Re: WikiLeaks and Condom Slips (Amanda Marcotte & Moe Tkacik)
 

If you have the kind of relationship with a woman (or a man for that matter) where talking about a past incident of this nature is important, there's always a gentle way to bring it up. You can always start the conversation by testing the waters. You can say something like: "you told me once that X happened..." or "I was told that X happened..." "and I'm aware that some women don't want to talk about issues like that while others do. I don't know how you feel about this, but if you want to talk about it, I'll be glad to listen and try to help if I can."

That's something that can be really helpful and increase trust in a relationship. I'm not talking about a romantic relationship. The woman could be your sister, or a friend. As sexuality has become more open, women tend to be more comfortable talking about these issues because they're not as hidden as they used to be.

Re: Anyone else get a headache listening to this?
 

i agree with this part. its like labeling an 18 yr old having sex with his 16 yr old girlfriend a "pedophile", it is a category error and eventually reduces the emotional valence of the word because it is being applied to horrible things and perfectly ordinary things.


i call that perfectly ordinary and probably to be expected. I usually see it more as going on a date and finding out that the chemistry didn't happen, rather than as a deliberate and diabolical plot to spend time with me that doesn't lead to a relationship.


this is just craziness.



that would be my preference. but with the example above of a woman that is drunk - i think it makes a big difference if both parties are intoxicated or not and whether they got that way together, etc. So a stone cold sober guy cruising the bar at 2:30 a.m. for drunk chicks is walking a narrow line and will probably end up crossing that line and being a rapist if that his usual modus operendi. Whereas if i go on a date with a girl and we both get pretty tipsy and have sex - her regret the next morning does not make it rape.

The problems come in trying to disentangle the gray areas and figuring out how more innocent people will be hurt - by not prosecuting the marginal case or by prosecuting the marginal case. My preference is for the power of the state to only apply to individual relationships when it is an absolute necessity.

Re: Anyone else get a headache listening to this?
 

"Drunk" is a pretty broad territory. Someone might be what you call "tipsy", perhaps over the legal driving limit, but seem alert, engaged, generally unimpaired and not slurring speech or stumbling around bumping into things, and so on. People also get semi-comatose, barely aware of their surroundings, unable to focus and maintain a conversation or coherent thought. And every state of intoxication between.

It's pretty easy to see, at least for most of us, that a guy engaging in sex with a woman who is so out of it that she has trouble figuring out what he is doing as he pulls her clothes off is engaging in rape. There is no way a reasonable person can consider the woman to be capable of consenting in any meaningful sense, even if she is not actively resisting. How and where exactly to draw the line legally is a problem. People react differently to various amounts of alcohol or other intoxicants. As with all legal lines, that decision will be somewhat arbitrary and unjust in many cases.

Regardless of where a legal line might be drawn, there is also the question of what constitutes moral and ethical behavior. Cases in which legal action may not be applied but which still constitute sleazy exploitation of someone's intoxication seem like events in which social sanctions should take over for legal sanctions.

Re: Anyone else get a headache listening to this?
 

I agree with that. This seems like one of those areas where to allow the state to be the arbiter of the gray areas requires relinquishing far too much power to the state, but clearly there is a lot of injustice and abuse that should be addressed by the community.

the problem there is the concept of "community" and whether it still exists in our society in a way that would make the social sanctions effective.