But he's not a criminal.

No. He has committed the kind of rape he couldn't get jailed for: so, no, he's not a criminal. Just a rapist with, as theferrett has commented, an effective technique.

I really don't care that you don't think it's rape when the man doesn't give a damn what the woman wants and just uses her for sex, having got her to stop resisting him by pester-power.

I suspect that if you had ever been in that position - had a man climbing all over you, feeling you up, and making it clear he would refuse to let you alone until you "consented" to let him fuck you - you would feel rather differently about it.

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If you have experienced such a situation, I feel deeply for you. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. The discussion and the thoughts about it have disturbed me.

I'm trying to give you (and anyone reading for that matter) the most reasonable, logical and realistic viewpoint I am able to provide. If you don't really care about that, there's nothing much I will ever be able to say to convince you otherwise. Obviously there's an emotional involvement on your part that I haven't experienced (at least with a sexual connotation) that leads you to believe things I simply can't agree with. I've been the victim of an attempted mugging at knifepoint; maybe that's similar, maybe it's not. All I know is I had the choice to do nothing or to act. I acted. Regardless of the situation someone else put me in, that was my decision. I feel very strongly that that was something I was responsible for, regardless of why the guy tried to mug me.

I think it's important to be aware of your own situation. I think it's important that if a woman is being pestered (not forced) into having sex, she has the ultimate choice to allow it or disallow it, regardless of the person responsible for putting her into that situation. What he does is his responsibility. How you respond to that is yours. If your choice is to forego your own comfort for the desires of another, well, that is the choice you make, regardless of what made you make that choice. I can't condone it if a guy does something like that. But playing the blame game won't change anything if you are in that situation. Your own actions will.

If you still feel that counts as approval of a guy's despicable behaviour, well, I guess nothing I can say will change that. But I know I don't approve. The guy who does that sort of thing has shown his colours, and I'd want nothing to do with him. But I worry about the women he affects, and I'd hope that they know what choice to make if they're ever in that situation.

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I would say that a situation is rape when a woman's choice is removed by violence or by threat.

If a woman gives in to nonviolent, nonthreatening pressures, then the resultant coitus is, to my mind, not rape.

Calling it rape is useful in that it calls attention to the immorality of badgering someone into sex. That usefulness is, for me, overwhelmed by two things:
- the fact that it is, in fact, a redefinition that confuses much, and adds little.
- To call it rape, in my mind, minimises the sufferings of countless women who have actually been forced into sexual submission.


If a woman truly is being forced, as does happen within intimate relationships, I have no problem with calling it rape. However, please remember that the original context of this discussion was NOT such intimate situations, but rather the interaction of a woman with a boorish hopeful, e.g. in a bar. In such situations, the woman has a wide variety of alternate choices available to her, and is generally not forced. Should she choose to silence the man by submission to his sexual ambitions, the result is not rape.

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Calling it rape is useful in that it calls attention to the immorality of badgering someone into sex. That usefulness is, for me, overwhelmed by two things:
- the fact that it is, in fact, a redefinition that confuses much, and adds little.
- To call it rape, in my mind, minimises the sufferings of countless women who have actually been forced into sexual submission.

I tried to say something like that for a while, but gave up because I couldn't phrase it properly. However, I like how you've stated it. Thanks.

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However, I like how you've stated it.

I bet you do. It fits your "blame the victim" thinking.

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And my current "You're batshit insane" thought fits very much to the vitriolic bile you're spitting around everywhere.

Seriously, you're a complete stranger. Who the hell are you to tell me what I think?

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To call it rape, in my mind, minimises the sufferings of countless women who have actually been forced into sexual submission.

I'm kind of speechless at this.

If you think that a man who is pestering a woman who isn't interested to have sex with him, and who eventually succeeds because he wears her down so that it's less trouble to let him use her for sex than it is to have to keep fighting him off, isn't forcing her into sexual submission, you have a seriously cracked view of rape.

Or rather, you seem to have the classic "if she's a loose woman, it isn't rape" attitude. A woman who was forced by a man using pester power can't really be suffering, you think? You're just flat wrong. (Check out a discussion on my own journal for an example.)

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You disagree, then, that it's about the presence or absence of alternatives?

Because that's what I was saying.

And please don't put words in my mouth. I understand that other people may have brought loose-woman allegations into it, but I most certainly did not.

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You disagree, then, that it's about the presence or absence of alternatives?

Because that's what I was saying.

And please don't put words in my mouth. I understand that other people may have brought loose-woman allegations into it, but I most certainly did not.

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Oh, for heaven's sake. Read what I wrote and respond to it, or don't.

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If you still feel that counts as approval of a guy's despicable behaviour, well, I guess nothing I can say will change that.

What you've said elsewhere is that you prefer to blame the victim rather than the rapist - you figure that the victim is as much to blame for giving in as the rapist is for using his victim for sex, and it's easier, of course, to confront her and tell her she's to blame for giving in than it is to confront the rapist and tell him what's wrong with what he's doing.

Trying to blame both the victim and the rapist equally does, in fact, make you look as if you approved of the rapist's behavior.

How were you to blame for the attempted mugging, by the way? I take it you do blame yourself for looking like someone who ought to be mugged, and put an equal responsibility on yourself for behaving like a victim as on the mugger for trying to rob you.

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I've said elsewhere that despite the fault of the offender, it's the woman's responsibility to herself to act. I figure that a woman who has a choice to avoid sex with someone she doesn't want to have sex with, and chooses to have sex instead of, say, alerting others or leaving the area, then she bears responsibility for that choice. This is quite, quite clearly what I have said in other posts as well. That responsibility does not put her at fault for the initial offense. But it remains her responsibility. The word blame never comes into it. And your comment that "Trying to blame both the victim and the rapist equally does, in fact, make you look as if you approved of the rapist's behavior" is an inference you have made, not something I have said or agree with. Hell, by blaming the 'rapist' as you are so eager to call him, I would say that is a pretty damn strong piece of evidence that I do not approve of his actions.

I don't blame myself for the mugging. I wasn't to blame. There is a difference between blame and responsibility. I don't blame myself for looking like a target. I don't think I'm responsible for the guy mugging me. What I am responsible for is that I acted, by attacking the guy and disarming him when I saw an opening to do so. Regardless of the fact that the guy tried to mug me (which he is entirely at fault for), I was responsible for making the choice to either hand over my wallet, or run away, or attack him. If I had chosen to hand over my wallet, that would have been my responsibility, and my choice would have meant I was partially responsible for me not having my wallet. The point is that I had a choice, and I was responsible for the decision I chose. Once again, responsibility does not equal fault.

Equally, women who are pestered are responsible for their decision to either submit (and consent to sex to get the guy to stop pestering) or to not submit (and act by leaving or alerting others etc etc.) The fault of the guy for putting them in the situation is not lessened by their actions, he's still at fault for creating the situation to start with. But if they choose to allow it, that was their choice, and they should accept that their choice led to him getting his way. It's when they don't get a choice that a rape occurs, and they're not responsible for anything in that case. The crucial matter is whether there is a choice involved. In the situation originally presented by Ferrett, there is indeed a choice involved.

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Yeah, I would. I'd feel like there would be nothing this asshole could do that would ever make me sleep with him, because frankly I wouldn't want to give this jerk the satisfaction.

If I was in a club, I'd call the bouncer. If I was in a party, I'd probably leave and be pissed at him for it (or call the friend), and perhaps slap him. But I certainly wouldn't go home with this dipshit.

May be a difference in approach, but no; I wouldn't.

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