« Working Makes You Healthy | Main | Branding Advice »
May 19, 2006
When Pedophiles Attack
So John Derbyshire, in his continuing quest to convince us all he's a pervert*, is back with a defense for his argument that women become saggy old bags after age 20. 15-20, he believes, are their "salad days," assumedly the period when they go best with cherry tomatoes and a light vinaigrette. That was a couple months ago, and he was roundly denounced as a pedophile (is it any surprise he's obsessed with Lolita?). But now he's back, and the boy's got data:
Some of the most vituperative emails I have ever got came in after I made an offhand remark, in one of my monthly NRO diaries, to the effect that very few of us are physically appealing after our salad days, which in the case of women I pegged at ages 15-20. While the storm was raging, biologist Razib Khan over at Gene Expression (forget philosophers, theologians, and even novelists: the only people with interesting things to say about human nature nowadays are the scientists) decided to look up some actual numbers. Reasoning that a rapist is inspired to his passion mainly by the physical attractiveness of his victim, Razib went for rape statistics.
He found a 1992 report (Rape in America: A Report to the Nation) from the National Victim Center showing the age distribution of female rape victims. Sixty percent of the women who reported having been raped were aged 17 or less, divided about equally between women aged 11 to 17 (32 percent) and those under eleven (29 percent). Only six percent were older than 29. When a woman gets past her mid twenties, in fact, her probability of being raped drops off like a continental shelf. If you histogram the figures, you get a peak around ages 12-14.
I'm actually interested in the data here. To start, as others have pointed out, this makes perfect sense: rape is about power, and young women have less of it. Moreover, rapists presumably have some sort of cost-benefit analysis going on, and young women are probably less dangerous, both in terms of physical strength and ability to prosecute.
But putting those aside, the actual statistics themselves aren't yet convincing. Does this data folds in statutory rape? High school seniors dating sophomores and then being sued by the latter's parents? If so, the numbers are going to skew way young, but they won't prove anything close to what Derbyshire thinks they do, because the meaning of the crimes is deeply different. Indeed, what we really need here is the distribution of the rapists. For the numbers to prove Derbyshire's contention, all the offenders would have to be older men assaulting girls in their leafy green prime. But if what we're looking at is a lot of statutory and date rape from younger men, that says absolutely nothing about female "salad days." There's everything violent about a 17-year-old assaulting a 16-year-old, but nothing pedophilic about it, and so Derb's dark desires continue to lack the evidentiary grounding he's searching for.
*Mission accomplished, by the way.
Update: In comments, Dave Weigel writes:
Data Point: "More than half of all rapes of women (54%) occur before age 18; 22% of these rapes occur before age 12. For men, 75% of all rapes occur before age 18, and 48% occur before age 12". Does that mean that boys get too old and saggy even faster than girls?
May 19, 2006 | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/19450/4924227
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference When Pedophiles Attack:
Comments
I think Amanda pointed this out, but if 29% of the rapes are perpetrated upon girls younger than 11, then a girl being at her sexual "salad days" has very little to do with it. Unless Derbyshire wants to argue that women are most desirable before they have actually developed any distinguishing sexual characteristics.
Derbyshire also says that Razib reasoned "that a rapist is inspired to his passion mainly by the physical attractiveness of his victim." Bullshit. Rape is about power, as you said. It's not about the perceived attractiveness of the victim. That's just more sick justification on Derbyshire's part for the rapists' actions.
Let's think about that for a moment. Derbyshire is not only into little girls, he also subscribes to the idea that it is a girl's beauty that, in effect, causes the rape. It's the damn girl's fault, not the guy, because the man is just acting according to his natural "passions."
We need to have a map program that lets prospective home buyers determine how close their new house is, not only to people on sexual predator lists run by the state, but also how close it is to John Derbyshire.
Posted by: Stephen | May 19, 2006 11:20:30 AM
Why is rape an indication of desire for all men? In my mind, rape is a heinous crime and if I were to assume that the statistics of these rapists could be applied across to the entire male gender, I would be pretty damn frightened and disgusted at the human race. And if I were a God-fearing man, I'd be pretty pissed that God instilled that desire in us.
But I don't beleive any of that. Frankly, I've always been a MILF guy myself. ;)
Also, what about biology? Take desire and the mind straight out of the equation and just look at biology and instinct. Wouldn't men be attracted to women when they are most productive? I could be wrong about this, but I thought the ages of 25-35 were the most ideal.
Posted by: Adrock | May 19, 2006 11:21:25 AM
Funniest footnote ever.
Posted by: Shakespeare's Sister | May 19, 2006 11:26:03 AM
Even more disturbing how the Derb, by his own reasoning, has the same taste in women as rapists.
Posted by: verplanck colvin | May 19, 2006 11:30:30 AM
It's amazing how Derbyshire just thinks of GNXP boyz like Razib and GodlessCapitalist as credible sources.
Oh wait, that's right, the only good science these days is published by the Pioneer Foundation, not in peer-reviewed journals, because of liberal scientific bias.
Ah well.
I think the weirdest part was where he parenthetically notes that he has a 13 year old daughter. I'm sure that he intended it as a sort of, "people who are important to me are pubescent girls, so I'm not soft on pedophilia or anything like that" cover-your-ass comment, but in the context of the article as a whole, it just came across as skeezy.
Posted by: Julian Elson | May 19, 2006 11:33:50 AM
Nice to know that at 45, I'm considered to be well past my Should Be Consumed By date.
The Big Unspeakable happened to me at age 19. It had nothing to do with the rapists' desire or attraction and everything to do with power, domination, and objectification.
Am I safe now, though, do you suppose? I seem to remember reading about an eighty-year-old woman being raped in my town only a few weeks ago.
Posted by: litbrit | May 19, 2006 11:35:20 AM
Rape may not be the best barometer of attractiveness. But looking to days past when there were no restrictions on age, one could see that throughout history and even up until a hundred years ago or so, women were married off young. You could be considered an old maid at the ripe old age of 18.
Posted by: Fred Jones. | May 19, 2006 11:47:41 AM
I guess women should stop complaining about rape and accept it as the compliment it is!
Posted by: William Rabkin | May 19, 2006 11:49:24 AM
Using the term salad days makes him sound even more perverted. Does he even know where it comes from?It's from Shakespeare, specifically Atony and Cleopatra when Cleopatra refers to a time in her life as her salad days, "When I was green in judgment, cold in blood."
Makes him sound like he likes virgins - underage virgins.
Posted by: Randy Paul | May 19, 2006 11:55:54 AM
Data point: "More than half of all rapes of women (54%) occur before age 18; 22% of these rapes occur before age 12. For men, 75% of all rapes occur before age 18, and 48% occur before age 12". Does that mean that boys get too old and saggy even faster than girls?
Posted by: David Weigel | May 19, 2006 11:57:57 AM
Makes him sound like he likes virgins - underage virgins.
How 'bout that Muhammad, eh? What a 'cutter'!
Posted by: Fred Jones. | May 19, 2006 12:00:35 PM
Reasoning that a rapist is inspired to his passion mainly by the physical attractiveness of his victim,
"Reasoning?" I do not think that word means what you think it means.
But looking to days past when there were no restrictions on age, one could see that throughout history and even up until a hundred years ago or so, women were married off young.
Back when young women were commodities, there probably were different standards of evaluation, especially since choices in the wife market were constrained in very different ways. What that has to do with a correlation between physical attractiveness and youth is, shall we say, not obvious.
Posted by: Hogan | May 19, 2006 12:01:09 PM
I had the privilege of meeting Ms. Anne Bancroft about a dozen years ago, and I have to say that she was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in real life before or since, and she must have been about 60 years old at that time.
Derbyshire is a goddamn freak and anyone that defends him on this is pathetic.
Posted by: chowchowchow | May 19, 2006 12:01:29 PM
"he parenthetically notes that he has a 13 year old daughter"
Someone should make a preventive call to Social Services - many teen girls are raped by family members.
Posted by: CParis | May 19, 2006 12:12:29 PM
But looking to days past when there were no restrictions on age, one could see that throughout history and even up until a hundred years ago or so, women were married off young. You could be considered an old maid at the ripe old age of 18.
This is simply untrue. Age of marriage shows a high degree of variability based mostly on economic circumstances. In early modern Europe, the average age of first marriage was around 25 for women and 27 for men. In colonial America it was slightly younger, but still in the 20s, due to the greater availablity of land and the consequent ability of younger people to set up economically viable households.
Among the aristocracy, age of marriage was lower (sometimes into the early teens) because of the political utility of arranged marriages for influential families -- creating alliances, pooling resources, etc...
As that history suggests, age of marriage also has little to do with "attractiveness" and a great deal to do with the social, political, and economic functions of marriage in a given society.
Posted by: rfs | May 19, 2006 12:12:33 PM
Good grief. He's not actually equating the taste of rapists to all men? Maybe only himself. This would be a very bad joke, but I guess he means it.
Physical attractiveness is not what attracts rapists. Vulnerability is far more important. That's why they go after isolated women, disabled women, mentally impaired women, elderly women, women in deserted parking lots, women with children asleep in the next room. Oh, yes, and teenaged girls who might be too scared to turn them into police.
But hey, if John Derbyshire identifies so much with rapists, maybe we should publicize that. I bet it'll be a lot harder for him to get a date-- with a woman in her "salad days" or any other day at all.
The man is beyond sick. Fortunate for him that disgusting thoughts aren't prosecutable.
Posted by: ana | May 19, 2006 12:21:39 PM
Fred,
That post is a complete non-sequiteur based a determination to offer an eternal, moronic, defence of a social position that you are construing as a political position. There is no moral person--conservative or liberal, who would defend Derbyshire's pedophilic fantasies or ascribe them to other than a deeply personal sickness. What is with conservatives? Don't they believe in true evil, in sin? Must everything be relativized with reference to this false doctrine of evolution and "natural" man? Sometimes I read your stuff and I have to ask "do you even believe in transcendant moral values" or is it all "if it feels good, do it" with you people?
But to deal directly with your placeholding comment:
Its true, as you concede: Rape is not a "barometer of attractiveness" and so half of Derbyshire's weird fixation on his fake stats goes out the window. But where is the "but" coming from in "but looking to days past when there were no restrictions on age....women were married off young." The implication seems to be that people were more "natural" then (not cluttered up by all that social stuff like laws against raping children. Oh, sorry, even *the romans* had laws against that, need to go back a bit farther to find that pure time when men's sexual desires were all that determined social norms). The other implication is that what goes for "marriage" goes as well for "sex" and for "rape" as though these things were identical in cause, demographic impact, social meaning, or moral value.
But of course sex isn't marriage isn't rape and rape isn't just sex and certainly isn't identical to marriage despite Derbyshire's attempt to blur the lines and make them all "equally valid lifestyle choices" *for men.*
A) not true. There has never been a time in *any* society when there was no lower legal or moral limit on permitted sexual activity with children. The limits may have been at a lower age than they are *now* but that doesn't mean there weren't limits.
B) Marriage and sex are two different things. People have been permitted to have sex who were not married, people have been married and had sex, people have had sex *in order* to get married. Marriage, sex, procreation and parenting are all distinct too, historically and socially speaking. Societies have permitted some individuals to have sex without being married, while others have been permitted to take on parental roles without having had sex. Within the context of a single marriage the parental role can be assumed by people who have not procreated while the "real" parental role gets negated--just look at Sarah and Hagar in the bible for an early example of this.
C) Women were not always "married off young" in fact in societies with restricted land or where inheritance was partiable women (and young men) were often *not married off at all* since marriage has little to do with attractiveness and everything to do with labor and fertility. Younger men and women were often not permitted to marry (check out venice in the 16th century, hell read a book) and were sent to convents/monastaries or condemned to a life of servitude without sex or without visible children within their own families.
B) Wherever women are scarce, as in the early colonies, widows and women of advanced ages frequently remarried within months of the death of their first husbands. Anyplace women have their own money or land they are considered desirable marriage partners well into their later years, demographics show.
C) Anyplace children are deeply desired/needed especially for work a woman's *fertility* rather than her physical attractiveness is more important in determining whether she is marriagable than her youth/beauty. In societies where women are scarce (pioneer ones) or where a lot of family labor is needed and polygamy is frowned on it was common for courting couples to deliberately get pregnant before marriage to determine whether it was worth tie-ing the knot.
All of this is by way of saying that this area--whether Derbyshire is a sick f*ck or not and whether Fred Jones is too for implicitly agreeing with him--is not really debatable. There is lots, and lots, and lots, of historical demographic data showing that while rapists may or may not target young, vulnerable women *marriage* patterns overall have almost nothing to do with any kind of sexual attraction between the parties, consent of the parties, or desire of the parties. Only at very specific historical moments, economic circumstances, and social conditions have the parties to marriage actually chosen their own spouses. And we know this. Its not really up for grabs. Its just a fact. A fact that the pro-rapist derbyshire and his pet statistician simply ignore in their rush to legitimize as normal what is deeply, deeply, violent and sick.
aimai
Posted by: aimai | May 19, 2006 12:25:36 PM
Fred, I think you're maybe misinformed. Girls in upperclasses whose families owned land were often married off very young (even at 10 or 12) so that their fathers could choose who would inherit the land (if they had no sons, usually the son-in-law would inherit). They also did this to keep the girl from being kidnapped and forced into marriage-- this is, btw, how the great Grosvenor fortune started in London-- a very young girl had to be married to protect her from kidnapping.
But for most girls in other social classes, marriage was not very early. In fact, the age of first menarche was more like 16 back in the days of poor nutrition, not 11 or 12 now. And life expectancies (especially for women who might die in childbirth) were much shorter. So the ordinary 18th century girl's "salad days" might last a couple years at most... but they didn't come at 12 or so. More like 18. Of course, many of these marriages involved love, but they were also often a financial necessity-- two people were needed to work to keep a household from starving.
And then, very often, she got pregnant and died in childbed. This is one reason a lot of women back then actually tried to avoid marriage-- their lives would be a lot longer in the convent. :)
Marriage age got later in the 20th century, but I suspect that had a lot more to do with life expectancy getting longer. You didn't have to accomplish so much so quickly. Notice that there are very few kids dropping out at 12 and going to work now either. That wasn't any more natural than marrying young-- it was just necessary.
Posted by: ana | May 19, 2006 12:31:24 PM
It's amazing how Derbyshire just thinks of GNXP boyz like Razib and GodlessCapitalist as credible sources.
If I recall, there was a Corner spat a while back about Steve Sailor, with Derb defending him against attacks from someone, J-Pod I think. So I'm not surprised.
Posted by: djw | May 19, 2006 12:32:47 PM
Jeezus christ, I just went over to the corner (where, of course, they don't permit comments) and read more of that essay. You know, aside from the rape and pedophile fantasies, the complete incoherence of derbyshire's worldview (the 1958 was "saltier" than now, we no longer appreciate the beauty of lolita and we have been debased by janet jackson's nipple) is just the pathetic (and really there is no other word for it) wanking over his brand image as an iconoclastic colonialist brit raised on Ivanhoe and H. Rider Haggard--books he is sure will be "banned" because they are "boys literature" in this feminized country of ours. Whatever you can say about the antiquity or the senility of derbyshire's views of race, class, and literature I think I can say with fair certainity that he literally isn't *old* enough to legitimately hold the cultural and literary views he ascribes to himself. They are as contrived, as posed, as borrowed as Derbyshire's snapshot of himself reading lolita for the prose as a teenager rather than for the sex scenes.
Hell, I read Ivanhoe (slap me with that old timy philosemitism baby) and H. Rider Haggard, and lovecraft, cs forrester, and a host of other writers but that didn't make me an imperialist brit. It just made me a reader of novels. Only alicublog really can take these guys down. Ezra's willingness to even engage with them rhetorically is a waste of time--parody and a direct report to social services on behalf of his daughter is the only sensible recourse.
aimai
Posted by: aimai | May 19, 2006 12:49:01 PM
Reasoning that a rapist is inspired to his passion mainly by the physical attractiveness of his victim...
By pretty much the same logic, I'm going to reason that Derbyshire is inspired to his writing mainly by space aliens.
Posted by: Hamilton Lovecraft | May 19, 2006 1:17:20 PM
The big problem with this argument, of course, is the conflation of normal physical attraction with the desire to rape. As other commenters have already noted, these are two totally different phenomena. As for the rape statistics themselves, teenagers are great victims from a rapist's perspective, because prosecution is often very difficult. Young children are much riskier, as they are likely to be believed and juries are usually horrified and very willing to throw the book at the offender. A teenager, especially a troubled one, on the other hand, often won't be believed, and may well be blamed. And an adult woman, as Ezra notes, is in a better position to defend herself and to understand and work with the justice system. Consequently, teenagers are especially likely to be targeted; most rapists aren't stupid.
Posted by: Rebecca Allen, PhD, ARNP | May 19, 2006 1:38:29 PM
The biggest whines and ourtage about this article seem to be mostly from women and those who wished they were women. As with the Debra LaFave rape case in FL, few men are outraged at Mr. Derbyshire musings.
Here's the real deal: We are talking about him and he is not talking about us. Kinda says it all.
Posted by: Fred Jones. | May 19, 2006 3:31:03 PM
Fred, that is the funniest thing I've read all day. I mean, you've topped yourself!! You are so in the tank that you simply can't bring yourself to condemn Derbyshire's rape fantasies and pedophilic passions because you identify with him politically.
"Whines and outrages" from the women! Ohmygod what if they get the *vote*!
You are pathetic--but funny.
aimai
Posted by: aimai | May 19, 2006 3:45:30 PM
Facts speak for themselves, Sweetie. Please review the comments again and then get back to us.
Posted by: Fred Jones. | May 19, 2006 4:41:51 PM
Fred, SWEETIE, you have no clue. You think -this- is outrage????
You can't even engage on the actual facts. It's been shown to you that early marriage wasn't the rule back in the good old days, and that it was often not by choice anyway. You ignored that. You ignored the reality (thank goodness) that most men are not like rapists. You ignored the statistics.
We were rational, sensible, logical, and factual. You were silly, uninformed, and misinformed. Just like Derbyshire. And you, like Derbyshire, regard any disagreement with you as "outrage".
Me thinks if you were actually faced with real outrage, you'd run squealing like a pig, if you're so easily scared by rational arguments. Bye-bye, silly Fred!
Posted by: ana | May 19, 2006 5:02:29 PM
ana,
I think we've pushed Fred past the part of his circuitry where he pretends to logic and now he is stuck in his eternal anti-woman loop. The sentences he posts will just barely make sense on their own, but not in reference to an ongoing discussion.
aimai
Posted by: aimai | May 19, 2006 5:17:00 PM
John Derbyshire,what at idiot. I'm sure there are scientific studies of age and atractiveness he could have looked for but he guy accused of liking his girls too young, reviews lolita and bases atraction estimates on rape statitics.
durak
Posted by: rtaycher1987 | May 19, 2006 5:49:12 PM
You are so in the tank that you simply can't bring yourself to condemn Derbyshire's rape fantasies and pedophilic passions because you identify with him politically.
What, you think he's doing it for partisan reasons? Why not goi with the most logical assumption. Fred's defending him because he's also a pedophile.
Posted by: Vladi G | May 19, 2006 6:45:01 PM
Most rapists are young, which probably explains why their victims also tend to be youthful.
Lifestyle would pretty much account for the rest. Younger women are generally more accessible. (And, like I said over at Pandagon, older women are more likely to have their own cars. It's amazing how much less exposed you are when you don't have to depend on someone else for a ride.)
I think, from now on, we should refer to him as "Humbert Derbyshire".
Posted by: Avedon | May 19, 2006 7:11:36 PM
"...women aged 11 to 17..."
Pardon my nitpicking, but the above phrase is an oxymoron, at least in my experience using the English language. Pre-adult human females (i.e. younger than 18, which includes the ages 11 to 17) are called "girls."
Posted by: Grumpy | May 19, 2006 7:25:29 PM
Avedon,
what is the evidence that "most rapists are young" which "probably explains why their victims also tend to be youthful?" Pedophile/rapists, as I understand it, are never cured and continue long into their later years. The polygamous husbands of the recidivist mormon sect are, almost by any definition and certainly one that includes statutory rape, rapists and they are almost uniformly "old" or at least 30+ while young men and boys are thrown out of the community. Incestous rape, where it is parent child, is by definition a crime of older men/younger women though sibling rape/molestation might be a crime of younger men. Maybe violent stranger rape is primarily a crime of young men, as are many crimes that take physical stamina but what is the evidence that of all rapes (not just reported rapes) the majority are performed by young men?
aimai
Posted by: aimai | May 19, 2006 8:26:19 PM
Does that mean that boys get too old and saggy even faster than girls?
No, I think it just means that boys get to the point where they can kick the shit out of aging, paunchy, middle-aged pedophiles quicker.
Posted by: Dale Franks | May 19, 2006 9:17:12 PM
I wrote the post that Derb is referencing. The post came about after a long running debate I had with feminists about some simplistic thinking about rape. Defining rape was pretty straightforward - a sexual act without consent. However, the dynamics of rape can vary, and they don't all primarily center on power imbalance. First off, there is pedophilic rape where the rapist is operating under some contorted delusions. Then there is marital rape where the power dynamics are probably front and center. Stranger rape might involve stalking, hatred of women, or just random chance. Then there is date rape, which accounts for the bulk of the statistics, and which probably has a large element of miscommunication, horniness, and crossing over of some fuzzy boundaries.
I thought it was important to look at the different types of rape to come to a better understanding of the crime and was arguing against the simplistic Rape is a tool of the Patriarchy sloganeering.
That led to the statistics on victim demography. Younger women have a greater risk of being a victim of rape. It could be because of their relative naivte, the fact that they associate with younger men, the fact that they are interacting more frequently with men they've just met, and a host of other factors, but they all still point to their attractiveness as targets. Further, youth is more sexually attractive than is age. Wrapped up in the concept of youth are qualities like physical appearance, but also innocence, gullibility, poor decisionmaking and risk assessment skills, and I'm sure other features that appeal to men who are inclined to rape. Youth have more of the criteria of what rapists are looking for.
Now, I'm sure that there are commenters here, who if they were inclined to be rapists, would avow to have a fixation on grannies, and they'll share this news so that they can be the contrarions, but the statistical likelihood of a granny being raped is far lower than that of a teen, even when you control for other conditions like frequency of dating, meeting new men, walking home in the evening, etc.
I think Derb's larger point is that there is a link between youthfulness and first impression attractiveness. I concur and I also believe that the minds of rapists are not immune to this dynamic, though they overlay their own peverted motivations on top of the fundamental dynamic.
Posted by: TangoMan | May 20, 2006 3:06:33 PM
Then there is date rape, which accounts for the bulk of the statistics, and which probably has a large element of miscommunication, horniness, and crossing over of some fuzzy boundaries.
Actually, the common element in most date rapes is indeed power. All rapes are crimes of power--power in different contexts, true, but power nonetheless, and power first and foremost. The imposition of one person's will and desire onto another person who is less muscle-bound, smaller, younger--or, yes, older--less sophisticated, intoxicated, less able to escape, and/or less likely to report the crime. It is not miscommunication, or horniness (and since you don't attribute this to the rapist, the reader can only infer that you mean both rapist and victim are turned on, contributing to the date rape; I find this suggestion reprehensible).
You ignore the fact that date rape happens when the perpetrator will not take "no" for an answer and forces himself onto his victim. That the date rapist derives sexual gratification from the encounter is secondary to the fact that the crime was driven, and enabled, by his overarching awareness that he was more powerful than the woman or girl before him.
Posted by: litbrit | May 21, 2006 12:27:52 AM
Assume for the sake of argument that rape requires some sexual attraction.
From what I read, vast majority of rapes of males are not reported in crime statistics and they happen in prisons.
Similarly, vast majority of rapes of females are not reported in crime statistics are so-called "date-rapes": a man gets a young woman drunk, and "takes advantage" of her. While it is disputed if these are truly rapes, it is not disputed that sex is involved.
I guess that in both cases the median of the age of victims is above 20. Quite a bit more in the case of males, a bit more (or perhaps less) in the case of females.
However, both "date-rape" and "prison-rape" categories refer to perpetrators without opportunities (prison) or social skills (date-rape) to secure intercourse in a non-rape fashion (or without drinking to stupor). I would venture a guess that 25 year old women (a) are dated by people who, well, know how to date, (b) know how to avoid more stupid and notorious tricks of "date rape".
Posted by: piotr | May 21, 2006 2:05:38 AM
litbrit,
ISTM that you're running with one particular script that describes date rape but there are many different ways that date rape can play out, so what you describe about the date rapist not taking no for an answer is indeed true but that's certainly not the totality of date rape. Do you disagree?
Posted by: TangoMan | May 21, 2006 2:42:30 AM
TangoMan, I think much of the disagreement here is semantic in nature. The meaning of "Date Rape" would seem to be fairly elastic in nature. Those who have not been victims, particularly male non-victims, assign the term to a range of things. The "totality of date rape", as you say.
I sumbit that true date rape is, as I stated before, first and foremost a crime of power. What is true date rape?
Let me first state what I do NOT consider date rape. If a woman has sex with a man she knows--on a whim, say, or a dare--and regrets it later, that is not date rape. If she was intoxicated--but not unconscious--and has consensual sex when she might have chosen not to if she'd been sober, and regrets it the next morning, it is not date rape, either, though it certainly moves further into the gray area of whether an intoxicated woman can, by definition, give consent.
What is date rape? It is rape--sex to which one of the participants did not consent--that occurs within a context of the participants knowing one another beforehand, for example, having gone out on an actual date, or having met one another in a social setting. "Consent" is agreeing to have sex. I realize that this is where many people have issues--how, exactly, does one know if a woman is consenting?--but really, if a woman says no, or stop, even if she was previously quite involved in the heat of the matter (fill in your favorite euphemism for making out and heavy petting), she is saying NO and is therefore not consenting to intercourse.
Again, the gray area: If a woman is conscious but inebriated, she is temporarily not of sound mind and body and it could be argued that she is not legally qualified to make important decisions that require one to be of sound mind and body (i.e. signing some contracts, entering into a marriage, etc.) ergo not qualified to give consent to intercourse. Even so, she may be actively participating in the sexual encounter; indeed, alcohol, which dampens one's inhibitions, would probably increase the likelihood that she'd participate in the first place. Is that date rape? I don't think so. But if she is unconscious, or if she's drifting in and out of consciousness, how difficult is it to see that such a person cannot possibly be considered able to consent?
Interestingly, I have been having discussions about this with my 14-year-old son, the eldest of three boys. As a feminist, I want to raise sons who respect women; as a parent, quite frankly, I want to raise sons who don't get in trouble. The various rape cases in the news have given parents a starting point for these sorts of discussions. One important point made in these discussions was the role of alcohol. I told my son that a girl who has been drinking will undoubtedly be hornier, more "into it", possibly even sexually aggressive. But if this is a first-time encounter--if you have not previously made love without being under the influence, if you have no relationship with the girl other than being turned-on by each other at that moment--then you must, as a gentleman and a moral person as well as a smart one wishing to avoid future legal troubles, back off from the encounter and make sure she gets home safely, preferably bringing another friend with you as a witness.
Posted by: litbrit | May 21, 2006 9:10:53 AM
litbrit, what an excellent and thought provoking post. I never thought about it this way before but your point that "as a gentleman and a moral person as well as a smart one wishing to avoid future legal troubles, back off from the encounter" and try to end it safely makes me think of this analogy. Most attempts to analogize sexual relations to other kinds of relations fail but why is this situation (girl drunk and more or less willing to have sex with stranger) any different from the more common and commonly encountered situation of a man who is drunk and offering money or information to strangers, or gambling while intoxicated, or doing any other act while intoxicated like driving? Why are so many people willing to say that while we have a duty to take a drunken strangers keys from him so he can't drive, we don't have a duty to drunken women to make sure they get home safely without having sex with strangers? I hasten to add that I am neither drinking nor anti sex, I'm anti drunkness and anti unmindful sex. I applaud you for the thoughtful and liberated way you are raising your sons. As the mother of two daughters, I'm trying to do the same and I've got to hope that they will be lucky enough to meet up with your sons one day.
aimai
Posted by: aimai | May 21, 2006 9:38:34 AM
Litbrit,
I don't think that you and I are too far apart in the definition of date rape, however there are others who are working on the legislative front to expand the defintion to encompass that which you've already discounted. Further, in the popular culture date rape does indeed have a very broad defintion and when women are surveyed it is these broad defintions that get reported on, much the same way as reports on the prevalence of domestic violence include instances of cross looks, sarcasm, and silent treatment as being acts of domestic violence.
Consider the case of morning regret - there was a failed attempt in Canada to create a double standard in law where intoxicated men would be held responsible for their sexual decisions but intoxicated women would, by law, be deemed incapable of granting consent. See my post on this issue for more details. There is a similar effort now underway in the UK because the activists feel that the rate of rape convictions is too low and that such a law would increase the number of convictions. Clearly, these activists are operating under the assummption that what you and I do not think constitutes date rape is in fact rape which should be punishable by imprisonment.
So, I circle back to my point about motivations that underly the different types of rape. I hope you noted that I didn't discount power imbalance from being present in many situations, but that I disputed that it was the primary motivation of all rape. Marital rape, yeah, I can see this being a brutal display of power. Pedophiliac rape certainly has a drastic power imbalance but frankly I think that most of the instances of pedophiliac rape are motivated by screwed up brain circuitry where the rapist is driven by other hungers, however misguided. Not all pedolphiliac rapes of course, but enough to falsify the proposition that their goal is to exercise power over their victim.
then you must, as a gentleman and a moral person as well as a smart one wishing to avoid future legal troubles, back off from the encounter and make sure she gets home safely, preferably bringing another friend with you as a witness.
First off, I think that this is very sound advice. Secondly though, doesn't this trouble you, as a feminist, in that it is sending a message to your son that women are to be treated differently than men who find themselves in the same situation. Are there feminist mothers out there who tell their 14 year old daughters that when they're at a party, and they're a little horny, that when they are interacting with a slightly drunken young man that they back off from the encounter, and insure that the young man gets home safely and that she preferably brings along a friend to serve as a witness.
As I said, I think your advice is very practical, but then again it doesn't conflict with my core principles, such as feminism. Are you valuing the safety of your son over the importance of stressing the principle that women have full agency over their lives and their conduct and that they, like men, should reap the full benefits and bear the full responsibilities that go along with full agency?
Posted by: TangoMan | May 21, 2006 2:35:55 PM
Are you valuing the safety of your son over the importance of stressing the principle that women have full agency over their lives and their conduct and that they, like men, should reap the full benefits and bear the full responsibilities that go along with full agency?
Tangoman, I value the safety of my sons over everything. It would be wonderful if all girls who had drunken sex and regretted it the next day were to say, "I feel stupid; I did something I wouldn't ordinarily do. But it was my choice to drink last night, and my choice at the time to sleep with so-and-so. Next time I will be more aware of my drinking / state of mind / company." And while I would have had that sort of talk with myself, as would many modern and enlightened females, I'm not so naive as to think there aren't girls out there who'd see the situation as an opportunity and play the "poor little me card".
Which is not to say there aren't plenty of times when women who drink are victimzed. At 19, I was with my then-boyfriend and drank too much of some too-strong "punch". Four of his friends held me down and raped me as I fell in and out of consciousness. I did not report them; they were first-string football players at the large state university we all attended. They had wealthy alumni sponsors--hell, they had people who took their tests for them, that's how powerful they were. No-one would have believed me, and nothing would have been done. I knew this, even at that age.
So yes, responsibility goes hand-in-hand with rights. Until there are no more opportunists--and opportunistic DA's--making it all but impossible for real rapes to be prosecuted, I feel my sons need to know that they must be gentlemen at all times. Which attitude, incidentally, I do not believe to be in conflict with being a feminist, which I am, and which they are (and will be), too.
Posted by: litbrit | May 21, 2006 6:12:35 PM
I've got one acronym for Mr. Derbyshire. WTF!!! What a warped little man. Actually, I don't know if he is little or not. How about this then? What a warped little mind. I have plenty of evidence regarding the size and ill-shape of his mind.
Posted by: SS | May 21, 2006 10:16:45 PM
Wow! Nothing like a little psuedo-pedophilia to set the discussion on fire!
As for, um, sex-appeal, ripeness and age brackets, I would like to call readers attention to the situation in Japan and most other places in East Asia.
It is not unusual to see a mother/teenage-daughter pair in which the mom is significantly more attractive. On recent trip to a resort with some equally ungrownup grownup guy friends, we conducted an impromptu survey poolside and found that the mothers were outpolling the teenage daughters 3 to 1 on the question of which would you rather spend intimate time with.
Japanese and east Asian women tend to keep their figure and skin tone well into their late 40s.
Perhaps diet plays a role, as I have a few Japanese female friends based in the U.S. and they haven't managed to hold onto their looks the way so many do here in Japan.
I recently attended a Rolling Stones concert in Tokyo. It was packed with delicious 40-something Japanese ladies in tight jeans and skimpy tops and looking, perhaps, to relive some of the high points of their younger years as much as to set new ones.
I'll be interested to see whether the gang here thinks that makes me pervy or heroic or just another guy with a perpetual hard on....
Posted by: bunkerbuster | May 22, 2006 7:06:36 AM
On recent trip to a resort with some equally ungrownup grownup guy friends, we conducted an impromptu survey poolside and found that the mothers were outpolling the teenage daughters 3 to 1 on the question of which would you rather spend intimate time with...I'll be interested to see whether the gang here thinks that makes me pervy or heroic or just another guy with a perpetual hard on....
bunkerbuster: do you frequent certain supermarkets and health food stores in St. Petersburg, FL? Just asking.
Posted by: litbrit | May 22, 2006 11:22:38 AM
litbrit: hey, is that innuendo you're slingin'? I have no idea what you're talking about. Try again.
Posted by: bunkerbuster | May 22, 2006 8:14:26 PM
bunkerbuster: no innuendo intended. You state that you and friends preferred mothers over teenagers 3 to 1 in a poolside survey; then you offer three possible descriptions of yourself (pervy, heroic, or just another guy with...well, you know).
I am a fortysomething mother who regularly (and inexplicably) gets hit on--in supermarkets, etc., and in broad daylight--by individuals who could fit any or all of the above criteria, despite an abundance of much younger females in the immediate surroundings. I was curious if I had accidentally read the admission (and motivations) of one such hitter. I see you're reporting from Japan, though, so it would seem not.
Posted by: litbrit | May 23, 2006 1:30:40 AM
Thanks litbrit. I'd thought that was probably an inside joke or one that just went over my head...
Posted by: bunkerbuster | May 23, 2006 6:03:29 AM
Does anyone else find it amusing that a person purporting to be a "real man" would take the nom de plume of an ascot-wearing character from Scooby Doo? I find his implication that only "women and those who wished they were women" would be outraged by Derbyshire's attempt to justify their shared perversion disgusting. I'm really not sure what people like "Fred" define as "real men" but I suspect it is something they only encounter in their turgid, secret, misogynistic dreams and never when they gaze in the mirror. Their sense of their own hidden (but obvious to all) weaknesses salved only with a rigid adherence to a patriarchal sense of dominance over those they believe lower on their hierarchy than they. I suspect they find pleasure at pulling the wings off flies as well.
Rejecting their thought has nothing to do with masculinity or femininity, but only this quaint little thing some of us call "actually thinking."
Posted by: Sebastian Trump | May 25, 2006 8:31:42 PM
