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A Thread About Consent (Potential for NSFW and triggers)
Beef Avenger
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Registered User regular
Spinning this out of the Paris thread where the topic was first brought up. The articles I've linked look clean on my end, but to be safe you may want to consider everything to be NSFW, especially when it comes to googling names. Also trigger warning for the topic of sexual assault.
Adult film star James Deen has been accused of rape by his former girlfriend and fellow adult performer Stoya. More allegations of sexual assault by other women in the industry have followed. This has come as a shock to many due to Deen owing much of his success to his approachable "boy next door" image and being considered by many of his fans to be pro feminist.
Here's an article giving the rundown, written by a woman who used to be in the porn industry and has had personal experience working with Deen in the past: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/30/james-deen-the-bill-cosby-of-porn.html
Here's another article about the site Kink cutting ties immediately (note some of the assaults in question may have occurred at Kink, so this may be more an effort to distance themselves from fallout): http://jezebel.com/james-deen-dropped-from-major-porn-studio-amid-allegati-1745342576?trending_test_two_b&utm_expid=66866090-68.FLd2bbXWSVeOIUIrpr9Fmw.2
So this thread is about consent, be it in the world of pornography or anywhere else.
Adult film star James Deen has been accused of rape by his former girlfriend and fellow adult performer Stoya. More allegations of sexual assault by other women in the industry have followed. This has come as a shock to many due to Deen owing much of his success to his approachable "boy next door" image and being considered by many of his fans to be pro feminist.
Here's an article giving the rundown, written by a woman who used to be in the porn industry and has had personal experience working with Deen in the past: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/30/james-deen-the-bill-cosby-of-porn.html
Here's another article about the site Kink cutting ties immediately (note some of the assaults in question may have occurred at Kink, so this may be more an effort to distance themselves from fallout): http://jezebel.com/james-deen-dropped-from-major-porn-studio-amid-allegati-1745342576?trending_test_two_b&utm_expid=66866090-68.FLd2bbXWSVeOIUIrpr9Fmw.2
So this thread is about consent, be it in the world of pornography or anywhere else.
Beef Avenger on
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https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/201926/is-this-cheating-or-rape
Just because a person was led to saying 'yes' or 'ok' through coercion, manipulation, or threat, does not mean that they bear responsibility for what happened to them. In a situation described in the thread, a person isn't choosing to have sex, they're choosing whether they want to be physically assaulted and raped, or just raped. It isn't much of a choice.
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Reading the thread you linked, your description bears no relationship to it.
This. Kink has had some issues in the past and really tries to make a point of how open and up front they are (much like Deen was). I really want to see more companies (or at least actresses) refuse to work with him.
Lexi Belle replied on twitter essentially saying that if someone assaults you why you should just assault them right back and that if it had been her she would have smashed the guy's head in with a baseball batt. So, there's that.
I really probably shouldn't continue the discussion about another thread in another forum, but here I go anyway.
Dude physically restrained her and forced himself on her, for 'just' a kiss. He continued to harass her for several hours until she 'consented' under duress, and the stress, or some other factor involved, was significant enough to cause memory loss. Those are the facts posted in the thread. In what way is that consent anything other than forced and unenthusiastic?
Since it was a travel situation, it's also possible/likely that she didn't have a way to easily remove herself from the situation. There are actions she probably could have taken to avoid the situation in the first place, but that's getting into weird victim blaming territory, as well as wild speculation.
I feel that ultimately, when you're talking about adults who are in control of their mental faculties, if they say they weren't raped (and they aren't being coerced into saying it) then it wasn't rape.
OP says that according to their friend, she wasn't raped, and so it wasn't rape.
It may be that the exact same scenario with a different woman, she would consider it rape, and that's why enthusiastic consent and continual communication on both parties' sides is needed.
I've not had sex, but don't the people involved talk to each other during it? Even a bit? If your partner isn't saying anything, maybe back off and ask how they're doing?
Also, Deen has always sort of seemed like an asshole for various reasons
In UK law, if this is something that happens and the accused admits it then it can be strong evidence that it was rape/non-consensual.
edit:
As in, if the victim says "I didn't want to, I froze" and the accused admits that victim wasn't communicating also.
ughhh. One would hope that someone who shares industry experience would better be able to empathize. The thought of a porn actress going to police about domestic sexual assault seems like it would be a nightmare, without even bringing up potential for professional ramifications
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
That will differ wildly depending on the people involved.
The incident with Stoya sounds like it was off set, but its not really detailed. Another shady incident involving someone else is brought up that was in studio but off camera. I haven't read up on the details of other allegations.
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
I believe @Pony told a story a while ago about someone he knew (or a friend of someone he knew? I can't quite remember the relationship there) who did that exact thing.
And it did precisely jack-shit, because the police pretty much didn't believe a porn star could be raped on the job.
also
We don't really have any details beyond the allegation. In fact this is literally all we know:
no facts regarding when, where, etc. I feel like it was most likely while they were still together, and it's just now boiling over because she can't just let that shit slide anymore, but again we don't have any details.
You have liberally added your own interpretation and called it fact. We shouldn't argue this here though, so let's step aside so we can discuss the OP instead.
Given how stressful rape is, and how victims often feel like they're to blame, not to mention how often they are made pariahs by the media and their communities if they speak up, it is totally understandable that they could decide to just sweep it under the rug and not accuse the rapist of anything.
I would say a middle road is probably smarter. If the victim doesn't call it rape, don't call it rape. Unless you are exceedingly close to the person and can help them and genuinely believe it was rape then you should follow the lead of the person whose life it is. That doesn't mean it wasn't rape. It doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered rape. It means they don't want to hear you call it rape, and likely they can't handle thinking about it as rape for any of an innumerable list of reasons.
Guy is constantly wanting to get physical, she says no. Eventually, guy forces a kiss physically.
Then guy constantly says they should have sex. After forcing a kiss physically that she didn't consent to.
So basically there's an element of fear here. Fear that if she continues to say no, he's going to force it anyway. By forcing the unwanted kiss the guy showed his hand, showed that he was more than willing to force her to do sexual things that she doesn't consent to.
So she consents under duress.
Which is rape.
There's what you say and there's what you mean. Communication around sex, especially within the context of a relationship, gets pretty fraught. Consent can get a little weird because there may be times when one partner or the other decides to have sex when they don't really feel like it, for a variety of reasons. There are times, and you can argue whether it's appropriate, that there's a "nah, aww c'mon, oh ok" kind of exchange that would be sketchy if it happened between strangers.
There's also the way that culture has defined sexual roles between genders; it's expected that men will pressure women and that women will need to fend them off, it's expected that if men just try hard enough that women will give it up, and it's accepted that sometimes it's easier for women to just give in and make the men happy (and all of the ugly implications for what would happen if she didn't just don't get talked about).
So it's just not good enough to say that communication is key. You've got to be communicating the right things, in the right ways, with the right contexts, and there's nothing but gray area as far as the eye can see.
As a woman, you're most likely in a disadvantaged position, so a guy constantly badgering you to have sex puts you in a place where at least half your brain is telling you 'if you don't give it, he will take it'.
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The OP is about consent tho along with an example for talking about. The H/A thread is just another one.
My advice to anyone in that situation would be to go to your nearest ER after the assault. They will collect evidence and record their findings and call the police. When a call like that comes from an ER the police are obligated to respond to it and at least put it on record. If they decide to not do anything you still have your medical record you can get without jumping through all the police hoops/possible throwing away of evidence.
I just want to address this part a bit. Adults lie about things all the time. Adults lie about personal things, things that would, on paper, make way more sense to tell the truth about. I've lied to people about things going on in my life because I didn't think I could handle talking about those things and it was just easier to pretend they didn't exist at the moment. And that's incredibly benign things that really didn't matter much in the long-term. Considering how much of a stigma exists around domestic abuse in general, and rape in particular, I can envision a bunch of scenarios in which someone would lie about it. Due to the circumstantial nature it's hard to provide definitive statistics on that sort of thing, but it's my understanding that it's not uncommon for people to spend years pretending that it didn't happen to them, publicly denying it, maybe even, on some level, trying to convince themselves it didn't happen. That's the problem with abuse. You can't necessarily take a person's word on it, because that person might not be in a position where they feel they can give their true word. And it doesn't necessarily have to do with external coercion. Sometimes a person just doesn't have it in them to face the truth.
If the H/A OP's friend later comes out and says "I was raped" or "I've been thinking about it a lot, and I think I was raped", then yes it would have been rape.
But at the same time I will not say to an adult "No, you're wrong, you were raped".
If the same thing happened to my wife, she told me about it, and she was beating herself up thinking she cheated on me I wouldn't hesitate to tell her she was raped, and try to absolve her of her undeserved guilt.
If it happened to someone I just met and they told me about it I wouldn't do that.
However that doesn't change what happened. The person's feelings about whether it was rape don't actually matter when it comes to what happened.
If she agreed to it because she was scared about what he might do if she said no then she was raped. And this is because of his previous actions.
There are circumstances where I absolutely will say that. There are plenty of adults who don't realize the extent of rape. People who think because they got physical pleasure from the act, it wasn't rape. People who think because they're married to the person, it wasn't rape. People who think because they eventually "gave in" and said "yes" even though they still didn't really want to, it wasn't rape. I haven't read that thread. I'm not going to say for sure what happened in that particular thread. But the general sentiment that it can't be rape until the victim claims it's rape is not only not always true, it can be actively harmful.
Ultimately it's not my job to determine what did or did not happen in any given case. It's not any of our jobs. That's for law enforcement, doctors, psychiatrists--trained professionals to deal with. But as far as the court of public opinion goes, it's important to understand the complexity surrounding issues like this. It's important to realize that circumstances matter, and that testimony doesn't necessarily tell the whole story.
OK!
Bolded is where the speculation and made up stuff begins. There's no element of fear in the H/A example. They remain together despite meeting "while travelling", which of course we know nothing about w/r/t circumstance. Are they on a buss? Are they staying the same hostel? If there is fear, why are they still together when they are independently traveling with their own finances??? She could literally just stop traveling with him. Done.
H/A thread's OP says her "willpower broke", which implies she was resisting the desire to say yes the whole time.
There is no number of requests for sex after which sex is rape. There can be no assumption of fear and coercion when:
1) We don't know how or why these two people are still together after the "forced kiss", much less why they are together for several hours. We do know they came together independently and we must presume that she can leave independently as well, as there's no mention of anything to the contrary.
2) Woman in question clearly implies that she desired sex but was resisting out of obligation, until she gave in.
3) Woman in question considers herself to have consented.
It seems possible to consent to sex even after someone escalates physical contact that you initiate in a way you don't want, especially after many hours have passed with no restraint or intimidation. We cannot assume that she was afraid because she was a woman or for any other reason, especially given that we know very few facts about the travel situation except that they met during the trip (which demonstrates that they can travel independently and counts as a mark strongly against coercion or restraint or intimidation) and that we know she considered her resistance to the advances of someone she found attractive a matter of willpower resisting desire rather than resisting outside force.
Guy in question is a silly goose, and maaaaaybe guilty of a misdemeanor assault but we can't invalidate consent because we don't like the person asking for it or even because they committed a nonviolent crime several hours earlier. This is exactly the sort of thing that muddies the waters between rape and regret and does a disservice to victims.
Because some people just want to play 52 pick up and don't give a damn about the rules of poker.
Holy crap, there's some stuff to unpack here.
If someone says "no" that should be the end of it. Continuing to badger them until they give in is not okay, and getting a "yes" after a dozen "no's" does not absolve that person or retroactively make their persistence okay. Again, I'm not commenting on the post in question specifically because I don't have the details of it, but the sentiments you are expressing here are dangerous ones. There are a lot of reasons why someone would relent to repeated advances other than "fighting their own desire" as you put it. And even if someone feels a physical attraction does not mean that they are okay with pursuing it. We can argue about the use of the specific term "rape" but that's kind of glossing over the more important fact that, whatever you call it, that kind of behavior is not okay and should not be excused or accepted.
Or that the willpower/strength to say no and put up with the harassment broke, because that is exhausting.
Yes that's true. If you assume she's free to leave of her own free will at any time then yes you would have no assumption of fear and coercion.
The problem is that you are declaring "givens" that should not be declared in any situation. You are creating a starting point that is not realistic, nor is it fair to the victim, frankly.
Here's the thing, you're speculating as well.
In my mind, the only thing in this particular situation that would make this rape vs not rape is if she herself felt she couldn't say no. Once the guy assaulted her for the kiss none of the rest of it matters.
Was she intimidated? Felt like she couldn't leave? Wanted to stay? Drunk and not able to drive?
I don't know. But I'm not going to assume that she was perfectly able to leave whatever situation they were in. Maybe my language was a little too black and white for you, but with the situation that was laid out there's as much of a chance she was raped vs it being consensual. And the only thing that decides that is if she felt she couldn't say no.
It's the most important point, and it is unaddressed in the thread. With what we have, there's no way to know whether she felt unable to refuse and we're left trying to draw inferences. It doesn't seem like she felt unable to refuse though. It just seems like projection to think otherwise.
Hell, we're making a lot of assumptions about things here. She could be a 6'2" 250lb roller derby player and him a 5'4" 110lb asthmatic with a limp.
We simply don't know, and I think it's disturbing that folks are willing, in the absence of even the barest of strong information to guide us and with several tidbits that weigh against, to discard a woman's belief about what she did and instead declare it a rape.
There's believing the victim, and then there's creating a victim.
it's imo a more reasonable an assumption to make, given the facts we know, than the assumption that she consented because she feared the consequences of further refusal. They met while traveling abroad... this isn't "they met at a club and went back to his place". We simply don't know enough about the specific arrangement to assume she couldn't escape him without escalating conflict.
Given the lack of information and the absence of the person in question to clarify
it would be best to stop discussing that particular matter entirely
I guess my question to you is are you saying that hands down it wasn't rape? I mean, I'm not trying to say that the girl was definitely raped. But the situation that was presented doesn't make it clear at all that it was consensual. Only that consent was given after an assault was committed to force her to kiss him. I'm fine with saying we simply don't have enough information to say one way or another. I'm not fine with saying we have enough information to make it likely this wasn't a rape.
Let's talk about this!
Badgering someone for sex until they give in is definitely a dick move ( :rotate: ) and it remains bad regardless of whether you finally get a yes. But do you think that's rape?
I do not.