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joreth January 4 2012, 06:49:34 UTC
It sounds as though we are more or less in agreement (or close enough, anyway). Basically, the original conflict (if that's the right word) was in the subtext or implications of a word, where my use of it implied *to me* this whole assault/non-consent/conflict problem making it an inherently bad thing, but the word did not have the same implications or subtext to you. My only problem, really, was that you (or anyone) would see the word I chose and assign a gender double-standard on my part because of the gender of the aggressor, when I would probably use the same word if the genders were reversed due to my negative implications of that word.

I think I link seduction to deceit because I mostly hear or see that word used in the context of movies where deceit and non-violent coercion are an integral part of the characters' seduction plot. I don't really know anyone who uses that word in regular conversation or to describe actions of people they know unless they are similarly assigning the label of a "villain" to someone they know. I can't recall ever hearing it used as a complimentary term, but that's all implication and not direct definition so I can understand others not having the same feeling about that word.

There is an article around somewhere that explains why coercion is a form of sexual assault, that getting someone to give consent due to pressure, refusal to take no for an answer, etc. does not remove the original non-consent because consent not given freely is not consent. There are a lot of things we agree to that we wouldn't have had someone not made it impossible to continue to not agree - that doesn't actually change it to an agreement. Getting someone's internal hormones to cloud their judgement isn't really any better or lesser of an assault than using a drug to cloud their judgement, IMO.

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