Of course. Because in reality it's not a random 50/50 chance, its based on the peculiarities of you and your partner. Most people are pretty sure where they are in relation to consent. Some of them are wrong, of course. But whether they are wrong or not is not a matter of probability.
This does not match the reality of the rape cases in court (or colleges). "I didn't realize s/he objected" is a frequent defense, along with "s/he asked for it," "s/he owed me," and "s/he didn't say no."
Many of the cases involved here are first time sex encounters. These are not people who are pretty sure they are in a relationship with consent. They are not even in a relationship. There's nothing inherently wrong with hook-up sex, in my opinion, and nothing inherently difficult in making sure it is actually consensual. But people have argued here and in many other threads that explicit consent is awkward and unnatural.
I'm not going to look up the quotes. The whole idea of people arguing against gaining explicit consent just really depresses me. They are here.
Well of course they don't. They have what they consider a normal sex life, it's not any your business what it is, so why should they change?
Holy shit because the other person in the relationship said it was against their will, that's why!
3 broad categories of sex
- obvious rape where everyone knows it's rape.
- ambiguous sex, where a large percent of the time only one person thinks it's rape (the victim)
- obvious not-rape where everyone knows it's not rape.
Some people are arguing that we should make rules that bring awareness to people that they could be brought before court for only type 1 sex. That there should be no risk in attempting type 2 sex and no obligation or even recommendation that they take steps to make it type 3 sex.
I've not spotted anyone doing that. Are you sure that's not a straw man?
Yeah, I'm sure. But too done with thinking about the reality of it to go hunt them up again.
What I have seen is people arguing that the law should be extended to prosecute those who are not, in fact, committing rape, on the grounds that it acts as a deterrant. That's what the OP citation was arguing, for example.
I take the Klein comment as part hyperbole and part tired admission that this is what it would take for the casual rapists to wake the fuck up to thinking about their partner for real. The fact that this is what it would take for them to actually think for even a second about their partner's consent is a sad dark state of affairs and I can hardly believe it needs to be said, but there is Klein admitting from a man's perspective that this is what it would actually take for fathers to write cautionary e-mails to their son';s at college about checking for consent.
I didn't say it, Klein did. Until they feel that they are at risk for UNjust arrest, they will never contemplate that they are at risk for a just arrest. It's always about some violent stranger in an alley, never about the clean-cut frat boy, right?
Incorrect. They want their sex life to meet their standards, not yours. They want to use their judgement to determine consent, not yours. Overall, that's probably a good thing.
Because there is no disagreement about whether rape has occurred? There's never a real rapist who gets off by claiming "she never said no" and there's no system where raped people get pummeled and damaged by a court process that fails to take their victimhood seriously?
There's a "standard" that works right now to prevent people from doing something they think is "normal behavior" when it is actually rape?
The problem comes in the few cases where their judgement is horribly horribly wrong.
a few.
?
The best way to combat this is through social awareness - people discussing the matter and working between themselves exactly why lack of protest is not consent.
Klein's comment states that this will never happen until the people doing this finally realize that THEY are the one's we're talking about.
Sad if that's true. I gave college men more credit that that, but, apparently Klein disagrees.
There may be a fundamental confusion here. As far as I know, the laaw against rape actually gives us everything we could want in terms of an accurate dividing line between the innocent and the guilty.
You and I disagree that this is a true thing in America.
I believe it is obviously and demonstrably not a true thing in America.
It's just that it's confusing, patchily enforced and poorly understood. While I can see why these are all bad, I don't see how changing the law to include innocent people really helps the situation.
And that's what's being argued for. That we need to include innocent people in our laws against rape, so that the rules are clearer and easier to enforce.
No. What';s being argued is that we need to include ALL of the rapists in the law and some of those rapists are doing the same thing as non-rapists which is having sex with
assumed consent. Those who are assuming correctly but still merely assuming are at risk of being wrong about what they are assuming. And they should know that. Those who are assuming incorrectly are rapists. But they don't realize this yet. The inclusion of them in the law will help to get actual rapists convicted.
Note:
Those who are using assumed consent and are assuming correctly will not face charges because their partner was consenting - the assumption was correct.
Those who are using assumed consent and are NOT assuming correctly will find their partner pressing charges.
If your assumption of consent was correct - no charges - because no one is pressing charges.