Degrees of Sexual Assault

[Linked]

When discussing consent at a family gathering one of my BILs brought up that there is a difference between the jogger who gets abducted and raped and the girl who is happy on third base but then her BF steals home. I'm not sure how I feel about this. In one sense I agree that there is a difference, but in practice this is just used to blame the victim in the 2nd case and to justify punishing her.

Also, the girl who is pushed beyond what she consented to already has a messy enough situation. Does she still want to be around that man anymore? Should she report it? I was already that far, is it really that big a deal (it is)?

I think this is the problem with preaching chastity over consent. If you ignore chastity and focus on then doing something sexual to someone who does not agree is always bad, it doesn't matter what you were doing beforehand. Whereas if you ignore consent and focus on chastity then if you were doing anything remotely sexual then you got what you deserved for tampering with your procreative powers. Chastity for chastity's sake is bad.

[lostinmiddlemormonism]

In the example given: Jogger who is raped, and a girl who is date raped there is no difference. They were still raped and did not consent.

Put another way, does your brother in law care if I let him choose to be shot in the head or the heart or just decide myself? He is still dead.

As a premise there may be some merit...in the that being groped may be less traumatic/invasive than rape and in either case consent was not given. But to answer your brother-in-laws question quite bluntly:

• It doesn't matter what she was wearing or not wearing
  It doesn't matter what he or she was doing just before the assault
  It doesn't matter where she was, or how much he had to drink.
  Stop blaming the victim and require accountability for the actions of the assailant

-lost

[Dravin]

When discussing consent at a family gathering one of my BILs brought up that there is a difference between the jogger who gets abducted and raped and the girl who is happy on third base but then her BF steals home. I'm not sure how I feel about this. In one sense I agree that there is a difference, but in practice this is just used to blame the victim in the 2nd case and to justify punishing her.

Yes there is a difference, one is kidnapping and rape, the other is "just" rape. There is also a difference between someone slowly tortured to death and someone murdered with a morphine overdose. The wrongness of scenario A does not change the wrongness of scenario B.

It doesn't matter if she's engaged in other sexual activity with someone, consent to petting is not consent to coitus. Even taking it further even if she consented to coitus at any time even during the act she can revoke consent and tell him to stop. If he does not it is rape. To use an analogy with trespass, if you invite someone to use your bathroom that is not consent to raid your fridge and inviting someone in to your house does not mean you cannot later order them out. How sad that for many it is obvious when we're talking about property rights but seems to get so cloudy when talking about bodily integrity.

Does she still want to be around that man anymore? Should she report it?

These are all immaterial to the question of it being rape, though sadly many will use answers to those questions to decide it wasn't rape. That because she didn't leave him or because she didn't report it that therefore she consented to the assault. It's the classic beaten wife scenario, that because she doesn't leave him and report him everyone just shrugs and concludes he must not actually be abusing her or she otherwise has somehow earned it through inaction.

I was already that far, is it really that big a deal (it is)?

It is.

Whereas if you ignore consent and focus on chastity then if you were doing anything remotely sexual then you got what you deserved for tampering with your procreative powers. Chastity for chastity's sake is bad.

In the end such sentiments are just slut shaming to excuse rape.

[Not Buying It]

Your BIL is a misogynist pig. When a women says no, anything that happens after that is wrong, regardless of what she was doing before. The girl who goes to third base and doesn't want to go any farther is no less a victim than the jogger. Lost has it right with this:

But to answer your brother-in-laws question quite bluntly:

• It doesn't matter what she was wearing or not wearing
  It doesn't matter what he or she was doing just before the assault
  It doesn't matter where she was, or how much he had to drink.
  Stop blaming the victim and require accountability for the actions of the assailant

-lost

[alas]

As a rape trauma counselor, I found it was often the date rape victims who were most harmed, not the jogger who has someone jump out of the bushes. With the jogger, she knows it was not her fault and the rapist is a stranger. With a stranger, no relationship of trust was violated. With a stranger, she gets support from those around her. With a stranger, she just has to heal the physical wounds. With a stranger, the police believe her, and do not add to her injury by blaming her, or minimizing the harm done. But with a date or husband, the trust is forever gone. She may have years invested in the guy and it is much harder to decide what to do. Actually, the most traumatized women were the spousal rape victims. This form of rape most often comes with or just after a beating. And it is most often repeated. I had clients who hated one of their children because their husband raped them and they got pregnant with that child and the resentment is still there twenty years later. And these mem were sometimes “good Mormon men”. They just didn’t think they had to take no from their wife.

With men, I think the lines between first, second, or third base and home run is less than it is for a woman. That line is where women risk pregnancy, and it is an invasion of their body, which it isn’t for a guy. This is why (some) girls see nothing wrong with giving oral sex, but would never consent to vaginal sex. For them, there is a bright red line, but for the guy, it seems to be more of a slippery slope.

And I agree, the guy who thinks there is a big difference between the guy jumping out of the bushes and raping a jogger and the guy who forces his date to go further than she wanted to, well, he is well trained in rape culture.

[Palerider]

When discussing consent at a family gathering one of my BILs brought up that there is a difference between the jogger who gets abducted and raped and the girl who is happy on third base but then her BF steals home. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

I would have to agree with most here. There is a difference in severity of the wrongness or crime, but it is still wrong and criminal in both cases.

I would say as well that actively permitting or consenting to limited sexual behavior probably increases a females' chances of being taken advantage of by a brutish or unscrupulous male.

So I would like to pose the question, does a woman/girl put herself in a weakened position by consenting/engaging in foreplay? By that I mean physically vulnerable, not necessarily morally responsible if she is forced.

[alas]

When discussing consent at a family gathering one of my BILs brought up that there is a difference between the jogger who gets abducted and raped and the girl who is happy on third base but then her BF steals home. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

I would have to agree with most here. There is a difference in severity of the wrongness or crime, but it is still wrong and criminal in both cases.

I would say as well that actively permitting or consenting to limited sexual behavior probably increases a females' chances of being taken advantage of by a brutish or unscrupulous male.

So I would like to pose the question, does a woman/girl put herself in a weakened position by consenting/engaging in foreplay? By that I mean physically vulnerable, not necessarily morally responsible if she is forced.

Unfortunately yes. Engaging in bases one through three increases the risk that some jerk will decide that her consent no longer matters. But just going on a date also increases her risk factor, as does drinking, and a whole bunch of other factors. While women need to be trained in lowering their risk of rape, men need to be trained in what actually constitutes consent. So far our society puts all the responsibility on the woman, and then blames her for the consequences. Men need to be taught that no means no and stop means stop. Sure, sometimes if he keeps going she will be “talked into it”. But if he doesn’t respect her no, then how will he know if she was “talked into it” or if he raped her. Guys get aroused and lose their brains. Well, so do girls, but here we are talking about the girl who says no. So, if the guy keeps going, he may not notice signs of distress, like her crying or physically resisting. This is why guys need to be taught to respect a “no” and not to think that in sexual situations that no really means yes.

[Dravin]

Guys get aroused and lose their brains.

I can of course only speak for myself, but while a flood of testosterone may indeed tend to narrow my focus it does not remove my ability to control myself such that if during the middle of sex, even the edge of orgasm if my wife told me to stop that I could not stop. Of course I love and respect my wife and place her ahead of my own pleasure, I feel confident in stating a rapist does not of his victim.

This is why guys need to be taught to respect a “no” and not to think that in sexual situations that no really means yes.

Heck, not just in explicitly sexual situations. Popular culture loves it's movies and books where the tireless hero pursues the reluctant (or playing hard to get) love interest until she falls desperately in love with him. The idea that "No" at strongest means, "Not right now." runs deep. I'm unsure if the it is the sexual sentiment bleeding through into the romantic, the romantic into the sexual, or it's just a tangle knot that feeds into itself.

[moksha]

In the example given: Jogger who is raped, and a girl who is date raped there is no difference. They were still raped and did not consent.

I can see differences although, in the end, both victims might be subject to discipline at BYU.

Guys get aroused and lose their brains.

They might even start to experience angels with drawn swords.

[Palerider]

They might even start to experience angels with drawn swords.

....

[2bizE]

When discussing consent at a family gathering one of my BILs brought up that there is a difference between the jogger who gets abducted and raped and the girl who is happy on third base but then her BF steals home. I'm not sure how I feel about this. In one sense I agree that there is a difference, but in practice this is just used to blame the victim in the 2nd case and to justify punishing her.

Also, the girl who is pushed beyond what she consented to already has a messy enough situation. Does she still want to be around that man anymore? Should she report it? I was already that far, is it really that big a deal (it is)?

I think this is the problem with preaching chastity over consent. If you ignore chastity and focus on then doing something sexual to someone who does not agree is always bad, it doesn't matter what you were doing beforehand. Whereas if you ignore consent and focus on chastity then if you were doing anything remotely sexual then you got what you deserved for tampering with your procreative powers. Chastity for chastity's sake is bad.

Both cases are examples of non-consensual immorality in the church's eyes.

[alas]

Guys get aroused and lose their brains.

I can of course only speak for myself, but while a flood of testosterone may indeed tend to narrow my focus it does not remove my ability to control myself such that if during the middle of sex, even the edge of orgasm if my wife told me to stop that I could not stop. Of course I love and respect my wife and place her ahead of my own pleasure, I feel confident in stating a rapist does not of his victim.

This is why guys need to be taught to respect a “no” and not to think that in sexual situations that no really means yes.

Heck, not just in explicitly sexual situations. Popular culture loves it's movies and books where the tireless hero pursues the reluctant (or playing hard to get) love interest until she falls desperately in love with him. The idea that "No" at strongest means, "Not right now." runs deep. I'm unsure if the it is the sexual sentiment bleeding through into the romantic, the romantic into the sexual, or it's just a tangle knot that feeds into itself.

The “no really means try harder” really is built into our culture. I cannot stand one actor who we will simply call “beady blue eyes” because he has several times had a “rape turns into a very happy satisfied heroine” or “rape makes her love you” scene that really turns my stomach. But spouse man likes his kind of tough hero western, so he continues to watch the rapist. And I continue to leave the room.

It is as you mentioned both in the romantic and the sexual aspects and tangled together. But it is only the female “no” that’s treated as yes. Of course, it is the tough guy image that “no” means “I’ll kill you if you cross me.” And is portrayed as sweet and feminine to say no out of modesty when you really mean yes.

I even have a couple of friends who like reading the kind of rape fantasy fiction. But the thing is, that in their fantasy, they are completely in charge, while the whole point of rape is that the victim is not in charge. So, really, rape fantasy is an oxymoron. You can’t fantasize rape because as soon as you do, by definition, what happens in your fantasy is what you want to happen, therefore not rape.

Oh, and let’s not forget that men can be victims of rape also, mostly with male perpetrators and often gang rape, but can also be female perpetrators.

[Linked]

As a rape trauma counselor, I found it was often the date rape victims who were most harmed, not the jogger who has someone jump out of the bushes. With the jogger, she knows it was not her fault and the rapist is a stranger. With a stranger, no relationship of trust was violated. With a stranger, she gets support from those around her. With a stranger, she just has to heal the physical wounds. With a stranger, the police believe her, and do not add to her injury by blaming her, or minimizing the harm done. But with a date or husband, the trust is forever gone. She may have years invested in the guy and it is much harder to decide what to do. Actually, the most traumatized women were the spousal rape victims. This form of rape most often comes with or just after a beating. And it is most often repeated. I had clients who hated one of their children because their husband raped them and they got pregnant with that child and the resentment is still there twenty years later. And these mem were sometimes “good Mormon men”. They just didn’t think they had to take no from their wife.

With men, I think the lines between first, second, or third base and home run is less than it is for a woman. That line is where women risk pregnancy, and it is an invasion of their body, which it isn’t for a guy. This is why (some) girls see nothing wrong with giving oral sex, but would never consent to vaginal sex. For them, there is a bright red line, but for the guy, it seems to be more of a slippery slope.

And I agree, the guy who thinks there is a big difference between the guy jumping out of the bushes and raping a jogger and the guy who forces his date to go further than she wanted to, well, he is well trained in rape culture.

Thank you for your comments Alas, I was hoping you would weigh in on this. Your experience is very much appreciated. I especially appreciate how you have painted the picture of the additional pain a date or spousal rape victim is subjected too. It really helps me better understand how the trauma is compounded and is difficult to heal from.

Great point about the lines being different for a man or woman.

I was also well trained in rape culture and these kinds of posts are the way I try to get out of it. My BIL is definitely also trained in it.

[Linked]

Thanks for all the great responses! The comment about the jogger vs the date rape victim had me uncomfortable, but I wasn't really sure why. Thanks for your insights.