If you think sex is clean and simple, stop reading here. If you think my writing that sex is dirty, complicated and messy, all the more so in the highly politicized Assange affair, makes me an apologist for rape, then you should also stop reading. But if you’re like me and you think sex is complicated, desire is messy, and acting like a jerk in bed does not make you a rapist, then read on because I have a few more things to say about the Assange mess.
First, I don’t have all the facts and everything I have to say is based on what has been leaked to the press so far. Based on what we do know, I do not think Assange is guilty of rape. I am not sure whether he is guilty of date rape, but if he is, then the date rape is incredibly murky since no one seems to have been drugged or beaten or even particularly coerced.
Second, I have serious doubts that Assange is guilty of date rape. Let’s review the most important fact in this case: Assange certainly believed he was behaving in a manner that was consensual and the women did NOT tell him otherwise. Indeed, Ms. A continued to live with Assange for another four days after their sexual encounters and threw a party for him. Ms. W made a plan for a second date with Assange and only became “concerned” when he didn’t return her calls. Okay, maybe they were so victimized and traumatized by his behavior that they had no choice but to go along as if they still liked him after their sexual encounters with him. Or maybe, and this seems just as likely, the women got angry that this man, this god among the anti-war Left that they themselves were part of, had sex with them with no intention of ever calling them again. Because it is his shrug of the shoulders, no strings attached post-coital attitude that allowed his sexual behavior to be defined as a problem. If he had stuck around, called them back, been their boyfriend, would they have gone to the police?
Now for my third point. Women are capable of saying “yes” and “no.” Unless a woman says “no” a man cannot assume she is not enjoying his actions. According to press reports, Assange held one of the women down in a sexual manner. Yes, and many women like that. Assange started having sex while one woman was sleeping. Yes, that too some women like. Because people like all sorts of things—clothes being ripped off, dirty threats whispered in their ears, even somewhat violent sexual encounters. Not everyone likes these things, but many, many people do. Clearly someone in Assange’s past sexual encounters thought it was a turn on or at least didn’t think it was rape. That’s why he was doing it. Is that gross? Sure. Is all sex gross when you’re not the one doing it? Pretty much. Is it rape if the woman doesn’t wake up and say “Stop” and “No, I don’t want that”? I don’t think so—especially when the woman is not being violently held against her will or drugged or is dependent on the man for money or survival. Indeed, these women were not stopped from saying no by anything but their own messy desires since they were independent of Assange in every way. I say this not because I’m a cretin who does not understand sexual violence, but because I do understand sexual violence and think calling what these women seem to have gone through with Assange rape is an insult to all rape survivors everywhere.
Finally, and perhaps this is the most important point because apparently most of us will never agree on what constitutes rape and what doesn’t—but it is now clear that this entire case against Assange has NOTHING to do with the women involved. Prosecuting Assange is completely out of character for Swedish sex law. When I first read about the sordid affair, I assumed that Sweden—being Sweden—had amazingly good laws to protect women from sexual violence. But I was wrong. Sweden has a terrible record for prosecuting rapes. In fact, Sweden’ s record is so bad that they were listed as worse than many other European countries by Amnesty International. According to the report:
The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women has, in the case of Sweden, pointed out that, while an impressive level of gender equality has been achieved in the so-called public spheres of work, education and political participation, these achievements seem to have halted at the doorsteps of private homes. The unequal power relations between men and women continue to be fuelled by deeply rooted patriarchal gender norms that are reproduced within the so-called private spheres of family life and sexual relationships.
Not only is there a lot of rape in Sweden, but rape is almost NEVER prosecuted. So why is Assange being prosecuted, held in a dank Victorian jail cell, then monitored day and night since his limited release if Swedish legal authorities ignore cases that are clearly rape, cases where the women did say no and the men used violence and coercion?
Why indeed? Not because anyone is worried about the women involved, who—thanks to continuous leaks of their identities—have been forced into hiding. The answer has to do not with the messiness of sex, but the messiness of geopolitics. And geopolitics, as we know, is even dirtier than sex.
26 Responses to Sex is Dirty; Geopolitics Are Even Dirtier
trendisnotdestiny - December 21, 2010 at 10:08 pm
I feel this article undergirds a previous posting dust-up I had with Goxewu a few weeks back where the Swedish author Steig Larsson (Girl with Dragon Tattoo) and the movie was being reviled by Dr. Ghilarducci for sado-masochism and glorification of violent sex in his books. I argued to the contrary.
At the time, my idea was that Larsson understood Dr. Essig’s point all too well about Sweden’s poor history about sexualized violence against women having covered many of the right-wing hate groups as a journalist while he saw average Swedes who looked the other way.
While I definitely do not want to wake a hibernating Gox, I cannot help but think not only is the CIA’s modus operandi using sexualizing information against their enemies as a means to destroy their public image (as Dr. Essig refers to as the messiness of geopolitics) but I also think that what gets swept up in the messiness is power. Power beyond saying yes and no
Power to shape the event outcome
Power to influence a dormant Swedish legal system
Power to shut-down business transactions VISA & Paypal
Power to invade the lives of women
Power to prosecute Assange under the Espionage act
Power to call for assassination in the mainstream media
Power to revise history
Any good detective novel will tell you that sexualized violence is about all power. Something with which Sweden is all too familiar.
livefreeordie2 - December 21, 2010 at 11:20 pm
What a freakin’ hoot! In that whole essay, the only thing that even remotely resembles honesty was the part where Essig says, “I don’t have all the facts. . .” Judging from her writings, I’d say that’s been true since she was in the first grade and it’s a condition she celebrates! But I digress. . . If Essig looked like a fool in her first defense of Assange, she has painted herself as utterly pathetic in this piece. And here’s the funny part.
I agree with most of what she says! Date rape of the kind described in this case is a joke! If you are lying naked in a bed voluntarily and have engaged in all kinds of sexual activity, then whatever the guy does sexually (obviously not including violence) isn’t rape. I’ve never bought into all this crap that half way through intercourse a woman could change her mind and somehow if the man didn’t stop immediately it constituted rape. One supposes it makes him a jerk (though I’d say the woman was the jerk especially if she had already, er, gotten, um, uh, off) but it doesn’t make him a rapist. Rape is an act of violence and from what’s been described, Assange is probably not guilty of anything other than being the creepy kind of pervert that one would suspect just by looking at him.
But the laughable part of all of this is hearing it from Essig. No feminist in her right mind would turn her back on decades of feminist doctrine, would she? You bet she would! Anything to defend a lib male icon from his own sexual escapades! Hey Essig! I thought no means NO! I guess if you’re Assange, then no means maybe and maybe means yes! ‘Hey little girl! Spread ‘em! I’m Jullian Assange and Laurie Essig has given her permission for me to do my thing!’
trendisnotdestiny - December 22, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Livefree,
You ever get the feeling that whatever you write stops conversations in their tracks with people placing their hands over ears.
Listen to that feeling. Someday,maybe, you can act on it when you grow a filter between your thoughts and actually saying them out loud or in public….
Brought to you today by the rectumheads of america, plunging millions of people who have their heads up their asses (one at a time)…..
trendisnotdestiny - December 22, 2010 at 2:24 pm
there error
livefreeordie2 - December 22, 2010 at 10:19 pm
Trendy – That you describe yourself as a rectumhead is, I would say, unfortunate, even if it is quite accurate. And of course many of the people on CHE put their hands over their ears! And probably over their eyes, Trendy, since most humans don’t read with their ears. . . at least not where I live. . .perhaps things are different on your planet. But the point is, most liberals can’t take the cognitive dissonance created by reading – or hearing – the truth. It’s just too upsetting for the little dears.
oldassocprof - December 23, 2010 at 12:40 am
Everyone deviant-sexualizes people they want to “get.” It’s the easy way out instead of acting in good faith about the issue. When I was a c_____ist, renegade revanchists were always accused of being degenerates. Feminism has often taken the easy way out and attacked sexuality as opposed to anything truly structural. Men and women have the hell scared out of them about sex, to the benefit of the structure that be, I might add, because they have a big guilty control shaped hole in them. It’s Orwell’s “sexcrime.” And looka Ken Starr after the semen stain discovery. There wasn’t much to the Clinton land stuff, except for bully Starr locking Susan McDowell up for a year for no reason, so he jumped on the sex…
marwebber - December 23, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Dear Professor Essig,
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR FIGURING OUT ALL OF GEOPOLITICS from your office at Middlebury. What would we do without you and other academics who can form judgments about guilt and innocence without – as you acknowledge – having “all the facts and everything I have to say is based on what has been leaked to the press so far.”
You are the poor woman’s Naomi Wolf. Perhaps you two can get together and discuss how you have figured this entire case out from the bits of evidence leaked online and that you two are the only ones who truly understand how complicated sex is (an assertion you make early on whose logic negates the certainty you express later on about the psychological mindset of the woman accusing Assange).
I am so bored being frustrated with these posts you have written about Assange. How can you and Wolf NOT understand the following: you can support Assange in terms of wikileaks AND absolutely know that “geopolitics” are the reason these charges are getting as much attention as they are WITHOUT diminishing the charges themselves, maligning the women connected to them, or trying to analyze them with little information.
marwebber - December 23, 2010 at 12:40 pm
P.S: Additionally thank you SO MUCH for the accompanying image you have provided with your post. IT IS SO OBVIOUSLY RELEVANT to what you are discussing. Because really, when aren’t headless white women wearing red leather boots in bed indicative of complicated, geopolitical situations? A true visionary, you are, Dr. Essig.
duke_omnium - December 23, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Ms. Essig is skewered for her admission that she doesn’t have all the facts…for including a sexually charged image in a post about the messiness of sex? She makes a reasonable argument that Assange’s politics have far more to do with his arrest than his caddish sexual practices. What’s the controversy?
marwebber - December 23, 2010 at 6:56 pm
@duke_omnium: Where messiness of sex = dirty boots in the bed. Of course! What. was. I. thinking?
oldassocprof - December 27, 2010 at 11:50 pm
I love Naomi Wolfe.
abednars - January 4, 2011 at 7:16 pm
Wow. I’m almost sorry this popped up while I was on vacation, and I didn’t notice it. It’s far, far worse even than Essig’s first blog on this subject. Still, it would have been almost useless to respond to this promptly, much less now, considering that the author is still defending her incredible rape apology ideas down to the ground. (And yes, I read this second post anyway, contrary to her explicit directions to let her blast her rape apologies in peace. Wild, huh?) But, I’ve got to respond, because it’s better to light one candle, right? Perhaps Chronicle readers, and the Chronicle editors, are still listening.
Regarding point one: It doesn’t matter a bit whether anyone disbelieves the alleged victims and believes the alleged rapist. In a just world, where crimes are investigated even when they occur against women, allegations such as these aren’t tried in the court of public opinion. They are tried in a court of law. Radical concept, huh? It’s not that much to ask. On the one hand, we have people who want to find out the truth, just like in other crimes. (Gosh, that’s so *radical*, so *abusive* – to invoke an investigation! Why, the nerve!) And on the other, we have rape apologists who can’t stand the thought of these charges being investigated unless someone was “drugged or beaten or even particularly coerced.” Actually, I like the “even” and “particularly” in that last sentence, as if coercion might possible be a bad thing, but it’s silly to say and should be really, really bad before anyone does anything about it. (And as a side note – what exactly is a charge of “date rape”? Is that like rape, but with dinner first? The author never talks about how it differs.)
Regarding point two: is any feminist, or anyone who cares at all about women or rape victims, *still* arguing that a victim’s behavior after an alleged rape is relevant to the alleged rape? Especially when the behavior involves staying around the rapist? Has ANYONE not gotten the memo yet that most rapists are known to their victims, and that some victims are even in long-term relationships with their rapists? What happens when one of our students confesses that a boyfriend, classmate, or the guy from the frat next door raped her, yet the student still has contact with that person in some fashion? Does the student get shoved out the door with the advice to come back after the victim publicly denounces the rapist, or else it can’t be real?
As far as Assange’s opinions of the allegations, don’t ALL rapists think that they haven’t really committed a rape? I do admit, studies show that an overwhelming number of rapists know that they forced someone to have sexual contact against their will, but they don’t want to call it “rape” per se. How is Assange’s belief that he didn’t rape the alleged victims relevant in this case?
As for the alleged victims’ need for a famous boyfriend – I may have slept through this part in law school, but isn’t that a possible motive (with an overtly sexist flavor) for a false rape allegation, and not a reason to ignore the allegation altogether? And as anyone with access to the internet knows, false rape allegations are as common (or less so) than false allegations of any other crime. So unless we’re all in the habit of denouncing car theft victims unless they prove they’re in it for the insurance money, the false allegation meme needs to stop now, lest we treat rape differently than other crimes.
Response to point three: No, it’s not just rape if a victim doesn’t say no. It’s rape when a victim doesn’t say “yes.” The alternative is that all of us (especially women) are in a constant state of consent for sex, and that we must constantly be the ones to defend against our own rapes, even while asleep. This is Feminism 101, but perhaps we need a refresher course here.
For instance – I will be asleep tonight. I have not given consent for my husband to start having sex with me while I sleep tonight. I may or may not have given such consent in the past, but I have not done so tonight. If I wake up in the middle of the night and find that he is having sex with me when I sleep, then even if I regain my faculties enough to say stop and he stops, HE WOULD BE GUILTY OF RAPE. Any feminist should know better than to allege that all women are open for business unless they say otherwise. Try googling “enthusiastic consent” to get the concept.
(Another side note – it’s really not that hard to wait for affirmative consent for sex. We do it in most situations. For instance – have you ever been invited to your neighbor’s house? If so, does that mean you can enter it right this very minute without asking?)
And even if Assange is alleging that the women said yes – in other words, that he and these women (whom he just met) actively agreed to have sexual contact in which the women were held down, or asleep, or any of the other acts that are alleged in this case – the women have said that they did NOT consent to this. And when a possible victim alleges that there isn’t consent for a type of sexual contact, then the authorities are correct in investigating a possible rape.
Not only that, but this discussion completely ignores the allegations that Assange actually DID blow past a specific boundary set by one of the alleged victims – that Assange use a condom. In other words, the alleged victim says that she DID say no to sex without a condom, and he ignored it. Just as many are ignoring that she said “no” now.
Point four: Does this article allege that because Sweden doesn’t prosecute rape allegations well in general, that they should ignore this one precisely because this person is famous? Really? Can anyone think of another crime in which that argument would be reasonable?
And now, my own last word on this (and it’s basically the same as my previous response): as Essig says, she is obviously not going to agree with many (ie those who believe in the law) regarding rape and rape prosecutions. So, this entire comment isn’t really for her. It’s for the Chronicle. Chronicle editors, once again you’ve demonstrated a willingness to publish a blog post filled with rape apology. Your audience is professionals who quite often work with students who have recently (or not so recently) been raped, as well as many professionals who have been raped themselves. Will you continue to publish these posts, and this author? Is that what the Chronicle stands for?
One more thing: I look forward to the Chronicle’s next article on murder, which will be accompanied by a picture of a headless person eagerly awaiting being stabbed.
physicsprof - January 4, 2011 at 9:03 pm
“Response to point three: No, it’s not just rape if a victim doesn’t say no. It’s rape when a victim doesn’t say “yes.”
Response to response to point three: I have to confess I have known my wife for quite a few years and made sex to her on many occasions. Never once did she say “yes”. Actually it never occurred to me even to ask her “are you willing to have sex with me?”. In those instances sex was initiated by her she was equally malicious and never secured my “yes” beforehand. I guess it makes us both rapists then.
abednars - January 4, 2011 at 9:28 pm
I’m trying to decide if you seriously haven’t heard that consent doesn’t have to be solely verbal, or whether you’re being disingenuous in order to also engage in rape apology. I hope it’s the former.
physicsprof - January 4, 2011 at 10:32 pm
Then why don’t you think that non-verbal consent might have been given to Assange at the time and that the subsequent rape allegation were false?
abednars - January 5, 2011 at 12:19 am
Then you do know that consent can be nonverbal, and thus you were being disingenuous in order to engage in rape apology. Wow. That’s really disrespectful.
Neither you nor I nor the author of this blog know anything about whether consent was or wasn’t given. That’s the point. Any person can offer up speculation, but to find the truth and pursue justice, these allegations must be investigated by the police and tried in court. The allegations cannot dismissed out of hand just because the alleged rapist is famous and his political activities might be defensible. Nor can they be dismissed because some people, under some circumstances, might enjoy some of the activities described. The point of the allegations is that the alleged victims claim that they did NOT say yes to the activities described. Hence, an investigation.
Let’s be clear: Assange is innocent of rape unless it’s proven that he is guilty. No one is saying he should be convicted without a trial. But somehow, it seems like we’ve gotten to the point where mere investigation of these charges is a radical position. It isn’t, if one believes in the rule of law.
Of course, it seems pretty radical to investigate these activities as crimes if one doesn’t see them as crimes, which is ultimately one of the points the author is trying to make. And we can buy that position if we believes that people (or, let’s face it, women) are in a perpetual state of sexual consent for any type of sexual activity unless they loudly and clearly shout “NO!” as many times as it takes to make the other person stop. As long as the coercion isn’t “particularly” acute, then it’s game on. And even so, if a person (woman) is asleep in the presence of others, it can be assumed that (s)he wants sexual contact until such time as (s)he wakes up and is conscious enough to say “no” as many times as it takes to make the other person stop. (Why the author makes a distinction between sleep and being on drugs/drunk/ill/otherwise incapacitated is beyond me. But we’ll go with the author’s reasoning here.)
I just don’t get why Assange defenders believe it’s OK to engage in sexual contact with someone just because (s)he didn’t say “no” loudly enough. That’s profoundly disturbing, to be honest. The author says, “Unless a woman says “no” a man cannot assume she is not enjoying his actions.” What a pathetically low standard for men! As a feminist, I have more faith in the intelligence of men than that.
And even assuming such a low bar for sexual “consent” from a woman, I’m still not quite sure the logic behind why Assange shouldn’t be investigated for allegedly raping a woman by not using a condom when she specifically required it as a condition of sexual contact. In that case, she claims she DID clearly say “no” to sex under those conditions. So allegedly, not only was there NOT consent (verbal or otherwise), there was specifically NONconsent. To overlook her “no,” we could go with the author’s strategy here, and just not mention it because it’s not defensible if it happened. Or, we could just believe that people (women) don’t have a right to request condoms or other protection during sex.
physicsprof - January 5, 2011 at 1:13 am
abednars, no disrespect, but you stated that “It’s rape when a victim doesn’t say “yes.” I did not know that one can “say” something in a non-verbal way. Not in the court of law.
“Neither you nor I nor the author of this blog know anything about whether consent was or wasn’t given. That’s the point.”
Precisely. Therefore, noone knows whether rape has occured or not. There are too many shades of gray here anyway. It would be wise then to abstain from name calling such as “rape apologists” (which implies that a rape has occured). People might be sceptical for many reasons but you are not privy to their motives.
On a more general note, it always amuses me (though never surprises) how often Americans resort to manipulating other people with the allegations of racism, sexism, rape apologism, etc. (In the Soviet Union the same kind of manipulation was performed daily in the name of official ideology.) The receiving side is awash in “white guilt”, “male guilt”, “white straight male guilt”, and so on. In any case when conversation deteriorates to such cliches it loses all intellectual value.
Good night.
abednars - January 5, 2011 at 9:23 am
“It would be wise then to abstain from name calling such as “rape apologists” (which implies that a rape has occured).”
No, it doesn’t. Although there is no one definition for the term “rape apologism,” the general gist is that some engages in rape apologism when they make excuses for why certain actions that are rape aren’t “really” rape, or why a rapist shouldn’t be held accountable under certain conditions. Examples would be:
- It’s OK because when she woke up and said to stop, he stopped.
- It’s OK because she didn’t object to non-condom use when she was asked the 17th time.
- It’s OK because sex is a gray area, and it’s hard to know what women want.
- It’s OK because she stayed in physical proximity to him.
- It’s OK because she would have had something to gain if he was her boyfriend.
- It’s OK because some people like to be held down, have sex when they sleep, and/or have sex without condoms – so she probably liked that, too.
- It’s OK because no one was “drugged or beaten or even particularly coerced.”
-It’s OK because my wife and I never verbally say the word “yes” when we have sex, and also there’s no such thing as “nonverbal consent” in a court case (not true, BTW) – so that’s what happened in this case.
In other words, rape apologism says that IF the events happened, or even IF the alleged rapist admits they happened (notice the use of “IF”), they couldn’t be rape. Either because a) the women are lying and really wanted it, or b) because even if they didn’t want it, it wasn’t rape.
physicsprof - January 5, 2011 at 12:31 pm
And is it OK to allege “rape apologism” against somebody who merely pointed out that the statement you’ve made does not make sense?
You seem to be fighting none of what I said instead of reformulating your statement better.
abednars - January 5, 2011 at 12:52 pm
No, I alleged rape apologism against someone who knowingly misused my words in an attempt to apologize for behaviors that equate to rape. I pretty much spelled that out, but I’m assuming you know that and choose to ignore it. If you would like me to repeat:
“It’s OK because my wife and I never verbally say the word “yes” when we have sex, and also there’s no such thing as “nonverbal consent” in a court case (not true, BTW) – so that’s what happened in this case.”
As for “fighting” what you said – why do you assign me the task of teaching you and reformulating my words so that you agree with them? That is not my job. In any event, it’s not that you don’t understand what I’m saying – it’s that you don’t agree. Feigning confusion doesn’t change that. I’m sorry that a label hurts your feelings. Maybe you should reflect on why that is.
betterschools - January 5, 2011 at 1:57 pm
Wow and, upon further reflection, WOW. One can only hope that this article and many of the responses were made by clerical types sneaking on to CHE with the departmental login. Do we need any more evidence of the need for remedial courses in logic, critical thinking, conceptual analysis, the nature of evidence, etc.? We fire carpenters who show up for work without their tools!
abednars - January 5, 2011 at 9:14 pm
“Clerical types”…??? My school allows “clerical types” to have a subscription to the CHE, and is happy when they read it and engage in discussion re issues in higher education. What do you mean?
marwebber - January 7, 2011 at 5:01 pm
@abednars: I really appreciate your comments here. I sincerely hope your writing appears in its own right and not just here in the comments section of CHE (which I hope anyone interested in higher education feels welcome to comment about, even if it does feel like feeding the trolls around here on occasion).
swish - January 18, 2011 at 6:43 pm
Physicsprof: Amazing — I am agreeing with you for the second time today! Abednars: I am a female, a rape victim, a liberal, and (I’d say) a feminist. And I say, to call a failure to obtain consent (spoken or unspoken … !) to every act at every stage … to call that a “rape” kind of dilutes the meaning of the word, doesn’t it?
Just as the psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries like to pathologize “undesirable” human traits or emotions, such as shyness or grief, you seem to want to criminalize any sexual encounters that have the potential for causing regret or unhappiness. Once we enact rules to ensure complete safety and certainty (in moments when we used to experience the thrill of throwing caution to the wind) and to eliminate all the risk of bad feelings and bad consequences, what is left? Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem quite human to me.
(However, I do agree with abednars’ response to betterschools’ apparent class prejudice against “clerical types.” Believe me, betterschools, people with PhDs can display as much illogic as anyone else.)
physicsprof - January 18, 2011 at 10:37 pm
Swish, I am truly sorry, but surely I’ll soon say something too radical and the status quo will be reestablished.
The Iowa Review - April 12, 2012 at 10:39 am
Thanks for announcing!