In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Unsolicited Advice for Bristol Palin

Jill

The fabulous Jaclyn Friedman has a new column at Good, where she dispenses unsolicited sex-related advice to people who need it. This week: Bristol Palin. A taste:

Dear Bristol,

I so wish you and I could have this conversation on a long girls’ night in. You’d get a babysitter for Tripp, I’d bring the popcorn, and we’d hang in our pajamas and watch Heathers. Afterwards, we’d paint each other’s toenails, and I’d tell you how great your chin looks. And then, when we were both feeling relaxed and expansive and had built some kind of trust, I’d tell you this:

I’m worried about you, girl. You say you’re not accusing Levi of raping you, but the way you tell the story—he knew you didn’t want to have sex, but did it to you anyhow when you were blackout drunk on wine coolers—sure sounds like rape to me.

Go read the whole thing, it is so so good.

Also, can we talk about what awesome writers new Good editor Ann Friedman has brought over? Since she started, Good has become one of my few daily must-reads. So glad to see Jaclyn is now a regular.

69 thoughts on Unsolicited Advice for Bristol Palin

  1. It would be so easy to be insistent that Bristol call this situation what it is. I’m holding her in the Light to have the courage to do so, in her own time. If I had to wager a guess, it may take her a very long time.

  3. Comrade Kevin:
    It would be so easy to be insistent that Bristol call this situation what it is.I’m holding her in the Light to have the courage to do so, in her own time.If I had to wager a guess, it may take her a very long time.

    I agree, Kevin, but I’d add that the words used to describe the assault probably aren’t even Bristol’s own words. Just like everything any member of the Palin family has ever said publicly, every sentence in that book was vetted in the autoclave of Sarah Palin’s PR machine before ever hitting the shelves. So, we can depend on that book to describe how Bristol actually feels about the assult about as much as we can depend on a Monsanto press release to describe the saftey of Roundup.

    To be clear, I actually think this makes the book’s description of the assault potentially worse: It would mean that Bristol, at best, agrees wholeheartedly with the description that her PR people produced. At worst, it means that Bristol actually calls it rape in private but allowed the description of the assault to be watered down for public consumption, knowing that the accusation may hurt her mother’s career.

    That would be disgusting, but not surprising.

  4. This is cynical me talking: I agree that the words used to describe the assault aren’t Bristol’s own words and have been heavily vetted by a team of editors and politicos. This description of her son’s conception is a way to have her cake and eat it too. The Palins have roundly been chastised as hypocrites, especially Bristol, who tours the country as a teen mom telling other kids to be chaste. By dancing around the issue of consent, Bristol is alleviated from the responsibility of “getting herself pregnant” in the eyes of the public without actually having to call whatever *did* happen rape.

    So pretty much this is a dog whistle.

  5. What is described in B. Palin’s book sounds like rape to me. Sadly, a lot of the people I have discussed this with (some of whom consider themselves feminists and are progressive on many issues) don’t see it that way. I hear a LOT of “she shouldn’t have gotten so drunk” and none of “he shouldn’t have had sex with her without her consent.” Sigh.

    So, I try to explain the idea of consent, and I get a lot of “so.. all drunk people having sex are either rapists or rape victims?” And I’m like, “that’s not what I said,” but I don’t really know how to answer this intelligently. I hear a lot about the idea of people being unable to consent to sex when they are drunk. Now, if the person is so drunk that zie is unconscious or semi-conscious, then it seems obvious to me that zie cannot consent. However, what if someone is just very drunk (and may not be thinking clearly), but is completely conscious?

    Can my fiancee and I go out and both get drunk, then come home and have sex, and no rape occur? Is this because we discussed it beforehand? What if we didn’t? Is it because we are in a relationship? (Honestly, that makes me uncomfortable, because it treads so closely to the idea that people cannot rape their wives/girlfriends/boyfriends/etc.) What if I am drunk but he is not? Vice versa?

    Imagine two people both get very intoxicated and then have sex with each other. Neither person, before or during the sex, says no or stop (or otherwise indicates zie does not want the sex). Both parties actively physically participate in the sex. Neither person said before getting intoxicated whether or not zie wanted to have sex. Is this rape? By one or both parties? Which one? If the answer is “it depends,” then what does it depend on? Does gender come in to play here? What about who was the initiator? Does it matter if they are in a relationship or not?

    [I realize this is not the Palin case; but this question has occured to me when I get push back on the Palin case and the conversation gets broader, which is why I bring it up here.]

  6. I am still so very, very leery about this whole thing. I mean, does anyone have the right to name someone else’s sexual experience? Can we really trust a book – which might have been written by a ghost writer, and was definitely processed through at least a few editors – to accurately depict what Bristol feels about that night, or even what actually happened?

    It just feels strange categorizing someone else’s experience.

  7. I mean why would Bristol Palin have any reason at all to lie? She’s is going around the country making money telling other girls how they should not have sex. How much money would she make if she wrote, “Yeah, we were camping; he was cute; and so I screwed his brains out?”

    How anybody can trust a word that comes out of Bristol Palin’s® mouth is beyond me.

  8. anonone: I mean why would Bristol Palin have any reason at all to lie? She’s is going around the country making money telling other girls how they should not have sex. How much money would she make if she wrote, “Yeah, we were camping; he was cute; and so I screwed his brains out?”

    Right. We are being sold something here. What is she selling, why, and who is the intended audience?

  9. Notwithstanding everything she’s ever done and everything her mother has ever been, I don’t not-buy Bristol Palin telling girls not to have sex. She has value as a cautionary tale–“I had sex and SHIT LOOK WHAT HAPPENED.” I just wish “a baby and a book deal” wasn’t the “what happened.”

  10. The question of “Does it Count” is an area where we need to A) put some trust in the person involved but also B) read between the lines of what they are saying.

    If my friend comes to me and says “Omg, I met up with so-and-so last night, and we were so drunk and I’m pretty sure we had sex hahaha isn’t that hilarious?” I’m not going to go “Are you kidding me? That’s rape!!” because if my friend is – to the best I can tell – truly okay with what transpired, then it is not MY place to call her a victim if she doesn’t feel that way. That’s me respecting her sexual agency.

    The subtext of what I have read from the Palin autobiography feeds into the idea that although Bristol doesn’t want to use the “R-Word”, she did feel victimized by what transpired, and the understanding was that having previously stated that she did NOT want to have sex “I said I didn’t want to have sex until I was married!”, any consent given while under the influence should have been considered void.

    And from that perspective, I agree with the author here that, as one who hopes to influence and teach other girls, it is important that she own what happened and not resort to the type of self-blame rhetoric that is so easy to buy into.

  11. People already are calling her a liar and saying it was her fault when she’s NOT calling it rape. I can only imagine how much worse those accusations against her would be if she did use the words rape or sexual assault. There seems to be no way this poor young woman can win.

  12. I have no effing idea whether or not to believe anyone– Bristol, Levi, Sarah, Sarah’s advisers, whoever– in this scenario. Everyone has plenty of reason to lie or at least hedge around the bush here. All I know is that everyone seems to be a giant jerk, everyone has plenty of reason to lie, and the Palins in particular have plenty of reasons to ah, reframe the situation at this point. Not saying that Levi is innocent either because who can tell and fuck if I know from his behavior either, but if he was always that awful, why get engaged to him twice, the second time when your parents wouldn’t be happy about it?

    There’s no way to know if things happened as she said or not. My gut sense says this is a retroactive punishment towards Levi because everyone in the gene pool is just that crazy, or Bristol is trying to look blameless for her pregnancy, but who the hell knows really. Those are pretty good reasons by Palin logic to say these things regardless of truthiness. Though let’s face it, Levi also seems like a dick. I can’t believe or defend anybody here. And the language is so hedge-y and suspect that I wish the advisers in charge of this whole shistorm hadn’t gone there.

  13. Emolee – to me, the line is when somebody starts to black out. And I don’t know if you’ve spent a lot of time with heavy drinkers, but I have, and you can always tell when they’re starting to black out because their faces go blank. They may still be concscious but that’s just their body on autopilot, they’re not really there and if they’re not there they can’t consent to sex. And you can tell – even if you’re also drunk you can tell – I remember one time when my sister got blackout drunk and she’d been hanging out with a guy and I told him: “She’s really drunk, don’t try anything” and even though he and I were also both somewhat drunk he just looked at me so offended, like, how could I think he could do something like that, because it was so obviously wrong. If he would have had sex with her, it would have been rape. And it would have been deliberate, because he knew she was way too drunk to consent.

    Impaired judgement is different, to me, if two people who are drunk enough to have impaired judgement enthusiastically consent to sex with each other, there was no sexual assault. If one relatively sober person takes advantage of a drunker person’s impaired judgement that’s more of a grey area – maybe depending on whether the sober person had reason to believe the drunk person would or wouldn’t have sex with them sober – but anyway that’s not what we’re talking about with Bristol Palin – she was blackout drunk and to me that’s black and white sexual assault.

  14. And as far as “Bristol Palin might be lying to escape blame” thing – to escape blame from whom? People who are going to judge her for having consensual sex for her boyfriend are going to judge her just as much for getting drunk and climbing into a tent with boyfriend. People who don’t support a woman’s right to choose to have sex are the same people who say it’s her own fault if she gets date raped – it’s two sides of the same coin. So what does she have to gain from this?

  15. I haven’t read the book and I’m surprised that so many women here seem to have done so. That said, I appreciate and agree with Jaclyn’s ‘letter’.

    As to those people who are questioning Bristol’s recounting of the event, I have to ask, what lie have you heard her tell? Loathe her mother or not, disapprove of her life choices or not, women and girls get raped. Until there’s a GOOD reason not to, they should be given the benefit of the doubt.

  16. I haven’t read the book and I’m surprised that so many women here seem to have done so. That said, I appreciate and agree with Jaclyn’s ‘letter’.

    As to those people who are questioning Bristol’s recounting of the event, I have to ask, what lie have you heard her tell? Loathe her mother or not, disapprove of her life choices or not, women and girls get raped. Until there’s a GOOD reason not to, they should be given the benefit of the doubt.

  17. I feel like I wandered into the fucking twilight zone. Things that people on this thread have actually said:

    “How much money would she make if she wrote, “Yeah, we were camping; he was cute; and so I screwed his brains out?” How anybody can trust a word that comes out of Bristol Palin’s® mouth is beyond me.”

    “Right. We are being sold something here. What is she selling, why, and who is the intended audience?”

    “Not saying that Levi is innocent either because who can tell and fuck if I know from his behavior either, but if he was always that awful, why get engaged to him twice, the second time when your parents wouldn’t be happy about it?”

    You know who else wrote a book? Tristane Banon, DSK’s latest accuser. You know who else might have done it for the money? That maid at the Sofitel. You know know who else stays with someone who has raped them? A LOT OF FUCKING WOMEN.

    You don’t get to victim blame because she’s a Republican. You don’t get to victim blame because you don’t like her mother. You don’t get to victim blame because you disagree with her abstinence only advocacy. You don’t get to victim blame because she wrote a book about her life. YOU DON’T GET TO VICTIM BLAME.

    We have no idea if what happened to Bristol was rape and I’m not saying we should assume it was. But given the reaction she’s gotten from self-identified feminists for saying even as much as she has, I can’t get on board with the idea that she has a responsibility to call it rape even if that’s what it was. Because look at the shit that people in this little feminist corner of the internet — the people who are usually incredibly sensitive to these issues — are saying, and multiply that by the rest of the world that has no such commitment to not treating rape victims like shit, and then ask yourselves why ON EARTH she might not want to open herself up to more of that.

    Seriously, I usually don’t get all that angry at people writing stupid stuff on the internet, but fuck everyone who claims to be a feminist and then posts shit like the above.

  19. I’m divided on this one. If the brainwashing message from family/church/peers/etc is “stay chaste cuz if you don’t you’re a bad person & will go to hell,” someone who enjoys sex for something other than procreation might want to protect hir “virtue” by saying it was not consensual & come up with a plausible scenario in which s/he can’t be held accountable. On the other hand we do so much fucking re-victimizing of rape victims that I’m inclined to be sympathetic and believe that she could just be telling the truth and the account is factual. Either way I think she’s been victimized by the brainwashing committee that she grew up with!

  20. 1. If it happened the way Bristol recounts, it’s rape.

    2. I really don’t trust the Palins. Not that Levi Johnston doesn’t strike me as the type of person who could do this, but this also sounds like the type of story that someone who is steeped in abstinence advocacy would come up with to avoid taking responsibility for a choice to have sex with her boyfriend whom she fell out of love with and didn’t marry. So I don’t know who to believe here.

    3. One tiny bone to pick with Ms. Friedman– while I agree there’s nothing wrong with drinking, and I further agree that drinking in no way excuses Mr. Johnston’s conduct and may even make it worse (if it happened), there IS something wrong with getting plastered when you are that young. Indeed, that’s an area where I think Bristol Palin could actually do a lot of good– the drunk driving and teen pregnancy and teen sexual assault statistics all suggest teenagers really would be better off if they waited until they were older to drink. (In fact, I think we’d be better off if more teenagers were comfortable with responsible sexuality but fewer teenagers drank.)

  21. Sorry, again being cynical. These kinds of tell-all autobiographies are crafted to design a narrative for a public figure. This narrative — which, curiously, opens the book — is vague enough to leave the right-wing with the impression that she was taken advantage of and her moral virtue is intact, and the left-wing with the impression that she’s so Patty Hearst that she can’t tell she’s been raped. It’s not that I don’t believe it’s plausible — it is, I was raped and have no interest in retraumatizing anyone — but this is a political autobiography and like all political autobiographies it has a message to tell. It’s naive to ignore that this message (the entire book, not just this passage) has been crafted for a conservative audience and for a larger political purpose.

  23. McSnarkster:
    People already are calling her a liar and saying it was her fault when she’s NOT calling it rape. I can only imagine how much worse those accusations against her would be if she did use the words rape or sexual assault. There seems to be no way this poor young woman can win.

    For the win!

  24. Dilan Esper: Not that Levi Johnston doesn’t strike me as the type of person who could do this, but this also sounds like the type of story that someone who is steeped in abstinence advocacy would come up with to avoid taking responsibility for a choice to have sex with her boyfriend whom she fell out of love with and didn’t marry. So I don’t know who to believe here.

    You do realize that you just said that we should have doubts about rape allegations made by any woman who advocates abstinence before marriage, right?

    Everyone on this blog would agree that we shouldn’t doubt a rape allegation because the victim has a lot of sex, but somehow a bunch of commenters think it’s totally fine to suggest that someone might have lied about being raped because she *doesn’t* normally have sex. It’s like we’ve gone through the fucking rabbit hole here.

  26. Becky – I agree with you that when someone blacks out is at least one clear line where you can say, “Definitely too drunk to consent.” I just don’t know if it is always so easy to tell that someone is blacked out?

    I say that because I had an experience once where I blacked out and hooked up with someone. While blacked out, however, I had an explicit discussion of consent – what we were each comfortable doing, what we wanted to do, what we were going to do, etc.

    I understand that this probably isn’t the norm for when people have sexual experiences while blacked out, but I don’t know if even I would have been able to tell someone was too drunk to consent if they were discussing consent with me.

    (BTdubs, I’m perfectly fine with what happened, other than being initially freaked out because I felt bad that I didn’t remember, more for the other person’s sake than for mine. Of course, that’s my own individual reaction, and I’m sure other people would react differently.)

  27. What Bristol Palin describes in her book is what a few of the “good girls” I knew went through. It’s a pretty standard form of so-called “sexual initiation.” Guys in particular will take advantage of it – they can tell she’s interested in sex, they can also tell that she’s afraid of going off the script, so they’ll gain her trust and then ply her with alcohol until she is unable to give consent. And they know she will only blame herself later – after all, she’s a good girl!

    It’s a very familiar scenario. No doubt Bristol Palin’s shitty parents are using it as just another way to cash in. But that doesn’t make the story any less believable in my eyes. And I feel terrible for Bristol Palin – and for all of the girls who will see her in person and decide that, “hey, she’s attractive, has a baby and book deal – this is kind of sweet,” and will not be aware of the class issues that allow for someone like Bristol Palin to, say, not be a single mom trying to get by while living on welfare (or whatever pathetic vestige of welfare there is left) at the moment.

  28. You do realize that you just said that we should have doubts about rape allegations made by any woman who advocates abstinence before marriage, right?

    “Steeped in abstinence advocacy” does not equal “advocates abstinence”, and “I don’t know who to believe here” does not equal “we should have doubts”. (Indeed, on that last point, I have no objection to anyone who thinks the rape occurred. I am decidedly NOT saying “we” should have doubts. I am just saying I don’t know who to believe.)

    The thing I was trying to convey, however imperfectly, is that given the way abstinence advocacy is honored in the breach in many Christian conservative communities, and given the specific political role the Palins have, the story seems consistent with what someone might say if she didn’t want to admit to conservative parents or a conservative community that she simply wanted to become sexually active with her boyfriend, even though the story ALSO seems consistent with kinds of rape that surely happen all the time (as Natalia points out above). So I don’t know how to evaluate a narrative that seems to me to be perfectly plausibly consistent with two different sets of facts.

    But hopefully that’s very different from saying “don’t believe her” or “abstinence advocates aren’t likely to be telling the truth about rape”, neither of which I believe.

  29. Bristol Palin and her boyfriend, both underage, got drunk while camping. She doesn’t remember what happened, after a certain point. She is certain that she had sex, and that she regrets that this was the way her first time happened. She is also of the opinion that she wasn’t raped.

    What it comes down to is what happened inside that tent. We’ve heard from one person that she was too drunk to remember. We haven’t heard — nor have we asked — what Levi remembers (if he remembers anything at all, himself). What we know is that there was too much alcohol, a very young man, a very young woman, and a tent. Naturally, we know that this means that whatever happened inside the tent does not muster the test for sober consent. And so, we know Levi raped Bristol. Period. That’s what having sex with a drunk person is. There is simply no room to consider any other possibility.

    Right next to this post, there is a post titled “‘Bad mom’ doesn’t mean murderer.” To accuse a person of being a rapist is just as serious as accusing that person of being a murderer.

    We can carefully construct sentences to absolve Bristol of all locus for drinking (while simultaneously pointing out that it doesn’t matter if she was). We can assume that Levi is simply another hormone-crazed sex predator who would have no other motive for getting his girlfriend another drink, than to carry out his premeditated rape. We can assume we know what happened in that murky memory-hole of underage teenage drinking. We can tell Bristol, “Shhh, be quiet, you were raped, you just don’t know it.”

    For me to know that this is what happened inside the tent, requires me to forget what I know from my own experiences. For one example: I once had a partner, who lived with me, get very drunk. We were young, and still believed in “marriage first.” She became quite… aggressive, after drinking a considerable amount. Fortunately for me, I was not comfortable with my own sexuality yet (let alone anyone else’s), so I politely refused. The next morning, my lovely partner didn’t remember anything from the previous night. She asked me what happened. She was quite amazed that she wanted to have sex. And I was astonished she didn’t remember. It’s amazing how lucid someone can seem, even once they’ve passed the point of being blackout drunk.

    It is hard for me to accept that I came *this* close to being a rapist, by virtue of nearly succumbing to her temptation. However, this is what I must conclude, from the line of reasoning being employed here. The moral agency was mine, and mine alone. My former partner was incapable of giving sober consent, and as for my consent… well, it’s impossible to rape a man, right? We all know what men are like. Come on. We all know what men do for sex. Hell, I was the one who bought the liquor that my partner and I drank that night.

    Now, it would be wrong for me to assume that my own experiences have any bearing on Bristol and Levi. If I projected my own experiences, one might even accuse me of being a rape apologist, by excusing Levi for the rape we know he committed. It would be wrong for me to make such an assumption about what happened… right?

  30. Natalia:
    What Bristol Palin describes in her book is what a few of the “good girls” I knew went through. It’s a pretty standard form of so-called “sexual initiation.” Guys in particular will take advantage of it – they can tell she’s interested in sex, they can also tell that she’s afraid of going off the script, so they’ll gain her trust and then ply her with alcohol until she is unable to give consent. And they know she will only blame herself later – after all, she’s a good girl!

    Not to mention that so many girls from conservative backgrounds are taught that women are supposed to be the sexual gatekeepers. According to that ideology, getting raped (especially while under the influence of alcohol) = failing as a gatekeeper.

  31. I’m with Esti. Just stop. Stop looking for excuses for doubting her story just because you don’t agree with her politically.

    I was also raped while drunk. The situation was somewhat different: it was a friend, not a boyfriend; I was not a virgin but rather had a bit of a reputation for sleeping around; I hadn’t explicitly told that friend I didn’t want to have sex with him beforehand; he used a condom and I didn’t get pregnant; I wasn’t and am not famous. But a lot of it was quite similar, and you know, that happens ALL the time. Read, over at yes means yes, the discussion of the scholarly data on most rapists: you’ll find they use alcohol and ensure that our victim-blaming culture will see the whole thing as a grey area.

    I didn’t call it rape for more than a year. I stayed friends with this person, and even flirted with him.

    What’s most offensive to me is the discussion here about whether people, based on some nebulous “feeling”, think that Levi Johnston is the “type” of guy to commit rape. Seriously? Haven’t we learned by now that looking into a guy’s eyes, or examining his behaviour in the rest of his life, is not a reliable way to figure out whether a rape has occurred? And then a lot of the discussion is about whether BP is the type of woman to lie… just stop.

    Long story short: I believe that scenario. And the wording is also quite believable to me as her own, though I’m sure it was vetted.

  32. Dr. Confused:
    I’m with Esti.Just stop.Stop looking for excuses for doubting her story just because you don’t agree with her politically.

    I was also raped while drunk.The situation was somewhat different: it was a friend, not a boyfriend; I was not a virgin but rather had a bit of a reputation for sleeping around; I hadn’t explicitly told that friend I didn’t want to have sex with him beforehand; he used a condom and I didn’t get pregnant; I wasn’t and am not famous.But a lot of it was quite similar, and you know, that happens ALL the time.Read, over at yes means yes, the discussion of the scholarly data on most rapists: you’ll find they use alcohol and ensure that our victim-blaming culture will see the whole thing as a grey area.

    I didn’t call it rape for more than a year.I stayed friends with this person, and even flirted with him.

    What’s most offensive to me is the discussion here about whether people, based on some nebulous “feeling”, think that Levi Johnston is the “type” of guy to commit rape.Seriously?Haven’t we learned by now that looking into a guy’s eyes, or examining his behaviour in the rest of his life, is not a reliable way to figure out whether a rape has occurred?And then a lot of the discussion is about whether BP is the type of woman to lie… just stop.

    Long story short: I believe that scenario.And the wording is also quite believable to me as her own, though I’m sure it was vetted.

    With respect, does it really constitute “doubting her story” to accept what she says about what didn’t happen that night?

  33. Additionally, I can’t help but comment on another aspect of this… do any of us, honestly, believe that Jacylyn Friedman would want to hang out with Bristol Palin — truthfully? Is this statement genuine, or is this simply about the points to be scored in a debate that is rather patronizing to Bristol Palin herself?

    1. Additionally, I can’t help but comment on another aspect of this… do any of us, honestly, believe that Jacylyn Friedman would want to hang out with Bristol Palin — truthfully? Is this statement genuine, or is this simply about the points to be scored in a debate that is rather patronizing to Bristol Palin herself?

      So, I know Jaclyn personally. She is a good friend in off-the-internet “real life.” And it’s not that she would want to hang out with Bristol Palin, it’s that Jaclyn is an advocate for rape survivors and women in general. If she knew of a woman who had a traumatic sexual experience, and that woman wanted to talk it though, Jaclyn would be there for her because those are Jaclyn’s ethics.

  34. Pingback: Was Bristol Palin Raped?

  35. How many wine coolers did Levi drink? And what if he was too drunk to knowledgeably consent?

    Can two very drunk people having sex actually be raping each other at the same time?

    Is “passed-out” the only stage of inebriation at which knowledgable consent becomes impossible?

    Is it assumed that because a male can get an erection and engage in sexual intercourse that he capable of knowledgable consent, regardless of how inebriated he is?

    And finally, is being so drunk that you forgot that you said “yes” the night before make it a rape in the morning after you have sobered up?

  36. Natalia,

    “What Bristol Palin describes in her book is what a few of the “good girls” I knew went through. It’s a pretty standard form of so-called “sexual initiation.” Guys in particular will take advantage of it – they can tell she’s interested in sex, they can also tell that she’s afraid of going off the script, so they’ll gain her trust and then ply her with alcohol until she is unable to give consent. And they know she will only blame herself later – after all, she’s a good girl!”

    I haven’t read the book, so I could totally be off here. But isn’t there a different angle to the “good-girl”-narrative? Reading what you say, isn’t one very real possibility here that she actually *wanted to go through with this* but given the culture she’s from and trying to appeal to, she wasn’t able to admit that before, during *and* after? That having him “stealing her virginity” is s narrative that’s protecting her from slut-shaming by the virgin-worshippers (who will likely vote for her mother)?

    Given the cultural divide in the US, maybe she probably didn’t have a lot of choice in telling that story even if she wasn’t raped: She’d either be considered a slut by the people who are voting for her mother or she’d make her boyfriend vulnerable to rape charges from the other half of the country.

    Seems clear to me which one the Palin lawyers/advisers proof-reading the book would choose…

  37. @Dilan Esper

    Did you spend time musing out loud about the reasons that an immigrant maid would have for falsely accusing someone of rape? Because DSK is an entitled, privileged man with a history of treating women badly, but that maid’s story is consistent with someone who chose to have sex with a wealthy man and then got mad when he kicked her out of his room and it’s consistent with someone who had sex with a guest in the hotel and then got scared she’d be fired and it’s consistent with someone who had sex with a man and then realized she could use it to make a name for herself and maybe make some cash in a civil settlement. So I don’t know who to believe.

    Victim blaming isn’t just “she had it coming”. It’s also “I’m not necessarily saying she’s lying, but she sure did have a lot of reasons for making it up”. The barometer for when we start talking about why she might have made it up can’t be “I think that there’s a plausible reason she would have wanted to lie.” Because these conversations don’t happen in a vacuum. They happen against the backdrop of centuries of people thinking that women can’t be raped, or that only some women can be raped, or that it’s not rape if it’s your husband, or that it’s not rape if you were drunk, or that it’s not rape if you didn’t report it right away. And they happen against the backdrop of a lot of people who even today still think that there are way more false rape claims than actual rapes. So when people start saying things like “I’m not saying it’s not plausible, but she had a strong incentive to lie” it just reinforces all of society’s natural tendencies to doubt rape allegations and to treat victims like shit.

    You don’t have to believe Bristol. I don’t have any view, one way or the other, of whether she was actually raped. But if you want to have a conversation about how abstinence education hurts young women and makes them ashamed of having sex and scared to admit to it, have a conversation about abstinence education. Don’t have a conversation about how likely it is that one specific girl is lying about being raped. Especially when she NEVER SAID SHE WAS RAPED.

  38. As Jill noted in the DSK case, people who are looking for a reason to discredit a woman can almost always find something. Remember? There are no perfect accusers.

    Does anyone on this thread really want to suggest that B. Palin actually consented to sex, but that she or her mother later altered the story to avoid getting into trouble? That’s one of the most common tropes thrown out to discredit women. Even virgins can’t be perfect accusers, because secretly they wanted it.

    What B. Palin described is a common scenario and it should be called rape. I hope she can call it rape herself one day and know that it wasn’t her fault.

  39. anonone: How many wine coolers did Levi drink? And what if he was too drunk to knowledgeably consent? Can two very drunk people having sex actually be raping each other at the same time?Is “passed-out” the only stage of inebriation at which knowledgable consent becomes impossible? Is it assumed that because a male can get an erection and engage in sexual intercourse that he capable of knowledgable consent, regardless of how inebriated he is?And finally, is being so drunk that you forgot that you said “yes” the night before make it a rape in the morning after you have sobered up?

    Every time we have a conversation about someone being raped while they were drinking, someone asks these questions. There are in fact legal answers to all of them, but I have a feeling you’re not actually interested in them, since no one has said any of those things on this thread. And especially since the last two questions are ridiculous and offensive caricatures of what you think feminists believe.

  40. Esti,

    1) Just because no one asked these question on this thread doesn’t mean that they should not be asked. I am sincerely interested in a discussion of the answers.
    2) If you know that there are “legal answers” to all of them, please share them.
    3) Bristol is telling her side of the story – Levi hasn’t told his. Do you know how drunk (or not) he was?
    4) I know men who have been “date raped” by women when the man was too intoxicated to knowledgeably consent. Do you think that the police or DA would take them seriously? Would you?
    5) My last two questions have nothing to do with feminism in particular. The first one is in regards to how society views males in regards to heterosexual rape, in this case, date-rape. The second one applies equally to both genders. Why you think simply asking the questions are “ridiculous and offensive caricatures of what you think feminists believe” is about your agenda, not mine.

  41. Sometimes, there *are* tough, complicated reasons to falsely accuse someone of rape.

    Like, maybe in your community, having sex – or, say, the race or class or gender or other attributes of the person you had sex with – would bring down the full weight of the community’s wrath and shaming and ostracism on your shoulders. We do know there’s a history, for example, of white women (or their white communities) making false rape accusations regarding black men to cover up an interracial relationship because of a racist system.

    And there are other reasons – say, someone committed a sexual assault against you that didn’t include standard heterosexual able-bodied p-in-v penetration, and calling it rape even if it doesn’t meet the legal or mainstream definition is the only way to get support or justice.

    This is not to say that putting forth a false rape accusation gets you a free ride or an easy ride or any success at all, or that it’s a good idea or the best idea or a morally correct idea but I can understand why someone might do it. Give people a broken system and sometimes you can only find broken ways of dealing with it – we see that phenomenon in queer communities, where people who have been systemically abused and exiled can sometimes struggle to not replicate that pattern in intimate relationships, or even in rape, in which the “nice” thing to do is to report it – but the system is so awful that we can’t blame anyone for not taking that route.

    I can even see it in myself, in the opposite direction – if pressed I would publicly downplay what happened to me, which is actually dishonest – but I would do it because calling it rape would hurt me more than it would help me. On the other hand, I might exaggerate some of my nonconsensual experiences with a new partner to ensure that they take me seriously when I say I’m not comfortable with X or Y, as I’ve had folks push those boundaries before when I described them as “really really shitty sex experiences” or “non-consensual crappishness” instead of rape.

    Anyway, in a world where women wanting sex and women being raped are both punishable on the women’s end, rape in the public sphere going to be played differently based on the surrounding politics. I do think it’s entirely possible that Bristol has a political ghost-writing machine behind that is going to spin her story in a way that appeals to right-wing virtue-loving types, and I also think it’s entirely possible that she had a shitty non-consensual experience (I’m not going to call it rape until she does, because I consider it patronizing to name someone else’s experience for them).

    Obviously, whether someone is a rape victim or not, it doesn’t hurt for people to support them and trust them – the tiny failure of justice (if you can even call it that) if they weren’t actually a victim is miniscule compared to the giant failure of justice if they’re a victim and people subject them to skepticism or speculation. Not to mention that some folks who make a false accusation have been raped before – or will be raped in the future.

    I kind of feel the same way about poor panhandlers – maybe they are injecting some lies when they ask me for my pocket change, but they’re unquestionably in a shit situation and if lying is their survival strategy – or if they have a force behind them, like poor-shaming, that makes it damn near impossible to be frank without earning someone’s contempt and judgment – then I certainly can’t fault them for it.

    I’m going to trust them, and I’m going to give them my change anyway, and whatever the hell they do with it is their business, not mine. If they use it to buy alcohol I can be pretty sure it’s because my $3 is not enough for anyone to buy a new life, and alcohol might be one way for them to feel a bit better (or a bit less worse) or to give them some pleasure, which god knows is a fundamental need.

    But most panhandlers buy food, and most rape victims are rape victims. There is more than enough trust to go around; we don’t have to hold back.

    This is coming from someone who hasn’t told people in real life about what happened to her, because I just don’t think anyone will believe me. I don’t want anyone to know because I just can’t bear the idea that they’ll speculate about whether it’s true, the way I’ve speculated about other women in the past…

  42. Sam,

    Bristol Palin’s book is targeting her mother’s base. And most of these people appear to make no distinctions – raped or not raped, you’re still a dirty slut for having done it out of wedlock.

    That’s why the mea culpa is in there, I believe – by presenting it as just a poor choice, she at least gets to seem both responsible and properly ashamed.

    Like Florence, I believe we’re being sold something here. But I think that what we’re being sold is the idea that hey, there is no rape! Girls are totally in control! Something happens? Poor decision-making is solely to blame!

    Rape doesn’t exist, unless it’s a monstrous (can’t be someone nice) stranger (can’t be someone you know) who attacks you in a well-lit alley (if you were walking in a dark alley, you wanted it), overpowers your male guardian (if you were walking alone, you wanted it), and violently (it’s not rape if it’s not violent) takes your virginity (it’s not rape if you’re not a virgin).

    That’s what’s being sold by the Palin team.

    At the same time, Bristol Palin as an individual has every right to call her experience whatever she wants to call it. And maybe she’s making shit up to make herself seem even more like a “good girl”, but I doubt it. She could have said, “he told me that he loved me, he said he was going to marry me,” etc. Instead, she talked about alcohol. Strikes me as someone going out on a limb and being honest.

    Just because her family’s politics are odious to me doesn’t make her unrapeable. Quite the opposite. Rape culture is reinforced by such politics.

  43. Sam: That having him “stealing her virginity” is s narrative that’s protecting her from slut-shaming by the virgin-worshippers (who will likely vote for her mother)?

    Except that it doesn’t protect her. She’s not a virgin. And to the kind of people we’re talking about, the reason she isn’t a virgin anymore is because she got drunk and got in a tent with her boyfriend. Like Brett K said above, she failed in her role as sexual gatekeeper, and it doesn’t matter whether she failed because she gave in and said yes, or because she failed because she was drunk. It was her job to keep her virginity intact, and she didn’t. And having grown up in that culture, Bristol would be very aware of how little protection: “I was too drunk to consent” would offer – hell, even outside of conservative culture it is by no means universally or even widely accepted that sex with someone blackout drunk is rape. So what does she have to gain from lying?

  44. On a lighter note …

    Thanks for much for pointing me towards “Good”. I had only read it once or twice. Now, I’m alllll over it! I think we can all agree that Bristol Palin is rather disingenuous (okay, i’m a complete cynic when it comes to that family), and there had to be some sort of ‘spin’ regarding her out-of-wedlock child given her mother’s position back then as she stood in front of the media courting her Republican base. Thank Bristol continues to sing her little ditty to impressionable young girls (while reaping loads of moola) has it’s own karmic ramifications.

    I applaud Jacylyn Friedman for adding the levity necessary to frame Bristol’s position … and illustrate the folly of it all. (especially loved to line ‘thanks for letting me crash here’)

    Besides, i’m in Italy … sitting beside the pool watching young girls and their parents swim without a care in the world. When i literally laughed out loud, i ended-up sharing the article with the mothers nearby. While not a comprehensive consensus in any way, they all agreed that Bristol is FULL OF IT!

    Grazie for the laughs.

  45. Anonone,

    “How many wine coolers did Levi drink? And what if he was too drunk to knowledgeably consent?”

    It is highly unlikely (I’d probably even say impossible) for sex to occur when BOTH parties are too drunk to consent, and BOTH parties do not want it. Someone has to initiate, after all. I can’t imagine a scenario in which two people who don’t want sex, don’t have control of their faculties, and are passing in and out of consciousness end up in that situation, unless they’re being forced by a third party, and there’s been no indication that that’s the case here.

    “Can two very drunk people having sex actually be raping each other at the same time?”

    Again, I imagine not. How would anything even happen if BOTH parties are nonconsenting?
    Furthermore, Esti is right that these questions probably do stem from a misunderstanding of feminism’s stance. When you ask questions like these, it seems to me (and I apologize if I’m wrong) that you’re operating under the assumption that feminists believe any drunk sex is rape, most likely the rape of a woman by a man. A little 101 will clear up misunderstandings like that.

    “Is “passed-out” the only stage of inebriation at which knowledgable consent becomes impossible?”
    Read the rest of the thread. This has already been discussed.

    “Is it assumed that because a male can get an erection and engage in sexual intercourse that he capable of knowledgable consent, regardless of how inebriated he is?”

    Of course not.

    Well, let me revise that. Yes, that is often assumed by non-feminists still steeped in the patriarchy and rape culture. But that assumption is completely wrong, completely horrifying, and certainly not advocated by any feminist I’ve ever heard/read.

    “And finally, is being so drunk that you forgot that you said “yes” the night before make it a rape in the morning after you have sobered up?”

    Again, of course not. The word “rape” means that there was no consent. There was no “yes.” Even if someone says “yes” but can’t remember it in the morning, they’re not going to feel violated. They may think it was a mistake, they may be embarrassed, but if it was sex that they wanted enough to enthusiastically say “yes” to, then I would really doubt they would feel they were violated in any way, regardless of whether or not they remember the actual “yes.” Because “yes” would certainly be something they could imagine themselves saying, even sober.

    “Bristol is telling her side of the story – Levi hasn’t told his. Do you know how drunk (or not) he was?”

    No. Does it matter?

    “I know men who have been “date raped” by women when the man was too intoxicated to knowledgeably consent. Do you think that the police or DA would take them seriously? Would you?”

    Many police officers would not take them seriously. (Some would, many wouldn’t. Most police officers don’t take claims of rape from women seriously, and unfortunately, justice is even more unattainable for men.) That is a horrible injustice that feminists are actively involved in correcting.

  46. Melissa,

    Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

    I disagree with one assumption that you make, though.

    In my opinion, a “yes” from a person who is unable to knowledgeably grant consent is not “consent.” Clearly a “no” is a “no” under any circumstances, but I don’t think that a “yes” is necessarily a “yes” if the person saying is too drunk or intoxicated to fully consider all the possible consequences of what they are saying “yes” to.

    So two drunk people could have unwanted sex with each other that neither would consent to if they weren’t drunk. Could that have been the case with Bristol and Levi? Maybe. Is that rape? I dunno.

    And as far as having been too drunk to remember saying “yes,” and then regretting what happened in the morning: many people remember saying “yes” and still regret what happened the next morning. People who are “black out” (not passed out) drunk simply may not remember that they said “yes”, but were clearly in no condition to grant consent. Is that a prosecutable crime? Maybe, maybe not.

  47. I haven’t read the book, so I could totally be off here. But isn’t there a different angle to the “good-girl”-narrative? Reading what you say, isn’t one very real possibility here that she actually *wanted to go through with this* but given the culture she’s from and trying to appeal to, she wasn’t able to admit that before, during *and* after? That having him “stealing her virginity” is s narrative that’s protecting her from slut-shaming by the virgin-worshippers (who will likely vote for her mother)?

    I realize this has been said before, and better, by Esti above.

    But let me give certain people another hint: if you are a feminist, and you write something that boils down to ‘some women want to be raped’, DO NOT POST IT. Instead, go back and figure out where your line of thought went wrong.

    And let me quote Esti on this, because, apparently, it needs to be repeated:

    You don’t get to victim blame because she’s a Republican. You don’t get to victim blame because you don’t like her mother. You don’t get to victim blame because you disagree with her abstinence only advocacy. You don’t get to victim blame because she wrote a book about her life. YOU DON’T GET TO VICTIM BLAME.

  48. So essentially everyone here agrees that it’s presumptuous of us to define what happened to Bristol Palin “rape” for her, and yet agrees that she was nevertheless raped and is a victim. Is this right? Because this rhetorical twist bothers me.

  49. So essentially everyone here agrees that it’s presumptuous of us to define what happened to Bristol Palin “rape” for her, and yet agrees that she was nevertheless raped and is a victim. Is this right? Because this rhetorical twist bothers me.

    It bothers me too. When I read the relevant Levi passage, I thought – “rape.” Still, she doesn’t want to call it that, whether because of who her mother is, or because of other stuff. There isn’t a right way to respond to it, is what I’m thinking.

  50. I don’t agree that she was raped or that she is a “victim” (which then designates Levi as a rapist). Both may or may not be true, but only two people know the whole story, and we have only read one very brief and sanitized side of it.

  51. Florence: So essentially everyone here agrees that it’s presumptuous of us to define what happened to Bristol Palin “rape” for her, and yet agrees that she was nevertheless raped and is a victim. Is this right? Because this rhetorical twist bothers me.

    I’m not saying she was raped. I have no problem with people saying that they aren’t going to label it rape when she hasn’t (that’s my view of things, actually). I do have a problem with people saying she’s making her story up — whether it has the label of rape or not — because of who she or her mother are.

  52. @anon,

    Not every experience of rape requires a rapist. I think holding that perspective means that you will discount people’s experiences just because they don’t result in standards of guilt. I think its better to accept that someone may *experience* an interaction as rape even when the person who had intercourse had every reason to believe the other person was fully consenting.

    @Florence,

    I think its more that we can’t categorize her experience as rape because that word has been used against people who engage in certain types of consensual sexual activities. And we don’t deny women’s sexual experiences because women’s voices are all to often ignored.

  53. I don’t think it’s too presumptuous to define what happened to her as rape, but it is presumptuous to say Bristol Palin needs to publicly call it that. That’s pretty obviously only going to lead to more ugly responses.

  54. Florence: So essentially everyone here agrees that it’s presumptuous of us to define what happened to Bristol Palin “rape” for her, and yet agrees that she was nevertheless raped and is a victim. Is this right?

    I don’t think everyone agrees on either of those things and I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that we do. I don’t agree with the first part – I don’t think she has to call her experience rape if she doesn’t feel comfortable doing so. That doesn’t mean other people can’t consider it rape. And as far as people calling her a victim, she’s the one who said she felt like her virginity has been stolen from her. So it would appear that she considers herself a victim of something, even if she doesn’t feel comfortable calling that something rape.

  55. Becky:So it would appear that she considers herself a victim of something, even if she doesn’t feel comfortable calling that something rape.

    Some people, like her mother, make whole careers and lots of money out of making themselves “the victim” of one thing or another. Why would anybody be surprised if Bristol Palin™ is trying to do the same thing?

  56. Bristol can call it anything she likes, and I will respect her right to do so. I call the series of events she describes rape.

  57. I’m a bit uncomfortable with the idea being raised that Bristol Palin doesn’t want to call it rape because of who her mother is. Is it really fair for us to make that supposition? I’m trying to put myself in her place, reading both what Jaclyn Friedman said, and these comments on it… honestly, it is hard to put myself in her place, but I wonder if we might be surprised by her reaction to this line of thinking.

  58. BTW… may I ask why my only significant comment on this topic has been in moderation-limbo for over 24 hours? Have I run afoul of any rules within this community?

  59. anonone: Some people, like her mother, make whole careers and lots of money out of making themselves “the victim” of one thing or another. Why would anybody be surprised if Bristol Palin™ is trying to do the same thing?

    Sexual victimization =/= awkward questions from Katie Couric. I don’t remember Sarah Palin ever claiming to be the victim of a violent crime and trying to score points for it.

    Seriously, everything Esti said throughout.

    I honestly don’t understand the “she’s lying” reaction here. I don’t like her as a person either, and even if I did think there was something suspect about the book-writing process (frankly – I think she knows she was raped but probs couldn’t say it because “rape” only happens to us common folk), I would NEVER contribute to the narrative that “woman talking about her sexual assault is probably lying because she’s drunk/a slut/purple/Republican.” what the fuck.

  61. So essentially everyone here agrees that it’s presumptuous of us to define what happened to Bristol Palin “rape” for her, and yet agrees that she was nevertheless raped and is a victim.

    Rape is an objective event and also a defined crime. To suggest that has to feel raped in order for that event to have existed is morally and logically incoherent. Perhaps a woman does not believe or does not feel permitted to say that her consent is a significant factor in whether or not it is ok for a man to have sex with her. So, fine; I’m not going to bully her into saying it. That’s what respecting her agency consists of: not trying to bully or propagandize her into performing and thinking and speaking in a manner convenient to us. But her not saying it does not actually magically cause reality to warp and shift around us.

    If a woman isn’t traumatized, doesn’t mind, gets over it, isn’t angry, or believes or knows that naming or considering the act will produce or worsen ill effects, that’s all her business and her absolute and sole right to determine. None of those possibilities in any way determine or change the nature of what happened. Words have meanings, and crimes are crimes, even when women are involved.

    Female bodies don’t transport us to some fairytale Schroedinger’s-cat-box-land where nothing has happened until we decide how we feel about it and nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so and all sorts of weighty matters dangle on the thread of our so-delicate feelings. Things that that are done to us are real and objective events, irrespective of how we choose to cope with them, think about them, survive them. It’s just like we’re people, to whom real things happen.

  62. PrettyAmiabro: I don’t remember Sarah Palin ever claiming to be the victim of a violent crime and trying to score points for it.

    Then you probably don’t remember Sarah Palin™ trying to make herself a victim in the Gabrielle Gifford shooting.

  63. I generally don’t comment but, I have to say, this post made me really sad. Aren’t we supposed to be working to empower one another? Since when is forcing someone to confront rape respectful of agency? Or trauma? I can’t believe WE feel WE have the right to humiliate, provoke and out potential rape victims. I expect that from mainstream media but not this site. I would like to know what makes Jaclyn feel that she has the right to patronize someone this way.

  64. Esti:

    1. I believed, and I guess still believe, DSK’s accuser.

    2. I never said anything about lying about rape. I am saying (and others in the thread are saying it as well) that Bristol’s story is consistent with the sorts of things that are sometimes said by people with repressive sexual upbringings about sexual encounters. (Carol Cassell wrote a book called ‘Swept Away’ documenting this.) It is also consistent with a manner in which young women are sometimes forced into sex.

    3. I don’t take feminist advocacy on rape to mean that we can never look carefully at any woman’s claims. Nor, it would seem, do a number of others in this thread. I do think we shouldn’t dismiss Bristol’s claims, and I don’t.

  65. anonone: Then you probably don’t remember Sarah Palin™ trying to make herself a victim in the Gabrielle Gifford shooting.

    No, I remember it. I’m just not stupid enough to conflate that event with actually claiming to be the primary victim of a violent crime. Something about not being an asshole who has wholly internalized rape culture, I guess.

  66. Esti’s the only one making any sense here, especially in light of recent comments on the Mac McClelland post, where people who questioned whether her self-treatment was a wise thing were met with many reasons why such a position was offensive, and wrong.

    Here? if one doesn’t feel self-righteous enough to say, “Oh yes. Bristol Palin was raped and she’s too right wing/feels too guilty/doesn’t know what happened/essentially has no agency, so she doesn’t call it that,” one is also wrong.

    Feels hypocritical to me.

  67. Florence</a:
    So essentially everyone here agrees that it’s presumptuous of us to define what happened to Bristol Palin “rape” for her, and yet agrees that she was nevertheless raped and is a victim. Is this right? Because this rhetorical twist bothers me.

    We can’t define Bristol Palin’s experience for her. If she lays down the details and then wraps up with, “But I wouldn’t call it rape,” we don’t really get to say, “No, you’re wrong, it was rape.” We also don’t get to say, “She doesn’t want to call it rape because she’s lying,” or “She has a lot to gain by describing it as rape without calling it rape,” or any of the accompanying bullshit.

    We do, however, get to say among ourselves, “You know, what she describes sounds a lot like rape.” So when we discuss it among ourselves, we can do so using the frame of rape.

    She’s saying that 4+16/2=8; we’re saying that 4×2=8. It’s rhetorically viable. It’s not okay, however, to say, “4+4? 4+4, you say? Seriously? Y’all, she’s totally lying.”

  68. i was raped. while i was passed out drunk. and i didn’t call it “rape,” either. for years. instead i internalized it, took the full responsibility, and called it a “stupid decision” on my part. it took a long time to learn the self-respect to admit that what that person did to me was WRONG. it was HURTFUL. and it DAMAGED me.

    i have no way of knowing if bristol is telling the truth, or spinning her story for political reasons, or outright lying about what happened. and neither do any of you.

    but i do know one thing:

    the entire story makes me incredibly sad. any way you look at it, it’s incredibly sad.

    either she had consensual sex and is now trying to take-back that consent (by claiming that she was too drunk to consent, that he STOLE her virginity), or she was raped. it’s a no-win situation.

    and to see so many people here on this blog passing judgment on her, the situation, etc., calling her a LIAR, without any of the facts… just… breaks. my. heart.

    i expect more from this community.

Comments are currently closed.