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CuSithBell comments on Rational Romantic Relationships, Part 1: Relationship Styles and Attraction Basics - Less Wrong
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Comments (1529)
Drugging I would consider physical violence, so that falls within my definition; blackmailing, no.
But we should not be having this discussion on this forum.
Okay, though you should probably be aware that those are somewhat idiosyncratic definitions of rape and violence.
It's an idiosyncratic definition of violence but not an especially idiosyncratic definition of rape. Whether it happens to be the one you or I prefer or not it is still fairly common.
You're right.
Perhaps I should say, modulo that definition of violence, it's a relatively common definition of rape, but I expect it's notably uncommon among, uh... "intellectuals"? Not sure what word to use, do you see what I'm aiming for?
FWIW, I know a number of people I might describe as intellectual who would likely agree that deliberately putting you in a situation where having sex with me is the best of a set of bad alternatives with the intention of thereby obtaining sex with you qualifies as rape, and would likely agree that blackmail can be a way of doing that.
I don't agree that they are particularly idiosyncratic.
But, more to the point, they are chosen so that the semantic categories match the moral ones, thereby resisting "moral equivocation" of the sort that happens when people try to sneak in connotations by calling things less than the physical coercion of sex "rape".
Another (hardly less charged) example of such moral equivocation would be the word "racism", which is often used to subtly suggest that people guilty of far less are in a similar moral category to those who would perpetrate genocide, slavery, and de jure discrimination and oppression.
I don't want to have a mind-killing argument, but I do want to at least make sure you are aware of the issue I raise here.
Then don't just tell us what the moral categories are without explaining how you decided this. While I think physical violence usually adds to the wrongness of a crime, I'd still call blackmail-for-sex wrong and I'd still point to the same reason that makes violent rape wrong. In fact, I'd say that true consent makes a lot of seemingly violent acts morally fine. So explain to me why I shouldn't view this as a natural dividing line.
That is precisely the argument (read: flamewar) that I am trying to avoid! The point is I didn't want to get into a detailed discussion of sexual ethics, how wrong rape is, and what constitutes rape. This is something that is emotionally controversial for many people. It's what we might call a "hot-button issue".
So would I. But there are degrees of wrongness, and in my opinion blackmail-for-sex is, if you'll pardon the expression, less wrong than rape.
Do you see what you did there? You automatically assumed that my moral categories were "Wrong" and "Not Wrong", when I was actually talking about "Wrong", "Very Wrong", "Very Very Wrong", etc.
I view "violent rape" as a redundant pleonasm (to coin a self-describing phrase), and think that violence is most of what makes rape wrong. The getting-someone-to-do-something-they-don't-want-to-do aspect is also bad, but it's not 10-years-in-prison bad.
This is provided purely FYI, as a statement of my position; I do not intend it as an invitation to attack and demand that I justify myself further. This is not the right setting for this argument.
OK, why have this comment and the next one I made garnered this many downvotes?
Two is not many. Four is not even many.
..Well, two is not enough to hide the discussion. Nor is the number of downvotes on the great-great-grandparent. But this just makes me more confused. It greatly reduces the chance that the downvoters (or all of them except one) mainly object to the topic of discussion. Yet when I look at my two comments they still seem accurate and on-topic. (Technically I should say the second one is accurate if you accept one object-level moral claim, which I think my interlocutor does.)
I think you will find that many people, perhaps specifically LW people, will be confused if you describe coercing sex by the threat of firing from a job as either of violence or not-rape.
I am.