Here are two commentaries on this subject. Watch for the false term “non-consensual sex" wherever it appears. Here is why.
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Well before the election of Donald J. Trump, the mainstreaming of misogyny during his campaign caused justified outrage and fear. Now, with the alarming reality of his coming presidency and his choices for a number of cabinet posts, that fear has been multiplied among the nation's vulnerable, and those who stand to defend their most basic rights.
Of course the problem of misogyny and violence against women existed long before this election cycle. But the immediate danger that comes with raising an unrepentant misogynist to the nation's highest office is emboldenment; the implicit condoning of degrading or violent behavior against women, and the diminished fear of punishment from authorities.
That danger is especially great on college campuses, where disturbing signs of degraded attitudes toward the safety and dignity of women have been increasing over the past several years.
The list of reports of rape, sexual assault and other forms of abuse is long (a recent report counted nearly 100 campuses with more than 10 reports of rape in 2014) and studies suggest that as many as one in four women experience sexual assault at college.
While rape is not new, the celebration of lack of consent at the heart of party rape is. Never before have we seen the public and open valorization of sexual assault and rape that we are seeing now. In 2014, a fraternity at the Georgia Institute of Technology was suspended for distributing an email with the subject line "Luring your rapebait," which ended, "I want to see everyone succeed at the next couple parties."
The problem involves a toxic combination of lack of reporting by victims, the prevalence of rape myths that continue to blame victims, and the party culture on campus that spawns sexual assault even if it doesn't cause it.
Progress in fighting this problem is hard to track. At Yale, in 2010, fraternity brothers marched around the freshman dorms chanting, "No means yes, yes means anal." The fraternity was banned for five years, but this fall, there were similar chants and banners welcoming freshmen at Ohio State University, Western University in Ontario and Old Dominion.
These examples suggest an aggressive campaign on the part of some fraternities and some men on campus to insist that consent is not only irrelevant, but also undesirable.
The erosion of rights can happen in a variety of ways, and manipulation of language is one of them. At the root of the problem on campuses is a change in the way the word "sex" is used. While sex is considered an activity, until recently, it commonly referred to an activity shared between people, as in the familiar phrase, "having sex." Implicit in the concept of sex is consent. Without consent, sexual activity becomes rape.
Again, it is assumed that one party asks for sex and the other merely gives or withholds consent. In addition, the risk is that consent is treated like an on or off switch where once it is given it cannot be revoked, which doesn't work for sex. Current affirmative consent policies are contractual models of sex wherein parties agree first and then act on it. But, this "Fifty Shades of Grey" form of consent is impractical when it comes to sexual activities. (In that novel, the heroine never signs the contract and the hero has his way with her nonetheless).
Sex is not a contract. It is a dynamic interaction. Furthermore, consent to one type of sexual activity does not imply consent to another.
Just because a woman consents to accompany a man to his apartment doesn't mean she consents to being strangled. And just because a woman gets drunk at the party does not mean she consents to sex while she's unconscious. Drugs and alcohol lead to "50 shades of consent."
For example, in the Steubenville, Ohio, rape case, high school football players assaulted an unconscious girl while bystanders joked and made disparaging remarks about her. One perpetrator's defense was: "It isn't really rape because you don't know if she wanted to or not." This sentiment makes clear that for these boys, if a girl is unconscious, and neither affirmative nor negative consent can be given, "sex" with her doesn't count as rape. These boys imagined their unconscious victim might be consenting, perhaps even "wanting" it.
Obviously, in the context of a culture that values lack of consent and nonconsensual sex, what counts as both "sex" and "consent" raises many questions: At what point does a person become incompetent to give consent? In the case of drunken college students, is there a blood alcohol level at which they no longer are able to give consent? And should the same standards apply to men as to women? In other words, if two severely intoxicated students have sex, are they raping each other?
It is noteworthy that drunken male perpetrators of rape are held less responsible because of intoxication while drunken female victims of rape are held more responsible. Again, the problem of drunken consent points to the toxic combination of alcohol and rape myths. Moreover, it reveals the changing notions of both sex and consent implicit in nonconsensual sex.
There has been movement to address the culture of sexual assault on campuses in recent months: six women coming forward to report their experiences with a suspected serial rapist at the University of Wisconsin; Brigham Young University changing its blame-the-victim policy that made reporting rape while under the influence of alcohol result in an honor code violation for the victim; and changing policies on campuses regarding alcohol in an attempt to stem growing problems connected with parties. These are small steps forward in what has become an epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses.
Certainly, no means no and only yes means yes, but, as we've seen, issues of consent and nonconsensual sex are more complicated. In addition to holding individuals responsible, we must consider the cultural ethos in which lack of consent is valorized and rape has been downgraded to nonconsensual sex, and where talk of sexual assault is considered acceptable — "boys will be boys" and "locker room talk" — by those who will lead this country. The need to be vigilant is even more urgent now.
November 21, 2016
This is by Kelly Oliver, a professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University and author of "Hunting Girls: Sexual Violence from 'The Hunger Games' to Campus Rape."
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October 27, 2017To the Editor:
"Words matter," Dan Barry noted earlier this year, in explaining why Donald Trump's lies need to be called lies, and not glossed over with euphemisms like "falsehoods" or "fake news" ("In Swirl of 'Untruths' and 'Falsehoods,' Calling a Lie a Lie," news analysis, Jan. 26). "The words needed to be exactly right," he added.
The same is true for so-called "nonconsensual sex," a term that is appearing in The Times with increasing frequency. "Nonconsensual sex" is the language of the accused, used to hijack the conversation and sugarcoat allegations of sexual assault. You have written that Bill O'Reilly, Harvey Weinstein and others have recently denied allegations of "nonconsensual sex."
In "There Is No Such Thing as 'Nonconsensual Sex.' It's Violence" (The Stone, nytimes.com, Nov. 21, 2016), Kelly Oliver noted, "The erosion of rights can happen in a variety of ways, and manipulation of language is one of them." She went on to say: "Implicit in the concept of sex is consent. Without consent, sexual activity becomes rape."
It's time to stop allowing the perpetrators to frame the dialogue. Words matter; choose them wisely.
DIANE TIDER-JOHANSSON
JERSEY CITY
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October 29,2017
Addendum. This is an amalgam of the way Donald Trump speaks about women.
