I have to thank Amerigo for his comment a couple of pages back, even though I strongly disagree with it, just because it made something click in my head about why there may be such a disconnect over this issue, even with men who I would not normally consider to be especially sexist.

Here’s the comment.

No, but you get situations where there is flirtation and consensual kissing and touching and then for the guy the question may be whether he can get the gal sufficiently genitally aroused for her to agree to complete the sexual act.

The problem here is that he’s operating/commenting from a fundamental misunderstanding of how female sexuality usually works. Whether or not women choose to have sex in a dating context often has very little to do with whether or not they are “genitally aroused”. Women can be extremely attracted to the man they’re on a date with and extremely aroused and still not want to have sex for all kinds of reasons. They may just not be ready, they may not be sure if they trust the man emotionally yet, they may not want to be seen as slutty, they may have moral beliefs that dictate that sex is not supposed to happen until X point in a relationship, etc. For many women arousal alone is not sufficient – a whole lot of other conditions need to be met in terms of how they’re feeling emotionally and psychologically before they want to have sex. A woman flirting with a man, kissing him etc does not mean that she wants to fuck him then and there, although it usually does mean that she’s potentially interested in fucking him at some point.

If a whole lot of men are walking around making the assumptions that Amerigo is making (and sorry to pick on you specifically, dude, yours was just the comment that jumped out at me), then I’m not surprised that the level of date rape is so high, because the script that they’re operating from about “how sex works” is fundamentally flawed and not reflective of the reality of how sex works for most women. I’m just a little stunned that there are intelligent, educated men who don’t already know this. Don’t they ever talk to female friends or relatives about this stuff? Are they really walking around with the assumption that “woman is horny and attracted to dude X” = “woman wants to fuck dude X right this second”?

Also, the idea that just because you personally don’t drink and don’t approve of drinking that means that women who drink are bad people who deserve whatever happens to them? That’s pretty fucked up.

If a lot of men are walking around with the idea that female arousal = female willingness to have sex, then they are incorrect and their incorrect way of looking at things is going to lead to problems, therefore it needs to be addressed.

Whether or not you personally subscribe to that model is essentially irrelevant. If you think that there are men who do, and if you're right, bad things are going to happen. And it seems that they do, on a depressingly regular basis.

Makes me regret extending any benefit of the doubt to Amerigo. It's the smugness and insistence that people who do things he doesn't like and go to places he doesn't approve are somehow responsible if bad things happen to them that grates.

Just for the record, tattoo parlors are places of business, not rape camps. Note that there is not typically a "free rape with every tattoo" sign on the door. One should not be expected to assume that one will be harmed in any way just because one frequents such businesses.

Because clearly that would be nonsense. I had sex after drinking half a bottle of sake on Saturday. My SO drank the other half, so we were both equally toasted, and we both intiated/participated to about equal degrees. It was sex, not rape. No harm no foul.

However, there is a certain point of drunkenness at which a person becomes severely incapacitated, and having sex with someone who is in that state is ethically unacceptable whether or not it legally counts as rape. Which it does in many jurisdictions. It's kind of like fucking someone who's in a coma, really - they're in no position to stop you, and you'll probably get away with it, but that doesn't mean that it's OK for you to do it.

These are clearly different scenarios. Can people seriously not see the difference?