In Which I Am Surprised to Be Called a Rapist

This was originally going to be a very different post. I wanted to cover a number of different topics in one go, but it turns out I have a lot more to say about all this than I'd expected. As a result, I'm going to have to split it up into several posts, the first few laying the ground-work for the later ones.

You'll notice that in this post, I've backed down from my usual tone of 'blood-thirsty mercilessness'. As strongly as I feel about the subject matter, because the people I'm talking about here are allies of mine in the rationalist movement, I feel it prudent to afford them a certain degree of benefit of the doubt I wouldn't ordinarily offer. There won't be any cheap shots, name-calling or hair-pulling here. That's not cool.

Here's hoping I'm actually able to finish a series of posts this time! Fingers crossed!

Rebecca Watson

If you're at all involved in the atheist and sceptic online communities, you'll no doubt be aware of the schism currently underway that originated (more or less) with the "Elevatorgate" incident a year and a half or so ago.

If you're not, I'll try to bring you up to speed.

Noted sceptic and atheist speaker, Rebecca Watson, made a YouTube video in which she (among other things) expressed mild annoyance at having been propositioned by a guy while they were alone in a lift at four in the morning. She found it irritating and a little creepy, and implored all men everywhere to think twice before doing something like that.

Here's the actual video: (the relevant bit is at 4:30 if you want to skip ahead)

I didn't think anything of it at the time. And I still don't think much of it. It was a perfectly reasonable response to a situation that, for whatever reason, Rebecca didn't like. The shitstorm that followed on the blogs, YouTube, Twitter  and at sceptical and atheist conferences since then was, in my view, a ridiculous overreaction to an insignificant incident. Lines were drawn, polarizing labels abused ("feminazis" vs "rape apologists") and the whole thing got pretty messy.

I decided to stay the fuck out of it. I didn't agree with either side, and saw no benefit to sticking my nose in (beyond, perhaps, stimulating downloads for Consilience). But a few days ago I changed my mind about that.

I read this post by Rebecca. In it, she calls me a rapist. To be precise, she claims that if you have sex with someone who is drunk, you are automatically a rapist. "End of story."

How Does That Make Me a Rapist?

I'm a teetotaler. Always have been. But I don't have a policy of dating teetotalers. As it turns out, I've actually never dated one. In most of my sexual relationships I've been in situations where my partner was drunk and I wasn't. One of my longest-running relationships was with a woman who could probably have been considered an alcoholic - she was in some state of inebriation almost every time we were intimate.

We didn't part on the best of terms (it's safe to say she hates me more than any person alive) but if you were to ask her if I ever raped her, she'd say no. Even on some occasions when she was at her drunkest (I'm talking slurred-speech, unable-to-walk-unassisted drunk) the thought never occurred to anyone that our sex was anything but consensual. Everyone involved in the sex was an adult, capable of making his/her own decisions, and did so. Even at her drunkest, if she wasn't in the mood for it, she was perfectly capable of saying "no", and that would be the end of it. No means no.

Am I a rapist?  Of course not. It's absurd and, frankly, offends me that it would even be suggested.

Am I suggesting that alcohol can't be used as a tool by rapists to exert a measure of control over their victims? No. I can't speak to that. Not being a drinker myself I couldn't say how much it compromises one's decision-making ability. But I can categorically state that just because you have sex with a drunk person, that does not automatically make you a rapist.

So What's the Problem?

Rebecca's statement was wrong, and her apparently ideological commitment to that unwavering position of "drunk sex = rape, always" signifies a lack of rational thinking. Moral absolutes are the domain of the religious and other fundamentalists, not of rational, thinking people. I've always considered Rebecca to be a thinking person, not a dogmatist, hence my surprise.

It got me thinking about the whole schism in our movement, and particularly the position of the so-called "Feminist" camp in this fight. I use those quotation marks because I don't believe that their position represents Feminism in any real sense, but more of that later.

Suffice to say that I no longer wish to remain out of this fight, but I do want to be clear that I don't align myself with the rape-threatening trolls any more than I do with the Pseudo-feminists. I predict that my opposition to the Pseudo-feminists will draw (and already has drawn) accusations against me for being a sexist and rape-apologist (in addition to being a rapist, of course). That is the price for getting into this fight: putting up with trolls on both sides.

Shields up. Phasers locked. Ahead one half impulse.

"Sheilds... SHEILDS!!!!" - CAPT Hikaru Sulu

Keep your sensors peeled for the next installment. And check the comments below for the fireworks!