Celebrities & Smut: Mirren on Date-Rape, Duchovy on Sex Addiction

Late last night I put a cutesy “Helen Mirren rocks!” kind of posting up, and I woke up to see a message from Abby Dabby pointing out that Mirren has gone on record as saying date rape isn’t really something the courts should be involved in.
In an article coming out in the UK’s GQ, she’s said:

The actress also stated in the candid interview with British magazine GQ that it would be hard for women to press charges against someone they had planned on being sexually active with.She told the publication, “I was (date-raped), yes. A couple of times. Not with excessive violence, or being hit, but rather being locked in a room and made to have sex against my will.”
“I don’t think she (a female rape victim) can have that man into court under those circumstances.”

Every single time I have sex, it is a choice. Every single time I choose to be active, my partner’s receiving a gift from me. If I don’t say yes, it’s not a choice. If there’s no choice, it is arbitrary and a situation of force.
Force means rape.
Rape is wrong. I don’t give a fuck if I know someone, had planned to be active, think he’s cute, flirted with him — if I haven’t made the choice and consented, it’s rape. Period. This is what “no means no” means.
If Mirren didn’t have the balls to stand up against men who’ve forced her to have sex, then that’s a shame. She’s not alone. Until more women are strong enough to say, “You know what? I didn’t ask for sex. I didn’t want sex. He took it. He forced it.” and protest, then the fight will remain as hard and unbalanced as it is.
That said, I think charging for date rape is a pretty extreme action, and one must really consider just how strongly they protested. I think a whispered “No” is different than a forceful “No”, and if it’s going to be a date rape charge that can ruin a man’s life, then a woman needs to know she protested in a clear and direct manner.
Perhaps Mirren doesn’t think she protested adamantly enough. Maybe she just resigned herself to sex. Maybe this is why she thinks of it differently. I don’t know.
I’m on the side of women in this situation, but the only thing that concerns me about date rape are the number of men who’ve been accused in situations that seemed a little shades-of-grey. It’s so fucking tricky to be balanced on this, but I think the important thing is, making it very plain that the answer is “No.” Be heard. Speak loud. Shout. Say it like you mean it.
And if they choose to not hear, they deserve to be charged by law.

_______________

David Duchovny has released a statement to say he has checked into a facility to deal with sex addiction.
Duchovny’s one of these guys who lost his virginity at 14 and was sexually involved with a married woman at 16. He’s always oozed sexuality. He plays a sex-addicted writer in Californication. He voiced-over the sex-filled Red Shoes Diary erotica series. The guy’s been all about sex for a very, very long time now.
Unfortunately, sexual addiction still isn’t taken very seriously. Most people think, “Hell, go for it. If you can get laid that much…” Someone like me, writing a sex blog, and talking about sex addiction is probably about the stupidest topic to write about. How many of my readers fall into that category? How many sex bloggers do? Or do any? How common is it, really? Do we even know?
I often look at sex blogs and wonder, “How healthy is your relationship to sex? How much does it command your life? How many relationships has sex destroyed? Or has it been a problem at all?”
I’m sure a few sex bloggers fall into the sex-addicted category. I’m sure someone in your day-to-day life does as well. I know I don’t.
But when you live in a society that sells sex everywhere, yet has a very Puritanical approach to sex, just how do you straddle both while celebrating your sexuality in a sex-positive way that doesn’t lead to unhealthy behaviours? With great difficulty, I guess. But most people won’t have that difficulty. Sex is an aspect of their lives, not the majority thereof.
Sexual addiction, like any addiction, is a progressive disease. Over time, the search for sexual highs begins requiring more and more risk and ante-upping to receive the same reward. This is a great explanation of the disorder.
A reader wrote me long ago about sexual addiction. Her long, long letter was heart-breaking as she detailed her inability to act in ways that stopped hurting her life. She told of how sex had destroyed almost all her relationships and continued to have her acting in ways that she found were highly destructive in all areas of her life, even engaging in unprotected high-risk sex when she didn’t have the control to delay for a few moments. She was the extreme, the other end of sexual addiction. The heroin junkie of the sex world.
My response was here.
I think, though, in light of the Duchovny scenario, it might be wise to take another kick at the can and define anew the difference between extreme enthusiasts and addicts. Because just because someone’s getting laid a lot, loves it, and seems compulsive about it doesn’t mean they’re an addict.
They could just be really, really lucky. It’s the nature of the behaviour that defines it.
In the meantime, Duchovny’s one of the coolest celebrities I’ve ever met. Funny as fuck. He used to come into my bookshop every Tuesday morning when he was shooting X-Files here in town. He’d buy a book, a copy of the New Yorker, would shoot the shit at the counter for a moment, always made us laugh, then he’d collect his dog outside, go get a venti drink from Starbucks, wander down to Kits beach, and walk his dog, read, and drink. Does that sound like an evil sex-addicted bastard to you? A lech?
Just another guy with a difficult time on his hands and a compulsion for something he’d clearly rather be doing a little more without. I hope he sorts his shit out. He rocks. I’ll ponder the sexual addiction conundrum in the coming weeks.

2 thoughts on “Celebrities & Smut: Mirren on Date-Rape, Duchovy on Sex Addiction

  1. D.P.

    There was a fascinating case a few years back–I think in MA–where the central issue was whether a woman, after consenting to sex, then saying “no” during the act, can legally fall under the definition of “raped.”

    The court’s decision was, at times, oddly funny, insofar as it consider such things as how many “thrusts” were involved. But at the same time, the decision touched upon whether the “no” was verbal, or verbal and physical.

    In a decision that made quite a few people unhappy on both sides, the court decided that the situation above can only be called rape–legally–if the woman physically fought back. As long as she consents to sex, even though she changes her mind during the act and (only) verbally says no, there can be no rape charge.

    The court had to reach back into British Common Law for a precedent (this is the ultimate ground of American law); it was a complex case and a complex decision (and a complex philosophical/ethical/legal discussion as well).

    I came down opposed to the court’s decision, but after reviewing Constitutional law and related cases, as well as having many extended conversations with a Constitutional scholar, I saw the court’s reasoning.

    Rape is a really fuzzy thing–in one aspect: when consent is given, what constitutes the revocation of consent, and when can consent be revoked?

    The court ultimately reasoned that–for men raping women–there has to be a certain amount of protection for men in terms of the revocation of consent; they have rights too. To charge a man with rape when consent is revoked literally seconds before he removes his penis was, for the court, just too invasive in terms of the man’s rights. So they ultimately decided upon physical revocation of consent. (Obviously, this case, and any precedent it sets, applies only to a rape where the woman is not drugged or in some way incapacitated.)

    It’s a tough issue with me, when you get down to the details. The law has to protect those from rape, but it also has to be fair in terms of the revocation of consent.

  2. Scribe Called Steff

    Absolutely. I wrestle with it too. I’ve known the odd man whose life has been destroyed by wrongful allegations.

    It’s a tough line. I think a whispered “no” doesn’t hold a lot of water. God knows I love to playfully protest advances, and my “no” shouldn’t be taken seriously in such moments.

    I think women do need to fight back some, need to MEAN the no. But it makes me a little on the outside of the feminist realm to believe such things.

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