From: muffy@mica.berkeley.EDU (Muffy Barkocy)
Subject: Re: Is there a difference among insistence, harassment and rape?
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
Date: 27 Aug 92 19:37:44 GMT
	<24JUL199207433737@erich.triumf.ca>
	<1992Jul29.191026.7735@ucc.su.OZ.AU> <2A786B6B.17268@ics.uci.edu>
	<robert.713050512@labyrinth>
	<MUFFY.92Aug15174439@remarque.berkeley.edu>
	<PCG.92Aug20204416@aberdb.aber.ac.uk>

In article <PCG.92Aug20204416@aberdb.aber.ac.uk> pcg@aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:

>muffy> Well, the point isn't that all men are going around raping
>muffy> women whenever they feel like it, the point is that they *can*
>muffy> and many *do*, and that makes women feel quite powerless.  For
>muffy> example, if I go out with someone, he *might* be one of the
>muffy> "majority," but the "minority" is sufficiently large (yes, I'm
>muffy> including date rape here, of course, especially since it is
>muffy> particularly relevant in this discussion of sex and
>muffy> relationships...it *is* rape), that I would not be
>muffy> unreasonable if I felt a little concerned.

>I am quite a solid man, and every time I go out at night I am
>concerned about being mugged and beaten up. Every time I hear
>somebody's steps behind me at night I start evasive actions. Better
>safe than sorry.

Exactly!  I feel the same way on a dark street at night alone.  In
fact, I *have* been attacked (attempted purse-snatching, ending in a
nasty bump on the head when my head hit the concrete) under such
circumstances, but only once in many years.  So, it seems that you
also understand how you can feel threatened even when there is not
anyone actively menacing you at the time.

>Some of my friends get very worried about having sex with women; they
>might be carrying AIDS, and men think that women can be far more
>promiscuous than men, and thus be a bigger risk.

Really?  Umm...who are they being promiscuous *with*, if not men?
There are very few alleged (and as far as I know none proven) cases of
woman-to-woman sexual transmission of AIDS.  I understand that most
fears have very little basis in logic, but I have never heard this
idea before and I'm pretty surprised at it.

>muffy> People don't mention this much in the discussions of "'no'
>muffy> means keep trying," but such persistance is very threatening
>muffy> and it

>Why should it be? If women feel seriously threatened by mere
>pestering, too bad for them. Men feel threatened by promiscuous women
>that might cheat on them, something that can destroy them
>psychologically, as well make their genetic line extinct, but nobody
>seems to commiserate them much.

>But actually you are arguing the even more extreme position, that
>even when pestering does not quite amount to harassment, it should be
>considered rape if done to a woman, because it makes her feel
>threatened as if it were rape.

>Or have I misread you, and you (and women in general) can make a
>distinction between pestering, harassment and rape?

Well, I think you have misread *me*, anyway.  I was not trying to say
that being "pestered" into sex was equivalent to rape, I was just
trying to say that there *is* a feeling of being threatened and a
feeling that it might be better to do something like choose to have
sex than to resist and possibly have some sort of problem.  In the
same way, if someone on the street asked you for change several times,
following you down the street very close to you, you might feel
sufficiently threatened to give them the money, even if you don't
*really* think that they're going to attack you.  Now, you couldn't
claim that you were robbed, but you could honestly say that if you had
not felt any threat (although they made no *direct* threat) you would
not have given them the money.

Muffy
--

Muffy Barkocy | muffy@mica.berkeley.edu | wi.4636@wizvax.methuen.ma.us
~Little round planet/in a big universe/sometimes it looks blessed/
 sometimes it looks cursed/Depends on what you look at, obviously/
 But even more it depends on the way that you see~ - Bruce Cockburn



--
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to feminism@ncar.ucar.edu.
Questions and comments may be sent to feminism-request@ncar.ucar.edu.  This
news group is moderated by several people, so please use the mail aliases. Your
article should be posted within several days.  Rejections notified by email.