Well that was interesting

[andrewducker]

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.

Comments

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

As with most things, there's a strand of folk songs about this. Not much performed these days exactly because of this issue.

Basic plot. Boy meets girl in circumstances that would facilitate rumpy pumpy. Boy suggests same. Girl declines, citing the damage that the grass would do to her clothes; suggests he takes her back to her home. Boy escorts girl home (this bit often takes several verses). Girl goes inside, locks door, and proceeds to taunt boy for his lack of sexual courage (also often for several verses). One of them, or the narrator, suggests that next time these circumstances arise he should just get on with it.

[broin.livejournal.com]

Yep. Talked to a girl recently who didn't show any signs and then couldn't figure out why the boy didn't go for it anyway.

Or I've a Central European friend, for whom playing hard to get is absolutely proper and correct, no questions or quibbles.