While we’re on the subject of analogies about rape….

So this. 

 

And oh good god, didn’t we have this conversation before? Like, forever, always?

And I know we’ve covered how rape is not like robbery, because oh hey, people are not objects.

 

So you know, here’s an analogy: Rape is to sex as dancing is to boxing. Now before anyone gets all BOXING ISN’T RAPE OMG, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying boxing isn’t dancing, and rape isn’t sex. OK? OK.

See, they superficially resemble each other-

But they really aren’t like each other at all.

Sometimes, dancing resembles boxing:

Sometimes, boxing (and variants thereof) resembles dancing:

But they aren’t the same.

It puzzles me, the way that nobody seems to ever confuse boxing and dancing,they way the confuse rape and sex. Boxing may require many of the same movements as dancing, but the intent is not the same

Sex is a co-operative endeavor, even if you’re having sex with yourself.  Not that I should need to write this, but, to say the least , rape is not a co-operative endeavor.

And that is why rape is not about sex. Just because the water is the same color as the sky does not mean you can breathe it.

Rape is not about sexual desire, because sexual desire is in no small part about mutual, co-operative desire. Rape is about the desire for power, not the desire for sex.

There is so much evidence of  this that I don’t even know why we’re still having this conversation, as a species.