Liberal Feminists, Stop Smearing Critics As Rape Apologists

People who oppose the death
penalty do not sympathize with murderers. Critics of U.S. drone
warfare policy are not on the side of the terrorists. Most
self-identifying liberals understand this. So why do
feminist liberals smear every person who dissents from
their extreme, unhelpful, and legally dubious positions on
preventing rape as a rape apologist?

Feminist writer Jessica Valenti provides the most recent and
infuriating example of this contemptible, authoritarian
demonization campaign. Her response to Yale Law School professor
Jed Rubenfeld’s
thoughtful entry in the campus sexual assault debate was titled

“If you can’t talk about rape without blaming victims, don’t talk
about rape.”

How about this, Valenti: If you can’t talk about rape without
attempting to shut down the discussion about how to actually
prevent rape, maybe you are the one who shouldn’t talk about
it.

Nowhere in Rubenfeld’s New York Times
op-ed did he blame rape victims for being raped, but Valenti
levels this totally unsubstantiated charge repeatedly. First, she
writes that any amount of worrying about false charges and
convictions is akin to rape apology:

The worst offense is Rubenfeld’s apparent belief that there is a
“debate” to be had – as if there are two equal sides, both with
reasonable and legitimate points. There are not. On the one side,
there are the 20% of college women who can expect to be victimized
by rapists and would-be rapists; on the other side is a bunch of
adult men (and a few women) worrying themselves to death that a few
college-aged men might have to find a new college to attend.

Rubenfeld, for instance, writes that colleges “are
simultaneously failing to punish rapists adequately and branding
students sexual assailants when no sexual assault occurred”, making
it sound as if these two things occur at equal rates. This
conflation –
that false accusations are as serious a problem as rape itself
– is, for some unfathomable reason, apparently a widely-held belief
among seemingly-intelligent
male pundits.

In this manner, Valenti established that critics of her liberal
feminist view are not opponents in a public policy debate—they are
the enemies of rape victims. This is totally unjustified
demagoguery. She might as well be saying, “You’re with me or you’re
with the terrorists.” In fact, that’s precisely what she is saying.
Just substitute “terrorist” for “rapist.”

Valenti charges that Rubenfeld is a rape apologist throughout
her piece. His skepticism of affirmative consent laws is up
next:

Rubenfeld writes, in reference to California’s new “yes means
yes” law for public universities and Yale University’s sexual
assault policy, that “a person who voluntarily gets undressed, gets
into bed and has sex with someone, without clearly communicating
either yes or no, can later say – correctly – that he or she was
raped”. But
that’s just false, no matter how many
uninformed
newly-minted rape
pundits claim otherwise. Both California and
Yale make clear that affirmative consent can be given through
nonverbal cues – like getting undressed, getting into bed, and
having sex with someone.

Again, why is Rubenfeld branded a rape apologist for disputing
the coherence of affirmative consent? Does Valenti not comprehend
the possibility that he is merely misinformed about affirmative
consent as policy, rather than seeking to empower rapists? Really,
what is more likely?

I happen to think Rubenfeld is exactly right about affirmative
consent. California’s “Yes Means Yes” law does indeed establish
that consent can be given through nonverbal cues, but it also must
be
given continuously, at the onset of each new act during a
sexual encounter. What if one party nonverbally consents to kissing
and then nonverbally withdraws consent when it escalates to
touching? And how are college adjudicators supposed to sort out
blame after the fact in a situation like that? I see affirmative
consent
creating a fair amount of confusion while failing to prevent
rape. The serial predator, after all, is hardly deterred by the
new, vague requirement to receive incessant consent.

The “rape apologist” accusation doesn’t end there. Valenti also
accuses Rubenfeld of rape apology when he blames campus drinking
culture:

Rubenfeld doesn’t get any more creative with his rape apology as
the op-ed goes on. He also writes that we need to stop being
“foolish” about booze on campus and that “a vast majority of
college women’s rape claims involve alcohol”.

The truth: A vast majority of rapists attack drunk women.
Rapists –
deliberately and with forethought – use alcohol as a weapon in
their assaults. They do this because they know that women are less
likely to be believed if they’ve been drinking, so they depend on
our culture’s continued insistence that alcohol-facilitated rape is
a “misunderstanding”. That’s what helps them get away with their
attacks. We help them get away with their attacks.

This is just quibbling over phrasing. Rubenfeld says rape
involves alcohol, Valenti says society permits rapists to use
alcohol to rape women. Okay… so rape involves alcohol, right?

Because I actually want less rape, I want to talk about alcohol
policy. I assume Valenti also wants less rape, although she comes
off as extremely dismissive regarding all practical suggestions to
achieve precisely that. (I don’t consider her own
suggestion—teaching people to telepathically pick up on each
other’s nonverbal cues—very practical in the immediate future.)

Binge drinking, as I have noted many times, is
the condition that leads to campus rape. If fewer
men and women drank themselves to the point of incapacitation at
wild college parties in strangers’ basements, there would
undoubtedly be less rape.

This does not mean women who drink too much and become victims
of rape are themselves responsible for being raped. Their rapists
are solely responsible and should be punished. If I leave my front
door unlocked and someone robs me, I am not responsible—my robber
is. Nevertheless, fewer unlocked doors would produce fewer
robberies. Similarly, a more responsible drinking culture would
produce a safer party scene for both men and women in college.

I contend the National Minimum Drinking Age Act encourages binge
drinking by restricting teens from drinking in public, in bars, and
in moderation. And I expect that repealing the law—something
Congressional Republicans and President Obama could do right now if
they were so motivated—would have a positive impact on campus
drinking culture and rape.

It would be great to be able to
discuss this important reform without being labelled a rape
apologist, but people like Valenti make that impossible. They
appear to care more about ensuring that no one accused of rape gets
away with anything less than expulsion after a due-process-free
hearing than they do about actually convicting rapists for their
crimes and discouraging future rapes.

I would hate to live in a universe where everyone who disagreed
with my approach to dealing with bad people was branded a proponent
and ally of the bad people. But that’s the world in which the
liberal feminist lives. The debate over campus sexual assault
suffers because of it.