Is It or Isn't It?
It is.
In an effort to try to understand the gender divide on what constitues rape and what does not, blackfeminism.org posits four scenarios asking commenters to give their opinions on whether they constitute rape or not. Personally, I believe all four of them constitute rape. But I'm going to focus on the first scenario and a comment someone made about it not involving violence.
Scenario 1:
A woman meets a guy while she was home from college one weekend. They talk on the phone while she is at school. They go out on a couple of dates when she comes home.One weekend she drives down to his place with the plan to spend the night. She consents to sex with a condom.
Later that night, he tries to penetrate her without a condom. She expresses her desire not to have sex unless he uses a condom. He penetrates her without a condom.
Comment:
there were times i said i wasn't in the mood or was tired with boyfriends and told them so. i never said the word "no". i may have been bored or annoyed but don’t feel i was raped. my idea of rape is that there is physical force or violence but scenarios one, three and four don’t seem to necessarily involve violence.
I'm not really quite sure why rape has to involve physical force or violence. The woman said "No" to sex without a condom. The man refused to accept her "No". She did not consent. Ergo, this is rape. I'm focusing on this one, because something similar almost happened to me once. I say almost, because in my case, fortunately, finally, the man in question listened to me.
We had gone back to his place. I had consented to sex with a condom, but he didn't have one. Nor did I. By this time, we were in his bed, fully unclothed. He was lying on top of me. I was pinned down and couldn't move (if it matters, he had to wear a leg brace and his right leg was effectively dead weight; I really could not move). Once it became clear that we couldn't have sex without a condom, I very clearly told him "No." I was very explicit about my unwillingness to have sex without a condom. I was very explicit about this for an entire hour, while he had me pinned down and was trying to persuade me to have sex anyway. After the first ten minutes of this, I began to be scared. I could understand some attempt to persuade me, but why wasn't he listening to me? I was not the least bit wishy-washy about my unwillingness. I began to worry that I was not going to get out of there without being raped. Because there is zero doubt in my mind that had he penetrated me without a condom, he would have been raping me. How many times did I have to say "No." How many times did I have to say "I don't want to have sex without a condom." Why did it take a full hour before he finally let me go?
Let me tell you all something else. Had he actually raped me, I would not have reported it to the police. Who would have believed me? I had willingly gone to his apartment. I had willingly removed my clothes. In those circumstances, would a prosecutor even have tried the case?
To this day, I consider myself fortunate. I firmly believe that the vast majority of men would have respected my "No" within a few minutes time. If a man keeps you pinned down arguing with you for more than a few minutes, I think we have the right to question his motives in doing so. And I do. Therefore, I believe I was lucky that he finally let me go.
If you want to discuss blackfeminism.org's questions, please do so at their blog. Any comments about blackfeminism.org's post will be deleted from this blog. If you wish to discuss my experience, please be respectful.