resurrectionsong

May 04, 2004

Is it Rape?

If sex is consensual, can it be rape? If a person chooses, for whatever reason, to have relations with another person and then regrets it afterward, is the term rape applicable?

Paul Campos has a thoughtful article that seems to support just that idea. It starts with the assertion that sex is not the same thing to women that it is to men--that casual sex is a reality for men and an illusion for women.

By contrast, the culture of the hook-up depends on the illusion that men and women think of sex in the same way. And that is absurd. The great failure of the sexual revolution was that it never managed to turn women into men as far as sex was concerned - which is to say that the sexual revolution failed to create truly casual sex.

All of this is related in a complex and explosive way to what might be called the politics of date rape. When an adolescent boy treats an adolescent girl like a prostitute he doesn't need to pay, he does her a very real and significant injury. Our legal system doesn't - and as a practical matter can't - recognize that injury. According to the law, sex falls into two categories: consensual and coercive. We don't have the vocabulary to describe sex that isn't technically coercive but is still profoundly harmful.

While there's quite a bit that I agree with here, it disturbs me when I see the line "he does her a very real and significant injury." The problem is that it leaves all of the responsibility for the encounter on the man in the equation. The correct statement, if at all true, would be that the "decision does her a very real and significant injury."

Two people make a decision and two people act on that decision. On a legal and moral level, that is not rape even if the results are painful. It's a bad choice. To couch it in terms of rape is to point an accusing finger at men and to shield women behind the assumption that they needn't be (and shouldn't be) held responsible for their own actions.

Although it's dangerous to speak in such terms, who can doubt that at times the technically consensual hook-up can be a form of emotional rape? It shouldn't surprise us that a woman or girl who has been degraded and objectified by a "consensual" sexual encounter might say she has been raped, given that at present our culture provides her with no other word for expressing the truth that she has suffered a serious injury.

Wrong. Society provides a ton of words for just such an incident. "I made a mistake." "I exhibited poor judgment." "I did something that was wrong for me, and I never want to do it again." These are all legitimate thoughts and leave control for the act in the hands of the person best equipped to stop it from ever happening again: in the hands of the person who wasn't happy with the results.

I agree that it can be a significant psychological injury for a person who is unready to deal with the realities of a sexual relationship. But it is as much self-injury as anything else.

Rape is rape and it need not be diluted with this kind of an argument.

He closes, though, with a thought with which I heartily agree:

And young women need to recognize that a young man who is allowed to treat sex as just sex will generally do so, much to their own emotional detriment. In other words, it's hard to believe that love is free now, because it never really is.

And we, as a society, do need to teach the amazing power of the word "no."

For some people, in some circumstances, sex is just sex. The majority of the time, there is a far more complex set of interactions and expectations involved. The problem is that we very rarely acknowledge the reality of that and glorify in a culture that makes sex, simultaneously, into the most sought after commodity in our world, but a commodity for which there is no lasting value.

Sorry, folks, I don't think you can have it both ways. But that doesn't make a bad decision into something even vaguely resembling rape.

Read the story.

Posted by zombyboy at May 4, 2004 01:48 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Well argued. And I'm not just saying that because I agree.

Posted by: McGehee at May 4, 2004 02:16 PM

Amen!
I've been struggling with this issue for years, now, and never found the way to describe it as well as you did.

Part of the problem is that our culture has adopted and fully internalized this idea that if someone is in pain, it's somebody else's fault, and that 2nd person must be penalized.

I think the other part of the problem is simply that women's issues have more traction in the public consciousness because of the actions of feminists over the last generation or so. There are things women do to men that are every bit as emotionally painful and damaging as rape, but you'd be hard pressed to find any acknowledgment of that at all these days.

The way I think of it: treating a person as an object always hurts them, and the addition of physical intimacy always increases the level of hurt.

Posted by: nathan at May 4, 2004 02:40 PM

Ahh, you guys say the nicest things...

Posted by: zombyboy at May 4, 2004 02:49 PM

Campos' opinion seems to be that women are incapable of controlling their own lives, that they can't understand the dynamics of sexual relationships and will often be the victims of male sexuality.

I think that sort of opinion is more degrading to women than whatever it is he's trying to complain about.

Posted by: Walter at May 4, 2004 04:00 PM

Absolutely.

Posted by: zombyboy at May 4, 2004 04:09 PM

In complete agreement with your sentiments, Walter. Well written, Z!

I have had many people tell me that they feel sorry for me that I have four female children. When pressed for the reasons for their supposed sympathy, they stated "that sons are easier; never the fear of getting pregnant." After a few ignorant commentators, I finally countered their stupid and irresponsible belief system with: "Oh, so your boy can screw whoever he likes as long as you never find out about it?" That shut them up quick.

What a thought! I was incredulous! I am regularly given sympathtic sentiments for having been "burdened" with all daughters- the oncoming hormonal avalanches; weddings; "possible unwanted pregnancies." Yes, we have realized that we might want to invest in Procter and Gamble, just to get a bit of our money back, and there will probably be a time when our storage room will have a few boxes of bulk "items" and we definitely go through the toliet paper, but since when does one's gender decide who is more responsible for the outcome of having sex? So, if one of our daughters told me she was pregnant, you can be damn sure that we will also be having a conversation with the guy and his parents.

I feel that I am contributing to the development of one of the most influential positions in the world community: mother. One day, God willing, my daughters will have children of their own, perhaps a few. If each of my daughters had four children, the reach of R and I will go four fold and will only continue into the coming generations.

Oh, and I have educated my older daughters (younger will be when they are old enough) to be careful to whom they attach themselves emotionally and physically. I do believe it hard to sever the gossamer thread that stitches itself between two souls that connect in so intimate a manner. Oh, and so not to be completely misunderstood as a finger-pointing hypocrite, I have had to cut a few threads myself; it has not been easy. There were times when there was nothing of the heart involved, or so I thought. We must all awaken one day to ourselves and that can be a hard sleep from which to come out.

I think it interesting that the Nazi feminist rhetoric that insisted on women being seen for more than a pair of breasts and a vagina, by insisting on casual sex, only all the more encouraged the thought that it was allowable to see the woman as T & A. Reducing the necessary understanding o fmore than the temporary required before entering into a sexual relationship, whether casual or permanent, has damaged both men and women.

Ow! Darn soapbox tipped over!

Posted by: Rae at May 5, 2004 09:58 AM

Sigh.

Should be: "Reducing the thought necessary before entering into a sexual relationship, whether casual or permanent, has damaged both men and women."

Posted by: Rae at May 5, 2004 10:09 AM

Nicely said, though. Very nicely said.

Posted by: zombyboy at May 5, 2004 10:13 AM