The media has recently promulgated an example of gang rape as group sex. In doing so, it instilled a particular definition of group sex in the minds of the public - one which seems to regard consent as optional. There's been plenty of voyeuristic interest in the Matthew Johns case, public support for the players, and derision of the woman they attacked.
The line between consent and rape has been deliberately blurred for misogynist reasons, and subsequent reporting of group sex has to be read in that light. Neither of the articles I've recently read, claiming that women are up for group sex, have significantly challenged current public understandings around consent. Neither has talked about the importance of feeling comfortable with your partner/s, discussing consent, or articulating what you do and don't want to do sexually. I think that's dangerous - I believe many people will read this reporting uncritically, as an affirmation of the recent sexual behaviour of the rugby league team.
Many a time throughout history, consent has been defined in such a way that it is difficult for women to prove consent wasn't given, and to include activities that are harmful to women. The long-standing belief (thankfully, less common now) that a woman who stays in an abusive relationship must like the abuse is one such example. The non-existence of marital rape as a crime until the 70s and 80s (depending on where you live) is another example - until criminalisation, a woman was deemed to have given consent for her husband to have sexual access to her body whenever he pleased. By definition, she 'wanted' it.
None of this is what I want to talk about, mind you. I want to discuss the cultural context in which people give consent to sex. I can imagine some circumstances in which group sex would be fun (or might have been before the onus of getting up to kids in the night put a very effective damper on my lustful impulses). I can also imagine situations in which consent is 'technically' given - but in a situation of the patriarchal power imbalance that characterises our society.
That's why I find it hard to believe that the events involving the Christchurch women and the rugby league team could have been meaningfully consensual. There was no discussion of consent between the woman and the players - no discussion of how she'd like to proceed, or what activities or the other participants felt comfortable with. The woman was 19 - for many, this is an age at which the confidence to articulate your sexual desires and boundaries eludes many. There was booze involved, and no reason to believe that the male participants took a particularly respectful view of women, or had a great interest in the welfare of this woman in particular. To me, these sound like a bunch of factors that militate against meaningful consent, or, for that matter, enjoyable sex.
For me, growing up was in large part a process of coming to terms with the idea of consent, and developing the confidence to articulate what I do and don't want and like, rather than going along with what's suggested because I felt like I had to. (This may not be a typical female experience, but I think the impulse to use sex as a way to be accepted or valued is familiar enough to young women who've come from less than happy backgrounds. Technically, it's consent, but ultimately, these are choices conditioned by a culture which places little value on women - and the upshot is sex that isn't rewarding, physically or emotionally).
In one case, I got involved in a group activity that started out fine, and ended with me being sexually assaulted in a public place. Scared, I fled to public toilets and cried - partly because of the assault itself, and partly because I couldn't make sense of the situation. At some point, one of the guys in the group had abandoned any notion of consent or my welfare, and had simply chosen to take what he hadn't been offered.
It wasn't the activities that were the problem. Another woman might have consented to what I didn't want - but I think that most woman would be unlikely to want sexual activity in a situation characterised by male aggression, booze, and no discussion of consent or the activities that different individuals might enjoy. The thing that upset me most, barricaded in the loo, was that I thought that by consenting to activities earlier in the evening, I had also given consent to later ones - and that I had myself to blame. I thought that wanting to withdraw consent midway through an activity made me somehow sexually 'abnormal' - that's certainly how it would have been percieved by the men in the group I was with. I didn't at that time understand consent as a thing that must be given and withdrawn freely, without repercussions for the woman involved; and that a respectful sexual partner or partners understands and respects the right to withdraw consent.
So it makes me very deeply uncomfortable to see the media suggesting, even indirectly, that women are 'up for it' in situations where the ability to give and withdraw consent is constrained by alcohol, male aggression, and a disrespectful view of women's sexuality which places low value on making sure women are comfortable with the activities involved. A bunch of people who are into group sex and agree on the groundrules can have fun, lively sex of the sort a fuddy-duddy like me can probably only dream of. A situation in which a woman gives head to a rugby team looks to me like a situation where it is more difficult to express consent meaningfully.
The ideas our society promulgates about 'what women want' - what is sexually normal for women - have a powerful effect on women's ability to withhold or withdraw consent, or to seek redress when they have been raped. Some months ago, I blogged about an incident (different to the one above) in which I was raped when drunk. All the elements of a power differential were in place: I was away from home staying with people I didn't know well, I was disorientated, I was too pissed to defend myself, and a bloke I didn't know but who was renowned for predatorial sexual behaviour followed me to the place where I was staying and showed himself into my room.
It's possible that a woman could give consent in that situation, but it doesn't seem likely to me - if she did, it would likely be the consent of someone who lacked the confidence to articulate anything else. That is a form of value judgement - you could read it implying that only a woman with poor judgement would consent to this - but our ability to consent, our ideas of what consent is, and the contexts in which we give consent are determined in a patriarchal culture that is happy at times to interpret rape as consent for the gratification of men. I doubt there are many women who can honestly claim never to have been influenced into a bad sexual decision.
I made the decision not to go to the police, because I knew their definition of consent (and that of a jury) would likely differ from mine. A great many people think that when a woman gets drunk (and, in my case, gives a random bloke a random drunken pash), she is signaling consent to sex - that's the idea of 'normal' female sexual behaviour many people choose to invoke, for reasons that I think are rather self-serving. I am quite comfortable making a value judgement about women's 'normal' sexual behaviour here - I do not think that a woman signals sexual interest by getting drunk. This may be oppressive to the sexual diversity of women who think differently to me (and a great many of us have used alcohol as the timeless aphrodisiac it is) - but to celebrate a sexual situation characterised by power imbalance as an example of women's sexual agency is to ignore a cultural context which so frequently justifies violence against women with misguided notions of consent.
Good sex is consensual, and good consent is meaningful. To those who like group sex, and make sure that the participants involved are happy to be there, good for me. Perhaps you'll consider inviting me to join you. But I can't go down the road of suggesting that a woman might theoretically be comfortable sucking off a room full of drunk sportsman - because I don't see that as a situation in which a woman could feel respected, valued, and confident enough to give free and meaningful consent.
I'm not going to allow comments on this post, because I really, really don't want munters speculating on my sexual history.
