Normally I love Dan Savage. Granted, he can be a little transphobic and biphobic at times, but no one is perfect. And generally, he’s awesome. But then, there’s stuff like this.
In case you can’t read the text, here it is:
Any Sex a Woman Doesn’t Want to Have is Rape
Let me cut to the chase here—any sex a woman doesn’t want to be having is rape. As a rape victim, I know what I’m talking about. The time a friend pushed me to the ground and forced himself on me (despite my screams and attempts to fight him off) was rape. And so were all the times a boyfriend pressured me into sex by convincing me he was “owed” a blowjob.
Rape Is Outside the General Rules Regarding Real Life
I’m sorry, RIOTGRRRL, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. We can’t go tossing men into prison for the sin of not being able to read minds. If a woman is having sex she doesn’t want to be having, she has to say so. That guy who pushed you to the ground? Rapist, for sure. The boyfriends who guilt-tripped you into blowing them? Not rapists.
Actually Dan, YOU don’t know what you’re talking about. While pressuring someone into sex isn’t necessarily outright, forcible rape, it’s still coercion. And coercive rape is a Real Thing. No one is saying that these men should be tossed into prison for it, but if we don’t acknowledge it for what it is, we’re allowing it to continue.
We need to change the way we socialize both men and women regarding sex. By not teaching men the concept of enthusiastic consent, we create this environment in which men feel they can keep pressuring a woman for sex simply because the word “no” hasn’t been uttered. Silence is not a “yes.” Pushing a hand away repeatedly until they give up is not a “yes.” Giving in to guilt trips and pressure is not a “yes.” And when we fail to teach men this, we create rapists out of people that probably never would have been otherwise. The people that jump out of bushes and rape people? Probably always would have been rapists. Many guys that use pressure, guilt trips, or alcohol to gain consent from women? Most likely victims of the way they were socialized to think about and understand sex. Hugo Schwyzer’s “Stoplight Theory” explains this really well (emphasis his).
Most boys, for example, get the “no means no” message pretty loud and clear in high school and college workshops. It’s a worthy if basic message, and one well worth repeating over and over again. But as anyone who works around young people and sexuality will tell you, in and of itself a “no means no” reminder is woefully insufficient. Many of the young men and women I work with, for example, talk to me of what I’ve come to call the “stoplight” phenomenon. Traffic signals, of course, have three colors: red for stop, yellow for caution, green for go. Good drivers are taught to stop on “red”, which functions as a “no”. But of course, even at the busiest urban intersections, no light stays red indefinitely. If you wait long enough at a stoplight, every red will become green. And when all we do is teach young men that “no means stop” when it comes to sexual boundaries, we often send them the message that if they just wait long enough (or pester, push, nag, beg, play passive-aggressive games) they’ll get the “green light” they’re so hungry for. Good “sexual boundaries workshops” go beyond the “no means no” message. Specifically, we look at the ways in which many men will accept a “no” as a “yellow light” rather than a red, assuming that if they simply keep up unrelenting pressure (often abetted by alcohol or exhaustion) they’ll get the permission they seek.
Also, the male privilege here is shining through. As a male, you do not have the right to tell a female, and a rape victim at that, that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about when it comes to sexual assault. Period. As a member of a non-oppressed group, you do not get to define these things. If she felt violated by the events, and she sees it as rape, then who the hell are you to tell her that it wasn’t? It’s not up to you to determine what is and isn’t sexual assault. It’s up to the victim.
So, sorry Dan. You got one thing right: any sex a woman doesn’t want to have is rape. But the rest? You missed the mark.
*I actually wrote to him about this column, and it said basically the same thing that I posted here.
I'm Britni, a snarky bitch and generally awesome person. I write about sex, love, and bullshit. If sex-positivity, discussions about BDSM and kink, queer issues, and topics that are completely inappropriate by society's standards make you uncomfortable, then this blog is not for you.
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12 Comments
Thanks for the link, Brit!
It makes me extra sad when he says something that fails so hard because normally he’s really awesome. I haven’t encountered too much of his biphobia or transphobia yet, probably because I’ve only more recently started reading his column. Most of my admiration of him comes from some awesome things he’s said in youtube videos. I’m feeling somewhat compelled to dig a little deeper, especially for the aforementioned biphobia since I’m in the middle of yet another cycle of pondering that sort of thing.
I don’t think he’s biphobic in the way people think. He just thinks that for a lot of people being bisexual is a stepping stone to gay (in the sense that a lot of gay people think they’re bisexual before they can admit to themselves that they’re gay). I don’t think he is trying to delegitimize bisexual people or anything like that. This video sums it up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2sIf_sVYuc
But I totally agree with everyone that his comments here are way off.
Dan Savage is a champion mansplainer. I ignore him as much as possible.
And when we fail to teach men this, we create rapists out of people that probably never would have been otherwise. EXACTLY.
This is really sad, and really stupid. How can he think it’s okay to tell a woman who has been raped and sees her experiences as rape that she is wrong? Ugh. Such rage.
Bravo! I was coerced into sex more times than I can count in my early 20s. The acts I engaged in weren’t consensual then, but they were done simply to get the guy to stop pestering me. While it’s not as damaging as a truly forcible rape, it is still a terrible thing to deal with. Luckily as I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten better at enforcing my boundaries. But it took a rape to get that far, and even when I did assert my boundaries at a sex party 5 years ago, my request to stop got ignored and I was traumatized all over again. (By a supposed sex-positive male blogger! Who went on to teach a class on orgy etiquette at a recent kink gathering.)
Wonderful to meet you the other night.
I agree with everything you say here. When a person says “no” in any terms, anyone making a sexual approach needs to back off and treat this person as sexually off-limits unless this person has a change of mind and explicitly says so.
We also need to make sure that people are educated not to do things that perpetuate the problem. People can’t be allowed to put a possible sex partner off not because of lack of desire, but because the person wants to feel seduced, desired, and pursued. That kind of thing just makes things worse.
First I want to add a disclaimer that I agree with you for every point you made.
But I want to add that Dan Savage had a point – he was just very wrong in where he applied it. Men cannot be expected to be mind readers. They have to know that the answer is “no” somehow. Based on the very cursory description of the events here, I do not believe that this particular person fits the requirements of “he didn’t know it was a no”. Having to be talked or guilt tripped into sex clearly shows reluctance, which, IMO, is the same as a “no”. That’s a clear signal that she’s not interested. I dated someone who used to “argue” me into sex to the point where I’d give in just to shut him up so I could get some sleep. So I am completely on your side of the argument here.
But on the flip side, one of the things our society also does not teach young people, is how women should communicate their wishes (really, how anyone should, but we’re talking about a specific circumstance here that mostly affects women). I have known some women who gave no indication at all that they were not interested in a sexual act, who then turned around and accused him of rape. This wasn’t a case of being coerced or “talked into” sex, this was a guy who initiated sexual activity, and a girl who acquiesced without any verbal or physical rejection, but who wasn’t “into it”. And I’ve seen it happen to more than one person.
When two adults are in a romantic or sexual setting, the aggressor, be it male or female, should respect a “no” in any form. If the recipient is sending mixed signals, err on the side of caution & assume the answer is “no” until it’s a clear “yes” without any pressure from the aggressor. The way I have written about it before is, when expressing interest, take the tone of “hey, I’m interested. Just putting that out there, let me know how you feel about it – I’ll be hanging out over here until you tell me otherwise.”
The recipient, however, should learn how to give clear signals so that there is no misunderstanding, and should especially not keep her rejection, confusion, or ambiguousness to herself. Once that indication of rejection (even slight or temporary rejection) has been expressed, it then falls completely on the shoulders of the aggressor to stop the offending action and to desist entirely, not keep trying in an effort to wear down the rejection to a resentful acquiescence.
To illustrate, I once suggested a movie that I wanted to see to my then-boyfriend. He said sure, and we went to the movie. Afterwards, he said he very strongly didn’t want to have seen that movie, he had preferred to see another movie instead. I had no idea that’s how he felt and I would never have dragged him to a movie he wasn’t interested in. He said yes without being talked into it, I only asked once, and he gave no indication through body language that he was unhappy, such as sulking. I had no way of knowing he didn’t want to see that movie, or that he felt so strongly about not seeing it.
Now, obviously, going to see a movie is not even remotely the same severity as a sexual activity, and I do not mean to imply that it is. I use that example only to show how a person could not know that another person did not want to participate in an activity they consented to. The sad fact is that many people, mostly women, do not know how to say no, do not know how to express their feelings and thoughts on the subject of sex, and often are socialized to think that it is somehow their obligation to provide sexual activity to their partners.
This does not mean that women should be *blamed* for not knowing how to say now when they’ve never been taught and have, actually, received harmful messages that say they ought to say yes. It’s a deeper problem with our society that starts by teaching women they have the right and obligation *to themselves* to say no when they are not whole-heartedly interested in the act. And many times there is no clear “villain” in a story, just a series of bad decisions by all involved, even if some decisions were worse than others.
I don’t think it’s fair to accuse a man of rape when it was really a case of buyer’s remorse. If he is given no signals that she doesn’t want sex, and, in fact, seems to imply that she *does* want to have sex (as those girls I knew did), I have trouble placing the blame for her doing something she didn’t want to do on the guy. But I do NOT think that was the case above. Being guilted or talked into sex is pretty clearly a case of a woman not being interested.
My only nitpicking point is that there are some cases where a woman has given no indication at all & that men should be given a clear signal so that they can choose the right course of action (which, in this case, would be to back off) because no one can know what another person is thinking if they give no indication of what they’re thinking. I just happen to agree with you that the case above was not an example of this situation & that Dan Savage is not in the position to claim authority over whether or not any given woman has been raped. A “no” is a “no”, not a “try again & see if I change my mind” and not a “hang around long enough & eventually I’ll change my mind”.
“As a male, you do not have the right to tell a female, and a rape victim at that, that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about when it comes to sexual assault. Period. As a member of a non-oppressed group, you do not get to define these things.”
I’m sorry, but you can’t go around trying to find equality, and then outright deny people a viewpoint because of their sex/gender/place in the mainstream. Everyone has a point of view, which can be valid, but should be taken on a case-by-case scenario; I’m not saying either male you’ve quoted in this article was right, but your “period” suggests you mean all men/non-oppressed people and not just these two.
1) Men can be raped too, so it’s not as if it’s something men can never experience and can empathise with.
2) Even if men weren’t ever raped, they can still empathise with and have an understanding of things beyond that which they’ve personally experienced.
You might not have known such people in your life, which is fair enough, but let’s not tar them all with the same brush. And if you have, more shame on you for saying such a thing in the first place.
I agree that maybe the brush stroke was a bit wide on that statement, but for the record I don’t think Britni really meant to deny male rape victims agency on the topic of what it’s like to be sexually assaulted.
My ex used to say all those things like “you owe me a blow job” and “my last girlfriend and I had sex so many more times per week.” The majority of the time, I would give in to his demands because I would get tired of his nagging. Did I want to? Not really. But I don’t consider myself a victim of coercive rape. I could have said no. He would have been upset, but ultimately I could have said no.
Disagreeing with Dan Savage: cool. Calling Dan Savage a “mansplainer” and saying he doesn’t get to have an opinion: not cool. Not in the least valid.
COMON, sisters! After the years of hard work we’ve all done to try to be heard, to try to get rid of negative namecalling, why in the world would any of us think it’s a good idea to silence others based on their sex or namecall?
And, for the record, I’ve been coerced into sex (mainly by my husband) and forcibly raped as a teenager, and I find it insulting to have the two experiences compared. Coercion isn’t fair and it isn’t right, but it’s not the same as rape. Boys need to be taught that a “no” doesn’t mean “try harder, Charger,” and girls need to be encouraged to say no with conviction and finality, and not to fall for the “oh, my aching balls” bullshit whining. But if a girl does fall for that crap, she has not been raped.