What a sick, sad man you are, Richard. First, you run a Twitter tutorial in getting away with rape:

Then a woman who was raped at the age of 14 comes forward to tell you how your “how to get away with rape” tweets harmed her, and all you can say is:

I’m avoiding expletives here, because your poor brain shuts (further) down when you hear them directed at you. But I do have to say, you’re being such a reprehensible little… man. Instead of doing the right thing, saying “I’m sorry, rape is rape. I’m so sorry for the pain my sordid little not-hypothetical-until-I’m-called-out tweets have caused, I shall stop tweeting and go educate myself on these matters forthwith,” you just keep digging and digging. And you lied to her. Really, you did. You lied to her, and to us, when you said of course you believe, because really, you only believe because she’s making you look like the… quite awful person you are being, and additionally, hasn’t named one of your friends as her rapist. You’re pretending some memory is all the evidence you need to believe, but this is what you really believe:

It’s not having no memory at all, is it, Richard? You’ve moved the goal posts. We must have “clear and convincing” memories, not mere memories. We must have a witness. Or we cannot say that the sex that happened without our consent is rape, much less report it to authorities. No, you want us to shut our mouths, because how terrible is it that a poor man who simply takes advantage of women (or anyone) while they’re too drunk to know what’s happening could be accused of rape? *delicate upperclass shudder* Why, if men were only allowed to have sex with people sober enough to enthusiastically consent, there would be fewer opportunities for men to get their jollies, and that’s just terrible!

As for those women who might enjoy getting drunk, or are perhaps too young and inexperienced to know our limits? He has advice for us, ladies:

That’s it, girls (and boys, and other genders who might like to have a few): in Dawkins’s world, we are not to get drunk if we wish to avoid sexual assault. And if we do get drunk, and someone decides to rape us, we are not to go crying to the courts about it. He may have done a no-no to you, but really, you shouldn’t ruin his life just because you were a wasted little slut he took advantage of.

Richard Dawkins, you love to pretend you’re one of the smartest men going. So tell me: how is it that you’re so profoundly, so willfully, so determinedly ignorant that you cannot understand that when a person is too intoxicated to consent to sex, sex should not happen at all? How can you fail to understand that if a person has sex with someone too intoxicated to consent, it is rape?

Let me repeat that: having sex with someone who is too intoxicated to consent is rape.

In your hypothetical*, where the woman can’t remember a thing and there is no evidence (of what? sexual intercourse?), she was too drunk to consent and if sex occurred, it was rape.

In the real world, when a person decides to take advantage of someone too impaired to understand what’s happening, and engages in any form of intercourse with them, that person has raped, and is now a rapist.

We can talk about courts and evidence and hypotheticals until we are brick red and lose our voices from screaming at each other, but at the end of all that, if someone is too intoxicated to consent, and one or more people decided to have sex with them in that state, that person was still raped.

Listen to the people who are trying to talk sense to you:

And we don’t need the courts to find the evidence is beyond all reasonable legal doubt to decide whether or not to believe the victim who says they have been raped. We do not need a conviction in a court of law to decide whether or not we believe the victim who says they were raped by a specific someone. Tell you what, if you’re so worried about men getting accused of raping people who are too intoxicated to consent to sex, how about tweeting this remarkably simple solution:

IF YOU WANT TO AVOID BEING ACCUSED OF RAPING SOMEONE, DON’T HAVE SEX WITH A PERSON WHO’S BEEN DRINKING.

Easy, amirite?

How about this tweeting this one, too, Richard:

IF YOU WANT TO BE IN A POSITION TO AVOID BECOMING A RAPIST, DON’T RAPE.

And don’t forget to tweet what we’ve discussed here today:

SEX WITH A PERSON TOO INTOXICATED TO CONSENT IS RAPE.

It’s really that simple. Remarkable, isn’t it, how much clarity is achieved when we sweep aside all these byzantine and ever-changing rules for victims like, “Don’t ever get drunk under any circumstances,” and just tell potential rapists not to rape. No, not even if xir clothes are sexy. No, not even if xe’s passed-out dunk. No, not even you can screw xir without leaving a single bit evidence. No, not even if xe consented to kissing and then decided xe didn’t want to continue. No, not even if xe signals mere reluctance rather than screaming “NO!!!” and beating you to death with the nearest implement. If you don’t have crystal-clear consent, don’t have sex. Then you won’t ever have to worry about being a rapist.

And you can bloody well stop covering for them.

*Your hypothetical is bloody useless, because if she can’t remember a damned thing and there is no evidence of anything happening, that means we have a situation that will never ever happen anywhere on earth and we can bloody well ignore it.

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