3 ms·

Being well-off (supposedly, at least) and having power in certain domains does not mean you can't be raped. The only relevant attribute is consent. If you were

by scarmig 13y ago

Being well-off (supposedly, at least) and having power in certain domains does not mean you can't be raped. The only relevant attribute is consent. If you were making an argument that the prisoner actually had power over the guards through external contacts and implicit threats to their families, that'd be one thing. But you continually mistake masculine bravado and some level of material comfort for ability to consent. It's a category error. Your analogies both fall flat, because there's the key point that the women and men in that situation have the ability to consent. The proper analogy is a kid who's been abducted by a pedophile. No matter how happy the kid is, no matter how kindly the pedophile treats the kid, no matter how many gifts the pedophile gives the kid, no matter how much the kid jockeys with other kids for the pedophile's affection--it's rape. Because consent.

thaumasiotes 13y ago
> The only relevant attribute is consent. The guards here are not asking the prisoners for sex. The prisoners are asking the guards for sex. If I ask you to do something, and you do, I have consented to that thing. If I show a woman a gun, and tell her "sleep with me or I kill you", and she sleeps with me -- that's rape. If I'm her boss, and tell her "sleep with me or you're fired", and she does -- that's not rape. Of those two, the prison guard / prisoner relationship can be reasonably analogized to the gun scenario. But: If I have a gun, and a woman sees it, swoons, and asks to sleep with me -- that's not rape. That's what's actually going on. It's not rape unless I actually use (or threaten to use) my ability to coerce. By focusing so much on the idea that a prison guard could hypothetically have power over inmates, you're worrying about the appearance of impropriety. But while that is present in this case, there is no actual impropriety occurring (toward the prisoners). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appearance_of_impropriety http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appearance_of_impropriety The guard who extorts sex from a prisoner they've taken a fancy to is abusing the prisoner. That's not happening here. The guard who caves to an inmate's seduction and does them favors out of love is not abusing the prisoner. They're abusing the trust society placed in them when they were made a prison guard.
- JulianMorrison 13y ago
  You fail to understand consent. Consent is not saying yes. Consent is meaning yes. It may or may not be measurable. If there are pressures that mean a person has good reasons to say yes when they do not mean yes, then it is not measurable. Consent that can't be measured must be assumed to be absent. Consent does not exist if a person is in a power relationship. The pressure to say yes comes from the fact that a guard, here, is in a position to dispense favour or disfavour.

by scarmig 13y ago

thaumasiotes 13y ago

> The only relevant attribute is consent. The guards here are not asking the prisoners for sex. The prisoners are asking the guards for sex. If I ask you to do something, and you do, I have consented to that thing. If I show a woman a gun, and tell her "sleep with me or I kill you", and she sleeps with me -- that's rape. If I'm her boss, and tell her "sleep with me or you're fired", and she does -- that's not rape. Of those two, the prison guard / prisoner relationship can be reasonably analogized to the gun scenario. But: If I have a gun, and a woman sees it, swoons, and asks to sleep with me -- that's not rape. That's what's actually going on. It's not rape unless I actually use (or threaten to use) my ability to coerce. By focusing so much on the idea that a prison guard could hypothetically have power over inmates, you're worrying about the appearance of impropriety. But while that is present in this case, there is no actual impropriety occurring (toward the prisoners). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appearance_of_impropriety http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appearance_of_impropriety The guard who extorts sex from a prisoner they've taken a fancy to is abusing the prisoner. That's not happening here. The guard who caves to an inmate's seduction and does them favors out of love is not abusing the prisoner. They're abusing the trust society placed in them when they were made a prison guard.

JulianMorrison 13y ago
You fail to understand consent. Consent is not saying yes. Consent is meaning yes. It may or may not be measurable. If there are pressures that mean a person has good reasons to say yes when they do not mean yes, then it is not measurable. Consent that can't be measured must be assumed to be absent. Consent does not exist if a person is in a power relationship. The pressure to say yes comes from the fact that a guard, here, is in a position to dispense favour or disfavour.