Letters to the Editor
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Shame and responsibility
Society is NOT outraged with her for having sex without submitting to male control.
Society is outraged with her for getting into bed with two drunks and then expecting that if she says no they will immediately climb out of bed, and her claim that she has no responsibility for her poor decisions.
Nope, check again. Nick Kiddle's primary objection isn't to the condom argument, it's to her father's subsequent behavior. At no point does she develop buyer's remorse about the sex itself, or even any shame. She was, however, furious about the fallout.
She, a legal adult, had protected sex, even insisted on it. Should be no big deal, right? The problem is that she had that sex outside of socially acceptable boundaries, which resulted in her getting kicked out, or nearly kicked out, of her home. I'm not sure where she lives now or what her relationship with her father is at this point. It's possible that the whole thing blew over.
I think what gets under people's skin is her lack of shame and remorse about openly seeking recreational sex with a couple of soldiers. They think she should feel shame and remorse, and that the near-miss should be a warning to her to be a good girl.
That's not what's happening here, and I think it upsets people. They expect her to feel remorse of some kind, and read it into what she writes when it just isn't there.
Here's what Nick actually says about her so-called buyer's remorse:
But he can't see it like that. He has to see shame and scandal and judgement and disgust. He has to make me feel bad, and I do feel bad now. Not that I had sex with a few horny squaddies, but that I'm living in a world where having sex with a few horny squaddies is apparently a mortal sin. (emphasis mine)
Nick stayed sober. She brought condoms and insisted on their use. That's what she was responsible for.
She was not responsible for a man failing to put on or removing his condom, and then attempting to have sex without it.
At that point, she was responsible for the most stubborn possible refusal, which she did. She got dressed and left.
Let's put it this way. If you agree to have sex with a woman, and you find yourself with her fist up your backdoor, have you consented to this by consenting to sex with her? And would it be okay if she was drunk?
There are a few men out there who would be great with that, but that's not who I'm addressing with that example!
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Check this, check that!
Nope, check again. Nick Kiddle's primary objection isn't to the condom argument, it's to her father's subsequent behavior. At no point does she develop buyer's remorse about the sex itself, or even any shame. She was, however, furious about the fallout.
Bzzt, nice try on rewriting the facts. A Bush Admin official are you?
Nick doesn't even mention her father's behavior until her last post at Alas. And she does that because too many people for her tender feelings told her she was an idiot in her first post.
And she does that in the context of explicitly rejecting any responsibility of hers for going to bed with two drunk paratroopers. Not just intoxicated but "so drunk as to be deaf to reason."
The attitude that women have the responsibility to protect themselves from rape is, at the most generous reading, an uncritical acceptance of the idea that men cannot be prevented from raping. At its worst, it is yet another example of the way society makes women responsible for anything men dislike. And all the while, there is no acknowledgement that this is just the mechanism by which sexist men can benefit from rape without themselves committing it.
She will not take any iota of responsibility for her decision. Just as Rebecca Traister would have it. Contrary to what Katie Roiphe would say.
She is saying that for her to have taken responsibility for her actions is society making women responsible for anything men like.
Nice attempt to spin the facts, luckily, until she decides to delete her live journal articles and Deutsch the Alas posts, we have the actual facts.
Apart from her dad, no one is upset with her for her wanting and acting to have sex. That's a lie that's being pushed and no one has cited a single iota of evidence to support that.
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Time stamps are helpful
Nick doesn't even mention her father's behavior until her last post at Alas. And she does that because too many people for her tender feelings told her she was an idiot in her first post.
Check your chronology. The incident with the paratroopers came up on her journal on September 12, 2005. By Sept. 14, she wrote about her father kicking her out. The Alas, a Blog entries were written November 8 and 10. The Pandagon entry was written November 22, and not by Nick Kiddle.
On November 10, at Alas, a Blog, she writes, as you quoted:
The attitude that women have the responsibility to protect themselves from rape is, at the most generous reading, an uncritical acceptance of the idea that men cannot be prevented from raping. At its worst, it is yet another example of the way society makes women responsible for anything men dislike. And all the while, there is no acknowledgement that this is just the mechanism by which sexist men can benefit from rape without themselves committing it.
She goes on to say:
Disgust and shame are appropriate responses to moral wrongdoing, not foolhardy risk-taking.
and:
It shocks some people that I want sex and don’t want to submit to male authority. It shocks them even more that these two desires outweigh my fear of rape, so that I dare to gratify both by picking up paratroopers in a pub. The “prudent” suggestions for keeping myself safe always boil down to giving up sex (or at least, the kind of sex I’m interested in) or submitting to male authority.
These “solutions” might well have no effect on my risk of being raped. But even if they were guaranteed to protect me from all risk, they wouldn’t be worth it. I think I’d rather be raped than spend the rest of my life turning aside from what I wanted and settling for something less. I know I’d rather take risks than allow fear of rape to control my expression of my sexuality.
About her father's attitude, Nick says this in her journal entry of September 15:
He didn't say that what I did was stupid or dangerous, he said it was disgusting, and unless he expresses himself a bit better I'm going to continue to assume he's angry because I had sex in a proscribed way and now the neighbours are talking.
Nick, clearly, is more disturbed by the sexual mores which created her post-coital familial conflicts than she is by the sex itself, or even by Jerk Boy's quibble with her condom rule.
I was trying to think of a scenario under which attempting to have sex with a woman who is covering her genitals with her hand is considered acceptable, and here is what I came up with. The idea is that by virtue of being drunk and naked with her, a strange woman he had just met in a bar, Jerk Boy was entitled to any sex he wanted. This was a freebie, something that was happening outside the law, and the normal rules of sexual behavior didn't apply.
Or did they? She set the rules of engagement (condoms required) and he broke them. Should there be no penalty? So he was drunk. So what? Are you saying that men can't control their behavior when they're drunk? No? Then maybe they shouldn't drink so much. Or maybe they shouldn't drink so much and go off with strange women they meet in bars.
Oops! Forgot. That rule only applies to women.
If someone leaves their keys in the car and the car is stolen, we roll our eyes at the idiot, but still prosecute the thief. He doesn't get to argue that because the keys were in the car, it was legally his to do with as he liked.