Letters to the Editor
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How about
an alarm women would carry. If they say 'no', that means they just want the guy to try harder or are just playing games. If they push the button and set off the alarm, that means they really do mean 'no'.
I hate how women have so much power that men cannot know that 'no' means 'no'.
Maybe it is time for men to consider finding ways to begin limiting women's power if they are going to play such irresponsible games with good men.
I don't want to be falsely accused of rape as I never want my future boys to either.
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Brightstar, how do you know you will have boys?
I knew a family with five daughters. They kept trying for a boy. I knew a family with five sons. They kept trying for a girl.
The best way to protect yourself is to understand that no means no, don't have sex with unconscious women, and date assertive, rational women who don't have any trouble making their needs and desires clear to you.
Someday brightstar, you will actually get honestly laid. Wear something pretty and be sure and tell us ALL about it.
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re: AKA Smith
Strictly speaking, I wasn't saying it was a great idea to pick up strangers in bathrooms. If you'll check back, you'll notice I said it was pathetic but should not be illegal (unless you're having sex in front of other people who didn't sign on to watch).
Likewise, I don't think women getting drunk and passing out at parties should be illegal. I just don't think it should be encouraged. There are a fair number of women - look around, you'll see them - who respond by saying things like, "It should be perfectly safe to pass out at a party!"
Well, SHOULD be, maybe, in a perfect world. However, it will NEVER be. There will NEVER be a world in which the law is so tightly enforced, and all people so well-conditioned, that it's safe to let anyone in the universe do anything in the universe to you.
If only one man in the entire world is a rapist, it still won't be safe to pass out at a party with him. If cops are carpeting the world with security cameras on every spot, there will still be some guy who's figured out how to hack the camera or doesn't care.
It simply is not safe, period, and nothing you can do, and nothing I can do, can make it safe.
Someone else compared getting drunk at a party to being at a hospital. Have you ever noticed that not everyone is allowed into a hospital? In particular, people who have to work with unconscious patients undergo a background check? It would be pretty stupid to have the surgical recovery room in a frat house with random strangers wandering in and out, wouldn't it? Would you have surgery there?
Regarding the letter writer whose friend was sodomized by her friends. Good letter. Yes, your friend should have been safe with her "friends". However, she wasn't. I think there are several points that can be made in connection with this story.
1) Once again, it's just not safe to pass out in the company of other people. The people who hang around with you at college pretending to be your friends are not always your friends. Don't leave your most expensive possessions lying out where they can steal them and pawn them (my college roommate pawned several of my CDs, imagine what she could have done if I'd left more valuable things lying around in my room), and don't pass out in front of them.
2) She should have had them all arrested for sexual assault. The photos would have made pretty good evidence.
3) (And this is why I think it was a good letter.) I think your letter makes it obvious that there can be improvement. It may never be safe to pass out in the company of potential predators, but there's no reason that people who are otherwise high-functioning and fully-socialized should be allowed to think it's a good joke to sexually assault someone who is passed out. It's like the Taliban breaking an old lady's ankle because she let it show beneath her burqa; it reflects on the culture as a whole, not that such things take place, but that the perpetrators thought it was normal behavior.
I'm afraid that both of these people were stupid, whether or not you want to admit it. No one made them get drunk. Neither of them were in a safe location - the woman who tried to give the man a blow job in his own bathroom presumably did not break a window to get in.
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"Drunk People Can't Consent"
Something I've never understood about the "drunk people can't consent" line of thinking...
When both parties are drunk, which is what the authors of various pieces are talking about, aren't BOTH PARTIES rapists?
Shit, skip the trials and all and just jail 'em both. Problem solved.
(It's not even really possible to tease out what "arguments" are being presented by anyone here. Part of me can't believe I'm commenting on Broadsheet about what someone wrote about another person's book in Cosmo. OK, I confess: I'm an idiot.)
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@Rambin Rose 22
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose..."
Janis Joplin, "Me and Bobby McGee."
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This is important..."Me and Bobby McGee" was written by Kris Kristofferson.
Heaven forbid that poor genius should be remembered for his art in the Blade trilogy, or the "Amerika" miniseries.
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Try some responsibility it really doesn't hurt
I have never been a fan of "the hookup" and, yes, it existed a generation ago. Fortunately in my case during my alcohol years, I was a mean, nasty drunk. But, that did not exclude me from having my own near rape encounter. It frightened me so badly that I have not had a drink since then. However, at the time, I knew that (a) he would never face prosecution, (b) I would be severely judged as the "what did she think was going to happen" girl (and I strongly believed I wasn't that girl), and (c) I never would have been in that situation if I had been sober and thinking clearly.
Alcohol is the major factor here. And, my own personal belief is that women and men need to take responsibility for their actions even when they are in a drunken stupor. We are living in an excuse culture and we need to shift to a responsibility culture. I take full responsibility for what nearly happened to me. I was making poor decisions that entire summer because I had a problem with alcohol and I gravitate toward other alcoholics. I played the victim for too long and had to take responsibility for my own actions; living is much more peaceful when you stop playing the blame game.
I strongly believe that sexually aggressive girls need to check their own behavior. I was shocked to see what some of my students wear for a night on the town. Of course, I was a punk rocker when I was their age, but these girls looked like hookers. So, take this sage advice from someone who has counseled prostitutes in an old job: Do not advertise what you ain't sellin'. I tried to teach a unit on portrayals of women in advertising and, honestly, my students saw nothing wrong with the sexually provocative images. I even gave extra credit if they would write a short paper demonstrating what I like to call "the pornification of America." This generation has been bombarded with sexually provocative and, yes, even deviant imagery and they refuse to acknowledge the devastating effects these images have had on their views concerning sexual behavior, gender roles, body image, etc. The results of teaching the unit were truly frightening and disheartening.