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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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.

Well that was interesting

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