This. Which also includes people who would never knowingly/intentionally violate consent, but that doesn't mean that they can't screw up and violate consent, and the simplistic view makes it a lot harder to reach those folks and help them see what to change, because the only term currently in use is Rapist, which to most people implies someone who knows damned well there is not consent.
I agree the model is overly simplistic (and I'll see if I can track down a better one)!
But I don't think that the category of Rapist only includes people who know damn well there's no consent. I'd like it to mean that eventually, but we're so far from consent culture at all in our society that I think it's totally possible -- easy, even -- for someone not to realize that they don't have their partner's consent. It's SHITTY. It's a problem. And it's also muddy.
Over in moominmolly's recent post I made a somewhat more coherent reply to oneagain. But kinda what I mean is that yes, many rapes are committed without understanding the lack of consent, but that when most people hear "so and so is a rapist" the meaning of that phrase is that that person is someone who has deliberately violated consent.
And I think consent culture could be advanced better with some sort of linguistic recognition of it being possible to rape without being a rapist.
Am on an iPad and CNN in this waiting room is making it impossible to concentrate, so might be better to look at the other comment.
I totally am. I regularly find markers of sexism in my thinking and behaviors, at the very least. I hate it, and I like to think I'm making progress, but they're totally there.
This. I didn't want to water down my response with, "but I try not to be" or some other explanation that attempts to mitigate my contribution to rape culture. There's a lot of stuff that I think and react to that I've been soaking in my whole life, and while it's no longer as difficult to *notice* it, it's certainly more challenging to unpack it, and it's downright difficult to obviate it.
And another thing that I struggle with is the bystander issue, because I'm not comfortable policing other people in general, but even less so when I'm not on high moral ground myself.
Of course I am. I think we all are, pretty much, and I think that the top comment thread is spot-on that the whole "good people don't/aren't X and I'm a good person, so I couldn't have done/said/been X" is a hugely problematic story in our culture. (It's also, for the record, one of my least favorite responses to racism.)
Good people do bad things. Knowing it is part of what helps us keep being the best people we can be.
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Which also includes people who would never knowingly/intentionally violate consent, but that doesn't mean that they can't screw up and violate consent, and the simplistic view makes it a lot harder to reach those folks and help them see what to change, because the only term currently in use is Rapist, which to most people implies someone who knows damned well there is not consent.
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But I don't think that the category of Rapist only includes people who know damn well there's no consent. I'd like it to mean that eventually, but we're so far from consent culture at all in our society that I think it's totally possible -- easy, even -- for someone not to realize that they don't have their partner's consent. It's SHITTY. It's a problem. And it's also muddy.
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And I think consent culture could be advanced better with some sort of linguistic recognition of it being possible to rape without being a rapist.
Am on an iPad and CNN in this waiting room is making it impossible to concentrate, so might be better to look at the other comment.
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And another thing that I struggle with is the bystander issue, because I'm not comfortable policing other people in general, but even less so when I'm not on high moral ground myself.
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Good people do bad things. Knowing it is part of what helps us keep being the best people we can be.
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