This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
For the cat example, you have technically been assaulted no (assuming we held cats to human standards at least for the analogy to hold)? Someone else who likes cats less could throw your cat across the room in self defense. The fact you don't take it seriously is your prerogative, but in a human to human scenario that would be assault (or battery or whatever). If a man walks up to you and scratches your stomach with sharp fingernails, I assume you are not going to be as sanguine (though, hey what do I know, maybe that would float your boat!)
For the wife example, however grudgingly you did indeed consent. So that's not the same as "lack of consent"
Lack of consent is the literal difference between rape and not rape. If she does indeed grudgingly consent to Platner then it is not rape I agree. If she doesn't consent at all then it doesn't matter what other actions she takes, it is rape.
After 5 years and with presumably no evidence it might not be prosecutable or provable beyond a reasonable doubt of course, either way.
I think this is the line being discussed. HereandGone is interpreting her actions as being closer to "begrudging consent". The problem with
is that, particularly among people who have an existing, ongoing sexual relationship, that line can get blurry.
It can! But the statement wasn't about why he may have assumed he had consent or similar. Her statement was that lack of consent does not make rape. Not that the line was blurry, or that he may have assumed consent, or that it wasn't communicated well or anything of the sort.
The literal difference between rape and not rape is the lack of consent. The line might get blurry as to whether she did consent, I agree. But if she did not it is rape.
If she just meant the line is blurry then her choice of wording was poor indeed.
You're still assuming the situation can be resolved into a binary state. She herself might not have a consistent take on if she begrudgingly tolerated sex with an intermittent partner of known sexual forwardness, or was raped. And even if she did ultimately decide it was easier to just fuck him and kick him out in the morning, that doesn't mean his behavior wasn't shitty and wrong. But if he'd done the same thing a half dozen times before and found her more receptive (perhaps after a token "No, it's late, you shouldn't"), then that would make his behavior (and hers!) more understandable.
It is a binary state though. It might be unknowable to us, but she was either consenting or not. She might rationalize it after one way or the other, thats all true. He might have had prior reason to assume her consent one way or another. Again all true.
But at the point of the act whether she consented or not is the difference between rape or not. And that is binary. In her mind she was either consenting or not.
She might go back and forth afterwards, absolutely. Humans are great at rationalizing all kinds of things.
Her post hoc rationalizations one way or the other cannot change the past.
This is quite the claim about a concept that is known to be rather messy. Multiple entire books have been written by philosophers of ethics trying to explore the nature of consent, because it is, indeed, rather messy. One may desire to collapse all the messiness down to a binary state, but that is a significant enough of a claim that it likely requires yet another one of those books written by a philosopher of ethics to argue for. Probably not something that's going to be settled in a MottePost.
To be clear, I think that for some situations (many situations), there is a clean enough mapping from the complex mental state that was present in that situation to a binary consent state. But that mapping is not always clean. One can hold as an axiom that, in theory, such a mapping must always exist, but that would either be an axiom or a claim. If it's a claim, I think it's hard to look at the existing academic work and believe that it has been conclusively shown.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link