From: pcg@aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi)
Subject: Is there a difference among insistence, harassment and rape?
Summary: Should pestering or harassing a woman in a sexual situation be
	considered tantanmount to statutory rape because it necessarily
	preempts her free will because she will _feel_ threatened, even if no
	actual threat or use of force has taken place?
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Reply-To: pcg@aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi)
Organization: Prifysgol Cymru, Aberystwyth
Date: 22 Aug 92 21:03:50 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>

And now, back to our favourite discussion between concerned women and
callous men:

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

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. Most don't, and some of
those that have got AIDS do tell you, but many don't. And those that
don't may be effectively killing you.

Facts of life.

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

Instead you seem to justify women when they feel threatened by
pestering, and not because such pestering men is rude or silly, or
because in extreme cases it may amount to harassment, but because being
pestered is regarded as a proxy for being raped(!):

muffy> seems to be fairly frequent that women say "yes" not because
muffy> "they really wanted to" but because they feel they can't get away
muffy> any other way.

Offf, offf. Were they subject to violence? If they have weak wills,
that's a psychological problem, not a criminal one. When you speak of
'rape' you are talking about about criminal policy, not about psychology
and etiquette.

Unless you want to insist that pestering leads necessarily or is
substantially equivalent to statutory rape, as you indeed do:

nuffy> Consider the animal in a trap gnawing off a leg.  Did it really
muffy> *want* to gnaw off the leg?  Was it just playing with the trap?

Now, this is really a poor analogy. The trap *is* violence. Statutory
rape covers very well the situation: the crime of rape happens when
there is the use of overriding *force* or *threats*, not mere pressure.
Holding somebody in a trap is considered force or its threat; pestering
them is not. It is rude, it is stupid, it is unmanly, but that's all.

The human equivalent to your "trap" case above is: a person is held
locked in a room unless he/she consents to sex; he/she "consents" just
to get free. That's statutory rape indeed. Nobody argues with that. To
consider pestering essentially equivalent to force, blackmail, or
holding somebody a prisoner, in that it is assumed to preempt free
choice, seems to me slightly excessive.

Do you really think that most women are so weak willed that they risk to
be overwhelmed and have their free will preempted not by wilful
intoxication, or force, or threats, but by mere pestering, or even by
harassment? And if this were indeed the case, maybe it would be better
to consider it a problem with women, instead of assuming that they are
by nature incurably weakwilled and they must be protected by making
psychological pressure to them into a crime, much like consent cannot be
presumed in the case of minors, whose free will is supposed to be all
too easily preemptable.

Suppose that pestering and insistence from a person to another were to
be so extreme as to amount to harassment. You are essentially arguing
that sexual harassment does not exist, it is always rape anyhow.

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?
--
Piercarlo Grandi                   | JNET: pcg@uk.ac.aber
Dept of CS, University of Wales    | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@aber.ac.uk

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