yeah, i get the general sentiment, but…eh, too much baggage there to really comment fairly on the OP I suppose.

just: of course it’s freaking revenge. I’m not even gonna comment on whether I think it’s a -good idea- or how it might or might not be implemented in the real world, because it’s all just another damn mental exercise anyway. hell, in that realm I’d cheerfully hire Hothead Paisan to mete out some vigilante justice.

but, break it down:

1) men have all the power, we have none
2) the Patriarchy is everywhere, there is no escape
3) that includes the State
4) let’s appeal to the State to save us!

oh, no, there’s no potential problem there.

not that I’m saying I believe all the premises, just: that’s what that boils down to.

You say then that “we can’t all agree on what defines rape”? Twisty and other advanced, radical feminists make the point that women get to define rape. If a particular act is acceptable to you, and your partner knows enough about you to know that it is acceptable, then no rape has occurred.

Again, under TF’s idea, you decide what rape is. If you think its okay to be coerced into or forced to have sex? Fine. That’s your choice and no one will call it rape. If you don’t like to be forced or coerced into having sex? Then it’s rape. I, and the rest of the justice system, will trust you to be in a place where you can make that call because you are making the choice, not the man who is coercing or forcing you into sex.

What TF is trying to point out is that under the current form of justice, it’s the rapist (or the class that gives rise to rapists and that benefits from rape) that defines what rape is. That has led…well, of course you know where that has led. It’s led to a rape culture in which the victims of rape are so voiceless that they have no say in what defines the crime against them.

I mean, seriously, if it were burglers deciding whether or not your house had been robbed, there would be a lot less crime in the world, right? Riiight. Currently, the rapists have all the power to “decide what rape is.” You have none. TF–and I too–would love to shift that balance so that women have a say.

Have you come across the Den of the Biting Beaver? She sets forth good, thought-provoking criteria for what rape is.

one thing that might happen is that more women would be able to successfully convict their rapists, but given that the patriarchy does not limit its playing field to the space within courtroom walls, this strikes me as far from a foregone conclusion.

but setting that aside for a second, i am willing to grant, for the sake of argument, that such a law would lead to an increase in sexual assault convictions. but that still does not make criminalizing heterosexual sex and giving women the benefit of the doubt interchangeable. “benefit of the doubt” is a commentary on the way the law views consent, not the way the law views sex. twisty’s point, i believe, is that bickering over what constitutes consent is the bulk of the problem, so why not try a different angle? why not take consent out of the picture entirely? why not say “you know what? you have been acting as if sex is a right for centuries, so now we’re just gonna turn that idea upside down and say sex is a crime instead. see how you like them apples.”

this is a bold idea. it is interesting to consider. it clearly gets people fired up.
but it is not the same as giving women the benefit of the doubt, and to assert that, having considered it and rejected it, i am now arguing against the right of women to be taken seriously in court because i question the justice of the criminalization of half of the population is staggeringly unfair. the fact that i object despite the fact that most men wouldn’t be convicted is not a referendum on the degree to which i trust women, it is an indication that i think there is something more than a call for justice and balance at work here, and that is what i am trying to point out.

let me try it this way:

a proposal that sounds a lot like twisty’s is: “we can’t all agree on how to define rape, so let’s just trust that anything that any woman calls rape is rape. we might get some false convictions sometimes, but given the imbalance of power in our culture there might not be another way to raise the standard of scrutiny when it comes to sexual assault, so it could be a risk worth taking.”

that is thought provoking, and if that were my interpretation, we would be having a different conversation.

maybe i should take that as a prompt for a follow up post.
that sounds like a good idea.

that is not, however, what i think the proposal actually says.

i think the proposal says “we can’t all agree on how to define rape, so let’s just say that all heterosexual intercourse is inherently rape, and therefore any sex that a woman chooses to bring to trial is automatically rape by definition. we might get some troubling convictions sometimes but that’s ok because the deck has been stacked the other way for too damn long and all men are half-guilty by association anyway.”

in one case the target is rape.
in the other the target is sex.
in one case we are asked to weight our standards to reflect historical inequity.
in the other we are asked to let the existence of historical inequity abolish the pursuit of standards altogether.

in the space between these cases, all of my potential support leaves the building.
attacking sex in order to get to rape is too much like firebombing an entire city in order to kill the terrorists: you can argue that it works, but you can’t call it justice.

the bullet points from my original post:

• bad form
• there be dragons
• i say hold our standards higher

i have not once argued against trust or balance or justice.
i am only saying that it is my reasoned, female, single, cove-less, and perfection-free opinion that decriminalizing heterosexual intercourse is a path to none of the above.

so let’s keep trying.

Currently, there is no justice for the millions of women worldwide who are raped every year. Current justice favors the rapists. Merely stepping back and examining the phenomenon, the interface between “privilege and disempowerment,” means nothing ultimately. Even if you gain understanding, the rapist and his views and his actions are still labeled just. Women are still being raped, women still don’t have a voice, women still don’t experience justice even if you’ve found your own safe haven, your cove of understanding, your perfect sex partner.

Thanks for the book nod. It sounds interesting. And reminds me that we should have talked more about our work at CHI. :)

I look forward to hearing your thoughts, as always. I think a good bit about how to balance the awareness that power dynamics go beyond gender with the simultaneous awareness that gender discrimination is worth acknowledging on it’s own, um… (de)merits?

So yeah. With bated keyboard… ;)

My objection has nothing to do with the fact that women would use the law punitively. My opinion wouldn’t change even if it could be proven that No woman would Ever use the law vindictively or pettily in the course of the natural fallout of relationships, and I am more than willing to grant that the majority of women would go on living and loving and engaging with men in trusting, mutually enjoyable sexual intercourse.

The fact that a law might result in desirable outcomes is simply not, in my opinion, equivalent to justice.

I enjoy sex today but I spent several years in what I have since acknowledged was a sexually coercive relationship, and I respect the desire to stand in the defense of those who are currently deprived of justice. I am not saying that we should accept the way things are now, and I am not saying that the law should not advocate for the disempowered.

I’m saying that revenge is not justice, even when it wears a nice coat and knocks at the right doors. It’s our job to listen with an ear to both privilege and disempowerment, because growth lies in understanding what fuses the coin together, not in pretending that either face tells the full story.

Gender issues are not about gender; they are about power. This conflict between power-over and power-under repeats in many ways, always with the same basic disconnection between the roles the subordinate plays and the awareness that it is due to the power differential.

Or maybe you don’t like this idea because some women have never experienced rape and are free and independent and can make uncoerced decisions about sex and they *do* enjoy sex and don’t want to see it criminalized. And that’s fine. Fine. That’s a fine and privileged point of view. It’s certainly a patriarchally-endorsed point of view. The truth is that there are millions and millions of women without this privilege, who have been raped or coerced into agreeing to sex acts, and I, for one, would much rather stand in *their* defense.