Non feminist seeks clarification on "rape" term...

I'll go ahead and say it now...I'm trying to start an argument here about what is and isn't rape. I'm not a feminist, as a matter of fact, I think the modern "movement" is bogus, and I think that most of the literature and arguments that I've read in defense of it are short-sighted, half-hearted, and ill-informed. Anyway, recently, one of the great TV shows, Law and Order: SVU, has peaked my interest in so called date rape. I looked up some "cases" on the net, and some feminists and antifeminist commentaries on the subject, and I thought I'd ask some feminists for their opinions on the matter outright.

It's my belief that rape requires force, or the threat of force. I think that rape is a serious crime, but I reject the broad definition of rape that seems to be pervasive in society today. It seems that even without the threat of force, someone can claim rape. How can this be?

I'll save my defensive arguments for any actual discussion that takes place here. I'm not unswayable...I just haven't been swayed. I've read alot, but nothing I've read makes any sense. In every case, the propponents of this broad rape definition seem to absolve the "victims" of any responsibility whatsoever, a courtesy which isn't extended in any other normal criminal situation such as robbery or assault. In some cases, the same arguments which create victims in "date rape" cases seem to condemn criminals in manslauter cases.

Please, I'd love to hear a definition of rape from feminists.

Not at all provocative scott..lol ; Okay first things first believe it or not you probably ARE a feminist besides the fact that your male and not an angry lesbian with a shaved head (sorry to emphasize the old stereotype).

In fact, unless you believe that men should hold overall superiority over women then your a feminist, full stop. To answer your question, in the past it had to be shown that sexual intercourse had to be obtained by force or threat of force to uphold a conviction for rape ; this is no longer the requirement highlighted by cases R V Larter and Castleton 1995 and R V Malone 1998.

Also a woman can consent to intercourse but if at any time before or during she changes her mind and does not consent then for a man to persist would constitute as rape, to me this is obvious.

I'd like to know what you mean by " In some cases the same arguments which create victims in date rape cases seem to condemn criminals in manslaughter cases, are you talking about the defence of intoxication? because If you are I think your slightly confused.

I suggest you look up the cases I have included Also the purpose behind this discussion appears fairly dubious anyway will be interesting to hear what you think...

In fact I am referring to intoxication. If I get drunk, and end up driving a car and hitting someone, I am guilty of manslaughter. The courts do not care that I was unable to make a rational decision about driving because I was drunk. The fact is that I was drunk, and I got drunk on purpose, and so I will be held responsible for the things that happen to myself and others while I'm drunk.

In "date rape" situations, this doesn't seem to be the case. If a woman willingly gets drunk, her legal ability to give consent somehow vanishes. If she says yes to a sober man, that act could still be considered rape because she was drunk, and therefore unable to make a "rational" decision. The responsibility for decision making passes from her hands into the hands of someone else, wouldn't you say? No such consideration is made for a drunk man who murders or steals or vandalizes. Regardless of your level of intoxication, you are responsible for your actions...unless your a college aged girl who ends up having sex.

Of course, many of those situations come down to hearsay. She may later claim that she said no, and she may very well have. There's little in the way of proof in those situations, and so they are gray. But how about this, much worse, situation:

A drunk male and a drunk female have sex, and she claims to have been raped. The male can be charged with rape even though he was drunk, but the female cannot legally give consent because she was drunk. Well which is it? Is he responsible for his drunken actions? Can he really be held responsible for raping her in an intoxicated state? If your answer is "yes", which mine is, how then can you turn around and say that consent given by a drunk female is invalid? If his actions are taken seriously while he is drunk, shouldn't her's be taken equally as serious?

I see what your saying scott that the law of intoxication appears to contradict itself in rape cases and such. When I hear the word date rape I immediately associate it with someone spiking another's drink and then taking advantage, in these cases the intoxication is involuntary and it is clearly rape in legal terms and wrong in moral terms I hope you would agree? However things do tend to get a lot more complicated where the girl (or boys) drinking is voluntary and the issue of consent is unclear.

In these cases is it really just up to the jury to decide whether they believe the victim truly did not consent or not and there is really no other way round it as often times it is one person's word against another. There was a very interesting program aired on channel 4 (in england) about a mock rape trial I think it was called 'consent'. I suggest you look it up on the internet it may even be on youtube. But basically aside from very accurate forensics whether a person consents or not is a decision a guess even made by a jury and the verdict will be different in every case, some with the conclusion that the victim did consent when really she did not and in fact at Scott, in most cases as the television programme I have mentioned shows that they believe she did consent when she did not.

Basically the reason courts allow intoxication as a defence is that when you get drunk and drive into someone and kill them your probably convicted of constructive manslaughter or in some cases gross negligence manslaughter where as when you get drunk and get raped you don't actually do an act,(where a female doesn't consent) she does not act, regardless of her intoxication, whereas murdering or stealing IS an act and to say a woman was so reckless that she got drunk and got raped she was "asking for it" I think is unfair and the law does too.

What a crock!

So, your whole defense is this; "Since I am a women, I didn't HAVE sex, it was the MAN who HAD sex with me."

hahahaha!! How can you say the women commited no act??@?!!??!!!

She got drunk, she went somewhere with a man, they got naked and had sex. Yet, you sit there and try to tell us she did nothing, committed no act at all.

Feminists are amazing at twisting facts, I stand in awe....

What a crock!
So, your whole defense is this; "Since I am a women, I didn't HAVE sex, it was the MAN who HAD sex with me."
hahahaha!! How can you say the women commited no act??@?!!??!!!
She got drunk, she went somewhere with a man, they got naked and had sex. Yet, you sit there and try to tell us she did nothing, committed no act at all.
Feminists are amazing at twisting facts, I stand in awe....

If you read the quote more carefully rather than immediately having an emotional reaction, you would notice that Thea stated clearly that when a woman gets RAPED, i.e. DOES NOT CONSENT, (even when intoxicated) she did not have sex, but rather a violent act was perpetrated against her.

...when you get drunk and get raped you don't actually do an act, (where a female doesn't consent) she does not act, regardless of her intoxication, whereas murdering or stealing IS an act and to say a woman was so reckless that she got drunk and got raped she was "asking for it" I think is unfair and the law does too.

It is by no means an infrequent experience by young women to be drugged into unconsciousness or even continually fed drinks until passout only to wake up to signs of violation. Sexual predators are plenty. But the truth is even if she consents to drinking until passout, she still did NOT consent to sex -- thus it's rape.

While getting intoxicated and going off alone with a man is a very foolish thing to do, it is not criminal. However, forcing yourself on a woman who says no or is very obviously distressed or checked out altogher IS. Believe it or not, many women are too scared to say no or feel they have no right to say it after encouraging it to that point. But it is still your responsibility as a "gentle man" to go only where you are obviously welcome.

Drunk doesn't mean incapacitated, after all. You seem to be concerned with the situation where the woman (or the woman and man) are intoxicated, have sex, then after the act, the woman claims rape. Correct?

Because drunk or not, if she passes out and THEN is violated, that's still clearly rape.

And drunk or not, if she consents THEN changes her mind (and unconsents) but he still continues, that's still clearly rape.

So we're down to, she's drunk, she consents, she stays conscious and at least somewhat active/aware, and doesn't express that she no longer consents....is that rape? Well, no, I wouldn't think everyone assumes rape in that case. I don't.

But if that common (at least compared to all the other types of rape scenarios?) I'm sure its happened, and then juries and lawyers and judges sort it out. But it seems kind of edge case.

What a crock!
So, your whole defense is this; "Since I am a women, I didn't HAVE sex, it was the MAN who HAD sex with me."
hahahaha!! How can you say the women commited no act??@?!!??!!!
She got drunk, she went somewhere with a man, they got naked and had sex. Yet, you sit there and try to tell us she did nothing, committed no act at all.
Feminists are amazing at twisting facts, I stand in awe....

If you read the quote more carefully rather than immediately having an emotional reaction, you would notice that Thea stated clearly that when a woman gets RAPED, i.e. DOES NOT CONSENT, (even when intoxicated) she did not have sex, but rather a violent act was perpetrated against her.

...when you get drunk and get raped you don't actually do an act, (where a female doesn't consent) she does not act, regardless of her intoxication, whereas murdering or stealing IS an act and to say a woman was so reckless that she got drunk and got raped she was "asking for it" I think is unfair and the law does too.

It is by no means an infrequent experience by young women to be drugged into unconsciousness or even continually fed drinks until passout only to wake up to signs of violation. Sexual predators are plenty. But the truth is even if she consents to drinking until passout, she still did NOT consent to sex -- thus it's rape.

While getting intoxicated and going off alone with a man is a very foolish thing to do, it is not criminal. However, forcing yourself on a woman who says no or is very obviously distressed or checked out altogher IS. Believe it or not, many women are too scared to say no or feel they have no right to say it after encouraging it to that point. But it is still your responsibility as a "gentle man" to go only where you are obviously welcome.

Wow, you believe all the propaganda don't you? Sexual predators are plenty? You must be refering to all the young boys raped by thier female teachers.

So, basically your claiming that a women is not responsible for being drunk. Forcing anyone to do anything is of course wrong, but that's not what were talking about is it.

The claim is, when a women is too drunk, she instantly become not responsible for her actions, and it's completly up to the man to do the right thing, but guess what... the man is drunk too!!!

How come he doesn't get the same consideration?

Let's talk about drunk driving. When a man/women gets drunk and crashes into someone, they get in trouble. For some insane reason, when it comes to sex, all the rules change, and the women suddenly gets a free pass. Two people getting drunk and having sex is not a crime, no matter how you spin it.

I'll tell you why this happens, it's the victim idealogy you cling too. Whenever you want to get out of something, you become the victim, but only when it suits you. Sometimes you claim both at the same time, how is it possible to be a stong, independant victim?

Only in a womens mind can this be possible....

So rape is the only crime that absolves the victim of responsibility? What rock have you been living under? You have it backwards -- rape is the only crime where the victim is given ALL the responsibility. When is the last time someone told a male mugging victim, "Well, you shouldn't have been carrying money in your wallet. What did you think was going to happen? You asked for it!" I worked as a probation officer for 6 years. During that time there was never one rape victim who was not bullied, maligned, slandered, blamed, threatened, and otherwise crucified for daring to bring charges against her rapist. Scumbag lawyers and moronic citizens always blame the victim, and so do male judges. There's some tacit bulletin board somewhere reading "Rules For Women Not Asking For Rape" -- the problem is that no one ever tells us this secret code. No matter what we do some idiot finds fault in it when we're raped. We drank too much. We didn't drink enough. We were out after dark. We were out in the early morning. We flirted. We didn't flirt. We wore a short skirt. We were dressed in baggy sweats but we didn't have a security system worthy of Fort Knox on our apartment. We went on a date. We refused to go on a date. We had sex willingly with a man we trusted and after that it was open season. UGH!

I am sick of men passing judgment on rape victims. Get your heads out of your asses and realize that any time a woman is forced to have sex (even under the threat of force), cannot give her consent because of chemicals (GHB, booze, drugs, etc.), or is otherwise incapable of consenting (age or mental incapacity) IT IS RAPE. Did I clear that up for you?

Thank you, Rae, for an excellent post!! I think you've made it crystal clear, including your portrayal of the reality that women do not have the daily freedoms that men so take for granted...to dress as they wish, walk where and when they wish, drink as they wish, and trust without fear of violence. Thanks again for showing up on these boards!!