Amy Schumer, not celebrating rape.
Thought Catalog – which seems to be rapidly becoming the go-to site for terrible antifeminist posts – is making a bit of a stir on Reddit with a post bearing the deliberately provocative title “Wait A Second, Did Amy Schumer Rape a Guy?” Spoiler Alert: The anonymous author concludes that yes, she did. The anonymous author is full of shit.
In the Thought Catalog piece, Anonymous takes a look at a speech that Schumer – a comedian with some subversive feminist leanings — recently gave at the Gloria Awards and Gala, hosted by the Ms. Foundation for Women. The centerpiece of Schumer’s speech, a bittersweet celebration of confidence regained, was a long and cringeworthy story about a regrettable sexual encounter she had in her Freshman year of college, when her self-esteem was at an all-time low.
The short version of the story: A guy named Matt, whom Schumer had a giant crush on, called her at 8 AM for a booty call, after he apparently had been turned down by every other woman in his little black book. Amy, thinking she was being invited for an all-day-date, only discovered his real intent when she got to his dorm room and he romantically drunkenly pushed her onto the bed and started fingering her.
After several failed attempts at intercourse, and what she describes as an “ambitious” attempt to go down on her, he finally gave up and fell asleep on top of her. Lying there listening to Sam Cooke, she decided she didn’t want to be “this girl” any more, “waited until the last perfect note floated out, and escaped from under him and out the door.”
Looking back on the incident, she thanks her failed lover for introducing her “to my new self, a girl who got her value from within her.”
But Thought Catalog’s anonymous author, noting the extreme drunkenness of Schumer’s stumbling lover, concludes that “Amy’s actions may have constituted as rape in the eyes of her college, Towson University.” (Or at least according to the school’s current policies.)
Anonymous quotes Towson’s current policy on sexual harassment, which states:
In order to give effective Consent, one must not be mentally or physical incapacitated (e.g., by alcohol or drugs, unconsciousness, mental disability).
And adds:
It’s hard to argue that Matt was not mentally incapacitated. In Amy’s words, he was “wasted.”
Actually, the fact that Matt wasn’t too intoxicated to initiate an assortment of sexual acts with her — or to get up and change the music at her request — suggests that he wasn’t “mentally incapacitated,” at least by the standards used by colleges when investigating alleged sexual assaults. The Association of Title IX Administrators’ Gender-Based and Sexual Misconduct Model Policy (which sets an unofficial standard for college administrators) defines incapacitation as “a state where someone cannot make rational, reasonable decisions because they lack the capacity to give knowing consent (e.g., to understand the ‘who, what, when, where, why or how’ of their sexual interaction).”
In any case, it’s not clear why Anonymous is looking at Towson’s sexual harassment policy, which is designed to deal with “non-consensual Sexual Contact, Sexual Exploitation, or requests for sexual favors that affect educational or employment decisions,” and which clearly doesn’t apply to Schumer’s story.
As for sexual assault, the school’s official web site states:
Sexual assault is defined by Towson University as forcible sexual intercourse, sexual penetration–however slight–of another person’s genital or anal opening with any object, sodomy, or any unwanted touching of an unwilling person’s intimate parts or forcing an unwilling person to touch another’s intimate parts. Under this definition, these acts must be committed either by force, threat, intimidation, or through the use of the victim’s mental or physical helplessness, of which the accuser was or should have been aware. This includes, but is not limited to, victim helplessness resulting from intoxication or from the taking of a so-called “date-rape drug.”
This definition is drawn from the University of Maryland System Policy on Sexual Assault, which classifies sexual assault involving penetration — the traditional definition of rape — as a more serious type of sexual assault (Sexual Assault I) than those forms of sexual assault involving touching (Sexual Assault II). By this standard, assuming we equate Sexual Assault I with rape, Schumer clearly did not rape him.
Anonymous then looks at Maryland’s state laws and concludes:
In the eyes of Maryland state law, things get a bit more complicated. Amy could be guilty of rape or sexual assault depending on whether or not penetration was achieved. According to the state law, a person may not engage in vaginal intercourse with another “if the victim is a mentally defective individual, a mentally incapacitated individual, or a physically helpless individual, and the person performing the act knows or reasonably should know that the victim is a mentally defective individual, a mentally incapacitated individual, or a physically helpless individual.” Legally, it’s hard to argue that it wasn’t rape, at least given the details in Amy’s speech.
Well, actually, yes it is. And not just legally, but by any reasonable definition of the word “rape.”
Because Schumer, at least by her account, wasn’t “the person performing the act.” He was. She was lying there wondering what had gone wrong with her life.
If you read the speech in its entirety, instead of depending on the selective quotations in the Thought Catalog post, this is abundantly clear. As she describes it, he:
Pushes her down on the bed; as she writes, he does “that sexy maneuver where the guy pushes you on the bed, you know, like, ‘I’m taking the wheel on this one. Now I’m going to blow your mind. …’”
Penetrates her with his fingers; as she writes, “[h]is fingers poked inside me like they had lost their keys in there.”
Tries to have intercourse, though his penis is only half-willing; she describes him as “pushing aggressively into my thigh, and during this failed penetration, I looked around the room to try and distract myself or God willing, disassociate.” Even using the “made to penetrate” standard, she’s not raping him, because she’s not making him do anything; he’s the active one.
Goes down on her.
Attempts intercourse again; this time, “[o]n his fourth thrust, he gave up and fell asleep on my breast.”
At no point in Schumer’s story does she describe herself as initiating anything. Indeed, she spends much of the time thinking to herself how much she wants to leave.
He started to go down on me. That’s ambitious, I think. Is it still considered getting head if the guy falls asleep every three seconds and moves his tongue like an elderly person eating their last oatmeal? … Is it? Yes? It is. I want to scream for myself, “Get out of here, Amy. You are beautiful, you are smart, and worth more than this. This is not where you stay.”
If a woman initiates sex with a man who is too drunk to consent, that’s rape. But a woman lying motionless trying to dissociate while a man tries to penetrate her is not a rapist. Even if he is drunk.
And that’s the case no matter how you switch the genders up.
Of course that’s not how they see things on Reddit, where most of those who’ve commented on the story have been quick to agree with the Thought Catalog author that Schumer raped her partner. Ironically, it’s been those outside the Men’s Rights subreddit who have been the most outspoken on this point. In TwoXChromosomes, a subreddit ostensibly devoted to women but in fact overrun with MRAs and other antifeminists, someone calling herself Shield_Maiden831 has gotten more than 200 net upvotes for a comment concluding that “[i]f you really believe in equality, then it seems to be a clear cut case from her own admission.”
Not everyone agrees. Elsewhere in TwoX , one commenter by the name of critropolitan argues, I think quite cogently, that
Unless the full transcript reveals something that the quotes in the article don’t, it doesn’t seem like Schumer exploited this guys mental state to do something to him that violated his will.
He was the one who called her.
He was the one who acted every step of the way and she went along with it.
Assuming that a person who is drunk is, automatically, in virtue of being drunk, without agency, is a mistake. It is moreover a mistake only made with regard to sex – no one thinks the same with regard to bar fights or the choice to drive. Drunken sex might not be the platonic ideal of sex, but it is not automatically rape in every case regardless of the actual state of minds, wishes, and feelings of the participants. …
There is no suggestion that Amy engaged in any sexual contact with this guy while he was passed out, or that she did something he didn’t want to do but he simply lacked the capacity to effectively resist or communicate non consent. Instead he was drunk enough to show significant signs of drunkeness, but not so drunk that he couldn’t not only communicate effectively but take a sexual initiative.
Rapists can exploit the vulnerability of drunk people, but we must walk back from the bizarre and agency-denying position that all drunk sex is rape. Rape is far too serious a matter for this bullshit.
It is.
But of course the MRAs and antifeminists on Reddit now accusing Schumer of rape aren’t interested in taking rape seriously. Indeed, if we look back on how they regularly talk about rape and issues of consent, it’s clearly they’re interested in taking rape less seriously. Their main interest in this case is as a supposed “gotcha” of a prominent female comedian with feminist leanings. In the process they are slandering her, and trivializing the real issue of rape.
I am presupposing no facts. It was a general question. There are facts though Schumer said there was sexual activity between herself and Matt. Did Schumer or did she not require consent for that activity?
There are countless references available that inform us that one cannot consent when one is drunk. Here is one example taken from RAINN: The nation’s largest anti-sexual assault organization.
“If you were so drunk or drugged that you passed out and were unable to consent, it was rape.”
This seems to describe exactly the situation that Schumer’s Matt was in. He was so drunk he passed out. Ipso facto it is rape and Schumer was the rapist using the presumably feminist inspired RAINN’s own standards.
Hahaha except he wasn’t passed out while he was performing sexual acts on her, unless he was sleep-fucking her?
Why are trolls always such disingenuous little shits?
wjburrows, you do know that presenting the same points you’ve been endlessly and mindlessly repeating in numbered list form does not actually make the points any truer or less wrong, right?
You did:
See above.
It is not. By her own admission Schumer went to a drunken man’s room, kissed him, was thrown down on the bed by him, lie there passively while he attempted to penetrate her and perform oral sex on her, then made her escape once he passed out. Once he was passed out, sexual contact stopped. Up to that point, the man was not so incapicitated that he could not actively pursue and consent to sex. THAT is the difference between what Amy Schumer is describing, and a woman who is passed out drunk and is raped. The second situation is rape because the person is incapable of consenting BECAUSE THEY ARE PASSED OUT. The gender of the perpetrator or victim has nothing to with it. Ability to consent does. And it is perfectly clear that the man in Schumer’s story was capable of consenting. That would be true if the drunk man was a woman and Schumer was a man.
Shorter boringandrepetitive: “Fine I’ll just stick my fingers in my ears and keep repeating myself you mean mean misandrists!”
You’re back in “that lamp post is raping that drunk guy who is humping it, because he can’t consent to the fact that he’s humping a lamp post” territory again.
sparky: you saying I said something about women lying about rape and then quoted three passages that do not mention “lying”. Sorry but that is completely illogical.
I said some women are “can’t remember their drunken sexual aggression the next day” that is not even close to the same thing as “women who are raped while passed-out drunk are actually being “sexually aggressive.””.
The former presupposes sexual aggression and was arguing that despite that men are accused and found guilty of rape.
Your twist presupposes the rape and says that if they were passed out drunk one can conclude that they were sexually aggressive.
Your statement is of course nonsense and is not consistent with anything that I have argued.
Basically you are arguing from a statement like:
“This car is red” to deduce “All red things are cars”.
If sexually aggressive then if drunk and incapacitated you can still be raped – that is my argument.
From which you deduced:
If raped and drunk and incapacitated then you were sexually aggressive.
These are patently not the same thing and your argument is absurd.
Policy of Madness: I guess you did not realise that lampposts are inanimate and don’t have the capacity to respond like responsible adult human beings.
Troll,
No, you aren’t obligated to read the thread before posting a comment. But, we are also not obligated to give you a serious debate and rehash the points that have already been made. Also, it says right at the top of the page that this site is about mocking misogyny. It’s not a debate or education site and we reserve the right to mock trolls until they flounce or get banned.
lol boringtroll is doing the troll thing where they pretend they don’t imply things and everything can be taken at face value
I guess you didn’t realize that if a person lays there and does nothing a lamp post can’t while another humps them, that person is committing rape to the same extent that a lamp post is capable of committing rape.
But let’s take this to its logical conclusion, shall we? Person A is sloppy drunk. So is Person B. Person A drags Person B kicking and screaming into a closet and forces sex on B. By your logic, Person B was committing rape! Because A was also drunk! A could not consent to having dragged B into a closet and forcing sex on that person! Why, it’s just rape all the way around in that situation!
Troll,
Can you name a case in which an intoxicated woman aggressively comes on to a man and then he is convicted of rape after lying there and letting her do stuff to him. Because I’ve never heard of it.
Oh, shit, I’m talking to a troll as though it were a reasoning human being that will pay a lick of attention to anything I say. I must perform some kind of penance for that.
Hang on a minute, is this gaslighting? Is the troll trying to gaslight us? OMG.
Policy of Madness: No idea why you would feel the need to refer to me as “it”. I will call you out on your dehumanising behaviour.
weirwoodtreehugger: If you are seriously interested I will find some later. However there are literally very many cases where it is claimed a women consented to sex, including varying levels of sexually aggressive behaviour but where she has been drunk and it is claimed and even accepted by the courts that she was nevertheless too incapacitated to consent.
… and? I assume there is a followup to that, some kind of threat? You seem to have left that part off.
*snorfle* “I can’t find examples very easily but srsly tho it’s true”
What!? Bruno Latour would have something to say about objects not having agency. . .
I think wjburrows read a legal document one time and thinks themself a lawyer or some shit. Legal jargon is annoying just talk like a human being ffs.
Also ‘it’ is acceptable terminology in English when gender is unknown, iirc. In the vernacular here ‘xie’ or ‘ze’ is preferred, but I think officially ‘it’ is still the standard, grammatically, no?
I like how the troll keeps asking us why it’s okay for Schumer to ‘have sex’ without consent (if you can call it having sex on her end when she hasn’t done more than kiss the guy) while the drunk guy also hasn’t gotten Schumer’s consent. No one had the consent of the other person in that scenario.
Try to weasel out of that conundrum with a mansplanation, troll. Please, tell me why only Amy is the rapist here when the other guy didn’t get consent for sex acts either. Unless being drunk gives everybody a free pass to rape everyone else? Is that what zie thinks?
That’s what I thought. Troll just knows it’s true and happens all the time. Who needs to have examples at the ready? And yes, I am seriously interested. Preferably your examples will be recent. The best thing would be if you found cases from the state in the US where Schumer
Ugh. Damned phone. It would be ideal to find cases from the state where Schumer went to university. Earlier you mentioned New Zealand law, but that’s not relevant here. Laws vary. In the US, they vary by state.
I’d kind of like to see these mythical cases as well.
-10 more for mindless repetition, which brings troll to -14/10.
I have a feeling this one could go into triple digits . . .
Did the…did the troll actually go off to find a case that supports his claims? If he did, we might be rid of him. Having taken a college course on gender and law, I know well that when it comes to things like rape, assault, domestic violence, and murder, the court has given the benefit of the doubt to the man in every landmark case. (in cases with a male aggressor and a female victim, that is. To be clear.)
Troll is boring, so here’s something relevant to the commentariat’s interests.
Okay, so Sparky basically covered my response to the troll: “Once he was passed out, sexual contact stopped.” He was initiating. Once he stopped, she got out of there. How does that make her a rapist again?
It seems like they’re trying to use straw feminist logic here. “Feminists think all drunk sex is rape, therefore she raped him! If you deny this then it’s a double standard and feminists don’t care about men getting raped! Come on, admit it, I bet you all agree with the feminists I argue with in my head on a daily basis!”
The viking song combined with kittens?! Life doesn’t get any better than that. 😀
Viking kitties is the best thing on this thread.
OK. Th only good thing.
So, what you saying, wjburrows, is that you’re an incredibly concrete thinker who can’t understand implications and abstracts? The you better stop now, because you are waaaaay out of you league here on We Hunted the Mammoth.
But anyway, you keep bringing up this scenario where men are convicted/guilty of rape because of having sex with “sexually aggressive, drunk women.” Now, drunken sex isn’t rape. The only way that those men in that scenario are accused of/arrested for rape is if the “sexually aggressive, drunk women” accuse them of rape – despite your contention that those women are “sexually aggressive.” That, and the whole “men are supposed to be responsible for drunk women” quip, makes it clear that this is something you both disapprove of and believe is a common occurance. And, also, that you believe those “sexually aggressive” women to not be telling the truth about being raped – they are, after all, “sexually aggressive.” Which is why you’re so hung up on this Amy Schumer thing. You want to try to “trap” is into agreeing that drunken sex isn’t rape, so therefore all those women who accuse of raping them while drunk weren’t actually raped.
All of which is bupkis, of course. No one here has ever claimed that drunk sex is rape. But if one person is so incapicatated as to be completely incapable of knowing what is happening and unable to act, then yes, that is rape. It is clear that the man in the Schumer’s account was both quite drunk and also quite capable of knowing what was going and acting upon what he wanted.
Mezza, I do get the impression from Trolly McTrollerstan that he’s in the thrall of a creed whose opposition doesn’t even exist in the real world. In other words, you are entirely correct in your assessment.
That’s the most poetic and interesting I can make willful ignorance sound. Not sure why I tried.
I mean, I’ve had drunk sex lots of times. Never once did it occur to me to call it rape because every time, we were both active participants.
All drunk sex is rape, now? OMG! Mr.Grump and I serially raped each other constantly for the first five years of our relationship! Officer, lock us up! (as soon as I find someone to mind the small grumps)
This is a hundred times more worthwhile than any troll.
Not to mention the growing trend of going bar hopping, having a few drinks, and finding a hook up at the end of the night. Meaning that people often get drunk with the intent to have sex, and plenty of people have a lot of harmless fun doing just that.
It’s only a problem when rapists consider unconscious people to be an open invitation to sex. It’s the unconscious, unresponsive part that angers all good people everywhere.
That dog is gorgeous, those kittens are adorable rapscallions, and the timing of that music is epic. Ten out of ten!
I tend to use the singular “they” when gender is unspecified; Shakespeare and Jane Austen both did. Good enough for them, good enough for me!
The ever-adorable Murkin and kittens, and VIKING KITTENS!
Murkin is such a sweet, gentle doggie.
**TMI warning**
I’ve fallen asleep during the oral sex portion of drunken sex festivities (don’t judge) not because I blacked out but because I was very, very tired. It ended the sexy time immediately of course and lead to me sheepishly having to answer questions like, “did you just fall asleep while I was going down on you?” It was all very awkward and completely consensual.
brooked, how embarrassin’!
@kitteh
Not my proudest moment.
Hey, oral can be very relaxing.
This is rape in Maryland where I believe Schumer went to college:
Rape in the second degree
Prohibited–In general
(a) A person may not engage in vaginal intercourse with another:
(1) by force, or the threat of force, without the consent of the other;
(2) if the victim is a mentally defective individual, a mentally incapacitated individual, or a physically helpless individual, and the person performing the act knows or reasonably should know that the victim is a mentally defective individual, a mentally incapacitated individual, or a physically helpless individual; or
(3) if the victim is under the age of 14 years, and the person performing the act is at least 4 years older than the victim.
Seems to me she:
engaged in vaginal intercourse
with a person that she knew was mentally incapacitated.
Seems cut and dried rape to me.
Still no answer to whether a drunk person who forces another person (drunk or sober) into a closest and forces sex on that person would be considered the raped party by this metric. Sure seems so, and the troll sure seems inclined to just not think about that.
@wjburrows
Usually people add “I’m Not a Lawyer but” to posts like yours, but I guess you’d assumed people would figure that out themselves after seeing how you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Because a drunk guy couldn’t possibly force himself on a woman.
[rest of comment removed by DF]
One of the problems with having sex with someone who is drunk being classed as rape is when both parties are drunk. In cases that I am aware of often the general consensus is that the male has some level of responsibility that the female does not have especially in heterosexual sexual encounters.
Drunk or not you take a risk when you have sex with someone who is drunk. This should apply equally to both men and women. It does not as Schumer’s story and her apologists tell us loud and clear.
Oh my god, boringtroll, just seriously STFU. The person performing the acts was the drunk man! Full stop! So even by that law there was no rape involved! FFS just goooooo, no one here agrees with you and you have been refuted time and time again.