Advice on consent

[textualdeviance]

Looking out a second-floor window earlier today (I spy on the birdfeeder that way sometimes), I noticed some strange body language from the parking lot of the park across the street.

I couldn't hear what was being said, but it looked like a young couple was having some sort of mild argument/disagreement. Not unusual in itself, but for what was happening physically: He kept trying to hold her/kiss her, and she kept backing away, shrugging him off, etc. It wasn't necessarily abusive/violent in itself, but it did unsettle me--enough so that I watched carefully until they got in their car and left, to make sure that nothing worse happened. (The park was otherwise empty, so there would've been no other witnesses had something bad gone down.)

Only slightly related, I also saw today that some of my favorite actors have been participating in a "Real Men Don't Rape" campaign. Which is awesome, of course. But in combination with the earlier event, it made me realize something: Many--maybe even most--people who rape don't realize that that's what they're doing, because they've been conditioned to expect resistance as part of a "normal" mating dance.

It took me years to learn this, of course, but now that I have, it seems so very simple to me, and I wish this was the message we could get out:

Consent obtained via wheedling, bribing or threatening is not actually consent. If you have to try to convince someone to have sex with you--regardless of the method you use--you're not getting real consent, and you need to stop.

Granted that a jury isn't likely to convict you of rape just because you were an asshole who convinced your girlfriend that she'd be breaking your heart if she didn't do the deed, but still: If the other person involved isn't equally excited to be there, then that's definitely something less than full consent. You don't want to just not hear "No"--you want to hear "Yes! Yes! Yes!" And without the slightest hesitation.

Granted that some awful people actually get off on violating consent, so that's what they go for, but I'm willing to bet that a lot of people who do this don't realize that that's what they're doing, and it's because they don't understand that the only true consent for physical intimacy is when everyone involved is 100% happy for it to be happening.

I don't know whether that guy today had or would have ever done more than what he did, but I'm guessing he at least saw absolutely nothing wrong with what he was doing. The woman he was with wasn't specifically saying no to his attempts at physical intimacy, nor was she seriously resisting. She just wasn't welcoming those attempts--she wasn't returning his affection in any way. She kept increasing the distance between them, crossing her arms over her chest, etc. And I doubt he even saw that, because he'd been conditioned to believe that that sort of avoidance was normal.


As a side note, I do think this sort of thing is evidence of a larger entitlement problem. I've seen far too many people who think only of what they want from a situation, and don't even consider what others might want.

The above situation is a case in point, of course, for male entitlement: He didn't care that she wasn't happy about being held and kissed. He was doing it because that's what he wanted to do, and most men go through life expecting to get to do what they want most of the time. But I've seen it everywhere, from a lot of different kinds of people. The stupid fangirl shit on Andrew's FB, for instance: They didn't care whether their flood of spam threatening to stalk Andrew might have upset him. His wishes about the situation were not just irrelevant, but not even on their radar. They were doing only what they wanted to do, without any regard for anyone else involved.

This, btw, is reason #1 why I refuse to be friends with libertarians. They operate from that same sense of "I want what I want, fuck everyone else" entitlement, and I want nothing to do with people like that. I'd like to know that my friends will not only respect my wishes as a matter of course and protocol, but actually care about them enough to not even consider riding roughshod over me on their merry way to get something they want.

Comments

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

So much more I could say, but I'll leave it at this:

Just because something is common doesn't mean it's right.

[mojrim.livejournal.com]

I am not arguing it's commonality, I am arguing it's connection to all other human activity. If you are going to maintain this argument, you need to take, and defend, one of two positions:

a.) Sex is fundementally different from all other human interactions.

or

b.) All other human interactions are coercive and evil.

You can't have it both ways, got to be one or the other.

Also, I think the filters you have in place caused a serious mis-reading of the interaction in the park.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

I take both positions, to differing degrees.

1. Sex IS fundamentally different, because it's about bodily autonomy, which is paramount over just about everything else.

2. Humans are awful to each other on a regular basis, but we don't have to be.

You're taking a very cynical worldview that assumes that there's something essential about being human that requires us to violate the will of others on a daily basis, and that's just not true. I'm sorry if your own life is riddled with such coercion, but that's not reality for everyone.

(frozen)

[mojrim.livejournal.com]

To begin with, I have not and am not defending coercion. Though common, it is neither desirable nor nescessary to my argument.

1.) Bodily integrity is violated in numerous ways every day. Even absent that fact, it does not make it fundamentally different, merely the farthest point on the graph: sanctity of my home, my personal space, my body itself. A valid argument can be made here, but it requires you to overturn 1500 years of western philosophy and legal thought.

Beyond that, it means nothing. If a person chooses to sacrifice their bodily integrity to achieve some unrelated goal, that is their business. You may not like the idea, but it is still something they chose to do. Every girl who gives her BF a thank you BJ, every boy who eats out his GF in exchange for a BJ, is engaging in trade. Who are you to tell them they are in the wrong?

2.) Humans are, in fact, poo flinging monkeys, but they are not universally awful to one another. As a rule, they treat one another as they expect/desire to be treated in turn. All human interactions can be classified in two ways:

(a) Force: acts performed to avoid losses inflicted by violance.
(b) Trade: acts performed to gain something in return. (NB: This may not be something related to what you gave).

Again, it's about trusting people to decide for themselves what to trade their body for. I am no different from a hooker, who is no different from a girl who has sex to make her BF stop whining. We are all making a concious choice, exchanging some part of ourselves for something else we want. Again, who are you to say anyone here is wrong?

You seem to have this idea that I am talking exclusivly about force. Not sure how you arrived at that conclsion, but I'm not. I'm talking about the basic elements of human social interaction: force and trade. One need not have had an especially traumatic life to believe this, merely kept their eyes open.

You seem to be afflicted by the same disease as communists and liberatarians: the Myth of Human Perfectability. It would great if we could all have work we enjoy, get everything we want without payment, and never hurt anyone's feelings.

But, we're poo-flinging monkeys, so we can't. We make the best out of this situation we find our collective selves in, we make some laws (based on naked force) to make it possible to live together, and we choose the lesser evil when we can.

What you are saying, all bullshit stripped away, is that Girl A is making an illigitimate choice when she give Boy B a BJ to make him stop complaining. Who do you think you are to dictate behavior to adults?

(frozen)

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

What you are saying, all bullshit stripped away, is that Girl A is making an illigitimate choice when she give Boy B a BJ to make him stop complaining. Who do you think you are to dictate behavior to adults?

You apparently think people act independently of cultural and social conditioning.

Um. No.

ETA: Too tired to explain to you why you're wrong, so I'll just point you to this.

Short answer: There's really no such thing as totally free choice, so yes, "choices" can be questioned.

(frozen)

[mojrim.livejournal.com]

Which takes us back to problem A. People who disagree with you are doing so because they are conditiond to do so; ergo, their choices are illigitimate.

This way to the gulag. No pushing, first door on the left, one pick-axe each.

(frozen)

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

How nice for you that you're apparently the only person on the planet whose behavior is not influenced by oppressive cultural conditioning.

Bravo, you.

Also? I've had enough of your trolling. Begone.