andrewducker | Well that was interesting

It seems to me that part of the reason why discussions of sexual assault, get very heated very quickly is that some people view "assault" as a great big thing. If someone was assaulted then _something very bad happened_. This means that when something happens that they don't see as being that awful, then they object to the word "assault", because it doesn't emotionally resonate with them as feeling similar to the act that occurred. What happened wasn't assault because it wasn't that bad (someone got kissed when they didn't want to be, it was just a hug, etc.).

At the extreme end you end up with things like Whoopi Goldberg's defence of Roman Polanski because what he did wasn't "rape rape" - because that would make Roman Polanski evil, which would make her a bad person for liking him. At the milder end you have people arguing that kissing someone against their will isn't assault, because if it is then it means that people can be charged for drunkenly snogging someone they fancied in the pub without checking first.

In any case it means I end up with 70-odd comments while I'm away at a meeting on the other side of town, which I wasn't really expecting.

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Really? You didn't expect that to happen? I read the blog post you linked to and expected there to be volcanos of reaction from both sides (well, the various sides).

If the word assault doesn't seem to work very well for something in the opinion of the majority of people then maybe assault isn't the right word. Words only really have a meaning in as much as they represent what the majority of people understand them to mean afterall.

You try floating that next time round. I'll pay close attention to how it goes for you :->

Sorry, I don't follow.

To clarify:
Next time the "assault" discussion comes up, try telling the people who say that it is assault that they need a new word, because some people say it isn't actually assault. I shall watch and see what happens.

Err, ok.

What does that have to do with the validity of my argument?

My argument is: The meaning of words are defined by the majority usage. If in the view of the majority a word is being used in a way which jarringly does not fit then it suggests that the word is being misused.

My main point is about the meaning of words being determined by the majority usage, I don't want to shift attention away from that with this comment, but given that there seems to be a disagreement about what the word means I thought I'd look at the OED. Of course the OED doesn't dictate what words mean, it just records common usages, but it might be helpful.

Perhaps there is a clue here in the OED to how the terms are being used differently, one definition is "To make a violent hostile attack by physical means", which I think is how the majority of people normally use the term for situations like the one being discussed.

Another definition is the far broader legal definition, where as stated by other commenters, touching someone lightly on the arm in a conversation may be assault (as may a harsh word according to the OED).

So Amy definitely did assault the doctor according to the second definition, but did she according to the first? Probably not. The response that people have to the use of the word assault will depend on what they understand the term to mean. I suspect that in general usage by laymen the primary usage is the former rather than the latter.

You're wrong. Using the first definition means that if someone slips someone rohypnol and then rapes them, that wasn't sexual assault because it wasn't a "violent hostile attack". Which is very apparently completely wrong.

As usual I find your application here problematic, but in principle I actually agree.

I hate the fact that that conversation got turned into a semantic argument over the definition of sexual assault when I felt that totally missed the whole point: The point being that it seems as though an awful lot of people saw the thing that happened in that episode as not a big deal, or not uncomfortable, or not at least a bit not okay and uncategorically just funny or even worse, a positive sign of female sexual independence or what-the-hell-ever.

When I watched that scene I thought it was uncomfortable, and my opinion of Amy went down - not irrevocably, not permanently, not without hope of redemption - but I decided that I just didn't like her quite as much because of what she did. And I thought that was the way it was meant to be read.

If a person watched that scene and didn't feel that way, I have a problem with that, and with them, and with the culture/society/portrayal (although I actually think the issue in this instance is with the viewer and not the writer/director but that's subjective) that allowed that scene to seem 'okay' or even 'funny' (without reservation) to a significant proportion of people.

Now, I'm making an assumption here, from the fact that that article was written, that this is the case. I don't actually know what the overall on-balance reaction was to the scene - everyone I know and respect so far almost without exception has agreed that the scene made them uncomfortable.

That was what I wanted to say. Unfortunately, what happened by use of the hot-button word 'assault' was that some people said 'that wasn't assault because blah blah blah'. Now, in actuality, I don't care what your (not you personally) personal definition of assault is. I care that your reason for saying 'that's not assault' is because it didn't make you uncomfortable. Call it whatever you like. It should have made you uncomfortable.

I largely agree with this. I thought that the scene was quite clearly intended to be non-consensual, though relatively mild in the scheme of things; and that Moffatt was trying to say something important and serious about Amy. I *also* thought it was funny.

And although I have sympathy with the reading of this as sexual assault, I also pause. Because by the strict definition (it's sexual assault if you continue contact once the person has made clear their non-consent) then every time either my husband or I fancies a frolic, and the other person says 'no, sorry, too tired/busy/whatever' and we press the point, we're committing sexual assault. Which is clearly nonsense. So I think there has to be some sort of threshold here.

Even so, Amy probably passed that threshold, or certainly would have done if the plot hadn't overtaken her.

I think that you make a good point, and appreciate that it can become hard to feel good about being sexually assertive at all when your definitions get that sensitive. Which is why I'd like to see the argument move away from the words used and think more about the feelings caused.

I agree with you - and have had a conversation about this with Julie, who was worried about pressuring me or making me feel bad. And so I told her that she's absolutely fine to initiate things at any point in time she fancies, so long as she stops if I make it clear I'm not interested by getting grumpy. And as this gives her my consent, it's not assault :->

Of course, that's us. I'm well aware that most people don't spend as much time thinking/worrying/investigating this kind of stuff as we do.

When you want to initiate, you're in the mood. How do you back off from someone else's initiation while staying perky and positive?

That's a tricky one.

Never found it that tricky. The initiator doesn't go beyond a mild level of "stuff" before the other person is responding positively, and the initiated can go from saying "Naah, not today" (in a casual voice) to "Really not today" (in a slightly less casual voice). Body language and shared understanding allows for a lot of information exchange without actually saying much.

How do you avoid the initiator feeling let down?

You give them a hug?

Sometimes people don't get what they want. If Julie wants to play Mario and I'm not in the mood then she does something else. If I want to go for a walk outside togther and she fancies a quiet night in, then we don't go out. Such is life.

I don't think words are determined by majority usage. They're determined by the understanding that individuals have of them, and the interlinked understandings between groups of people. Sure, you want to make sure that the people you're talking to have a generally agreed understanding, but that's what discussions like this are there for - to argue over meaning and attempt to share your meaning with others so that common understanding can be found.

Well that was interesting

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