From: noraa@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (aaron.l.hoffmeyer)
Subject: Re: Men's Issues Newsbrief
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 04:03:17 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.233752.26373@fid.morgan.com> sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart) writes:
>My post was in response to one that claimed that, because a court
>ruled that undesired penetration was rape, only men could be guilty of
>rape under the law.
>

A man is wounded in war action and is virtually brain-dead.  All
high-order brain functioning is lost.  Low-order brain functioning is
intact.  Everyday, on numerous occasions, the man gets an erection.  A
nurse, who works with this man, notices the erection and devises an
intricate little plot.  She wants to have a child, but does not want to
have a relationship with a man.  She is a staunch feminist, and frankly
does not respect men and their suffering.  Anyway, one evening, the man
gets his usual erection and the woman mounts him and has sex with him to
ejaculation.  Whether she repeats this numerous times is unknown.
However, eventually she conceives adn no one knows who the parent of her
child is.

Is this rape?  He never consented.  He was not penetrated.

Or, how about this?  One of the readers and posters in this newsgroup
told a story about how he was admitting his homosexuality to some woman,
and she felt that she needed to show him what he would be missing.  She
seduced him and he never wanted it nor ever consented to the act.  He
feels he was raped.  Was he raped?  He never consented.  He was not
penetrated.

Or how about this?  A man is somewhat attracted to a co-worker, but he
has a relationship with another woman.  However, one night, after a
bunch of people go out partying, she gives him a ride home (he got to
the party by riding with someone else).  When she pulls up to his
apartment, she shuts off the car and he says, "Goodnight, I'll see you
tomorrow, thanks for the ride."  She tells him, "I'm going inside."  He
thinks about and tells her it is not a good idea, he wants to be
faithful to his girl-friend.   He is legally drunk and after several
minutes of her insistence, he relents, just to appease her.  They have
sex.  He wakes up feeling very guilty and sick with someself for giving
in.  Also, during the sex act, she orchestrated everything, was on top,
manipulated him to achieve erection and was fully the active
participant.  He never verbally consented to the act, and was not a
willing participant.  However, he felt pressured because of their
relationship at work that if he didn't give in to her wishes, she could
use it against him at work.  Was he raped?

As I have stated before, I don't doubt that the majority of brutal rape
victims are men - those incarcerated in prisons.  Rape is apparently a
very common occurence in jail, but is not acknowledged as even a
legitimate issue for men to discuss.   Incarceration is supposed to be
their punishment, not being subjected to brutal assaults all the time.
it is, by definition, cruel and unusual punishment.

I also think that the rape laws fully intended that all victims of rape
are women and that all perps are men.  The "penetration" clause is very
indicative of this.  Also the statutory rape laws in almost every state
are so gender specific that man women who have accosted juvenile men
could not be charged under the statutory rape clauses.

Our law makers bought into the propoganda that women are the sole victims
in this society and that men are the sole perpetrators.  The biases
present throughout our laws are a reflection of that.

Aaron L. Hoffmeyer
TR@CBNEA.ATT.COM 
Newsgroups: soc.men,talk.abortion