Why I think you are creepy

Cross posted from my home blog.

I started to write a piece on what sends out warning signs for “rapey” behaviour, and before I got too far I decided I wanted current examples from twitter discussions. Scrolling through the conversations happening under the terms rape and consent on twitter I came to a startling realisation.I had never considered why someone would argue in support of someone’s rape behaviour, and I suddenly realised that my firm belief that most people are decent humans and wouldn’t deliberately hurt someone goes completely against what I see every day – assholes gagging to argue with me about what they are “allowed” (see legal definition of rape) to do to someone else’s body.

People on what I would call “My side” of the argument (pro-consent, anti-rape-culture) were making impassioned pleas for people to stop and listen to the idea that they should wait for full consent.

-To try to understand that simply not fighting back isn’t consent

-To stop minimising how fucking traumatic date rape is just because the victim knows the rapist.

In one particularly revolting discussion they failed to make a man understand that a wife has the right to refuse sex, and ignoring that refusal IS rape.

In most of these arguments a man (I try REALLY hard not to make this a gender issue because rape affects both men and women, but I’m sorry to say the majority of rapists are cis men.) is working his little heart out to validate his point. Getting really worked up, really distressed and at times incredibly ANGRY trying to make the point that is not REALLY rape because

And I suddenly thought... why the hell they are fighting SO HARD for their rights to someone else’s body.

I could only come up with 3 possible answers

1) They are so sheltered they genuinely have no idea of how horrific these discussions are for many people, and they are so privileged they genuinely believe it, and so arrogant they won’t consider that they might be wrong.

2) They have acted in a manner that would fit under the heading of rape, but isn’t straightforward violent, stereotypical rape, and they only just realised that, and they are fighting for their reputation, even if it’s just to feel ok about themselves.

3) They genuinely believe they have the right over other people’s bodies at certain times, or with certain people, or under certain circumstances.

Group one and three are easily solved with a better understanding of rape culture from the get-go, better education of men and women about consent, and a society that supports people’s right to choose. I’m going to leave them to one side except to say that if you fit in those categories sit down, shut up, and listen. JUST LISTEN. Maybe you will learn something.

I don’t think group 3 are particularly common, until you start to raise the issue of inebriation. And then the line gets really freaking blurry, and there are a scary number of “good people” who will fight a person’s right to bodily autonomy because they WANT them and the target isn’t in their right mind anymore.

And then it struck me like I had run into a wall.

All these people fighting alongside me are fighting for the right to never be touched again if that is their choice. This choice hurts no one, and changes no one else’s life. But it means the WORLD to us.
Those fighting against us are fighting for their right to someone else’s body, on their terms when they want it. Just because they WANT IT. They don’t NEED it. It doesn’t change their world or make them a different person. They just WANT it.
You SERIOUSLY think that your right to someone else’s body is more important than anything else.
You will fight tooth and nail for that right.
What do you get if you lose that right? Nothing. You get to go home and have sex with yourself.

What do I lose if you rape me? A sense of bodily autonomy, safety, strength, health. I lose a lot for your “right” to touch me.

So you people arguing the ins and outs of ‘date rape’ or ‘is it really rape if you have had sex before’ or ‘is it rape if she is my wife’. Either you are so fucking selfish that your right to pleasure using another body is more important than my bodily autonomy…

Or you aren’t actually arguing about sex at all. The ingrained sense of entitlement to someone else’s body is so strong that you are scared that you won’t just walk away and leave the drunk girl passed out on the couch. You are frightened that your communication is so crap that you won’t see the signs that they don’t want you to keep touching them but they are too scared to speak.

And you don’t want to be charged as a criminal.
That’s why you seem creepy.
Either you are arguing THAT passionately for your right to MY body... Or you have already decided that you want it, don’t have enough control to wait until I’m sober/conscious/in a better frame of mind, will take it, and are arguing that you shouldn’t be charged.

Creepy. Super super creepy.

Have some self-control. Yeah, maybe you will have less sex with other people, but who the hell told you that was a right, rather than something you earn IF someone cares enough about you, or finds you appealing enough to suit their tastes.

I can tell you right now that if someone left a note in my purse at a party saying “wow, you were toasted, and I really like you, call me when you are sober and we can hook up” I would probably call that person.

Consent, it’s sexy.

I believe Dylan Farrow

I believe Dylan Farrow.

Almost every time I am going to believe the victim rather than accused, when it comes to matters of rape, sexual abuse, abuse of power, and the like.  I think it's important to redress the massive power imbalance in these cases by giving more weight to the voice, the story, the experiences of the victim.  I believe Louise Nicholas too.

I understand that the way the justice system works is different.  Due to the presumption of innocence, currently it seems impossible to give anything approaching equal weight to victim and accused.  Ironically, what does serve to provide some balance are other prejudices coming in to play.  The version of the victim will be considered more believable if they are cis female, white, "presentable", middle-class, virginal/married to someone other than the accused, acted in accepted ways before, during and after being assaulted/abused.  The version of the accused will be discounted in part or whole if cis male, physically powerful, brown, a stranger to the victim, poor, shown to be non-vanilla in sexual preferences and practices.

I can form a different opinion from the verdicts the justice system produces.  I can make up my own mind.  It has no consequences for the legal outcomes if I do.

But, if I can express my belief in the victim and their story in a way they become aware of, or other victims and survivors become aware, then I'm hopeful I'm expressing some solidarity, some support, for them.  That in some small way I am helping to redress the tilt the justice system applies, on a social level if not a legal one.


Comment direction:  I am not interested in debating my central premise here in the comments below, as I believe that could be very harmful to readers.  I'll be deleting comments that denigrate victims, propose that the accused in these cases is the underdog, anything like that.  I am interested in discussion of how we make the justice system fairer in these contexts, up against the (important) presumption of innocence of the accused, and I have no easy answers on that.

starting a conversation

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A few words about rape

Content warning:  This is about rape and the injustice of it, and stupid stupid rape culture that means many keep asking the wrong questions, and may be triggering for some readers. 

Most people seem to be having the wrong conversation about rape.  Too often the discussion ends up being about the person who was raped; what they wore, what they were drinking, their sexual history, where they were, their relationship to the person who raped them, so on and so forth.  As if my examining the minutiae of the lives of those who have been raped we can somehow find out how to stop rape.

It's the wrong end of the stick, and I know this will be 101 for many readers and bloggers here, but sadly it's still the only end of the stick for many in the media, figures of authority, radio hosts, and politicians. 

The problem does not lie with the people who get raped.  It never did, never has, never will.  You can examine them as much as you like, but you will never find a solution because you are asking the wrong question to the wrong people.

What we need to be talking about, again and again, is WHY PEOPLE RAPE.  Why do some people want to have sex with someone who isn't consenting?  What's going on in their head that that is ok and even desirable?  Is their decision-making impaired by alcohol or another substance?  Are they callous and narcissistic?  Do they actively want to have power over another to make up for some hole inside themselves?  Do they think that is how you show someone you love them, because that's what they've seen as a child? 

We must ask, and answer, these questions not to excuse the rapist, to minimise the rape, but to work out what the hell is going on that there are some people who think sex without consent is a good thing, something they need in their lives, or how we produced people who care so little about other human beings that consent is irrelevant to them. 

We can do this, we just need to decide, resource it and see it through.  There are a lot of NGOs and agencies doing incredibly valuable work at low levels, but it needs the omph of state support in my opinion.  Not likely currently, but absolutely essential to seriously tackle this really crucial issue that just gets put away in the One Day When We've Solved Everything Else file far too often.

Rape culture enables us to put it away, to forget about it, to put it back to the bottom of the pile time and again.  Rape culture allows us to Do Something about rape by actually doing very little at all.  Rape culture has to go. 

I'm keen to raise my kids to Not Rape.  But I don't have all the tools I need to do that because there isn't a focus on this side of the equation.  I'm teaching them to have agency over their bodies, to respect other people, to stop being so damn bossy (that one serves many purposes), and I hope I'm helping them to develop empathy.   I worry this isn't enough.  I do fear that my children might get raped one day, but ultimately that wouldn't be their fault, as terrible as it would be, and is thus largely out of their control, and mine as their parent.  What I can hopefully assist with is teaching them to respect others' bodies and choices, actively seek consent, and develop empathy for those around them.  That I can take some responsibility for. 

Rape is a horrible word, describing a hideous thing.  But we don't make it go away by not saying it, by not talking about how and why it happens and who does it.

Guestie: Babe of the Day

Thanks to Maus for writing and submitting this. Readers may also be interested in an alternative set up just last night:"NZ Misogynist of the Day.".

In the past month or so there have been several ‘Babe of the Day’ facebook pages popping up. The worst offenders seem to be the universities, although some of the more questionable pages such as ‘New Zealand Pair of the day’ and ‘WINZ babe of the day’ have their authors and affiliations hidden. I was recently approached by TV3’s nightline for a feminist opinion on these pages, and although I gave a fairly lengthy and detailed report of the problems associated with the pages, it was boiled down to ‘Angry feminists are killjoys’, and I was subsequently told across various social mediums that I didn’t like them because I was ugly. Of course.

The biggest problem is the lack of consent. These pages are created without the subjects consent; in fact on many of them, you are unable to nominate yourself. So we have pictures of girls, taken from their private facebook pages, and posted for all to see, and for all to ‘appreciate’. In fact, on the most recent ‘New Zealand Pair of the day’ page, out of the eight pictures posted, four have the subjects asking the pictures to be taken down, something the moderators ignored. When I posted under these comments telling the girls that although facebook doesn’t care about sexual harassment, you could report the image as your intellectual property and they would remove it fairly promptly, my comments were deleted and I was banned from posting further. There was even a picture of a woman holding her newborn child on one of the groups pages, which violates several peoples consent.

NOTE:: TVNZ, after interviewing me and listening to me talk about lack of consent, used several images from these pages, WITHOUT GAINING THE GIRLS CONSENT.

There are of course other problems with these pages. The university ones are full of comments like ‘who cares what she studies, shes bangin’, and although some of them have men featured, the sexisim is very apparent; for starters, mostly the guys are ‘Blokes of the Day’, not babes, and the accompanying text reads like a dating profile; ‘Bloke is a great guy, loves puppies and kittens and volunteers at homeless shelter’, and other such harmless banalities. Another interesting thing is that there seems to be a semblance of ethnic diversity in the ‘blokes’, you have many from many races, and the photos are typical headshots. In direct contrast, the women are uniform in their race, invariably skinny, and all wearing not much at all in the full body shots (I want to stress there is nothing wrong with being white and skinny, or dressing however you like. I just wanted to point out the standards of beauty are surprising given the diverse populations of universities).

There are enough reasons to have body image problems, and it is difficult to succeed as a woman in a academic world without being judged solely on how you supposedly look in a bathing costume. The response to my ten second sound bite was enough to show the reactions you get for speaking out from a feminist viewpoint. And I’m sick of it. There are hundreds of articles about there about why we don’t need to be judged for our looks, about the issues we face in the workforce and academic worlds.

I really feel like we should have come further than this, that I shouldn’t have to be typing this, I shouldn’t have to say something as simple as gaining a womans consent before encouraging hundreds of people to jack off to her picture is not a hard or wrong thing. And I certainly shouldn’t be abused for it, or told that I am ugly and therefore worthless. Wake the fuck up people. Consent isn’t hard, and I’m sick of having to shout ‘Yes means Yes’.

It's all about the mutual

There are many theories about what attracts one person to someone else.  Most seem like absolute nonsense to me, not only because those in the msm at least tend to be pushing very traditional lines of masculinity and femininity and compulsory heterosexuality.

But even more progressive explorations of attraction tend to leave out something that's kinda key in my experience.  Mutuality, that hint of possibility, which means I notice someone in a completely different way.

How does interaction move to attraction?  There are probably about as many answers as there are people, and for me at least it's been different with different attractions.  The one thing the different people I've been attracted to have all had in common - they were all open to the possibility of sexual relationships with women.

I have never been attracted to anyone, genderqueer, trans or cis, who is not attracted to women.

I've been attracted to all genders more masculine identified than I am, and more feminine identified.  Femme queer women?  Potentially sexy as hell.  Masculine queer women?  Often delicious.  Others who are attracted to women?  Love watching them play with gender expression.

I don't mean I cannot admire someone's brain, body or sense of fun if they are not into women.  I just mean that true sexual or romantic attraction for me doesn't happen without the hint of mutual possibility, as well as the other things I find appealing.  Compassion.  Analytical ability.  Fierce commitment to justice and fairness.  Playfulness.  Honesty.  Sense of humour and delight.  Smiling eyes.    Physical competence, whether it's in sewing, cooking or climbing a tree.  Joy in breaking rules.

What this means in practise is that for me, when a straight woman flirts to see if she can get a reaction, I find it tedious, both homophobic and biphobic.  I'm not talking about people exploring the fluidity of desire, stepping outside monosexual constructs into something new.  But for me the sexiness in connecting with other women is about knowing the flow of desire is multi-faceted, rich, imaginative and playful.  I want to know they want me, and I want them to know how much I want them.

Mutuality.  Similarly, when my mother told me once, with longing, that Richard Gere perhaps being queer was "a waste", I asked if she would really find it sexy sleeping with someone who was actually wishing she was a man.  Who didn't want her body, the mysteries of her pleasure.  It was a somewhat stilted conversation.

Why don't we talk about mutuality as part of desire and attraction?  It's scary, right, leaping into desire being a relational process rather than something which simply objectifies someone else.  It doesn't fit the way we treat bodies in pop culture, the media, the internet.  It asks - I think - slightly harder questions of us.  For me it just speaks to how the whole process works in a way which is much more true to my experience.

I like olives and jalapenos, myself

I wrote this a while back but didn't get around to posting it.  Seems like a good way to start the year.  Happy new year everyone, and may your pizzas be exactly the way you like them in 2013 :-)

The Oxford Dictionary defines "analogy" as "a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification."

This post at sex education website extraordinaire Scarleteen got me thinking about analogies around sex:

Baseball is the common language with which so many of us are taught to think about sex. People talk about getting to different bases, “hitting a home run” or “scoring.” An insertive partner is called a “pitcher,” and a receptive partner is the “catcher.” A gay or lesbian person “plays for the other team.” Bisexuals are “switch-hitters.” To “strike out” is to be rejected. The list goes on. And on.

Even if baseball isn't the same kind of fit in Aotearoa, some of this sporting lingo is relevant.  We all know that getting to "home base" is the ultimate goal.  "Sex as sport" also allows a sense that those taking part play for different teams, competing with each other to "win" the battle - neatly normalising heterosexuality and rigid gender roles.

Now, if we used Billy Bragg I might be more slightly more satisfied with "sex as sport," for another gender encounters at least:

"Now I feel like I've won the cup, every time that we make love
Forty-five minutes each way, at half time I heard the brass band play"

Scarleteen go on to suggest an alternative model:

The point of getting a pizza is how delicious it tastes. The activity itself is the goal. There isn't even a predetermined finishing point. The end comes when all participants feel personally satisfied. Pizza-eating has no main event equivalent to reaching home. The last bite isn’t necessarily better than the first.

This will not always work, because sex and food both have very strong cultural values, and for some there will be conflict in thinking about the two things in analogy.  But for others there may be food for thought here.

Pizza can be eaten alone with joy, or it can be fun to share.  There are many different kinds of delicious pizza, and taste can vary from sitting to sitting.  I might like eating pizza every day, or I might be someone who's only a pizza fan every few months.

The bit where this analogy works best in my opinion is in helping us think about negotiating consent and pleasure.  With sport, there is no negotiation, just competition.  With eating pizza, if I don't tell you I don't eat ham but want olives every time, the pizza we get will not work for me.  If I don't ask you if you like cheese and you're dairy-intolerant, you're not going to be wanting to eat pizza with me again anytime soon.  There is no assumption with pizza that we all want the same thing, or even that we want the same thing from one pizza to the next.  We need to check all of these things out to get them right, and the talking is part of the build-up to maximum pizza enjoyment.

Finally, if I don't feel like pizza, for whatever reason, that's fine.  And if we make the most delicious pizza either of us has ever eaten, that's fine too - we might even make a habit of it.

"Legitimate rape" is illogical cant

Content warning:  Rants related to rape, victim blaming, rape apologists, and ridiculous sex education that helps no one, all contained within.

"If it is a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down."

So said Republican nominee for the US Senate Todd Akin.  

"That whole thing" refers to pregnancy.  Mr Akin is saying that women don't get pregnant from rape.  And if they do then it wasn't really rape, it wasn't "legitimate rape."

The whole concept of "legitimate rape" appals me.  I believe that Mr Akin is meaning to say "real" or "genuine", when he says legitimate, but I can't help thinking of that other meaning of legitimate, which is "acceptable."  

It is not up to Mr Akin to decide what does and does not constitute rape, or even this bizarre sub-set of rape that he's carved out in his head.  Rape is sex without consent.  There is nothing legitimate, as in acceptable, about rape EVER.  And as for there being illegitimate rape, fake rape; there is NO evidence to suggest that false rape claims are made at any higher rate than any other level of fraudulent reporting, which tends to be about 5%.  

Many of the reactions I've seen to Akin's comments have been focused on the sheer biological illogicality of his claim that rape cannot result in pregnancy.  Yet that's exactly what I was taught in my teens at a school in New Zealand in the early 1990s.  I recall quite clearly during a health class a teacher (who was not a science teacher and I suspect very unsupported to run these discussions) telling us that pregnancy did not result from rape because the woman's body (only women can get raped you see) was simply not receptive, wasn't producing the correct juices, was hostile to the sperm.  This wasn't a biology class I hasten to add.  For a long time I believed her.*  

The point of this discussion was to refute the idea that abortion in cases of rape was even to be considered.  If you were pregnant it couldn't have been rape, "legitimate rape" as Akin would no doubt say, therefore no termination for you, evil slut!

Ellen and Minnie helped to dispel this myth.  You remember Ellen right?  Ellen Crozier?  She was Cheryl West, before there was Cheryl West.  You know who I mean, that Shortie nurse, the one who was Carla's good sister.  The origins of her daughter, Minnie, were shrouded in mystery for many a season on the Great New Zealand Soap, and it eventually turned out that that pregnancy was the result of rape.  

In my own life I've studied biology a fair bit, and I know, now, how untrue the line I was sold all those years ago is.  I know it also second hand from the bitter, horrible, experience of a number of women who have disclosed such stories in their own pasts; resulting in adoption, miscarriage, abortion, and keeping the resultant child and raising them well.  The feeling of being violated over again, in finding out about the pregnancy, and then having to make hard decisions with no correct answer due to the proprietary, selfish, harmful act of another.  

There are, sadly, so many myths about rape, and about reproductive health.  When one that seems so obviously wrong to us pops up let's consider that there will be those who have been taught the lie as truth and who may not yet have had the additional learning, or the life experience, to show them otherwise.  






*  She also helpfully told us, in the same session, that if someone wanted to rape us there was no point lying that we had our periods as the rapist wouldn't care.  It's odd what sticks in the teen brain through to adulthood.

It is rapists who are responsible for rape

Trigger warnings for rape, substance abuse and addiction, general enragingness.  Also excessive use of CAPS LOCK.


I heard a little bit about Lindsay Mitchell's latest Truth column on Twitter on Friday, but no one could provide me an online copy.  Today someone rectified that in comments here (thank you, kind of).


Now Lindsay and I disagree on many things.  We often have those agreements online, through the medium of blogging, but normally we manage to be remarkably civil for two people who disagree so fundamentally.


I really struggle though finding civil responses to this incredibly harmful rape apologist Truth column from Mitchell.  


1.  It is not necessary to put rapes in scare-quotes, especially when you are already using alleged in front anyway.  Quote marks are for quotes, and here are some examples:  Calling rape a "sex 'accident'" is so incredibly awful that it should be erased from the english language and never ever used again except to point out how awful it is.  Ditto for "retrospectively unwanted sex".  


2.  If a friend came to me and told me she'd been raped while she was drunk (or a male friend for that matter) then my first response would not be to have questions, but to offer support and love and whatever else they needed BECAUSE THEY ARE MY FRIEND.  


3.  The legal standard may be guilt beyond reasonable doubt, but when I'm not a judge or a jury member I am quite at liberty to make up my own mind to believe the person who was raped, which is what I intend to do, especially if they are my friend, but also as a point of principle to somehow slightly re-balance the constant disbelief that rape victims face at every turn.  Hurtful, harmful, unnecessary disbelief that Lindsay is perpetuating with this column.


4.  No one asks for rape.  It is rapists who are responsible for rape.  Being incapable of giving consent means you have NOT GIVEN CONSENT.  Sex without consent is rape.  It's really quite simply.  I thought former ACT candidate's were generally big on people having free will and giving informed consent and all that jazz?  


5.  "I’d talk it out and insist she mentally take some responsibility for what happened, learn from it and move on. And I’d forgive her, so she could do the same. "  This HORRIFIES ME.  If anyone has had that conversation with anyone I know who has been raped you better not ever tell me because I will explode with anger.  All over you in a hideous mess of brain matter and internal organ-ness.  I am not entirely sure I am exaggerating.


6.  Suggesting that the best response is to totally sweep any such incidents away from any examination whatsoever is just so irresponsible that I cannot believe Truth even published it.

I'm going to stop at 6 points.  I have to because otherwise I could write and delete and write and delete and write all night and still not be any further on with saying what I want to than just saying this:

It is rapists who are responsible for rape; minimising, excusing or denying this is unacceptable to me.

Getting political about sex

Thanks to Emma at The Lady Garden for alerting me to a true piece of bile from Britain's own kinda what-Michael-Laws-would-write-like-if-he-was-a-lesbian-feminist, Julie Bindel.

Go and read it for yourself.  I'll content myself with deconstructing this quote, which is the crux of the matter I think:

For bisexual women living under the tyranny of sexism, choosing to be lesbian is a liberatory act. Those of us who grew up in a time and context where there was a political analysis of sexuality were able to make a positive choice to be a lesbian. I believed then, and I believe now, that if bisexual women had an ounce of sexual politics, they would stop sleeping with men.

Now, I have no problem with people choosing to sleep with whoever they damn well please, provided it's consensual.  Are there women who feel that deciding all their sexual partners will be women is desirable because we live in a heterosexist and sexist world?  I'm pretty sure there are, and that decision is their own to make.

But telling other women who they can and can't sleep with in order to have "an ounce of sexual politics"?  Oh, sorry Julie, f**k off.

In one fell swoop, you write off all women who have sexual relationships with men as not being "real feminists."  That's right, all heterosexual women, bisexual women who have sexual relationships with men, presumably any women who have relationships with transmen?  The only place where sexual politics is adjudicated is your bed (or anywhere else you like to play with lovers).  Not in your activism, or the way you mother, or how you participate in paid or voluntary work, or how you support and interact with other women.  Nope, just in bed. 

Sexual politics is about how we live in the world, the ways we challenge gender inequality, the ways we try to confront oppression, power and privilege based on gender (and for those of us who know oppression is multi-faceted, other kinds of power and privilege too).  Who we sleep with is part of it for many feminists for sure - I've never slept with an anti-feminist person, and I can't imagine I ever will.   But if I desire and sleep with a man, does that cancel out my more than two decades work in Refuges and sexual violence agencies?  Does it cancel out the feminist marches I've organised, the women's festivals I've helped run, the hundreds of protests I've attended?  The very idea is insulting and ridiculous.

The roots of biphobia within lesbian culture are deep.  Some of my best friends are lesbians - and a couple of my favourite ex-lovers - and I know many, many lesbians who try very hard to challenge biphobia whenever they see it.  I also know many, many bisexual women who hide their sexuality, and who carry an enormous amount of pain because of how they have been treated in lesbian-dominated environments.

The bright spark in this article are the comments.  It's wonderful to see such biphobic nonsense being consigned to the dustbin of the 1980s - where it belongs.  Julie, there's another kind of "political analysis of sexuality" - the idea that respect, mutuality and consent are critical to sex being pleasurable and ethical - whoever we choose to make love with.  I'll take that over being told I'm not a real feminist because I've slept with men and might again.

UPDATE: Anthea has just very gently pointed out to me that my phrasing concerning transmen above is not very clear.  Apologies if anyone has read that as my doing an Anne Tolley and not accepting transmen are men.  I should have stated that due to Julie Bindel's repeated and vicious transphobic hate - which has included some of the most revolting statements I've seen published, I'm not clear about how she would view women in relationships with transmen.  Thanks Anthea.

Basically, if it's going to happen.....

I want to live in a world without sexual violence, and I believe that is possible, because I believe the causes of sexual violence are things we can change.  Gender beliefs around men having an unstoppable sex drive, around women expressing desire being problematic or shameful.  The eroticisation of vulnerability and violence.  Restrictive gender rules which tell us all that men should be in control of what is happening sexually, and should know what to do without asking their lovers.  Institutions which use sexual violence as punishment, or as expression of power.  Sex being seen as a spoil of conflict of any kind.  Entitlement to sex being defined by one person in their own terms, regardless of what the other's wishes are.  Not raising children to believe they have control over who touches their bodies.  Not developing language and skills in talking about our bodies and sex.

You get the picture.  So when I read, in an article about a man being raped in prison:

Prison officers do their best to prevent it, but basically, if it's going to happen it'll happen.

 what I think is, to be frank, what absolute defeatist, apologist nonsense.  You know what would stop rapes in prisons?  Institutional condemnation of rape in prison.  Not putting prisoners in double-bunking situations.  Taking action against rape.  Treatment for men in prison - because people who work with male survivors of childhood sexual abuse will tell you that one outcome for male survivors is rage at a system which has failed them.  Rage with frequently ends up with those male survivors becoming violent offenders - not necessarily sexual - sitting in our prisons. 

When we accept that sexual violence is inevitable anywhere, our world dies just a little.  Rape and sexual violence are violations which our social norms about sex, gender, power and violence allow.  We can change all of those social norms to make coerced, unwanted and forced sex completely unacceptable.

Basically, if we think it's going to happen, let's stop it.

Sexual Revolution

Broadly speaking, feminists who see pornography as a problem tend to come from sexual and domestic violence activist backgrounds. They point to research like Michael Flood's 2009 review of children and young people viewing pornography:

Especially among boys and young men who are frequent consumers of pornography, including of more violent materials, consumption intensifies attitudes supportive of sexual coercion and increases their likelihood of perpetrating assault.

I’ve supported women whose rapes were filmed, and later made available as porn. Who found naked pictures taken by pimps online years later, advertising commercial sex. Who were taught how to work in the sex industry, after being trafficked from another country and held captive, by being forced to watch pornography. Who have been raped, often repeatedly, by men who used porn to prepare themselves to cause pain.

And the largest category, women who have been pressured into particular sexual activities because their male partner has seen porn featuring that activity. Often these experiences were painful and/or unpleasant. Sometimes they were sexual violation.

Broadly speaking, feminists who see censoring pornography as a problem tend to come from sexuality rights backgrounds or anti-state censorship backgrounds. They point to research which suggests the causal relationship between rape and viewing pornography is not established.

Feminists in this camp are concerned about what happens when sexuality is repressed. When we teach young people to wait until they are married, and rates of sexually transmitted infections increase, or when the first books about sex taken out of schools are those featuring queer identities. They point to sexually explicit material in which participants were explicitly consenting, narratives did not demean women (or anyone else), and exploring the erotic was sexy. They also ask us to pay attention to how demeaning narratives about women are found in Hollywood movies, or music videos, or advertising, and they argue that pornography can be re-fashioned, made feminist, if we make it ourselves, talk about what turns us on, don't harm or exploit in making it, and produce a range of images.

Many feminists today tend to believe feminist porn is possible, desirable, sexy and fun. I think this is positive and hopeful - if sometimes naïve to the realities of sexist objectification for women with less structural power.

Positive because unless women believe we can live in a world in which we are free sexual beings - people able to decide what turns us on, explore that with lovers, take part in not just consent but enthusiastic mutual agreement - then I don’t think those changes will happen. We don’t live in that world now - but in all the examples of my own work I gave above, pornography is not the problem. Sexually explicit material with degrading narratives about women is part of a package of women hating behaviours, supporting, encouraging and providing a site for violence against women. It is also, critically - but far from uniquely - a part of our culture that reduces women to “just sex."

Paying attention to the stories porn tells, just as we might pay attention to the stories music videos, or advertisements, or Hollywood movies tell, is, I think, the critical issue.

We live in an era in which sexualised imagery of women and girls seems all pervasive. Exploitative, heteronormative, damaging to our senses of what we should look like, how we should behave. Damaging to men, especially young men, who learn how to be sexual from watching images in which women are often active beings only in their desires to please men.

This isn't porn - it's MTV. Or how about this Guinness ad from 2008? Trigger warning for women-hating.

The issue is the narrative, the story, not the medium.

What we need are narratives, in every medium, that explore enthusiastic consent. That treat our bodies as beautiful parts of whole people, in which the choices we make to explore different activities at different times are freely given and joyful. We need to know about sex - not from stories which are only interested in male pleasure - but because sex can be fun, may be about as meaningful a connection as we have to others, and is, for many of us, an area of our lives we enjoy.

We also need narratives, in every medium, in which sex is not the only reason women are there. At the moment, we see sexualised images of women in all kinds of contexts. What we don’t see enough are women living our lives with all the humdrum realities that come with working, parenting, having friendships, playing sport, singing, making art, shopping for groceries or climbing mountains.

Women, like men, have a wide range of interests, concerns, areas of expertise, not all of which are reducible to our breast size, how short our skirt might be or whether we perform particular sexual acts. Sex is important - but it’s not, ever, all we are - and increasing acceptance of sexualised, and only sexualised, images of women is no kind of sexual revolution.

Sexual freedom - the freedom to be sexual in the ways which turn us on - has to include the capacity to not only, not always, be sexual.

How to work out what you really, really want

Let’s start the week with consent. Good phrase that

I blogged some time back about “Yes Means Yes”, an American book about why active desire and skills in learning meaningful consent just might be important in shifting rape culture around how much sexual violence happens (though not rape in institutions, or by soldiers, or towards children, or…). So when impressive co-editor Jaclyn Friedman released her new book, I pre-ordered a copy for a friend as a leaving pressie from a sexual violence agency for survivors.

The book’s been very favourably reviewed by the Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programmes, a charity dedicated to ending sexual violence, who call it “an interactive tool for sexuality exploration”. It’s aimed at young women negotiating being sexual, so unpacking gender scripts which tell young women they are slutty if they are too into sex, and prudish virgins if they don’t like sex. You know, rape culture 101 stuff.

I’ve not read it yet – so I don’t know how much help the book will be in terms of negotiating same, both and all gender attraction, or how applicable the tools will be for men to help unpack the idea they are supposed to always be up for sex, no matter what. But here’s the intro quiz:

1. You're single and you're going to a party where there may be people you'd be attracted to. Do you dress sexy?

a. You know it!

b. If I’m feeling brave.

c. It depends on what you mean by sexy.

d. Probably not. I’d feel too foolish or shy.

e. No way. I don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression.

2. Telling someone what you want to do with them (or what you want them to do with you) sexually is:

a. Hot.

b. Scary.

c. A total buzzkill.

d. Something I wish I could do.

e. My favourite way to spend an evening.

3. You do things sexually that feel okay at the time, but you feel bad about it afterward.

a. Often.

b. Never.

c. On rare occasions.

d. Only when I’m drunk.

e. Doesn’t everybody?

4. You find out that your fifteen-year old daughter (sister, niece, friend) is thinking of having sex for the first time. You:

a. Panic.

b. Ground her/tell on her.

c. Sit her down for a heart-to-heart to make sure she’s really ready and knows how to have safer sex.

d. Sit her down for a stern lecture.

e. All of the above.

5. You’re leaving a party, club or event late at night. The friends you came with have all left. Your car is parked several long, dark blocks away. You:

a. Just calmly walk to your car, taking the most lighted path available.

b. Walk to your car as fast as you can, with your keys fanned out between your fingers and your heart pounding.

c. Ask that guy at the party who might have been flirting with you to walk to your car.

d. Call a cab to take you to your car.

e. You would never let yourself get into that situation in the first place.

6. Women who dress and act like sluts:

a. Worry me. Don’t they know the kind of attention they’ll attract?

b. Make me angry. They give women a bad name and teach men they can disrespect us. They deserve whatever they get.

c. Are no better or worse than anyone else. It’s not my place to judge.

d. Are powerful feminist role models. Rejecting shame about our sexuality is an act of resistance.

e. Are some of my best friends.

7. When it comes to your own sex life, you:

a. Don’t have one.

b. Get exactly what you want and are totally satisfied.

c. Wish you could change a few things, but you haven’t found a way to talk to your partner(s) about what you need.

d. Wish you could change a few things, but when you try to talk with your partner(s) about it, they don’t respond the ways you want.

e. You’re not really happy with it, but you don’t know what you want or how to change it.

8. Men have a harder time controlling themselves sexually and therefore can’t be held to the same standards as women.

a. That’s just biologically true

b. I’m really not sure about this one

c. That’s a load of crap

d. That’s true in our culture, because of the different ways we raise boys and girls

e. There may be some biological truth to that, but we’re not animals – men should be expected to overcome their biological urges and control themselves.

9. Sexual acts you do (or want to do) make you feel ashamed or bad about yourself.

a. All the time

b. Only one or two of them, but definitely

c. A little, maybe

d. Never

e. Almost never, but every once in a while it sneaks up on me

10. Your friends and family share your values about sex and sexuality

a. Yes

b. My friends do, but my family really doesn’t get it

c. I have no idea, I don’t talk about sex with my friends or family, and they don’t talk about it with me

d. Uh, no. They think I’m a total slut/prude/freak/weirdo etc

e. Not yet, but I’m working on them

This quiz kept my household talking to the wee hours on Sunday morning. Answers in comments if you’re keen :-)