Rape, Sex and the Grey Area

It’s common for sexual assault survivors to disassociate (leave their bodies) during a sexual encounter. And we know as many as 1 in 4 women are survivors of sexual assault. (FYI -- Staci Haines’ book A Survivor’s Guide to Sex is a phenomenal resource for partners of/survivor’s dealing with this issue). But I imagine that many women who are not sexual assault survivors struggle to remain “present” and fully enjoy sex as well. After all, women's pleasure is all-but-disregarded in our culture. I can make arguments about why this is the case (male orgasm is needed to make babies, female orgasm is not), but I’d very much like for it not to be case. Because, to borrow from a sister’s post: “women are rarely encouraged to experience pleasure or taught how to do so, which relates to rape culture in that women often do not expect pleasure from sex and therefore consent to touch that they do not particularly want, or consent for reasons of convenience or guilt.”

Because women are not taught to expect pleasure it becomes normal for women to have sexual encounters that are not pleasurable. Given these circumstances, the best-case scenario is that these women will have unfulfilling sex lives. The worst-case scenario is that sexual violence will be normalized to them. Neither sound fun to me, but the latter is particularly problematic.

A 2009 study by East Carolina University, Virginia Tech and University of Houston found that when women do not acknowledge sexual violence as a violation they are more likely to be revictimized.[1] Basically, if you don’t call rape “rape” you’re more likely to be raped…again. Despite this, our culture encourages women to believe that in many cases rape is actually just “bad sex.” I've seen this confusion play-out in countless friends and clients who've disclosed to me over the past eight years. (I want to be clear here: I am not critiquing individuals for choosing to name/not name an experience “rape.” I am critiquing the culture that encourages this confusion between rape and consensual sex). Failing to value women’s sexual pleasure enables rape culture and renders sexual violence invisible and even permissible.

So, women: we need to learn to expect pleasure from our sexual encounters. We need to support our sisters to do the same. We need to stop slut shaming one another. When we're not getting the pleasure we expect we need to speak up about it. We need to get comfortable voicing our needs before, during and after a sexual encounter. We need to practice enthusiastic consent that is mutual, active and ongoing.

Partners of women: we need to know that our orgasm does not mean a sexual encounter is complete. We need to speak up, not only about our own desires but inquire about our partners' as well. We need to stop slut shaming, too. We need to be able to hear that what we've been doing hasn't been working, and we need to be ready to make changes going forward. We need to practice enthusiastic consent.

Consent can be a confusing thing, as such there may always be grey area between "sex" and "rape." But I'd like that grey area to shrink. One way to do that is to fight against the sexist and heterosexist notion that sex is/should be about men's pleasure. If we can cool-off our slut shaming and expect enthusiastic consent and pleasure from all actors in a sexual encounter we'll be on the right track. Plus, we'll be having a really good time.

Of course, no matter what we do or what our culture tells us, there will be people who enjoy raping other people. As far as I know, rape has occurred in all cultures throughout history. And I can't know with certainty that changing the way our culture views rape or sexuality will significantly diminish the occurance of rape. But I think it might and I believe it's a worthwhile effort. We may not be able to change people's biology, but we can change what they're taught to view as "normal." And I have great hopes that if we're taught that women's pleasure IS normal and coercive and/or drunk and/or forced sex IS NOT, that much rape would be prevented -- or at the very least, not be tolerated. What's happening now isn't working. 1 in 4 is WAY too many. We need a change.


[1] Psychology of Women Quarterly, 33 (2009), 34-42.