3 ms·

Your definition of sexual assault is dangerously lacking in nuance. Most people who have had long term sexual partners have had a time or two where they "didn'

Your definition of sexual assault is dangerously lacking in nuance. Most people who have had long term sexual partners have had a time or two where they "didn't really want to participate" but did anyway without much/any complaining for the sake of their partner. Are all all those instances "basically sexual assault"? Watering down the definition of sexual assault to include instances where nobody felt assaulted in any way does not result in it being taken more seriously.

pluma 7y ago
Spousal rape and sexual abuse were legal in many places for a long time (and still are in some), doesn't make it not rape and sexual abuse, though. "Informed enthusiastic consent" isn't so hard to figure out, is it? If you feel like you're being pressured into something you don't want, that's still non-consensual even if you don't put up a fight.
- zepto 7y ago
  I think most people feel like they are sometimes pressured into work they don’t want to do, but we don’t call that slavery. Frankly maybe we should, but until we do it’s going to be hard to make this a bright line.
- wang_li 7y ago
  Voluntarily doing something you’re not excited about is different than having something done to you you don’t want done. It’s not kidnapping if I agree to go with my wife to visit her sister. It is rape if I agree to sex with a condom but the other party removes it. It’s also rape if I agree to sex with someone and then they engage in sex a second time while I am asleep hours later.
happytoexplain 7y ago
While there are situations like you describe where "didn't really want to participate" represents something immoral and selfish but less insidious than what we think of as rape, there are also plenty of situations where it does represent the weighty event of sexual assault. I think your simplification is less nuanced and much more dangerous than the parent's simplification. I also think "overwhelming majority" is a scary assumption, in terms of what it says about your experiences, unless we are mapping "didn't really want to" very differently onto real examples of emotional state. *Disclaimer: The parent post was edited after I began replying to be worded a bit less absolutely.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >While there are situations like you describe where "didn't really want to participate" represents something immoral and selfish but less insidious than what we think of as rape, there are also plenty of situations where it does represent the weighty event of sexual assault. I'm talking strictly about situations where there is no threat of violence. Obviously there is a spectrum of varying degrees of consent from "perfectly ok" to "definitely rape" and somewhere in there is a range that constitutes sexual assault but to say that the lack of specifically enthusiastic consent defines the floor of the sexual assault range is farcical when there are so many other variables to consider. >Disclaimer: The parent post was edited after I began replying to be worded a bit less absolutely. I changed the order of the three points. >we are mapping "didn't really want to" very differently onto real examples of emotional state. I think a lot of people find "didn't really want to" to be equivalent to "really didn't want to"

pluma 7y ago

Spousal rape and sexual abuse were legal in many places for a long time (and still are in some), doesn't make it not rape and sexual abuse, though. "Informed enthusiastic consent" isn't so hard to figure out, is it? If you feel like you're being pressured into something you don't want, that's still non-consensual even if you don't put up a fight.

zepto 7y ago
I think most people feel like they are sometimes pressured into work they don’t want to do, but we don’t call that slavery. Frankly maybe we should, but until we do it’s going to be hard to make this a bright line.
wang_li 7y ago
Voluntarily doing something you’re not excited about is different than having something done to you you don’t want done. It’s not kidnapping if I agree to go with my wife to visit her sister. It is rape if I agree to sex with a condom but the other party removes it. It’s also rape if I agree to sex with someone and then they engage in sex a second time while I am asleep hours later.

happytoexplain 7y ago

While there are situations like you describe where "didn't really want to participate" represents something immoral and selfish but less insidious than what we think of as rape, there are also plenty of situations where it does represent the weighty event of sexual assault. I think your simplification is less nuanced and much more dangerous than the parent's simplification. I also think "overwhelming majority" is a scary assumption, in terms of what it says about your experiences, unless we are mapping "didn't really want to" very differently onto real examples of emotional state. *Disclaimer: The parent post was edited after I began replying to be worded a bit less absolutely.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>While there are situations like you describe where "didn't really want to participate" represents something immoral and selfish but less insidious than what we think of as rape, there are also plenty of situations where it does represent the weighty event of sexual assault. I'm talking strictly about situations where there is no threat of violence. Obviously there is a spectrum of varying degrees of consent from "perfectly ok" to "definitely rape" and somewhere in there is a range that constitutes sexual assault but to say that the lack of specifically enthusiastic consent defines the floor of the sexual assault range is farcical when there are so many other variables to consider. >Disclaimer: The parent post was edited after I began replying to be worded a bit less absolutely. I changed the order of the three points. >we are mapping "didn't really want to" very differently onto real examples of emotional state. I think a lot of people find "didn't really want to" to be equivalent to "really didn't want to"