I am totally 100% with you on this one, rape is rape is rape. Yet who is it talking about "Gray Rape" the most enthusiastically - it's so-called feminist website Jezebel! And they even go on about what a good idea the "gray rape" concept is in the very article of theirs you've linked in your weekly feminist reader.

I really don't understand why the feminist community is accepting Jezebel as one of their own. They're a fraud fake-feminism site, as I wrote on the f word in May this year. And their defence? To start an onslaught of personal attacks on me.

Please don't keep encouraging people to read their website. And while I'm at it please do add me to your blogroll sometime!

Fucking hell. I wish I wasn't on the other side of the state. Go people, go!

they're protesting a dialogue?

. . . they're protesting a "dialogue" about rape that does not include rape experts and promotes the idea that rape can be a "misunderstanding," a little bit of the victim's fault, and therefore not really all that bad. So if your idea of a "dialogue" is blatant rape apology, then sure.

"Gray rape"?

This weekend, an FSN commentator used the phrase "face rape" to talk about a player who had his helmet jerked around by a defender.

Everyone on the panel agrees with Sessions Stepp? LOL lets boycott the forum AND jezebel why we're at it. We must all think and say the exact same thing.

I believe the concern over the term "gray" rape is that it removes some of the moral responisibility from the sexual assaulter. Rape and sexual assault have technical definitions in the criminal statutes or common law of each of the 50 states, and these definitions nowhere mention the word "gray." They are really conclusory terms because the male's conduct does not constitute rape or sexual assault unless all of of the necessary elements are present. The argument in connection with "gray" rape is really over whether those elements have been met. For example, in Pennsylvania rape is intercourse "by threat of forcible compulsion that would prevent resistance by a person of reasonable resolution." And "Where the person has substantially impaired the complainant's power to appraise or control his or her conduct by ministering or employing, without the knowledge of the complainant, drugs, intoxicants or other means for the purpose of preventing resistance." Moreover, "Sexual assault" is defined as intercourse without consent. That is where the so-called "gray" rape is pertient.

The common law has developed definitions, over the course of many years, to guide juries in assessing whether consent was present, and these definitions have been memorialized in standard jury instructions. I am certain this panel discussion is not intended to alter the standard jury charge in any of the states to instruct the jury as to when consent is present. From a legal perspective, consent can be inferred from something less than an enthusiastic invitation. Concent can always be implied (and that's where the interesting issues arise that are the focus of so-called "gray" rape.) Certain acts that a woman may not have subjectively intended to constitute consent may be so construed by the jury. That is a subject worth exploring since it raises all sorts of implications about how our society views signals sent out by both men and women in sexual relations. One thing is for certain, without a signed document or a videotape, we sometimes put our juries through a hell of a task to figure out what happened in these situations.

In "Devil wears Prada" the heroine is asked to have sex with a colleague in Paris and refuses 3 times...but ends up having sex with him anyway because she "ran out of excuses". No means no? Not according to hollywood.

J7Sue, Hollywood is slow to react to everything. Note: (1) The fact that a woman previously said "yes" does not constitute consent the NEXT time; (2) The fact that a woman previously said "no" -- even three times -- does legally prevent the same guy from asking the NEXT time. And if on that next time, without the threat of force, she manifests her assent to sexual relations, in words or deeds, expressly or impliedly, she probably consented under law. It's the non-verbal implied acts that are the tricky ones. It is the state's burden to prove absence of consent beyond a reasonable doubt.

Tim, the so-called concern over "grey" rape, isn't taking place in a legal context. Cosmo was talking about the act itself, without regard for law, prosecution, etc. The original article was not concerned with whether the rape met all legal requirements. It was about there being rape that isn't rape. Which is impossible.

As a side, note, I don't understand why every time rape comes up on Feministing, someone feels the need to go into a bunch of legal stuff about what is or isn't considered rape. We aren't stupid. We know the judicial system is inadequate to deal with rape as a crime. If you want to talk about how to fix it, then please make a suggestion. If not, then don't tell me what rape is or isn't under the law. When I am talking about rape, I am talking about the act itself, and not what constitutes rape under the law. Just becasue the law recognizes relenting as consent, doesn't mean I have to, nor does it mean I ever will. Rape is rape is rape, regardless of how the legal cognoscenti defines it.

I wish I could be there to help protest. Please let us know how it goes in future posts.

Kissmypineabble, you beat me to it.

I just want to add that the law is neither the beginning nor anywhere close to the end of any discussion of morality, ethics or social behavior.

The law is often inadequate to deal with most aspects of morality, let alone the issue of rape. Letting the law be your sole determiner for actions and opinions? It's not just shallow and limiting, it's dangerous. When we start letting laws do the thinking for us, any law that gets written will suddenly stop all discussions, and that is an incredibly bad path to go down.

Respectfully: Kissmypineapple, where did you get the notion that "relenting" in and of itself constitutes consent per se? Consent really does mean consent; an active manifestation of willingness. As with anything else requiring consent, such willingness can be manifested in a variety of ways. Because consent can be implied in fact (e.g., a shake of the head, a motion with a hand of "let's go into the bedroom" etc.) it ALWAYS depends on the factual circumstances, it needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. I can't imagine why this should be in any sense controversial. The standards for consent have been been applied in thousands and thousands of cases in all manner of different legal contexts for hundreds of years. And if there is a problem, we need to address it specifically, not just condemn it here based on our knee-jerk outrage that consent does not really mean consent in the real world.

"Rape" and "sexual assault" are technical legal terms that have been honed in the cauldron of the common law, and often given statutory articulation, to meet evolving circumstances. Numersous atate statutes have recently been modified through the work of people similar to this Web site's host, to include provisions speaking to date rape. It is, I submit, "shallow and limiting" to assume that the law of sexual assault represents some low-bar technicality that allows rapists to walk free to hurt other innocent women. Our legal system is imperfect in the area of rape -- and breaches of contract and even traffic tickets. It does the best it can do, and it is in that judicial arena that any changes must be made, not in our reader's subjective notions about "rape is rape is whatever I say it is."

I second Tobes, if anyone attends, please let us know how it went!

Yes, Jane, feminists really want everyone to think alike. That's why there is only one branch of feminism and no debate within the community whatsoever.
My Jebus, there needs to be a license to use the internet, it gets stupider every day.

To make clear, I think I'm on the same page as the other posters above -- there ain't no such thing as grey rape, and all their bellyaching isn't going to change the law. Sorry for the dull legalese above but these are important issues. I think the laws are good -- there either is consent or there's not, and concent must be real consent, not neutral silence or mere relenting. The battleground here just might be our college campuses -- many colleges have established rules for on-campus behavior that speak to these issues but we need to do a better job of educating the guys -- note I say the guys, becuase they're the ones who have to change their thinking. (And not to stereotype my gender because it is a small percentage who do this.)

I was a rape educator for a while in college, educating the guys, and the number one issue I ran into was how to deal with ambiguity.

These were normal, mainstream guys who willing walked into a rape awareness workshop (so actually a bit more enlightened than normal), but by the end of the workshop most of them had acknowledged that they might actually be a rapist, because they had had sex in cases where consent was something less than crystal clear.

My solution, as an educator, was to talk about ways to be sure you had consent without killing the mood. Forms filled out in triplicate, for example, were not a good solution.

There is an issue here, but the solution is not legislation, it's education. Mostly for men, but not entirely.

Here's the nytimes writeup of the session. Ironically, one of the commenters claims this is just something new cooked up by those crazy feminists...

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/gray-rape-a-new-form-of-date-rape/

I was at Cosmo’s panel discussion of “gray rape" at John Jay College this morning. The panelists did a great job of refuting the notion that there is a kind of rape that isn’t really rape. Some really important points were made:
It is insulting to men to say they are incapable of correctly interpreting a woman’s refusal to have sex. Men are not stupid, are not animals.

We must stop requiring women to be the controllers of men’s sexuality. Men and the community as a whole must take responsibility for harmful norms around masculinity. It is not just women’s responsibility to say no, but men’s responsibility to listen.

One panelist, Chitra Raghavan, a prof at John Jay, pointed out that women communicate in the same ways (say no the same ways), whether they’ve been drinking or not. So this notion that women are drinking too much and giving unclear signals is a way to blame alcohol for someone’s crimes.

Joe Samalin and Katie Gentile made the important point that some offenders use alcohol to make their victims more submissive and perpetuating the notion of “gray rape� only helps them accomplish their goal of not be reported and prosecuted.

All the women mentioned in the article that led to the panel said no, and were raped. Even the article’s author concedes that. But by focusing once again on women’s “risky behavior� we take the onus off perpetrators, and blame the victims. And despite Prof. Raghavan’s statements about women’s communication under the influence, the discussion kept coming back to the “poor men� who couldn’t understand what “no� meant.

I thought Robert Laurino, a prosecutor from Essex County, NJ did a really good job of refuting some misconceptions about the extent of physical injuries most rape victims experience (very little) and of pointing out what a disservice it is to use a term like “gray rape� because it waters down a crime and makes it sound not so bad.

There were no rape crisis centers on the panel, nor anyone speaking strictly from a survivor’s point of view. The experience of male survivors was pretty much ignored. The turnout was great, with standing room only, and some powerful statements from students. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of time for questions, so many students (and me!) were unable to ask our questions. But it certainly felt like most of the people in the room were on our side.

"It's the non-verbal implied acts that are the tricky ones."

I heard that in some traditions, your aunt shoving your head forward during the forced wedding counts as you nodding "yes" and consenting to marriage and sex.

Robert Laurino was there? He's one of my heroes for his prosecution of the perverted jocks from Glenn Ridge.

"It is insulting to men to say they are incapable of correctly interpreting a woman’s refusal to have sex. Men are not stupid, are not animals." Great comment, Margaret.

Mina, the situation you describe would not constitute "consent," except perhaps in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia.

Is there a summary of the cosmo article anywhere online?

"We must stop requiring women to be the controllers of men’s sexuality."

Um, Margaret, what?

The remark about society requiring women to control men's sexuality was made by the panelist Neil Irwin of Men Can Stop Rape. His point, I think, was that we keep coming back to what women need to do to keep men from raping, rather than what we all need to understand about healthy sexuality.

The concept of gray rape still confuses me. I mean, you consent or you don't. I don't get what's gray.

I just wanted to say that, after reading this post at ten-thirty yesterday, I hopped on the train and went up to 58th street, expecting to participate in a protest. Instead, the rape crisis program reps had decided to go on in an listen and hope for the chance to make comments or ask questions at the end. It was an odd panel because the two authors of the article were so clearly out of place among the other panelists, even without rape crisis programs being represented - Linda Fairstein was saccharine, antagonistic, and woefully uninformed about statistics and occurrences like victims “freezing up� when under attack. Laura Stepp just seemed outlandishly conservative, particularly by Cosmo’s standards, perpetually defending her angle that all of this “gray-rape� is the result of “modern hook-up culture� and “if women were more interested in seeking out relationships rather than casual sex, these confusing circumstances wouldn’t happen.� ????? On the other hand, I wanted to extend major kudos to Joe Samalin and Neil Irvin, two panelists who expressed very articulate progressive ideas about men’s education and cultural shifting. The difficulty with holding a forum like this at John Jay College of Criminal Justice is that the discussion keeps coming back to, well, criminal justice - he said/she said, who blacked out, did she say no? did she undress herself? etc., when really, the issues at hand are much larger ones about misinformation and miseducation, cultural stigmas and hypersexualization of women. Samalin - who said to me afterwards, “everything I learned as a feminist, I learned from women…especially that woman right there (he points to an old lady in glasses), my mom� - kept returning to these issues, despite the tendency of the conversation to veer towards legality and liability.

Any man who has sexual relations with a woman knows, deep in his heart, whether he has coerced her or not, whether she has consented or not, whether she has relented or not, whether he has pressured her or not, whether he has threatened her or not, whether he has assaulted her or not. Any man who says he was confused or not sure is prevaricating. There is no gray area about it.