No Means No

We can all agree this case was horrible, and the perps deserved the 15 years they finally got and more.

But the author is taking is taking this incapacitation gang rape incident as a clarion about human sexuality in general in a wrongheaded way.  Most sex is not at all like that.

There has in fact long been a movement along similar lines that requiring a "No" is requiring too much.  

"Yes means yes," that is you must have affirmative permission first for any act of physical intimacy, otherwise it should be rape by definition, these people say. 

As the famous computer scientist Grace Hopper once observed, "It is easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission."  That is a general rule of considerable importance.

Requiring affirmative permission is incompatible with human sexuality.  It is Anti-Sex.  And it especially works against those who fail to have a catalyzing force such as money, religion, intelligence, blackmail, or childbearing-desire to help it along.  It works against those who didn't attend the same church or other social training institution.  It works against those from different social classes, cultures, languages, etc.  What are the right words to say, anyway?  Should I be serious, ironic, funny, powerful, or begging?  How should I even bring it up when all she ever talks about is differential equations?  How many movies, midnight strolls, dinners, or even hot dances do we have to have until it's "appropriate?"  In human sexuality, a woman's role is to discourage, resist, and so on, in every way from the beginning.  Nearly all women expect a certain degree of masculine pro-sex force to overcome their reluctance.  From a man, there's nothing worse than begging, which is what getting permission first is.  3rd party catalalizing forces overcome this with prior agreements, but independent operators have no such assistance.

Now, in case of incapacitation, there is no way for a woman to say no, so NO has to be presumed.  That is one such special case.  Most of the cases we know do involve a NO that was ignored.

Affirmative permission is difficult among other reasons something might sound more general or awful than the requestor intends.

There is little enough sex in this world as it is.  There should be much more.

We should have pro-sex religions like the pagan ones were, or similar institutions.  But we don't much, because it's better to keep us either alone in fear or tied in bondage.

I'm fine with "No means no."

As a "Conservative Feminist," Estrich has to burnish her feminist credential by taking extreme positions on useless  totalitarian stuff like "Yes Means Yes."

While on the other hand being attorney for Ailes at Fox.

Much like anti-abortion Catholic Feminists like Catherine MacKinnon, who blamed all the ills of society on pictures of women.  (They didn't even have to be naked to be "objectification.")  And tried very hard to have a law where any women raped could sue any distributor of erotic images regardless of proof of connection.  From what I understood, MacKinnon's Law passed in Sweden.

It was blocked from becoming law in some US state and thence the entire USA by lawsuit from Larry Flynt, an American hero.

Greed and militarism are obviously the cause of all ills of society and interesting why the likes of Estrich and MacKinnon never look there.