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[SheilaT]

9. So true.

I have been in situations where I had less than consensual sex, and I have never spoken out about it. I can perhaps count myself lucky that it was never as these women experienced. But our inability and unwillingness to speak out is so much part of the entire problem.

Here's another aspect (which I do not think at all applies to the women in this case, but I'll say it anyway) which is that there is a very large gray area in the whole consent aspect. My personal situations (and I know I can only speak for myself and not ever for anyone else) that I refer to, were not by any means classic rape, but rather times in which I said a weak "No", that I didn't feel I could enforce. I wasn't harmed in the overt sort of rape situation, and I was never drugged. So I don't want to make a stronger case than is necessary, but I do want to say I more than get it about consent.

A close friend of mine, a very long time ago, nearly fifty years ago now, once related to me an incident where a man tried to rape her. She successfully fought him off, and was persuaded (mostly by other men) not to press any kind of charges, because of how she would be dragged through the mud. This was a young woman who at the time was a virgin (as if that should make any difference) and fortunately she was not actually raped, but the prevailing attitude that she should just ignore what happened and move on, is a sad indictment of our culture.