Seduction or Rape?!?
So I told this guy once that he seduced me, and he said, “yeah, right, like you didn’t want to get down with me.” I said, “I never said I wasn’t down, I just said you took the initiative to make it happen “i.e. you’ve seduced me.” Discussing the same issue with another male friend, he says, “so you trying to tell me you didn’t want to have sex with him?” I said, “no, I’m not saying I wasn’t willing.” My friend says, “no, seduce means, make you do something you didn’t want to do.” And I was horrified. Make me do something I didn’t want to do?!? In the context of sex, that is RAPE.
After thinking about it for a while, I got worried. If in the minds of these two men, ‘seduction’ and ‘rape’ are synonymous, we are in DEEP trouble. No wonder date rape is so rampant. Most people would also agree that there’s nothing wrong with seduction.
Seduction is enticing someone, influencing someone, tempting someone, sure, but the element of choice never disappears. Most people would also agree that there’s a whole hell of a lot wrong with rape. Rape is violating, taking, and the element of choice is completely erased. My question is, can men discern between the two? Are men and women speaking different languages when it comes to sex and sexual definitions? What do seduction and rape mean to you?
If seduction, as my two male friends believe, means to make someone do something they don’t want to do, then there is no such thing as rape. This thinking explains why, when a woman accuses someone of rape, the questions arise: where were you, what time was it, what did you have on? Inevitably, these questions point the finger to seduction.
The contention is that the woman seduced the man i.e. through her location, the hour of the day, and her dress, she made him do something he didn’t want to do. She, in fact, violated him by coming into his space under particular conditions which sexualised the situation and forced him to force her into sex with him. Auuggghh. When is all this going to stop? When will we clear up the problem? This miscommunication. These differing (and opposing) definitions. A friend of mine once told me, in the smallest, quietest voice I ever heard her use, that she was raped. She rushed over the confession quickly and really didn’t want to discuss it. Why?Ébecause it wasn’t a “physical” rape. He didn’t have a gun or a knife and he didn’t beat her up. They, in fact, were friends. She had previously been attracted to him as she was in his home. She was very nervous when telling me the story because she thought I wouldn’t understand. She was afraid I might write her off as a wimp or a liar. Although she clearly believed she was raped, she couldn’t explain why she considered it rape. “It wasn’t physical,” she explained, “it was psychological. He made it so I had no choice. I was in his house, I did like him, I told other people I liked him, so I just did it and left. He couldn’t understand why I never spoke to him again. He thought it was just regular sex between two consenting adults. He couldn’t hear me when I said ‘no, I didn’t want to.’ So instead of letting it get physical, I gave in, and went home.” My friend coutldn’t explain why she considered it rape, because it’s almost inexplicable. When put in a confrontational situation with a male, the threat of violence makes it seem like you have no choice. I feel that lack of choice every day when I walk down the street. Men call out to me from every corner and doorway, but their speaking is not a friendly greeting, it is a demand. And if I don’t respond in a timely and appropriate manner, I may get cussed, or, if the man is really angry, hit. I am forced into conversation with strange men, by the threat of violence. When I’d much rather read my book or zone out into my own thoughts, I must respond to barked commands and questions about my age, my marital status, and other aspects of my life.
Imagine, then, the hysteria felt when you are in a house (maybe not your own), alone with a man who wants to have sex with you, and with whom you don’t want to have sex. There is no one to hear you scream. He is much bigger than you. You feel intimidation radiating off him like cologne. You say three times in as clear a language as you can, that you don’t want to have sex with him, and each time he responds with another approach, another method of “seducing” you. When does seduction stop and rape begin? How many ‘no’s’ consist a sufficient refusal of an offer? After realizing that the man is not taking ‘no’ for an answer, you can
(a) get adamant, and pray that he (sooner or later) accepts your refusal,
(b) get adamant and get beaten up and get raped, or
(c) be “seduced” agree to the demand, and go home feeling raped, but never be able to categorise it as such because you did say ‘okay.’
When I think about my friend’s rape, I understand her silence. She doesn’t know what to call the assault because it lies somewhere in an undefined grey space. I think about the dozens of times I gave a man my phone number after saying five, six, seven times, “no, I don’t want to.” Gave it to him because I had no argument against his argument. Gave it to him because I was tired of arguing. Gave it to him because he erased my right to say ‘no,’ and I in giving in, felt angry, violated.
The unspoken assumption is,
(a) women don’t know what they want so you must lead them to an answer, and/or
(b) what women want is insignificant, next to your strong male urges.
When are we going to change this? What will it take to come to an understanding? Can men and women agree that five ‘no’s’ equal a total and final ‘no’Éor will men learn to respect women’s right to choice and take the first ‘no’ for what it really means.
When I think of the damage that old adage “When a woman says no, she really means yes” has done, I want to scream. Yes, if you keep pushing someone you can turn a no into a yes, but do you care about the quality of that yes? Do you care whether that yes is an honest measure of the woman’s desire? Or do you simply want to get in, get what you want, and leave? Please, for the love of God and children, let’s learn the difference between seduction and rape. Is anybody listening? Let’s learn effective communication so that we will never again wake up to a Mike Tyson/Desiree Washington story. So that never again will two people leave the same sexual encounter with two completely different perceptions of what went down, one forever asking, was it seduction or was it rape?