Question If a woman were to force herself sexually on a man most people would have a hard time imagining how that incident would cause lasting and profound trauma for that man. Why is that?

Accepted:
July 19, 2012

Comments

I'm not sure that "most people would have a hard time imagining" how a woman's forcing herself sexually on a man could cause lasting and profound trauma for the man: some people might well have difficulty imagining how this could be the case. Perhaps such 'imaginative resistance' would be due to certain ingrained and long-standing assumptions about sexuality, including the canard that males always want sex, and therefore could not be forced to have sex. Even if some do share such assumptions, I myself do not find it difficult to think that a woman forcing herself sexually on a man would be no less a violation than a man forcing himself sexually on a woman: what's crucial in these cases, to my mind, is that the sexual relationship is in some way coerced and, hence, is not freely entered into by both parties. (To be sure, the nature of the coercion might differ in the two cases: whereas one might think that a man forces himself by force on a woman, in most cases, given the disparities in strength between the sexes, it is difficult--although not impossible--to imagine a woman forcing herself by force on a man, although there are, to be sure, many ways in which coercion can be exercised that have nothing to do with pure physical power, and it is the coercive nature of the sexual relationship that, to my mind, makes it problematic.)

Question If a woman were to force herself sexually on a man most people would have a hard time imagining how that incident would cause lasting and profound trauma for that man. Why is that? Accepted:July 19, 2012

Question If a woman were to force herself sexually on a man most people would have a hard time imagining how that incident would cause lasting and profound trauma for that man. Why is that?

Accepted:
July 19, 2012