Eugine_Nier comments on LW Women Submissions: On Misogyny - Less Wrong

27 [deleted] 10 April 2013 07:54PM

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Comment author: TimS 11 April 2013 06:10:32PM *  12 points [-]

a male punched a female down to the floor or otherwise used physical violence until the female had no more ability to defend herself, and then the guy ripped apart clothing and forcefully inserted himself, fending off or forcefully countering (perhaps by preemptive hitting to weaken her) her attempts at defense (if any by that point) while just painfully (for her) enjoying his forced sex, control, cruelty, dominance and the humiliation / despair of his victim?

One major problem with communication on this issue is that the quoted text is not how sexual assault tends to appear in the real world. If that's the definition of rape or sexual assault, then what happened in Steubenville wasn't rape or sexual assault. (Just to be clear, I think what happened in Steubenville deserves to be criminalized as sexual assault).

Here is one analysis of the sociological research on rape. In brief, in a survey of ~ 1800 college students, 6% said yes to questions like:

Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated (on alcohol or drugs) to resist your sexual advances (e.g., removing their clothes)?

63% of the folks who said yes to those questions admitted to having done it more than once. The mean for that group was 5.8 incidents (median of 3, so some big outliers are skewing the mean).

In a study of ~ 1100 naval enlistees, 13% said yes to a similar question, with 71% of the yes-population admitting multiple incidents. In that research, 61% of all the incidents were based on intoxication alone, with no threat of force.

That looks nothing like "male punched a female down to the floor or otherwise used physical violence until the female had no more ability to defend herself." So if that's what you are looking to prevent, you aren't trying to prevent the thing that seems to be happening.

In short, "He was drunk, she was drunk" sex is a hard problem for policies based on consent and capacity to consent. But it looks very little like "He waited until she was drunk, then took her somewhere private, and had sex with her, knowing that she wouldn't have said yes if she were sober. And he attended the event planning or hoping to do that to some woman."

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 12 April 2013 01:58:17AM 1 point [-]

(Just to be clear, I think what happened in Steubenville deserves to be criminalized as sexual assault).

Care to explain why?

Just to be clear I also find what happened in Steubenville unacceptable, then again I find a lot of sex related things unacceptable that you probably don't.

Comment author: TimS 12 April 2013 02:07:38AM 8 points [-]

Care to explain why [the Steubenville perpetrators should be convicted criminals]?

Their actions weren't consensual among all the participants. The places in law or morality where non-consensual acts between private citizens are allowed are few and far between.

I'm aware of your hypothetical about high caste people wanting a huge physical space from lower caste people. That's not about consent - that's about what acts society requires consent to perform. Physical contact is a pretty clear line.


Whether it was "rape" depends on vagaries in the definitions in Ohio's criminal code. That's why I'm talking about the category of sexual assault.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 12 April 2013 02:55:46AM *  -2 points [-]

That's not about consent - that's about what acts society requires consent to perform. Physical contact is a pretty clear line.

Except that's not where society actually draws the line. For example, there are people who for religious reason don't what what to be touched by any member of the opposite sex who isn't a relative or spouse. Yet we don't demand consent before touching in social situations even though some people might object to being touched.

Edit: also why that particular Schelling point? The history of attitudes towards sex over the past century is a series of Schelling points regulating what is or is not acceptable sex getting overturned. Why, shouldn't this one also be overturned?

Comment author: TimS 12 April 2013 03:12:37AM 6 points [-]

For example, there are people who for religious reason don't what what to be touched by any member of the opposite sex who isn't a relative or spouse. Yet we don't demand consent before touching in social situations even though some people might object to being touched.

The law surely does require consent. Implied-consent-from-social-context is different from overriding non-consent.

Comment author: ikrase 12 April 2013 06:35:36PM 0 points [-]

Also, I doubt that they suffer anywhere near the level of trauma from this compared to the Steubenville victim.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 13 April 2013 06:49:32AM -2 points [-]

Not obvious given that the Steubenville victim didn't even know about it and thus couldn't have suffered trauma until she found out about it several days later.

Comment author: ikrase 13 April 2013 08:44:16AM 1 point [-]

That's irrelevant as she did find out, probably would have found out eventually, and almost everybody strongly values knowing what happened to them.

Comment author: TimS 15 April 2013 02:50:33AM 0 points [-]

Given how the perpetrators acted, it was virtually certain the victim would find out. Parading her around and bragging about what they'd done might not have been done with the purpose of causing her to find out or humiliate her. But it certainly was an easily predictable consequence.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 15 April 2013 03:47:13AM 1 point [-]

Would you have objected it they hadn't bragged about it and posted pictures on their website?