Taking the Rage Bait: how to upend the argument “she was asking for it” . . . a lesson on consent

Let’s just say she was asking for it. Let’s just say she was begging for it. For the sake of argument, I’m going to give all the rage-baiting misogynists and Megyn Kelly’s of the world the benefit of the doubt… maybe they don’t think of themselves as rage-baiting misogynists, maybe they think they are making a valid argument, because “how on earth can you possibly turn it down?” If someone is asking for something, that means they want it, right? But, what if that “something” she was asking for wasn’t to participate in a gang bang with the fraternity brothers at a frat party in the bedroom of some guy she had a crush on after drinking all night? …Stay with me… What if that “it” she was asking for was to…let’s say… drive a car?

So, for the purposes of the argument I’m about to make. I’m going to pretend she was BEGGING to drive a car… Jane Doe was asking to drive all seven cars. Jane Doe was convinced that she wanted to drive seven cars alllll over town. Now, she wasn’t asking to drive a car before she started drinking or doing ketamine. She only wanted to drive the car (or all seven cars) after she had been drinking heavily and doing ketamine all night. Are you picturing it? Are you picturing the responses in the group chat where someone says that Jane Doe is willing to drive anyone’s car?

You can imagine a drunk and high girl, right? Can you picture her begging to drive a car? Maybe she’s laying there with keys in her hand. She’s pulling out her driver’s license, proving to you that she can drive.  But, she’s had a lot to drink and she’s been snorting ketamine… so her speech is slow, her legs a little wobbly and heavy. I would reckon that her vision is even a little blurred. Or, maybe she’s even a little non responsive… laying there, eyes glazed over.
Does the thought of letting her drive feel like a bad idea? Does the thought of letting her drive seem even a little dangerous? That's because we’ve all been made well aware of the dangers of drunk driving… laws have been passed, even. We ALL know it's a terrible idea because of simply how inebriated she is. 

The first state laws started being passed in 1906, but not strictly enforced until the 1970s. In 1980 Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), was formed by the mother of a 13 year old girl who was killed by a drunk driver who had multiple DUIs. MADD began to lobby congress for harsher penalties and launched nationwide educational campaigns. From there, you started to see entire high schools brought onto football fields where they were forced to watch theatrical reenactments of horrific accidents caused by drunk driving in the weeks before prom. These were in collaboration with police departments. This happened across the nation. It was a huge cultural and community effort to end the rampant drunk driving that was so fatal. MADD has reduced the number of fatal accidents by over 51% in the US. This is a huge success.

So, I'm going to just go out on a limb and assume that it is likely that everyone in that frat house would know what a terrible idea it is to allow Jane Doe to drive after how much she’s had to drink… They would probably know that even when they are at various levels of being drunk, too.  I bet that many people would’ve stepped in and taken the keys away from her. I bet you would’ve intervened, too. Because we all know that when our friend is too drunk to drive, the safe thing to do is NOT to let them drive.  

But, here’s the difference: Jane Doe wasn’t asking to drive anyone’s car. So, again, let’s just say she was asking for all 7 men to fuck her… What happened to Jane Doe being done TO her. She was the recipient of callous and dehumanizing behavior. I’ll say it again, she wasn’t the person doing, something was being DONE TO HER. She was a passenger, not a driver.  I only use this analogy to point out how obvious it is that her capacity was wildly limited. If it is plain to see that a drunk person’s capacity to drive a car is wildly reduced, then it should be plain to see that a drunk person’s capacity to consent to sex or even a gang bang is wildly reduced.

In Dr. Betty Martin’s Wheel of Consent we can break it down on the axes of person giving/ person receiving and person doing/person being done to. Why are these distinctions important? In a consent incident, it is important to define when something falls outside of the window of consent. Within the window of consent Jane Doe is allowing something to happen to her, but outside of the window of consent, she is a victim. So, how do we determine what that line is to determine if we are within or outside of the window of consent? It comes down to the pillars of consent: CAPACITY, INFORMATION, AGREEMENTS/BOUNDARIES. (Consent Academy has many brilliant courses devoted to teaching consent.) Capacity to consent is the most obvious pillar to understand, and for this argument about Jane Doe driving the car, I hope is the most clear. Jane Doe did not have the capacity to drive the car, nor did she have the capacity to consent to being gang banged. So, based on this one pillar alone, she is not within that window of consent. She is a victim. 

Is there nuance to this? Of course! Were those boys also intoxicated? Seems so. Does the drunk driver (person doing) become exonerated of the crime because he was too drunk? Absolutely not. So, Jane Doe was NOT the person driving/doing, she was the person something was being done to/passenger. And, if we look at these three pillars of consent, we’ve already established that her capacity was compromised…what about the information and her agreements and boundaries? 

The pillar of INFORMATION asks the question of the person to which something is being done, “Do I have the information I need in order to consent?” And for the person doing, “Am I being forthcoming about the information so that the person I am doing something to can consent?” This requires accountability. I would venture to guess that the gang bang was not agreed upon beforehand, nor did she agree beforehand to have her pussy advertised on the 57 person group chat. 
Is it possible to have an ethical and consensual gang bang? Hell yes! But, this is something that is negotiated well ahead of time, people are vetted with STI tests, AGREEMENTS and BOUNDARIES are made, and it is a highly curated and monitored situation. What information would you like before you agree to a gang bang? Would you want to know if any of them have been tested for STIs, or make sure they aren’t related to you? Do you want them to be anonymous? Do you want them to know what your identity is? Would you want to know if they are experienced? Are sober? Have a strong understanding of who is calling the shots? I can imagine myself having about a million questions. There is a lot of information to gather here. 

What agreements might be made or boundaries expressed in this context? Agreements and boundaries in this context might have looked like, “I agree to having sex with you, but the boundary is that I don’t want other people to watch.” Or, “I agree to vaginal sex, but anal is off limits.” Or, “I agree to sex, but I don’t want photos.” Or, “I agree to having sex with 7 people, but I need to know who they are ahead of time, whether they’ve been tested, make sure that they are all wearing condoms, using plenty of lube, I don’t want to be called names, I don’t want my pussy advertised on a group chat, and if I seem unresponsive, you need to stop immediately. And for after care, I need…”

If it is happening outside of that context, there may be coercion and a high probability for a consent incident. But, I doubt that agreements and boundaries factored in at all that night…and, therefor, she did not consent.

“Why didn’t she just say ‘NO’?” 

I would also be remiss if I failed to mention the influence of POWER DYNAMINCS in this situation. Power is woven into every aspect of these pillars of consent, and influences a person’s ability to consent. It is also imperative that both people are aware of the power differentials. Power dynamics can be obvious - things like physical strength or professional power in the workplace (boss/employee) where there is a clear distinction between someone having power OVER another. But, there are more nuanced situations that are important to bring awareness to. This includes things like systemic power structures that are more embedded into the fabric of daily life, that are so commonplace, we barely notice (if we are someone who holds power). They are certainly more noticeable if you are not benefiting from the systemic power. Systemic power structures include things like gender, race, class, and social hierarchies. 

If you are even reading this far into an article about consent, I’ll just go out on a ledge and assume that you are aware of racial injustice and how that plays out to benefit some and not others. In a consent conversation, bringing awareness to systemic injustices and power such as in race and gender, it can look like being the only person of color in a room full of white people or the only woman in a room full of men. To speak up or dissent might mean to ostracize yourself and that could hurt you in the long term. It becomes harder to say “no.” 

Social status and class can also be factors. Let’s say you are in a new relationship. You work as a barista and your new partner works as a hedge fund manager. Your partner has a lot of money and you struggle to pay bills. Maybe down the line, your partner starts treating you to things, like dinners, or even takes over one of your bills. This creates a power differential where to say “NO” to your partner might bring up fears that you won’t be able to continue to pay your bills because you have become dependent on them. So, it is imperative to bring awareness to that power dynamic so that you can trust that if you say NO, there won’t be repercussions. The same situation applies to social standing. If you moved to town to be with your partner. Your entire social life depends on your partner, and to break up with them might be social ostracization, it would stand to mean that you will likely become very agreeable so that you don’t suffer the consequences. These scenarios exist to paint the picture that both people should be aware of the power differentials, not just the person without the power. Because if I was offering to pay someone’s car payment, but that made them feel like they owed me, then I would not be able to trust them if they just said yes to whatever I asked. I need to hear their no in order to establish trust between us. Because, remember, consent is an ongoing conversation between people.

Let’s get back to Jane Doe, where she is wasted at a frat party, at a house owned by a literal brotherhood in which she is the lone female in a room full of men. The pressure to go along is high, to say the least. Not only is there physical power, there is also systemic power like gender and social power here. They are a club in which she is not a part of. They are on the inside and she is on the outside. Her ability to say “no” could mean punishment in the form of social ostracization. . . it is well known that this kind of coercion is rampant among fraternities and sororities. 

So, it is imperative of any group to be aware of their own inherent power over another in a consent conversation, whether it is about sex or something way less consequential, like what movie to watch. 

And, if you’re reading this and thinking, “Have I violated someone’s consent?” I would say that likely many of us have violated someone’s consent at one point in our lives… It isn’t about going into a shame spiral about it, which would be an explanation for the vehement defense of the brotherhood. It is important to look at your actions and evaluate whether you did something bad, but it is also important to look at the impact of your actions on other people. If someone is coming to you and saying, “My consent was violated” how do you respond? 

This next part is really important. How you respond to that statement matters how you respect that person’s humanity?

It’s about being able to take accountability and then course correct. Because if all these men were to actually look at themselves for a moment, they might see how they are complicit in this culture of violence against women - by not doing the self-examination, by not speaking up when they see a clear consent violation, by not doing any of the skill building to actually learn how not to rape someone. 

If we, as a culture, took accountability, it might look like educating ourselves on the nuances of consent, and seeking out skill building around consent. This means understanding how to have a consent conversation, how to identify in yourself your own inherent power. It means understanding nuance and that consent doesn’t exist in a check box “yes” or “no.” Consent exists in the gray area and we must expand our capacity to sit with the discomfort of the gray area and be able to make decisions accordingly and also be able to take accountability accordingly. Accountability means saying, “I did something bad,” and actually sitting with the discomfort that your actions harmed another person rather than rushing to defend yourself.  It means acknowledging that even good people are capable of doing bad things or causing harm. It might look like gathering up an entire high school on the football field and staging a drunken frat party putting the risk of raping someone on par with the risk of driving while drunk. If we can equate the raping with the driving as the persons doing, the people we should all know to not let drive and not let rape, then maybe we can equate the passengers in the car or the bystanders on the street with the young girls and women who are being raped. They are the victims and we need an entire police force to rally all the high schools across America to stage theatrical presentation about the dangers of rape culture and educate people how not to rape another person. We need a Mothers Against Drunk Driving version for rape culture that is led by the Fathers of the girls who have been raped. We need the men to finally stand up and take ownership of this disease in our culture to make sure that what happened at Cornell University isn’t a debate, isn’t confusing, and that it never happens again. We need better laws, policy changes that don’t protect the abusers.