Apparently, this will be a hilarious post

There are people who think sexual violence is funny. And I say that having just left a room because I did not want to continue a conversation with someone who was too busy saying how funny “airy fairy feminist bullshit rapes” are to have a remotely interesting or constructive conversation. So I’m not pulling this out of the air here.

I’m not exactly sure what constitutes an “airy fairy feminist bullshit rape”, but the person saying this was making a distinction between that and “actual” rape. The topic of conversation was manners in bed. I was making the point that if someone says “Actually I’m not really in the mood for [specific sexual activity]” or otherwise indicates that they don’t want to engage in that activity, that means they don’t want to engage in that activity, and engaging in that activity with them contrary to their wishes is, at best disrespectful. If that activity is sexual intercourse, then engaging in it contrary to their wishes is rape. If it is some other activity, engaging in it contrary to their wishes may constitute some category of assault. It was in this context that my interlocutor starting laughing about “airy fairy feminist bullshit rape”.

It’s worth noting that the UK legal systems don’t consider that sexual activities with someone who has said no to that activity to be “airy fairy” — rather, such behaviour is covered under various defintions of rape, sexual offences, and assaults.

Sexual violence isn’t funny, and it’s not bullshit. It is real, it is a form of abuse, and it is appaling.

I do understand that there are different places one might want to draw the lines when it comes to writing laws. There are activities that one person might think should be illegal and another person doesn’t, and that doesn’t mean that either person is unreasonable. For example, I think one can reasonably disagree, within certain parameters, about what the age of consent should be, for example. I personally think 16 is pretty reasonable, but I’m not sure that a 17 year old should be criminalised for having otherwise consentual sex with a 15 year old. Equally there are activities that are clearly not ok — I that all reasonable people would agree that there ought to be an age of consent, and that there are also other situations that should be legislated against. So there is some room I think, for legitimate disagreement about what should and shouldn’t be criminal.

But if what you’re trying to say is “hey, I think that actually the law/social model of relationships is wrong in the following respects” that’s ok, provided your comments are, y’know, reasonable. What I object to is when someone decides that the entire concept of people being about to give or withhold free consent to a sexual activity is laughed at. Not because you think that there is an adjustment that could be made in the law, but because you don’t want to accept that no means no, and yes means yes.

Where’s the punchline? Where’s the joke? Why is rape funny? Really easy and obvious answer: it isn’t.

It’s easy not to worry about something that hasn’t affected you personally. It’s almost certain that this individual has never experienced sexual violence himselv. He probably doesn’t know of anybody who has been hurt by sexual violence; although given the statisitics on sexual violence, what that actually means is that he probably doesn’t know that he knows anybody who’s been hurt by sexual violence.

27% of women experience rape. 25% of women said they were “very worried” about rape. National Crime Survey, 2003. Cited in BBC “Is rape really rocketing?” 17 July 2003.

In the UK, 1 in 4 women experience rape or attempted rape. 1 in 7 women experience coerced sex. 1 in 3 divorced or separated women experience coerced sex. The most common perpetrators of rape are partners. (Painter 1991, cited in Rape Crisis statistics).

In the UK, 40% of young people in a survey of people aged 16-20 know a girl who has been coerced or pressured into sex by her boyfriend. ICM Survey, 2006 comissioned by Amnesty International, cited by Zero Tolerance “Abuse in Young Relationships” 1 Nov 2006.

96% of people in the UK are not aware of the extent of rape in this country and vastly underestimate in incidences of rape in the UK. The average estimate by respondents of the conviction rate of rape was over five times the actual rate. ICM survey, 2005, published by Amnesty International, cited by Zero Tolerance “Passing Judgement — Rape in the UK” 1 Nov 2005.

If you’re laughing, you have a problem.

Shakesville also has an ongoing series about rape jokes. This post and this one are particularly good. For primers on consent and sexual violence, try here or here.

–IP

Green card as sexual coercion tactic

A US immigration official is charged with coercing sex in exchange for offering to provide a green card to an immigrant woman.  It is alleged that he used the offer of the green card combined with threats of deportation and detention of her and her family, to coerce sex acts.  According to the article, corruption in the immigration agency is “rampant”.

–IP

Proposed reforms to Scots sexual offences law

The Scottish Legal Commission has concluded consultation on its most recent report concerning the reform of rape and sexual offences law in Scotland (NB, rape and sexual offences law in Scotland differs from the rest of the UK). Yours truly wrote a response to their first consultation document on this document in 2006, and also wrote a response to the report and draft bill this year, and can now report back on the proposed changes.

There are a number of interesting changes:

1. The SLC is recommending that a statutory definition of consent be introduced. There was previously no statutory definition in Scots rape and sexual offences law. The draft bill proposes a definition expressed in terms of “free agreement”, and proposes a non-exhaustive list where agreement is presumed not to have been free (eg, if a person agrees to sexual activity because he or she has been subjected to violence or threat of violence, or if a person is asleep or unconscious, or if a person is intoxicated and as a result lacks capacity to consent, and several other situations).
2. The SLC is recommending that the definition of rape be widened to include non-consentual penetration of the mouth and anus. Previously, only non-consentual penile penetration of a vagina was covered by the definition of rape. This change in the definition means that men can be victims of rape, and women can be perpetrators. However, note that under the old and new definitions, a woman cannot rape another woman (this would be classed as sexual assault), and only some case of female-on-male rape are classed as rape (other non-consentual female-on-male acts would be classed as sexual assault).
3. The SLC is recommending changes to law applied to sexual offences committed with children aged under 16. It is proposed that there will be two categories of children — younger children (children under 13) and older children (aged 13 to 16). There will be different permissible defences for offences committed with younger and older children. It is not a defence that the accused was mistaken as to the age of a younger child, for example, or that a younger child agreed to the activity. The SLC recommend that in the case of older children however, there should be a defence that the accused was less than two years older than the child.
4. The SLC is recommending the introduction of the category of “sexual assault” and several categories of coerced sexual activity. These include: causing someone to be present during sexual activity without their consent, causing someone to look at an image of sexual activity without their consent, sexual communication with a person without their consent, as well as a few others. Sexual harassment per se is not included in the draft bill, but the categories of coerced sexual activity pretty much cover it anyway.

There are still some fairly major problems with the Draft Bill — for example, the proposed general statutory definition of consent does not mention capacity for consent, and the definition of rape excludes some acts which should be considered rape rather than sexual assault. But despite the problems, I’d say that the Draft Bill is substantially better than the existing law.

–IP