No, I don’t think that’s right.
If it doesn’t include violence in some form, including the form of a permanent inescapable situation/relationship in which the woman does not have the option of saying no, then it’s not rape. But a relationship in which the woman can’t say no is a rape-relationship, for sure. And they’re not rare, of course – arranged marriages with no consent for the woman are all too common in some parts of the world.
Maybe that’s what she’s thinking of? A life in which consent to sex isn’t an option and isn’t even thinkable? But that is rape; lifelong rape.
If that’s not what she’s thinking of, then she’s just wrong, as so often.
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12 responses to “A mundane practice”
“Sometimes rape is only annoying?” Wtf?
Once you start screwing around with straightforward words like “sex” and “woman,” you evidently set off a cascade effect on the rest of your vocabulary.
Maybe she’s thinking of the 14 year old girl who is raped by her teacher? Or the lesbian who succumbs to pressure by a transbian? Or the boy whose priest “encourages” him to perform sex acts?
No actual violence involved in these rapes.
Maybe it’s the Aziz Anzari thing; “I consented to this but didn’t enjoy it, thus assault/rape.”
Failing to be assertive isn’t the same as having violence inflicted upon oneself I’d assume though…
Who the fuck is Sally Hines and how many times has she been raped? The women I know who have been raped all seem to think that once is enough to recognise it is a violent act.
Statutory rape wouldn’t normally be considered violence except inasmuch as rape is per se violence. Which would be circular.
Equating rape to bad sex, though? That’s some straight up victim blaming misogyny, right there.
A lot of Hines’ meaning seems to hinge upon whom is doing the unrecognising.
It’s hard to tell what she means, but, for Hines, that’s a feature, not a bug. There’s no other explanation for the awfulness of her writing.
Maybe the next two entries by her from the above linked thread will clarify?
Isn’t one of the tenets of male “rights” activism that many/most/all accusations of rape made by women are just the result of women “changing their mind” and crying “WOLF!” the next morning? Damn right that’s straight up victim blaming misogyny. If her “pretty bad sex” was consensual, and remained so through its duration, then whatever its quality or her level of enjoyment was, IT WAS NOT RAPE. If her “bad sex” was not consensual, then it was rape, and she should call it that. Assuming that she really is talking about the former, and not the latter, for her to nod sagely as if her own experiences of such “pretty bad sex” (disappointing sex? brief sex? amateurish sex? clumsy sex? unsatisying sex?) gives her any insight at all into a woman’s experience of forced, coerced, violating sex is belittling, and brutally monstrous.
Farther down the thread of responses we have this:
Professor Dawkins, is that you?
An exchange farther down:
Here is CritFacts’ bio:
Hines said, “[rape] often goes unrecognized and [is] brushed off as bad sex.” I think that’s a reasonable statement. I know I’ve read stories about women who only later realized they were raped, when their partners pressured them into having sex when they really really didn’t want to, or when they were too out of control or inebriated to consent appropriately. “Bad sex” is a reasonable way to describe at least some of these incidents where women blame themselves for what happened. “Brushed off”, blamed themselves, stopped thinking about it. It’s yet another instance of women catering to the desires of men. Much effort has been put into programs to make women aware that, no, it isn’t your fault for being drunk, he shouldn’t have taken advantage of you.
FWIW, I think she makes some good points in the tweet, that could be helpful to women who have been raped but who didn’t realize it because there was no physical force or threats involved. She’s not trying to minimize rape, she’s trying to say that rape is even more prevalent than assumed because of the amount of self-blame and lack of recognition of these other cases.
It’s somewhat similar to abortion being framed as a “tough decision”, as “traumatic”, as “tragic”. It isn’t always, it doesn’t have to be, and it’s incorrect to assume it always is. (This is one of the big points I took away from Katha Pollitt’s excellent book “Pro”, which I recommend highly.)
Hm, I can see that interpretation. Rape accusations are often dismissed by others as retrospective regret or dissatisfaction, and women do often minimize their own experience as a coping mechanism. If a woman’s concept of rape includes violence, the absence of what would normally be considered violence makes it reasonable for her to believe that what happens to her is just “bad sex”.
Hines’s wording is awkward and inadequate to the task of expressing this.
Yes, I can see that interpretation too. I’m usually not inclined to give Hines the benefit of the doubt, or to read her statements in a charitable light. That’s on me. I should do better.
Just to confuse things further, Hines posted this the following day:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E-iGsc_X0AQs9pI?format=png&name=large