Out of six women with whom I tried this, all six responded by the social equivalent of laughing in my face. It just seems too ridiculously absurd: If a man doesn’t want sex, he won’t be turned on, if he’s not turned on, he won’t be erect, if he’s not erect, no sex can ensue. In all cases, the man is (apparently) turned on and erect, therefore willing, therefore no rape.
So they assume the explanation is that some men have weird preferences and enjoy sex with ugly/elderly/morbidly obese women, which is true on its own but completely irrelevant and completely ADBOC-stuff, and that this man was one of them and is just seeking to abuse society or the legal system to get free money or attention (or both).
I tried. And then something happened where I realized I had to explain stuff about arousal. And then I had to explain some biology. And then some psychology. And then they went back and destroyed 3⁄4 of all of that based on something a priest once told their father, sixty years ago. I gave up that approach and tried telling them “You’re wrong, read this on why arousal doesn’t work that way” instead. Predictably, they didn’t read it.
There’s so much inferential distance to cross in most cases that I think this is a reasonably serious social problem.
Edit: Also, one of them had already read quite a bit of PUA material “for fun”. Which kind of explicitly includes: “Arousal is separate from wanting sex.” Then again, PUA is specific towards men seducing women, and I shouldn’t expect the average person to infer that this also happens to be a humanwide universal.
I wish I remembered that example clearly enough to be reasonably confident my brain isn’t just making up stuff, so I’ll instead point in the general direction of what the bible says and “explains” about human reproductive biology. IIRC, she didn’t actually believe the bible was reliable, but she had always accepted that particular thing as “making too much sense to be false” among other tidbits of compartmentalizing most people do.
The way this is usually handled is asking the men stating that to imagine a very ugly/elderly/morbidly obese woman stripping them using force.
Out of six women with whom I tried this, all six responded by the social equivalent of laughing in my face. It just seems too ridiculously absurd: If a man doesn’t want sex, he won’t be turned on, if he’s not turned on, he won’t be erect, if he’s not erect, no sex can ensue. In all cases, the man is (apparently) turned on and erect, therefore willing, therefore no rape.
So they assume the explanation is that some men have weird preferences and enjoy sex with ugly/elderly/morbidly obese women, which is true on its own but completely irrelevant and completely ADBOC-stuff, and that this man was one of them and is just seeking to abuse society or the legal system to get free money or attention (or both).
That’s … not how arousal works. At all. Did you tell them this?
I tried. And then something happened where I realized I had to explain stuff about arousal. And then I had to explain some biology. And then some psychology. And then they went back and destroyed 3⁄4 of all of that based on something a priest once told their father, sixty years ago. I gave up that approach and tried telling them “You’re wrong, read this on why arousal doesn’t work that way” instead. Predictably, they didn’t read it.
There’s so much inferential distance to cross in most cases that I think this is a reasonably serious social problem.
Edit: Also, one of them had already read quite a bit of PUA material “for fun”. Which kind of explicitly includes: “Arousal is separate from wanting sex.” Then again, PUA is specific towards men seducing women, and I shouldn’t expect the average person to infer that this also happens to be a humanwide universal.
Like what?
I wish I remembered that example clearly enough to be reasonably confident my brain isn’t just making up stuff, so I’ll instead point in the general direction of what the bible says and “explains” about human reproductive biology. IIRC, she didn’t actually believe the bible was reliable, but she had always accepted that particular thing as “making too much sense to be false” among other tidbits of compartmentalizing most people do.
I have found better luck by telling them to imagine the woman has toys.