Young argues, "this crusade against 'rape culture' oversimplifies the vast complexity of human sexual interaction, conflating criminal sexual acts such as coercion by physical force, threat or incapacitation — which should obviously be prosecuted and punished — with bad behavior...even in the first incident, in which the man knowingly pressured me into something I didn’t want, I could have safely said no to him." What's troubling here is that Young is blaming herself for an encounter that she was pressured into--this justification for her partner's behavior is a prime example of victim blaming. Technically, he didn't do anything wrong; technically, Young always was physically capable of saying no. But everything in this situation is justified by technicalities. I do not know the details of Young's particular relationship, but there is a multitude of similar situations in which someone is physically capable of saying no, but emotionally she is trapped. Maybe she knows that if she says no, she will be guilted or punished in some way. Maybe she feels that she is fighting a losing battle. Whatever the case is, it is deeply concerning that we are taught to brush off the idea that being pressured into sex is not just inevitable, but is also acceptable.
Sex isn't a battle--you shouldn't conquer another human being in one of their most intimate, vulnerable moments.
Young also makes the fallacious argument that "only yes means yes" forces us to consider every less-than-ideal sexual encounter an assault. Without getting too graphic on the Internet, I'd like to use my own personal experience to refute that argument. There have been instances where I've responded with a resounding "yes," only to regret it later because I was a young and stupid person who made young and stupid decisions. I'm not about to go and call my ex a rapist because I didn't think things through at the age of 18. The biggest difference, however, is that I did not feel pressured into doing something I would later regret, and I did not feel as though I would be punished for saying no.
Young also seems to make the claim that because she was also sexually pushy in her lifetime, that counteracts the times that she was a victim: "besides, I know that sometimes the roles have been reversed. There was the ex-boyfriend I thought I was seducing in the hope of getting him back — only to realize, the one time he finally said no harshly enough, that it had been more pressure than seduction. If I were to claim victimhood, I would either have to admit to being a perpetrator as well or fall back on a blatantly sexist double standard." Here, Young fails to recognize that she is perfectly capable of being both the victim and the aggressor at different times in her life. While this is a seemingly gendered issue (seeing as the number of male aggressors highly outweighs female aggressors), seeing a case in which a woman is overtly sexually aggressive does not make it "right" in some way. It doesn't mean that Young should be behind bars this very instance, but perhaps she, along with everyone else who has felt the need to have full power in similar instances, should examine why the power dynamic was so skewed.
We've gotten to a point where we can definitively say that rapists should be locked behind bars--that's not the dialogue we need to be having. The next step is to make people realize that persistent persuasion isn't sexy, and instead of relying on the reactor in the situation to say no, maybe we should teach the instigators to stop demanding a "yes." It'll be a hell of a lot more enjoyable that way.
Whew, that was a serious rant. My next post will be chock full of gifs or something to make up for it.
Namaste.
