I just can’t fathom how a woman can overpower a man in that manner. Even if a woman is physically stronger than the man. If a man really doesn’t want to, how could she even make him erect by force, let alone force it inside her?

I feel like I’m too ignorant on the subject. So please, anyone, enlighten me.

p.s. Statutory rape I do see how that would happen.

  • Droggelbecher@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Power over another person, the prerequisite for most sexual violence, doesn’t have to come from superior physical strength. It could come from an age difference, a professor-student or boss-employee dynamic, or some form of blackmail, for example. And the body can experience physical arousal in response to the right stimuli even when you don’t want to have sex. You can also do acts of sexual violence that do not require an erect penis.

    • Droggelbecher@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      It can also happen after you consent to SOME intimate acts, but not others, and the other person can take you by surprise. (That one has happened to me, im not male though)

  • BrotherL0v3@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago
    1. Rape does not always involve physically overpowering someone. Someone may coerce someone else into sex with blackmail, lies, threats, or abuse of a position of power.

    2. Erections are controlled by a person’s autonomic nervous system. A man can get hard even when he is not turned on or consenting to what is happening.

    3. Not all rape involves a penis. A woman who sticks an object into a man without his consent is committing rape. Rape is about power and control over another person, and the rapist need not be directly stimulated for rape to occur.

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Number 3 in many states is legally not rape. In many states rape is legally defined as someone inserting a penis into a vagina. As fucked as that is, often people suggesting changes to the laws to make them more accurate to reality, end up getting vilified as some sort of apologist or predator themselves.

        • millifoo@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          This answer is from Kagi’s search summary: I don’t know how accurate it may or may not be:


          As of 2024, the specific U.S. states that only define rape as requiring penis insertion are:

          • Alabama
          • Florida
          • Idaho
          • Kansas
          • Louisiana
          • Mississippi
          • North Carolina
          • Oklahoma
          • South Carolina
          • Texas

          These states have not updated their legal definitions of rape to include other forms of sexual penetration or oral sex, which can lead to underreporting and inadequate prosecution of sexual assault cases. It is important to note that federal law and many other states have broader definitions of rape that encompass various forms of non-consensual sexual contact.

    • Nikls94@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The “abuse of a position of power” is what companies do nowadays… “either you click on agree to these new TOS or you can’t use Disney+ anymore, we don’t care if you paid until October”

  • norimee@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Maybe it helps with understanding when you think of examples of female rape that isn’t a stranger beating up a woman in a dark alley.

    Like Harvey Weinstein. Countless women have come forward about rape and sexual violence from him. I doubt he always used physical violence on these women. But he was this all powerful person in the filmindustry who could and would destroy lives and careers with a wave of his hand if you’d deny him.

    Very often rape and sexual violence comes out of a power dynamic where the victim (no matter the gender) feels they don’t have a choice. Physical violence does not have to be involved.

  • problematicPanther@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Coersion. For example, “if you don’t have sex with me right now, we’re breaking up/I’m divorcing you/I’m going to ruin your life by doing xyz.” And when you say no, she’ll threaten to call the cops on you for some made up bullshit, but they’ll believe her over you because she’s the woman and you’re the man.

    Also, you don’t have to be erect to have someone force you into performing sex acts. She could force you to perform oral on her, she could grope you, she could even penetrate you.

    But if this happens to you, fight back.

    • throwawaysalami@lemm.eeOP
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      5 months ago

      I knew this post wouldn’t be a very “positive” one. But man that’s messed up. I think I understand now.

    • DontTreadOnBigfoot@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      But if this happens to you, fight back.

      But remember, YOU will be going to jail if you do.

      It’s not right, but it’s the truth

  • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
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    5 months ago

    By your logic a woman couldn’t be raped because she got wet and had an orgasm. Getting an erection isn’t a conscious thing that men will by, like lifting an arm. Plenty of men also get physically abused by their girlfriends / wives, despite being physically stronger and technically able to overpower them. If you really cannot fathom how psychological pressure & abuse works then I am not sure where to even start. I got raped by my ex early in my life when I was sleeping. And yes, men can get a boner when asleep too. I woke up during the event, obviously confused, and just went with it, before falling asleep again. I only understood what even really happened much much later in life.

  • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I remember one guy telling his story that he was raped by a pregnant woman. He didn’t want to hurt the baby so he couldn’t force her to stop.

  • otp@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    I think some jurisdictions count it as rape if the victim consented under certain circumstances, but the rapist changed those circumstances.

    Like consenting to sex with a condom on, but the rapist removes the condom and continues.

  • Ballistic_86@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    A lot of aggression in this comments with this is literally no stupid questions.

    Sexual assault comes in many forms and men are and can be victims of most of them. Coercion, violence, emotional manipulation, drugs or alcohol, the list is the same regardless of gender.

    As for an erection, it’s a biological response so they don’t correspond to desire/attraction/consent. Many women who are raped get “wet” and even orgasm, but that does not indicate pleasure or consent. It’s actually one of the reasons rape victims feel very guilty about the event. “If I didn’t want it/hated it/was scared, why did I cum?” That reasoning is also part of why people don’t report rape. They think that having an orgasm will hurt their chances to press charges or win because “they enjoyed it”

    Rape can also happen between consenting people as well. In fact, quite a lot of what is and should be considered sexual assault/rape, is a partner “going too far” or doing something their consenting partner didn’t consent to.

    Healthy sexual intimacy requires clear communication, setting boundaries, and making sure those things aren’t broken. The kink/BDSM community is an extreme form of sexual pleasure, and despite literal violence and pain, there is always consent at the forefront and there is always an “opt-out” or safe word that ends the encounter with no second guessing.

    • throwawaysalami@lemm.eeOP
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      5 months ago

      Rape can also happen between consenting people as well. In fact, quite a lot of what is and should be considered sexual assault/rape, is a partner “going too far” or doing something their consenting partner didn’t consent to.

      Say one partner (A) did something to partner (B) which B did not consent to initially. B says this to partner A afterwards to which she replies “Sorry, but I was really close.” But she sort of promised to not do it again. What would you make of that?

      • Ballistic_86@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        It would def have to be a discussion, but that would by default be sexual assault

        Bodily autonomy and safety around boundaries are paramount over “finishing”

        No means no, and yes means yes until a no

  • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    There are a few misconceptions in your logic.

    1. Force is required to rape
    2. Erections are controllable

    Both of them are easy to disprove, but not obvious at first sight.

    For 1 consider any case where a woman might have power (not physical) over a man, e.g. blackmail, teacher, parole officer, boss, etc. Another possibility to remember are weapons or physical threats to a third party. Also you should remember that humans have a fight/flight/freeze response, so a third of humans would just freeze regardless of being able to overpower their attacker. Finally there’s also the possibility of even without any threat, even being able to think properly, and knowing that he could physically overpower a female attacker, a man might not do it for fear of legal or moral repercussions, e.g. being thought not to hit girls or believing that no one would believe that he was defending himself. In fact lots of women who get raped don’t try to fight back or escape, believing (sometimes accurately) that their attacker would worsen the offense if they did that, e.g. by killing them (even if no threat was made), it’s not uncommon for rape victims to feel ashamed and guilt about not having fought back, and by saying that men can’t get raped because they could theoretically overpower their attacker you’re indirectly saying that any woman who doesn’t fight back with all her might is not being raped either, because they could have overpowered their attacker of they tried.

    For 2, erections (and even ejaculation) are physical responses, in fact you can make a corpse get a hard on and cum (some wives do it to preserve their husbands sperm). This is no different from women getting wet or having orgasms while being raped (both of which are common), it means nothing, it’s just a physical reaction to a physical stimulus. In fact lots of victims (both men and women), especially those in abusive relationships think they deserve that because of those physiological reactions. To put it in simpler terms, saying a men can’t be raped because if they got an erection it means they wanted it is like saying that people can’t be stabbed because if they bled is because they wanted the knife.

  • Glytch@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Erections are a biological response to stimulus, desire is not required.

    For example a man could be overpowered, tied-up, and teased manually until erect. This is only one possibility but there are many other ways

    Also penetration doesn’t need to happen for it to still be considered rape.

    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      Also penetration doesn’t need to happen for it to still be considered rape

      Depends where you are. In many localities this is exactly false, and in those localities by definition women can’t rape men, unwanted sexual contact by a woman would be sexual assault at best unless she penetrates you.

      Yes, it’s fucked up.

      • Glytch@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Yeah, I had initially thought there was a nationwide standard and am finding out that there isn’t.

  • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    Usually it’ll be something like,

    “If you try to put up a fight I’ll scream, guess who everyone’s gonna believe?”

    Or if you’re really unlucky,

    “Be my baby’s daddy!”, suddenly locks legs like a vise and begins grinding like there’s no tomorrow

    With girl on guy it’s a lot less about physical overpowering and a lot more about weaponized social biases or lying about the intent of consensual sex for the purpose of trapping them into something.

    If you’ve seen the infamous “Female Dating Strategy” forums, a lot of “tricks and tips” they come out with to “lock down your man” or “make him commit already!” basically amount to some form of Girl on Guy SA, either socially blackmailing them with the fear of you dragging them into a public accusation, which they aren’t ever gonna recover from even if found completely innocent, or by sabotaging contraceptives or tricking him into finishing inside to make a baby on purpose and then trying to shotgun wedding the whole thing.

  • SeattleRain@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Women inflict violence by proxy. So she just threatens to get one of her male acquaintances to harm you. This is also why women on male violence appears so much lower then male on woman violence. That and the fact that society is very incredulous and dismissive of male victims of female violence.

  • CaptnKarisma@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    I dont necessarily think in all cases its overpowering someone, its more making advances and the person is not saying no or unsure how to deflect their advances. Either gender can hold a position of power. Still rape does not really matter which gender is doing it to whom. No grey area consent must be clear.