When the response to these posts is “Well, what about the men”, I get frustrated. The implication in that question is that writing about women alone isn’t good enough, that women’s issues on their own aren’t important enough. That I can’t write abou…

One thing that’s niggling at me:

Having spoken to several men on the topic, what I’ve gathered they’re taught is:

- No means no
- Don’t hit women

In other words, men are taught about how to not “date rape” a woman.

That, to my mind, does not quite constitute teaching men not to date rape women, but is more akin to teaching men not to abuse women, or, come to that, teaching men simply how to be civil human beings, with a modicum of respect for the personhood of others.

“No”, although considered a word of such absolute clarity as to be proverbially easy to understand (”What part of ‘No’…”), is (functionally, at least), not necessarily defined to include:

1) Saying “no” quietly still means ‘no’.

2) Saying “I don’t want to do this”, even if quietly, means ‘no’.

3) Backing away and curling into the fetal position (or in any other way removing one’s self physically) means ‘no’.

I did all three of these things, and date rape still happened to me.

I don’t actually know what’s taught to men, but from my experience, with a guy who hadn’t throw up a bunch of obvious red flags during the six months we’d been dating, those two lines aren’t quite enough to prevent date rape.

Either that, or he didn’t pay attention in class.

*goes back and reads the rest of the post*

And yes, of course, the additions this little discourse offered were covered in the ‘how to really teach men not to rape’ section.

I’m not surprised at all. ^^

Again, profligate thanks for a concise, logical, thoroughly permalink-worthy post. I do so enjoy your voice, Anna. Thank you for sharing it with us.