Consider this education website’s definition of rape.
Rape and/or sexual assault is forced, manipulated, or coerced sexual contact by a stranger, friend or acquaintance.
Okay, that’s a definition a normal person would give. But notice the word coerced. It does not mean force or threat of force. According to the same website it means,
Coercion
Coercion is the use of emotional manipulation to persuade someone to something they may not want to do – like being sexual or performing certain sexual acts. Examples of some coercive statements include: “If you love me you would have sex with me .”, “If you don't have sex with me I will find someone who will.”, and “I'm not sure I can be with someone who doesn't want to have sex with me.” Coercive statements are often part of many campus acquaintance rapes. Being coerced into having sex or performing sexual acts is not consenting to having sex and is considered rape/sexual assault.
Making someone want to have sex with you is emotional manipulation. Looking sexy, speaking smoothly, and seduction generally manipulates the emotion of another so that they want to have sex with you. Under this definition, I don’t understand why Sam Malone is not a rapist (or anyone within the playa culture). They give examples. Those examples try to capture a much narrower idea than their definition. Besides that, one example in particular, “I'm not sure I can be with someone who doesn't want to have sex with me,” can just be an honest plea. Many see sexual relations is an integral part of a loving healthy romantic relationship, and without it they don’t want to continue that relationship. Why is that rape?
One more definition to look into. The definition of coercion used the word “consent” as in, “not consenting is rape”. How does the website define it?
Consent
Consent is clear permission between intimate partners that what they are doing is okay and safe. To consent to something – like being sexual – means you confidently agree to do it based on your own free will without any influence or pressure.
No influence or pressure. Can you think of some things a normal date could do to influence whether you have sex with them? Like coercion, their definition of consent is extremely counter-intuitive. Nobody can ever be influenced into legitimate consent. Everywhere else in the world, people who are verbally persuaded into doing something are still doing it of their own free will.
It is annoying to run into totally bogus rape statistics because they define rape in such a way that anyone can be a rapist. Data on rape is almost never collected by asking, “have you been raped.” Instead what is asked are questions like, “did he say or do anything to influence you to have sex with him?” Or, “Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man gave you alcohol?” Sure if you buy a girl a drink you “administered” and “intoxicant”, but if she regretted it the next night it doesn’t mean she was raped.
It gets much scarier when it starts creeping into the legal definitions. I would consider myself doomed if I was merely accused of rape even if I knew I didn’t do it.
I know scary statistics accumulated by open definitions of rape are supposed to whip me into a state of moral outrage with a fervent desire to fight back against rape culture. What it actually does is makes me have to trek deeply into their studies before I can take their facts seriously. Who has time for that? So I have to discount what they have to say. An intellectually dishonest faction within feminism undermine their credibility with me by manipulating definitions to promote their cause. I wish I could hear a story about a rape and say, “oh my god that’s horrible,” rather than have to remain totally indifferent until I accumulate more facts. I know when my heartstrings are being manipulated.
