Sex, the act of coitus, penile penetration of the vagina, is a necessary evolutionary activity that must be performed in order for OUR species to continue. Being self-aware, humans are able to ENJOY sex above and beyond its procreative purposes. To say then that a criminal and fully invasive act such as rape is sex or that sex is always rape is disturbing to say the least. Two loving people permitting each other to enjoy each others bodies is an unselfish act in and and of itself. Rape is not penetration and penetration is not rape. The vagina was constructed to be penetrated and the penis was developed to penetrate. Rape was a heinous act/concept that was performed/invented and it is unforunate, evil and warranting HARD PUNISHMENT. Although rape can involve penetrating the vagina, it does not need to, hence to say that all sex is rape is naive, and ludicrous. A woman is raped when she is FORCED to do something she does not want to do. She is sexually raped when she is forced to perform or endure some sexual activity. She is not raped when she allows, asks for, demands a man to have sex with her, nor is a man a rapist if he asks for, allows or performs a sexual act with a woman. Sex can be beautiful even in our messed up world.

rape is not sex, sex is not rape. Rape is about taking power, sex is about sharing power. Seduction is almost but not quite rape.

Okay, so I'm going to take some flack about this -- however, I'm speaking from the BDSM standpoint of more aware communication and understandings of how human relationships work.

Rape is a means for an attacker to steal power from their victim. The rapist gets an ego trip, and the victim loses all sense of safety and comfort. Rape survivors generally feel, for the rest of their lives, very touchy about emotional boundaries and any attempts to push them.

Sex is a consenting activity... when done properly, it's fun for everyone, and it is a great way to relieve stress. It releases endorphins, and everyone involved feels better. Bad sex is done in this spirit, but for some reason or other it doesn't happen, and one or all people involved feel worse.

Seduction is almost, but not quite, rape -- in this case, you're entreating someone to have sex with you, when they may not want to, or (to put it another way) want to do anything -except- have sex with you. This involves pseudo-raping their mind, changing how they feel and what they feel.

Zanth, I agree with you completely, but I feel like playing devils' advocate:

The Radical Plotting Feminist schlogan (intentional mispelling) that all sex is rape is based on the, however disturbed, position that women in the world are psychologically conditioned to like sex. It is therefore obvious (note sarcasm) that any woman in a "natural" frame of mind would hate sex. Sex is therefor a construction of the Patriarchy to subjugate women.

Did I miss anything?

Okay, now here comes the fun part. All sex is rape? What about Lesbian lovemaking? What about wanking? And how do we know it wasn't the women of the planet who have brainwashed the men into liking sex? Or is it only rape when the giver has a penis?

"Beer, good. Schlong, bad!"

xunker: You missed something, sorry :)

I'm going to paraphrase Andrea Dworkin in the preface to her book Intercourse¹: The "all sex is rape" thing is based on a definition of rape as "any sex where one participant has more power than the other". Dworkin goes on to talk about what a great thing (hetero-)sex is, or would be, in the absence of an unequal power relationship.

This definition of rape is woefully reductive, but it's not based on any false assumptions about women inherently not liking sex. What it is based on (for starters; it goes on from there) is the reality of what rape actually is: Sexual intercourse where consent is not given at all, or is coerced. That's fine so far, but IMHO Dworkin goes off the beam in further assuming that any interaction must be coercive if the two people involved have unequal power in the world at large:

"Rape == coercion" (Fine so far . . .)

"Unequal power == coercion" (Uhhh, the two sure don't exclude each other, but are they identical?)

Therefore, "unequal power == rape" (Hey, there, hang on a minute . . .)


As I said, it's reductive.


Finally, I'd like to point out that the title of this node is very poorly phrased: My guess is that the intent was something more like "Not all sex is rape", rather than an assertion that rape does not exist, or is unrelated to sex, or something.

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¹ I know it's bad form to read Dworkin before characterizing her views, but I'm willing to live with that.