Consequences in "why to ask first"

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Removing the anger from the above post and answering what's left:

No, the OP is not a cudgel. It's a demonstration of a social fact, as is the bill recently passed by the California Senate. And the fact is that asking permission -- and receiving it -- before laying hands on another person's body in a sexual manner is increasingly viewed as vital to respect and also to women's equality and safety. In other words, it isn't "tarantella's idea", it's a social idea with wide currency -- and now it's one with the power of a large state behind it, and explicit threats about withholding funding if colleges and universities do not comply. (I'm assuming Jerry Brown will sign.) I am saying that you ignore that at your own peril and that perhaps it's time for people on this board to start talking about "how do you ask" rather than "that's an insane idea, we don't need to ask".

If you have anything to do with universities/colleges -- and keep in mind that half of all young people go to college in the US -- then you know that there's been a sea change in how sexual assault is dealt with. There is a very public and concerted push now to expose and punish sexual assault on campus, and along with that a concerted effort to teach consent. There is a good deal of money behind these things, too. And the social opprobrium is increasingly real and consequential in cases of harassment and assault in social-professional worlds. Definitions of "sexual assault" are changing -- and they are changing in the direction of according women respect. (Yes, I'm aware that men are raped too. Which is why these laws and social-more changes also benefit men.)

I am saying pay attention, because regardless of how you may feel personally about these things, they are real. And also that you'd do well to consider, minus the conspiracy theories, why they're happening.

I'll do the bit about rape-prevention advice in another post.

They are not equivalent energy expenditures though. Taking a breath to warn a friend about a rough area is a lot less complicated than taking on the skinheads, or changing the social structure that they thrive in.

Tallyman, there are reasons why rapes are massively underreported. (I never reported my own, either. In fact I know very few women who've reported their rapes.) What's gone on here, in this thread, is a demonstration of some of why.

Consider how many posts here are aimed at "here's what you should do to keep yourself safe", with the implication that if you've been raped, it's because you didn't watch out and it was really sort of your own fault. I mean if you're going to wear a shirt that says "f**k me", or you live in a bad neighborhood, or you don't hover in paranoid fashion over your drink at a bar, then what do you expect, etc.

Think about how many posts insist that there aren't that many guys who rape. Also about the posts insisting that women use rape accusations to get revenge, that they're making it up. Think about the outrage at the very thought of accusing a guy of sexual assault, and the reaction in this thread to Temkin's story, where you have a woman saying "this was assaultive and deeply harmful" and a guy saying "uh she was drunk and sorry she felt that way about it," without taking any responsibility.

Women who report rapes come under attack. Their characters, sexual modesty, habits, and motives are routinely attacked and attacked savagely in order to defend the guy -- despite the fact that nearly all such reports are found to be substantive. They are questioned relentlessly and forced to relive the attacks repeatedly while being accused of lying.

If you want more women to report the rapes, it has to be reasonably safe for them to do so.

This is so, but there's also a matter of social responsibility. If you tell the friend 'just stay away from there' and leave it at that, you're making yourself complicit in the racism by consenting to it. Nobody is saying 'go down there and take on the skinheads yourself', but it does mean looking for and working with groups that do make social changes. It is not easy or and things don't change fast (until the end, usually), but when you're part of a society, it's a necessary thing.

Okay, going back to this, of Dox's:

The problem with the "hide and be safe" approach isn't that it doesn't stop 100% of rapes -- or, to be less hyperbolic, most rapes. The problem is threefold, though really they come from the same place:

1. It keeps the focus on what is a small part of the problem and continues to ignore the main part of the problem, which is that it keeps a fantasy alive about how rapes generally go, and allows people to evade the fact of how prevalent and how ordinary rape is in the culture.

2. It keeps the focus on "woman is doing something wrong, and that's why she got raped". And that lets the rest of society off the hook for changing the environment. We do not, for instance, focus on bar owners who have set the scene for drink-spiking and allow it to go on undetected. Men do not, as far as I know, ostracize friends who spike women's drinks, though they may disapprove. We do not teach people how to deal with friends who do such things. We do not teach people to report possession of date-rape drugs, even though the posession's a crime. Moving away from that to the more ordinary sort of rapes, we don't have much in the way of protections for women who do report rapes. Victim-blaming is real and consequential enough that many women just won't do it. Nor do we often enough teach kids in school, who're just beginning to date, about consent and respect. So focusing on "woman is doing something wrong" allows us not to look at all these other things, and to say instead, "well, I helped in this way, that's enough."

2a. Suggestions for safety that have the net effect of constricting women's lives in the direction of burqa-wearing and chaperones are not overall helpful. It means that the real problem -- which isn't that women aren't hiding enough -- needs to be dealt with more aggressively.

3. However well-meant, the standard suggestions just don't work. Ask any woman who's been assaulted when she's had time during the assault to find a whistle or weapon. Ask a woman who's screamed whether anyone responded, even in a crowded neighborhood or apartment building. Ask any woman who totes a weapon how often she's practiced keeping the weapon away from an assailant and how good she is at doing it. Ask women who "made bad choices in men" how they chose those men and how it is that so many of them are regarded socially as good guys.

So yeah, if the suggestions are not only ineffectual but rooted in what are often misogynist fantasies about rape, even if the person making the suggestion isn't aware of where those suggestions have come from or the realities of how rape goes, they're not going to get a "Hey thanks, we'll try that." They'll get "here's why that's not helpful, but why consent (or whatever) is."

Scrolling waaaaaaay back to the original question on this thread, regarding whether it is necessary (or advisable) to ask if you can do [some sexual thing] to [person you are with/interested in doing that sexual thing to].

My view is ASK. There's really no downside to asking (if the person's into you, they may think your inquiry is kinda geekily adorable and carry on) and TONS of potential downsides to NOT asking, which may result in you doing something that is or could be perceived as sexual assault.

Also, after asking? Take the answer you get at FACE VALUE.

Tarentella, I am sorry that you were raped those years ago.

I do accept the data that you're providing about rape statistics and I don't know why others won't. Honestly I have no answer and here is why. For things like Misogyny, sexual harassment, rape,etc to stop those whom are doing it would have to choose to listen to you, choose not to do it and choose to enforce social and legal sanctions against those who do. The first step in solving a problem is acknowledging one and to solve the problem you have to get my gender to acknowledge it.

The problem is free will and choice when it comes to this and I can't think of any solutions for this.

Thanks, cubedemon.

I think sometimes of parallels. For instance: In my state, as in many states, government entities (schools, libraries, etc.) are totally happy to get their furniture and other goods from prison industries. Prison industries are jailhouse factories that use prison labor and pay the prisoners almost nothing. The environment is often coercive, because you have to get your laborers to show up even if they're not volunteering. This is obviously a form of slavery, and it's made worse by the fact that prison populations are wildly disproportionately black. But the majority of nice people seem to think it's just fine and after all they committed crimes etc. so why shouldn't they pay for their imprisonment, plus a bunch of other rationalizing.

One of these days, a decade or more from now, there will be rising and broad public conversation calling this enslavement, and calling for restitution and at the very least admission that all sorts of nice people benefited from the enslavement of prisoners, and indeed supported or even participated in it. The reaction will, I think, be very like the reaction you see here among men who jump straight to "I am not a rapist!" even though nobody called them rapists. There will be widespread fear that any admission will (a) reveal these nice people to be abhorrently racist and exploitative, even though they hadn't meant to be; (b) at the very least to have let such racism and exploitation go on, while tacitly approving it; (c) cost them power and money. So you're going to hear a lot of angry denunciation and claims that other people might've made this happen, but it wasn't them, they weren't involved, and this conversation is just calling everybody racist slaveowners and is ridiculous. I think it will be a very ugly display, and in the end mostly ineffectual. The public consensus -- particularly among people who are children or not yet born now -- will be that yes, that was shockingly wrong, how could you.

As far as sexual assault and harassment go, things are changing. And things have been changing. They won't really be okay until women are genuinely equal partners in legislatures and business, where power resides. But they're better than they were, and they'll get better than they are now.

catching people stealing stuff and with stolen stuff isn't the same as preventing rapes. whats your plan on that? if you get robbed you may have enough time to call the cops. if you are passed out and your friend starts holding you down and doing stuff you don't. I not saying ignore it I just don't see a way to prevent the rapes you all talk about :'( usually no sign its going happen til it's happen. short of going out finding rapiest proving they did then shooting them in the head and tossing their body in the trash I don't know what to do. even this wouldn't stop rapes, but punish those who did it. not that we can do that. we lock them up then let them go 4 years later and say they good now.

you all seem to agree that people on wp are more likely to be raped or abused. that most likely most already have been. so how does continuing to hound members here about it help?
mos of us are'n't popular or well known in our communities, we probably lean more towards little or no socializing. we are shy and suffer from anxiety. it does seem like we are the right intended market for this discussion. I have written my gov about a few matters of which has got nothing to change. they send back some fake email pretending i supported the opposite side of the issue I wrote to them about.

I hate rapist. I would likely kill them if i could. I try my best to comfort victims, by listening to them trlying to say nice things, holding them. being there when they need help etc.

Why don?t you consider for a second that there might not be such implication anywhere in this thread, but in your mind? Most of the futile discussion going on for so many pages was about this point. Putting words in people?s mouths is also very reminiscent of the ?guilty unless proven innocent? stance.



Ironically, and according to the OP, doing precisely that may put you at risk of, years later, being accused of taking advantage of the victim yourself.

This is just a bad idea. I let the girl I'm interested in guide me to some degree. I won't make the mistake of misunderstanding a social cue. Catching a sex offender rap will make life infinitely more difficult than it already is.

Agreed with this last point. Physical contact with a victim of abuse is tricky. It's often the exact opposite of what they want. Any time I've touched someone who was the victim of abuse was when that person initiated the contact. I had a brief fling with someone who fell to pieces on me after some minor fooling around, and I stopped seeing her because even if she thought she wanted me there, I could see that it really wasn't a healthy situation for her. It's tough, and sometimes it's better to avoid that even if she indicates it's what she wants.

One of my mentors back in the day said this: "When in doubt, DON'T."

About words-in-mouths:

I understand that many of the people posting misogynist suggestions for how to handle rape etc. aren't aware of the misogyny inherent in what they're saying. It's what happens when you come into a conversation without much background in it. That doesn't mean you don't need to start paying attention to where the ideas come from once it's pointed out to you. If you want a more dramatic example of "I didn't know", you could look at this:

http://racked.com/archives/2014/07/07/a ... -photo.php

or this:

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/fashion ... 099mk.html

In neither case did the people making those things intend to do any harm, celebrate the explosion of the space shuttle, or advocate for the extermination of Jews. They were unaware of the histories and provenances of the images. Well, now they know.

That's why, when someone points out that what you've said is misogynist, rather than rearing back and springing every blade in the swiss army knife, the better thing to do is to ask, "How?" Because maybe you've said something, or put forward a line of thought, that comes from misogyny, but you didn't know. And then if it turns out to be true, rather than stumping around and insisting you didn't mean it that way, stop and ask yourself how deeply the misogynistic assumptions built into what you've said have actually worked their way into your thought, whether maybe they really are informing your thinking, and phrase what you do mean more consciously.

Tally, would you allow your son to wear a "f**k Me" shirt for a college party? Wouldn't you give him safety tips?

That's not the issue. The issue is that you are using the word "misogyny" incorrectly. It has a very specific definition. "Things that disagree with me" is not the definition. "Things that are harmful to women" is not even the definition. The definition, according the OED, is "dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women". No one (and nothing anyone has said, for that matter) has demonstrated any of these qualities on this thread.