Trigger warning.
Community member cunegonde wrote a blog post recently about her experience being psychologically coerced into having sex with a male peer.
Since we live within a rape culture, and we operate within an unequal social system (patriarchy) that certainly affects and sometimes causes our interpersonal experiences, this happens to women all the time.
To a certain extent, this happened to me twice as a teenager, and cunegonde's brave post inspired me to open up about the experiences.
Incident #1: I was hanging out at my best friend's house with a couple friends. We were 17. We were drinking and smoking pot, listening to music, gossiping and laughing those head-thrown-back, invincible teenage girl laughs. She invited an old friend of hers over. She told me he just got back from boot camp and he seemed different, strange. He came over, and so did a couple other boys. We got wasted, like 17/18 year olds do. We started flirting. I gave him a lap dance because he asked me to. I drank and smoked more because he told me to. I was very easy to order around and treat like a doormat at the time.
I went upstairs to the bathroom. He followed. When I got out of the bathroom, he was there, in the hallway. He raced up to me and we started making out. I consented to the kissing, but when his hand went down, I pushed it away. "I'm on my period," I simpered, but the main reason was I didn't want him to touch me there. He said, "I don't care," and kept shrugging off my hand and shoving his hand down my pants and kissing me, kissing my neck and mouth whenever I protested again: "I'm on my period."
I struggled with him in the hallway, telling him "I'm on my period, I can't." He ended up finger-fucking me for a few minutes while I occasionally pushed at his hand, crying. He eventually said, "All right, Jesus, I'm sorry," and let go. I stood there, giving him a scandalized, tear-drenched look. He looked at the ground, but it wasn't a guilty look, it was an awkward one. I went back to the bathroom and threw up. When I got out, he was back downstairs. I went downstairs and took a shot with my best friend. She asked me what's wrong, I told her I threw up. He left a couple minutes or so after I said that. I told her then that "he kept trying to finger-fuck me," and she squealed, "Oh my God dude he's so creepy!" and everyone started gossiping about him.
I never explictly said no. My best friend never invited him over again and that was that.
Incident #2: When I was 18, a male acquaintance and I were making out at the bottom of a staircase, adjacent to a hallway. We were both wasted and my very-recently ex-boyfriend (who was verbally and psychologically abusive) was at the house party too, in the kitchen, at the end of the aforementioned hallway. When he tried to go further I resisted, but I didn't explicitly say no. "I'm too wasted." "I wanna go smoke a cigarette." "Let's go into the kitchen." He dragged me upstairs. No one could hear me because of all the music and yelling going on in the kitchen and on the back deck.
He dragged me upstairs by my arms. I didn't physically resist. He took me into a random bedroom and shut the door, standing in front of it. He began kissing me and I just stood there. I was terrified that he would beat me if I resisted, so I didn't move. When he pulled my shirt off I began to resist, so he threw me up against a wall.
The most surreal part of it was, when he peeled my shirt off before slamming me against the wall, he looked at my breasts and said, "Oh my God. You're so beautiful," and kept repeating it while he pressed me up against the wall with his forearm and yanked my pants down. I squirmed and cried but not too loud because like I said before, I was afraid he would beat me.
I never explicitly said no.
He began to finger-fuck me and started to pull down his pants. I wiggled out from under his arm before he could penetrate me and ran downstairs. I told my ex what the acquaintence had done, only saying "he tried to force himself on me." He met the acquaintence in the hallway, punched him in the face then dragged him outside. The host of the party told him to never set foot on his property again, and the acquaintence stumbled home. He lived a few blocks away. Then everyone went back to partying. Most of the party-goers thought it was just part of the "drama" of the night, and I could sense they considered me to be mostly responsible for it. While having a cigarette with my ex, he talked shit about the guy then tried to have sex with me. I said no, drove drunk with a couple of equally-drunk friends to one of their houses, and passed out. I felt like a used condom that's been thrown out of a car window.
Notice that I say "I never explicitly said no," or something to that effect repetivively because that is what echoes in my mind, and probably millions of other women's minds all over the country. We are held liable. We are not "real" victims. We were not "really" raped. We are volleyed back and forth, public bodies in the debate but stripped of our humanity. In this rape culture, women's bodies are seen are eternally available for use, whether one wants to police a woman's body through legislative control, or one wants to exert their sexual dominance and control.
When someone says, "But she was drunk/stoned/wasted," or "But she was asking for it," or "But she was totally flirting with him/making out with him" or "She didn't explicitly say no/fight back so she wasn't raped" implies that women's bodies are available for the masses if they indicate any kind of interest, whether its purposefully or unintentionally, or if they're drunk/stoned/wasted, or if they are wearing a short skirt.
There's a laundry list of blames. There's gray rape, which some might say cundegonde and myself have experienced.
Calling it gray rape does not help anything. Debating about whether someone was "really" raped on not does not help anything. It only further shames and silences the countless millions of people who have been psychologically coerced into a sexual situation they wanted no part of. In cunegonde's situation, she was afraid that her social world might collapse if she didn't go forward with her abuser. In my situation, I was afraid that they would beat me if I fought back too much, and I didn't make "a fuss" about it afterward because I knew what people would say. "She was drunk. She was stoned. She kissed him back. She asked for it."
I can safely say that I am certain the men who psychologically or otherwise manipulate women into sexual situations know what they are doing. They might not consciously know why, but they know they are taking advantage.
Jenny Scheter, a character from Showtime's popular show The L Word, spoke of this in the middle of season four. In reference to her published memoirs, which detail her brutal rape as a child, she said that our society tells young boys and men, "The girls are here. The girls are here for raping." They are taking advantage of their position within this rape culture. They also know that many of the women they meet in a "gray rape" situation will not fight back too much, will not press charges, and many of us won't even be sure if we were raped or not. That's what we are socially conditioned to think. They know they can. And this is what we really should be talking about.
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"I can safely say that I am certain the men who psychologically or otherwise manipulate women into sexual situations know what they are doing. They might not consciously know why, but they know they are taking advantage."
i 100% agree with this. it was something i was trying to get at (ineloquently at best) in my response to the original post you refer to. THANK you for stating it clearly.
Drinking, doing drugs and putting yourself into stupid situations doesn't help whatsoever. Walking through the ghetto at 3AM with a sack full of money is just begging to be mugged. Instead of playing up the victim angle so much, perhaps the intelligentsia on this site should start encouraging women to be a little more conscientious and aware of their surroundings. Let's be realistic: talking about how horrible rape is won't curtain a rapist whatsoever.
Way to victim-blame. News flash: the rapist made the choice to rape. He and only he is responsible for that action. By saying that women need to 'be prepared' or curtail their lives to avoid all situations in which they could possibly be raped, you are blaming them and excusing rapists from responsibility. We don't blame murder victims for being murdered. We don't blame people who get mugged for being mugged. Yet all to often, survivors of rape are blamed. This is due to a sexist culture that assumes that any woman who doesn't remain cloistered inside is in part responsible for her attack. Frankly, this attitude reeks of sexism.
Joan
So you equate "being drunk at a party full of friends" to "walking through the ghetto at 3AM with a sack full of money"?
I assume you've never been drunk, then, because you're so conscious of the possibility that you will be raped?
Women are taught since infancy how to alter their behavior to avoid rape. It is an ever-present consideration which most of us learn to simply take for granted. We take precautions which don't ever occur to most men in order to avoid sexual assault.
And when a woman suggests that perhaps boys should be taught not to rape, and that men bear some onus for the ridiculous amounts of rape and sexual assault in this society, your suggestion is that perhaps women should take FURTHER precautions to avoid being victimized?
Let me clue you in on something: men are not some unstoppable force of nature that women need to bend to avoid. Saying, "you shouldn't have been drunk if you hadn't wanted to be raped" is not like saying, "you should have worn a jacket outside in January if you didn't want to be cold." Someone made an intervening decision which caused a physical assault - that person is the male rapist. NO AMOUNT of action or preparation on a woman's part can make a male commit a rape (or, often, convince him not to do it once he's decided it's morally permissible).
Ultimately, it is men who must stop rape.
And you aren't helping.
Blah blah blah. I'll repost my comments
"Let's be realistic: talking about how horrible rape is won't curtail a rapist whatsoever."
Can you possibly comprehend this fact? It's a fact that women are raped, and it is also a fact that sitting around wishfully thinking about how great things would be if rapists didn't exist doesn't keep women from getting raped.
Say whatever you want, but nearly all the posts I've seen on this site regarding rape pretty much boil down to being drunk or stupid. Very few random rapes actually occur, just like most murders are perpetrated by someone the victim knows.
And yeah, being drunk and high at a party with other drunk idiots is just asking for stupid shit to happen. Sorry, that's the truth.
"Very few random rapes actually occur, just like most murders are perpetrated by someone the victim knows."
ok. so? ummmmm you're saying because a woman knows her rapist she's asking for it? or are you saying most women must be stupid and not realize they're going to be raped? or that you have some statistical factual proof that victims of rape are mostly drunk or high when it happens? how does one go about avoiding getting raped then? never knowing anyone? never going out? or wait, just not drinking or getting high? what to say then, to all those women that do get raped while sober? (or do you believe they don't exist or are so minuscule in number that they can be ignored?)
the other half of this unspoken rule of not ever drinking or getting high or whatever is... if we don't, then we are PRUDES. oh well. we really can't win. thanks for clearing that up dude.
Rape is rape no matter whether the victim is drunk or stupid or incapacitated or anything else.
When a drunk person is mugged, it is still assault and it is not blamed on the fact they were drinking.
When a drunk person is murdered, it is still murder and it is not blamed on the fact they were drinking.
The perpetrator of the crime is the only one to blame. The person who chose to rape is the person who is responsible for the rape.
"The perpetrator of the crime is the only one to blame. The person who chose to rape is the person who is responsible for the rape."
Yep. What does this have to do with not being an idiot and putting yourself in a situation where rape is more likely to occur?
because every single person seems to have an opinion of what those situations may be! you have your opinions, other people believe things like leaving the house alone, walking at night, going for a job in the early morning hours, working with men, being in the military, going to college, not being married etc all contribute to being raped. so what do we have left that we are able to safely do?
Situation 1: Going on a picnic in the forest with your boyfriend
Situation 2: Going to sleep alone at your home
Both of these have resulted in rape for me specifically. I don't consider myself stupid in either situation...but there are people who have said I was. There is no amount of "careful" and "smart" that will stop a rapist. By blaming women for violence done to them, you are perpetuating a notion of rape as something that someone fails to avoid rather than something that a rapist chooses to do.
Deleted
The difference is whether you are mugged in brad daylight in a nice part of town or at 3 in the morning in a bad part of town, it is still prosecuted as the same crime and you are still seen as a victim of a violent crime.
The same logic that brings you to the "don't get drunk and you won't get raped" conclusion is the same logic that people used to tell me, "you shouldn't have gone out there on a picnic with him in the woods. If you didn't go, you wouldn't get raped." and "you shouldn't have been living alone. That's dangerous for a woman. If you'd been living with someone you wouldn't have been raped."
In all of these types of cases, you are shifting the blame from the person committing the act to the person who was violated. The person who was violated does not deserve that no matter if they were drunk. If someone were to pass out drunk and naked in a public park, it is no less rape if they are assaulted than if they had been sleeping in their own home with an alarm. The fault - all of it - belongs to the rapist. The fault does not lie with the victim.
People are reacting your statements because we have heard it all before: 1) don't drink. 2) don't leave your home. 3) don't go anywhere unescorted. 4) don't dress provocatively. 5) don't drink anything you didn't pour yourself. 6), 7), 8)....just keep filling them in. There are a million. All they boil down to is shifting culpability for the crime to the victim. Should people be careful and try not to put themselves in bad situations? Of course! Is it their fault if someone rapes them? Never...not even if they are in a bad situation by their own choosing.
Ok, buh bye. Victim blaming and personal attacks aren't tolerated here.
Thank you Jessica for banning him and rustyspoons for reporting him and everyone else who spoke up against The Troll's ("Brad") victim-blaming and personal attacks. I expected someone like that to pop up in response to this post.
Thank you Jessica. I was almost crying reading his comments. That was the definition of victim blaming.
Only 2 posts in and we're already victim blaming?
When you're drunk at a party with your friends, on a scale of 1 to 10, just how worried are you that a woman might approach you and pull down your pants and jack you off against your will? Do you have this on your mind every single time you go out? Does it keep you inside at night? And if it happened, do you think your friends would just shrug and say, "Dude, you were drinking, what did you expect? You're open game for unwanted sexual pawing when you're drunk." When you make out with a hot girl at a party, does that 100% of the time mean you're open to her pulling your dick out of your pants? If you grabbed her hand and moved it away from your crotch and she reached back again, would you say, "Awww, well it's my own damn fault for kissing her." What if she started sticking her fingers in YOUR orifices and you weren't up for that? Still your own damn fault for kissing her?
If you really, truly believe that it's up to women to not get raped, this has been the primary method of rape reduction. We've carried pepper spray and not accepted open drinks from people at parties. We've not walked alone at night on the way back to the dorms. Has it worked?
Instead of crap like pepper spray, carry a pistol and shoot a rapist in the face. Rape should carry the death penalty; convicted rapists who are given lethal injection cannot rape, and it might actually deter more rape. For a group that identifies themselves as "empowered", feminists certainly wimp out rather easily when push comes to shove...
right, and you'll be there in court to support us on our charge of illegally carrying a firearm or for murder?
1) Here in Texas, you can get a CHL and carry a firearm legally. Perhaps you like living in a place that directly limits your 2nd amendment rights.
2) Shooting a rapist isn't murder. Explain to me how deterring a violent crime in any way constitutes murder.
i live in NYC. it is not easy to carry a concealed firearm. especially since i work in the court system and within the UN so carrying it to and from work is impossible.
and seriously, maybe i would think it was self defense to shoot my rapist. but will the legal system back me up?
Lobby for NYC to change its anti-constitutional laws. As far as the legal system backing you up, that's a function of 40 years of liberalism twisting the idea of "rights". Say whatever you want about the "oppressive patriarchy", but 100 years ago they would hang a rapist outside the courthouse the day after the trial. There is far too much emphasis placed on the "rights" of criminals, which does an injustice to the victims.
Sorry to feed the troll, especially after he's been banned, but I couldn't let this one slip by...
100 years ago most rapes weren't reported, and most reported rapes resulted in victim blaming and silencing. Those which were reported and did go to trial may have sometimes ended up with the rapist getting the death penalty... but how often was that "rapist" just a black man who had the nerve to step into a white man's "territory" by talking to his wife? How often was the accusation of rape just an excuse for racial violence? And how often was the rape of women of color even considered acknowledged as "rape" 100 years ago?
Thanks, Lily A, I knew that Brad's talk about hanging rapists was setting off a red flag in my mind, but you articulated exactly why.
Talk about going from one extreme to the other.
I don't want to shoot people in the face. I don't even want to shoot my own rapist in the face (he was my boyfriend at the time, and we were both sober, and he held me down and raped me when I'd said no sex during our vacation because I'd been on antibiotics and was sure my BC wasn't working. I cried the whole time. Are you feeling douchebaggy enough to tell me how I'm to blame here? Maybe I shouldn't have gone on vacation or slept in the same bed with him if I didn't want to get raped, right? And what if we weren't sober, what if we'd had a bottle of wine first? Does it really change things?).
I want people not to get raped.
And you didn't even answer my questions about how YOU feel when at a party, which were not rhetorical questions, which tells me you just Do Not Get It.
"And you didn't even answer my questions about how YOU feel when at a party, which were not rhetorical questions, which tells me you just Do Not Get It."
Yes, I must Not Get It simply because I ignored your obviously rhetorical question meant to "prove a point" but now which is non-rhetorical because it'll "prove another point". I think I cracked the circumvent logic code around here...
But to directly answer your question, I've been molested while drunk at a party by a girl before. I know you refuse to believe it, but plenty of women are predators who will take advantage of drunk guys. Let's just say I don't get get that hammered anymore unless it's around people I trust.
Brad: You are an asshole.
I have to agree.
With all due respect to the OP, and considering how young she was at the time, giving a lap dance to a 17 year old boy who just came back from boot camp, (who probably hadn't touched a woman's body since he was inducted and who had just gone through the massive 42 day hypermasculine mindfuck that is US military basic training "this is my rifle [grabs M 16 rifle]this is my gun [grabs penis] this is for fighting[grabs M 16] , this is for fun [grabs penis]") and then refusing him any further sexual contact is tantamount to waving a 22 ounce raw T bone steak in front of a hungry tiger - the results are sadly predictable.
I'm not saying that guy's conduct was right - but she did send him mixed signals.
And, like a lot of boys and men would do in that situation (especially since he came to the house with his boys, they saw him get a lapdance from the OP and he had to prove his masculinity to them by getting her to go all the way)he tried to turn a no into a maybe and a maybe into a yes.
So men who haven't got their 'quota' of sex for the month are somehow uncontrollable beasts and women who are around them are 'obviously' putting themselves in danger and are therefore partially to blame if they get raped? Way to be sexist against men (by pulling out the stereotype that men just can't bother to control themselves) and victim-blame women.
Joan
Someone posted a very astute, and very true, comment about how consent is always assumed. Like we're boxes of Kleenex, just waiting to get jizzed into. The very notion of implied consent is rape culture at work.
I don't see either of these situations as "grey rape" (whatever that is). You describe telling one to stop, struggling to get away, wiggling out from your ex-boyfriend and running downstairs.These things read as "rape" to me. I think what was different about the other post is that the girl did give her consent as the guy was walking away.
And Brad's a victim blaming asshole. I reported him for abuse.
For those responding to Brad, or other men who don't understand issues around rape, there's no real point in comparing it to unwanted physical touch by a woman. Most of them can't conceive of unwanted physical touch from a woman; they may be annoyed by somebody groping them, but they wouldn't usually feel assaulted, objectified, or personally attacked in the same way.
Compare male-on-female rape, instead, to them experiencing male-on-male rape - forced anal penetration. That is the only way that most men I've known can really grasp what sexual assault for a woman is like - it's not just the unwanted physical touching, or the sexual objectification and dehumanization, but it also (1) creates a stigma such that they would be loathe to discuss the incident with others, and (2) includes a very intimate form of penetration which creates the threat or realization of greater (even permanent) physical injury. No matter how many "unwanted handjobs" a man receives in his life, he will never get a fistula or an incompetent cervix. He isn't even likely to get an STD.
Good point, which is why I mentioned "sticking her fingers in YOUR orifices" since I figured that even a guy who accepts a handjob from a drunk stranger isn't automatically giving the green light to a finger up the bum and would possibly feel violated at the assumption it was an ok thing to do.
However, I feel like waving the threat of male-on-male sexual assault as a big scary thing would feel a little homophobic? It might not be, but that's why I refrained from going there. I know enough men who aren't douchebags who felt violated from drunk women hitting on them and not leaving them alone at a party to know that unwanted female-on-male persistent groping is disturbing enough. The big difference between me and them, though, is that they didn't internalize it and carry it with them every time they went out - it was a one-time thing that was scary but not part of a systemic problem. It didn't stop them from partying with friends and no one ever suggested that they should in order to prevent it from happening again. Very different responses depending on the gender of the victim.
"Most of them can't conceive of unwanted physical touch from a woman; they may be annoyed by somebody groping them, but they wouldn't usually feel assaulted, objectified, or personally attacked in the same way."
I know you said most but I wanted to tell you a breif story as one who is in that minority.
It happened in High School, I wasn't very mature and had an aversion to a lot of the sexualised conversation that went on. One of the girls who was heavily into dating and make-up came up to me and pinched my bum at the start of a class. She did it in front of other girls. My reaction was of distinct discomfort. She took delight in that, pointed it out to her friends, it was clearly her intention to embarass me. Now, I got teased and bullied a lot at school, but that event had a unique discomfort to it.
The point is, I can relate to the unwanted physical contact thing. I've also had some of that from a gay man on a train. Who continued trying to rub his leg against mine, even after I confirmed for him that I was straight. That experience though, was so foreign to me that I froze and couldn't think what to do about it. I think I'd know better what to do next time; but I think it must be horrible to have to put up with that type of thing on a regular basis.
Femme, I just want to tell you that I am one of the people who called cunegonde's situation a gray area. Your situations ARE DEFINITELY ASSAULT. You didn't explicitly say "no" but you did refuse. Cunegonde's situation was much different, in that both parties were drunk and she did ultimately agree to have sex with him after he was going to leave her alone. Her situation is a gray area. Yours aren't. (IMHO of course)
It seems to me like you are misunderstanding a lot of posts that were made on the cunegonde thread.
It seems to me like you are misunderstanding a lot of posts that were made on the cunegonde thread.
I should have been more clear when I drew parallels between my experiences and cunegonde's. I am not saying that our experiences are exactly the same, and I did understand why everyone dog-piled on her post to argue about whether or not her experience was rape, or sexual assault, or something else. She verbally consented, so everyone is wary to call it rape. I get it but I didn't want to argue about it, and I don't think it's my place to label her experience anyway. That's why I just said "She was psychologically coerced into having sex," because I didn't want to label it and I didn't want to get into that argument.
Although, it was clear to me that her verbal consent was only given after being psychologically coerced. She gave him what he wanted. Aren't we all taught to do this? Women are psychologically and emotionally manipulated into doing a lot of things, including sex. In my personal opinion, she was raped by our culture. She was raped by patriarchy. She was raped by our heteronormative social conditioning.
Whether we want to call it rape or something else is not my issue. My issue is that this is happening at all and every time it's discussed in a public forum it's derailed by victim-blamers like Brad or by otherwise intelligent, well-meaning individuals like you and others on cunegonde's thread. I am not trying to attack you, or tell you you're ignorant or a "bad feminist." What happened on cunegonde's thread just concerned me because debating about whether or not we can call someone's experience "rape" is derailing. It's not productive. It's not what we should really be talking about. We should really be talking about why this happens, and how our society works to condone and reinforce it.
Good points, and I agree with you! Except for the one thing--Cunegonde asked us to help her label her experience. It was the point of her post. It wasn't de-railing to discuss whether or not she was assaulted. It was the question she posed in her piece!
Now, in any other thread where that question isn't posed, I agree that it is completely inappropriate to argue the semantics of the word "rape," even if you strongly disagree with the OP's usage of it.
Now that I've settled down and gone back and re-read her post, I realize you're right about that. She did ask. I totally disregarded that by the time I was halfway through the comments and seriously upset. There's nothing wrong with her asking and people answering, you're right.
I may be disturbed by the debate and disturbed by the fact that she feels the need to ask that question, because whether we label her experience rape or not it is still something that happens to countless women every day and our society implicitly condones it. I hope you don't feel like I was jumping on you or anything, I am just freaked out by this entire issue and the way rape culture works, within us and around us.
Today I read two essays in Yes Means Yes about the prevalence of not-rape and that naming abuse is a huge step towards healing. After reading this thread and the previous one, I found that the two essays I read helped clarify things for me. Cunegonde needs to know what happened, how to label it, in order to heal.
This thread is more about the why and is an examination of rape culture, which is where those of us who have processed our not-rapes & rapes are looking to move beyond naming to comprehending & working to derail the rape culture.
Abrupt transition: I've noticed that after years of it being in the back of my mind, I have had multiple flashbacks in the last few months of the rapes & not-rapes I've experienced. I think it's because I'm in the middle of a paradigm shift in that I'm shrugging off the blame I have assigned myself in the past & am now looking at the ways society-at-large (the patriarchy) greatly contributed by way of the rape culture. It's a disturbing place to be, but I've noticed that I am far less ashamed of my experiences, and I think I've had more true healing in the last few months than I've had since burying the experiences.
I didn't think cunegonde's case was rape but what you described above would certainly be rape to me.
The difference is that here you have clearly indicated that you didn't want to and not then negated that with a contradictory statement AND here force was involved.
force = coercion = rape