Big Ed's Place

In last week’s Musing, I pondered rape vs. ravishment. Well, Remittance Girl took issue with my implied assertions and provided me with the research paper that sparked my musing. In the process of our discussions, it became clear that I hadn’t made my argument very well. Hence this post.

First, let me make it clear that I do believe there are women who have violent rape fantasies. I’ve talked to some and am not trying to deny that these fantasies exist.

That said, I found it difficult to believe that 2 out of 3 women (~62%, the number sited in the research paper) have fantasies about being raped. My last post was a speculation that a significant number of these were really ravishment fantasies.

So there’s a problem in at least one of three places–either my understanding of women’s fantasies, confusions over the definitions of rape fantasies and ravishment fantasies (as I previously speculated), or the 62% number. The short answer is at least the last two, and possibly all three. The actual paper did identify confusions resulting from definitions issues, by me if no one else. The 62% number is also flawed, based on the paper’s own numbers.

More after the jump.

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This past weekend, I managed to be involved in a spontaneous multiparty chat about non-consent. I’ve already blogged about why I won’t write it and don’t feel a need to regurgitate the discussion that occurred in chat here. Those who might be interested can check out Remittance Girl’s post and the links therein.

What I did want to address was the rape fantasy. Remittance Girl posted a link to an abstract that found that 62% of women in their study had had rape fantasies. Getting free access to the actual article is a bit of a pain (i.e., 30 minutes of trying failed and I’m too much a lazy blogger to keep at it), but I do question the results.

For, based on conversations with women about their rape fantasies and in reading fantasies such as those described by Nancy Friday, I can’t help wondering–are they really rape fantasies, or are they ravishment fantasies?

While I’ve never had either (that I can recall at least), I kind of get the latter, particularly for women and submissives (and particularly submissive women). Ravishment is about being so desirable, that someone cannot resist you. They must have you, sexually, and immediately. And of course, they demonstrate it in a way that provides pleasure to the ravishee.

What’s not to like about that fantasy?

It appeals to self-esteem. It appeals to wanting to feel wanted. It allows the fantasizer to not worry have to be the aggressor or the initiator (which is a lot of work, honestly). The submissives I know all pretty much enjoy the part that’s “I don’t have to do anything.” There’s a sense of freedom in just lying back and being pleasured (aside: that’s also one of the reasons that gets cited for some men visiting prostitutes–so they can just lie back and be serviced). A ravishment seems to be a pretty passionate encounter as well–all heat and emotion and not the heady “excuse me, do you have a condom?” stuff that real life tends to require.

Additionally, If I just look at romance novel tropes, I think ravishment is a particularly common fantasy. I can easily imagine 62% of women having a fantasy about being ravished. Harlequin books probably can too.

So are we really talking about “rape” fantasies here?

I think the confusion comes from the ‘token protest.’ A ravishment isn’t going to stop just because the woman being ravished says, “oh, I don’t know.” His passion is too powerful and she’s excited him too much. She might be reluctant and she might say no, but she’s not going to fight him and she’s going to enjoy whatever happens next.

Well, the problem is, the token protest can look a lot like a real no. Only the bdsm community seems to have gotten this communication right–insisting that safe words be words other than “no.” When I’m playing with a sub, she can make token protests of ‘no’ all she wants. It’s when she says ‘red’ that I’ll stop, because I know it’s not a token.

So I have to wonder. I’m not sure that Rape and Ravishment are distinct enough in common usage for the research to necessarily be accurate about exactly what women fantasize about.