TL:DR nuance, personal accounts as a victim, and a call for better consent education, better communication of misunderstandings in all aspects of life, and a shift towards an attitude of restorative justice

I get that, and yeah I’m a woman who has been violated in such ways. Once by someone who I had slept with many times, but we were drifting apart as I met my wife and it was easier to have sex than to have the uncomfortable conversation I would’ve had to have had I given and held a firm no. That and a far less ambiguous incident between them and a friend of mine were both tied to their lack of emotional regulation from BPD. I definitely don’t think that person should face consequences for anything they’ve done to me, even if I would probably advise my younger self not to get involved with them in the first place, and absolutely to have the fight instead of the sex.

I also have another incident with a woman (who also had BPD) who kept negotiating away every no I gave, especially the ones that contained reasons (turns out it’s really hard to say “your face and personality are both very unattractive to me”). That one was much more obvious and serious to the point that by the time I was able to break away I was having nightmares of her. It was absolutely a form of violation and had we been in college together or something I would have deserved protection from having to interact with her, even if I personally don’t know if I think she should be arrested for it.

Things like these are within the blurry part of the bad side of the line, and in many ways can be contrasted to the “fully enthusiastic and everyone is fully intoxicated” sex which is potentially in the blurry part of the good side of the line though if I am a firm believer in one’s right to get down while drunk/high. Sex is a messy topic and it often involves people being young and not displaying great judgment and having big feelings. Hell, I’ve even had sex where there was pain and regret through no fault of anyone.

I think we do need to be teaching that this all is messy, but we also need to be teaching how to ask for consent in a way that’s appropriate as well as teaching everyone the confidence to say no even if it means being a buzzkill or ruining someone’s mood or whatever else. I was taught abstinence only sex ed, and that didn’t prepare me for the “hey, I’m having a great time doing x, but you seem to be reaching for y, but I’m not up for it right now” type conversation or for people trying to pressure me because I keep blunting my "no"s to avoid hurting their feelings, especially with weaponized self depreciation. And with this some basic emotional regulation techniques would be good to teach people.

But yeah I get that young people are often bad at seeing the fact that communication that had seemed clear to everyone resulted in a miscommunication and I find that in all aspects of life that’s something we culturally need to work on being better about noticing when it becomes visible and starting a non-judgemental conversation to clear things up.

And all this with the fact that some people are going to keep going right up to the line, some people are going to not care about acting in good faith. Some people will pretend to be naive.

A carcereal attitude will assume all naivete malicious, and all grey areas blacker than the night. It will see my first story and aim to punish rather than to solve the problem. I think when we talk about consent we can easily fall into a carceral mindset. Especially when society encourages us to think that way about sex crimes and yet clearly is more concerned with using that attitude to reinforce existing hierarchies than to pursue justice or help victims.

This carceral mindset also leads to underreporting because most people don’t want to respond to what felt like a single minor violation with what feels like disproportionate force. This can be especially true when the violator is marginalized in a way that’s associated with disproportionate response or presumption of guilt in sexual violation (racialized people and transfeminized people especially) or when the appropriate response feels like it should be mental health based (the first person who hurt me just needed to continue DBT, the second probably should be kept away from society until she can get far enough along in some form of BPD treatment, but treatment is needed). And that’s to say nothing of when the victim is marginalized in a way where they’re presumed sexually aggressive against the violator.

I’m a believer in an attitude of restorative justice. First do right by the victim in proportion to the severity, then try to work to help the other party not do anything like it again. When approached naively it can very easily fail to the aforementioned malicious people, but when we prevent our communities from overly relying on any one person and we remain aware of the reality that some people aren’t acting in good faith we can create systems that strive to find a balance and actually minimize harm and maximize happiness. And I’ve seen at the very least the beginnings of something like that in a kink community and I hope it works and spreads.

Sorry about the rambling. I’m tired as hell from the weekend and had some thoughts which snowballed.

I don’t like social contract theory.

It is depressing, I know and I’m sorry :/

I do strongly believe that more knowledge, more discussion, more visibility will help bring these numbers down. More outrage. More calling out rape culture. More of us saying “What the Actual Fuck” each time a rapist is protected by those in power.

We have strength together.

I really appreciate you as well, your comments are always thoughtful and kind. I’m so sorry that you didn’t get justice.

Also, I was going to say something about the rape kit backlog, but apparently it’s being resolved and multiple states have cleared theirs.

Thanks for spreading the good news! I hadn’t heard of this yet :)

She’s young and they can still have a good fulfilling life, right?

You know that middle aged and older women are also sexually assaulted. Just because there have been lots of news stories about SA on campuses recently, doesn’t mean that only young women are being assaulted.

I can’t say I’ve known a sexual assault survivor whose life wasn’t wrecked for the immediate future as they came to terms with the assault and having to see their abuser walk around free.

Call it what you will, but I’ve helped more than one friend through it, so I’ll keep it as is.

Buried at the end of the article is a badass woman who is refusing to be silent to put a little pep back in your step:

Hunt said she is also frustrated by the silence from men.

“It should not be women’s job to tell you that you have to be pissed,” Hunt said. “You need to hold each other accountable. You need to call out your friends. And when a story like this comes out, you should be some of the first to speak up and say, ‘This is not alright.’ It’s not on your mother, your wife, your girlfriend or your daughter to bring it to your attention.”

“I challenge every man to do that.”

Hunt was involved in the ousting of former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who was accused of sexual assault, and former Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, who resigned from Congress after he was accused of rape and sexual misconduct. Both men are Democrats.

Women are not likely to go silent on this issue soon. Social media and in-person protests on campuses and near seats of power continue to be peppered with women proclaiming that they, too, were assaulted. They, too, are Jane Doe.

“Women are done accepting predators in power, and we are fighting back with every lever available to us,” Hunt said. “We are making sure that violence against women is not just a liability but a dealbreaker for those looking to hold elected office, and this will be a motivating issue in the November midterms.”

Legal consequences tend to not to discourage rape past a certain threshold. If rapists are legally put to death that makes them more likely to kill the victim.