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WizardBelly wrote

I disagree. Having someone able to turn around, point a finger, and say "you raped me" sounds like a bad idea. In complete anarchy, full communism, this would work and make sense, but in our current world designed for exploitation, this seems like it would do more harm than good. Add in the fact that nobody takes this shit seriously, and you have a recipe for extra fuel for the far right.

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[deleted] wrote

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squirrels wrote

I personally think that the problem is if it's applied within the state and people call upon the power of the state to enforce consent as a felt sense. I am wary of applying this in the context of the state, as such ambiguous policing of sex has more often than not been used to punish queer or otherwise marginalized people.

Having said that, I will say that this concept helped me heal a few years ago when I first ran across it. It was therapeutic and I think it could be a powerful tool toward dismantling patriarchal notions of sex. And, as you said, it's something to consider in non-legalistic models.

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Iforgotmypassword wrote

What the fuck did I just read?

This is such complete nonsense I wonder what the person who wrote it was on.

His essay thinks it is possible for two people to rape each other in the same act.

Bob and Andy fuck, except a week later, Bob realises Andy is not as big a Harry Potter fan as he thought, this was what attracted Andy to Bob, so now the sex he consented to was actually Andy raping Bob...

However, it turns out that while Bob said he was a fan of the aliens films (which is what attracted Bob to Andy) he only knew about the first 3, so hadn't in fact seen them all and didn't even know Prometheus was set in the same universe as a sequel. So now Bob has raped Andy.

The consent conversation this person is trying to begin is one where the position of the weak minded wishes to be absolved of any responsibility.

And let's call a spade a spade while we are at it. This essay with all its talk of gay sex only, is fully positioning women as the potential future tense victims. The way in which any mention of the female gender is omitted in its entirety is disingenuous.

The construct of consent in relation to sex exists in that moment only. Once the sex stops, the requirements for consent stop. Equally once the consent stops, so too must the sex.

If you chose to have sex with someone, and then at some point in the future, you have severe regrets, wish you had not done it, you are not a victim of rape, you are a victim of your own shitty life choices.

If a person has consensual sex with someone, outside of an otherwise good (though perhaps in the moment sexually unsatisfying) marriage, and said sex has put a spring in their step. Assuming that person is caught, not forgiven , and in the resulting divorce they lose their home, their car, their kids, their friends, their job etc. It would be fair to say that this person would have some rather serious regrets about having had that extra marital sex. If they could go back and undo it, they surely would. Even if that person was driven into depression by their circumstances and resorted to suicide, it still wouldn't have been rape.

They made a choice. With freedom comes responsibility.

The way forward is not to try and redefine rape and consent with leaps into the illogical and absurd. But rather to focus on being positive.

You had consensual sex, as a single person with someone and didn't get a physical negative from it. But now , for "reasons" you regret it.

Why? Why are you regretting choices you have made with your own body. That's the part that is not healthy, and given that then author of the essay mentions people being 'traumatised' by sexual encounters they later go on to regret, the fact that such a mindset is unhealthy appears to be evidenced.

Clinical mental health issues aside, the choice to be happy or sad about your circumstances are exactly that, a choice. Not many people realise this (spoiler they are usually unhappy) and many will scoff at the very idea.

Let's look at the kind of example this essay is actually talking about, and the choice available to the person.

Mindy meets Mike, they hit it off at a bar, and after a few drinks and a night of sexy dancing, head back to Mindy's nearby flat and shag the night away. The sex is epic. The next day Mike leaves and Mindy is left with that positive I've had some awesome sex with a cool hot person vibe. They txt throughout the week and Mike is giving lots of compliments and the texts are getting heated from both sides. They arrange to meet inbred same bar again, this time it's only one or two drinks and little more than an hour before they are back at Mindy's having the crazy animal sex. Mindy starts getting thoughts about Mike, feelings thoughts and has told her friends about him. Midway in the week. Mike tells Mindy that actually he's got a girlfriend, and he now feels bad and doesn't want to see her again.

Now Mindy has a rule that she doesn't date or sex guys with girlfriends, and while she didn't say this to Mike, she feels dejected, a little angry and like she's been taken for a ride. She wishes she had never met Mike and the next weekend feels so low, she cancels pre-made plans with her friends.

Is this rape? Surely social convention states that Mike should have let Mindy know he had a girlfriend so she could at least make an informed decision. Worse still while one night could be put down to a drunken man hooking up with a sexy and willing girl (who remember didn't mention her strict no girlfriends policy) assuming it was just going to be a one night stand, a week of flirty texting and then a 2ND night makes Mike a genuinely shitty person... but does it make him a rapist? No, it doesn't. A shit yes, a rapist, no.

Turns out however, Mike doesn't actually have a girlfriend. He's just a bit of a dick, and after deciding that Mindy wasn't really the girl for him, decided to tell her he had a girlfriend as an excuse to break up with her. The real reason was because her vagina just wasn't up to the kegal loving quality he was used to, and while the sex was indeed epic for Mindy, it was actually sub par for Mike.

The essay would say that in this situation, Mindy can call herself a rape victim because of a girlfriend that doesn't exist. And by telling Mindy he had a girlfriend when he did not, he has now, retroactively commit rape, twice.

Mindy will feel shitty, but, the reality of the situation is that something was good, amazing, good, amazing, super shit. By retroactively removing consent, so too Mindy retroactively removes the positives. Mindy's experience now is bad, rape, rape, bad, rape, super shit.

Which brings us to the topic of the human brain. The brain takes an experience and makes this a memory. Let's call this memory-1. At a later date. You recall this event. So your brain recalls memory 1 - then when you are done with the memory (and here's the rub) - your brain applies your current assessment of the memory and stores it away as a new memory - memory 2. If you recall in the future, the happenings of this event, you don't get memory-1, you get memory-2.

This is the science behind brainwashing and propaganda. Mem2 becomes Mem3 etc... and by revoking any positive balance to the memory, and recalling it in a negative state of mind.... you will actually create a trauma. Worse still when experiencing a future trauma this (now false) memory may be triggered. In this case it will have all the negatives of your current trauma assessments attached to it. You have now created memory-T1...welcome to your own personal hell.

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