My favorite framing of the desired behavior is “Enthusiastic consent”.
Taboo: “Enthusiastic consent”. Once you’ve done that you might want to ask: How likely is it for there to be a misunderstanding about whether something constituted “enthusiastic consent” or not? How easy would it be for a woman who did give “enthusiastic consent” to deny having done so after the fact because she doesn’t what the stigma of having cheated on her boyfriend/having slept with a low status guy/etc.?
How likely is it for there to be a misunderstanding about whether something constituted “enthusiastic consent” or not?
Pretty unlikely. Being self-consciously dishonest is unpleasant and worth avoiding. People like to think of themselves as being good and honest. Most social dishonesty is less conscious and explicit than that, and hinges on maintaining ambiguity and deniability to oneself as well as to others.
However, we’re disproportionately likely to hear of situations like that, because of narrative bias: that sort of thing, while rare, creates dramatic stories which people are unusually likely to repeat to each other and get each other emotionally involved in. Moreover, since we acquire a lot of our beliefs about society from fiction, if we haven’t done careful sociological research, our models of social behavior are likely to be riven with narrative bias: ideas that tell us that the social world acts like movies, dramas, sitcoms, and soap operas much more than it actually does.
(Put another way: People have to be pretty honest much of the time, otherwise we wouldn’t have a society that made any kind of sense. But good fiction about social interactions is more engaging if it’s got as many levels of deceit as our little brains can handle. Since we acquire a lot of our model of society — especially parts of society that we’re not personally familiar with — from fiction, we’re likely to think of them as being more dramatic and deceptive than they really are.)
How easy would it be for a woman who did give “enthusiastic consent” to deny having done so after the fact because she doesn’t what the stigma of having cheated on her boyfriend/having slept with a low status guy/etc.?
It seems to me that it would be a very curious theory of human sexual interaction which modeled women as scheming Machiavellian agents and men as disarmingly forthright chumps.
Pretty unlikely. Being self-consciously dishonest is unpleasant and worth avoiding. People like to think of themselves as being good and honest. Most social dishonesty is less conscious and explicit than that, and hinges on maintaining ambiguity and deniability to oneself as well as to others.
Precisely, and retroactively rationalizing that you did not give “enthusiastic consent” strikes me as a decent example of such ambiguity.
Whereas I think the way that I and ialdabaoth are using the idea of “enthusiastic consent”, it is (in part) about being unambiguous. So I think we are using terms differently here.
I’m curious if you have a substantive response to the rest of that comment, by the way.
Whereas I think the way that I and ialdabaoth are using the idea of “enthusiastic consent”, it is (in part) about being unambiguous.
The problem is that you haven’t actually defined standards for “enthusiastic consent” and near as I can tell neither have any of the other people arguing for it. It’s not enough to simply assert that something should be unambiguous. Since the property of being unambiguous is itself ambiguous.
I’m curious if you have a substantive response to the rest of that comment, by the way.
As for your accusations of narrative bias, the same could be said about the existence of this supposed “rape culture”.
Taboo: “Enthusiastic consent”. Once you’ve done that you might want to ask: How likely is it for there to be a misunderstanding about whether something constituted “enthusiastic consent” or not? How easy would it be for a woman who did give “enthusiastic consent” to deny having done so after the fact because she doesn’t what the stigma of having cheated on her boyfriend/having slept with a low status guy/etc.?
Pretty unlikely. Being self-consciously dishonest is unpleasant and worth avoiding. People like to think of themselves as being good and honest. Most social dishonesty is less conscious and explicit than that, and hinges on maintaining ambiguity and deniability to oneself as well as to others.
However, we’re disproportionately likely to hear of situations like that, because of narrative bias: that sort of thing, while rare, creates dramatic stories which people are unusually likely to repeat to each other and get each other emotionally involved in. Moreover, since we acquire a lot of our beliefs about society from fiction, if we haven’t done careful sociological research, our models of social behavior are likely to be riven with narrative bias: ideas that tell us that the social world acts like movies, dramas, sitcoms, and soap operas much more than it actually does.
(Put another way: People have to be pretty honest much of the time, otherwise we wouldn’t have a society that made any kind of sense. But good fiction about social interactions is more engaging if it’s got as many levels of deceit as our little brains can handle. Since we acquire a lot of our model of society — especially parts of society that we’re not personally familiar with — from fiction, we’re likely to think of them as being more dramatic and deceptive than they really are.)
It seems to me that it would be a very curious theory of human sexual interaction which modeled women as scheming Machiavellian agents and men as disarmingly forthright chumps.
Precisely, and retroactively rationalizing that you did not give “enthusiastic consent” strikes me as a decent example of such ambiguity.
Somewhat ironic given the original meaning of “enthusiastic”: possessed by a god.
Whereas I think the way that I and ialdabaoth are using the idea of “enthusiastic consent”, it is (in part) about being unambiguous. So I think we are using terms differently here.
I’m curious if you have a substantive response to the rest of that comment, by the way.
The problem is that you haven’t actually defined standards for “enthusiastic consent” and near as I can tell neither have any of the other people arguing for it. It’s not enough to simply assert that something should be unambiguous. Since the property of being unambiguous is itself ambiguous.
As for your accusations of narrative bias, the same could be said about the existence of this supposed “rape culture”.