In which I go off on stuff that has nothing to do with me and about which I know nothing! Because it’s the internet!

A guy from Tor has recently been accused of rape. He had to resign. (I don’t know him, I’ve never chatted with him, but people who do and have say he’s a twat. So there’s that.) A woman who, ten years ago, had multiple sexual encounters with him over the span of a year, has now accused him of rape.

By her own admission, she slept with him repeatedly, in group settings, and while drunk. Apparently he violated her “safe word” in front of another man, who was allegedly appalled but failed to stop the alleged rape.

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One thing the sexual revolution told women was that they need sex as much as men do. This is not true. (I suspect this is why gay males will hang out in bathrooms and parks and malls and bars and concerts trying to get laid by strangers, but there really isn’t much, if any, of a lesbian corollary of the same behavior.)

Another thing the sexual revolution told women was that dangerous sexual activities are safe, and that women have an expectation of safety in unsafe situations. Which is obviously not true, if women are routinely upset for entire decades after engaging in such activities.

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Women prefer less sex than men and they often prefer sex with committed partners.

Much if not most of the sex women have with non-committed partners is performed in an effort to convert the non-committed partner into a committed partner, rather than a male-like desire for the sex itself.

Women with truly high libidos are the exception, not the rule. There were always places in society for such women before the sexual revolution. The lower classes became dancers, hookers, escorts; the upper classes made secret assignations via servants, sometimes with servants (and often to the servants’ detriment). Men knew their expectations of such women could be different than the expectations they had for the rest of women.

For these types of women, the sexual revolution was awesome. For the majority of women, though, it’s been confusing. And damaging.

Before the sexual revolution, society kept females out of situations in which they could be emotionally damaged by the fundamental sexual differences between most males and most females.

It wasn’t oppression, it was protection. Withholding the vote was bullshit, of course, but telling us we need chaperones probably wasn’t. (“Boys will be boys” actually means something like, “you’re probably not going to like what he’d like to like, so let’s save you from that.”)

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The sounds of a woman being happily fucked are virtually indistinguishable from the sounds of a woman being unhappily fucked. If you don’t move, turn, sit up and demand in clear language that the activities cease, well, there’s a lot of grey area. Especially if you’re not objecting to sex in general, but to a specific act.

Is it really that hard to understand that a muffled “um, no, stop” can sound — especially in a kinky setting — just like continued consent? Especially if you’ve already said the same thing earlier as part of the play?

Is it really hard to understand that an avoidant wiggle looks very much like a playful, fake-avoidant wiggle?

Is it really hard to understand when you’re in a hotel room with two or more men with whom you’ve agreed to have sex and with whom you’ve already discussed your safe word, that they might believe you’re up for pretty much anything sexual within a probably-not-completely-pre-discussed reasonable range?

Is it really hard to understand that when you’re in a hotel room with two or more men with whom you’ve agreed to have sex and something’s happening that he really enjoys and you suddenly safe word that he’s maybe going to have trouble getting on board with that?

Is your refusal to honor part of an implied social contract really rape? I mean, you agreed to be there, you agreed to sex, you agreed to take part. You agreed.

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In before accusations of accusing the accuser!

I’m not accusing you. I’m telling you that your choices and behaviors have consequences. You’re not on a nice date with a nice boy; you’re drunk in a hotel room at a convention with a safe word and a couple of horny guys.

You have put yourself in what is clearly and plainly a dangerous situation: a purely sexual encounter with multiple partners, sexual play and/or role playing that requires a safe word, and intoxicants.

It is a situation in which someone is very likely to do something to you that, while not clinically harmful or physically dangerous, you don’t want or like.

And ten years later, this is rape? I’d say rather that it’s remorse, and that you need to take responsibility for not protecting your body or fine feelings adequately.

I’m not judging you. I’ve made equally bad decisions myself. I’m just saying it’s not legally actionable. (Destroying a man’s livelihood through public accusations is legally actionable. Again, I don’t know anybody involved, but still.)

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If you’re super horny and a woman and on contraception, sex with random people is great and fun. Yay sexual revolution!

But if you’re a regular female with a typical libido, you’re doing it because everybody else does and because you’re human and enjoy human contact. But you’re not doing it like males do it, because you rarely want it like males do. (That you believe otherwise is part of the great feminist whitewashing, which has denied you many kinds of happiness and exposed you to many kinds of emptiness.)

When you get older and look back over your sexual career, you may find that most of your sexual encounters were not sexual as much as societal. If sexual intercourse weren’t now so normalized, if you’d had to go out and seek it rather than having it more or less just happen, you’d probably have had a lot less sex. And if you hadn’t had access to media that taught you about kink, if you’d had to invent it yourself, you probably wouldn’t have. You probably wouldn’t identify as submissive or sadistic or whatever you identify as; you probably wouldn’t have invented the safe word.

It probably never would have occurred to you, if it weren’t societally normalized, that you’d feel powerful getting drunk and naked in a hotel room with one or more men, being the willing object of a specific and certain kind of male regard. A kind of regard that is entirely physical and sexual, and which does not, in fact, encompass the whole of who you are.

If you weren’t both promiscuous and naive, you’d know that getting drunk and naked in a hotel room with one or more men is very, very likely to get you fucked up the ass, or spanked, or gagged, or pissed on, or used in some manner that, while not technically dangerous, you would prefer not to be used.

Because while this particular type of power over men can feel good, you can’t help but note that: you’re not a beloved female, known and cherished and cared for, you’re an imaginary sexual archetype. You’re a fantasy. You’re a dirty girl.

You’re a whore.

Because you’re drunk. And naked. In a hotel room. With one or more men. Who believe they have your permission, because you’re there. Freely, and of your own volition. They think you’re one of those women who like sex the way they do. But mostly what you want is attention and contact and to feel valued and powerful.

This is generally not the ideal way to experience those feelings.

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And the other guy in the room, the one with whom you say you did have a closer relationship? Why didn’t he protect you? If he did, you weren’t raped. If he didn’t, why aren’t you accusing him, too, as an accomplice?

And why did you have sex with your so-called rapist again, afterward, at a later date? How does his charisma relieve you of responsibility for your own actions, your own choices, your own decisions? I mean, c’mon. He’s a fucking nerd. Literally.

While wanting to feel powerful and desired is quite normal, it doesn’t relieve you of the responsibility of the results of your decisions. Because you’re an autonomous grown adult, not a child.

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Accusations of rape can ruin men’s lives. And society listens to women who accuse men of rape, because women are — in spite of all our efforts to prove the contrary — still considered valuable and precious, simply because we’re women.

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“The crime of rape generally refers to non-consensual sexual intercourse that is committed by physical force, threat of injury, or other duress. Common law defined rape as unlawful intercourse by a man against a woman who is not his wife by force or threat and against her will.”

If you’ve already consented and are in flagrante delicto, and [one of] your partner[s] tries to do something you don’t like, where’s the duress? Men are generally bigger and stronger, of course, but if you weren’t already tied up and spanked and drunk or whatever, you’d be able to let your caring partner[s] know you’re not into that and that he should stop. And he would.

Could it possibly be that your decision to make yourself available in such a way to men who are not deeply invested in you emotionally was a dumb idea?

And simply not preferring one act to another, is that rape? Is an expectation that you should like and enjoy every single aspect of a sexual encounter truly realistic? Do you like and enjoy every aspect of your job, of your family holiday get-togethers, of your Tuesday night bowling league? Why do you believe you have the right to like and enjoy every single aspect of a sexual encounter, that only your own pleasure should be considered? Is that at all mature?

These men, after all, are not your husbands or committed partners. They have not made any formal commitment to protecting you or providing you with happiness, have they?

No. You’re just a fuck. You are owed only what fucks are owed, which is fucking. You cannot possibly argue that long-term partners and fucks get the same considerations.

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I could safely consent to being spanked and tied up and gagged by my current committed long-term partner. Because he’s my committed long-term partner, he’s invested in me emotionally, and we have history and we have context. My pleasure and happiness are his concern.

I doubt he’d be equally as invested in some random convention chick in a hotel room, even if he’d known her a few years, through work. Context.

Context is a real consideration, and one that must be considered both morally and legally. And your having repeatedly consented to this sort of play with this man is willing and repeated consent, without force or duress.

The person who owes you an apology is you. The person who endangered you and let you down is you. The person who treated you like an unpaid whore… is you. The men you did this to yourself with were merely set dressing.

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I might also posit that a post-birth control feminist society, which has repeatedly told you that you want and enjoy and deserve sex as much as men, might also be at fault. It repeatedly tells you that you can and should have a realistic expectation of safety in unsafe conditions. It tells you that nothing that ever happens to you is your own fault.

It tells you that you cannot and should not be held responsible for your own choices and actions.

It tells you that you can be drunk and naked with a safe word in a hotel with two men and not suffer any discomfort. Which is total bullshit.

Yeah, that might be at fault.

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I know, I know.

People will say I’m not “sex positive,” like it’s some sort of an insult.

Telling women they’re frigid is an insult these days, too, because women are as horny as men. Right? It’s not like we exit these situations with experiences that bother us for years or anything, while the males very seldom do.

I won’t even bother to trot out my own sex life, because it’s lovely and it’s nobody’s business.

Instead, I’ll say that the majority of the hurts and fears of my past were due to the idea that I wanted and needed and enjoyed sex for its own sake just like men do. Furthermore, I would say that the majority of the hurts and fears of most women, their pain and rage and anger, their conviction that there are “no good men,” are due to the same myth. (See: all episodes of Sex and the City, ever.)

Women are not men. Left to our own devices, we don’t act like men, especially not sexually. Our society has told us that we like meaningless sex, but what we really like is attention and power and to be desired. And because of this, we put ourselves into situations that are quite plainly not safe.

The idea that you can go anywhere and do anything is false. We cannot. There are neighborhoods it’s best not to drive through, but if we must, we lock our doors and roll up our windows, don’t we? This expectation we have, that we can go anywhere and do anything, is both privileged and false. If we willingly go unsafe places and do unsafe things, the results of those choices are our own. We are credited with discrimination and, ladies, we must strive to deserve it.

If a male hangs out with drug dealers, uses drugs, engages in unsafe behavior, and ends up in jail or shot, whose fault is it? Well, we can, like I’m doing here, partially blame society, but ultimately his decisions — and their results — are his own. Is that blaming the victim?

When a person gets shot, it’s the shooter’s fault. When a person gets raped, it’s the rapist’s fault. Of course. But we have a definition of rape, and it does not include not liking a particular sex act while engaged in otherwise consensual sex.

Recognizing our own agency in our hurts is not blaming the victim. It’s responsibility.

Until women stop playing the blame game and start owning their choices, we’ll continue to be mocked and made fun of. Which is why I think it’s ridiculous that this entire thing, and all the other things like it, is playing out online.

—
This is what his detractors are doing:

Maybe he’s a rapist. Maybe it’s a bunch of hearsay. I read the site, and he does sound like a manipulative, aggressive jerk!