You Know How When People Explain Jokes, They’re Not Funny? OK, But This One Clueless Libertarian Got On The Subway, And…

Absolutely fabulous, Belle. You’ve taken EV completely apart in this response–carefully, thoughtfully, and passionately. I rarely have hopes of this sort for blog discussions, but in this case, I find myself really and truly hoping that EV will read this response of yours, and learn.

I should add that I agree with everything you say, and that I’m delighted to hear that you’re a Platonist. (So am I, in a hermeneutic sort of way.) My one quibble would be to suggest that citing an “atavistic adherence to taboos” really isn’t necessarily that bad of an argument against something. Taboos, like all traditions, often play an important role in preserving civilized society. Among other things, when adhered to, they often help guarantee that people like EV won’t casually open up “a window into [their] mind” which no right thinking person ought to want to, as you put it, look in to.

“He is a smarty-pants law professor, and I like smarty-pants law professors.” I had no idea such people existed, but then again the Internet is broadening my horizons on a daily basis.

What, if anything, is the moral significance of the fact that you (or, for that matter, I) might easily get along with EV in “real life”?

There are plenty of personable moral monsters. Marianna Torgovnick in her interesting meditation on the memory of World War II, The War Complex, writes about how Albert Speer, among the major Nazis, had such a quick and easy ride to the top and seemed so relatively attractive to post-war, anti-Nazi audiences. Central to Speers’ success with both Nazis and anti-Nazis, Torgovnick argues, is class. Speer was from a good background, was smooth, smart and personable. Utterly unlike Eichmann, Goering and most of the other leading Nazis. But that oughtn’t confer any moral advantage to him.

Now before Godwin comes after me, I’m not comparing EV to a Nazi. I am arguing that he’s not one iota superior to Ann Coulter or any of the less couth proponents of torture in American life today, even if I’d likely much prefer having a beer with him than with them. (I’m also not suggesting that Belle is arguing for EV’s likability as a morally mitigating factor…I’m just a bit puzzled by why she places such emphasis on it in this post.)

Yes, I am also puzzled by the emphasis on potential likeability. I’ve enjoyed having a beer with all kinds of people but I don’t feel the need to reassure the world that it’s quite possible I’d really enjoy having that beer with torture advocates.

Ah the ‘good chap’ theory of moral character. “That Mosley fellow is quite the charmer, just don’t get him started on the jews”. How outrageously middle class of you.

I have to say that I had a much higher opinion of law professors before I discovered the blogosphere. Between EV, Althouse, and Glenn Reynolds, I find myself wondering whether creepiness is considered a bug or a feature in that profession.

Don’t cast aspersions on the profession per se; it may just be an artifact of the medium. I’ve noticed that blogging sometimes elicits rather sloppy patterns of reasoning in (some) individuals who are used to the intellectual safeguards of peer review and personal reflection.

Present company excepted, of course.

“I’ve noticed that blogging sometimes elicits rather sloppy patterns of reasoning in (some) individuals who are used to the intellectual safeguards of peer review and personal reflection.”

EV had to have Mark Kleiman explain to him the quite elementary reasons why torture is a bad thing. Sloppy is not in it. As Belle says, he’s got his head thoroughly wrapped up in a gauze bandage. Unlike her, I think it’s a good thing that it’s on display for all to see.

if you’re referring to the Thomas who is a regular commenter at CT–

what took you so long to figure out that he is a despicable moral monster, and an apologist for every form of right-wing evil?

Most of us got it on his first post.

Again, I wonder why Volokh gets special privelege in this area over, say, Glenn Reynolds, who has been known to employ similar “I wonder” rhetoric to endorse and defend vile ideas ranging from torture to invasion and mass slaughter to government suppression of dissenting speech. Is it somehow obvious to all concerned that Eugene Volokh is a super-swell guy in person while Reynolds is a total dick? It’s not obvious to me at least, but Belle is super-careful to note that she thinks Eugene is a nice guy while Instapundit is a wanker.

There’s a reason I dwell on this, and that’s because I think Belle’s first response was the correct response. You don’t respond to morally autistic arguments with reasonable explanations of why Crazy Fucker X is wrong; that elevates the crazy fucker’s craziness to a level of respectability it simply doesn’t deserve. We respond to people like Charles Johnson and John Hinderaker with ridicule because that’s what their ideas merit – no matter how charming they may be in person. A better vocabulary doesn’t make a better idea, I don’t think.

Class solidarity! I like that!

Lawyers Of The World, Unite!

Let us build bright minarchical future together, brothers and sisters! Down with the government, up with the lawsuits!

I never really appreciated how bad this was until I had long hair

I had a conversation about that with females friends of mine some times ago : the long hair seems to be a real, potent, weirdo-magnet.

I know Eugene and can attest that he’s not only brilliant, but extremely charming. I can’t imagine an intelligent, decent, person who wouldn’t enjoy his company.

It’s easy to limit one’s posts to views that everybody knows are true. I think it’s good that Eugene is willing to blog about things he’s not sure about and to explore tentative ideas. By exposing these ideas to criticism we can learn why he might be wrong, and also how shoddy many conventional criticisms actually are. We’re all likely to come away a little smarter.

And, Eugene is quite willing to accept criticism and change his mind when he agrees with the criticsm. That’s more than I can say for most bloggers.

He’s a really, really, really, smart guy who wants to improve his theories and knowledge. Sometimes he’s wrong, but he’s always rational about issues. And, I think he’s right more often than the average CT poster, and MUCH MUCH MUCH more often than the average CT commenter.

Calling him some kind of moral monster, as some have done on these threads, is ridiculous and outrageous. It tells me much more about the writer than about Eugene.

…not only brilliant, but extremely charming…

I agree that nihilism is cool and nihilist lawyer is double-plus cool, but he needs to improve his style a little bit. Nihilistic thought has to be expressed causally.

“It’s easy to limit one’s posts to views that everybody knows are true. I think it’s good that Eugene is willing to blog about things he’s not sure about and to explore tentative ideas. By exposing these ideas to criticism we can learn why he might be wrong, and also how shoddy many conventional criticisms actually are. We’re all likely to come away a little smarter.”

Posted by Gil

Strawman alert! Extinguish all smoking material!

Regarding civility: I’d just like to point out that civility is overrated. Sometimes the only rational response is “ARE YOU CRAZY? What sort of moron are you?”.

A civil and rational response merely legitimizes the insanity. I consider conversations about preemptive nuclear strikes, the legitimacy of torture, and the “Asking for it” school of rape-excusal to be among them.

If — just as a useful example — someone grabs your ass on the subway, politely explaining to them the legal consequences of that act, as well as the philosophical roots of those laws, isn’t going to deter their behavior. However, there are certain places on the human body where one can deliver a minimum of force for a very powerful response.

And then you have them arrested. Admittedly, not all victims are capable of doing either, but I understand the fool who tried to fondle my sister-in-laws’ breasts had to have pins in his foot, and will never regain his previous range of hearing.

Obviously, I agree 100% with Belle.

I do wonder, though, if the original poster simply didn’t (with, granted, a staggering degree of cluelessness about the way people talk and feel about stuff here in the streets beyond the ivory walls of the Tower of Boy Thought) misspeak. In his update he writes —

“Even if you feel entirely unaroused (neither pleasantly aroused nor, more likely, unpleasantly aroused) by someone caressing your private parts in public, you may feel quite upset by the likelihood — not certainty, but likelihood — that this other person is deriving some arousal from the action, and from your involuntary involvement in the action.”

“Unpleasantly aroused” almost seems to suggest we’re meant to construe “aroused” not to mean “pleasantly sexually stimulated” but in a kind of neurological sense — so that “intense disgust and horror and a visceral feeling of violation unmitigated by any sexual response” counts as a kind of “arousal”.

Thus, pleasant arousal, the kind that makes us horny, would be one end of a spectrum, revulsion and trauma the other end, and feeling unattachedly neutral would be in the middle. Then we’d read the passage as saying, “sexual assault is when you are involuntarily touched either in a way which makes you feel intensely (usually bad, but even good would be bad), or where, even if you remain dispassionate, cool, neutral, and unaffected, it bugs you that your body is being exploited for someone else’s jollies.”

That seems to be the only way you could read the post where it would make any sense. Read that way, it’s actually a pretty reasonable definition. It is, of course, a kind of bizarre semantic violence to read “aroused” that way. But there’s also something very telling about that reading of “aroused”, if it is intended.

In the Tower of Boy Thought, any kind of physical feeling — any assertion by the body of its primacy, in which it has the temerity to occulde the workings of the mind — is a kind of assault. In that Tower the disinction between the good arousal of horniness, and the bad “arousal” of being kicked in the head by a mule or falling into a nest of tarantulas, which for most folks is kinda significant, is secondary.

Belle’s rhetorical strategy notwithstanding, I believe the appropriate response to muddled thinking is clear thinking, and I offered that with my last comment.

Belle attempts to correct the mistaken impression she left with her first post with the latest, but, while there’s much I can agree with, she suggests, as the post continues, that she hasn’t realized her error. So above we see Belle admit that an unwanted physical response in women is possible, yet she insists that this additional harm inflicted on these women (by the fact of physical response) is one that the law shouldn’t and doesn’t aim to avoid, without, as I see it, offering any good reasons for that position. Worse, she also immediately links this unwanted physical reaction to the offensive suggestion that some rape or sexual assault victims secretly wanted or secretly enjoyed it, which is to say, she restates her confusion. There’s no reason for the connection she offers, but it is this connection, it seems to me, that is part of the confusion and guilt and anger that these women feel. They’re told that no woman secretly wants or secretly enjoys rape–which is true–and they’re told that this means that no woman has an involuntary sexual response to rape–which isn’t true–and in fact they’re told that these are the same idea. What can they conclude, given that they had an involuntary sexual response? That they must have enjoyed it or wanted it or there must be something wrong with them–they should feel guilty or confused or angry about the involuntary response. Again, I’m not sure why that’s what anyone would want.

All that can be avoided by simply recognizing that saying someone had an involuntary and undesired physical or sexual response to an attack doesn’t mean or suggest that she secretly wanted the attack. Full stop. There’s no need for the claim that these women are “extraordinarily nonstandard” or for anything else to compound the harm.

So wait. You don’t think there’s a factor of involuntary arousal in cases of rape? Let me ask you this:

Why are so many rape victims ashamed? There is no other crime that has as much shame on the part of victims. Other forms of assault don’t induce so much shame, and other forms of sexual assault don’t, either. Even a comparable experience of being subjected to someone else’s sexual gratification doesn’t induce so much shame on the part of the vitim. If someone exposes him/herself to you and masturbates in front of you, you’re more likely to joke about it later to friends than to be afraid to report the crime to the police.

So what is it about rape that inspires so much shame?

Biologically, most women can’t be penetrated without being aroused, except by things harder than a penis. So is it completely unreasonable to suggest that forced arousal plays some part in the process of rape and in the emotional aftermath? Is it completely unreasonable to suggest that because rape has been a necessary means of procration for many women throughout human and mammalian history, there is a biological response of arousal to the process that still doesn’t make it okay?

I ask this because there was a case not too long ago of a rape suspect’s defense being that his penis was too large for him to be able to rape someone without them being aroused. He had a doctor come to testify as to the truth of his claims. A DOCTOR! Shouldn’t that doctor have been able to say to that man that just because the woman was aroused doesn’t mean she gave you permission? Isn’t it a good thing to acknowledge the role that forced arousal has in sex crimes, and then to say that arousal is not consent?

Barbar, grep on “non-standard” in the above post.

(O.T.: Cutting-and-pasting “Barbar” I notice that the first “b” comes out capitalized, though it is appears uncapitalized in the “posted by” line. Odd software decision.)

I’d also like to say that if you can’t detect the sarcasm in Thomas’s comment, you’re a worthless excuse for a human being.

99: If it can be determined that you enjoyed it (dying declaration, etc.) does that attenuate the harm, or charge? No.

Who exactly has argued this?

No one as far as I know. That was my point (In Maine a person is guilty of murder if he or she intentionally or knowingly causes the death of another human being, engages in conduct that manifests a depraved indifference to the value of human life and causes death, or intentionally or knowingly causes another human being to commit suicide by the use of force, duress, or deception (Me. Stat. tit. 17-A § 201 [1996]). Maine also has a felony murder statute. It does not divide murder into degrees. from Answer).

I’m not a legal scholar, so someone may have gotten a charge reduced because they claimed less harm was done because the murder was pleasant, but I’m not aware of it.

Thus, questioning the degree of sensual stimuli experienced by the victim is unnecessary in finding harm (at least in assualt cases, even though there is plenty of evidence that people derive sensual pleasure from physical pain). The legality of consensual S&M probably varies by state, but punching a stanger rarely causes people to wonder if the victim experienced arousal. Why this standard should be applied to unwanted sexual advances is still opaque to me.

I agree w/ Seth’s breakdown in post #40. Personally, I am starting to think 2) is more likely. Based on Belle’s post, it sound like she thinks EV falls under 1). Given that, I don’t understand Belle’s strongly negative response to Thomas. Quite a few commenters have argued or suggested that EV secretly wants to link a victim’s sexual arousal w/ consent and Thomas’s original comment seemed much more directed at them than at Belle.

It seems like Thomas is misunderstanding Belle’s argument in this post, but I don’t see much disagreement in their two positions on the issue of unwanted touching and EV’s moral character. What am I missing Belle?

99 in 41: I’m not a legal scholar, so someone may have gotten a charge reduced because they claimed less harm was done because the murder was pleasant, but I’m not aware of it.

I didn’t see EV as arguing that it should be a mitigating circumstance, though if one were to argue that unwanted stimulus.

And in 42: I wasn’t trying to correlate women who enjoy being raped with people who enjoy being punched in the face

Fair enough. But Thomas is quite right, IMO, to very specifically make the point that unwanted stimulus is not “enjoyment” of rape, that some people are being rather too cavalier about whether they’re eliding that distinction or simply accusing EV of doing so, and that the difference matters. (And as much as I’ve thought EV guilty of bad faith in the past — and I often do — this is one case where someone accusing him of eliding the distinction between unwanted stimulus and “enjoyment” would need to show their work.)

Some victims of rape (or other non-wanted sexual contact) get sexually aroused…

Everyone here is stating this as a fact, but is it really a fact? Can I see some proof, please. Is this “some” like 20% or like 0.5%?

Where in the VC threads on this is public nudity explained as being offensive in itself? i.e. being naked as being similar to exhibitionism (flashing or streaking or masturbation) or public sex, or unwanted touching? I’ve read through most of the set, and seem to only find the assumption as a given that nudity is equivalent to sex, or that nudity is shameful (isn’t that a religious assumption?).

I ask because while I’m an American who has spent 95%+ of my life in the US, I’ve spent time in places where casual nudity exists. Or call it “logical nudity,” situations where not wearing clothes can be more comfortable than wearing clothes, therefore its merely a choice. i.e. Hot springs resorts (Japan), beaches and saunas (Europe). In the US the only place I’ve seen this is the Burningman festival.

For me, I found that after the first minute the general lack of clothes became just another type of clothing. Instead of (skin-tight) speedos or swimsuits (like in the US) they’re wearing skin.

Of course, there, no one group of people stands out as being naked or not (women, men, weight, age distribution). (Hmm, in those places, it’d be difficult for a perv to act- no trenchcoat, no surprise, no hiding frottage.)

In describing this to US folks, the negative reactions and worries were far more about looks than anything sexual. “Ewww, you saw *old* people naked?” “you saw *fat* people naked?” are what I heard. (My answer- I’m happy to know I’ll enjoy hot springs as much in 50 years [or 50 lbs heavier] as I do today.)

So, what % of fear of nudity in the US about sex vs. about beauty and aesthetics? i.e. is there a fear that seeing naked people won’t be sexy, because, well, bits are bits- they’re not mystic and powerful, they’re ordinary, they’re funny?

The VC threads could just as easily be: “Public toplessness, exhibitionism, and groping…” i.e. one is orthogonal: the % of your skin covered is only lightly related to sexual activity.

So, if there’s been a multiple-person discussion in one of these threads about the offense of nudity in and of itself, which thread? If not, why not?

So above we see Belle admit that an unwanted physical response in women is possible, yet she insists that this additional harm inflicted on these women (by the fact of physical response) is one that the law shouldn’t and doesn’t aim to avoid, without, as I see it, offering any good reasons for that position.

Yet it seems quite a reach to me to suggest that the wish to avoid that particular kind of harm has played any significant role in the formation of public attitudes and the law surrounding unwanted sexual touching. I thought Volokh was trying to understand the basis of our actual social practices – not some social practices that we could or should have.

Some of the people who post and comment here are lawyers and/or legal scholaras. So I ask them: Is there any evidence at all in the legislative or judicial history related to these laws, or in the writings on the common law which preceded them, that the prevention of uncomfortable and unwanted arousal has played a discernable role in motivating the laws?

Matt, Belle was making an analogy. Is there nothing that we can take away from the analogy at all? Or do people who are traumatized when someone taps them on the shoulder have something (whatever it is) in common with women who experienced involuntary sexual response as a result of a rape or sexual assault? Which parts are we to find analogous? How is using the analogy inappropriate, if that’s what you mean?

I think Matt did a typically nice job of stating Belle’s argument on the other thread: “It seems to me that the complaint is that Volokh’s account of the basis for such laws is off base, and rests on a false and offensive assumption (that, in a non-negligible number of cases, women are aroused by involuntary sexual touching).”

Perhaps we should debate whether the “neglible” number of women with different experiences are non-standard? That’d be edifying, wouldn’t it?

47 and 48,
The discussion so far here or on VC doesn’t seem to be going into physiology.

Are there aspects of sexual arousal that are entirely controlled by thought and not simply as a response to direct stimulus to nerves? If not, then that the body has a reflexive response to direct stimuli isn’t relevant to consent.

I’d argue that evidence shows arousal can be simply a reflex. This is because people incapable of thinking about sex- a person in a coma- can be made aroused (male or female). A paralyzed person can be aroused, even if the signal cannot get to and from the brain- but they can’t feel the arousal: its a local loop.

Or consider the ‘cure for hysteria’ in sanitoriums (ala Kellogg’s) 120 years ago: one treatment was essentially a vibrator. It would cause arousal whether or not the patient knew what the machine did, or knew what sex was.

There’ll be a bell-curve of how much reflexive response nonconsentual nerve stimulation will cause- but this doesn’t mean that one person consents more than another.

If you salivate because you smell food, that doesn’t imply consent to being force fed. That there’ll be a bell-curve of how much people will salivate when smelling food before being force fed doesn’t imply a bell-curve of consent.

Sexual arousal during assault is nonsense. It’s offense to suggest otherwise. But there is a world of difference between sexual advances and rape. Belle’s point seems to be that unwanted sexual advances are a prelude or starting point to rape. I disagree. I see inappropriate and unwanted sexual advances as differently motivated than rape.

I have a scenario for people to consider. Let’s assume an American soldier is being held captive by Iraqi insurgents. To torture him, a gay Iraqi soldier pounds him in the ass with his penis until he reveals the location of a secret American base.

This might seem morally repugnant to some people, but I’m curious as to why, exactly. In particular: to what extent does the possibility of the American soldier being sexually aroused by his treatment play a role in how offended we are by the Iraqi soldier’s behavior?

I’m interested in some serious discussion, please.

Mr. Lindgren, I can’t speak for Belle, but in re this:

“See Catharine A. MacKinnon, Sexuality, Pornography, and Method: “Pleasure under Patriarchy,” in FEMINISM & POLITICAL THEORY 207, 232 (Cass R. Sunstein ed., 1990) ([MacKinnon] stating that women’s physical responses are socially conditioned and that verbal responses saying that they are not aroused may be more accurate).”

Would you say that, by MacKinnon’s asserting the existence of unwanted, unconsented measurable signs of physical arousal, Catharine MacKinnon would fail that course too.

EV fails feminism IMO not b/c he acknoledges the possibility of involunatry arousal. That’s there. It’s a fact – it’s possible. Feminists don’t deny reality (AFAIK).

EV fails feminism b/c he starts w/ TWO PREMISES for penalizing genital contact – arousal in the assailant, and (involuntary)arousal in the victim. I don’t know why he didn’t go further. Then he punts on the assailant, and talks about the victim. EV ends up focusing on the victim’s potential arousal as the motivating factor for criminalization – not the assailant’s intent, which he inexplicably abandons.

See what he did there now? You start w/ a discussion of a variety of ways of looking at sexual arousal leading to criminalization of conduct, and end up with focusing on the victim. Almost like rape-fantasy fiction now, not a scholarly analysis of sexual assault.

But that’s just my take, and I’m a piss-poor feminist.

“I invite male CT readers to just go around and start asking women they know if anyone has ever felt them up on public transit, or in a crowded mall, or a bar. I’m waiting. What, all of them?! That almost sounds like a serious societal problem we should do something about! Something like…embracing feminism”

I agree that this is a serious societal problem; I agree that embracing feminism is something we should do. But, I suspect that many of the men who do this already know that it’s wrong, and don’t care. I also suspect that very few men do this. (Since a similar claim elsewhere brought on a deluge of idiots: please note that there is no contradiction here, as a few men could be doing a lot of groping.)

“The mitigating factor, if so it be, for EV is that he is a man accustomed only to thinking about the problems and experiences of men.”

This almost sounds like you think that unwanted touching and rape (of men) are not problems that men face. But you just mentioned prison rape, so you don’t think that. So, where’s the mitigation?

“Thus, although touching someone’s toes or feet is not usually regarded as sexual in nature, a man who accosts women and touches or licks their feet should be prosecuted as a sexual assailant. I’ve actually had this happen to me on the street in New York! I had fallen prey to the open-toed sandals with bare legs in winter trend. I kicked him in the head really hard and he fell into a gutter full of slush. Most gratifying.”

I’m afraid this gives me pause. Is someone who licks my feet, to get off, a sexual assailant to the same degree as someone who grabs my privates? I wouldn’t have thought so, but I can only defer to your unfortunate range of experience here.

While I think Volokh was totally off-base about the involuntary-sexual-arousal thing, I am sympathetic to the project of trying to understand what might be a coherent basis for laws concerning behaviors that span a range of yuckiness, intent, and effect.

A guy exposing himself or beating off in a subway car surely is committing a crime. How about if he’s in his thirtieth floor apartment, and may or may not have forgotten to close the curtains?

Naked at a nude beach, clearly ok. Beating off there? No. Getting an erection?

Public breast-feeding obviously should not be a crime, but some people inexplicably find it yucky. Why shouldn’t they want it to be a crime?

Urine is sterile, and harmless, and exposure-with-intent-to-pee has no sexual element, and yet…

In particular: to what extent does the possibility of the American soldier being sexually aroused by his treatment play a role in how offended we are by the Iraqi soldier’s behavior?

I’m going to go out on a limb and say: None. To no extent. If the Iraqi gave the American a perfect anaphrodisiac beforehand, so it was guaranteed that the American wouldn’t be sexually aroused at all, it wouldn’t be even one bit less offensive. Or more offensive, for that matter. Similarly, in the crazy hypothetical Bizarro world* where being raped isn’t generally a turn-on, rape wouldn’t be any less worthy of punishment.
* AKA: reality

Similarly, in the crazy hypothetical Bizarro world* where being raped isn’t generally a turn-on, rape wouldn’t be any less worthy of punishment.

Intriguing. This seems logical, but it’s so dazzlingly counter-intutitive that I’m going to have to sleep on this. I’m thinking about organizing a conference where some of the sharpest logical minds in the world can get together and debate this. You’re invited, as is Thomas, of course.

Barbar: if it didn’t have to be spelled out, I wouldn’t…

Thanks, barbar. I do look forward to the conference–perhaps we can get together and you can give me some pointers on the “biting response” thing.

little heroes,

Putting your seeming anger to one side, I have trouble determining how much we disagree substantively.

1. We both agree that involuntary sexual arousal exists.

2. I assume that you agree with me that (as I commented above in #40) Belle is “dead right that rape statutes are not” “based in part on unwanted, unconsented sexual arousal in those who” are the victims.

3. You offered no opinion on my other substantive statement, but you might or might not agree that “obscenity or public sex statutes may indeed be based in part on unwanted, unconsented sexual arousal in those who would see the public sex.”

4. If you accept point 3 (which you may not), then I would expect that you would agree with me that there should be a narrower scope for this concern for involuntary arousal than even Eugene’s revised position would allow.

christopher m — Thomas doesn’t have a defense of Volokh — he just hates the stupid hypocritical feminazis who are attacking Volokh, and so he thinks he’s come up with some sharp point that proves their hypocrisy, and which has him coming out as the real feminist to boot.

I dunno much about Volokh beyond what I hear — mostly objectionable — but someone mentioned that he was a “prodigy.” So I looked him up: even taking into account his complaints about ” judicial citations of Wikipedia, arguing that information found on Wikipedia may be unreliable” I found this to be possibly germane:

He is a critic of what he sees as the overly broad operation of American workplace harassment laws, including those relating to sexual harassment.

Teh sex thing . . . what’s with that? And torture too? Someone have issues with power?

the “involuntary arousal” concern:

i have been involved with two women (that i know of) who were raped (that i know of). both were raped when around 13. another friend was gang-raped in a hotel room, when around 19.i also worked for a rape counselling service, for a time, and discussed the issue with the staff there. this is still anecdotal, though.

both women i was involved with when discussing the issue, said that one aspect of the event that really bothered them, was involuntary arousal. one of them felt complicit in the act, through bodily participation. in her case, it was because the (older) man had taken steps to ensure arousal, through appearing non-threatening, and through petting her genitals (i.e. through some form of anticipatory foreplay) before moving on to rape.

the other woman was forcibly raped, over the course of an afternoon, locked in a room with the owner of business where she worked. she was 12 at the time. due, in part, to the force and aggression involved, she was less capable of revisiting the memories. her sense of complicity in the act through bodily arousal, mingled with her memories of fear, force and crying, manifested as a variety of difficulties with standard sexual relationships.

in both cases, involuntary arousal seemed to the sufferer like a betrayal of the victim, by the victim – that her body had sided with her rapist, to some minor extent – and led to deep and lasting depression.

in the third case i know of, the woman who was gang-raped developed a polarised sense of sexual relations, rapidly alternating between behaving as an extremely promiscuous drunk and a hyper-vigilant prude, incapable of managing touch at all. from discussions i had with her, this was her way of relating to the fact that she had against her will been made complicit through elementary physiological arousal, in her rape, beating and humiliation. her sense of sexual identity was (seemingly) inextricably bound to this event, she could not access it without alcohol, and when she did, her ideas about her own sexuality required her to sleep with whomever was available. much damage had been done.

it seems this is not uncommon, nor would it be, i imagine. many of the simple states of arousal are reflexive and tactile, and the dissociation of person that so often accompanies a violent attack (detaching from the event) takes time to occur. in that time, while detachment grows, one can register simple tissue arousal.

be aware: i am not talking about a mind and body arousal. i am talking about the kind of ‘arousal’ that arises when tissue becomes congested with blood, arising from contact, and nerves in that tissue are stimulated by the compression. unavoidable. not particularly long-lasting either, i imagine.

in the welter of sensations, fears and input that follows, this is often lost, but such awarenesses (the awareness of ‘bodily complicity’) often surface weeks, months or years after the event, and add a further layer of shame and trauma to an already horrible experience.

it’s seemingly perfectly normal, may play some part in the event, has disturbing, saddening and unpleasant consequences, and in no way implies consent. in fact, the lack of control implied by some form of bodily arousal often causes the victims to doubt their own resistance, and leads to years of psychological trouble. if anything, it’s a bad thing, and compounds the original act.

and it can happen to guys too.

thought-experiment: imagine you have a seven-year old daughter. you’re tied up. she’s raped to death in front of you. while this happens, an attractive woman (party to the crime) fellates you. you will get aroused, to some extent, or at the very least register sensory data that you associate with arousal. this does not imply your consent to the act of killing.

so the issue of arousal in abusive sexual acts is irrelevant. it may happen it may not. in that context, it’s like farting, digesting or yawning. it’s not relevant. arousal does not equal complicity, nor consent. the root issue in abusive sexual acts is that of coercion of one person, by another, in service of the first person, and against the will of the second person. this infringement is made more serious by the relative (male to female) physical capacities (assuming a male-female transgression), by the nature of the service required (personal, intimate, invasive, physical, emotional) and by the nothing else.

I think there’s a lot of types of ‘arousal’ floating around this topic, and they’re not being properly defined.

simple physiological arousal, ranging from nerve-ends, to lubrication, to whatever, might occur in some cases. co-factors in this might be the nature of the assault, the sense of fear, the sense of danger (both as a stimulant or an inhibitor)and an endless number of others. this is interesting from a specialist point of view, but entirely tangential to the underlying good or bad involved.

i also tend to think that speculating on it, brooding on it, or otherwise perseverating on the topic, if you’re not a medical specialist or a psychologist, can be seen to be at least a little dodgy.

“Teh sex thing . . . what’s with that? And torture too? Someone have issues with power?”
Posted by paul

A Jim Henley quote from the original post on Volokh: “I’ve always considered his specialty to be showy moral handwringing on the way to siding with Power anyway. The further you get from standard Republican issues like guns and university speech codes, the more likely he is to arrive, with exquisite regret, at the conclusion that the State, particularly when helmed by George W. Bush, must have its way.”

How can you think someone who excuses torture is likeable?

He is a critic of what he sees as the overly broad operation of American workplace harassment laws, including those relating to sexual harassment.

Don’t be such a buzzkill, Paul. We’re in the exquisite, ethereal realm of intellectual inquiry here! Stop bringing us down with all this “context” and “history” and “real-world implications”! Why do you want to silence a great thinker when he’s on a roll?

[/snark]

I recall that back when Volokh was entertaining the possibility that gay men really do “recruit” other men into their ranks, a number of people pointed out to the esteemed professor that the “recruitment” angle was part & parcel of the religious right’s antigay rhetoric. In other words, his purely abstract “thought experiment” (which was, itself, based on a complete absence of any empirical data) might have implications for real people in the real world. EV’s response was essentially that he didn’t intend to be providing aid and comfort to the homophobes, and if that happened…well, tough shit.

I’m probably overgeneralizing here in respect to Volokh, but most libertarian-types get their introduction to the philosophy from Ayn Rand’s fiction.

In both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, Rand’s “love scenes” read more like sexual pathology. Rand portrayed rape as a ritual of ownership and the correct relationship of Industrial Man with his women.

Rand’s women are anti-feminist vessels for the savage power of rich, brilliant men.

That’s a switcheroo, Citizen K!.

Now you are blaming the “victim” for insufficient hostility to EV. (And you coulda fooled me — Belle’s hostility is barely concealed by a ladylike saccharine smile.)

This thread gets better and better with more psychodrama at every turn.

raw data: The confusion you feel is common among conservatives – it’s akin to the problem that Ptolemaic astronomers had reconciling their observations with their theories.

that first paragraph should have been italicized, sorry

mpowell, 96#, expresses my sentiments perfectly.

This whole round discussion of Volokh at CT is, like:

Belle: OMG, WTF is Volokh talking about here? Has he gone completely bonkers? I had him down as this geeky lawyer type of the goofy-libertarian variety, with his desire to analyze absolutely everything down to first principles occassionally leading him to ludicrous arguments with ill-conceived conclusions. But here he’s writing as if he’s inhabiting Bizarro World, totally disconnected from reality. Was I that wrong?

CT Crowd: OMG, Belle, you totally ripped this moral monster a new one! Except, how could you possibly think well of him in the first place? Seriously, you might as well go have a beer with Ann Coulter ‘cos there’s obviously no difference between them except Volokh’s more sinister because he hides his kow-towing to Power and other assorted kinds of right-wing kookery behind seemingly intelligent veneer that never fooled anyone to begin with, which is why we haven’t been reading him these last five years! It pains us to even discuss creeps like him, but anyway, well done, Belle.

Belle: Uhm, guys? Would you like tone it down or something? This smug moral superiority shtick you’re doing totally creeps me out. See, he even admitted his error, although in very geeky dry prose, still rather disconnected from reality it seems. But anyway, you know, there’s always lots of intelligent, interesting people holding opinions we find crazy or twisted, and pretending that they are monsters outside bounds of civilised discourse would just make us appear smug idiots who’re only good at shouting people down. You know that, right, guys? Guys?

CT Crowd: Belle, way to go with another stellar post about this crazed, morally depraved Volokh person! Erm, what are you hinting about with your repeated insistence about him probably being a basically decent, intelligent, interesting person? We know you know better. Remember, he endorsed torture! Is it a politeness thing, Belle? Is it about those friends you have in common? We’re totally not getting it, but apart from that, stellar post, Belle.

Citizen K,
Are you presuming that I am a ‘conservative?’
Why?
Because I know the meaning of a question mark?

What I like about Volokh is the genuine curiosity that informs his blogging. You really feel that while reading him, no mistake about it.

Really? That’s what you feel? I feel as if he’s an ideologist who “speculates” and “questions” and always comes out with the predictable result. If you have a counter example, where Eugene has a thought experiment that would piss off a right winger or comes to a conclusion that strongly contradicts a Bush administration policy, then I’ll admit I’m wrong. But quibbles about minor civil liberties stuff doesn’t qualify. I need some major heresy.

raw data: It’s common for “conservatives” to have a world-view in which “liberals” follow a silly script invented by “conservative” ideologists. These “conservatives” get confused when we fail to follow the script and accuse us of inconsistency.

dale’s descriptions seem a little detailed to be an authentic translation.

since this thread is full of so much bullshit and there are no experts who can authoritatively state anything useful about physiological arousal i’ll just leave my own little story.

men in their sleep every night have erections in cycles independent of any kind of sexual gratification. translate this into the waking world with an example of a man on a bus getting an erection, presumably because of the vibration or movement clothes to rub against the genitals. totally outside of awareness i might add until he becomes aware because it is uncomfortable, and it’s true there is a feeling but equating it with sexual arousal is quaint.

now im sure there are many men who can relate to not deriving physical pleasure from mechanical stimulation from lack of positive stimuli. first we’re establishing that the idea that some mechanical act does not directly elicit gratification. following from that i will assert that a complex of a situation will most likely inhibit or alter the experience. I can assure you if someone were to perform fellatio on me unwillingly that it would feel gross not pleasurable and it would extend even to the feeling itself, most likely because the brain has the power to color feelings in just the way described.

but really you could take the intuition pump further and pretend the person has no relavent feeling at all, perhaps because of paralysis. there would surely be some shame and anger for being complicit, or self hatred for being targetted because of a false belief that they brought it on themself, or simply regret that things could have gone differently if they weren’t powerless or a coward.

certainly i would expect the feeling to be a lot stronger because the actual physical feeling of being violated would certainly cause a lot more disgust.

i am a male speaking from my own physical being but im pretty sure that the belief that simple physical stimulation of the clitoris directly causes positive physical arousal is bullshit, and irrelevant.

hi shai.

i appreciate scepticism about anecdotal evidence. nevertheless, that leaves me daubed with the implication that i made up some crappy story, claiming rape, in order to win a point on an internet comments thread. that’s pretty cheesy. to clear the air (from my side):

the descriptions i recounted arose from two long-term relationships and one close friendship. the matters came up because they affected the sexual relationships in the former (ultimately leading directly to the dissolution of at least one of them), and the in the latter case, because the friend noticed that her friend (my partner) was (seemingly) comfortable talking to me about this.

what i haven’t included in my rather dry re-telling is the years of crying involved in the re-telling, the nights and days of frustration and misunderstanding, the eventual devolution of the personal relationship into an act of ongoing counselling, and the sheer difficulty with which the narratives were finally acquired. unfortunately, the medium doesn’t allow for that.

as for physiological arousal – i restate what i originally stated, and which you might have missed:

“i am not talking about a mind and body arousal. i am talking about the kind of ‘arousal’ that arises when tissue becomes congested with blood, arising from contact, and nerves in that tissue are stimulated by the compression. unavoidable. not particularly long-lasting either, i imagine.”

i think that’s pretty clear. by the way, i’m not necessarily talking about ‘clitoral arousal’ here. generally, there’s more to simple arousal than merely that organ. tissues react to stimuli as they are organized to do, like it or not. test it by poking yourself in the forearm, and observing a mild residual sensation and an automatic tactile response.

in at least one of the cases i described, there was more than elemtary tactile repsonse. but that was due to the nature and circumstances of the molestation, and that kind of planning and setting is generally ruled out in a violent, unexpected act.

as i also said:

“I think there’s a lot of types of ‘arousal’ floating around this topic, and they’re not being properly defined.”

thinking about it now, i think the conceptual language is missing things like ‘partial arousal’ as opposed to complete aousal (in which the latter might be ‘all factors, mind, body and intention involved’ or something), or ideas like ‘arousal-component’, with characteristics like ‘self-initiated/automatic’, ‘greater importance/lesser importance’ and so on.

abb1: i don’t know the numbers, and that’s a real problem. they’re difficult to find. partly, i think, this is because (in my own experience) counsellors (necessarily) downplay these reports for a variety of reasons.

(a)firstly, in a counselling environment, the imperative would be to ‘normalise’ such a self-report – to make it effectively ‘mundane’ and so pull its teeth. you’d want to recognise it, but b dismissive, to some extent. from the beginning, you’d want to make it clear that such responses have no bearing on the main case . the reason for this is that self-blame is common, it’s an obstacle to recovery, and the most common form of self-blame is “did i resist enough?”. women really are caught in a bind on this – some say ‘resist strongly’ at the risk of being beaten senseless, other’s say ‘let it happen’. if they choose the former they risk serious injury and death, and if they choose the latter, they’re left second-guessing their own behaviour. in this they’re often aided by a society that believes to some extent, that rape happens to women, because of some (unspecified) error of their own. in the cases of the people i know, even their families found it hard to get past this. so did i. i wanted to believe that it was somehow avoidable, as a way to maintain a world-view in which out-of-control things were excluded.)

so, in the organisations and communities at the coal-face, it would be understandable for such potentially self-blaming reports to be given short shrift.

(b) secondly, i think people involved in this work might leery of giving credit to exactly the kinds of arousal-confusion that this discussion has (with its attendant concerns about blame etc) and so research into women’s arousal or lack thereof might be tacitly discouraged. this is certainly true at the politically militant level, where the idea is denounced.

i’m guessing though.

interestingly, the discussion of involuntary arousal is more common in rapes when the victim is male. (according to google, that is.) and i know personally that it’s pretty common when the victim is a child. in both such circumstances, the issues surrounding women’s complicity in their rape are excluded, and i would also guess that partly, this is because it’s already accepted that men can be aroused ‘without their consent’, (not saying it’s true or false – just that it’s accepted), and it’s agreed that children can be too, based on their lack of experience. so in these domians, the matter migth be more easily discussed.

again, i’m speculating.

back to shai: i’m not going to argue the case with you, since i can’t take you to the centres or the people. also, i’m not a survivor, and that makes me a weak proponent. google the matter (i suggest ‘rape’, ‘involuntary’ and ‘arousal’ as keywords) or talk to survivor’s groups.

in your 112, you make the same case in essence. and agree with me that such events have no bearing on the core of the matter.

kind regards

dale