I don't even know what to make of this story...

So... this is a weird and disturbing story The short version: A guy in Meshchovsk, Russia, tried to rob a hair salon at gunpoint. As he was collecting the money, the owner knocked him down, tied him up with a cord, and then locked him in a closet. Instead of calling the police, she told him to drop his pants or she'd turn him over to the police. After that, she spent three days feeding him viagra and raping him, before letting him go and telling him to get out of her sight. He ended up going to the police, and now they're both probably going to jail.

I'm sort of sitting her slack-jawed at the story. Like... what the hell?

On the one hand, I feel like it's good that he went to the police and that his claim was taken seriously... but, on the other, it's not so good that he was trying to rob someone at gunpoint.

I'm also glad that the story calls it rape, even though the headline makes it sound more like he was going to rob her but they decided to get into some S&M play instead.

Honestly, I'm still trying to decide if the story is real or not. It's so... bizarre.

I looked for verification, but, sadly, I mostly found the sorts of comments I'd expect from a story like this. Lots of variations of, "Oh, what a lucky robber!/That's hot/I wish my hair dresser would handcuff me and 'rape' me", and lots of "A woman can't rape a man/I can't believe he went to the police/he must be gay to complain about it".

And since this happened in Russia, there's the obligatory anti-Russian sentiment as well.

Anyway, I don't really know what to say about it, and I should be working on homework anyway, but I thought that it was such a weird story, that I'd go ahead and share it.

Castration as punishment...

Fox News (I hate to link them) is reporting that the LA senate passed a bill yesterday, 32-3, that gives judges the ability to add subject convicted sex-crime offenders to chemical castration after a first offense, and requires it for repeat offenders. Convicted criminals will have the option to opt for surgical castration instead of chemical, if they desire.

I'm still thinking about this, but I have to admit that it makes me profoundly uncomfortable. More after I've had time to figure out what, exactly, I think.

In the meantime... your thoughts?

On "Accidental Rape"

One of the comments that came up in Jill's post about rape and power was the point that rapists always know that they're raping. Several people pointed out that "rape is never an accident." There was also the suggestion that rapists always know what they're doing- or, to reword it slightly, rapists know that they're rapists- they don't rape without knowing that they're raping. Personally, I'm really not completely convinced of this.

One of the reasons that I advocate a shift in the ways that we think about sex is precisely because I think that the current model leads to rape. Right now, we're taught to think about sex as thing- largely a thing that men want and women have. Under this model, sex is often seen as a conquest- you're victorious if you have sex. This, I think, is at least partially responsible for some of the ways that people pursue sex- this is why people think it's okay to lie in the pursuit of sex, or why people think that it's okay to get someone drunk and "take advantage of them."

I'm going to try to find the stats, but I remember reading that surveys have shown that there's a divide between what people say and what they believe surrounding sex and rape. Most people will, if you ask them, agree that rape is wrong. But, when you start asking about specific situations, you start to see a divide form. There are many people who firmly believe that a situation is only rape if it meets all or most of the following:
The attacker is unknown to the victim.
The victim explicitly says "no".
The attacker threatens the victim with a weapon of some kind.
The attacker beats/chokes/strikes the victim.
The victim fights back, but is overpowered by the attacker.
The attacker penetrates the victim.

And, certainly, those are sufficient conditions to consider an attack a rape, but are the necessary? I think that many of us can agree that the first condition isn't necessary at all, given that most rapes are apparently perpetrated by someone the victim knows.

The fact is, there's not widespread agreement about where we draw the line regarding rape. I think the line ought to be obvious- but, unfortunately, that doesn't make it so.

I think that SarahMC was the first to mention rapists knowing whether or not they're rapists:

Even if women aren’t able to say “no” or get away for whatever reason, you’d think the fact that they freeze up and aren’t active/enthusiastic during the act would give these oh-so-innocent men pause. If your partner fucking freezes while you go to town on her body, it may be because you are raping her.

No, I totally agree with this- if you're with someone, and that person is giving you anything less than enthusiastic consent, you ought to check in and find out what is going on, because it could be the case that the other person is not on-board with what is happening. If you don't, you very might be raping that person.

So, yeah, these sorts of people- the sort of person who doesn't really care whether his/her partner is particularly enthusiastic and interested in the sex- the sort of person who sees the other person as a means to getting off? They're not exactly innocent. I think that the analysis that these sorts of people just don't care is right on. They don't care about the other person's feelings particularly.

Which is not quite the same as saying that they realize that they're rapists. It's possible to be a shitty, selfish human being without being a criminal. It's entirely possible- and, given the skewed model of human sexual relations that I think our society embraces, not particularly surprising- that some people who rape think that they're just participating in typical sexual behavior. When you have a conquest model of sex that you're working from, "taking advantage" of someone who is drunk and passing in and out of awareness doesn't parse as rape, because that person hasn't told you "no."

See, part of the problem is with the way many people read consent. For some people, consent isn't an affirmation, it's lack of a negation. In other words, some people think that it's only rape if the other person actually says "no" in a forceful way. If the other person is drunk and passing out, well... you can't say "no" if you're passed out, so it's not really rape.

Do they think that they're being nice?

Oh, absolutely not. But, they see sex as a struggle- a conquest- a thing to be taken from another through almost any means. They see the drunk victim as a person whose guard has been dropped, and is no longer capable of denying them access.

So, in that way, yes, I think that there are people who are rapists who simply don't realize that's what they are. I think that they probably think that they're just participating in typical sexual behavior. No, they don't care about their victim's feelings.

That's why I think it's so vital that we reframe the nature of consent and the ways that we view sex. If there's as much misunderstanding of consent as I think there is, we need to get people on the same page. We need to make it clear that lack of resistence is not the same as consent- consent is consent. We need to make it absolutely clear that, if you engage in sex with someone who is not giving you enthusiastic, affirmative consent, you might be raping that person.

Sarah reall nails another important part of this idea in her response on that thread:

As for the issue of whether or not the rapist knows they are raping in these cases, I would argue that they may not label the action as rape themselves and then justify the action to themselves because they feel entitled to their victims’ bodies.

I think our culture is so caught up with the idea that rapists are only strangers who jump out of trees and brutalize their victims in ways beyond the rape, that recognition of what rape actually is in most circomstances is often both unknown by both the rapist and the victim. If there was a pre-established relationship or freindship, the victim does not always recognize it is rape and blames herself. I’d argue the same could be true for the rapist, given the pre-established relationship, as well as our cultural misogynistic attitudes towards women’s bodies, a rapist may be convinced he is ENTITLED to her body.

And I honestly believe that education and changing the ways that we view sex are the best ways we have to change that.

Re: On Rape and Power...

Jill's post about the horrible case of Jeffrey M. Marsalis is an amazing and important read. I'm sure that a lot of you have already read the post, but in case you haven't, you should definitely check it out here.

I think that this is an important conversation to have. An analysis of what rape even is sometimes seems ridiculous. It sometimes feels like we ought to already have passed that particular conversation, but then cases like the one she's discussing come up, and I realize that we're not all on the same page, and it really brings home the point that there are a lot of people who don't know or understand what actually constitutes rape, even within the feminist community.

I think that this is one of the reasons why education is so very important. In part, I suspect that at least some rapists don't realize that they're rapists. I wouldn't even feel comfotable speculating on numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised to discover that there are some people who really are surprised when their victims report the rape, because they don't even realize that they've done anything wrong.

Do I think that education is the magic bullet that will help end rape? Of course not- I think that there's a lot of work to be done, but I think that education makes a difference. I think that a clearer understanding of rape and what it looks like can only help. Even if I'm wrong, and there aren't any rapists who don't realize what they've done, it helps because it helps give voice to the victims. It helps people find the words to describe what happened to them, and it helps to remove the silence that surrounds many victims of rape.

Anyway, Jill's post is really powerful and moving, and it's a razor sharp analysis. Go. Read it.