A beautiful demon rapes a human, who enjoys it.  The demon then accuses the human of raping her.

When I composed this scene for my novel Quantum Cannibals (publication date Nov. 2018), I thought it fictional.  In the contemporary non-fictional world (such as it is), the #MeToo movement has brought the demons out from their hiding places.

Personally, I’m glad I’m an old fart, happily married to a beautiful woman.  I’d hate to be on the make today, looking for ladies to sle*p with.  It’s way too complicated.  Despite the long-ago success of the sexual revolution, things today are more testy than they were when Ed Sullivan was afraid to show Elvis’

gyrating hips on Sunday TV.

An approved style of life

Today there’s no stigma attached to pre-marital sex, and adultery is considered by many as an approved style of life.  A girl who sleeps around is no longer considered bad; just as guys are supposed to sleep around, so are women.  In literature, in film, all kinds of sexual behavior is tolerated, even praised.

A problem now is that every consent for nookie carries with it the implied right for the woman to withdraw or deny consent subsequent to the act.  Even if the woman sends you love notes after you’ve been together, it doesn’t mean that she still consents to the sex you already had.  And even if you have done nothing together, you can still be convicted or your reputation ruined, just on the basis of a woman’s accusation.  It can be vague, it can be inconsistent, but the accusation is accepted (unless of course she has the wrong political affiliation).

Go away before I call the police

In olden times it was simple.  “Yes” meant “yes,” “no” meant “try harder” or “get lost.” “Go away before I call the police” meant “no.”  “Maybe some other time” meant “up your game.”  I had some difficulty with the jargon.  When a woman told me “no,” or “go f*ck yourself,” I took it as a definitive rejection.  I can’t tell you how many times women got upset with me because I stopped trying when they said “no.”  I would have had many more notches on my Winchester

if I had relied on the simple jargon of those times.  Then again, if I had always interpreted “no” as “try harder,” I might have ended acting like Bill Cosby.  Better to do without than turn into a sex demon.  Some behavior, whether or not it’s part of the approved style of life, should be rejected.

These days who knows what yes, no, and go f*ck yourself mean.  It’s even worse.  A man might see a gorgeous blonde with a nice rack and want to get to know her.  Then he finds out she identifies as a guy.  Then he finds out she’s gay.  Is she a gay man, or a gay woman?  If the former, it means she wants to be with a guy, so maybe it’s good.  If the latter, it means… well, who the hell knows what it means?  Perhaps she/he/it identifies as a Catholic priest and is celibate or looking for someone way younger than you.

“…between the approved style of life and the assumed structure of reality, there is conceived to be a simple and fundamental congruence such that they complete one another and lend one another meaning.” –Clifford Geertz, anthropologist

Life gets more complicated all the time.  It’s not just advanced technology or an opaque economic system.  The fact is that Western culture is being dismantled and reconstructed, taking a principle from here, a value from there, and duct-taping them into some kind of bizarre structure.  The pieces, beliefs, and doctrines no longer fit each other, and Western society is teetering.  The “approved style of life” and “the assumed structure of reality” are no longer congruent.  Perhaps that’s why so many people look favorably at Islam, with its unequivocal social and sexual roles, where the primary value is to “submit.”  Freedom, which most westerners view as essential to their approved style of life, will vanish into the midden heap of the tolerated structure of reality.

Do we want to lose our freedom? If the answer is no, try harder.

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One of the most astonishing things about the allegations of sexual assault currently being aired against Bill Cosby is that so many went unreported for decades. If a crime is committed, the best time to gather evidence is while it is fresh. In Canada the cool and popular radio host Jian Ghomeshi is alleged to have been violently assaulting women for years. Yet no one spoke publicly about it until October, 2014. It’s safe to rape women if you’re a big enough superstar.

Or  have a star lawyer.

The criminal lawyer Edward Greenspan was eulogized extensively in the National Post. Described as a “legal superstar,” six of Greenspan’s most notable cases were summarized in the print edition. Oddly, in five out of six, the superstar’s clients went to jail. The notable who got off was Gerald Regan, the former Premier of Nova Scotia. Portraying the accusations of sexual assault as a politically motivated witch-hunt, Greenspan succeeded by “…reducing some of the accusers to tears.”

We are not going to second guess the courts as to Regan’s culpability. While he was acquitted of rape and attempted rape, many charges were dropped without going to trial. The accusations involved over thirty women, over a span of forty years.  How many of them were ‘reduced to tears,’ only to see their alleged tormentor walk free, declaring he’d been vindicated?

Perhaps it’s not so astonishing that so many women hesitate to speak up about sexual assault. It only invites a second assault, this time in the court room, where the defense attorney may do his or her best to reduce the accuser to tears, or worse. If he’s good at it, maybe he’ll be considered a legal superstar, no matter how many other cases he loses, no matter how much he makes it safe to rape women.

In an upcoming post we’ll discuss the weaponization of rape.

As always, your comments are welcome.

The post Making It Safe to Rape Women appeared first on Quantum Cannibals.