As usual, underneath all the people shouting at each other are a couple of sensible third way things which never get out from under the extreme positions.
1) Force based rape means the burden of proof is on the victim - "Did you struggle? How short was your skirt?" vs "Were you sure they wanted it? Didn't you notice them going unresponsive?". Naturally, everyone has gone overboard and started to not accept that e.g. prior consent needs to be explicitly revoked, withdrawal of consent needs to be at least noticeable at the time, etc - which as you have correctly identified is bullshit (and sadly makes the whole endeavor look bad). But the underlying point was 'don't ask whether the victim was subtly/accidentally sending the wrong signals - ask whether the perpetrator even attempted to pay attention and look for the right ones'.
This is getting a lot better than it used to be, but progress is uneven - there is constant news of some provincial court or other continuing to ask if the victim looked slutty, rather than asking if the perpetrator ever even attempted to make sure they actually wanted to do it with them, or bemoaning the career damage to some dudes who carried an unconscious girl around and used her like a rag doll rather than worrying about the damage done to her.
2) Women are socialised not to directly contradict men, not to offer resistance (not least because they might get hurt, whereas being passive keeps the situation from escalating to violence). This makes it harder for them to explicitly revoke consent. Not sure what the answer is here - it's one of those difficult problems. (There are similar problems the other way around - men are expected to always want sex, so it can be harder for them to say that actually, they don't right now.)
3) Both sides seem incapable of realising that there are lots of situations in which one party didn't really want to have sex, but didn't express this in any way, and that is very unfortunate and the correct response all round is for the accidental rapist to apologise profusely and the victim to be supported - but not for the perpetrator to be witch-hunted or prosecuted, because there was no way of them knowing. Instead, the shouty omg-rape-culture side say that a rapist is a rapist even if there was no way for the perpetrator to know what they were doing, and the other side then get defensive and fail to apologise for the bad situation and try to make things right, and everything escalates.
This makes it harder for them to explicitly revoke consent. Not sure what the answer is here…
For the guy to know what to look for and to pay attention. My wife and I were the products of that earlier culture, where indeed the female psychology of “go along to get along” was reinforced. She was also raised with the idea that a wife is called by Nature and Nature's God to submit to her husband. Obviously this is a recipe for truly bad abuse. It didn't happen, because my own duty as her husband was to cherish and care for her and I certainly would never knowingly hurt her! So yes, when I wanted to fool around I didn't bother to get consent (must it be in writing?) but if she wasn't responsive I STOPPED. She didn't need to “buck the current” and muster the courage to tell a man No; if I wasn't getting Yes, that answered the question! This was meant for her benefit too, after all, and for me that was more than half the fun…
I gather that this is somewhat unusual nowadays, but it wasn't in our time.
I don't think it's any more or less usual "nowadays" than "on any days." I think the overwhelming majority of men have brains in their heads and think the way you do. Some don't. Some have always not. It's just that this unfortunately needs to be spelled out to those who don't get it.
1) The burden of proof is *always* on the victim, in literally every crime on the books. Murder cannot be prosecuted lacking a corpse, assault cannot be prosecuted without determining who threw the first punch. The burden of proof in criminal prosecutions is literally always "beyond a reasonable doubt". Tell me, why should This particular crime be changed to "guilty until proven innocent?" Why should the entire concept of western criminal prosecution be changed to "better to incarcerate 100 innocent men than have 1 rapist go free"?
2) No, simply put, that is untrue. It's a common fiction, but it's baseless. Watch popular television from any decade, and you'll find *hordes* of examples of women flatly contradicting, mulishly opposing, and in every way contradicting men. Even in societies that kept women cloistered by force, women were not "socialized not to contradict men". Look at Greek mythology, at the interactions between Hera and Zeus, She's as independent and strong-willed as any third wave feminist. That particular narrative is yet another fiction promulgated for the purpose of creating the impression of victim-hood.
Even were it true, which it is most definitely not, that is not an excuse for charging someone with a felony, destroying their life, incarcerating them for years, and adding them to a registry because the other half of the population failed to give them the faintest indication that they were doing something wrong.
3) If we were talking about apologies, then I would agree. We're not. We're talking about the next best thing to murdering people who had no clue they were doing anything wrong. This topic *matters*, because we're not talking about some casual penalty, we're talking about rape charges. Those are bad. And when you have scenarios like the one where 20 people videotaped what they believed to be a consensual sex act, which was reported as an assault the following day, and seriously investigated... Yeah, things are badly broken the other way.
I will agree that there is a problem, but no part or piece of the current trend is any aspect of a step toward a solution. It's a "false trail" that will be only destructive.
1) Force based rape means the burden of proof is on the victim - "Did you struggle? How short was your skirt?" vs "Were you sure they wanted it? Didn't you notice them going unresponsive?". Naturally, everyone has gone overboard and started to not accept that e.g. prior consent needs to be explicitly revoked, withdrawal of consent needs to be at least noticeable at the time, etc - which as you have correctly identified is bullshit (and sadly makes the whole endeavor look bad). But the underlying point was 'don't ask whether the victim was subtly/accidentally sending the wrong signals - ask whether the perpetrator even attempted to pay attention and look for the right ones'.
This is getting a lot better than it used to be, but progress is uneven - there is constant news of some provincial court or other continuing to ask if the victim looked slutty, rather than asking if the perpetrator ever even attempted to make sure they actually wanted to do it with them, or bemoaning the career damage to some dudes who carried an unconscious girl around and used her like a rag doll rather than worrying about the damage done to her.
2) Women are socialised not to directly contradict men, not to offer resistance (not least because they might get hurt, whereas being passive keeps the situation from escalating to violence). This makes it harder for them to explicitly revoke consent. Not sure what the answer is here - it's one of those difficult problems. (There are similar problems the other way around - men are expected to always want sex, so it can be harder for them to say that actually, they don't right now.)
3) Both sides seem incapable of realising that there are lots of situations in which one party didn't really want to have sex, but didn't express this in any way, and that is very unfortunate and the correct response all round is for the accidental rapist to apologise profusely and the victim to be supported - but not for the perpetrator to be witch-hunted or prosecuted, because there was no way of them knowing. Instead, the shouty omg-rape-culture side say that a rapist is a rapist even if there was no way for the perpetrator to know what they were doing, and the other side then get defensive and fail to apologise for the bad situation and try to make things right, and everything escalates.
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This makes it harder for them to explicitly revoke consent. Not sure what the answer is here…
For the guy to know what to look for and to pay attention. My wife and I were the products of that earlier culture, where indeed the female psychology of “go along to get along” was reinforced. She was also raised with the idea that a wife is called by Nature and Nature's God to submit to her husband. Obviously this is a recipe for truly bad abuse. It didn't happen, because my own duty as her husband was to cherish and care for her and I certainly would never knowingly hurt her! So yes, when I wanted to fool around I didn't bother to get consent (must it be in writing?) but if she wasn't responsive I STOPPED. She didn't need to “buck the current” and muster the courage to tell a man No; if I wasn't getting Yes, that answered the question! This was meant for her benefit too, after all, and for me that was more than half the fun…
I gather that this is somewhat unusual nowadays, but it wasn't in our time.
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2) No, simply put, that is untrue. It's a common fiction, but it's baseless. Watch popular television from any decade, and you'll find *hordes* of examples of women flatly contradicting, mulishly opposing, and in every way contradicting men. Even in societies that kept women cloistered by force, women were not "socialized not to contradict men". Look at Greek mythology, at the interactions between Hera and Zeus, She's as independent and strong-willed as any third wave feminist. That particular narrative is yet another fiction promulgated for the purpose of creating the impression of victim-hood.
Even were it true, which it is most definitely not, that is not an excuse for charging someone with a felony, destroying their life, incarcerating them for years, and adding them to a registry because the other half of the population failed to give them the faintest indication that they were doing something wrong.
3) If we were talking about apologies, then I would agree. We're not. We're talking about the next best thing to murdering people who had no clue they were doing anything wrong. This topic *matters*, because we're not talking about some casual penalty, we're talking about rape charges. Those are bad. And when you have scenarios like the one where 20 people videotaped what they believed to be a consensual sex act, which was reported as an assault the following day, and seriously investigated... Yeah, things are badly broken the other way.
I will agree that there is a problem, but no part or piece of the current trend is any aspect of a step toward a solution. It's a "false trail" that will be only destructive.
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