a woman does ever means that "anyone can have their way with you."

A male,

That's tragic about your wife. Have you thought about trying to explain to her what her legal rights are regarding sex? Seems like it could help, if you're genuinly worried about what would happen if she ever drank around strangers.

My experience with drinking though, is that if I'm talking coherently and making sense, I'm qualified to make decisions. I might be a little more relaxed in social situations than usual, more gregarious and laughing more, but I've never done something that I don't think I would have done sober.

Personally, I think a lot of rapes that happen with the use of alcohol (most rapes, that is) do not happen /because/ of the alcohol, but because someone is simply choosing to ignore someone else's lack of enthusiastic consent. Generally, for me, signs someone is actually too drunk to know what they're doing might be stumbling, slurred or difficult to understand speech, or obviously, severe memory impairment or unconsciousness. I think generally if a guy is too drunk to not realize his partner's lack of consent, he's probably going to be too drunk to even have sex, except for maybe very sloppy sex. So I just feel that most of the time a man rapes a woman and alcohol is involved, there was a level of cognisance about what was going on involved. These guys might not necessarily see themselves as rapists -they may just fall into the common cultural belief that taking advantage of women is natural male behavior... Just my PO.

So when do I think it's okay for two drunk people to have sex? When there is enthusiastic consent from both parties.

And personally, I bet that very, very few alleged rapes actually looked like enthusiastic consent from both parties at the time the act took place.

I used to express the same regrettably stupid opinions as the article writer. Even after I was raped by my boyfriend on many occasions. Maybe especially after. I think now that I simply couldn't deal with the fact that I was raped, and felt sure that I had to have done something to provoke it, or it wouldn't have happened. Well, and him constantly telling me that it was my fault didn't help either.

Gotta wonder when I see opinions like this if others aren't in the same position.

"That's tragic about your wife."

TRIGGER WARNING:

Tell me about it. She denies any trauma, or the need for professional help. Originally, I had planned to assault or secretly kill the people responsible before meeting the ones I know of, like her stepmother who used to beat her so severely, my wife says she's seen blood gushing from her head "like a faucet." She has visible scars on her scalp and hands/arms to this day. The only reason I tolerate that woman is because there is peace in the house now that my wife is gone, and my wife says her dad needs his wife to take care of him (he has severely impaired vision).

"Have you thought about trying to explain to her what her legal rights are regarding sex?"

She is aware of her rights to her body now that she is married. Prior to marrying me, she considered herself in "relationships" with the men who abused her, like the boyfriend of her best friend (now husband) who used to force himself on her regularly when he used to drop in on her apartment allegedly to see NBA basketball on her cable TV. She considered it ok because she liked him at the time, despite him being with her best friend. Then there was her coworker who helped her move to another apartment. Then there was her former boss. The list goes on.

I have pointed out to her that I am probably the only person whose advances she has ever resisted, I can't even give her a hug without a reason (she has also never made reports to authorities for anything that happened to her), and my wife was also one of the many women in Japan who was victim to molesters on public transportation, and she was even once assaulted when she went alone to a movie theater, but she told me she did not leave because she wanted to continue watching the movie, and she was not the one who should have left. WTF.

It is more than a simple cultural barrier, with her growing up in a "safer" environment like Japan (when we got married, she did not know why I considered it necessary to lock doors and windows, or to be aware of her surroundings and people around her when out), with all due respect, something is not quite right with my wife. Considering her long history, it's as if she was raised to be a natural victim. She is simply fortunate most people consider her "nice" (all the women I know, anyway) that more people don't try to take advantage of her sexually, financially, and otherwise.

"Seems like it could help, if you're genuinly worried about what would happen if she ever drank around strangers."

She's only allowed herself to get drunk once since having children, at a party with coworkers in Japan. She fell off the luggage rack off the bicycle of the man bringing her home and had a huge abrasion on her face. She was lucky not to break any bones, get a concussion, get run over by cars on the city streets, or otherwise die. She or her coworkers could have called me at home watching the kids, or a taxi, for a ride at any time. My wife is not someone who should be allowed to get really drunk. Previously, I recall her getting really drunk in 1995, puking in the public bathroom drunk, during a barbecue for a community group we were in. Otherwise, she got "pleasantly" drunk, and like I said, someone who did not know her as well as her friends or myself would easily think she was simply being forward, and something could happen to her, even if she would not want it to while sober. The other young women I know who drink socially would probably pass your "enthusiastic consent" test while drunk as well, despite it being technically considered rape in the UK or Australia by law, or by my former university's new sexual assault policy linked in my earlier post.

"Gotta wonder when I see opinions like this if others aren't in the same position."

I am sure situations like the one in the OP have happened to millions of women in social situations in the US, but were historically simply not considered "serious enough" by victims or those they told, to report to the authorities. To this day, I read comments online blaming rape victims for "choosing" to be drunk or go to parties, calling it simple after sex regret, being irresponsible, or whatever.

The comments appear a little one-sided here.

Yes, it is absolutely true that if at any point the woman stops and the man does not, it is rape. That is perfectly straightforward. No argument there.

However, I see very little acknowledgement of the idea that for a woman to follow a man up to his room, voluntarily get naked, voluntarily climb into his bed, maybe even engage in oral or manual stimulation, and then claim to not want sex and that he was reading her signals all wrong, borders on sociopathic. Having second thoughts at the last minute is all well and good, but many comments (either here or on the original article) seem to approach the concept as if that progression of events is or should be perfectly NORMAL for a woman.

What would you say about a man who showed up at a woman's doorstep, waved a bouquet under her nose, whisked her away to her favorite restaurant, flashed a sparkly ring, and then at the moment the waiter approached bearing menus, the man hustled the woman out of the restaurant, chauffered her home, and left her standing on the threshold while he disappeared with the ring in his pocket and the flowers under his arm?

"What would you say about a man who showed up at a woman's doorstep, waved a bouquet under her nose, whisked her away to her favorite restaurant, flashed a sparkly ring, and then at the moment the waiter approached bearing menus, the man hustled the woman out of the restaurant, chauffered her home, and left her standing on the threshold while he disappeared with the ring in his pocket and the flowers under his arm?"

One certainly wouldn't expect that the man be forcibly returned to the restaurant and relieved of his flowers, ring, and wallet so that his lady friend could enjoy the dinner and all that he had apparently promised her. But one would consider him to be either crazy or a serious asshole to do that to her.

Having an inviolable right to control one's own body does not translate into a right and expectation to feel free to behave like a jerk, no matter which gender. Being a prick-tease is being a jerk. Of course it does not justify rape. But it is being a jerk. That's all I'm saying.

"The comments appear a little one-sided here."

Maybe because we are on a feminist website, and the discussion is rape. If we went to Glenn Sacks, the conversation would be one sided against women for being soo ebil, and men such victims who were deceived into marrying and supporting them and children who may not even be theirs, for the next 18 years, or the rest of their lives. I visit regularly, to know. A number of posters at Glenn Sacks even declare they are on a marriage strike, to protest against the ebil of marriage, alimony, and child support. I have yet to hear of women in their lives crying over these men removing themselves from the dating or gene pool. Women here are not so extreme.

"Having an inviolable right to control one's own body does not translate into a right and expectation to feel free to behave like a jerk, no matter which gender. Being a prick-tease is being a jerk. Of course it does not justify rape. But it is being a jerk. That's all I'm saying."

A woman deciding not to at the last moment, despite her participation or invitation, or even asking to stop DURING sex, is not necessarily being a prick tease. Perhaps she genuinely has second thoughts that she does not want to end up with this guy or pregnant by him, and quite possibly, the sex is too rough or painful for her liking. Can you understand this? If you do not, there is no sense in continuing a discussion.

Even as a man, I understand that not everything my wife does to me is pleasurable, and I have asked her to try again another way, or to stop completely. How can it be otherwise? She has 14 fewer years of experience than I do, in pleasing me sexually. Also, working in a restaurant in Japan using harsh cleansers gave her rough skin on her hands for a few years. Try to imagine a woman giving you a going over wearing Scotchbrite gloves, and you'd want to stop her sometimes, too, no matter how much you love each other.

The man in the situation you describe is indeed being a jerk. There may be justification, but please describe a realistic situation in which such behavior would be possible *without* the man simply being an ass trying to punish the woman.

A woman being a deliberate tease would also be being a jerk. But that is not the reason for the majority of women asking to stop, and as you say, no excuse for a man raping them. If men felt pain and discomfort during sex like women sometimes do for various reasons, be it insufficient arousal/lubrication, improper angle of insertion, insufficient stretch of the vaginal walls, improper technique, being too rough, continuing too long, etc., more men would understand why a woman would want to stop even during sex. It has happened to me. In fact, my wife usually has me stop because she does not WANT to continue sex after an orgasm (despite me pausing until she is done, because I've learned stimulation during an orgasm can be uncomfortable or too intense for a woman), or she does not WANT more orgasms (for sure, she stops at two). Sometimes she decides she does not want an orgasm at all, because orgasms for her are a physically draining experience (she normally passes out or falls asleep when it is over).

Do you get it yet? Can you try to imagine things from a woman's point of view, the reality of which is, sex is not always pleasurable, and certainly does not result in sexual gratification or orgasm as easily as a man?

Oh, and naturally, if my wife wants me to stop before my own orgasm, that means no orgasm with her for me, no matter how long or short we've been at it, because she is almost never in any condition to "help" me. When with my wife, I've learned to enjoy watching her reaction instead of my own.

And I am not bragging about my size or sexual prowess. I've got a penis shorter than the published averages, and my wife simply has orgasms very easily, though she claims, not before meeting me. I had to teach her how to touch herself, even. She can have an orgasm every single time, and multiple, if she would let me. Unlike most women I've read about, she actually enjoys focused, continued direct stimulation of sensitive areas like the clitoris, and I'd need to think how NOT to give her an orgasm. Try asking your girlfriend or wife if she would find the same direct stimulation pleasurable, or if she has orgasms so easily. I sincerely doubt it. I was damned lucky I did not marry the first woman I was engaged to, because her idea of missionary position only, lights out, no looking, and certainly no touching or oral, would have been boring for me.

Certainly I understand that the prick-tease scenario is most likely an infinitesimal minority of actual occurrences. Certainly there are legitimate reasons to need to stop. What I was reacting to was not specific instances, but the attitude on the part of some posters, (again, expressed on the original article as well as here): namely, that a woman can do what she wants, touch what she wants, suck what she wants, fuck what she wants, and when she says stop, the man's feelings in the situation count for absolutely zero, zilch, nada. The man is being asked to field one hundred percent of the sensitivity in the situation. What kind of person wants carte blanche to be an insensitive, selfish asshole? Again, for any sane person it would go without saying that one's partner matters at least a little bit when things like this come up. Why would people state their position in such absolute terms?

And no, I don't think it's too much to ask that a discussion be balanced. Otherwise I grant you about as much credibility as I grant Limbaugh.

"However, I see very little acknowledgement of the idea that for a woman to follow a man up to his room, voluntarily get naked, voluntarily climb into his bed, maybe even engage in oral or manual stimulation, and then claim to not want sex and that he was reading her signals all wrong, borders on sociopathic."

---

You know, something else for you to consider in your list of possibilities is that after he disrobed and presented his penis for inspection, she saw or felt sores on his genitalia and decided that wasn't what she had in mind.

It's not like people are straightforward about their STDs.

Just to throw another wrench in the "evil cock tease" paranoia.

Not out of the realm of either possibility or even necessarily uncommon occurence.

"What kind of person wants carte blanche to be an insensitive, selfish asshole?"

People who believe in personal freedoms. You and I both have license to act like "insensitive, selfish assholes" like the man or woman in your hypothetical right now. It does not mean anyone has to do it, or that people must like us for it, though people who support personal freedoms should respect such views or choices. Just last night, I was reading on one feminist blog how the writer, a feminist, wrote she did not understand the concept of withdrawing consent, saying she sometimes allowed the sex with her man to continue because it was simply the easiest thing to do at the time (which is not to say they gave consent for the sex or for it to continue) and some comments agreed. Considering how little we hear about rape cases like that, and how new this concept of rape after withdrawal of consent, or rape after denying sex after active participation in foreplay are,

Appeal judges draw fire over sex consent
via The Advertiser
By Sean Fewster
March 20, 2007

APPEAL court judges have erased an alleged rapist's criminal record after ruling that a man could not rape and have consensual sex with a woman in the same encounter.

The judgment has sent shockwaves through women's groups and prompted an urgent legal review in South Australia.

In a 2-1 decision, the Court of Criminal Appeal erased the criminal record of a man who twice had sex with a woman in his car.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21412920-2,00.html

[this is the "if you suck, you must fuck" case cited by Feministing, and perfectly relevant to your hypothetical]

http://feministing.com/archives/006734.html

that is precisely how I am certain how those, and drunken situations like in the OP, must have happened to millions of women, but were simply never reported to authorities. Offending men, the general public, perhaps not even the women themselves understood such to be rape as people stereotypically knew it (stranger suddenly and forcefully taking innocent virgin by surprise) or "serious enough" to report. Australia, one of the countries that recently (1/1/08) enacted their "no means no" law that drunken women cannot consent to sex, still doesn't get it, if they think "leading a man on" through oral sex or saying yes once, justifies rape later.

"Otherwise I grant you about as much credibility as I grant Limbaugh."

What does credibility have to do with anything? Read any responsible scientific or medical source you want about sex from the women's side, and imagine why they would want it to stop despite making out with a man or already having sex. It isn't all screaming orgasms and squirting like in porn. And I care less if you do not believe me about myself or my wife.

If you are referring to the "lack of balance" on this site as a feminist site, I agree. Even if what they want is equal rights for all, this is mainly about the concerns and needs of women, not men. You should also apply the same standard to the sites which support men's/father's rights. It's why I visit both here and Glenn Sacks' site daily, and a number of others. To hear a number of viewpoints from men, women, common people, deliberate trolls and devil's advocates making extreme statements, academics, the law, the situation in other countries, etc. I have encouraged readers here to do the same instead of (sometimes) simply accepting or reciting any statistic or viewpoint they read just because it supports their own, but cannot tell them how to think or behave on "their" website. Others question what they see as well, as when people are apparently hostile to OB/GYNs or giving birth in hospitals as opposed to also having a midwife or doula present, or having a birth without a hospital or physician.

I hope you notice at the Glenn Sacks' site (just this week, he has had to post the necessity of moderating his boards (he says he previously had no written rules) and had to defend himself from some of his own readers and "fans") that the environment there is considerably more hostile for women who support women and children's rights (or those who point out how women suffer in marriage or divorce), than here for men (note most here who post as men act like trolls). For example, a number of feminist posters here, like posters on the Sacks' site, also support the legal elimination of alimony, when certain conditions like equitable wages are met. I was shocked to see it.

I don't even bother posting at the Sacks' site, because most posters, who seem to be hurting over bad divorces and other bad experiences with women, wouldn't want to listen that it's not all like what happened to them, or that there are reasons laws were made to help ex-wives or biological children after a divorce (or in "real" cases of rape or domestic violence). I had to read it here (and confirm it through my own online search) that a full 58% of single mothers lived below the poverty line, that the average child support payment received was only about $300 a month, or that only 7% of women actually received alimony (though 15% were legally entitled to it). "Common sense" and reading men's rights websites would have me believe all ex-wives and custodial mothers of men's children were making out like bandits, courtesy of Uncle Sam. US federal government statistics like the census, would clearly demonstrate such women, while they exist, are hardly the norm. Also, despite the claim (I will not dispute the figure) that women get sole or primary custody of children in 80% of divorces, I was surprised last week to hear my impoverished brother won 50/50 custody of his daughter with his bigshot accountant ex-wife. I had to change my way of thinking. Sacks' readers are probably too angry to imagine how it is for the "average" single mother or what happens when fathers do not financially support the children they father, producing such words of wisdom as "75% of divorces are initiated by women" (I will not dispute the figure) and "Her body, her choice, her responsibility," when justifying why men do not need to pay when women are divorced or bear children.

And as I openly post here, there are times I happen to agree with Glenn Sacks. He is much more reasonable than the vast majority of his posters. Again, he had to defend himself last week from readers who claimed he is going "soft" by occasionally supporting views of feminists (when Sacks agrees they are right).

Read Feministing for a while and post respectfully for a few months like I have tried, and see how differently you are treated than the average troll who gets banned for asking what women are complaining about in this day and age, or calling feminists hypocrites, liars and man hating.

"You know, something else for you to consider in your list of possibilities is that after he disrobed and presented his penis for inspection, she saw or felt sores on his genitalia and decided that wasn't what she had in mind."

Of course. And for "balance", I am certain that there are times when men prefer they not have sex, either due to the woman's common vaginal infections, natural stages of menstruation, or STIs. Also, it has been found that men who were present during the birth of their children often experienced sexual dysfunction later. Must be discouraging for women and men who would like to resume having sex. A number of medications such as antidepressants can also cause impotence despite the willingness of the men.

These men are not being teases any more than women who would say no for not being able to perform due to lack of arousal or discomfort or for seeing something they don't like.

"However, I see very little acknowledgement of the idea that for a woman to follow a man up to his room, voluntarily get naked, voluntarily climb into his bed, maybe even engage in oral or manual stimulation, and then claim to not want sex and that he was reading her signals all wrong, borders on sociopathic. Having second thoughts at the last minute is all well and good, but many comments (either here or on the original article) seem to approach the concept as if that progression of events is or should be perfectly NORMAL for a woman"

Well, I for one consider this behavior somewhat NORMAL in a country that promotes abstinence only education and where women continue to be slut shamed in their own lives and in the media. But this is a whole other discussion.

Now. If people can't handle the the above scenario without walking away, then they probably should not be having casual sex.

I am not sure why there is so much resistance to this concept.

"If people can't handle the the above scenario without walking away, then they probably should not be having casual sex."

Exactly.

"I am not sure why there is so much resistance to this concept."

Some men really are pigs, and I doubt most others (at least those who desire no obligation sex) care to understand sexual issues for women like it could well be uncomfortable or painful, and gee, a piston action which can result in rapid ejaculation for the male, and very much like solo masturbation, is not the best way to an orgasm for a woman.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1608/is_3_21/ai_n13504288

"The orgasm almanac: if she goes to bed without experiencing each of the orgasms below, you haven't done your job"

Men's Fitness, April, 2005 by Belisa Vranich

"WOMEN WILL PUT UP WITH ONE, MAYBE TWO, nights without an orgasm from you. But you'd better know how to hit her G-spot before too long or you'll be getting cozy with her answering machine. Here's why: For 70% of women, penetration alone is not enough to bring them to climax. That's a hell of a lot of women walking the earth with no satisfaction. See a way to get laid more? Understand her orgasm(s), as well as when and how to give them, and you'll be a more confident man with a lot more sex in your life. Consider this your contribution to womankind."

"Best TOOL to give her one"? "Troubleshooting"? "Spit works just fine IN A PINCH"? "Still not GETTING THERE? Call in a BACKUP . . . Her vibrator"?! Mind you, this article (already a few pages too short on techniques), like many others of its kind as in say, Cosmo on mind blowing sex/orgasms, does not discuss romance, foreplay, or cuddling at all. It's not as if sex for the woman is only about orgasm, either.

A lot of men really don't know, and don't care, as in the old "joke":

Q: How can a real man tell when his girl friend's having an orgasm?
A: Real men don't care.

or better yet, there are "men" who actually think or talk like this, at least in college I knew some who lived by the motto "Use 'em and lose 'em":

TRIGGER WARNING

http://vksempireofdirt.com/index.php?paged=3

[start quote]

Truth be told, a woman faking her orgasm with me does not bother me or most guys I know whatsoever. I usually don’t start caring about pleasing her till after the fifth bang or if I feel she might be relationship worthy. But if I just met you on $2 beer night at Lucky Bar, I don’t owe you an orgasm (hell I don’t even owe you my real name). Your’s is just a consolation prize. It ranks up there on my to do list right below shaving my balls and above finding a woman with good credit to love me.

The first five times is to simply see how much punishment the girl can take, what her boundaries are if she has any. I look for any signs that she might not be able to fully fulfill all my sexual needs. Little phrases like, “Don’t get any on my clothes, don’t get any in my hair, not that hole, the ropes are too tight, I can’t breath with this plastic bag on my face, don’t call me Kim Kar�. After that I’ll start doing little things to show that her feelings and enjoyment are important to me. Like remembering her name or not falling asleep on top of her after I finish. It’s the little things ladies.

It’s kind of cute though that some women think so much of themselves to actually try and fake it with a guy. Especially on a one night stand where the guy has probably seen better acting in Just My Luck. I mean what’s a guy thinking when he picks up a girl in a bar

A) Wow, I connect with this girl on such a deep mental and spiritual level, I can’t wait to take her home and connect with her physically giving her much pleasure OR
B) Look three holes

[end quote]

Seriously, with men who think like that around and quite common, I do not see the appeal in casual sex for most women. You most certainly would not like to be drunk or high around men like that.

It occurs to me that my writing may have been unclear. Let me try to clarify.

1) It has never been my position that someone should be forced to go through with any sexual activity that they don't want.

2) There is always the possibility of an extenuating circumstance that comes up and makes it necessary to stop right in the middle: pain, discovery of a disease, discovery of an unpleasant aspect of the partner's personality, discovery of some failure of protection, the list is practically endless. These are all well and good. They are not the same thing, however, as insisting there is nothing wrong with making standard operating procedure out of going as far as possible as fast as possible and then slamming the door in one's partner's face.

3) Barring one of these extenuating circumstances, it is considerate of one's partner to deal with hesitations as early in the process as possible. Far better to say "No, this is a bad idea" on the dance floor than at the very brink of penetration.

An few rare occurrences can be chalked up to be lack of experience. Making it a regular thing and insisting there's nothing wrong with it is crazy. Someone who thinks that kind of behavior is okay should have no problem with being regularly run out on, mid-meal, during dates. If a guy forgot to take his wallet to the restarant once, one hopes you'd forgive him. If he does it every time, you'd think he was pretty stupid.

"Barring one of these extenuating circumstances, it is considerate of one's partner to deal with hesitations as early in the process as possible. Far better to say "No, this is a bad idea" on the dance floor than at the very brink of penetration."

Oh, certainly.

"Making it a regular thing and insisting there's nothing wrong with it is crazy."

One hopes individual women are not sexually assaulted and raped often. My wife is an atypical victim, and I and my psychiatrist believe there is something going on which makes her particularly vulnerable to victimization.

"If a guy forgot to take his wallet to the restarant once, one hopes you'd forgive him. If he does it every time, you'd think he was pretty stupid."

No, he's forgetful.

Wow. This thread went off on quite a tangent...

Just checking in, and I feel a need to reply to this: "However, I see very little acknowledgement of the idea that for a woman to follow a man up to his room, voluntarily get naked, voluntarily climb into his bed, maybe even engage in oral or manual stimulation, and then claim to not want sex and that he was reading her signals all wrong, borders on sociopathic. Having second thoughts at the last minute is all well and good, but many comments (either here or on the original article) seem to approach the concept as if that progression of events is or should be perfectly NORMAL for a woman"

I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say that you guys are from a different generation, and/or a more conservative culture than the one I'm familiar with. I have to say that for both men and women I know, "hooking up" (that can mean simply making out OR manual sex OR oral sex OR intercourse) with someone you just met and then falling asleep in the stranger's bed even, is fairly standard. Not every guy is looking for intercourse, the way you paint it avast. And going no farther than manual, or going no farther than intercourse, seems to be things both guys and girls I know in college are comfortable with. I don't think there's anyting selfish or jerk-like about it on either end...

oops, sorry, that should have read "and going no farther than manual, or going no farther than oral, seems to be things both guys and girls I know in college are comfortable with"

"and going no farther than manual, or going no farther than oral, seems to be things both guys and girls I know in college are comfortable with"

Then I would say the people you know are different from the rapists and victims we are talking about, otherwise rape of young people wouldn't be such a problem, and men AND women wouldn't be blaming victims. I fail to see the appeal in casual sex for a woman except as just another opportunity to be exploited, beaten, raped, impregnated or pick up a disease. And yes, that would be the rapists' fault. Men of course, get to get off with a real live woman instead of their own hand, and hopefully walk away without commitments, paying child support or picking up a disease.

Ah. By having sex with women they trust and with whom they share similar values such as regarding boundaries and consent, men can also avoid being accused of rape.

Mina--agreed!free online games