The Complications of Rape

Much in the same way that each mass shooting in the USA stirs up a "debate" about gun laws a recent rape case in Steubenville, Ohio has resulted in a similar outcry.  The case is actually complicated (in my opinion) and raises interesting, but often unpleasant, questions about what is, or is not, rape and what should be done about it.  I will be talking here about the rape of women by men, which is far from the only form, but is the one in the Steubenville case, and the most common form.


This is another of my posts in which not only will I perhaps have an opinion which others find appalling and offensive, but perhaps more troubling is that as a man I feel quite trepidatious about expressing any opinion at all on rape.  I can start with what should seem obvious, and I would hope that this is what people would assume of me.  Rape is a hideous crime, a traumatic experience that I equate with the trauma of war.  It isn't simply a single nasty event, it is something that you carry with you effecting trust, instilling fear, and altering behavior over the long term.

The difficulty about rape is that it all comes down to the consent of the possible victim.  The exact same behavior can be rape or not based upon the wishes of one person.  It therefore requires that a person, or persons, know the opinion of the other person. At the best of times this is problematic, and rape cases generally don't happen at the best of times.

Men have a clear responsibility not to rape women.  In my opinion if a women says that she doesn't want to have sex then having sex with her is rape. This seems pretty clear, but is it?  There are beliefs that when women say "No" they mean "Yes."  There are beliefs that when women say "No" they mean "No."  What this comes down to is again the central problem of what women want.  Putting aside the quite reasonable and common position that everyone has trouble knowing what they want, and often decide what they wanted after the fact, the question of what "No" means comes down to what women mean when they say "No."

The truth (from what I can tell from the only study on this precise question I can find) is that there is no defining answer.  From this study (and I remember another one that I cannot find) about 40% of undergraduate students have said at some point, "No" when they mean "Yes."  In the other study I remember that about one third of high school students had said, "No" when they meant "Yes."  presumably there is a slight increase in this number as women age (for at least the reason that there will be fewer virgins as women age.)  So the truth on what women mean when they say "No" is that it is very difficult to know the answer.  The two ends of the spectrum are both wrong, the actual answer is that it is complicated and therefore difficult for someone who wants to have sex with a woman to know.

How to solve this problem of what, "No" means?  There has to be an agreement within society about what this means.  This is problematic because men are genetically programmed to try to have sex, and women often have a wish to test a man's commitment, to require him to pass tests (as I was, although not with regard to sex) in order to sort out whether he'll stick around to help raise the children.  There is also the wish, which I addressed in my recent post on "Romance," for women to be thought of as faithful and demure and for men to be aggressive, even a little sociopathic.  These wishes are biological in nature, they won't do away.

However, there are all sorts of things that we want to do biologically that we have been capable of overcoming, and as a society we should be able to come to an agreement that while these desires are there they can be regulated through.  At the moment there is societal pressure for women to not appear promiscuous, even if they want to be, or simply want to appear that way.  There is a widespread belief (not only among men) that dressing like a "slut" means you "want it" and therefore it "isn't rape."  There is also societal pressure for men to act "like men", to sweep her off her feet, or cajole a woman into sex by overcoming her apparent rejection.  If you as a man don't try to get a woman to have sex with you you won't have much sex (I know this personally), but this isn't true the other way round.  These are OK, but there needs to be a manner in which this can be stopped before harm is done.  This manner should be pretty simple, agree that "No" always means "No."

For "No" to mean "No" then it requires that both sexes agree to this.  Men need to learn and accept that "No" always means "No" but women need to learn and accept that for this to work they always have to mean "No" when they say "No."  There is a responsibility for men to not rape women but there is also a responsibility for women to clearly define when they are giving consent and when they are not.  I understand that there is societal pressure against these two sides to the coin, that it is difficult for women to say a "no" clearly, none of us like to do so, but sometimes you need to do difficult things.  Saying that societal pressure makes it too hard for women to say "no" to rape I find demeaning towards women, just as saying that societal pressure makes men rape women is demeaning.

Further complication comes from what seems the eminently sensible position that if you don't have the ability to consent then sex is rape.  However, again this comes down to a problem of what is the line at which you don't have the ability to consent.  Is it a bit drunk?  Very drunk?  Passed out on the floor drunk?   Are these stages of intoxication with regard to rape different in a long-term relationship than in a new encounter.  Is what is consent based on the community in which you find yourself?  If consent was given several hours before intoxication and the woman then becomes too intoxicated to make a reasonable decision does the early consent still apply?  In the Steubenville case it seems pretty clear that the victim was incapable of consent, but her peers thought that getting that drunk at a party meant that you deserved it, that it was implicit consent.  No-one tried to stop it, or reported it, to her peers it wasn't really a crime (even though the word "rape" was used repeatedly.)

One of the widespread reactions to the trial is that men need to be educated to stop raping women.  I agree that this is so, but I also object to the inclusion in the group "men" that rape women.  I am not part of that group.  In fact, assuming 20% of women are raped, and assuming that there are men who commit multiple rapes (let's put the average at a conservative 2) then 90% of us don't rape women.  To say "men rape women" is like saying "women lie and steal."  I find it offensive.  It seems to me that with 90% of men not raping women the problem is not so much education, can you think of another form of education that has a 90% success rate?

I also want to point out that a not insignificant portion of the population are sociopaths, perhaps as high as 5%, you can't teach these people to not rape because it is wrong, only that the results of rape for them aren't worth it.  This requires both punishment, but also consistently high reporting of rape which is very different from the present situation (90% not reported.)  High reporting not only requires the education of women of the importance of reporting, but also a massively increased acceptance (even admiration, my stance) by society of that reporting.  A start would be getting across that contrary to myth, false accusations of rape are very low and no higher than for other crime.  When women say they have been raped, they almost certainly have been raped.

There has been outrage over the "light" sentencing (a year to five years in juvenile detention) and the comment by a cable news network that it was also the rapists' lives that were ruined.  The outrage was that punishment wasn't severe enough and that they deserved no sympathy.  People want these boys/men? to suffer without sympathy for their suffering.  More punishment doesn't make society better, and personally I have sympathy for any suffering regardless of the cause.  The criminals in this case probably will have their lives deeply harmed by their actions, and that sucks.  Does this mean I have less sympathy for the victim?  Quite the reverse.

The final point I wish to address is the idea that if you dress a certain way, take drugs in certain places, and act in certain ways you are not "asking for it."  Of course you are not asking to be raped (after all, if you are asking for it you cannot be raped) and these actions don't justify being raped (contrary to some Ohio high school students' opinions) but these actions do put out signals that you are more likely to want to have sex than if you behave otherwise.  Telling the world that you want to have sex increases your chances of getting raped, and pretty much everyone knows this.  Just like if you leave your car unlocked and the keys in the ignition you don't deserve your car to be stolen but it is much more likely to be stolen, dressing in a thong and bra, getting drunk and kissing multiple men at a frat party doesn't mean you deserve to be raped, but it is going to increase your chances of being raped.

In summary, rape is more complicated than "men shouldn't do it and need to be told that" and more complicated than "they want it."  What is consent is a deeply murky subject that means different things to different people.  The responsibility to not rape lies largely with men, but also with women who need to take charge of deciding for themselves whether they want to have sex and to clearly express what they want.  There needs to be a societal agreement that "No" always means "No" and this involves both sexes taking responsibility for sticking to the agreement.