@102 "anything verbal can serve as a safeword"

Also, in case anyone needs this info some day -- anything done in quick succession three times is also a "safeword" and should be treated as such (ie, check in with the bottom immediately):

3 quick grunts
3 foot stomps
3 finger snaps
3 emphatic blinks
etc.

I think that safewords in general are great ideas, whether or not you engage in risky or BDSM play. My last girlfriend and I sometimes did some light stuff-spanking, bondage, etc.-but even when sticking to vanilla activities we still had safewords, just in case. I think a lot of couples would benefit from a safeword, just in case a sense of discomfort is experienced, or in case one partner gets turned off or no longer wants to consent to the activity. Saying "no" in the middle of an activity might seem like rejection or might get lost in rougher play. Having a safeword made it seem less like rejection, and more like taking care of our partner.

@104, if someone's no longer having fun with an activity (and they're not submissive), they might try saying, "hey, I really want to do X to you now," or just changing positions, rather than safewording. After the sex, it's a good time to bring up the issue (I didn't like it when you called me Daddy / your tongue was starting to tickle me / whatever). But, in the moment, if you can keep the sexy times going by just changing the activity, that has less risk of causing insecurity in your partner and leading to longer term problems.

(Although, phoenixtorte, I don't mean to downplay your successful use of safewords -- glad that worked out for you.)

@ 103: Who needs a safe-word when a swift punch to the arm can say it for ya? LOL (Ok, taking into account someone's hands are tied, hmm... Maybe an elbow to someone's noggin to get them to cry Uncle? Anything's possible: it is Friday, after all lol.

Cheers.
:-)

When I gag my girls, I do it stuffed tight and more often than not, taped with clear packing tape that not only seals her mouth, but also allows me to see her lips. So a safe word usually comes out as, "unghhhmfff...." I make very sure to watch her face for signs she's not panicked or very uncomfortable-and I ask her if she wants the knots or gag tighter. An emphatic shaking of her head tells me to slack off a bit.

In a gagging situation, I watch for any blue on her lip color, her nailbeds showing bluing or blanching are also signs she may not be getting enough air. Watch her eyes, too. If they're looking "sleepy" or heaven forbid, rolling back in her head stop immediately and check her out (if she's cumming, well that's to be expected, but her erotic grunts and moans will tell you that she's more than ok anyway).

At the first sign of panic, free her immediately, I tend to use safe slipknots when binding my girls. Go for the breathing first (get that gag out of her mouth and clear any bindings constricting her chest), circulation is second (you are watching her extremities at the wrist and ankle bindings for signs of blue or blanched skin signalling poor circulation aren't you)? If you use rope a lot, look to assure that the ligature is not cutting into her skin. I really like rope bindings, but have lately favored soft ties (old tee shirts cut into strips make great bindings as well as cleave gags), because it's easier on her skin and I can more effectively tie her up without leaving rope marks, which is great if she has a guy to come home to or is going to work after a noon time fun session and can't have obvious rope burns showing.

Don't just listen for whatever safe word of the day is in vogue. Look, Listen and Feel her in case she's not able to communicate clearly. And, trust me, my girls seldom have the opportunity to verbally communicate clearly. I tend to be protective of the precious few women in my area who are into BDSM role play and I really want them to be safe, secure (in every sense of the word) and coming back for more.

Play safe, have fun, cum often.

@108, what do you stuff in her mouth? Pieces of cloth seem like they might go down her throat and choke her, no?

Do you discuss with them ahead of time how they should communicate in case of emergencies, by giving them a ball to drop or something? Does someone else generally know they're there, in case you keel over with a heart attack?

Thanks for your detailed explanation of the signs someone isn't getting enough oxygen.

Hi Erica-My girls and I have a close connection and I instinctively know when I'm going too far. Our safe word is "Uh Uh!" If I hear that, first thing I do is remove the gag. That allows me to communicate with her and if she's having trouble breathing, that's automatically taken care of.

I use wadded lint-free cotton for mouth packing about the size of the ball gag when wadded. I often make it just a little bigger than a ball because her natural tendency to compact it when she clenches into the gag, compacting it when she gets excited. If there are any loose ends, or tails, in the wadding, I always place them toward the front of her mouth so they don't work loose and cause her to choke from the "tickling" action of the tails if placed toward her throat. You can assure that there are no tails of cloth by wadding them inside the cloth "ball" before gagging your pleasure victim. Sometimes one of the girls asks to be gagged with her own panties so she can taste herself and they work very well to stifle her mouth. A simple ball gag also works fine on her.

One of the girls I see cannot open her jaw to accept packing (she has TMJ), but she tolerates the soft cloth cleave gag very well. As a matter of fact, she plays the damsel in distress like a champ and says she's fantasizing that she's kidnapped like in the old cowboy movies. This almost cries out for the tried and true traditional cleave. I often place a piece of clear tape over that and she prefers the tape as she says she can still make noise with the simple cleave gag alone. Many times, I'll just go ahead and duct tape her mouth sans the cleave gag as this seems to really turn her on. With tape alone or combined with the cleave, she can still verbalize (at least I can understand her). One thing I do with duct tape is to first place the adhesive face down on my trouser or the bed sheet to take some of the stickiness out of it. It still seals lips quite well and is far easier to remove in an emergency or after we enjoy each other.

Both of my girls know that I tie them so they can easily escape by pulling on the slip knot's tail and there's a lot of "give" in cotton soft ties. Most of the B&D I do is strictly fantasy play and there are times where the girls play simulated bondage where they are instructed to cross their wrists and/or ankles and keep them in place as if bound. To uncross their appendages is to ask for the palm smartly slapped against their bottoms, followed by wrist to ankle "binding" forcing them to maintain position while I enjoy their bodies.

If the worse ever happened, like I had a heart attack or something, I would immediately free them at the first sign that I'm not feeling well by pulling the slipknot before going down for the count (and believe me, the sight of my gagged girl looking at me with compliant doe like eyes is enough to give me a heart attack (make that hard attack) at times!) But I am the kind of guy who stays calm in an emergency because in my real line of work, that's what I get paid to do.

So, bondage play is serious business, but oh the rewards, yum! I know my two girls very well and they trust me not to hurt them. And because they trust me very much, I love them and take great pains to keep them safe. And my one rule in rope and soft tie play is to never, ever tie anything around their throats, that is just too dangerous in my book and you're really asking for trouble if you do it.

Finally, if you haven't done so already, take at least a CPR class and learn a little first aid while you're at it. Both are good skills and could save a life some day. The last thing I would ever want to happen is for things to turn to crap and be the guy who runs around in circles in a pancik when the solution is usually very simple if you keep your wits about you and pre-plan as well.

@110 Very helpful tips - thanks!

@104

Whatever happened to "baby, can we switch?"

@114, VicH-good god, I feel for ya, girl. From 2nd through 12th grade, I was bullied unmercifully. Stoned by rocks on the way to and from the school bus, constantly hit while on the bus (my neck still gives me trouble from that bitch April S. who slammed a big history book on my head), beat up in class, pushed, shoved, spat on-they once held me down and took turns haucking loogies into my mouth-5 guys right in full sight of teachers on the playground. No help whatsoever, just constantly harassed. Once was choked out in the locker room, went into a seizure, vaguely remember my head slamming repeatedly into my locker door while seizing. The coach thought it was, "real funny, you looked like a nekkid chick'n with it's head cutoff..." In those years, I was constantly on alert, watching for signs of being trapped, culled from the herd and attacked by the animals who were my classmates. My sin was being the small, skinny uncoordinated kid who kept to himself as a defense mechanism.

So what social skill did I learn from it? Well, dealing with PTSD for one, but I still get vicious when dissed in public and hate walking into a room full of people, like at parties, etc. Makes me nervous like I'm going to be humiliated in front of everyone, 'cause that's what the nuns did to me in Catholic school. Still always sit with my back to the wall in restaurants and unconsciously look for the closest exit in case of trouble. Because of my career, I've been in a lot of barfights and tussles with psychos. Always enjoyed getting paid to wrestle a guy to the ambulance gurney, and make him rue the day he took the first swing. It's not right, though to be like that, but it is what it is. Being the bully's victim does not build character. But dealing successfully with the private hurt and shame does.

Bullying in any form is totally unacceptable. What it does to the victim can never be remedied, they live with the hurt for a long time afterward. What Dan is doing to savage the Santorum family is unconscionable and is just plain not right. The constant name calling using his last name for not so funny jokes is sick and juvenile, it's definitely internet bullying. It's just as sick to dehumanize a kid because he or she is gay as it is to bully on-line another because he holds certain beliefs or his grief at losing a child doesn't conform to your belief about how to handle a devastating loss. You're a fucking scumbag bully Dan and so are your adherents. What you're doing is wrong and demeans you as well as the whole LGBT community. In the long run, you are no better than those pricks who tied the innocent gay guy to the fence and beat him to death simply because he was seeking some companionship. I'm a fucking conservative and I still grieve for what that boy went through, such a sad end to a young life. This shit has to stop.

-Vic

Part of it is being adorably innocent. Part of it is being willfully naive. And part is not knowing what to do when people jump on the victim bandwagon. It has happened with so many charged words. First there was rape. Then there was date rape. Then (some) women saw something good in the kind of sympathy and understanding others were getting and started claiming they'd been raped for any situation when they'd had consensual sex with a guy and had reason to regret it later.

I saw a similar evolution with the term "abuse." I've got lots of complaints about the way my parents reared me. There was cluelessness, inconsistency, ridicule, selfishness, temper. Abuse? Maybe. Thinking of it that way sure made me feel better at one time.

And now bullying. Where do you draw the line between a single instance of teasing on the part of an insensitive teenager and a harassment campaign on the part of everyone in the school including the adults? I suggested above that it was to be found in the power differential, but the word continues to be batted about even on this list where there will always be someone who cries bully when another respectfully disagrees.

Back to DSS's letter. The father asks for advice, and we all jumped on how to address bullying should it come up. That's like thinking that medical care is all about preventing safes from dropping on your children's heads and nothing on how to treat the flu. Bullying is the headline news, but a gay 13 year old needs more advice than that. I'm not the one to give it, but I can see that it's necessary. What would you tell a gay teenager about navigating the dating world?

@118 "Then (some) women saw something good in the kind of sympathy and understanding others were getting and started claiming they'd been raped for any situation when they'd had consensual sex with a guy and had reason to regret it later."

Evidence? Claiming rape is a huge pain in the ass, involving unpleasant procedures by medical technicians. Also, having people question your choices and whether you were "asking for it." I'd be interested in any evidence you have suggesting a significant percentage of rape accusations are lies (rather than unprovable in court).

What do you do about BDSMers with a bad case of You’re Doing It Wrong?

The house safe word at the events that I attend is usually safeword and it is the second most commonly used safe word after red.

YDIW may affect a minority of people involved in the bdsm lifestyle, but usually those who are active in their community are helpful in sharing their knowledge and skills. In my experience, most look after people who are new and look out for unsafe players and predators.

The best way to learn what is real and what is fiction is to attend munches, workshops and events. Fetlife.com is another way to network with those who share your interests.

GAG would not be laughed out of any community that I've been involved with, but her friend might be.

@ironvic "You're a fucking scumbag bully Dan"

If power doesn't matter, and if Dan's taunting of a presidential candidate is as bad as the presidential candidate's insistence that gay sex is the equivalent of incest and bestiality...

...then are your words also bullying? If not, why not? If so, do you see any way in which Dan's bullying is worse than yours? If so, can you see Rick's bullying as worse than Dan's?

@115: ...and yet you remain unregistered.

@EricaP-Bullies seldom work alone. They get their people all fired up and target an individual. Dan's got the bully pulpit, so to speak and he's used it to target Santorum and his family. Like it or not, that's bullying. Juvenile name calling fits right in with the bully's tactics. Dehumanizing the individual also fits. Calling Rick the shitty foam from gay aftersex is also a crude form of name-calling.

I happen to think Santorum is wrong, but I have yet to see a Rick website devoted to trashing Dan Savage. Santorum is entitled to his opinion about sex and how to care for the body of a dead child-it is what it is. You can disagree with him and you should if you hold your views worth defending. But that gives no one the right to whip up the masses to target a man simply because he has his own truth to defend. If Santorum is wrong, he'll wither on the vine, and he probably will because this country is not walking down the same path as him.

You can call me a bully if you want to, but show me where I am doing nothing more than calling a jerk what he is, because he's being childish in his disagreement. Just look at @115, he's exhorting Dan to a new level, much like the bully's cohorts shouting, "kick his ass, Dan!"

Savage has stepped over the line of decency and decided to take the low road in his disagreement. He's not winning any friends or converts in the hetero community. It's more like he's screeching to the choir and they're singing their song of hate for hate's sake.

Sorry, but just being gay does not put you above anyone else, or allow you to target another person and his family with a vengeance.

GAG, I've been a stunt bottom at a lot of BDSM parties and organizations-- the guy that demo tops use for demonstrations, since I'm pretty much game and tops tell me I'm fun. When we have newbies, we teach them about safewords, and once they've internalized the idea we tell them that the number one safeword is... "safeword." It's what you can remember. In a moment of crisis, resuce is not one memory step removed from "safeword," it *is* "safeword."

I have no idea who that woman was, but she was so wrong as to be a danger to the community.

@123 Dan believes that destroying Santorum's political career is vitally important, because of the damage Santorum wants to do to real people's lives (making it illegal for gay people to have sex with each other, or for me to have anal sex with my husband).

Do you think Dan wants to destroy Santorum's career in order to profit personally?

Do you think if Santorum were retired, that Dan would still be targeting him?

This is politics. I'm sorry it's upsetting to you. I'm glad it's working. Santorum might very well be the Republican candidate for President this year if not for his google problem.

@123, I can see where you are coming from. You don't like name calling, you don't like jokes made at the expense of others.

Neither do I.

But consider this. The definition of 'bullying' is not simply the strategy, but the power imbalance (check the definition if you want). When angry citizens throw offenses at their president, this is not 'bullying' -- Obama wasn't being bullied when he was compared to Hitler, or when they drew pictures of him dressed in African tribal garb. He was being offended, but not bullied. These are different things.

Dan's attack on Mr Santorum is offensive, but it is not bullying. Unless your definition is different from the usual one.

There is of course the question of whether or not this attack is justified. You see, the problem is: Mr Santorum's opinions are not simply 'wrong' in the sense that 2+2=5 is wrong; they are also ethically bad, and have real consequences for people's lives in ways that go beyond simply this being 'his truth.' You might pick any dictator or radical extremist in history and claim that the bad consequences of his dictatorship simply 'reflect his truth', and that is true; but it does more than that: it affects in painful ways the lives of many others.

Now, you may disagree. You may think that Mr Santorum's opinions do not contribute to an anti-gay culture. Or you may think that the consequences of this culture aren't so dire as to require offensive retaliation. If so, please state your case.

But, regardless of whether or not you disagree: there are many people, gay and straight, for whom Mr Santorum's opinions are not simply despicable, but actually threatening. If you take these people's viewpoint -- is it really so hard to understand that they would retaliate with an offense? Wouldn't you want to offend people who you think are conspiring against you? Even if you are so mild-mannered that you wouldn't consider doing this, would it be so hard to understand that others who feel equally threatened might want to offend them?

What are offenses for, anyway?

I'm curious about your opinion. I hope you'll share it with us.

@123, also: you say to EricaP that you can't be a bully because you're simply calling a jerk a jerk. But consider this: if a child is bullied in highschool because s/he is gay, or fat, or wears glasses, or whatever... well, when s/he is called gay, fat, or four-eyes, all those things are true.

For bullying, it doesn't matter that what you're saying is true.

You think Dan is a jerk, and you say it. If you had power on your side, and could actually hurt Dan physically or morally by doing so, and decided to call him a jerk because you wanted to hurt him morally and physically, and you actually had the power to do so; and if you acted in the absence of a direct provocation -- you start it, not he -- then you'd be bullying him.

The power differential isn't there, and you can't hurt Dan -- that's why you're not a bully. Not because you think what you're saying is right. More often than not, bullies also think they're saying something right or true.

@123, a final thing. You say Santorum hasn't come up with an anti-Dan Savage website. You're right, but simply because Santorum considers himself (probably correctly) to be more important than Dan in the politico-cultural arena in America. And Dan isn't a politician.

If Dan were equallly important, or were a politician fighting for votes against him... then I think he, or someone connected to, or who supports, him (SuperPAC? enthusiastic supporter? etc.) might very well do that. Considering the level that political ads and political discourse have taken in America, would you really be surprised by it?

Ms Erica @119 - I agree with you about actual charges, but I think Ms Crinoline might have been referring to claims that did not reach the level of official accusations. It strikes me as plausible that, especially during times of a shift in consciousness about changing definitions, women have been encouraged or even urged to label an experience so. A recent example - when Ms B Palin's book came out, there were many women in one thread I followed quite ready to use the R word, although Ms P avoided it. There was interesting discussion about whether one could call something rape if the survivor wouldn't, and about the dilemma faced by those who held the beliefs both: that any woman telling of rape should always be believed and supported; and that they would never believe any self-serving story told by Ms S Palin or anyone connected to her without a polygraph test.

For a lighter example, there's Tales of the City. One may recall DeDe Day pleading with her grocery boy Lionel Wong to stay half an hour after his delivery for a bit of "special customer service". Not long afterwards, DeDe attends a luncheon discussion group for rich women. Prue Giroux says they're going to rap about rape, and that each of them will share an experience of when her person was violated against her will. Prue drops a couple of hints about her own story, then prods DeDe to go next. When her attempt to deny having been raped is taken as dithering, DeDe lets herself say that it happened at home, and that it wasn't an intruder but a grocery boy. DeDe then goes home, calls the grocery with another order, and Lionel comes right over.

@114/118

IMHO:

What I described was bullying. What 114 described was rape.

To me, "bullying" is a relatively benign term to describe a situation where one or more children/teens harass/tease/mildly attack one (or more) other children/teens for an extended period of time.

What I experienced in middle school was not extreme, and it was certainly a drop in the bucket compared to the years that came before it started. But I will say this - getting teased was the trivial part of it. It's the isolation that ensues when everyone is on the side of the bully that can often make things hard. Depending on that person's home life it can be exceedingly difficult to lose school's "safe haven" status.

Finally.... I don't really agree with differentiating date rape and stranger rape as if it's an undue broadening of the definition of the term. If someone forces you to have sex, I don't think it makes it any better if you went on a date with them first. If anything, I think the awareness about date rape is a positive thing, because it helps alleviate the stigma that suggests that going on a date with someone gives them permission to rape you. If anything, it's the expression "statutory rape" that I find reprehensible. Having consensual sex with a person a year younger than you if you're the age of consent is NOTHING like rape.

@129, I don't think either of your examples (B. Palin or Tales of the City) serve as evidence of lots of false rape accusations (even at the level of gossip rather than criminal charges).

The problem is that we don't have a good term for sex that you didn't want beforehand, didn't enjoy during, and were relieved when it ended. A lot of women have "unwanted sex", and don't call it rape, and never complain to the authorities. Those are the women I assume Crinoline was talking about. They may tell their girlfriends that this one guy wouldn't stop pressuring for sex, wouldn't take a polite, friendly "no, let's not" for an answer. We live in a culture which devalues what women want, and teaches women to put up with having their preferences ignored. If a guy is getting mixed messages from his date (she likes the kissing, but pushes his hand away when he tries to go further), he should stop and ask what she wants to do. But our culture says it's okay for him to keep on pressuring her until she either gives in or has to be rude to him. Then he calls her a bitch, and tells all his friends she was a bad lay. You're going to say it's wrong for women to warn each other about such men?

@130 most jurisdictions make exceptions for Romeo/Juliet couples (ie, close in age). A thirty-year-old having sex with a fifteen-year-old isn't so very different from someone taking advantage of their passed-out acquaintance. In both cases, the rape victim is not considered able to give consent (even though both people might, the next day, not actually complain about the sex).

131- "A lot of women have "unwanted sex," and don't call it rape, and never complain to the authorities. Those are the women I assume Crinoline was talking about."

NO! They do call it rape. They call it rape in conversation with me. They start with "he raped me." I become all concerned, want to find out what happened, want to encourage them to tell the authorities and press charges. I am all sympathetic and understanding. I get a tearful explanation of the order of events. These involve consensual, if maybe a bit confused, sex.

"The problem is that we don't have a good term for sex that you didn't want beforehand, didn't enjoy during, and were relieved when it ended."

How about "unsatisfactory sex" or "the relationship didn't work out"? Not everything works out. One time I took a college class I wasn't sure I'd like. I did badly in it. In the long run, I wish I hadn't taken it. But I couldn't have known that before I tried. Sometimes the sexual chemistry isn't there. Sometimes the sex is awful. But sometimes you don't know that until you try, and she did try, then wants to absolve herself of all responsibility afterwards.

We're hearing the term "date rape" used differently too. Date rape is when they go out for dinner and a movie; he drives her home, kisses her at the door, then forces his way into her apartment, overpowers her struggles, pins her against the wall, muffles her screams that no one would hear anyway, forces her skirt up, enters her, comes, leaves quickly, and says he'll call her.

I've heard the term used to describe a situation where they go out for dinner and a movie; they're kissing, necking, and petting in the backseat; she's quite turned on; he moves to enter her; she hesitates for an instant, allows him; he comes too quickly; she's disappointed, and then he brags about his conquest to his friends and doesn't call the next day.

Look at 118. I wasn't talking about accusations made to police and authorities. I can't have statistics about claims made in conversations to friends. I can't provide evidence to defend claims I never made. I am pointing out that there's a problem when people are using the words abuse, bullying, and rape to mean different things, then arguing about how harmful they are or aren't. There are legal definitions or should be.

@131

It's creepy, but it's not rape.

@132

This may be somewhat unique to your friend group. I have never heard a woman use "rape" in such a fashion. I've heard it suggested that people do (in a derogatory manner to suggest that a woman complaining legitmately of rape is stretching the truth), but you are the first person I've heard in my life actually mention a real-life scenario where a woman has done this.

Like you said, there's no study that I know of, but on my end this suggests that it's very rare.

@131

To elaborate.... you seem to a have a very low opinion of the mental faculties of young people. Sometimes I wonder if as people grow older and get further away from those years, the more distorted and faded memories make a negative impact on their ability to assess what people at that age are like.

You're basically suggesting that a fifteen year old is mentally equivilent to a non-conscious adult. Really?

Fifteen was a while ago for me but not so long ago that I forget what it was like. I might think a fifteen year old who is sleeping with a thirty year old is making a bad decision. But you know what? I also have a friend who's dating someone in his mid thirties. I also think that's a bad decision. But I smile and nod because it's her life, not mine.

@131(EricaP),@132(Crinoline), my experience tends to support what Crinoline says: some women who experienced bad sex recategorize it as 'rape' (because they imagine the sex was good for the man but bad for woman, the man didn't care about it being bad for the woman, so the woman gets angry and calls it rape). Others also may claim 'rape' only because they want to exact revenge (they were dumped in a way they didn't like, and then decide retroactively that some sexual situation at some point that they didn't like was 'rape' rather than 'bad sex').

I've met women who acted like that. I've met women who were hurt by women who acted like that. (One I ran into recently in Youtube made this video about her experience.)

I don't think there are good statistics on how many rape claims are false, and why (understandably, those who made false rape claims wouldn't want to admit, even to researchers, that the claims were false). I've heard hazardous guesses ranging from 3% (normal for all crimes) to 40% (based on some study conducted in a small town). I don't know what to believe: in my personal experience (meaning my extended group of family and friends), I've seen both cases of false rape claims and of real rapes.

I frankly think this is a phenomenon feminists should give more attention to. To the extent that at least certain schools of feminism view rape as somehow emblematic of the relationship between the genders/sexes in society ('rape culture', 'porn leads to rape', 'rape perpetuates power relations', etc.), then false rape claims would also have (for said schools) a special significance, different from other false crime claims; and yet I rarely see the issue being discussed.

Ms Erica - Your culture, madam, not mine (sorry, that was irresistible). Other than that, warn away. Tattoo a big scarlet C for creep on appropriate targets any way you can. I'm entirely in favour of creative warnings.

By the way, I thought of you as I followed the Palin thread. I did not post in that thread, as it didn't seem appropriate to insert a non-female opinion, but wondered whether you might have advanced the idea that BP got drunk on purpose in order to shed her virginity without responsibility.

I don't know if I should be posting this, as you all know way too much about my personal life already, but this "stranger rape" v. "date rape" and ""is-it-date-rape-or-just-unwanted/unsatisfactory/deeply-regretted-sex" debate is kind of hitting me in a hard spot.

When I was 18, I experienced what I now think of as date rape (or acquaintance rape, to be more accurate). I didn't call it "rape" at the time, didn't report it (how could I? The man was one of my friends, a guy I knew and trusted.), and for years my only response was to blame myself for being bra-less. I made sure to never be in the same room with that guy ever again, not even if other people were present, because I was so angry at him, and so upset at what he'd done that I didn't want to have to look at him, not because I was scared that he'd rape me again. Late, I came to a deeper understanding of the dynamic that was at work: I knew what rape was, but it never occurred to me that a friend, someone who supposedly knew and liked me, wouldn't listen to my objections, wouldn't stop when I asked and then told him to. I couldn't really believe he didn't care or respect my desire to not have sex. So finally, I sort of 'gave up.'

Was that unwanted/unsatisfying/deeply-regretted sex? You bet! Was it rape? Some people would define it as rape; others wouldn't. In the long run, it doesn't much matter to me. I ended up pretty unscarred, and much warier, healthily so.

But 14 months ago, as we slept in our house, a stranger broke in through my 16-year-old's closed-but-unlocked window and raped her--vaginally, orally, and anally. He also choked her, and threatened to kill her. (She was sleeping when he came in and woke because her air supply had been cut off.) She really thought she would die; she easily could have. I slept peacefully through the whole assault, something I will never be able to forgive myself for. I failed my child in the most elemental way a parent can. That daughter, my younger daughter, whose biggest fear has always been that a bad stranger would come into the house and do something bad, my ex-husband, and I have all been severely traumatized by this event and its aftermath. I would go so far as to say that none of our lives will ever be the same. My concerns for my daughter's ability to ever have a healthy, joyful sex life, to see sex as an act of love, are strong. When you see your child live in a state of suspended terror, something is ripped out of your guts.

And try as I might not to create a hierarchy of rape, to legitimate all unwanted sexual acts, I cannot find it in myself to equate what happens to a drunk young woman on a date with an equally drunk young man, bad as it might be, with what my daughter went through.

@131(EricaP), who wrote:

If a guy is getting mixed messages from his date (she likes the kissing, but pushes his hand away when he tries to go further), he should stop and ask what she wants to do. But our culture says it's okay for him to keep on pressuring her until she either gives in or has to be rude to him. Then he calls her a bitch, and tells all his friends she was a bad lay. You're going to say it's wrong for women to warn each other about such men?

Indeed he should, but the same culture who teaches him not to also teaches the girl to despise the odd guy who will ask -- he should 'guess' what she wants. Also, fear of being called a 'slut' makes quite a few women prefer not to have to tell the guy what they would like to do. So, many an otherwise honest and decent guy is left with no alternative but actually wait for her to be rude...

Ideally both attitudes would change, and there certainly are signs that this is going on. I hope in the future men will also warn each other about girls who don't like to say what it is that they like to do -- but as far as I know that's not the case yet.

Cute,

I'm deeply, deeply sorry for what happened to your daughter. If I were the praying type those prayers would be with you, her, and everyone involved but instead let me just say I hope that the healing goes as well as it can under such horrible circumstances.

Also, I hate to press, so feel free to not answer any further questions but I do have one, if you don't mind. Has the man been caught by the police?

@ankylosaur

Yeah. As a woman who is perfectly capable of saying no, I'd have to say that I don't like the pseudo-feminist ideal of a man who always checks in "do you want me to do this now?". I like assertive men. Of course that ideal would probably benefit most women (socialized to be 'nice') but it would be disadvantageous to me and my sex life, so... yeah.

@137, indeed these are two terribly different things, and the word 'rape' has been somewhat stretched (as a cover term for all kinds of non-consensual sex, so that it now depends on what 'non-consent' exactly means, with all the sad 'gray zones' that this implies). People roll their eyes on nonce, on-the-spur-of-the-moment differentiations like 'rape' vs. 'rape rape,' but the stretching of the term to include all kinds of non-consensual sex means including all kinds of very different situations, like the ones you mention. Sooner or later words will be needed to differentiate them.

The incident with your daughter is horrible. It reads like a horror movie. (Did the police catch the guy?) If my experience is any guide (I did voluntary work at a date rape hotline while I was in grad school), it will indeed never fully disappear: it will become part of the person she is, and unavoidably color her perspective on the world. Though no fault of her own, or yours, or your ex-husband's. Suddenly the world becomes smaller, and everything looks more dangerous than it used to.

I'm reminded of that Six Feet Under episode in which David Fisher was carjacked and submitted to all kinds of abominable things before being released. Eventually one heals in the sense of growing enough to see how much more one is that any catastrophe that befalls us, but it takes time.

Here is hoping that she will find a path leading to more power and autonomy, and happiness.

@140(mydriasis), my ideal is that sex shouldn't be different from other shared activities qua planning. It's OK to discuss what you'd like to eat before cooking. It's OK to start cooking and then make assumptions, and have them corrected if you're wrong. ('I thought you wanted me to chop the meat! Oh you don't? OK, tell me what you want to do').

I basically think two people can do something together feeling that they're doing it together -- not always perfectly choreographied, but at least with the feeling that the other person is also trying to make it work, as we are. And if something is going wrong, it's OK to talk, stop, correct, etc. -- without anyone's virtue or 'femininity' or 'masculinity' being compromised by it. And if it is working, it is also OK not to talk, just go on making assumptions. It's how people do pretty much everything they do together; why should sex be a big exception?

Oh, my god, nocutename -- I am so sorry. And you are completely right. The unwanted sex I had with a friend in high school, the oral that turned me off oral for ten years... that was not in the same category with what your daughter endured, not at all. Our language is so limited, and sometimes it breaks down completely. Even through your poignant narrative, one can tell that there is so much there that goes unspoken because there are no words. I am so sorry for what your family has gone through.

Thanks for the expressions of support, ank and mydri.
To answer the question of whether her rapist was found, arrested, tried, and sentenced: The police were able to definitively identify him circumstantially, and then DNA confirmed that identification. Unfortunately, he had fled the country, escaping to Mexico. The extradition process lagged and now his whereabouts are unknown; he could be in Mexico, somewhere in Central America, South America. He could have re-entered the United States. He could even be somewhere in California. No one knows. It is an ongoing horror show.

And thank you, Erica.

Aaaargh: I had written a long post about the problem of should a man persist, and how should he go about it, and I hit some button and the whole thing disappeared! Dagnabbit!

Crinoline @132, my own experience is that people are reluctant to say they were raped unless there was actual violence involved. But women who hear another person's story about being pressured into sex are usually sympathetic, and may call it rape. I've been in lots of discussions where the victim doesn't want to call it rape and the audience does. I'm stunned to hear that you see these events so unsympathetically. Either the victim should go to the police or else he/she should call it "a relationship that didn't work out"? What? How about telling one's friends what a creep he was, and warning them not to go drinking with him? The law differentiates cleanly between rape and sex that was unwanted but ultimately tolerated. But if you hear such a story from a friend, try not putting him/her in a box ("Go to the police!" "Hey, you were sending mixed messages"), and just listen, non-judgmentally, while he/she talks about what happened.

mydriasis@134, legally, yes, the 15-year-old is unable to consent to sex with a 30-year-old. I have a 12-year-old daughter, so I'm sure that colors my thinking. But a 15-year-old values her future fertility differently than a 30-year-old woman, and may take risks as far as STDs that she wouldn't take if her brain were more fully developed. Yes, I think 30-year-old men should feel that they will face consequences if they piss off the 15-year-old girl by getting her pregnant or giving her an STD. (If the guy keeps her happy, and isn't an idiot, then they're not likely to get caught.)

ankylosaur@135, I watched the video you linked to. That woman (if she exists) was a psychopath. It's hard to protect oneself from psychopaths, except by (a) trusting one's gut implicitly, or (b) experiencing the chaos they bring into one's life and finally realizing what's going on. But surely you're not arguing that we should universally distrust women's narratives about being pressured into sex because some psychopaths lie? Which do you think is more common, for women to be pressured into unwanted sex, or for women to falsely claim they were pressured into sex in order to ostracize a guy who had honestly listened to them and tried to build a positive sexual experience together?

Mr. Ven @136, thanks for the support. I don't think it has to be so deliberately planned. One of my early sexual experiences I ended up feeling that I had raped myself, because I knew beforehand (and afterward) that I didn't want sex with this guy, but in the middle I did want it. The guy was understandably pissed to hear afterwards that I felt I had raped myself with his cock. I should have kept that to myself and spared his feelings, but I was so upset at what I had done to myself that I wasn't thinking straight afterwards. I'd put that in the "bad sex" category, but it was a useful education in understanding my own desire, and probably educational for him too. But that's just me; I don't care to speak to what B Palin's motives or intentions might have been.

ankylosaur@138, women won't take responsibility for what they want until men stop pushing it on them. We need the culture to change. If men don't like being in the position of possibly pushing sex on someone who didn't want it, they should stop doing that, and back off when given the signal to back off. Then maybe women will learn how to initiate a little more, or how to communicate what they do want to do, with passion and enthusiasm, instead of grudging, passive acceptance.

mydriasis@140, could you please not conflate someone who stops when his hand is pushed away with someone who can't make any move without asking permission?

ankylosaur@142 – I completely agree.

@148

It's also illegal for you to consent to anal sex in some places. Does that make it ethically wrong? Besides, in many places it is legal for a fifteen year old to consent to sex. When I was fifteen it was legal for me to consent. (Oh shit, I'm dating myself, aren't I?)

I'm not sure if I agree with your assessment of what role age of consent laws should play. It seems you're suggesting age of consent should be a weapon in the back pocket of the minor in order to keep her older beau in check. Sure, some savy young girls do this.... but it's only an extension of the already established paradigm that sex = power. For some young girls the first experience with power they'll know.

But I digress.

The law is meant to be based on one's perception of reality - not the other way around. An unconscious 18 year old and a lucid, well-adjusted 15 year old may be legally identical - but they aren't cognitively identical, and isn't that the salient point here?

There are grown women who think that they don't need to use condoms and there are 15 year olds who use them religiously. Education is important, I think we can all agree. Does age make an impact? Of course it does! But do you think fifteen is the age people are most likely to contract an STI? Try again. It's people my age.

Basically, all I'm trying to say is that calling consensual sex between a 15 year old and a 30 year old "rape" is offensive to the teenager (suggests that they have the decision-making capacity of a bowl of warm oatmeal while making a victim out of someone who isn't), the thirty year old (accuses him of one of the worst crimes known to humanity), and rape victims everywhere (dilutes the meaning the word). But that's just my opinion.

Re: your second comment... unless we get into a play-by-play with contingencies, it starts to get a little murky, doesn't it? But no, I wasn't suggesting the equivilency you're worried about - so I'm sorry if it seemed that way.

Look, with me personally, no means no. And I would have no problem getting into a physical altercation with someone who was trying to force me (In fact, I have had to do this more than once). I would urge other women to share this degree of assertiveness despite their socialization and not "give in" when "pressured". Of course I understand it's not that easy. I don't take bullshit from guys and I've been called a bitch for it many many many times. Heck, even you catagorized it as "rudeness".

What I was saying earlier was more in regards to the comment responding to yours. Unfortunately, every woman who says "no" and then relents worsens this problem. That does not mean it's their "fault". (If this distinction seems illogical I can go more into it, but I assure you it isn't) Despite all the media insisting "no means no" (or at least it used to, when I was a kid), real life teaches men a different lesson.

@149 I think the laws are there to make older people think hard before starting a sexual relationship with a teenager. Just as they should think hard before giving an unlicensed teenager their car keys. Or a six pack of beer. Let alone both. None of that is necessarily unethical, but it may be stupid.

Re "rudeness" - there are friendly ways to say no: "No, I'd rather not, no, stop that, come on, be a pal, geez, you're kinda pushy, I said no, geez, hey..."

And there are confrontational ways: "Get off me, asshole"..."OK, I'm calling the cops." Yes, I called those "rude." They're also dangerous, since you don't know if the guy's going to punch you if you make him mad.

Women are taught to de-escalate dangerous situations, which often means tolerating unwanted sex. Excuse me for wanting men to think that if they push hard for sex, then may find themselves being called creeps behind their back. Sadly, as you point out, real life teaches men a different lesson.

correction: THEY may find themselves being called creeps

@EricaP, I think the problem here is getting to a golden middle. I think everybody (at least everybody with a working sense of ethics and without an axe to grind -- i.e., leave the radMRA's and the radfems out) agrees that both rape and false rape claims are very bad things, both can destroy lives, etc. etc. etc.

Now, good-willing people who stress the 'but you have to listen to the woman's story -- it's so difficult to tell and be believed, society is still sooo unwilling to believe she wasn't asking for it' aspect are those who did have these experiences -- you mentioned some, and I saw some things like that in my year-and-a-half in the date rape hotline.

Now, those who stress false rape claims have also had the corresponding experiences -- and I also met a few of those, in my year-and-a-half in the date rape hotline. (One was a badly dumped girlfriend who out of spite seduced her former boyfriend a few weeks after the break-up and then claimed to have been raped, because she wanted him to be thrown out of the university. She actually cut and hit herself to look as victimized as possible.)

I don't know if the woman in that video is a psychopath. I know that there are bad people out there, and some of them are female. Humans have often lied to get something they wanted -- money, sex, status, revenge, power, freedom, knowledge. Women are humans. How many women are there who could do something like that? How many men?

I am certainly not arguing that we should universally distrust women's narratives about being pressured into sex -- nor should we universally distrust men's narratives of women sending mixed messages and playing around gray areas that are sometimes difficult to navigate. In fact, we shouldn't "universally" distrust any narratives -- all kinds of things happen in real life.

But we shouldn't automatically trust any narrative either. A woman claiming rape may be lying. Or she may be telling the truth. I think we owe it to the real rape victims to find out when it's a lie -- because every false rape claimer is doing a disservice to real rape victims (by providing fodder for the narrative that claims 'women lie all the time').

I don't know which one is more frequent, lying about rape or being raped. My guess is the former; but do you really want to base an ethical argument on frequency? If it were the other way round -- if false rape claims were more numerous -- would you then claim we should ignore real rape victims?

The main point is, I don't know what the numbers are, and the data I've found online looks suspicious. So, personally, I say we need more and better data, more and better studies.

I meant to say 'the latter' -- i.e. I think real rape claims are probably more frequent than false rape claims (to say nothing of rapes that go unreported). Sorry about the mistake.

@150

You said unliscenced teenager. Telling.

Again, teenagers can be trusted with responsibilities if they are properly prepared. That's what I was getting at. Are they at higher risk? Yes. But that doesn't mean we don't let people drive until they're 25 years old.

If someone has pinned you down and is trying to force you to have sex with them, it is not "rude" to say "get off me!". If someone rapes you, it is not "rude" to call the cops.

Believe it or not I am a woman, and I have been in these situations and I didn't "de-escalate" them by allowing these people to have psuedo-consensual sex with me.

If someone crawls into my window, you can bet I'll de-escalate. But again, that's not the same context as a friend or coworker who will later be held accountable to mutual aquaintences and the police. I'd wager that they're unlikely to kill me because I "escalated".

That is, after all, why women are (explicitly) taught not to escalate - to avoid homocide or severe injury. The reason they're implicitly taught is to be "good girls". I was never a "good girl".

@EricaP, who wrote:

Women are taught to de-escalate dangerous situations, which often means tolerating unwanted sex. Excuse me for wanting men to think that if they push hard for sex, then may find themselves being called creeps behind their back. Sadly, as you point out, real life teaches men a different lesson.

Indeed, the point is that there are many pretty decent, honest men who aren't trying to be jerks; they really were taught the lesson (from culture or from experience with women -- which may be the same thing) that women won't stand up for what they want, so they have to 'guess' when they have to pressure, to 'take the lead', to 'be manly'.

I don't think it's only men's responsibility to change these expectations -- I think it's everybody's, i.e., women's as well. Women should become more outspoken about what they like and don't like, what they wan't and don't want -- there's no need to wait for the guy to ask for it, you can say it (in a friendly way) right from the beginning. And I also agree that guys should stop and ask more, cooperate more, pressure less and go easy on that 'manly behavior.'

Both behaviors reinforce each other (as cultural features often do). Stopping one without stopping the other is usually not going to work well.

@155

In addition, there are men who are comfortable with

a. pressuring a woman, making her clearly uncomfortable, having her say no ("politely") until she gives up and stops resisting, making sex ostenisbly consensual

but not

b. violently forcing that same woman if she chooses to be "rude", or killing her because she "escalated", because then it's "rape" (and also, well, murder). This comes with the possibility of guilt, a marred reputation, and jail time. Not worth it when there's plenty of other women who will give in like "nice" girls do. On to the next one.

This is, in my opinion, the greatest problem resulting from the social setup we're talking about here.

Because there are many men who will do a. with no remorse but stay the hell away from b., I don't agree with Erica's implicit suggestion that women should carry on with business as usual and wait for men to become more knightly.

I'm not saying women should carry on with business as usual.

Not. At. All.

I'm doing what I want women to do, which is TALK about how they don't like some kinds of sex, and despise the guys who pushed them into it. Now that men & women can talk in public about sex, I want women to say what they like, and what they don't like, here on Slog as well as during private sexual play. And I want men to hear them, and talk back about what men like, and what confuses them. And I want women who say "but I like being pushed around, and I respond to that," I want them to hear that they are hurting other women with their choices.

@137 nocutename: Oh my God! I am so sorry to read about what happened to your 16 year old daughter, and the trauma you have all experienced!
Was the perpetrator ever apprehended and held accountable for his shameful brutality? I know it's a horrible situation to have to report to the police.

You and your family are all in my deepest thoughts and prayers.

@158, see 145. So awful.

@157

It seemed to me that you were suggesting that the current state of things (for most women) where they politely say "no" and if the man continues to push they shrug their shoulders and allow it to happen, does not need to change. (At least women's behaviour in those situations does not need to change)

That being "rude" (as I have been) is dangerous and to be avoided.

You think the way women talk about it afterwards should be changed, but you think that "Women are taught to de-escalate dangerous situations, which often means tolerating unwanted sex." and that there's nothing that should be changed about that on the woman's end.

Women aren't just taught to de-escalate dangerous situations (see above for why your boyfriend raping you and someone on the street raping you are different contexts), they're taught to de-escalate all conflict. To their detriment.

ankylosaur@152, "I think we owe it to the real rape victims to find out when it's a lie." Unless we implant cameras in everyone, we will never have that knowledge.

So you push for the change you want to see, and I'll push for the change I want to see. My own energies will go less to challenging women's stories and more towards convincing men to disdain passive partners and look for enthusiastic partners (male or female) instead.

@160 Apparently I've been unclear. I do not think women should be polite. I think we should be assertive and clear. In all aspects of our lives.

I work for that goal with my daughter, and with other young women I know.

Is that more clear?

Yup. You can see why I might have been confused by some of your statements though, yes?

Yes.

Rad.

P.S. your daughter may thank you later for encouraging her assertiveness. I learned mine from my mom and it serves me well.

EricaP: I agree with everything you've been saying and I've understood it all, too.

@158 (Auntie Griz):
It wasn't the slightest bit shameful for my daughter to report it to the police, who have said that she is the most composed and coherent and amazing survivor/witness they've worked with.
Also, she bit the shit out of his hand when it was over her mouth, and hopefully gave him a hell of an infection. This was one of the things that the police were able to use to help rule out certain suspects, as well.
And she used her head: when the rapist had finished assaulting her, he kissed her, told her he "loved" her, and again threatened to kill her. She replied that she loved him, too, and she would never, ever tell anyone. Then he left and she came into my room, woke me up with the phone in her hand, and told me to call the police.
I am indescribably proud of her.

@137 nocutename,

My girlfriend who was my first sexual partner told me about her rape, when she was 12, about 2 years after we started going out. I will never, ever, forget the scene in complete detail; in particular I felt so helpless without knowing what to do. I was 19 at the time, and yet despite my cluelessness, I was able to be the person she needed because my love and support never changed.

I can only suggest that as best you can, try to not let this incident control your lives. Get as much help as you can, but live on.

Peace.

@159 EricaP re nocutename's post @145: Oh, wow. That really is horrible.

@167 nocutename: I think you may have misunderstood my comments. I didn't mean that you and your daughter acted shamefully---HER ATTACKER who broke into your home did!
I would be indescribably proud of your daughter, too, if she were mine.
I'm glad that the police were responsive, supportive, and impressed with her remaining calm in such a horribly traumatic, life threatening situation.
I hope that authorities catch and incarcerate that monster so that you never have the nightmare of facing him again.
Peace be with you.

@167: Further clarification: I'm proud of you and your daughter keeping your heads through such an awful experience--period, regardless of whose daughter she is.

@167, part III: Additionally, I hope that shithead's dick falls off and everyone calls him "Stubby".

@EricaP, who wrote:

My own energies will go less to challenging women's stories and more towards convincing men to disdain passive partners and look for enthusiastic partners (male or female) instead.

That is a very good use of energy -- especially since, in our society, men who do that (i.e., stop pushing when their prospective partner is passive and look for an enthusiastic one) are often still considered 'not mainly enough', including by the very passive partners they thought they were respecting by not pushing further.

You see, that's the point: often otherwise good men will push beyond polite levels (see mydriasis above) not because they have a sense of self-entitlement and think sex is always theirs for the taking, but because they've had the experience of being mocked -- sometimes by the very woman who they were respecting -- for being 'too respectful.'

By all means go on convincing men to disdain passive partners. But, please, do convince women not to disdain men who disdain passive partners. They are part of the reason why pushy men are pushy.

EricaP(@161), who wrote (quoting me):

"I think we owe it to the real rape victims to find out when it's a lie." Unless we implant cameras in everyone, we will never have that knowledge.

True, but this cuts both ways. If we don't have implanted cameras we also don't know if the rape claims we hear are true.

Part of preventing a crime is finding out when it happened and when it didn't. There's theft and false theft, there's fraud and false fraud, assault and false assault, murder and false murder, and so on. Surely you don't think that our concern for the first element in each pair means we shouldn't pay sufficient attention to the second element?

I'm not saying we shouldn't listen to women's narratives. I'm just saying women are people, too.

@167(nocutename), I would also be proud of her if I were her mother. That was indeed very intelligent, and very courageous, behavior.

Let me add my hopes to yours that this bastard will be caught and punished as he so richly deserves.

People in successful, long-term monogamous relationships—even those of you who aren't but think you are

Was there really any need for that little dig? In a paragraph about how you shouldn't run down people with different -gamy choices from your own, written in response to a letter that was perfectly polite and non-YDIW-ish, it seems pretty uncalled-for.

@173

I've never mocked a guy for taking no for an answer, nor have I ever heard of this happening. I'm sure you have some reason to believe this happens, but I've never seen it.

Fact is, from where I'm sitting, the men who stop pushing when they first are told to stop just have less sex. I assume it just got filed under "nice guys finish last". I don't know... I honestly have a hard time understanding women, for the most part.

@178 Thomas,

I am very sorry for your loss, both of your innocence and your family. I hope you find the happiness you deserve.

Peace.

@179 mydriasis,

"I assume it just got filed under 'nice guys finish last'."

I can say there has never been a hit on my conscience for not continuing after the first "no/stop". However for me sex has always been as much (or more) an issue of me trusting my partner as my partner trusting me.

I argue that defining a collaboration as a competition seems a little weird.

Peace.

@174, anklosaur, at some point your obsession with fairness seems ridiculous to me. I'm not, personally, using my energy to effect more rape prosecutions -- I'm using it to try to change the culture so that men expect happy participation from their partners (male or female) and don't put up with passive unhappiness.

The men in my ideal world could still be initiators and aggressors, and most women would be happily responsive to that, sexually. But when men run into someone who withdraws into herself, or lies there unresponsive, or says, no, please, stop -- they'd pause to figure out if she was done for the evening or had some other activity in mind.

You're suggesting that women disdain men who are aggressive (not namby-pamby) but who do stop when faced with a passive, passed-out, or otherwise unresponsive or miserable partner.

Respectfully, ankylosaur, I think that's a ridiculous claim.

It's like saying that every bout of male roughhousing has to lead to a full-fledged fist fight or else the men lose face. Maybe in some rare parts of the culture, but mostly, men have ways to back off from escalation with their friends and acquaintances.

As mydriasis says, those men who don't push beyond their partner's resistance might miss out on some intercourse, but I can't see how they'd earn anyone's scorn. (Except that of other men for not being 'rapey' enough, possibly.)

148-- I'm stunned that you're not more sympathetic to the men who do their best, have sex with a willing participant, and get accused of rape later after an argument. I'm further stunned that you know so much of the details of an events you weren't present for and haven't heard both sides of. Granted I wasn't present, but I did know both participants and did act as confidant for both. I'm not filling in details. It's not my place to spill secrets even anonymously and even after many years. Let's just say that I was as sympathetic and supportive as I could be, that I did acknowledge grey area between go to the police and a relationship that didn't work out and that the preponderance of the evidence was on the didn't work out side.

@181 the "nice guys finish last" competition is with other men: the idea is there may be men who get more sex by being aggressive, and men who get less sex by not pushing so hard. The latter are "finishing last" in the competition to get more sex.

@183 - So, what's his side of things? How much was she participating in the sex? Would you say he was doing his best to ensure that he had not just a willing participant, but a happy, active partner? Does she agree with his description of how much she participated?

Also, we don't usually use the phrase "accused of rape" when the alleged victim didn't tell authorities, just a friend. Maybe you object to the colloquial (as opposed to legal) use of the word 'rape' (as when I said that I raped myself @148)?

@183 never mind, I see you don't want to fill in details. All right. So assuming she had a fantastic sexual experience that night, and is just spitefully lying about what happened -- then I guess you advised her to avoid the word rape and get some counseling for her anger? I don't think women are always reliable narrators and of course I don't know what happened with your friends; I just think there's a lot of bad sex in the world that could be improved upon if women took a more active role and men didn't continue without an active, happy partner.

@184 Erica,

You are correct. My point about the collaboration part is between the male and female having sex. The weird thing is that the male going with the request/statement of his partner will, in theory decrease his chances of having sex over the partner that ignores the woman's request/statement.

I think this is one of those edge case scenarios that just make life frustrating. The difference between "assertive" and "aggressive" lies in interpretation more often than not.

And to throw out another edge case: There is also the nice guy who never finishes last because he's already won a race. Some nice guys always have sex because they were already pulled off the market by their partners.

I agree with your goal of self advocacy; sex without coordination is sub-optimal at best. More importantly, to assert that women can't be proactive, or a submissive male can't be good in bed, seems needlessly limiting.

Peace.

@184 Erica,

Or, to put it another way: Why is it that being pussy whipped is viewed as a bad thing?

Peace.

13 is not too young an age to realize that you enjoy other males. To the contrary it's roughly right on the mark, but even if the boy DOES turn out later to be (insert any orientation you can think of here) instead of gay, he has an incredible, wonderful gift. There is nothing on Earth better for LGBT kids than a loving, supporting, understanding family. If he does turn out to be gay, which he very well might (My own personal fantasies of other males started rather spontaneously at age 11. Turns out they were right, I'm gay), he's already off to a wonderful start, at least as far as his family is concerned.

I AM rather worried about him already coming out to his school, that part could be a major concern. He's probably still in middle school if he's only 13, and middle school can be easily summed up with a simple reading of Lord of the Flies, so it would be a concern. However, reading this first letter from the dad no less was the highlight of my day. Thank you a thousand times over, DSS. You're a wonderful parent and a wonderful human being!

@189, depends who you ask. Some men like being whipped, some men would like being "pussy-whipped." Other men don't like the idea of women telling them what to do.

Most people are in the middle: they like input, but not when that takes the form of criticism. And our culture complicates things even further with sex, because men aren't supposed to need direction to do "what comes naturally", but sometimes things go terribly wrong if men proceed without active encouragement from their partner.

186 Why would you assume she had a fantastic sexual experience and is spitefully lying? Are we out of grey area? There's no room for genuine confusion mixed with bitter disappointment plus a hurt desire to lash out while not thinking clearly which translates to an insecurity that includes not being able to hear another point of view? If you're confused now, rest assured that I was then.

It was rape when there was a need for sympathy. It was not rape when there was a need for legal definitions and police reports. It was rape when that term would help her recovery. It was not rape when it came to just getting up and leaving. It was rape when it came to joining hands with a sisterhood of feminists. It was not rape when a feminist would have told her to stop depending on a man to play knight in shining armor to rescue her from big bad world.

That's only one of the times I've heard the word "rape" used in such an ambiguous way. In my circles, the word gets thrown around a lot.

!93 I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, since you said he did his best. I'm happy to agree that this was a bad situation.

I'm not as upset by people using the word 'rape' colloquially, assuming they don't press charges or post it on facebook. If she wants to use it as shorthand for "screwed me over badly," and if it's clear that she's giving her personal perspective, not a legal verdict, I might not argue with the term. Though I might suggest other ways of reframing, if she seemed able to listen. You say that she wasn't able to listen... That must have been difficult for you. Sometimes friends can't really help, especially since you were friends with both sides.

@184 Thank you for the clarification. That is what I meant.

@189

Because it's a turnoff for women who (to use an archaic expression rather than a lengthy PC essay) "like their men to be men".

@194

"I'm not as upset by people using the word 'rape' colloquially, assuming they don't press charges or post it on facebook."

Do you think it might if you were a victim of a real rape?

@192 Erica,

Somehow, being told to show up at a particular time and place so that we could have sex never seemed to be that much of a hardship. Eh, lots of sex; how unmanly...

Peace.

Being told to do anything is pretty unmanly, yes.
Hey but that's me. I like my gender roles like others like their wine/fashion/record collection - vintage.

@195 mydriasis,

As long as you are getting what you want, when you want it, labels mean nothing. I just take exception that a man saying yes to a woman that wants to date/have sex is any less masculine, or that a woman that is sexually assertive is any less feminine.

Peace.

EricaP
I think your point is that sex is better when the woman is fully involved. Most young men don't know this. Even some more experienced men don't get it. Once men learn this they can have gourmet sex rather than fast food sex, they will frequently go for it. But sometimes both parties don't have the time or are too tired, so fast food sex will be enough to satisfy them both.

@200 Quickies are great, but even then, you should expect to see some joy on the face of your partner.

If he or she doesn't like the sex, then break up with each other, or get to counseling to try to figure out why. But don't just keep on having sex with an unhappy partner.

I know, this goes counter to all of Dan's advice about how GGG people will have sex when their partner wants it, even if they're not feeling it. But where does one draw the line? Personally, I'd much rather masturbate than inflict sex on a partner who I know is unhappy.

@196 I am the victim of real date rape, held down while I was saying no the whole time. My friend thought I didn't mean it, because my no's were not aggressive. It's true I haven't been the victim of stranger rape. Maybe that would change how I feel. Are you saying that you feel the word rape should be reserved for only events that fit the legal definition? That is, talking about "rape of the environment" trivializes a serious crime?

@199

A lot of people do.
But perceptions exist.

If you're willing to read, this is my personal opinion on how women perceive masculinity. If not, skip down to the end.

There are lots of qualities, physical, behavioural, etc that get filed as "masculine" and 'feminine". Whether or not it's even valid to ascribe a quality as M/F is contentious but whether or not it's valid, it happens. Any man that had all of the masculine qualities in spades would essentially be a gorilla. So women sort these qualities. Some qualities are deeply tied to their concept of masculinity. Without these qualities, they see the man in question as too feminine, not manly enough, however you want to look at it.

Other qualities might be seen in an non-essential positive light, or negatively as the case may be.

Here's an example. A good friend of mine when I was younger liked men who were 'sensitive' (a "female" quality) but didn't like men who were too pretty/groomed, or too hairless. So for her, a man who cries during a movie (isn't "stoic", is lacking in a masculine quality) is still plenty manly as long as he can grow some chest hair.

I'm more the opposite. I like pretty guys. The kind of guys manly men scoff at. I think it's adorable when a guy can't grow a beard to save his life. I like men that are good with kids and nurturing. I also don't like super muscular types, etc etc etc.

But if he cries during movies? Ew, no. If were to let me treat him like a lap dog? Ew! If he doesn't initiate sex enough and/or isn't agressive enough in bed? DTMFA. Doesn't take the metaphorical driver's seat by default? Lame! Etc, etc etc. It's all about what people put their emphasis on.

TL;DR
Masculinity is all about personal opinion. If it bothers you that some women find your behaviour unmanly then don't listen to them/me.

And for the record, I don't know enough about your behaviour to know whether I would catagorize it as such but the manner in which you defended it suggests that I would. No big deal.

Well, dye my eyes and call me pretty.

I'm so sorry for the horrors experienced by Ms Cute and the unregistered Thomas.

Separatism is looking like the only answer again.