as in:
Prosecutor: "Did the accuser ever say the word 'no'?"
Defendant: "Well, she said 'no', then she said 'yes', then she said 'no', then she said 'suck my toes', so it got pretty confusing..."
Prosecutor: "Did the accuser ever say the word 'grapefruit'?
Defendant: (long pause) "Yes... she said 'grapefruit'."
Prosecutor: "I rest my case."
Those who happen to incorporate grapefruit in their sexual activities will need to refer to the grapefruit by another word. Not every system is perfect.
I am Laslo.
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2014/12/how-do-lawprofs-know-when-they-are.html
ADDED: Althouse has deleted this comment.
Frankly, I don't get it. In her post she quotes Professor Suk:
"When I teach rape law... I focus on cases that test the limits of the rules.... We ask questions like: How should consent or non-consent be communicated?"
I am assuming Althouse felt this was off-target, or riffing. I believe she gave it a perfunctory reading, and did not look deeper -- what she often accuses her readers of doing with her writing.
Note: number one, I did not make any obvious jokes about 'Professor Suk's name in relation to rape, or any sexual activity. The urge was there, but THAT would be riffing. Anyway.
I honestly thought this comment was a valid take on the subject at hand, and poked at the sanctimonious word games that grow more convoluted every day in regards to this issue.
I was responding, in satire, to the "How should consent or non-consent be communicated?" statement, and the overall issue of what constitutes consent, or the lack thereof. The idea that saying 'no' may be too much for a person, or somehow misconstrued, led me to 'what alternative' can there be, realistically?
The idea that the 'S&M World' might hold the clue was intentional, being that it is a highly structured format of sexuality with understood rules. Althouse could probably do something with that, if she had made the connection.
I am Laslo.
ADDED: In response to my comment (before it was deleted) was:
Laslo, you put the rape in grapefruit.
I am assuming this comment will be removed, too, since it is in response to a deleted comment. Thought I would attach it here.
I am Laslo.
Thanks Laslo. I wondered what happened to your comment. It just vanished. I thought when Althouse deleted a comment she marked it accordingly, but yours just went Poof!
ReplyDeleteIf it was any other commentor I'd have shrugged it off, but I started to wonder if my previous exposure to the Laslo Effect was producing hallucinations or flashbacks or even a demeaning case of late onset spatulaphrenia.
Thank God its not that.
"I honestly thought this comment was a valid take on the subject at hand...."
ReplyDeleteI considered it a problem because: 1. It did not deal with the subject of teaching law school, that is, the new material which was the reason for doing another rape post; 2. It was flippant and joking about rape, which isn't a joke. (A joke about law teachers would have been fine.) 3. It appeared early on in the comments and that can cause a general decline in the thread.
Sorry. I appreciate your writing generally, but I thought that undercut what I was trying to do, and not just disagreeing or arguing with me. Really going off topic and off tone. I do appreciate that you were working with one thing that was in the quoted material, but the question of what is consent wasn't really raised in the post.
" Althouse could probably do something with that, if she had made the connection."
ReplyDeleteNo, that's not something I would do. And I have a recent post on that topic. The one about "red zone."
"1. It did not deal with the subject of teaching law school, that is, the new material which was the reason for doing another rape post"
ReplyDeleteYou chose Professor Suk to quote, and the first thing in the quote is "When I teach rape law... I focus on cases that test the limits of the rules.... We ask questions like: How should consent or non-consent be communicated?"
I would think that indicates how it plays a role in teaching: after all, isn't most of what is constituting debate (semantics, economics, etc) on rape really the umbrella issue of consent and what constitutes it being given or denied?
"2. It was flippant and joking about rape, which isn't a joke."
I do not see it as joking about rape itself, in that it is NOT making fun of a rape or rape victim (indeed: is there even enough evidence given in the dialog to say a rape occurred?).
I saw it as black comedy on the laws resulting from the ongoing debates: take the word "grapefruit" out of the dialog and the 'yes / no' stuff points out the legal morass of which the law is entangled -- the idea that there can be one black-or-white word that can only mean one thing to solve the problem is the joke, in as far as that used to be a description of the word 'no'.
3. Timing is everything. First comment: "... in whispers of soft . . . refusal . . . and then . . . surrender. Rape, or sensual as hell?" Sounds like the issue of consent to me; don't see the teaching aspect. Picking at nits here, of course.
Which leads me to "Really going off topic and off tone". I think the "off tone" is the key here: an unwelcome distraction away from the myriad dozens of ways for people to comment that the left and the lawyers and the academic world all suck. Which may very well be true, but is not exactly new light. But it IS serious.
"No, that's not something I would do. And I have a recent post on that topic."
Sorry, I just like this line: 'not something I would do' followed by 'I have a recent post on that topic'.
I know: way to much time explaining an attempt at satire that Althouse found flippant. My shorter answer: I disagree, but it is her Blog, and her right to set tone.