Louise O Neill on rape culture.

mzungu · 09-02-2017 04:12PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Am I alone in feeling that this thread has jumped the shark?

(Can the shark's consent to being jumped can be assumed if he doesn't try to eat you in mid-air?)

Oh really? Using an endangered species to make a gag? You should be ashamed of yourself. Check your privilege.

As for "jumping the shark", we all know that Happy Days is a symbol of cis gendered heteronormativity that reenforces patriarchal attitudes. Happy Days did not 'jump the shark' when Fonzie "jumped the shark", instead, Fonzie jumped over the over simplistic representation of heteronormativity in 1970s TV (Eg. the Cunningham's) and landed in a 'post-patriarchy' universe. A universe where Happy Days managed to continue on for another seven years, albeit with the predominantly male cast being symbolically castrated by the 'shark-gaze' as a direct result of the 'post-jump the shark' societal attitudes in the 'post-patriarchal' society Fonzie landed in.

Zulu · 09-02-2017 05:00PM

midlandsmissus wrote: »

honest to God. That you think it's that wrong to ask someone do they want to have sex, I can't help you.

I don't think its "wrong", I think it's bizarre, unnatural, contrived, and pathetic frankly.
When two people are in the throws of passion, that they'd stop to discuss what's about to happen, as opposed to just letting things happen naturally where their comfortable is just bizarre.

Frankly, this is what I'd expect only with a very very damaged person.

midlandsmissus wrote: »

I'm never bullied by anyone to reveal more about my private life than I want to.

Whatever. We'll take it that you didn't ask their consent so. Why not? Don't you value his personal physical body as much as your own? Strange that you wouldn't if both parties are on an equal footing.

I wonder if that poster can articulate why exactly he is offended at a boyfriend asking a girlfriend if she wants sex. What exactly is he annoyed about?

I'm not offended, I just think it's very sad for a number of reasons.
The implication that the women is somehow unable to control a situation is sad. I have more respect for women frankly.

Wibbs · 09-02-2017 05:40PM

Zulu wrote: »

The implication that the women is somehow unable to control a situation is sad.

And all too common in current "feminist" thought and rhetoric. Women being always passive, agentless victims is everywhere. With a side order of being responsibility free from their actions. It's a very old fashioned notion particularly around sexuality. The idea that women are the receivers, the gatekeepers of some notion of sexual "purity", who must be saved from sexually predatory men(while encouraged post sexual revolution to let it all hang out, you go girl! No slut shaming!). More than a tad confusing to be fair and also smacks of cherry picking what "equalities" are sought.

I have more respect for women frankly.

Ditto. I have known a few women who were victims, some of awful events in their lives(that would have likely broken me TBH), some with added longterm mental trauma and conditions associated with it. Yet I can't think of one who thought themselves passive victims except at their lowest points and each one went on to be better people, with success and contentment in their lives. They are/were women mind you, not perpetual adolescents in mindset.

El_Duderino 09 · 09-02-2017 06:34PM

silverharp wrote:

No because it would be an attempt to regulate all sexual behaviour in an effort to validate extreme feminists which I assume would be quickly followed by the law changing. You are getting no support here that I can see everyone else seems to understand how mutually agreed sex happens which doesnt need to involve lawyers

I haven't tried to 'regulate' anything and i haven't mentioned lawyers.

I'm not really worried about support. I see a problem and I'm discussing it. You are happy to dismiss the problem as 'regret sex'. That's neat but it's not realistic.

It's not so long ago I thought we all agreed that we should actually listen to the victims of sexual abuse. That the attitudes of dismissing victims as troublemakers, were wrong. Not on this thread though. The blame lies firmly on the victim, according to yourself anyway.

At least they can take their potential rape and 'chalk it up to experience'. No need to even entertain them beyond that, according to yourself.

El_Duderino 09 · 09-02-2017 06:40PM

neonsofa wrote:

If a relationship is ever changing then any agreement too is ever changing and so how can you assume consent in a relationship without explicitly asking all the time? Either you have to ask all the time regardless of relationship status/whether it irritates the partner, or there is room for consent to be assumed based on the context. And most would claim it is the latter. And this applies to casual relationships and ONS too.

Any assumption that can be made after years of knowing someone and working out an agreement about cansent, is incomparable to the assumptions made between people who just met each other.

There are people on this thread who just assume consent for everything is on between people who just met, unless explicitly stated otherwise. And you want to split hairs about the subtleties of how consent is organised in long term relationships. Then you want to make out like it's the same thing in LTR and ONS? Lol.

El_Duderino 09 · 09-02-2017 06:45PM

givyjoe wrote:

You mean Arnie isn't really the Terminator ?

Not only is Arnie not the Terminator, but cheerleaders probably don't typically 'do anything to make the team'.

py2006 · 09-02-2017 06:45PM

With this mindset, it won't stop at verbal consent for sex. Men will have to get permission to make eye contact with, to speak to, to sit next to women etc etc

bizarre nonsense!

El_Duderino 09 · 09-02-2017 06:48PM

Wibbs wrote:

And all too common in current "feminist" thought and rhetoric. Women being always passive, agentless victims is everywhere. With a side order of being responsibility free from their actions. It's a very old fashioned notion particularly around sexuality.

But seems ubiquitous whenever these topics are discussed. I talk about generalisable consent and posters automatically assume I only mean women's consent.

py2006 · 09-02-2017 06:51PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

But seems ubiquitous whenever these topics are discussed. I talk about generalisable consent and posters automatically assume I only mean women's consent.

In fairness, when the debate around consent comes up its all about women. Its like domestic violence campaigns or gender quotas etc. Men are irrelevant.

El_Duderino 09 · 09-02-2017 06:52PM

py2006 wrote:

With these mindsets, it won't stop at verbal consent for sex. Men will have to get permission to make eye contact with, to speak to, to sit next to women etc etc

That might actually be the case, if you could rape someone by looking at them, speaking to them or sitting next to them. Meanwhile, away from hyperbole land...

El_Duderino 09 · 09-02-2017 06:53PM

py2006 wrote:

In fairness, when the debate around consent comes up its all about women. Its like domestic violence campaigns or gender quotas etc. Men are irrelevant.

Speak for yourself. Men aren't irrelevant to me.

py2006 · 09-02-2017 07:01PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Speak for yourself. Men aren't irrelevant to me.

I think you know what I meant.

El_Duderino 09 · 09-02-2017 07:08PM

py2006 wrote:

I think you know what I meant.

Yeah. And I hope you know what I mean - exactly what I said. It's not all about one or the other, for me at least

mzungu · 09-02-2017 07:35PM

py2006 wrote:

With these mindsets, it won't stop at verbal consent for sex. Men will have to get permission to make eye contact with, to speak to, to sit next to women etc etc

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

That might actually be the case, if you could rape someone by looking at them, speaking to them or sitting next to them. Meanwhile, away from hyperbole land...

This is a bit off topic but worth mentioning the case of Mark Pearson in the UK as both your posts reminded me of it. The police charged him with sexual assault for an encounter that never happened.

A man falsely accused of sexually assaulting an award-winning actress in Waterloo Station has spoken out against the “preposterous” allegation, blaming the Crown Prosecution Service for pursuing the case.

Mark Pearson was last week cleared of sexually assaulting the woman by penetration. The actress, in her 60s, remains anonymous for legal reasons.

CCTV footage showed that the alleged assault, which the claimant says lasted for two to three seconds, would have been virtually impossible.

Speaking to the BBC earlier this week, Pearson said that he wants to know how the CPS thought they could secure a conviction - with no forensic evidence or eye witnesses.

He said: “They haven’t said why they continued to pursue the case, even after we had an expert look at the CCTV and conclude that I couldn’t have possibly done what she said.”

CCTV footage analysed by an expert shows that Pearson went past the actress in about half a second.

During that time, he had one hand on his rucksack strap and the other holding a newspaper.

Pearson said that the idea that he assaulted her in such circumstances was “preposterous”.

The stills below from the CCTV footage, broadcast by the BBC, show that Pearson did not break his stride during the alleged encounter.

Pearson said: “Anyone who has seen the CCTV images knows that I couldn’t possibly have done it.

“I would have had to have leaned backwards while walking forwards, crouched towards the ground to put my hand up her skirt and do what she said. And also hit her in the shoulder, all in half a second.”

Pearson was cleared by a jury at Blackfriars Crown Court after 90 minutes’ deliberation in London last Friday.

The alleged offence was said to have happened in December 2014.

Police tracked Pearson to his east London home two months later using data from his Oyster card. He was charged two months later and has said the ordeal led to him requiring therapy.

The case has raised questions about the CPS’s decision-making in sexual assault cases.

Speaking to ITV’s This Morning on Monday, Pearson said that there was a “systemic” problem with the CPS because something has gone “radically wrong with their processes”.

Pearson said that he should have remained anonymous - just as his accuser did.

A CPS spokesman said: “There was sufficient evidence for this case to proceed to court and progress to trial. We respect the decision of the jury.”

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/02/12/mark-pearson-preposterous-sexual-assault-actress_n_9217484.html

So, here we have a case of a man accused of sexual assault who didn't even look at the woman who accused him of it. What py2006 said above was hyperbole, but real life situations can at times be just as bizarre.

Now, I am not saying the Pearson case is in any way representative of allegations because it's not and it's not what I am getting at. However, if a man can be brought to court on a sexual assault charge where there is actual video evidence of his innocence that the police had access to and (presumably) viewed before arresting him, then this outlandish real life situation is not too far off py2006's hyperbolic statement above.

py2006 · 09-02-2017 07:42PM

My hyperbolic statement above was more to highlight the ludicrousness of verbal consent passion killer (rape culture nonsense).

neonsofa · 09-02-2017 07:44PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Any assumption that can be made after years of knowing someone and working out an agreement about cansent, is incomparable to the assumptions made between people who just met each other.

There are people on this thread who just assume consent for everything is on between people who just met, unless explicitly stated otherwise. And you want to split hairs about the subtleties of how consent is organised in long term relationships. Then you want to make out like it's the same thing in LTR and ONS? Lol.

Lol all you like, I asked for you to elaborate on how a partner assumes consent -what are the indicators if it is not explicitly verbalised? You seem to believe that body language and context is not enough so I'd love to know how.

El_Duderino 09 · 09-02-2017 07:44PM

mzungu wrote:

However, if a man can be brought to court on a sexual assault charge where there is actual video evidence of his innocence that the police had access to and (presumably) viewed before arresting him, then this outlandish real life situation sits in quite comfortably with py2006's hyperbolic statement above.

It's nothing to fo with what I'm saying but you'd like me to, what? Defend it? I won't. It was a false accusation and luckily there was video evidence. It has nothing to do with consent. Unless it's to agree with the poster that wants to chalk all the gray area consent cases up to regret sex and learning experience?

mzungu wrote:

Now, I am not saying the Pearson case is in any way representative of allegations because it's not and it's not what I am getting at.

That clears that up then. It was a false accusation not a consent case.

El_Duderino 09 · 09-02-2017 07:48PM

py2006 wrote:

My hyperbolic statement above was more to highlight the ludicrousness of verbal consent passion killer (rape culture nonsense).

It might be a passion killer. So what's the alternative? Just always assume consent unless explicitly told otherwise? That genuinely seems to be the approach done posters are advising. Imagine telling young men that they can just assume consent.

And they think they're looking out for men. Amazing.

neonsofa · 09-02-2017 07:49PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

It might be a passion killer. So what's the alternative? Just always assume consent unless explicitly told otherwise? That genuinely seems to be the approach done posters are advising. Imagine telling young men that they can just assume consent.

And they think they're looking out for men. Amazing.

Assume consent when there is visible evidence that it is being given. Same way I hold a door open for someone and gesture that they go ahead- I don't need to say "walk through this open door".

El_Duderino 09 · 09-02-2017 07:51PM

neonsofa wrote:

Lol all you like, I asked for you to elaborate on how a partner assumes consent -what are the indicators if it is not explicitly verbalised? You seem to believe that body language and context is not enough so I'd love to know how.

In a long term relationship? It's worked out between the couple. It takes time and trust. A couple can come to a non verbal agreement over time. They can have all sorts of non verbal understanding over time. And as you point out, it can still change which means it's not 100%reliable.

So how on earth can a couple who just met have a reliable non verbal agreement?

El_Duderino 09 · 09-02-2017 07:55PM

neonsofa wrote:

Assume consent when there is visible evidence that it is being given. Same way I hold a door open for someone and gesture that they go ahead- I don't need to say "walk through this open door".

A misunderstanding in that context is inconsequential. A misunderstanding in a sexual consent context is potentially rape. I see one context as more important to make sure you both have the same understanding, than the other. Maybe you don't agree.

py2006 · 09-02-2017 07:56PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

It might be a passion killer. So what's the alternative? Just always assume consent unless explicitly told otherwise? That genuinely seems to be the approach done posters are advising. Imagine telling young men that they can just assume consent.

And they think they're looking out for men. Amazing.

Oh ffs. That's ridiculous. Nobody is saying assume consent and force it.

Anytime I've had sex either initiated by me or by the woman we both knew we both wanted it without having the pc, feminist led, Louise O'Neil corny question.

neonsofa · 09-02-2017 08:00PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

In a long term relationship? It's worked out between the couple. It takes time and trust. A couple can come to a non verbal agreement over time. They can have all sorts of non verbal understanding over time. And as you point out, it can still change which means it's not 100%reliable.

So how on earth can a couple who just met have a reliable non verbal agreement?

You either believe it should be explicit consent verbalised at all times regardless of context, or else you do actually agree that context accounts for a lot and implied consent is very much a real thing, in which case it can apply to any type of sexual relationship.

neonsofa · 09-02-2017 08:03PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

A misunderstanding in that context is inconsequential. A misunderstanding in a sexual consent context is potentially rape. I see one context as more important to make sure you both have the same understanding, than the other. Maybe you don't agree.

It is clearly not a comparison. It is an example.

El_Duderino 09 · 09-02-2017 08:10PM

py2006 wrote:

Anytime I've had sex either initiated by me or by the woman we both knew we both wanted it without having the pc, feminist led, Louise O'Neil corny question.

Good for you. There's a general inability to think outside one's own personal experience on this thread.

neonsofa wrote:

You either believe it should be explicit consent verbalised at all times regardless of context, or else you do actually agree that context accounts for a lot and implied consent is very much a real thing, in which case it can apply to any type of sexual relationship.

Long term relationships have non verbal understanding. Absolutely. And as you repeatedly pointed out (thought you're not acknowledging anymore) it isn't always reliable -even with years of understanding and experience. But you think it's reliable between people who just met. Something doesn't add up about that..

neonsofa wrote:

It is clearly not a comparison. It is an example.

An example that doesn't really apply because the example isn't comparable. Sexual consent is an important thing and the stakes are high. Non verbal communication when holding the four for someone is inconsequential and not really comparable. It does illustrate the point that non verbal communication is grand in some situations when the stakes are low. When the stakes are high it's not really worth relying on.

py2006 · 09-02-2017 08:15PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Good for you. There's a general inability to think outside one's own personal experience on this thread.

No, just not everybody agrees with you.

Pot, kettle, black too

Zulu · 09-02-2017 08:20PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

It might be a passion killer. So what's the alternative? Just always assume consent unless explicitly told otherwise? That genuinely seems to be the approach done posters are advising. Imagine telling young men that they can just assume consent.

And they think they're looking out for men. Amazing.

Whats truly amazing is starting from a point where sex=rape and working back from there - which is where all this non-sense is coming from.

Daft.

neonsofa · 09-02-2017 08:22PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Good for you. There's a general inability to think outside one's own personal experience on this thread.

Long term relationships have non verbal understanding. Absolutely. And as you repeatedly pointed out (thought you're not acknowledging anymore) it isn't always reliable -even with years of understanding and experience. But you think it's reliable between people who just met. Something doesn't add up about that..

An example that doesn't really apply because the example isn't comparable. Sexual consent is an important thing and the stakes are high. Non verbal communication when holding the four for someone is inconsequential and not really comparable. It does illustrate the point that non verbal communication is grand in some situations when the stakes are low. When the stakes are high it's not really worth relying on.

I acknowledged it once- just like consent I don't have to repeat it each and every time. It was acknowledged by both of us.
I didn't say it's reliable between two people who just met. We don't all see things in black and white and just like you have finally admitted, there are times where context comes into play and it doesnt need to be verbalised. This is the case with everything, including sexual relationship between two people. It is the context of the interactions leading up to sex that is important. Just like consent isn't implied purely due to the relationship itself, it is the agreement and the context and the mutual understanding between the two people. That is my point. It is not black and white, there are nuances to it and verbal consent is not always required- you may think that is only applicable to a narrow subset of people (those in relationships) but other people can understand that context is everything and that is the only point I was making. That it is the context that is important not the relationship status- long term/casual/ONS.

You're being deliberately obtuse about an example of non verbal communication. As a survivor of rape myself I'm well aware of the "stakes", it was an example of how people's gestures and body language can communicate things without them having to explicitly state what they mean, just how someone can consent non verbally in very obvious ways. If it is not obvious the person can ask. It doesn't need to be asked every single time.

py2006 · 09-02-2017 08:27PM

It is like in any relationship, gestures, body language, the way you look at somebody shows how you feel about them without having to say it out loud or write it down with your signature.

infogiver · 09-02-2017 08:34PM

midlandsmissus wrote: »

Infogiver I was remarking on the government, not workplaces. I truly think it's a shame of our country that it never went over 80% male 20 % female, without gender quotas being introduced, and now it is just over that ratio. So yes, that's where I feel undervalued, and I will until change is put forward.

But there's been nothing to stop women putting themselves forward as candidates for public positions? If you want to run for a place on the council or more, what exactly do you think is stopping you?

Louise O Neill on rape culture.

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