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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3678 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 11, 2022

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The consent framework in the west precludes those in positions of power from being able to engage in intercourse with someone under their control. Teachers and students, police and suspects, prison guards and prisoners, etc. Those are typically outright illegal. Many professions don't allow it, like professors and students, doctors and patients. Some are iffy, like a boss and employee.

There seems to also be a push, at least culturally, to label other power dynamics as invalidating consent. Like a celebrity and a fan, an older guy and a younger (but legal age) woman.

Anyways, many people who are very 'progressive' on power dynamics and consent seem to also subscribe to the idea that only white people can be racist, because racism = prejudice + power. If we accept both positions, that unequal power structures undermines consent, and that there's an unequal power structure between whites and minorities (predominantly blacks), then this should mean that all interracial sex between a black person and a white person is rape.

This sort of popped into my head over the story about some folks in California being concerned that white people may qualify for reparations, because they may have been a descendant of a rape baby. It got my thinking about how interracial relationships are typically portrayed in the media; a white male slave owner sleeping with a slave is a rapist, since the female slave obviously cannot consent due to the power dynamics. Whereas a white female slave owner (or someone adjacent to the slave owner, who still holds power over the slave, like a wife or daughter) and her male slave are portrayed as having equal ability to consent.

Do you have examples?

I get the impression man-on-slave-woman rape is much more common in media, acting as a cheap way to signpost that the perpetrator is scum. That's not the same as lionizing woman-on-slave-man rape.

The first thing that comes to mind is To Kill a Mockingbird, which centers on a white woman coming on to black handyman (and then throwing him under the bus). It's obviously Civil Rights era, but it's quite critical of the dynamic.

Not the greatest example, because the reason Mayella comes onto Tom Robinson is because she's lonely, neglected and abused by her family, her father in particular. It's heavily implied that the reason she throws him under the bus is because of severe social pressure she's under, particularly from her abuse father. You're meant to have at least some sympathy for the position Mayella is in. At the end of the day, it's still meant to be her father Bob Ewell, as the major villain, thematically representing the evil patriarchal white supremacy that is being criticized in To Kill a Mockingbird.

You're not wrong about Mayella. She is clearly forced into the position of power; her situation is tragic rather than villainous. But a sympathetic portrayal is non necessarily uncritical.

OP's suggestion was that white women don't get portrayed as holding the kind of power that preempts consent. Here we have a sympathetic, abused white woman who is clearly doing just that. She gets to decide if Tom lives or dies, and the novel is unambiguous that she chooses wrong. I think that's a decent counterexample.

My interpretation is that what is implied is that she really doesn't have that power. Maybe she does in the literal sense, but in the social context she's just victim of her abusive father (who really has the power) and the social environment more generally. We can easily imagine that if Mayella had defended Tom on the stand, she would have been badly beaten if not much worse. She is essentially coerced and doesn't have that power.

Yeah, I wanted to work a sentence in about how she's effectively a conduit for the racist culture, a tool, but still guilty. The fact that she was coerced is a parallel to the jurors who know something isn't right but are too afraid/entrenched to admit it. Social pressure doesn't exonerate them from the fact that in the end, they live and Tom dies.

Don't wokes have above average rates of opposing interracial relationships? Most woke people don't, to be sure, but it seems at least some follow that to it's logical conclusion.

If we accept both positions, that unequal power structures undermines consent, and that there's an unequal power structure between whites and minorities (predominantly blacks), then this should mean that all interracial sex between a black person and a white person is rape.

There's definitely been back and forth in progressive circles about some views circling back to 1950's American Conservatism and this is absolutely one of them. Haven't seen it as much recently (could just be due to traveling in different circles, though I hope the "you've just reinvented anti-miscegenation" argument won out), but I definitely remember this coming up in progressive circles some years back, with people arguing such relationships were "problematic", but not rape (similar tone of discussion to say a 28 year old woman with a 62 year old guy- not quite willing to call it rape but people casting aspersions nonetheless). Though I'm sure someone somewhere went ahead and made the final push to the rape label.

I will say, when it came up it was almost always white guy x non-white girl and much less often white girl x non-white guy.

Whereas a white female slave owner (or someone adjacent to the slave owner, who still holds power over the slave, like a wife or daughter) and her male slave are portrayed as having equal ability to consent.

This specific scenario being the exception, I've absolutely seen this called out as the male slave being raped.

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