The Meaning of Sexual Assault… and Freedom

I am going to start off by saying (1) I believe Dr. Blasey felt assaulted; I believe the events occurred pretty much as she described them (2) I believe Judge Kavanaugh does not and did not believe he was sexually assaulting her. The problem is that the meaning of sexual assault changes with the times, and with the perspective. That we are willing to admit more actions within the definition of sexual assault now than we were in the 80s is a good thing. But it doesn’t change the past.

This does not mean I want Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. Of course I do not, there are many reasons he shouldn’t be that have little to do with the sexual assault accusation. Of course, he could be lying… but on my view, he is, if not innocent until proven guilty, at least not particularly likely to be willfully lying.

Given the culture the events took place in, and my experience as a teenager (I am only a few years younger so I know exactly how things most probably were), I tend to believe him (his perception of the events). I also believe her (her account of events).
(on why they could both be telling the truth, as they honestly remember it)

So where does that leave us?

If we get beyond the horror and fear and partisan mudslinging, it leaves us with the typically messy human condition of having to try to find common ground on something that essentially occurred in two people’s heads, in the darkness behind their eyes, as Terry Pratchett puts it.

Fortunately, and quite by accident, I avoided much of the online brouhaha surrounding the Kavanaugh/ Blasey Ford hearing.  My boyfriend and I spent much of the last week in southern Utah and northern Arizona, with no cell service and only occasional, poor quality WiFi.

My news of the hearing consisted of an occasional glance at a slow-loading Facebook feed, with impassioned references to Kavanaugh’s emotional breakdown (say what?), the coming threat to the American adolescent male (my conservative friends; not saying there isn’t some truth there, but for all genders), Lindsey Graham’s insanity (What did he have to do with it, I wondered). It is true that about 65% of my Facebook friends are liberal, so it is not strange that what I mainly saw was the fear and despair of women and for women, along with the pain of bearing witness to the one-step-back part of progress.

Well, and that’s a bit optimistic. Right now it feels more like one step forward and two steps back… but then again, look around. Think about gay marriage and CBD and even Oklahoma’s coming freedom from annoying liquor laws. As long as you don’t dwell on the fact that it’s women’s rights specifically that may be under attack, it is not that bleak.

But what about sexual assault?

My boyfriend and I avoided the news, but we did not avoid the issue, and in fact, defining sexual assault was a topic we returned to; it’s rather difficult to avoid these days.

What is sexual assault?

Unfortunately, the legal definition of sexual assault varies by state. From the above linked site:

Sexual assault refers to an assault of a sexual nature on another person. It can include a wide range of unwanted sexual contact such as rape, forced vaginal, anal or oral penetration, forced sexual intercourse, inappropriate touching, forced kissing, child molestation, exhibitionism, voyeurism, obscene phone calls torture of a victim in a sexual manner etc. The actor causes submission of the victim by means that is reasonably calculated to cause submission against the victim’s will. Definitions of offences are primarily governed by state criminal laws, which vary by state. It is generally a felony.

This weekend, lying in a tent near Natural Bridges National Monument, no campground, no services, no contact with anyone but ourselves, we debated (debated? talked about) whether words could be deemed sexual assault. I said they could not (and I am the female side of the equation here). The above definition includes “obscene phone calls” so evidently, legally, in some states at least, words are sexual assault.

I still tend not to agree… in fact, last year I argued quite vehemently that Louis CK could not possibly be held guilty of sexually assaulting women via telephone; why did they not hang up the phone? And in light of the current topic, I wish I could trap the fly on the wall that should have been recording a brief conversation I had with my (not yet, then) boyfriend about it, because I vaguely recall him saying that it’s easy for me to say I’d have laughed and hung up, or walked out of the room, but I wasn’t all women…

I am not all women, but I am a small, wary woman

I am clearly not all women. Once again, in a tent on a lonely dirt road, I again found myself trying to convince him that words were not assault. And yet… I am a small person. I have been wary of men, especially large men, my entire life. I don’t like crowds, especially nighttime ones.  Oh so stereotypically in a male chauvinist society, I would rather navigate these on the arm of a male companion.

I have also been extremely fortunate in my friendships; I’ve been able to rely on male friends to keep me safe time and again when I’ve drunk too much or looked too closely. How many times have I been in a bar or at a party and felt the unwelcome gaze of male eyes? How many times have I slipped up to a man I could trust and tucked my hand under his elbow or pulled his arm around my shoulders only to look back at whomever I was avoiding? How many times have I relied on girlfriends to keep me safe?

How much of my not having been sexually assaulted is due to pure luck?

Oh wait, I have been sexually assaulted. by today’s definitions. I’ve had a “no” overridden. I could call that rape. I do not.

I’ve been grabbed by a man twice my age (then 18) in a hayloft, he was drinking, tried to kiss me, I pushed him away and fled. And I went back the next day to ride (but no more haylofts).

Then there was the time I was stupid enough to get on a motorbike with a man a few years older than my 20 years at the time in the southern coast of Spain, he took me to a remote cliff and first took all my cash (well. 3000 pesetas of it, not the 10,000 pesetas I had squirreled about my person). This was after I had refused to let him kiss me; the mediocre contents of my pocket angered him and he grabbed me and pinned my arms behind my back and tried to  kiss me again; I used my knee and jumped out on a rock where he was afraid to follow (my country childhood paying off finally)… but he had my backpack (with my journal!! more precious, it seems, than my body)

So I cliff-rock jumped to where his bike was parked, and threatened to push it over the cliff. We came to an agreement, if he took me back to the hostel I was staying at, I’d give him 10,000 pesetas I had there. He took me back and kept my backpack as hostage. I went to the hostel and burst into tears at the owner.. a gypsy. She sent her sons to retrieve my backpack. They did, and escorted me to the train the next morning.

I guess that story includes more than sexual assault. And yeah, I was stupid. But, as many have said, including me, you shouldn’t have to be smart to avoid (any form of) assault.

And then there is regret…

All those times I’ve regretted my actions upon waking in the morning… times where, in today’s culture, I could claim assault of one form or another, but it would be entirely wrong (in my opinion) for me to do so. I made a mistake, and so did the other person involved. Luckily, my mistakes have been minor, and men are, for the most part, capable of understanding when no means no.

I’ve been lucky, as I’ve said, to have friends who would take me home and tuck me in bed (and amazingly enough for the male ones, refrained from taking advantage of my stupidly drunken self). I’ve woken on my back on the lawn in front of Georgetown University’s Copley Hall with a security guard peering down at me. I’ve slipped into bedrooms at numerous parties to sleep off the worst of my drunkenness without being assaulted. I’ve bummed drinks from bartenders and bar goers I’d never seen in my life, without having to “pay” for them.

Most  men, and boys, are not going to lock you in a room and pounce on you, even in play.

Though I have had male friends do exactly that, pick me up, throw me on a bed, and jump on me. Held me down, tickled me… but never covered my mouth, or kissed me, or groped me, or given me the impression I was in danger.

I have watched other women be groped and said nothing.

I have watched drunk women be led into a bedroom and thought, she’s going to regret that in the morning. And yet, I have done nothing to stop it (unless it’s a close friend, and even then, only sometimes, would I ever have thought it my  business to do anything beyond grabbing her arm for a moment to whisper, are you sure this is a good idea?)

I have pulled male friends aside and asked them the same, are you sure you are going to want to look back at this tomorrow? I have said, you know what you’re getting yourself into with this girl? (and my thoughts were for my male friend, not the girl in question).

Had I been in the room with Blasey and Kavanaugh in 1982 (or a few years after.. in 1982 I was only 12), I might not have called it sexual assault. I probably wouldn’t have. I don’t know. I would certainly have thought Kavanaugh vulgar, but being vulgar is not being criminal. I would certainly have told him to knock it off if I realized she was distressed.

Kavanaugh’s missed opportunity

Kavanaugh could have dealt with this, in my eyes, by simply saying, Oh wow, I had no idea you (to Blasey Ford; he could even have said she) felt that way. In my eyes, I was just playing around. I see I was wrong to assume she felt the same, and I am so sorry to have been the unwitting cause of distress.

Had he said something along those lines, I would have actually respected him more than I did before all this came up. Because we all make mistakes. I realize that, as I believe my father has said, a boy who will treat a girl with so little respect grows into a man who will treat women with a similar lack of respect. But if Kavanaugh had owned up, I’d have thought that this was not the case. As it is, well, for me the jury is still out. He might well have assaulted other women. But, again, innocent until proven guilty. He might not be Supreme Court caliber (he’s not); we have no proof he’s a rapist or serial assaulter of women.

The problem here is not this problem, deciding whether the boy Kavanaugh sexually assaulted the (younger) girl Blasey. The problem is that some people are vilifying Blasey for speaking out (she has had to quit her job and hide), whereas others are willing to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual assault or even rape without evidence. Neither of the more extreme sides seem willing to consider the darkness behind the eyes.

For Christine Blasey Ford, it was clearly sexual assault.

With a nod to my boyfriend, yes, it matters how an act is perceived. If a woman or a man feels assaulted, we need to talk about it as assault. Maybe not “sexual” assault, but it’s assault if someone perceives that their (physical or mental) freedom has been taken away. I don’t know how big Blasey Ford is, but Kavanaugh is surely larger, and it’s easy to feel a loss of control when in the presence of someone larger than you, even when they do not even touch you.

We can all cause someone to feel their freedom is threatened without meaning to do so. Hell, that’s what a relationship is, a gradual, semi-consensual concession of freedom in exchange for support and love. (I say semi because it sneaks up on you without any process of verbal, self-aware consent).

I’m giving Brett Kavanaugh the benefit of doubt and assuming that he threatened Christine Blasey sense of freedom without meaning to. Of course, he meant to physically restrain her (that’s what jumping on someone and grabbing them IS, a restriction of their physical freedom)… but he probably didn’t later think of it as sexual assault.  (Caveat: I did not watch the hearing, and many say he was unbelievable, or at the very least temperamentally unsuited to sitting on the SCOTUS. On the other hand, should his seating be based on the darkness behind his eyes?)

The meaning of assault can lie in eyes of the beholder(s)

Sometimes it’s clearer than others, (bad sex is not assault; rape is assault). It always lies in the mores of the epoch we are living. Maybe we cannot excuse boyhood behavior (and 17 is old enough to know better), but we should take into account the time period when considering the darkness behind someone else’s eyes.

Driving to (being driven to) Vegas on 40 Friday, I perused my Facebook feed for the first time in over a week. I did not dwell on comparative truthiness or politics. I thought, I am glad I have sons and not daughters (but my boyfriend has a daughter, and I worry about her. Should I worry about her? I cannot not do so). I thought, but there is an element of truth in the worry that one’s sons must be extra careful in ways males in my generation did not. Still, I believe my sons have that dose of class and dollop of empathy that will keep them from Kavanaugh-style oafishness. And I think, it’s not going to be a problem for boys. Or men.

It’s never a problem for males.

Some good things might happen in light of #metoo and the accompanying Zeitgeist. A few women might feel more willing to come forward (or they would have prior to the Kavanaugh/Blasey Ford testimony and national reaction)… a few more men might recognize assault for what it is.

Or the pendulum will swing and with zealous fervor we will address all things potentially sexual with methodological precision, with necklines and skirt lengths that could lead to temptation proscribed not for their threat to religion but for their threat to men’s autonomy. Because whenever we start regulating behavior, it’s the minutiae of women’s behavior that end up in the bylaws, not men’s.

Men are quick to protect theirown freedom

See, men tend to be more sensitive to threats to freedom, because they’ve enjoyed more of it (within each culture, each ethno-econo-social rung of society) compared with women. Women are used to having their freedom threatened or simply restricted. So used to it we often don’t even realize what’s going on.
The worst part of 2016 for me was realizing that the freedom I had assumed I owned had been largely an illusion.

The most eye-opening thing about teaching undergrads in Oklahoma was realizing how completely intelligent young women bought into the latent sexism of the Bible Belt.

As a woman (even a smart, independent woman who’s done what she’s wanted most of her life), you cannot avoid the tiny little restrictions of freedom. You don’t even know they are there. And I could get all DH Lawrence about love and liberty and the insidious loss of freedom that happens to both parties in response to the unconsciously less-free (woman) … but I won’t. I’ll just say that freedom is the most difficult thing to keep and the easiest thing to take away. Lack of freedom, real and perceived (and isn’t freedom all about perception?) is the essence of assault, including (especially!) sexual assault.

And although women are more accustomed to relative lack of freedom, we are also more sensitive to the potential of absolute loss of freedom, because it happens to us all the time. We are raped and otherwise assaulted. We step aside or are pushed aside in crowds. For centuries, what we have done with our bodies has been men’s business; I mean: men have determined what we can and cannot do with our bodies.

Men, think how that would feel to you…

Imagine if women determined with whom you could have sex, which children you had to support (sacrifice your life for). Imagine being stoned for sleeping with a woman, or for refusing to do so. Imagine being forced to impregnate a woman (because you cannot possibly imagine being impregnated) you did not want, and then being forced to raise the child. Imagine not “having sex when you don’t want it” (because depending on your age, this too may be impossible), imagine not having the freedom to say no. Feel the loss of freedom.

Men, feel that loss of freedom when you want to judge a Christine Blasey Ford. Consider how you would feel if you looked back on your life and realized, wow, I have been assaulted, I just never stopped to think about it.

*CODA: On the other hand, you can only be free when you cannot imagine not being so. It’s a vicious circle. Yet, one can choose. One can choose to cede some of one’s freedom in exchange for happiness (a relationship demands loss of ego freedom), or stability (that’s what a job is, loss of freedom in exchange for income, or knowledge (as a student, one must be willing to let go of freedom enough to learn… that’s intellectual humility). The problem is when that loss of freedom is not your choice.

And for some humor… I might not watch the real thing, but one of the best things about the last two years has been SNL (with all its problems) Though this would probably make my son repeat, as he has been doing, “I kinda feel sorry for Kavanaugh.” Depend on a teenage boy to understand the male adolescent mind.