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Ampersand of Alas, a blog has a very cool contrast and compare post about consent as seen through the filter of nominally “mainstream” anti-feminism and nominally “edgy” BDSM. Read the original post, which I heartily endorse, to get the full eye-opening point. Read this post, though, for a quick dissection of the intentional misunderstanding common to anti-feminist descriptions of feminist principles.

Here’s Ampersand quoting a gee-I-just-don’t-get-it date-rape apology post from Cathy Young

Feminist critic Cathy Young, in the comments of her blog, wrote:

“I really can’t think of anything that would kill the moment (at least, for a lot of people) more than stopping in the middle of the mating dance for a clear and rational ‘consent’ discussion.”

Read the quote in context here.

In terms of the ordinary transition from neutral to lusty to actively sexual I can only think of a couple of circumstances where the kind of showstopper conversation Young frets about would ever be necessary. And since I think, speak, and write about sexual relationships all the time if I can only think of three then it’s really rarely necessary.

Before you get sexual? Sure, that’s a great time to have the conversation — it can even be an integral part of flirting. (Think of the game “I never…” only slightly more seriously.) Sometimes after sex? Sure, conversations to refine or clarify boundaries based on previous experiences together make perfect sense.

But during? While seamlessly transitioning from, say, dining and dancing, to maybe kissing in the cab or car, to standing at the door deciding whether one will ask the other in, to heavily petting on the couch, to slowly undressing each other, to slipping into something more comfortable… like a bed, couch, shower, or (heck!) even dungeon? Sorry, that’s usually pretty silly.

It’s silly first because there’s usually some lull in the action — while parking, say, or settling the bill, or while fumbling for keys at a doorstep where if a serious conversation is needed it can happen pretty naturally.

Even more importantly Young is being silly because (as Clarisse Thorn’s example makes amply clear in Ampersand’s post) you usually don’t have to have the sort of long, drawn out, and no-doubt earnest, detailed, and possibly stridently dialectical discourses Young implies when she says “clear and rational … discussion.” Instead there’s checking in. As in “May I?” or “Are you ok with this?” and “Not so fast” or “Mmm, more!” Repeated as necessary. Instead of being assumed, taken for granted, or ignored altogether.

Point being that once you get what consent is all about it really doesn’t take much to keep enthusiasm going… and if there’s not enthusiasm? Well what the fucking hell are you doing pushing ahead anyway without checking in anyway, right? If somebody’s just said “stop,” or “no,” or even just stiffened up and stopped responding then… um… yeah, you probably need to start a conversation but it’s probably going to be about more than “consent.” Sheesh!

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BTW, the three instances I can think of where stopping in the middle of a “mating dance” for a full-on negotiation of consent would be

a) When, without prior agreement, the non-initiating party appears to be playing around with “no doesn’t really mean no.“

b) When, without prior agreement, the initiating party doesn’t appear to be getting the message that no actually means no!

c) When both parties have erotic negotiation kinks such that stopping, possibly repeatedly, to discuss minutiae about what exactly will and won’t happen.

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See also:Guess What Else? Sometimes Drunk Students Commit Rape and Then Claim They Aren’t Rapists In the Morning | Figleaf’s Real Adult Sex

Pluralist of Feministing Community has a really cool post up about the near side of non-consensual “gray area” sex.

What makes it a great illustration is that the sexes were reversed! (Emphasis hers.)

Since November my best friend has been having relationship problems. She is cis and het as is her boyfriend and they’ve been a committed and monogamous relationship for about 4 years now. The whole story is too long to recount, but as of a week ago they began a “break they need in order to stay together”.

Suffice it to say the first two days were hellish as I talked to one of the loves my life breaking down over the phone. But during one of the more lucid moments, she told me that – among a lot of alleged grievances – she had (unknowingly) forced her boyfriend into sex.

Apparently he had said things along the lines of “I’m too tired right now, let’s just go to sleep” and she had continued to proposition him thinking “welll, this will help you sleep better!” My immediate reaction was that there was no way she had coerced or pressured him into sex. After all, he should’ve just said “No really, I don’t want to do this right now” if she kept at it. It was his fault for not stopping the encounter.

And then I realized that had this been a woman in his place – not to mention my best friend – I would never have given this consideration. I was victim-blaming, basing my assumptions in tropes of male hypersexuality and female passivity. She didn’t handcuff him to a heater and force-feed him viagra . She’s a nice girl, she couldn’t have done that!

Read the quote in context here.

I talk a lot more about the paradigmatic social assumptions that women belong to the “no-sex” class — sugar, spice, everything nice, sure, but also possessing no autonomous sexual agency. Unless they’re somehow “broken,” or “damaged goods.” I don’t talk so much about the other side, the equally strong assumption that men are the sex class — obligate, reflexive, indiscriminating, and single-mindedly ready for sex. Unless, again, there’s something wrong with them. But it’s just as big a deal.

Inside the dominant paradigm it’s as unheard of for a man to say “no” as for a woman to say “yes.” Inside the paradigm, with it’s bogus Two Rules of Desire, the ratchet of initiative alway clicks in one direction.

This too has its consequences. It doesn’t just assume women never mind not having sex, it also assumes men never mind having it. One consequence would be Pluralist’s friend assuming her partner was having a momentary brain fart or something therefore his “no” couldn’t possibly really mean no. So she kept trying.

As I said up at the top this is way over on the near side of the “gray area.” A little persistence, especially in a long-term relationship where one partner’s behavior is perhaps uncharacteristic, is an unfortunate failure to recognize that no means no, but not an appalling one.

That said, whereas it’s way over this way verging into “no harm then no foul” territory, as Pluralist hinted and one commenter stated very clearly, however mild-sounding the incident

Obviously, something went wrong in this particular case if the guy is bringing it up as a grievance.

Therefore not “no harm then no foul.”

So if her failure to acknowledge or respect his decision wasn’t appalling it wasn’t benign either.

So there’s definitely still something to talk about.

Jessica Valenti of Feministing says

Where is the article directed at young men in college giving the advice on how not to rape their peers? Where are the warnings to men not to drink, since in so many campus rapes, it is the perpetrator who has been drinking?

Read the quote in context here.

I gotta say this is the really, really, really critical part of any solution for ending sexual assault. Because a heck of a lot of the time it’s not just the victim who’s ability to make competent decisions is compromised by intoxication: chances are extraordinarily high that his or her assailant is also compromised.

That doesn’t mean, by the way, that the only solution is to curtail drinking in men. (It’s a solution, yes, but not the only one. Or the most realistic one. Or even necessarily the best.)

Without recognizing the problem and clearly preparing, warning, and otherwise setting expectations for men and their “wingman” type companions, male and female, when they drink? It’s not going to go away.

That wouldn’t be the end of it, no. Not all sexual assault or violence is drug or alcohol-related. But it would be a good first approximation of an 80/20 benefit. And any increase in awareness of drunken bogosity will bring intentional bogosity into much sharper focus.

Update: I should have done the footwork when I was composing this last night but as Heather points out in comments, below, this isn’t a brand new idea. Resources include

• How you guys, that’s right you guys, can prevent rape (at Scarleteen.com)

• Shayne Austin’s Cool Inversion of the Usual (Victim-Burdening) Rape-Awareness List Could be Taken Seriously

I’m off looking for more links about mitigating sexual assault by intoxicated assailants. If you know of any please leave them in comments.

Hortense, weekend blogger at Jezebel unearths an unfortunate, but unfortunately not uncommon, conceptual error — sort of like the conceptual error that heavier objects fall faster than light ones, or that if you can’t see the teeth of a spinning sawblade they’re not there.

The University’s officials, however, don’t consider it “outright rape.”

“We would consider it date rape,” says University spokesman Richard Rojo, noting that he believes that “outright rape” only involves “a rapist jumping out of bushes and attacking people randomly.”

Read the quote in context here.

Yes, it makes perfect sense to imagine it’s not rape without jumping out of the bushes in sort of the way it makes sense it’s only robbery if the perpetrator wears a black mask and a Tommy gun.

You can even make some kind of case, I guess, sort of that “stranger rape” is different from “acquaintance rape” because the police response would necessarily be different if the attacker is identified vs. unidentified (e.g. for unidentified you start a man-hunt, heighten security, start riffling databases of potential perpetrators, blah, blah, blah, versus walking down to the lockerroom and taking the three named, known-to-the-victim perpetrators in for questioning, arrest, booking, trial, etc.

All you have to do is look at it from the perspective of…

...every single other person except the victim.

One imagines victims are rarely comforted by the fact that their assailant was known to them. In fact one could imagine something more like the opposite. Oh wait! Why imagine when answers are easily found?

There is no evidence the university in question, University of the Pacific, means they take acquaintance rape more seriously than “outright rape.” Which, would still be egregious hair-splitting but at least an error in their favor. Instead they appear to be making the same kind of “natural,” but devastating error that leads birds and drunks to collide with plate glass.

Bird-brained mistakes we can excuse. Drunken errors we can at least comprehend. Similar mistakes by nominally functional University administrators, though? Not so much.