We are the 95%.

TRIGGER WARNING FOR RAPE on all that follows, including all links.

[I wasn't going to write this post today. Believe it or not, I really don't like writing about rape so much. I want to write more about good happy kinky sex. But then all that stuff with the Good Men Project kinda blew up in my face, and this is the post you got.]



There's one big lie that rapists tell.  Most of the other lies are just part of it.  "Consent is complicated and confusing and there are a lot of gray areas."  "She dressed/acted/talked like she wanted it."  "She never said no; how was I supposed to know?"  "She just regrets having sex."  "We were both drunk and the alcohol muddied things."  "He sure seemed like he was enjoying it."  "I guess I just got caught up in the heat of the moment."  "People do this all the time and only paranoid feminists call it rape."

The one big lie at the center of all these little lies is: "If you were in my place, you could have done the same."

I mean, who among us has not been confused in the process of sexual communication?  Who has not thought someone was interested in them and then found out they read the signals wrong?  Who has not had a partner enjoy sex less than they'd hoped?  Who has not felt "swept away" at some point during sex?  Who has not done something stupid while drunk?  Who has not felt that the things their ex said after the breakup were awfully unfair? The rape-apologist narrative taps into some nearly universal experiences.

And then, in that one big lie, pretends that these everyday insecurities and disappointments could lead anyone to rape.  "It could have happened to anyone," say the rapists.  Especially to men.  And to themselves.

Here's the truth, though, from some pretty major studies:
Between 6% and 13% of men have attempted or completed rape.  4-8% of men are serial offenders, and responsible for the vast majority (90-95%) of all rapes.

I realize these numbers are still uncomfortably high, especially if you have twenty male friends.  But they also mean that 94-87% of men are not rapists.  Add in women (who do rape, but at a lower rate), put in some fuzzy math and broad guesses to get a good-enough ballpark, and roughly 95% of people never attempt or commit rape.

So when you hear all the totally plausible ways it could have been you, realize: nope, probably couldn't have been.  Most people don't struggle not to commit rape.  Most people don't have trouble understanding sexual refusal.  The vast majority of people go through drunken blunders and miscommunication and bad breakups without committing or being accused of rape, just as the vast majority of people don't have trouble restraining themselves from torture or murder.

And forget the numbers for a second.  If you, personally, make a commitment to never have sex without unambiguous consent, your odds of being a not-rapist are 100%.  It can't "happen to you" if you decide not to do it.



This is part of why I talk about consent so much.  It's not just to keep well-intentioned guys from accidentally raping.  Most well-intentioned guys don't really have that problem.  It's to help well-intentioned guys (and girls, and everyone else) see how vast the gulf is between them and rapists.

If affirmative, negotiated, freely given consent is the norm, then rapists lose the ability to say "I just didn't know."  They can no longer make anyone think "but regular sex looks practically the same."  If romance doesn't work a damn thing like rape, rapists can't hide behind "I was trying to be romantic."

Clear consent does make sex better, and it does prevent legitimate-yet-horrific misunderstandings. But that's not all of what it's for.  It's also so that rapists can't say--to us or to themselves--"I thought we were just having sex."



Only 5% of people commit it, but everyone lives with the effects of rape.  Because of this small minority of predators, everyone has to live in a world where they will have a sibling, spouse, child, parent, friend who's a survivor of sexual assault.  Everyone has to live in a world where women are told to live in fear of rape.  Everyone has to know a family, social group, school, political party that's been torn apart by bitter hostility between survivors and their supporters and predators and their defenders.

Because a lot more than 5% of people have been suckered in by the rapists' big lie.  A lot more than 5% of people talking about any case of rape in the media or their social circle start saying "sounds like a grey area to me," and "she really did send some mixed signals" and "do we have to be so hard on the guy?"  A lot more than 5% of people treat rapists with sympathy and survivors with skepticism, because they're thinking "shit, in a situation that confusing, it could have been any guy; it could have been me."

But 95% of the time, it couldn't have been.

We are the non-rapists, the people who will never commit rape and who suffer from the actions of those who do.  Imagine what we could get done if we presented a united front, and the rapists had no one but other rapists to defend and enable them.  We are the 95%.  Let's fuckin' act like it.

The Myth of the Boner Werewolf.

OpenCage photo library

I was having sex with Rowdy.  I was on my knees, and he was behind me, thrusting, slapping my ass, biting my back.  We were far into our headspace and our rhythm, powerfully slamming into each other.  And I just got overloaded.  I was bruised and couldn't take any more pain, thoroughly pounded and couldn't take any more pounding.

"Red," I squeaked out.

He stopped instantly.  He let go with his teeth, pulled out, and lay down next to me.  He still had an erection, of course.  I'm sure he still had the urge to keep fucking.  But he put his arms around me and asked if I was okay, and I was, and we cuddled and went to sleep.

There's a pernicious myth out there that the male sex drive is unstoppable and irresistible--that once a man is aroused, he literally cannot control his actions.  We tell jokes about "thinking with the other head" and "all the blood went out of his brain" that aren't entirely jokes.  We have a cultural narrative in which sexual arousal makes a man into a goddamn werewolf.

And we expect women to tiptoe around this uncontrollable male sexuality.  We tell them to watch how they dress, lest they wake the beast.  We tell them "some guys can't control themselves"--not won't, but can't.  We tell them to be careful what they start, because they'll be expected to finish it.  Hell, way too often we outright tell them that they have no right to withdraw consent once sex has started.

My response to myths like this, more and more, is "shit, if I believed that, I'd never have sex with a man again."  I wonder if the story would change if more guys realized that saying "if a woman gets me turned on, she'd better be ready to go all the way" is the same as saying "getting me turned on is dangerous, better not take the risk."

Then again, I wonder why more men aren't just insulted by the whole concept.  If someone started telling stories about how my gender was controlled by our genitalia and sexual arousal turns us into rapist automatons, I would be outraged.  I would explain in very small, very loud words that I am a person and I can goddamn control myself.  I wish more men would speak up to say "actually, even when I can't turn my erection off, I can sure as hell use the rest of my body to put it somewhere it won't bother anyone."

I wish our culture prized self-control as much as it does virility, and even more, I wish our culture didn't act like they were opposites.  Even I can't 100% shake the worry that the story at the top makes Rowdy sound desexualized or submissive, (or super nice and extra feminist, rather than "bare minimum of human decency") even though all it describes is him not raping me.

Men aren't rollercoasters. They aren't werewolves.  They aren't walking penises.  They're people.  They make decisions.  Let's stop talking about "he couldn't stop himself" and start talking about "he decided not to stop."  Men deserve that dignity, and the responsibility that comes with it. 



[I've just started clinical rotations at school!  Which is exciting, but means that I need to get my shit together, writing-wise, because WOW did all my free time just evaporate.  And my updates were already slipping.  I'm thinking of making the Pervocracy officially a weekly blog, and committing to regular Tuesday-night updates, rather than stringing everyone along with the "I'll post when I have a post, dammit" irregularity.  How does everyone feel about this?]

The missing stair.

Flickr user BadSwan

Have you ever been in a house that had something just egregiously wrong with it?  Something massively unsafe and uncomfortable and against code, but everyone in the house had been there a long time and was used to it?  "Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you, there's a missing step on the unlit staircase with no railings.  But it's okay because we all just remember to jump over it."

Some people are like that missing stair.

When I posted about a rapist in a community I belonged to, although I gave almost no details about the guy except "he's a rapist," I immediately got several emails from other members of that community saying "oh, you must mean X."  Everyone knew who he was!  Tons of people, including several in the leadership, instantly knew who I meant.  The reaction wasn't "there's a rapist among us!?!" but "oh hey, I bet you're talking about our local rapist."  Several of them expressed regret that I hadn't been warned about him beforehand, because they tried to discreetly tell new people about this guy.  Others talked about how they tried to make sure there was someone keeping an eye on him at parties, because he was fine so long as someone remembered to assign him a Rape Babysitter.

People had gotten so used to working around this guy, to accommodating his "special requirements," that they didn't feel like there was an urgent problem in their community.  They did eventually expel him, but it was after months of it being widely shared knowledge that he was a rapist and had done other unethical sexual things as well.

I think there were some people in the community who were intentionally protecting him, but there were more who were de facto protecting him by treating him like a missing stair.  Like something you're so used to working around, you never stop to ask "what if we actually fixed this?"  Eventually you take it for granted that working around this guy is just a fact of life, and if he hurts someone, that's the fault of whoever didn't apply the workarounds correctly.

"Fixing" doesn't always mean throwing someone out. (Although in the case of sex groups I think people are way too timid about that.  Being invited to sex parties should be a positive show of confidence in your character, not some sort of default human right.)  Sometimes a person can be "fixed" by talking with them bluntly about their behavior, giving them specific rules to follow, or putting them on notice that they have one strike left.  You don't always have to get rid of "missing stair" people, but you do have to work with the person, not around them.



This isn't just about sex.  Just about every workplace has that one person who doesn't do their job, but everyone's grown accustomed to picking up their slack.  A lot of social groups and families have that one person.  The person whose tip you quietly add a couple bucks to.  (Maybe more than a couple, after how they talked to the server.)  The person you don't bother arguing with when they get off on one of their rants.  The person you try really, really hard not to make angry, because they're perfectly nice so long as no one makes them angry.

I know not all these people can be fixed, and sometimes they can't be escaped either.  But the least you can do is recognize them, and that they are the problem.  Stop thinking that your inability to accomodate them is the problem.



This isn't just about individuals, either.  Everyone who says "I don't want to be a victim-blamer, but girls should know frat parties aren't safe places" is treating rape culture like a missing stair.  Everyone who says "it's an ugly fact, but only women who don't make trouble make it in this business" is treating sexual harassment like a missing stair.  Everyone who says "I don't like it either, but that's the way things are," and makes no move to question the way things are, is jumping over a missing stair somewhere.

Fixing staircases is a long and difficult and uncertain process.  But let's at least stop blaming each other for not jumping well enough.

Why I didn't just call the cops.

[MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING for the nitty-gritty of sexual assault and aftermath. This is not a happy post and it's not one I really wanted to write.  But it's one that a lot of people seem to need to read.]


There's been a lot of talk lately in my local BDSM scene about how to make the scene a safer place.  Which is an awesome thing, but it's depressing to see the pushback it's been getting.  (If I felt safe before, I wouldn't now, not knowing how many people around me like to play the "but if you don't do XYZ then you're to blame if you get raped!" game.)  And one part of that pushback is "hey, public safety isn't our job; if someone has a problem they should go to the police."

This isn't limited to the BDSM scene.  I've heard this elsewhere in discussions of sexual abuse.  Formally report or you have no right to complain.  Formally report or you're to blame for their next victim.  Formally report or it probably didn't even happen.

Like it's that easy.

So I'm going to explain in agonizing detail how I was assaulted by a guy in a BDSM scene, and why I didn't go to the cops.  And I hope this makes a difference to all the people who think "if someone assaults you call the cops" is the be-all-end-all of stopping sexual assault.



The guy was Benny, we'd been sleeping and playing together for a couple years, and he had been throwing up the flaggiest of red flags for a long time.  He'd already done things to me without my permission.  That's putting it lightly.  I mean that I'd said no (last paragraph) and he'd gone ahead and stuck his dick in me.  Which is... I guess it's rape right there?  But I didn't even register that.  At the time it just seemed like... a thing that happened.  I told him "no," he penetrated me anyway, I was like "whoa whoa whoa hey," more annoyed than scared, and in a second he stopped.  It seemed more like an awkward, uncomfortable misunderstanding.  Like someone giving you a noogie even though you're going "hey no."

Which is why I don't believe in giving people noogies if they don't want it, by the way. Sets a bad precedent.

REASON 1: Sometimes assault doesn't "feel like assault." A million movies and news reports had conditioned me to the idea that assault is big and loud and dramatic, that there's always blood and bruises and screaming.  The idea that something quiet and weird and awkward could be literally rape didn't occur to me.  And maybe you can argue that a guy shouldn't go to jail for something that didn't traumatize me, but that's only from my point of view.  From his point of view he had a woman saying "no" and he stuck his dick in her anyway. 

To say that's not rape because I didn't start screaming is like saying it's not theft if you snatch someone's purse and they say "oh well, these things happen, I suppose I can live without that purse."

What did bother me was the time he convinced me to let him come on my face, telling me it would be totally sexy and awesome and badass of me, and then as soon as he'd come he burst out in laughter at how ridiculous I looked with come all over my face like some stupid whore.

What did bother me was the time he fingered me, I had a blindfold on, and I didn't realize I was starting my period.  He stuffed my blood in my mouth and smeared it on my face without telling me what it was, then took the blindfold off, told me to look in the mirror, and cackled with glee at my predicament.

What did bother me was the increasing frequency with which he played the hold-down game.  The way this game worked was that we'd be lying in bed together and he'd roll over on top of me and not let me move.  He wouldn't do anything to me, just use his size (he had a full foot and 100 pounds on me) to hold me down until he decided to let me up.  Which could be a while.  I'd beg him, I'd try to hit him, I'd "no, seriously, it's not funny, seriously let me go" him, I'd even try reverse psychology and just go limp, and he'd just laugh and keep holding me down until he felt like giving my body back.

REASON 2: I blamed myself and expected to be blamed. So this isn't one of those cases where a nice guy turned into a monster out of the blue.  This is a case where I had a million red flags and I ignored or excused or "that's just his way"ed them.  Was this stupid of me?  HELL YES!  Is sexual assault a fair punishment for being stupid?  FUCK NO.  But because there had been those warning signs, I felt like I had it coming, felt like anyone I told would ask "why did you keep seeing him?" and I would have no answer, and felt like I had no right to report a crime that I had "contributed" to by not avoiding. 

I'd heard (and continue to hear, and future victims are hearing it right now) the same things said about a million rape victims before me.

And then eventually he crossed a line I couldn't forgive or ignore.  I was at his house, late at night, with only one purpose, the only reason I kept seeing him: filthy kinky sex.

REASON 3: Slut! There's a lot of shame in being a woman who goes to men's houses late at night with only one purpose.  Even without the red flags, that alone is enough to get a lot of people saying "well, what did she expect?" 

REASON 4: I said "yes." I did agree to have sex with Benny that night. And there's a huge number of people (some of them cops or jurors) who think that consent to sex is consent to anything, and you don't get to say no once you've said yes.  Or if you do it's only rape by some finicky feminist definition, only "gray rape," not in the same category as "rape-rape."

So he tied me up, spread-eagle to the four corners of the bed, saying he was going to finger me and get me off while I was tied.

REASON 5: Kinky shit.  So how do you explain this to a cop: "Yeah, I said he could tie me up naked, but not tie me up naked and hurt me!"  We're in a cultural atmosphere where most people think going to a guy's room is consent to anything he might do to you; what were my odds of explaining that letting him tie me up was not blanket consent? 

REASON 6: Kinky "crazy" shit. One of the more common stereotypes about women who do kink (especially who bottom in kink)--one I've had people say to my face when they didn't know I was kinky--is that we're "crazy."  Unpredictable, irrational, damaged goods, you know, "crazy."  And it's a widely accepted fact in the misogynist community that a "crazy" woman will make an accusation of rape for no good reason, just because she's so "crazy."  That's not shit I wanted to face.

REASON 7: The kinky shit community. The kink community talks big about consent, but they also talk big about not having "drama".  Calling the cops is the ultimate drama, and if I went back to the kink community after that, I'd very likely get the reputation of "holy shit, she didn't like a scene so she called the cops on her top!" 

That's kink-specific, this isn't: the kink community contains most of my friends and it's a major source of emotional support in my life.  Having a considerable proportion of my friends turn against me when I needed friends the most--that would not be an easy thing to get through.

REASON 8: Kinky shit exposure. If I pressed charges, inevitably everyone in my life would find out about it and the circumstances.  Which would be... not good.  Not good for my relationship with my family. Not good for my job.  Not good with my roommates.  Not good for a large chunk of my future.

Things weren't going well from the start.  I wasn't really into the sex and it was obvious; usually I get off easy and this time I was just tense and uncomfortable and kinda muttering "okay, this isn't working, maybe I should just... I mean maybe we could... can we take a break? Maybe?"

REASON 9: Mixed signals. "Did you actually say 'no' to him when you started feeling pain, Ms. Pervocracy?" "Er... I said maybe could we maybe take a break."

He did not take a break.  He tried to shove his entire fist into me.  I've been fisted and liked it, but this was dry and sudden and forceful.  It was his resentment for me not being a good fuck, for me not moaning and writhing and telling him how amazing he was, balled into a fist and shoved into my vagina.  It hurt.  Fuck it hurt.

I said "red" and he didn't stop.  I said "red, safeword, stop, ow" and he didn't stop.  Like when he was holding me down, this was going to end on his time.  He kept going and I kept saying "no, really, fucking red, fucking stop." I wasn't screaming or yelling--I was feeling weirdly calm, practical, a sense of "do what you need to do now, panic later"--but I was definitely not unclear.  Eventually he did stop.  I looked down to see if there was blood on his hands but I think there wasn't.

He stepped away, but left me tied up.  He went to the bathroom and started washing his hands.  I asked him to untie me.  He laughed and said "if you're tied up, you're at my mercy."

That's when I screamed.  I screamed "YOU FUCKING UNTIE ME RIGHT NOW WHAT ARE YOU DOING FUCK LET ME FUCKING GO FUUUUUCK" or words to that effect.  And then I screamed "I'M GOING TO SCREAM UNTIL THE NEIGHBORS HEAR" and he untied me.

And then... I didn't dash out of the house crying.  I didn't attack him.  I didn't grab my phone and call 911.  I got dressed and I talked to him.  Not even "what the fuck just happened?" talked to him.  I just said "hey, this sex thing isn't working out, you know."

He said "yeah, I know.  But we had a good run there. We'll stay friends."

And then I left.  Still not crying, still not acting "traumatized" whatever that looks like, still not calling the cops.

REASON 10: Aftermath. I think I had a brief chance there to be a Proper Rape Victim and I totally blew it.  If I'd gone right to the cops, right to the hospital, maybe I would have stood a chance of being taken seriously?  But I didn't.  I didn't even think of it as sexual assault at the time.  I wrote a blog post right afterwards in which it's clear that I'm angry and shaken up but in which I don't call it sexual assault. 

Going back after a space of time, and saying "no, wait, I realized it really was assault" fits the misogynist idea of the woman who "changes her mind" or "has regrets" just a little too perfectly. 

REASON 11: Doubt.  Was this bad enough to put someone in jail over?  I mean, jail, that's a really big deal.  That's gonna make him lose his job--and he had a good job!--and really ruin his life.  From when I started saying "no" to when he untied me was, I don't know, five minutes tops.  Can I justify ruining someone's entire life over something that only lasted five minutes?  To be honest, even now I can't give an unconflicted "yes" to that question.

REASON 12: Retribution.  Benny had a lot of friends.  I didn't know them well.  I'm sure most of them thought of Benny as the kind of guy who would never hurt anyone.  I'm sure they would take his side if some random girl made some random accusation against him.  What I'm not sure of is how far "taking his side" would go. Maybe they'd just quietly hate me.  Or maybe they'd come to my house at night.  I don't know.

So I went home. I wrote my little blog post. I went to sleep.  Went to work in the morning.  Sat a little funny the next couple days. Got angry or sad a few times. Life went on.

REASON 13: It's over.  I never saw Benny again.  As far as I was concerned, that chapter in my life was closed.  Reporting would mean reopening it, rubbing my nose back in the absolute worst parts of it for weeks or months.  It would mean extending the ordeal from "got assaulted" to "got assaulted, got interrogated about it, got a pelvic exam, got interrogated again, went to court, got interrogated again," and what would I have at the end?  At best, the very mixed (see Reason 11) satisfaction of punishing Benny.  Quite likely, nothing at all.  For that kind of risk-reward, I might as well just let it go. 

Some of the stuff I've listed above may sound kinda trivial, or kinda theoretical, kinda like I'm worrying too much what people will think.  But it's stuff that if I reported, I'd have to face all at once, all the time, for a long-ass time until my life was normal again.  If I didn't report, my life would be normal again right away.

Finally, I just want to say: These are reasons, not justifications. You might see some of these and think "but that's not right, actually that thing you're worried about wouldn't have happened" or "but this doesn't add up, you still should have reported!"  And fuck, you may be right.  But these are the things that went through my head during and after my sexual assault.  These are not reasons I shouldn't have reported the assault.  These are reasons I didn't.

Is there one big fix for all of this, one way to make sexual assault super easy and simple to report?  I dunno.  I doubt it.  Or if there is it's a big, massive, culture-changing fix.  I don't have time to get into it in this post.  I just wanted to answer the question "Why don't sexual assault victims just go to the cops?"

So yeah, there are a few reasons.

Rescripting sex.

Life has scripts.  Little socially-agreed plays that we enact rather than trying to figure out all our interactions from scratch every time.  Many of them are very simple.  There's the script you follow when you're checking out at a store ("have a nice day"), the script for talking to someone who's sad ("I'm so sorry"), and of course the script for talking to a dog ("WHOOZAGOODBOY").

And there's scripts for sex.  Unfortunately, the most common script out there sucks.

Script: Consent Roulette 

Active partner (generally male) and receptive partner (generally female) are alone together.  They're chatting, drinking, or watching a movie.  Active partner detects (or wishful-thinks) the whiff of romance/lust in the air.  Active partner gradually increases his physical closeness to receptive partner and makes some sexual innuendos.  Eventually A goes ahead and kisses R.  If she doesn't object, A leads R to a bed or sofa and lies her down.  A kisses R more and gropes her.  If she doesn't object, A then puts on a condom and R is expected to spread her legs and stuff.  Intercourse happens.

The above script is, let me be clear, not rape.  That's not what I'm saying.  What I'm saying is that it's crappy.  It doesn't give people the chance to have any sex besides kissing->groping->intercourse, it doesn't have any emotional component except A's uncertainty how far R will go, and it's just not all that fun.  Even if A is female and R is male, all that does is ease the man's anxiety a bit; it doesn't fundamentally change the story.

And it's "roulette" because it makes consent all about luck.  If you have this kind of sex with a woman and it turns out she wanted it, then yay--by sheer luck, you're not a rapist!  On the other hand, if she doesn't want it, now she has to play roulette--if she says "stop," will he stop, or will he start holding her down?

This isn't just a first-time-sex script, either.  I've had relationships where every time was kinda like this.  It gets abbreviated and informalized a little with familiarity, but it's the same basic scene: guy senses "the mood" is right and guy starts doing his thing unless girl says "stop."  After a while, even if it's totally consensual, it's just boring.



A big problem with getting people to break that script is that they think you're trying to get them to do this one.

Hypothetical Script: Robot Lawyers Consenting To One (1) Act Of Intercourse 

Active partner and receptive partner are alone together.  They're chatting, drinking, or watching a movie.  Active partner detects (or wishful-thinks) the whiff of romance/lust in the air.  A breaks into the conversation and asks R, "may I kiss you?" If she says yes, they kiss, although he is careful not to place his hands anywhere not specifically pre-approved.  A breaks off the kiss, ceases all physical contact, stares politely into the middle distance, and asks R, "may I touch your left breast? may I touch your right breast also?" If she says yes, he touches her breasts.  After some silent, tentative, arms-length touching he breaks off again and composes himself before asking, "would you like to have sex?"  If R responds positively, he clarifies: "with me?"

No question, that shit is dull and awkward and probably would work excellently as Vagina Repellent in an emergency vagina-attack situation.  (I'm overstating my case.  I've totally had sex with guys like that. But I'm kinda charmed by awkwardness.)

But the problem with it is not that it's too sex-positive.  The problem is that it's not sex-positive enough. It's still one-sided, it still treats sex like a linear progression from first base to home run, and it still doesn't give R much of a chance to say anything beyond "yes" or "no."  It may include explicit consent, but it's not a negotiation.

The other problem is that it's kind of a strawman, since explicit consent doesn't magically vaporize all your social skills.  People seem to imagine that talking about sex means talking in the dorkiest possible way, and I honestly don't know why.  Personally, I've never seen the romance in no-talking sex.  I know it's supposed to be all "swept off your feet by the heat of the moment" and shit, but in practice it always seems more clumsy and oafish, like trying to convey the concept of "Deleuze's Plane of Immanence" in Pictionary.  With your feet.  There's shit you can't just convey, you know?  Even in long-standing relationships, it's pretty goddamn hard to say "I want to gently pull your hair while we fuck and whisper sweet dirty things in your ear" with raised eyebrows and meaningful looks.

And then you end up taking a chance and just grabbing their hair when it seems like a look has been meaningful enough, and then they stop everything and go "what the hell are you doing?", and boy, you think you've seen awkward.  Even the most stilted negotiation has nothing on the awkwardness of that crushing moment when you're forced to admit you don't have Sexy ESP after all.



So the structure of this post requires me to write a good script at this point. But I'm having trouble coming up with just one, because the essence of the good script is that you're dealing with each other as humans, that you're enacting your sexuality and not some stock scene.  So I can't write you the good script.  But I'll write one possible one.

Script: Communicative Sex That Doesn't Suck 

Partners A and B are alone together.  A detects (or wishful-thinks) the whiff of romance/lust in the air.  A says to B, "You are so goddamn cute, you know that? I'd really like to make out with you."  B answers by leaning in and passionately kissing him.
B puts a finger on A's top button and asks "may I?" with a wicked grin and a raised eyebrow.  He nods and she opens his shirt, touching and kissing down his chest.  "Shall we take this to the bedroom?" she asks, looking up at him, her lips brushing his skin just above the line of his jeans.  A responds by taking her hand and leading her there.  B sits on the bed and starts undoing her clothes.  She pulls A into the bed with her.
"Do you want to have sex?" A asks.
"Oh hell yes," B says, and starts kissing A again.  She brings her hand down to the level of his zipper but hesitates, making eye contact before going further.
"Hang on," A says, "just so you know, I really don't like having my balls touched."
"Okay," B says, "but can I play with your cock?"
"Please," A replies, and she slips her hand into his pants, his answer turning to a groan as she wraps her hand around his cock and begins to stroke.

And you know, so forth.  I'm not trying to make this particular scenario a prescriptive thing.  People communicate in different ways.  What really matters is that you know rather than hope that whatever your communication style is, it's in sync--that the other person is intentionally sending all the signals that you're receiving, and vice versa.  It's also nice to get in a little more specificity, both physically and emotionally, than "sex or not sex."  Also, when you're used to this degree of extremely engaged back-and-forth, it's really obvious when something's wrong or the other person isn't really into it.

For me, this is sexy.  What I remember, what turns me on, isn't just the fact that I did stuff to someone, but that I know they wanted it.  The physical action of stroking a dick is boring, it's just rubbing my hand on some skin, whatever, I can take it or leave it.  What's exciting is stroking a dick that wants to be stroked.  It's so hot to know that for certain.  It's not the dick that makes my night; it's the "please."

This is the kind of sexual script we need.  Not necessarily one that's based in talking a lot (although that's what works for me, and you do have to talk some), but one that's based in desire and shared humanity.  One that's based not in "can I do sex to you?" but in "let's do sex together."

Consent culture.

Today I'm going to fulfill a promise I made quite a while ago, and talk about what a consent culture would look like.

A consent culture is one in which the prevailing narrative of sex--in fact, of human interaction--is centered around mutual consent.  It is a culture with an abhorrence of forcing anyone into anything, a respect for the absolute necessity of bodily autonomy, a culture that believes that a person is always the best judge of their own wants and needs.

I don't want to limit it to sex.  A consent culture is one in which mutual consent is part of social life as well.  Don't want to talk to someone? You don't have to.  Don't want a hug? That's okay, no hug then.  Don't want to try the fish? That's fine.  (As someone with weird food aversions, I have a special hatred for "just taste a little!")  Don't want to be tickled or noogied? Then it's not funny to chase you down and do it anyway.

The good news is, there are things you can do to bring this about.  Things beyond just "don't rape people" (although that's an excellent start).



Ways You Can Work Toward The Creation Of a Consent Culture
1. Don't rape people. It does bear saying.  And I don't just mean "don't put on a ski mask and jump on strangers in dark alleys" rape, either.  Don't have sex with someone who is not unambiguously, enthusiastically, and continually consenting.  Don't have sex with someone who says "I guess so" or "okay, fine" (unless they are grinning lasciviously as they say this).  Don't convince someone to have sex.  If they don't want you, really want you from the bottom of their heart and/or groin, respect that.

2. When someone doesn't want to have sex with you and so you don't, talk about it.  Share that you're bummed but also that you take pride in your ability to take it gracefully.

When you didn't want to have sex with someone and so they stopped, talk about it.  Share that despite the awkwardness you're glad they took it gracefully.

These are tough things to discuss (in part because they sound kind of Captain Obvious, like, no shit it was nice of you not to rape someone), but they're important narratives to put out there. Others' stories shape our ideas about sex, and hearing stories that fall outside the "have sex or you're a failure" mindset are important in changing those ideas.

3. When someone tells you about pressuring or tricking someone into sex (and you're in a situation where it's safe to do so), call them the hell out on it.  "That's not cool.  It doesn't sound like he/she wanted it."  You don't have to use the R word, you don't have to tell them they should be arrested, you don't have to call them a rapist piece of shit--you just have to make it clear they're not getting any goddamn high fives.  When you hear someone bragging about sex like it was a prank they pulled on their partner, bring the mood in the room the hell down.

You can do this with fictional stories, too.  You don't even have to be no-fun then.  "Wow, you guys, 'Baby It's Cold Outside' is totally a date rape song."  Without requiring a rant or a buzzkill, it just quietly plants the idea that no, that is not a "totally legit way to get sex" song.

4. When you see something that looks abusive or nonconsensual going on, don't turn your back.  At least be a witness--just the presence of another person can be someone's biggest guarantee of safety.  Stepping in and checking if everything's okay is even better.

5. Ask before touching people.  Say "do you want a hug?" and if they say no then don't hug them--and also don't give them any shit about not being friendly or affectionate.  Don't make a big deal out of it, just make it part of your touching-people procedure.  If they say "you don't need to ask!" nod and smile and keep on asking.

6. Negotiate sex!  Explicitly negotiate sex play, and BDSM play if you do that.  Be eminently clear about the fact that play is not a package deal for you, and your partner is free to change their mind about any part of it at any time--as are you.  Err on the side of blunt, and say corny shit like "can I kiss you now?" and "I'd like to touch your chest."

Once in a blue moon (really not as often as some people would have you think), you may run into a partner who refuses to negotiate, or who says "I would have done it before you killed the mood by asking."  Do not have sex or play with this person.  Their loss.  This is you putting the principle of "consent matters" above the principle of "have sex at all costs!", and you can brag about it when you're busy changing narratives.

7. Re-negotiate sex!  While I don't think every step of "can I kiss you now?" is necessary in a long-term relationship (although Rowdy and I really do ask every time about intercourse), it's important to keep talking about what you want and don't want.  You're not strangers anymore, no, but you're also not merged into the same person.  Keep active consent alive in your relationships.

8. Learn to love consent.  I worry that I've made getting consent sound like a chore.  It's anything but. Asking for consent is a moment of delicious tension, of emotional connection.

A "yes" brings the joy of knowing someone is really hot for you, really wants you.  It means that they're going to not just go along with but be into the stuff that comes next.  That's not "prerequisite checked off," that's "awesome, this is going to be so much better now."

A "yes, conditionally" helps you be a better lover to them, someone who can give them just what they want and nothing they don't want.

9. Learn to appreciate "no." A "no, not at all" is bittersweet--or okay, sometimes it's fucking crushing--but it brings some finality and certainty with it.  If you're not going to have sex anyway (and you're not, unless you were going to rape this person), at least you get to banish the "maybe I could have, why didn't I try" thoughts.

Remember that ultimately asking for consent is not asking someone to make a decision whether they want sex with you or not.  That decision's going to get made, one way or another.  Asking for consent is simply asking to know about that decision.

10. Talk about consent.  Make consent part of the stories you tell about sex.  Just a natural part of the process, something that ought to be taken for granted will be part of a sex story.

"So last night I asked Sandra if she wanted to hook up and she totally said yes."
"Ohmygod, Jane asked me to have sex with her, and it was awwwwesome."
"I heard that Rob and Josie--I'll totally kill you if you tell anyone--totally agreed to have sex at Jesse's party!"
"Kirk laid Spock tenderly across the science console and whispered hoarsely in the Vulcan's pointed ear, 'Do you want this? Do you want me inside you?'"

11. Bring consent out of the bedroom. I think part of the reason we have trouble drawing the line "it's not okay to force someone into sexual activity" is that in many ways, forcing people to do things is part of our culture in general.  Cut that shit out of your life.  If someone doesn't want to go to a party, try a new food, get up and dance, make small talk at the lunchtable--that's their right.  Stop the "aww c'mon" and "just this once" and the games where you playfully force someone to play along.  Accept that no means no--all the time.

Beyond what's necessary for their health and education (and even that touches iffy territory), I don't believe in doing this to kids, either.  The size and social-authority advantages an adult has over kids shouldn't be used to force them to play games or accept hugs or go down the big slide.  That sets a bad, scary precedent about the sort of thing it's okay to use your advantages over someone for.

It's good to practice drawing your own boundaries outside of the bedroom, too.  It can be shockingly empowering to say something as small as "no, I don't want to sit with you."  "No, you can't have my phone number."  "I love hugs, but please ask me first."  It's good practice for the big stuff.  Simply learning to put your mind in the frame of "this person does not want me to say no to them, and they will resist me doing it, but I'm doing it anyway" is a big, important deal.



Consent culture is a tough thing to build. I think it's got a foothold in BDSM--we at least talk big about consent--but it's far from established here.  It's barely starting to get tiny little footholds in the mainstream culture.  But it grows in little microcultures, tiny bubbles of sex-positivity and circles of friends where consent is the norm, and it has potential to grow so much more.  Give it a hand.  Make it part of your own life, and it becomes just a little bit bigger part of the world.  Start living consent culture.

Beyond not rape.

Everyone (well, everyone cool) agrees that consent is the most important thing in sexual activities.  It's the difference between harassment and flirting, groping and foreplay, BDSM and abuse, between sex and rape.

But is that all it's about?  Not violating your partner?  Obviously that's a big deal, but...

Yesterday Rowdy and I had amazing sex.  It was loving and passionate and messy and rough, the kind of sex that scares the neighbors and soaks the mattress, the kind of sex that left me literally high afterwards, falling asleep spooned around Rowdy and whispering "I'm flying" into his ear.

You know what I didn't say to him afterwards?  "Oh baby, that was so not rape."

Having sex that isn't rape is like cooking food that isn't poison.  It's the bare goddamn minimum.  If your list of sex tips consists of nothing but "don't rape" and then goes straight into physical details, you're missing something in the middle.

Few things worry me more than people (okay, men) who say it's difficult to know if someone's consenting or not.  This suggests to me not just that they could be violating someone's consent, but that even if they aren't, they're having terrible sex.  If your idea of sex is limited to "one partner silently gets on and grinds away and the other tolerates it," it can be consensual, but it's probably not much fun.

Sexual communication does have gray areas and fuzzy middle grounds.  It's just that they aren't between rape and not rape--if that isn't a bright glowing line then you have a bright glowing imperative to stop cold until it is.  No, the gray area is between okay sex and great sex, between compromise sex and consensus sex, between "alright, sure" sex and "oh my god yeah let's do this" sex.

The lowest level of communication between Rowdy and me was "do you want to have sex?"  That's the part that made it not rape.  But it wasn't the end of the process.  Things like "I want to fuck you while you're doing yourself with the Hitachi" and "I want you to fist me"--and even smaller things, bits like "squeeze me tight" and "kiss me, kiss me now."  (By the way, I'm just flabbergasted by people who think talking during sex isn't sexy. I mean, you don't talk about the weather, but if these quotes aren't sexy, what is sexy like on your planet?)

So it saddens me when sexual communication is treated as being about consent only.  Consent is step one.  Consent is getting the keys to the car.  But it isn't knowing how to drive it.

And it flat-out horrifies me when sexual consent is treated as fuzzy, because if you don't know for sure if your partner even wants to be doing this, you definitely don't know what they actually like.

Seeking enthusiastic consent is awesome!  By all means, keep it up!  Not raping people is super important!  But it's not nearly enough to build a sex life on.

"No means no."

[Possible trigger warning for sexual assault]


When I had my first sexual encounter, he didn't ask. We were just friends and we were hanging out in his basement watching movies, and then he put his arm around me and I didn't object, and then he put his hand on my breast and I didn't object, and then he started rubbing my vulva and I didn't object.

I'm making that sound worse than it was. I didn't object because I had a total crush on him and it felt great and I was happy and excited this was happening. But I didn't say any of that--I was 15 and extremely socially awkward and had absolutely no idea of how to respond to sexuality, so I was completely silent and frozen. Silent, frozen, and happy, as it turned out. But he had no way of knowing that. All he knew was that I didn't stop him.

Would he have stopped if I said "no"? Almost certainly. But... almost certainly. Some other factors to bear in mind: I was at his house, which was not close to any bus route and was about ten miles from my home. We were alone in the house. He was much bigger, stronger, and older than me. He owned weapons. He was more or less my only friend at that time in my life. And he was not someone who could maturely talk through conflict--I never saw him get violent or threaten violence, but he tended to go to direct to TantrumVille without stopping in CommunicationTowne.

I want to stress again that I just liked having my pussy stroked; none of this was running through my head at the time. But I wish it had been running through his. Because if I had been doing the rape math in my head, if I had been going along with it out of fear or obligation, he wouldn't have known. He didn't rape me--but it would have looked exactly the same to him if he had.

That's the problem with "no means no." There's a lot of reasons someone might not say "no," and being into the sex is only one of them.



Is it "really" rape if you don't know the person isn't consenting? Probably not legally, but in terms of the effect on the person who's being used sexually while they're paralyzed with fear, might as well be. Accidentally shooting someone isn't murder but it leaves them just as dead.

Anyway, this question ought to be irrelevant. Whether fucking someone who doesn't want it but doesn't object is rape or not, it's crappy and it's avoidable. It's not like good sex ever comes out of a situation where one partner is silent and immobile.

There's a little more finesse than just asking--you need to ask in a way that makes it clear "no" is an acceptable answer, and be sensitive to the difference between "...okay" and "OH YES"--but even without finesse, just asking makes 90% of the difference.



I know why he didn't ask. He didn't ask because he thought I might say "no." But this doesn't mean that he wanted to rape me. What it means is that he was afraid I was in some sort of strange, precarious mental state in which I would have to say "no" if I was asked, even though I really did want it, but once I had said "no" he couldn't do it.

Unfortunately, this mental state does exist--although far less often than people think, really--and I lay the blame for that squarely on slut-shaming culture and the myth of "spontaneous" romance. I lay it on every romantic drama where one character forces a kiss on another but it's okay because it was the kiss of true love and they understand as soon as they get into the kiss. I lay it on every teen sex comedy where the girl who says "let's fuck, baby" is gross-out comic relief and the girl who says "ooh, I shouldn't" is the real sexy one. I lay it on every girl who thought it was coy to say "no" when she meant "yes" and every guy who told the whole school that his date said "yes" too quickly. I even lay some of the blame on Cosmo and all the times it describes sex as something that spontaneously breaks out when the mood is right, like laughter or a bad case of the contagious yawns.

Until "yes" means "yes, sex would be lovely right now" and not "yes, I am an icky slut with no sense of romance," it's going to be hard to live in a world where only yes means yes.

But it's not all down to society. In my personal world, yes means yes fully and right now--Rowdy and I still ask before we fuck and we still take nos gracefully and unenthusiastic yeses with "we can just cuddle and that would be fine," and enjoy the enthusiastic yeses that much for it. I haven't fixed Western culture yet, but I've fixed my bedroom, and that's a start. If enough people can just say that, maybe the culture can change a little after all.

"Why does she stay with that jerk?"

If there's one thing I've learned from working in an emergency room, it's that people are terrible liars. Maybe I only think that because the good liars don't get caught? But a lot of people are just awful at it. They make their "I'm lying now!" faces and they tell stories that defy physics, biology, and logic, then forget their own stories.

And a lie I hear almost every day in the emergency room is "I fell down the stairs. My partner loves me. They would never hurt me."

(In this post, I will be mixing up genders randomly in the examples, to illustrate that members of every gender abuse members of every gender. This is not the post to talk about "who does it more/who does it worse.")

For a long time, I just couldn't understand this. We'd get the victim in a private room locked away from the abuser, and they'd sit there with bruises or wounds or even broken bones, in a safe place surrounded by people who wanted to help them, and they'd tell us, often through tears... "I fell down the stairs." It drove me nuts. It made me furious at the victims. Why did they do this? Did they like pain? Did they want to get murdered? Were they just unbelievably stupid? Why the HOLY LIVING FUCK would someone choose to protect and return to a partner who just broke their arm?

Well, then I worked in the ER a little longer, talked to a lot more abuse victims and survivors, thought back upon my own reasons for not getting out of certain situations, and it turns out there's a lot of reasons. I'm sure this isn't comprehensive, but I'm going to make a long list here--and often many of these reasons are working together. Some of them are deeply wrapped up in the psychology of abuse; some of them are just depressingly sensible. Each of these is based on a real person, or several of them are based on one real person--most of them are based on many real people.




1. "I don't want to die."
Her husband has told her that if she leaves he will kill her, and she believes this. (She may well be right.) The instant he gets a whiff of where she's staying--and he probably will, at some point, from a well-meaning friend or through the legal system or by persistent stalking or random chance--he's going to come there and he's going to do something very, very bad to her. Staying with him may be horrible, but at least she gets to live. She believes that if she leaves, no one and nothing can protect her from his vengeance.

2. "I'll die without her."
He lives in his girlfriend's apartment. He's unemployed, or minimally employed, and has no education or good experience on his resume. He has no friends besides her. He's gotten to the point where he doesn't know how he'll get food without her help, much less navigate all the challenges of life. And if he leaves her, he'll be leaving everything--she'll destroy any of his stuff that he leaves behind, stalk him so he can't stay at the same job, and even kill his pets. If he leaves her, he's certain that he'll end up living on the streets.

3. "He'll die without me."
Her boyfriend lives in her apartment. He's unemployed, or minimally employed. He probably doesn't know how to get food without her help, much less navigate all the challenges of life. He tells her he'd be homeless without her, maybe even kill himself if she left him. She just couldn't stand to be responsible for something like that; even though he's hurt her, it would cut her to the bone to know that she had ruined or killed him.

4."What about the kids?"
Right now, she protects the kids from her husband. He may rage at her, but she shelters them from the worst of it and she makes sure they have the best home she can give them under the circumstances. If she leaves, she doubts she can get sole custody of the kids without visitation, much less get it immediately. And if the kids are alone with him, something very bad will happen. He'll hurt them, or turn them against her, or take them away and she'll never see them again. Maybe all three. Her kids are her life and she can't bear to let something like that happen.

5. "I tried once, and it made things worse."
This isn't the first time. He did call the cops on his husband before, and he ran away that night. The cops didn't find enough evidence, and when he came back to get his stuff, his husband was... tearfully apologetic, actually. Somehow he talked him into staying and not taking his stuff. The punishment came later--once he'd more or less committed to staying around--and it was horrible. But he's afraid that if he tried to leave again, he'd go through the same cycle again.

6. "I reached out once, and was rebuffed."
In a rare moment of courage, he--with shaking hands, summoning all his strength--told someone he thought he could trust what his wife was doing to him. They told him to think about her point of view for once, to not use big drastic words like "abuse," and to take care of his own damn problems without airing his dirty laundry. He just knows that if he reaches out again, it's going to be the same thing. He's lucky she didn't find out about that time and doubts if it's worth taking the risk again.

7. "If I call the cops, I'll be in trouble."
She's a prostitute. On the side, she sells drugs. She owns guns she shouldn't have and lives in a place she shouldn't be. Hell, she shouldn't even be in this country. Her lifestyle is so far outside the law that any attention from the police is likely to get her thrown in jail--so she can't very well tell the police that her girlfriend beats her.

8. "Run away? Call the cops? I can't even get away with sneezing!"
Her boyfriend controls every second of her time and every inch she moves. Whenever they're apart she has to call him and check in constantly; whenever she leaves the house she has to tell him where she's going and how long and why; he doesn't let her think without telling him about it and getting his approval. And he enforces this--reading her mail, listening to her phone conversations, showing up randomly at her work or when she's with friends (if she's allowed to have any). When she's not allowed so small a rebellion as using the wrong word, really rebelling against him seems impossible. She figures he'd catch her if she even thought about trying.

9. "If it were so bad, someone would have done something."
Everyone knows what's going on in his life. His friends have seen his girlfriend hitting him; his parents have heard him say "I can't do that, she won't let me" about a million things; the neighbors have heard the screams and crashes when she explodes. He knows everyone knows already, and knows that they haven't done anything even though they know. So, he figures, what difference would it make to tell them? Clearly they've already decided that this isn't bad enough to call in the authorities over.

10. "It's a joke to him, so it should be a joke to me."
His boyfriend hits him and treats it like a joke, laughing uproariously and expecting his victim to laugh along. To make a big deal out of this kind of violence would just be humorless, and he's got a sense of humor, doesn't he? Even when the only punchline is "ha ha, you're in pain!" And how do you go to the cops with a story like "he played a joke on me?" Cops don't arrest people for jokes.

11. "I'm just terrified to hurt her feelings."
Abuse has made her telepathic. Years of desperately trying to keep her girlfriend happy so bad things won't happen have made her keenly aware of her girlfriend's every fleeting emotion. Her girlfriend is a tiny bit moody and she rushes to coddle and comfort her; her girlfriend is a tiny bit happy and she just about throws a party for her. She's so used to reading her girlfriend's feelings and translating them into her own that she can't stand to do something that would really hurt her girlfriend's feelings. Just the thought of dealing with that much anger--when even a tiny amount of anger is a big deal in their house--is too terrifying to imagine.

12. "I'm so embarrassed I let him do this to me."
He's been abusing her for years. She doesn't see herself as some cowed little victim; she's a smart woman, an independent woman to all appearances, maybe even a declared feminist. So to come out now and say he's been hurting her all along just feels stupid. Everyone's going to ask "why did you stay with that jerk?" and she's not going to have an answer. She tells everyone her relationship is wonderful and a paragon of communication and respect, and the longer she keeps up the charade, the harder it is to say not only "turns out I'm a cowed little victim" but "turns out I'm a cowed little victim and also a liar."

13. "I've learned to live in her system."
He knows all the rules by now. As long as he always treats his wife with the utmost politeness and gentleness, and always has dinner ready before she comes home, always is up for sex when she wants it, and always lets her make the decisions, things are okay. He actually feels pretty safe when he's being "good." So it doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with the relationship, because it goes great so long as he does as he's supposed to.

14. "We're outsiders; no one cares about our problems."
They're a lesbian couple, one of them is transgendered, and they're kinky to boot. She's had enough problems just explaining to the "authorities" that their relationship exists; how the hell is she supposed to convey that there's something wrong with it? She's internalized enough prejudice that she figures it's sort of her own fault for being in such a strange relationship, and she doesn't figure anyone cares that much about the troubles of a weirdo.

15. "After all he's done for a jerk like me?"
Her husband has put up with so much from her. This isn't #13; these were genuinely bad things. He helped her pay off the nasty credit card debt she was in. He stayed with her even after she got fired from her job and flunked out of school; he even bailed her out of jail when she really fucked up. Who could blame the guy if he loses his patience now and then? She figures she really is a very difficult person to live with, she deserves some punishment for all she's screwed up, and she should be grateful that he's kept her around at all. As he reminds her when she's pushed him too far--who else would love her?

16. "She's really nice... mostly."
Her wife is super sweet and loving. She's a flowers-and-chocolates romantic, a believer in true love and love at first sight, and she treats her just like a princess. Except now and then, things get tense in the relationship, and bad things happen. Really bad things. Her wife just doesn't seem like herself and she explodes. But the apology is even sweeter and lovinger than before and things are good again. Maybe it was a one-off. Or a two-off. A three-off? Maybe this really is the last time and from now on she'll just have the nice wife she fell in love with. She's certainly being nice now, and how could you leave someone like that?

17. "It just isn't done in our community."
In her culture, the husband is the leader of the household and what he says, goes. He has the right to hit his wife if he feels it's necessary. Divorce is a taboo. Good women don't leave their husbands; good women make their husbands happy. She feels like going against her husband would be going against her entire culture, and she can't bear to do that. The community wouldn't support her and she'd feel like a traitor to her own people.

18. "Actually, I'm abusing her."
When she explodes, she doesn't tell her boyfriend "I hate you;" she tells him "you hate me." She tells him that he's hurting her, that she's responding the way she is because she just can't take his abuse any more, and he believes her. He's trying desperately to treat her right, to treat her the way she deserves, and he just keeps fucking up. Often when she's yelling he yells back--sometimes he even hits back--and that makes him more sure than ever that he's the real abuser here.

19. "It's not that bad."
She firmly believes that real abuse is when they punch you--and her husband's only slapped her with an open hand. Real abuse is when they beat you--and he only yells at her until she cries and then yells at her to stop crying. Real abuse is when they rape you--and he always makes her say "yes" before he has sex with her, no matter how little she wants it. She recognizes there's something wrong in their relationship, but could never call it like, abuse abuse, and so she can't react to it like it's real abuse.

20. "This is how relationships work, isn't it?"
Her parents' relationship was a constant cycle of drama and violence. Her relationship with her parents was just as bad. Her high school boyfriend hit her and her college boyfriend made her have sex when she didn't want it. She kinda figures everyone else's relationship is just the same behind the scenes. All she worries about is how to make the best of an abusive relationship; while she knows it intellectually, she doesn't believe deep down that a non-abusive relationship is possible, at least for her.



The one thing that isn't on the list, anywhere, is "the victim is just weak and stupid." Victims of abuse come in all types and lots of them really are flawed in big and small ways--but their reasons for staying with their abusers are not "just stupid." They're complicated, insidious, and saddest of all, sometimes right.



Usually I end these "long-list" posts with a cheery little "add your own!", and while that invitation remains open (sadly, I'm sure there are tons that I missed), I'm going to add something to this one:

If any of these sound like you--even if they sound like you in a "yeah, but" sort of way--even if your partner never laid a finger on you physically, it was just some yelling--even if you're a man and she's a woman and it doesn't work like that--even if you swear your situation isn't abuse because--call this number:

1−800−799−SAFE(7233)
TTY: 1−800−787−3224

It's the National Domestic Violence Hotline and they will talk to you. They are not going to call the cops on your partner (or you). They are not going to tell you that you have to leave your relationship. Calling them is not a commitment of any kind--you can always call them and decide to stay in your relationship after all. All they're going to do is talk to you, give you an outside perspective from people who are trained to recognize and deal with abusive situations, and help you find resources for getting out of your situation if you decide that you want them.

Answering Slutwalk FAQs.

In reading the reaction to the Slutwalk blog posts and news coverage, I feel like there might be a little bit of a message gap in the Slutwalk movement. I'm going to try to bridge that here by addressing some of the most common objections and misunderstandings that seemed to come up.

What is the message of Slutwalk?
The message of Slutwalk is that SOMEONE BEING A SLUT DOES NOT EXCUSE SHAMING, HARASSMENT, OR SEXUAL ASSAULT.

In other words, if you see someone looking or acting like oh my god such a slut, you let her go on her merry way. You have no more right to abuse, mock, harass, or assault her than you do any other person. And if a slut is abused or assaulted, she did not want it and did not deserve it, and the people victimizing her are every bit as guilty as if they did it to a non-slut.


Isn't being a slut a bad thing?
Nope! If we understand "slut" to mean "someone (usually a woman) who dresses sexy, acts sexual, and/or has a lot of sex," there's absolutely no harm done. "Slut" only became an insult because our culture is completely screwed up about sex, so instead of dealing with it head-on, we assigned it such a tremendous emotional load that instead of saying "Slut is bad because X," we could just say "SLUT!" and have people feel bad from that alone, no logical rationale required.

Having sex without freely given consent, sex that involves dishonesty or manipulation, sex that spreads diseases or causes unwanted pregnancies--these are bad things. But none of them is inherent to being a "slut." A slut who does their slutting safely, honestly, and consensually is enjoying and sharing pleasure and joy.


Are you encouraging women to act like sluts?
Nope! We're just saying it's an acceptable option.

Lots of people at the Slutwalk were dressed very modestly, and I personally know that some of them were monogamous or celibate. Absolutely nobody was telling these people that they needed to be sluttier to fit in. Slutwalk is not an event to recruit sluts, but to defend sluts.


But isn't it safer for women to dress modestly?
Yeah. That's the problem.

Actually, there aren't any statistics on clothing and sexual assault, but there doesn't seem to be much connection. Sexual assault isn't a matter of "she aroused me so much I just couldn't stand it;" it's an act of deliberate violence. The majority of assaults are committed by people who already know the victims. Often the assaults take place at home. Speaking anecdotally from three years of experience as an EMT and an ER worker, most of the sexual assault victims I've seen were wearing jeans, sweatpants, pajamas, even hijab. (Or little footie pajamas with Elmo on them.)

However, women who are perceived as sluts are more subject to catcalling, harassment, and social shunning as they go about their lives. They're also more likely to be blamed and less likely to be protected or get justice if they're assaulted. These are real risks, but they're risks that suck and we want to get rid of them, because there's nothing wrong with being a slut.


So if you don't want to be harassed for sluttiness, why not just put on some pants already?
Two reasons:
1. The problem is on the harassers' end, not ours. Our sluttiness harms no one and ought to be our right.

2. What if we did? It would go one of two ways. Either some women would still be in short skirts and they'd have even bigger targets painted on their backs, or all women would start wearing pants... and then the harassment would focus on women whose pants were deemed too tight, or too colorful, or too low-cut, or whatever. In a crowd of prudes, people would still go after whoever seemed "sluttiest" relatively--you can see this happening in schools with uniform codes, where the slightest variation in girls' shoes or the way they wear their uniform sweater can make the difference between "cool" and "nerd"... and "slut."

Without attacking the root cause--people thinking that sluttiness is bad and that it's okay to harass sluts and ignore violence against them--no change that the "sluts" themselves make can ever be enough.


Aren't you just putting on skimpy clothes for attention?
What, you want protestors not to try and get attention? "Oh, don't mind us, we're just having an eensy little protest over here, we'll be very quiet."

We're drawing attention to our cause, not just to our bodies, and if you're capable of listening to the words a skimpily-dressed woman says (you can do it, little buddy!), this will rapidly become clear.


A lot of the Slutwalk women are fat and ugly, haw haw!
Obviously this isn't a "question," and anyone saying this has a few years to go before they're worthy of any response beyond "ssshhh, grownups are talking."

The frustrating thing about this response is that it's not a response; it's just a random, lazy attempt to make people feel bad. The only reasons to do this are:

1. You're such an emotional child that you think making someone feel bad means you "beat" them at some sort of "game," and you just want to be the biggest winner possible!
2. You think that it is okay to harass sluts or that people who assault sluts should go free, but you can't support this logically and/or you don't have the courage to spell it out, so you just lash out with a generic insult.





If you have any other questions/objections (either that you have or that you've heard), post them in the comments; I'll add interesting ones to the post.

Slutwalk after-action report.

The Slutwalk was fun. Bigger than I'd expected--there had to be at least a couple hundred thousand folks there--and full of energy and anger and yet joy.

It's funny to think, the impact of the actual walk wasn't so much; we probably got seen by a few hundred people tops. The real impact, if there is one, comes when the photos get out in the news and on the Internet.

Here's a couple of the signs I saw there:

Mine: I'm a slut - I love consensual sex

Jesus ⟨3 Sluts

You got 99 problems and all of them are MISOGYNY

Love does not divide, it multiplies

I can have scalable, high-fidelity, multi-core love if I want to (this guy was awesome)

I hope the message isn't too diluted. A lot of people not involved seemed to be taking it as "HEY WE'RE SLUTS WAAARGH," rather than getting all the nuances of "Someone being a slut does not excuse shaming, harassment, or sexual assault." Was that a lot of nuances? Apparently it is.

That is, big letters now:
SOMEONE BEING A SLUT DOES NOT EXCUSE SHAMING, HARASSMENT, OR SEXUAL ASSAULT.

There was a "Pimp Walk." Five or six loud assholes. I don't think they were exactly anti-slut or pro-rape (maybe I give them too much credit), they were just there to make the rhetorical equivalent of fart noises. "You say women deserve safety no matter how they dress? Well, we say *FRRRTT* hahaha sluts hahaha *FRRRTTT* bro-five!" Something about that well-thought-out.

It was impressive, and wonderful, and strengthening to see just how many people turned out and how passionate they were. There's a lot of people on our side here and I think there's getting to be more. If all this got us one more, it was worth it.



On the walk and subway ride over, I hid my sign very carefully. Got catcalled twice anyway.

Slutwalk.

Tomorrow, at noon, a group of protestors will be walking around Boston Commons (starting from the bandstand near Emerson) to protest rape, rape culture, and slut-shaming. I'll be with them.

The event is called the Boston Slutwalk and it was inspired by a similar event in Toronto, which was in turn inspired by a police officer declaring that women could avoid rape by avoiding dressing like "sluts."

Of course, it's not about that officer, who's long since apologized and all that. It's about all the people who agree with him. All the people who think that rape is terrible and no one deserves it, but wearing that on the street at night is kinda risky, doncha think? And all the people who make those people even a little bit right.

It's about the hideous conflation, made by the "good guys" and "bad guys" alike, of people who like sex with people who invite rape. (Hint: the first group is most of the world and the second group is fuckin' nobody.)

Come dressed as a slut: which is to say, in a short skirt and tank top, or in jeans and a t-shirt, or in business casual, or in short-shorts and a muscle tee, or in a big comfy jacket and sweatpants...

I'll be there with a sign saying "I'm a slut: I love CONSENSUAL sex!" Come join me if you're in Boston and free tomorrow, it'll be fun, meaningful, and prove a really important goddamn point--there's nothing wrong with being a slut, and there shouldn't be anything dangerous about it either.

Rape Culture: Hope.

Enough about problems. Enough about the way our culture hates women and men and sex. I could bitch all day and into next year about what's wrong with our culture, inclusive of the fact that it's called "bitching" in the first place. And I probably will, but right now let's not talk about everything that's fucked up in the world. Let's talk about hope.

In the battle over gender and sex, the good guys have one key, game-changing advantage: our way is more fun. Sure it's right, sure it's fair, but beyond that: the world of equal and consensual sex is happier, smarter, hotter, more real and more fucking alive than anything rape culture could ever offer.

Because there's so much that you can't force, you can't bargain for, you can't manipulate someone into and you can't do contemptuously. You want to stick your wee-wee into a hoo-hoo? Rape culture's got you covered.

Rape culture does not have you covered if you want to sleep with someone and learn from them, or sleep with someone as a gesture of friendship, or sleep with someone because you are so seriously in love with them like you didn't even use to believe in. If you want to be with someone and know that they truly want to be with you, not "want to be with you because," but that they want you, rape culture's not much help. If you want to fuck someone and not have it mean anything--or if you want to fuck someone and damn well decide what it means--rape culture isn't gonna let you get away with that.

If sex is an expression of male dominance, how can I bite a man's shoulders black and blue and smile when he sends me photos of how the bruises are turning out? If a woman's sexuality is a depreciating commodity, how can I find that the older I get and the more I fuck, the better it feels? If relationships are about trading sex for affection, how can I feel such glee from squeezing my boyfriend's perfect ass and how can he snuggle up to me at night with an absolutely unabashed "wub oo"? If men and women are fundamentally different and opposed, can how can we experience life joyfully, honestly, and together?

Consent, as I've said before, isn't just homework. Consent makes sex better. Consent makes life better.

And that's why there's hope. Because one of these days (actually, one of those days, because this has already started), people are going to wise up and realize this. The fratboys of the world are going to realize that parties where the chicks want it are the sickest shit ever, dudebro--and if you don't mock "sluts" and don't take advantage of them, you get a whole lot more of them at your parties. The Cosmo girls of the world are going to realize that the number one way to please your man is to treat him as a friend and lover and fellow human being. Even the unredeemable assholes of the world are slowly and haltingly realizing that even if all you want is to get your Neanderthal rocks off, you can do it better and more often and with less trouble when you do it in an atmosphere of freedom and consent.

Rape culture is doomed, and not just because we're fighting it. Rape culture is doomed because it sucks for everybody, even the people nominally on top, and things that suck just don't last forever. There's work left to do, and a lot of changes won't just happen on their own, and there's a lot of places less amenable to change than a hip liberal college town, and a lot of people who'd rather have a little power than a lot of freedom.

Still there's hope. Not because freedom is "right," but because it's awesome.

Rape Culture: Defending the indefensible.

Comments sections on the Internet have a strange sort of entropy, in the literal sense of reverting to lower and lower states unless they receive a constant input of energy. And if the lowest state is a seething morass of "FIRST" and "TL;DR TROLOLOL", the second lowest is the tendency of comment arguments, no matter the original subject, to revert to one of just a handfull of perpetual controversies.

Any article on science, for instance, can be relied upon to spawn one commenter who argues young-Earth evolution, fifteen who disagree but don't actually understand evolution, ten who disagree by saying "see, religion makes you stupid," and it goes on merrily from there. Any article involving a crime committed by someone with a non-white-sounding name will provoke an immigration and racial debate regardless of the actual citizenship/race of the person in question. Any article touching on sexuality or sexual health will quickly become a seething morass of "gay people: are we going to just let them get away with that?" and/or "in my day girls kept their legs shut and we didn't have all these problems."

And any article on rape will attract the predictable victim-questioning, victim-blaming, and rapist-sympathizing reactions. And this is not just on the Internet--the Internet produces easily referenced written records of these arguments, but I hear them at work and from family and some of my crappier friends and sometimes on the freakin' bus. I've written before about what these reactions are. Now I'm wondering why they are.

Most of the people expressing the "that poor accused rapist, this must be so hard for him" and "you know she acted very provocatively" viewpoints are not rapists themselves. Most of them aren't knowingly friends with rapists. They're not exactly pro-rape itself. But they have this tenacious, surprisingly emotional attachment to, if not precisely defending rape, enforcing the narrowest and most skeptical view of rape. Why is this? We'd expect rapists to be emotionally invested in this debate, and rape survivors and their loved ones, but why do apparent third parties get worked up? What's in it for them?

I have some theories. And a "bullet point" hotkey. (Alt-8.)



• The Just World Fallacy.
This is the idea that everyone gets what they deserve, good things happen to good people, and bad things only happen to bad people. This is crucially emotionally important because it means that people have complete control over their destinies. Or more specifically, that if I am pure of heart and say my prayers by night, nothing bad can happen to me. Unfortunately, to maintain this feeling of safety, you have to insist that anyone who did suffer a bad thing must've done something terrible.

An important feature of this fallacy I noted when I wrote about bullying earlier this week: the idea that these totally fair punishments and rewards are handed out by the universe itself, and are entirely based on the victims' choices. This means that any choices that the attackers may have made aren't significant, and the attackers can't really be blamed for doing the universe's dirty work.



• The Male Gaze.
This is the way our society tends to lock us into seeing things from the point of view of a heterosexual male. It's sort of assumed that you'll find "sexy" women appealing and "sexy" men funny or gross, that anyone will want to follow male role models but female ones are only for girls, and that the public discourse in general is aimed at straight men unless specified otherwise. And of course all this is tremendously magnified if you are a heterosexual man; with an effort a woman can find female perspectives, but men are almost never forced to take on a female viewpoint. Marie Curie and Amelia Earhart are never held up as heroes for little boys.

The relevant end result of this is that when someone--particularly straight men, but not only them--sees a story about a woman accusing a man of rape, they put themselves in the place of the man. They don't think "wow, what would it be like if I were raped?", but "wow, what would it be like if I were accused of rape?"

Well, I certainly wouldn't commit rape! So if I assume that this person I'm empathizing with acts the same way I would have, he must be innocent, and dealing with this false accusation must be tremendously frightening and frustrating for him. As long as you see the alleged rapist as the protagonist, the "you" of the story, the furthest you're able to stretch is "maybe he raped her for a really good reason?"



• The "Consent as Contract" Model.
I believe that consent consists of wanting to have sex or do another activity. In practical terms, when you're with a non-telepath, consent requires expressing that desire, but the expression still isn't the important part; the desire is.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't seem to see consent this way. Instead, it's a binding contract: generally in exchange for something, a woman commits her pussy as payment. She isn't really expected to enjoy the sex; she's expected to tolerate it, and enjoy the dinner or jewelry or hugs or however the fuck this is supposed to work. Therefore, a woman in a situation that seems to be leading up to sex who then refuses to have sex is in breach of contract (and frankly being a little unreasonable), and letting her off the hook is an act of grudging generosity on the man's part. And a woman having sex without making the consent contract is being ripped off, but not really violated, because pussy is just a tool women wield dispassionately anyway.

This mindset doesn't just justify and trivialize rape; it also makes for some really shitty consensual sex, based on the "you're not supposed to like this part, you're supposed to like the dinner and this part is for me" mindset. Which ultimately doesn't even work out that great for guys, because "here, fine, have my pussy, you've earned it" isn't exactly a recipe for brutally passionate lovemaking.



• The Plain Old Fashioned Assholery.
There's also a certain contingent of people, both on the Internet and sadly also in reality, who think that being mean and narrow-minded makes them totally cool hardasses. (One of a billion examples: the recent Twitter trend #waystopissoffafatperson, in which "pissing off" is somehow equated with "winning victory over," as if simply showing aggression to someone proves your superiority to them.) There's nothing to be done for these people except hope they grow the fuck up one of these decades, and try not to give them any money or attention--or God help us, votes--until they do.

Rape Culture: Against The Door.

Wow, the "Rape Culture Two" post is taking forever to write. In the meantime to keep the theme alive, here's a scenario that's happened to me many times, and has never been rape, but nonetheless stands as an excellent example of rape culture.

Trigger warning? Probably yeah, trigger warning.

You're a woman. You're out at a public place and you meet a guy and get to talking. He seems awfully attractive, and you're single, and frankly, you're interested. He invites you back to his apartment on some lame pretense like "want to come up and see my platinum record?" (Benny had a platinum record. Not that he'd earned it or anything. He just bought it on eBay from someone. Apparently when an album goes platinum the record label makes a ton of those things and a lot of "assistant to the lead marketing team" type people get them and don't necessarily care. Anyway.) You nervously say yes and follow him to his home. On the way there, all you talk about is tense little nothings.

The instant you get to his apartment, he closes the door behind you, pushes you up against the door, and starts kissing you forcefully. His hands are wandering all over your body and he pulls up your shirt and drags your bra out of the way to grab your breast. He grinds on you and you can feel his erection pressing against your groin. (Or stomach, if you have Holly Pervocracy proportions.)

At this point, things can go three ways.

1. You moan and grind back.
This is awesome! It's passionate and spontaneous and you're powerfully turned on. Hot sex ensues.

2. You go "whoa whoa whoa" and push him off.
This isn't what you wanted. You really did just want to check out the platinum record. Or you really needed a chance to sit down and relax and talk to him for a bit first. Or you don't even know exactly what you wanted, but this isn't it.

And then he:

2a. Apologizes, backs off, and lets you catch your breath before asking what you want to happen next.
2b. Backs off, opens the door, and shows you out, not getting your number.
2c. Doesn't stop.

3. You go cold and don't get into it, but don't push him off.
This isn't what you wanted. But you're painfully aware of option 2c up there. He's a big guy. This is unfamiliar turf. And you realize that you really don't know him at all. If you're getting fucked either way, at least if you go along with it you won't get hurt.

Or maybe it's subtler than that. Maybe what's on your mind is just 2b--can you really trust your own desires here? You agreed to this, sorta kinda; isn't being not-into-it now just fickle? Do you want to be a mean bitch and completely alienate someone who likes you? Sure you're not hot for him and you're not into this, but you're just not steeled for the step of shoving him off you and treating him like a rapist. I'm not sure if this scenario is rape but I think we can agree it's not sexy.



And the solution is so, so simple. The solution is that instead of inviting people up with "want to come up and see my platinum record?", you ask "want to come up and see my penis?"

Alright, it's more complicated than that. But not much. The heart of it is communication. You can't be afraid to ask for what you really mean, and you also can't be afraid to agree to what you really mean. People who agree to the platinum record, tee hee, nudge nudge, but balk at the explicit mention of sex, but really do want to have sex, are also a big part of the problem here. In a world where saying you want to have sex is a taboo that makes men creepy and women slutty, people have to speak in oblique hints--and not everyone can take a hint.

Sex is way too important to go without saying. Platinum records are really boring to look at anyway. Don't ask people if they want to have sex any way other than "do you want to have sex?" and don't agree to have sex any way other than "oh yes I want to have sex."

Rape Culture: What Is Rape Culture?

I'm hoping to make this the first of a series of posts. Only the first couple are going to be about problems. The rest are going to be solution-focused.

(And yes, some of this does go against things I've said previously on this blog, particularly pre-2009 or so. But then, a lot of the older posts aren't entirely in line with what I currently believe. I've been over a lot of ground while writing this blog and I never intended it to be a single coherent manifesto.)



It was while reading Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti's Yes Means Yes that I finally understood what the phrase "rape culture" really means. And that yes, we live in a rape culture.

What Rape Culture Is Not
It does not mean that our culture explicitly approves of rape. It does not mean that rape is a universal experience--the majority of people will never be raped and a larger majority of people will never rape. And it isn't a concept pertaining only to rape itself. Rape is the purest expression of rape culture, but far from the only one.

When I name something as part of rape culture, I don't mean that the thing itself is a form of rape. Rape is the act of engaging in physical sexual activity with someone without their consent, and to call other things "rape" cheapens and muddies the issue. So abstinence-only education is part of rape culture, but it's not some kind of goofy "educational rape."

I'm also not saying that every aspect of rape culture "causes" rape. While I believe abstinence-only education contributes to rape, I'm not trying to posit some kind of direct "video games cause violence!"-type causation here. Abstinence-only education is one facet, a phenomenon that is both effect and partial cause, of a big complicated paradigm which, taken in total, enables and tolerates rape.

Also: none of this is calling you a rapist. (Or a rape survivor, for that matter.) But that doesn't mean it's not about you. Learning how you're contributing to rape culture--and, later in this series, both philosophical and practical ways to work against it--is still a way of fighting rape and exploitation. If you say "well, I didn't rape anyone today," I'm not going to disagree. I'm going to ask if you did or said or thought something that enabled someone who enabled someone who raped. If you didn't, you can stop reading now and apply for sainthood. Bye.

Now that it's just us sinners here, let's get started.



What Rape Culture Is
Rape culture is the collection of beliefs and behaviors that enable rape.

With very few exceptions, rape is not a random act of violence. Hitting someone with a spaghetti squash while dressed as Eddie Munster is a random act of violence. Forcing someone culturally considered different and lesser to engage in an act culturally considered taboo and mystical and ego-defining is an extremely specific act of violence. Rapists are not "just evil people," they're people being evil in a way that rape culture encourages, enables, and tolerates.

(Rape is biological? Bullshit. Pissing is biological. Pissing in a toilet while wanting privacy and cleaning yourself with paper is cultural. Sex and aggression may be innate, but the ways we express them are as culturally defined as rock'n'roll.)

The effects of rape culture include rape. They also include other forms of violence, such as many murders and assaults, and other forms of sexual exploitation, such as forced prostitution and exploitative porn. They include completely nonviolent forms of sexism and homophobia. They include plain old bad sex and relationships. None of these things would go away if rape culture was eliminated, but they'd be much less common and much more clearly recognized as wrong when they did occur. Rape wouldn't be gone forever, but it would no longer be an integrated part of our world.

I'll get into detail about what the beliefs and behaviors of rape culture are in the next post. But I think the most fundamental ones are:
1. "There are two clearly defined and opposite genders."
2. "Women are the other one."
3. "Sex and the sexual body are taboo."
4. "Sex and love are magical and mysterious."
5."The sex you have defines your entire self."
6. "Sex is an object, not an activity."
7. "A person's sexuality can be separated from their self."

Obviously, your average Joe Rapist would not articulate most of these thoughts, but he believes them, on a certain knee-jerk level. To believe that sex can be taken from a person, that it's worth taking, and that you need to take it is to buy into those beliefs.

And rape culture is when people who mostly aren't rapists continuously believe and reinforce these things.



My Day In Rape Culture
This is not any sort of "composite." All of these things literally happened yesterday.

00:00 - I sit down at the ER secretary desk and read through the list of patients. Two (out of about twenty) are women who were assaulted by their male partners that night, and another one is a psychiatric patient with PTSD from a rape.

01:00 - Coworkers at the ER discuss a sexual assault patient from that other shift. She was drunk, you know, and awfully naive. I'm sure they won't prosecute, I mean, what kind of case do they have? Can't be responsible for people who can't even take the simplest steps to protect themselves. Sure the guy was scum, but it wasn't really super rapey rape, and what did she think would happen?

02:00 - Two male coworkers read from a "wacky sex facts" phone app loudly at my desk. At first I laugh along--and I am amused, even though I know they're being kind of inappropriate. I stifle the urge to contribute any personal knowledge, because it would be socially alienating or even job-risking to reveal my sexuality. I also note that the sex facts are almost all "woman facts," skewing heavily to description of the female anatomy and of how to please a woman.

04:00 - The psychologist who evaluates psychiatric patients to see if they need to be admitted comes by my desk muttering about how the PTSD patient barely speaks goddamn English and they shouldn't let them into this country to use up all our resources. (She is a legal resident.) The order for her to be discharged pops up on my computer shortly after.

07:00 - I leave work. The song that comes up on my car radio is about following a woman around until she loves the male singer, no matter how long that takes.

09:00 - I stop at the craft store to pick up some jewelry-making supplies. Every person there is a woman. This is a little because women are more likely to have time bored alone at home, and a lot because a guy stitching a sampler or stringing a necklace would be so gaaaay.

10:00 - I get home. I keep the curtains to my bedroom shut unless I'm awake and in the room, because I have a ground-floor bedroom that faces a public space. When I'm away, I close them to hide my computer and TV and stuff. When I'm sleeping, I close them to hide myself.

10:30 - To fall asleep, I masturbate. I think about having rough, painful, and specifically forced sex and it gets me off. This may just be my personal tendency to masochism, or it may be the absorbed idea that this would be the most intense and passionate sex of all. It's a fuzzy distinction, and one that's hard to face head-on philosophically when it's only in your head and you're about twenty seconds from orgasm. I sort of try to tell myself "oh, she had a safeword, she totally just decided not to use it."

(12:00 - I wake up and can't fall back asleep. This isn't rapey, it's just really really annoying.)

13:00 - I look at the Pervocracy comment moderation queue. There's a lot of stuff in there that I feel weird about prior-restraining, but can't bring myself to take the action of publishing them either, so they just sit in the queue rotting and making me frowny every time I update my comments.

I know women will never take personal responsibility for their own actions(Getting drunk,thinking it's ok to ruin a man because he didn't return a call etc) but i felt the need to defend men because of this outrageous blog. Now I don't even care when women cry rape because I'll be honest i think they 99% of them are liars.

I'm aware that this is probably a troll. That doesn't negate the fact that they decided I should be trolled and I should be trolled in this way.

14:00 - I flip through Cosmopolitan briefly.

15:30 - I take a shower. I wear a bathrobe to go from my bedroom to the bathroom, even though it's like three feet away, in case my roommate sees me. I'm not afraid of him, but there's still a rule he shouldn't see me naked.

16:00 - I get dressed to go out. Nothing too revealing--I've gotten shit before for looking too slutty. Nothing too slouchy--I've gotten shit before for looking too gay or too unsexy.

17:00 - I get ready to meet a male friend for dinner and take him home to fool around. I've had him over before and I know him to be an entirely gentle and respectful person, and one who's well aware of gender and sexuality issues. Of course I don't think he's going to rape me; I don't think he's even going to be impolite to me! Yet even then there's a certain nervousness I can't quash. A certain feeling that once I open my door to him I'm committing to something, if not intercourse, something beyond what I might really desire.

(18:00 on - Everything goes great and when I'm too tired to do more than a little fooling, he doesn't push me and just cuddles and is sweet. You did not rape-culture me, friend!)



Obviously these things cover the gamut from "holy crap that's horrible" to "wow, that's a stretch, the craft store is rape culture?" (It is! I'll stand by that! But it's a rather tangential expression of the more abstract parts. I don't think that getting men into beading is an anti-rape Priority One task.) But that's one random day.



Coming up: "The Beliefs and Behaviors of Rape Culture," and then the fun parts: "Kink Versus Rape Culture," "Feminism Versus Rape Culture," "Queerness Versus Rape Culture," "Joy Versus Rape Culture"! Or something like that. TBD.