Okay, idiotic question. If it's pitch black and you're mostly asleep, who could tell? In broad daylight, not an issue. You have to mess with the situation enough to make it plausible at all that no one's answer is going to say anything about anything.

If you stroke someone's hair, or gently caress their swaying breasts, or initiate any number of intimate acts, I'd think that you'd know.

Doesn't "plausible deniability" usually mean "sufficiently credible lie"? That is, the question is about what someone else would believe, not what might happen, right?

I think his wife set him up.

Wait a second, he's just lying there? He didn't touch her at all with his hands? I smell a rat.

The title was in fun, as in "yeah, likely story," but I think that if you don't use your hands and keep your eyes closed, you could go the whole time without figuring it out.

Wait a second, he's just lying there?

We don't know this.

7. Well we know he's laying there.

Wait, this is a real or hypothetical scenario?

6: In the absence of light, and with sufficient distance from your wife, I think hands and eyes might not matter. I suppose it depends on whether or not you're the sort to wait for the crowd to throw money, though.

Is this some sort of weird Internet-enabled fetish that will be the subject of a Sundance-award-winning documentary soon after it is brought to the attention of the larger public in a murder trial in one of the flyover states?

Oh God, just by asking the question I have made it so, haven't I?

Unlikely at best.

Also, unless his wife never falls into familiar patterns of behavior in these situations, he should be able to detect that the woman is not falling into his wife's familiar patterns of behavior.

The gestalt should be recognizable. I only know the word "gestalt" from birdwatching, but I think it applies here.

This is only plausible for any amount of time if he was quite unfamiliar with his wife as a partner, and/or drugged (sleeping pill?) to near insensibility, and/or astonishingly unobservant. Also, not touching her or moving much.

People move differently, breath differently, smell/touch/taste differently. We're not talking about a vagina absent the woman here --- and those differ too. While I can imagine situations where you couldn't be sure, they're all pretty extreme.

this is a real or hypothetical scenario?

Pretty sure it's real.

I'd say it's excusable until you get a cup of coffee in you. Fair's fair. I was asleep.

I only know the word "gestalt" from birdwatching.

That's excellent.

Oh God, just by asking the question I have made it so, haven't I?

The odds are good.

unless his wife never falls into familiar patterns of behavior in these situations

The Patriarch demands to know of his son whether his bride was a virgin on their wedding night.

The son replies with uncertainty. "The back and forth motion seemed natural enough, but the side to side motions seemed learned".

the other day i got megan law's annotation something
e.g the convicted sex offender lives in your neighbourhood etc
creepy, if to change stranger's gender in the scenario
i won't be able sleep tonight

Pretty sure it's real.

Those letters in the back of Penthouse are 100% true, too.

Dear Penthouse Forum:

I was online with my pretend internet friends, when suddenly...

I've been in a not totally dissimilar situation, by which I mean I was woken up a similar way and somewhere along the line I was awake enough to realize that I didn't know who it was (there were a few reasonable candidates at the time) and that I should probably sort that out before I said anything. Didn't take long though, and that was mostly half-awake groggyness.

the story would be a lot more credible if the next time he saw his wife he commented on how unusually hot the sex was, preferably with a straight face. unless, of course, recognition of the not-wife nature of things occurred shortly after the sex.

Before doing this, B, you should make sure his wife isn't an amputee or weighs 280 pounds or something. It may be that the whole plan is doomed from the start no matter how groggy he is.

you're assuming the entire act would normally take *more* than 30 seconds??

this is a hypothetical situation, 25, ogged isn't assuming that the man is himself.

25: Yes. Aren't you?

This is horrible. The man should know immediately, or as soon as he is awake. Every woman gives a blowjob differently, and a sensitive dude should recognize his wife's/not-wife style.

I think that if you don't use your hands and keep your eyes closed, you could go the whole time without figuring it out.

Per a couple of other comments: no way. Not if it's supposed to be your wife. People have different rhythms and behaviors that you learn well.

How long until you should be figuring it out? 2.75 minutes, obviously.

Is there a grace period before a man should be able tell the difference between the feel of his normal sex partner's vagina and someone else's?

Focus on this question people!!

I would assume that you might certainly realize that something was off when you felt your partner's hair. But, prior to that point, how long before you realize?

30 seconds?

28: Richard Burton's remarks about Elizabeth Taylor give the lie to those propositions, bob.

Sleepiness is a huge factor - I've had sensible conversations with sleepy people who don't recall a thing in the morning. Assuming average BJ technique, that's not nec. a giveaway. And assuming general body compatibility - ie, the hips feel about the same - I could certainly see mounting happening without awareness.

All that said, the odds are vanishingly slim - even with all three of those assumptions, you've only just started actual intercourse. Any sound, any distinctive motion, any roaming hands would immediately give away the situation. We're talking about a wife here, not a new GF.

The question as stated, "prior to that point, how long" doesn't really make sense, because it's a question of how long before you do something that will tip you off. So I guess the real question is whether you should be able to tell absent any visual or manual clues. I say that, assuming sufficient sleepiness, not necessarily, while mcmanus argues that you will have always already sensed the aura of your partner.

not necessarily ever

assuming sufficient sleepiness is doing a lot of work here.

Aura is not mcmanus's argument.

So I guess the real question is whether you should be able to tell absent any visual or manual clues. I say that, assuming sufficient sleepiness, not necessarily,

I think you have at least a 20 second grace period.

31: I need a quote. But Burton was a pig. Liz had terrible taste in husbands.

Obviously this hypothesis must be field tested, perhaps at the upcoming event? Bring your Ambien, people.

28/29: Right, the caveat I gave earlier came from what a friend claimed to do to her boyfriend...

She said he had often made teasing references about how hot her friend was, and she'd tease him back about threesomes or whatever. Apparently one evening the three of them were hanging about and she decided to play this game with him: The three of them go to the bedroom, the girls tie him to the bed. They then blindfold him and duct-tape the blindfold tight.

They teased him in various ways, and one of them proceeds to have sex with him. Her friend leaves at some point. She tells him he'll never know if it was her friend, or her acting differently from normal.

She wouldn't tell me either, dammit. I don't know if they actually did that, but it made a good story!

FYI, this is a real issue.

This is also a plot device in the miniseries The Starter Wife.

(Don't judge me.)

But in that case it was a hot tub that the wife had just been in with the husband. Wife leaves. Nanny enters. Hijinks ensue.

Unfogged inches another step closer towards the porn industry.

But in that case it was a hot tub that the wife had just been in with the husband. Wife leaves. Nanny enters. Hijinks ensue.

Isnt oudemia a nanny?

Let's reverse it for the ladies? Blindfolded, could you recognize if it wasn't your husband's cock, or if it was your husband giving head? Could we pick out our partner's hands from a group of pictures of 5?

I am not saying there is such an infinite variety that a stranger could tell. But someone you have partner'd for 5+ years? Sure.

I believe the, or a, relevant quote from Dick's diaries was to call the Eye-Shadower "beyond the dreams of pornography -- an eternal one-night stand."

39 -

And in the morning, she replaced his coffee with Folger's Crystals! Crazy girl!

Could we pick out our partner's hands from a group of pictures of 5?

I think I could. The first things to draw my attention to Ex-Girlfriend #1 (in psychological prominence), besides her pale-blue-eyed, doll-like blonde beauty, were her slim, very white hands, and the delicate traces of blood vessels across the backs.

43: Um, no. And Mr. Oudemia glows in the dark. I would know him instantly.

Unfogged inches another step closer towards the porn industry.

Like News of the World?

46: Kind of like that yeah. It probably helps to understand that this was in a social circle where polyamory etc. were pretty common, so it's not so far out. I thought it was funny, and he did a pretty convincing complaint about it... so who knows.

If you need some deniability, point her to this story:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/05/state_high_cour.html

Count me among the McManusites. You ought to be able to tell your partner's mouth, body, and style from another. For shame, people.

Oh sure, you all thought you'd be able to tell each other's comments under new handles, too.

You do know that there are substantial differences between sexual intercourse and blog commenting?

Commenting is free?

Let's reverse it for the ladies? Blindfolded, could you recognize if it wasn't your husband's cock, or if it was your husband giving head? Could we pick out our partner's hands from a group of pictures of 5?

Good questions. Not your husband's cock? Well, not his style of lovemaking, or 'giving head' as you say - sure, of course.

Maybe some people are better at playing alternate roles than I think, but at the very least, most people don't practice at being actors. Those who do, and are good at it, are interesting.

As for the hands ... no, probably couldn't pick out a long-time lover's hands.

There ain't no such thing as free comment, son.

44--
thanks to bob for asking the right question. i want to hear from the ladies.
can the distaff side tell distaff from datstaff?

There ain't no such thing as free comment, son.

Tell it!

of course, this sort of thing would make identification much easier:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/7131532.stm

I always try to peel a possible facial mask - scooby style - off anyone I'm humping. These things can happen in the light, too, and better the enemy you know.

Vaginas feel different from each other. I can understand him not cottoning on during the oral, but once she's riding him: five second rule.

I want to hear the sordid details. Who was it? Speak up, dead president.

Vaginas feel different from each other.

And they never stop talking about their feelings either.

61: That's always the best policy, HBGB. You never know...

I hate the word "humping". Please redact it from this thread.

of course, this sort of thing would make identification much easier:

Kind of like a bird banding program you mean?

Vaginas feel different from each other.

This calls for greater scientific inquiry.

It's an ongoing protocol Michael.

I hate the word "humping". Please redact it from this thread replace with "waxing the giraffe."

68: The Humanities have their role to play.

So you're arguing for greater humanitarian enquiry, too?

Indeed. We must recontextualize and defamiliarize the notions of "vagina" and "feeling," the better to examine how these categories reify the postmodern consensus reality of late capitalism.

(Or we could just read Pablo Neruda at people and hope we get some play.)

The entire question engenders speechlessness. Best ATM question ever, then.

Cancel the speechlessness remark. DS rules.

At least that EngLit degree is good for something.

Isn't this a key plot point in a bad film starring Kevin Kline and Kevin Spacey, with Spacey as a con man who ends up convincing Kline to sleep with Spacey's wife in this fashion, thus ending up framing him for murder?

The problem with this one in the "Ask the Mineshaft" format is that the questioner presumably knows the answer much better than we do.

For my part: If I'm fully conscious, I know. In addition to all of the other things mentioned, vocalizations are very distinct.

From the link in 51: the SJC issued a seminal ruling in 1959 about the use of trickery to obtain sex

Here it is. Consenting Adults.

The answer to the question, it seems to me, is "pretty much immediately" if they've been married for any reasonable period of time.

Never saw Consenting Adults, but Single White Female also examined this question.

Dead Ringers!

Sure, pretty much immediately, unless they have a really bad sexual relationship.

But look! It's supposed to be titillating! Get with the program! And indeed, a stranger creeping into your tent in the darkness is teh hot, provided he's hot. There you go.

Dead Ringers was bizarre indeed.

You ought to be able to tell your partner's mouth, body, and style from another. For shame, people.

I do not disagree, but I think it would take 20 or 30 seconds before you realize it. Particularly when you are sleeping.

14: I simply don't believe this is a true story.

LB:

It is real. You of all people should believe it.

I think there was a Dan Savage about this a while back: I recall the string "will my lover know me in the dark", but google does not avail. Phrasing the question as "the feel of the vagina" seems to radically misunderstand what is going on during sex, and makes the question seem as if it were asked by a ninth grader.

Setting up a hypothetical that rules out smell, touch and sound and reduces the act to, in the words of Tracy Jordan "make your privates and her privates high-five", confusion is perfectly plausible. There is certainly a lot of variety, but within a broad range, and given your likely presumption that a person who has found her way into bed is your wife, I'm with ogged. But people: we are ninth graders.

How long before you realize it Wrongshore?

89: Phrasing the question as "the feel of the vagina" seems to radically misunderstand what is going on during sex

I dunno, seems to me like the single most vivid thing you'd notice if you're just emerging into consciousness as the act commences. I'm speculating a little; this only happens to me four or five times a year, you understand.

90: If the question is strictly about "the feel of the vagina" then sure, you could go the whole act. If the question is about sex the way real people have it, without elaborate preparations made to obscure the identity, I say you get fifteen seconds, forty-five if you're groggy. But I could easily believe that soup biscuit's "friend" might never know for sure.

You could certainly do the whole thing without waking up, but I think if it's not an Ambien trip, you're going to wake up thinking you did something quite out of the ordinary.

The question of "how long you could you go before realizing" is unanswerable without more information. "I wonder how a woman other than the wife got in," however, is worth pondering, and since we're taking cues from creepy movies, I think When a Stranger Calls may have the answer: she was already inside the house. MWAHHAHAHA.

We are not ninth graders! Cut it out!

Jesus is correct. She was already in the house.

I'll bet I still have my bolo tie from the ninth grade prom. Stylin'.

See, I should become a private dick. Since I'm already a public dick, it should be easy.

I wonder what Led Zeppelin has to say about this?

Asked sweet mama,
Let me be her kid
She said, "You might get hurt
If you don't keep it hid"

Well I know my baby,
If I see her in the dark.
I said I know my rider,
If I see her in the dark.

[Insert a slide guitar line that I've always liked a great deal.]

91: Perhaps you all have the cool Firecox extension that gives you extra data via your prongs, but I experience pressure and pleasure and not a whole lot more down there. "Single most vivid thing you'd notice"? Not really. I mean, you'd notice THERE IS A HOO HAH ON MY WOOZLE because it's more different from THERE IS NO HOO HAH ON MY WOOZLE than, say, having hands on you is different from being tangled up in sheets. But one-eyed Jack is fit to answer few questions other than "was there touch?", "was it tight?" and "how nice was it?"

Ninth grade is seriously overrated. One must get over it.

My new answer is 7.3 minutes.

My penis agrees with Wrongshore's penis.

But one-eyed Jack is fit to answer few questions other than "was there touch?", "was it tight?" and "how nice was it?"

NOW??!?!!? Now, you give me my closing argument??!!!? Thanks for nothing Wrongshore.

99--
is that really all i meant to you, wrongshore?

104: No, kid. You also bought me food.

true. and the tongue is more discriminating.

As someone who has banged both of a pair of identical twins [tho' not at the same time], I can tell you that they were utterly different in bed. If two men who share the same outward appearance, accent and voice timbre can be readily distinguished by an occasional lover, I can't imagine how anyone who had been with a given person for any length of time would be fooled, given that consciousness enters into it. Drunk, maybe not so much.

99: "Woozle" sounds rather Seussian.

OT, I don't suppose anyone round here has been playing this game?

how long before you realize DominEd?

108--
and winnie-the-pooh: where the woozle wasn't.

99: "Woozle" sounds rather Seussian.

"Woozle World" was the working title for "Fraggle Rock." It disturbs me that I know this.

109: I have, but not very recently.

But one-eyed Jack is fit to answer few questions other than "was there touch?", "was it tight?" and "how nice was it?"

So. Really? Huh. Well, then.

99: Yeah, but the pressure and pleasure are pretty key, no?

That game looks cool; I played a fair bit of Half-Life 2 last year, but it gave me wicked motion sickness. Yes, I'm that fragile.

108: My friend Banjo Max had a song called "I Like To Dance Around Bare Naked" in which he sang, "I wiggle and waggle my woozle." He was a good guy, Banjo Max.

I find that the Orange Box can easily be told apart from my fiancee's box.

My penis agrees with Wrongshore's penis.

Ogged's penis and Wrongshore's penis will now hold hands and sing a song, in perfect harmony.

109: I have, but not very recently

What's your timescale for "recently"? It was only released in October. Not the original one.

DominEditrix is Holly Marie Adams?

Not for four weeks or so.

121--
man, i hope domina gets better stuff than those miller lumps.

I will test Jammies tonight. Wearing a prosthetic vagina. It's like a coozy.

Will you wear it on your hand, like a hand puppet?

122 to 125

124--
plus, you also have to wear a latex winnie-the-pooh mask over your face.
and see if he can still tell it's you!

That game looks cool;

It's a blast. It's trivial to install XP on my Macbook and so then I just went and downloaded this thing and instantly reactivated a near decade-dormant addiction to these games. Half-Life 2 was fun but the visual sensibility of TF2 is just vastly more entertaining. My problem is that I've not played online for eight years or so, and am a bit rusty and also less interested in putting up with teenage asshats on random servers.

I need w-lfs-n to write a post explaining the ways Karlheinz Stockhausen influenced his students Tom Constanten, Holger Czukay, & Jon Hassell, with reference to specific compositions. It's alright if he does it in Latin.

I wonder if the other listener will mind if I switch from Carole King to Gruppen. Maybe I can ease her in with Xenakis.

128: If you can't run with the big dogs, stay in the kitchen.

128--
so how's this tenure thing working out for you?

So you're talking about Team Fortress 2? You're tempting me.

Will you wear it on your hand, like a hand puppet?

No, but I could make my private parts talk in squeaky voices.

Wearing a prosthetic vagina.

Oh, do! Test!

Will you wear it on your hand, like a hand puppet?

No, but I could make my private parts talk in squeaky voices.

(Oh, incidentally, Wrongshore, those XMas mixes you uploaded a while ago are very nice. Thanks.)

115: Key, but not all that information-rich. I can think of one what was tighter and one what was looser, but there are few sexual experiences where the specific feel of the P in the V tells the story. A scratch, a noise, a reaction, a drop of sweat, a belly, an ass, a kick, a turn: all these Jobimian details come before the length or the width or the wetth of the tube.

My data set is lower-medium sized. Where are the slutty boys to really nail this question?

Goddamnit, I got a weird error message and it posted twice. Not my fault.

My private parts speak only in deep, sonorous tones. I've been told that my vagina sounds exactly like James Earl Jones.

Our privates could be Mutt and Jeff!

hbgb, there's no need to pay big money for a prosthetic vagina when there's a perfectly good substitute just an inch away from your everyday vagina.

My private parts speak only in deep, sonorous tones. I've been told that my vagina sounds exactly like James Earl Jones.

Keep rhyming like that and you could be the next Peaches.

So you're talking about Team Fortress 2? You're tempting me.

Yes. Have you watched the trailers on this page? Going for slightly retro cartoonish rather than NATO simulator was a brilliant idea.

so how's this tenure thing working out for you?

I have the monkey RA nearly fully trained in making margaritas the way I like them. Once that's done, I'll be set.

129: I would observe Stockhausen's death by listening to the Arditti's recording of the Helicopter Quartet tonight, but I like the music far less than I like the concept.

140--
jett & muff, you mean.

hbgb, there's no need to pay big money for a prosthetic vagina when there's a perfectly good substitute just inches away from your everyday vagina.

My belly-button?

Glad you like, DS. My band is readying a new disco Christmas song for our CD release show. If it's any good, I'll record it in time for next Christmas's mixes.

145: If it can accommodate him, sure.

jett & muff, you mean.

Hee!

137: there are few sexual experiences where the specific feel of the P in the V tells the story

Huh. Guess I'm a big freak.

Where are the slutty boys to really nail this question?

Going out to the bar. Later!

there are few sexual experiences where the specific feel of the P in the V tells the story. A scratch, a noise, a reaction, a drop of sweat, a belly, an ass, a kick, a turn

Thanks, wrongshore; a woman was beginning to feel like not much more than a V.

A vagina in isolation, or a penis for that matter, doesn't exist.

Isn't this at least partly about the norm for a given couple? It's easier to imagine someone going a few minutes or longer before noticing if it's not uncommon for their partner to initiate sex in the middle of the night, without fully waking up.

I don't know, though. Smell is such a key part of things for me that I cannot truly imagine this situation.

151--
well, it's not an enviable existence, anyhow.
you'd feel a bit cut off.

The trailers look very cool. God damn it.

123: Ye ghods, yes! Surely they've appeared on one of those Springer/Maury/Montel Who's-my-baby-daddy shows? [I occasionally watch for a few minutes, paralysed by teh horror...]

FWIW, one of the twins confessed that he and his brother had tried pulling a switch on a date; didn't work at all.

This is such a sad Saturday night for me. I have to finish writing a Discrete Math exam and then get up early to xerox it and proctor it at 8:30 am.

150: A vagina in isolation, or a penis for that matter, doesn't exist.

Or if it did, having sex with it would be totally illegal.

Really going now.

Friday night I mean.

A vagina in isolation, or a penis for that matter, doesn't exist.

Brace yourself for some links to niche-market products.

152--
damn that mental incrementing!

This is such a sad Saturday night for me.

Don't tell her. Think of the look on her face when she finds out.

The trailers look very cool. God damn it.

The "Meet the Engineer" one is funny.

detachable penis...detachable penis...

I prefer Counterstrike, actually. When I shoot a 3D avatar in the head, I want brains and blood on the walls.

Heebie, retract your 157 in the interest of the look on your face!

When I shoot a 3D avatar in the head, I want brains and blood on the walls.

TF2 has satisfyingly OTT gibbing.

162--
i see the discrete aspect of that comment, not so much the math.

"Everyday vagina"? What an ungentlemanly thing to say.

How about "super-duper extra-special once-in-a-lifetime Blessed Jesus Praise the Lord vagina"? Isn't that the polite way to describe those things? Are you gay or something?

I like to demystify things. The common or garden-variety vagina is enjoyable enough without the baroque façade.

I'm a little confused as to how this came up.

TF2 has satisfyingly OTT gibbing.

It doesn't stir my killer instinct the way the splattered walls and broken windows of Counterstrike do. Back when I was playing TF2, I never spontaneously quoted Eazy E after a particularly sweet headshot.

Heebie, retract your 157 in the interest of the look on your face!

I'm slapping myself on the forehead in melodramatic awe, don't you worry.

The tempting this, Ogged, is that you just download Steam, buy online, wait for the download to complete and you are mainlining teh funn without having to so much as visit the store. That's what got me hooked.

By the way, it might be worth the community's while to keep private dicking about the circumstances here.

167: Just call it the Holy Grail and be done with it, John.

169: Strangely, it hasn't wandered very far at all from the original post.

I'm a little confused as to how this came up.

It started orally.

176: unless it was already up when she entered the room.

Dude, I already have Steam. I'm about a light breeze away from buying this game.

It's pretty windy out here today.

156:

150: A vagina in isolation, or a penis for that matter, doesn't exist.

Or if it did, having sex with it would be totally illegal.

Just boring.

detachable penis...detachable penis...

Whoa, throwback. Thanks.

Have I mentioned the time I dropped four tangos with one M4 magazine on cs_office?

Oh yeah.

Yeah, Jeremy Bentham felt the same way. Every v-unit was the same as every other v-unit, just as every orgasm is the same as every other orgasm. He was peeved that irrational taboos on human experimentation forced him to use rat orgasms as his proxy util unit. He was all set to do an scientific orgasm survey of the British Isles, but the religious fanatics blocked that.

Parsimon, nobody has said anything that implied that a woman can be reduced to her vagina. The question specifically worded it as "can one vagina be told apart from another", and several people said that was a bad wording because there is so much more involved. I don't know who has offended you or who you are assuming the worst of.

Right, Ned. We all know that one woman can't be distinguished from another.

"can one vagina be told apart from another"

Pretty much everyone says that my mom and I are indistinguishable.

I wonder what the lag time between unconscious awareness and conscious awareness would be. I bet it's totally possible for a guy's body to give up (or turn on even more, I suppose) before his mind grasps the reason.

I guess my manners are more courtly than is the norm. I was raised never to speak non-committally about a lady's vagina.

173: Can will call the Mineshaft as an expert witness? I say yes!

I'd say the oral would be a better tip-off, so to speak, than the vaginal, except that the receiver was likely to be more sleepy at that point.

I was raised never to speak non-committally about a lady's vagina.

Well, the rude part is addressing the vagina in the third person when she's standing right there. See 139.

Oh, I just became peeved. Such a stupid question, whether one can tell the difference between one penis and another.

Polite forms are entirely different for reference and for address, of course.

Also let the record show that I am now picturing sex as something that happens when a skeleton key and an old rusty lock love each other very much. Every pairing is unique.

189: Especially if you assume that the tongue is going to be more dexterous and versatile.

Such a stupid question, whether one can tell the difference between one penis and another.

Well sure, in a line-up. But what if the penis has not been arrested?

I'm calling Wrongshore and Jesus McQ. Heebie doesnt get to testify. But, her mom might get it. I mean get to.

Such a stupid question

In the abstract, these seems like a novelist's question, to which the only real answer is "The audience will believe it if you make it plausible."

In any real-life circumstance, I would think the personal variables would be so extreme as to rule out any one-size-fits-all (har har) answer.

Okay, I still don't believe it, and am not understanding why other people do. That said, and taking it the story at face value for the sake of argument, we're missing facts, like what the heck the succubus was thinking. To make it make any sense, I have to assume that she and the man in the story have a prior sexual relationship, at which point you've got a mostly asleep person who's not expecting anything weird to be going on having sex not with an unfamiliar person, but with someone familar but unexpected, which has got to change things.

But I still don't believe it -- this is ripped from the Penthouse letter column.

Succubus. Huh huh. Huh huh. Huh huh. Cool.

LB is subtly pumping Will for information.

Every grafenburg spot tastes different to me.

191:Well, it wasn't stupid in the context of asking whether the interiors of vaginas were individualistic enough for a man to distinguish. I think we lack a adequate discourse of description. I blame the patriarchy.

And the tone of the question implies that the answer is important, as if it's about the plausibility of the story for the wife's consumption. Which is again bizarre -- how's that going to work? Unless she was in the room, she doesn't know how long it took him to catch on.

I call shenanigans.

I still don't believe it

Believe in what sense? I thought this was a novelist/screenwriter's question, but if it's not, my distinction in 197 still holds. Yes, I could believe that someone might not notice for a disturbingly long period of time (including "never"), but that would be highly dependent on the people and the cirumstances. Show me a guy with a longtime long-distance marriage, who drinks fairly heavily before bed or is on medication, who is accustomed to his wife coming home unexpectedly at odd hours (maybe she's a trucker), convince me that he's sufficiently lacking in discrimination....

LB, I feel like you don't want to believe.

Insert quote from Kierkegaard here.

203: As a novelist/screenwriter question, it's asked weirdly -- if the writer screws around with medication and such, then any answer is plausible. The question should be "What answer does the plot require, and how do I make it work?" (Robertson Davies does this one in The Lyre Of Orpheus, with the sexes switched.)

Okay, I still don't believe it, and am not understanding why other people do.

I'm with you, LB. This story strikes me as highly implausible.

(I'm also totally puzzled by 88, but am figuring that I just missed the joke.)

Will has said a couple of times that it's a real scenario; I'm not sure what you don't believe. I can imagine that a guy was having an affair, broke it off, patched up his marriage, and the mistress came back to screw with him (hehe), the wife later noticed something left behind and this was the guy's story. Not really all that implausible.

206: I always thought that novel was awkwardly cruel to both woman and man, without really providing the parallel that Davies intended.

I think 88 means "You, as a lawyer, familiar with the depravity of your fellow humans."

210: I'm fond of Davies' books generally, but the way he writes about sex is bizarrely unrealistic in a 'great bags of sand' kind of way.

"You, as a lawyer, familiar with the depravity of your fellow humans screwing people when they least expect it."

I did not read 40 or 88 as serious. And I do not find the scenario outlined in 209, as stated, to be even minimally convincing.

191:Well, it wasn't stupid in the context of asking whether the interiors of vaginas were individualistic enough for a man to distinguish.

That's a stupid question, babe. But whatever, I was just unnerved by the contention by some that they felt they might not be able to tell the difference through a full session of lovemaking. Even with all the caveats (sleepiness, no hands), I just don't know what's at stake in pressing that point.

And goodnight.

You people lack imagination. Also, I love gswift.

This story strikes me as highly implausible.

As well it should. But I have a relative who's essentially will's ecclesiastical counterpart (he's a priest on the tribunal that rules on annulments in a certain archdiocese), and the few stories I've heard from him are at least as implausible. People are nuts, people.

LB the sex-Ninja would have done this dozens of times by now if she thought it were possible. She can't afford to admit that it is.

209: But in that scenario, nothing turns on the elapsed time to figuring it out, because there's no evidence of how long it took him to catch on. Why the question?

(And I still don't believe it, mostly on the improbability of the rapist's actions.)

Jesus speaks the truth.

nothing turns on the elapsed time to figuring it out

Not necessarily. Wife finds sex juice on the sheets, knows they had sex, husband says "Only for [time t]!" Wife disbelieves, etc. The issue would be whether he could have had sex for time t without consciously consenting.

I can imagine that a guy was having an affair, broke it off, patched up his marriage, and the mistress came back to screw with him (hehe), the wife later noticed something left behind and this was the guy's story

No, the woman was already in the house, i.e., probably related (by marriage, perhaps?) to the relative with whom the man was staying.

217: He's a priest and he's telling tales out of school? Uncool, man. But I'd still say that the stories people will tell to get themselves out of trouble are less bound by probability than their actions are. Someone's making stuff up.

220: Glad you think so. I could recommend some literature about Him if you're interested in learning more.

Right, right, I was just making a case for plausibility, not saying what I think happened here, SINCE I ALREADY KNOW! DUN DUN DUN!!!

I think LB is underestimating the degree to which nutty people make whacked out decisions that add up to crazy situations.

Isn't this story from the Bible?

Uncool, man.

They can tell the stories, they just can't identify people.

You've got more [alleged] facts and you're withholding them? Given that you're not a priest, also uncool, man.

He's a priest and he's telling tales out of school? Uncool, man.

Unless he's giving away identifying information, it's just awesome. I bet the right kind of priest is a great guy at a party.

He's a priest and he's telling tales out of school?

Only under extreme interrogation, and only in the vaguest of terms.

227: yes, and the smooth woman used a merkin to disguise herself as Esau.

Damnit, Ogged.

And yes, he's a blast to have drinks with.

I'm dying to tell, LB, but Will hasn't answered my email.

Did this happen to SEK? Because then I believe it.

Only under extreme interrogation, and only in the vaguest of terms.

Only under extreme interrogation the influence of alcohol, and only in the vaguest of terms.

Ogged has totally abandoned his principles regarding the sanctity of off-blog communciation? Just in order to "nyah-nyah I'm right" to LB? Is it a full moon?

I think LB is underestimating the degree to which nutty people make whacked out decisions that add up to crazy situations.

Yes, wasn't one of the cobloggers here attacked by an exgirlfriend with a knife while in the bathtub or something? And then of course teenagers are the worst of all.

Is this turning into another theology thread? The Unfoggedetariat has to let go of these unhealthy obsessions.

Ogged has totally abandoned his principles regarding the sanctity of off-blog communciation?

Given that I posted the question and Will has identified himself as the poser, I don't think I've actually added anything other than nyah-nyah.

206, 210: Mr Oudemia and I came together under circumstances nearly identical to those in The Leaven of Mailce. OK. That's not a sex scene, but it is still kind of weird.

you should call him "oudemio".

242: No, oudeis. Which is in fact a handle of his, you know, around.

Oh. 243. I am unobservant.

242: That actually qualifies as extremely weird. Kind of cool, but strange. Families hated each other and all, or just rumors that you were together before you actually were?

Ogged has totally abandoned his principles regarding the sanctity of...

Wait. Ogged is a priest?

I'm always the last to know.

Ogged is a priest?

Worse; he's an imam. It's like a priest without the drinking.

So now I'm running a TF2 server. Or I believe I am.

239 along with my broaching of the g-spot recalls my friend who got sliced by his girlfriend in Vietnam, and reattached with a pronounced bend. This did not make him more popular. He while I was living with him developed an abscess worse than the one in Requiem, but they managed to save his arm.

I am trying to stimulate the thread to a less offensive direction.

248: Explains the black dress-shirts, I suppose.

Or so the imams would have you believe.

I am trying to stimulate the thread to a less offensive direction.

Try giving it oral?

Try giving it oral?

It's already erect. He wants to give it a pronounced bend.

246: Someone obnoxiously -- and to be hateful -- started a rumor that we were together when we were not. (This is no joke. Said person showed up on my parents' doorstep.) Jokingly answering said rumor, we were kind of thrown together and ended up liking one another. Yep. Very goofy. And very much what the rumor starter did not want to happen.

Wow, you have an enemy. That's kind of cool.

Yeah, right.

Or I believe I am.

Well, just so long as you believe you are something or other. It matters not what. Unless it's part of that "new religion in America" that some call "the religion of secularism."

I have a right to believe it's true for me if those are my true feelings.

Also, it is called Unfragged and the password is 'banned'.

256: Oh my. A spite marriage intended to spite a third person who was not a parent of either spouse. That's rare.

In Lake Wobegon a son of a local bigot married a black woman, but that's perfectly normal. The marriage didn't work out, of course, but marriages seldom do in any caseJ.

Sweet, I'm going to buy it. Do I need "Garry's Mod?"

260: Now that you finally understand the American Bill of Rights, I'd say you're just about ready to take your citizenship exam.

257: Gah. Kind of. Not anymore I think/hope, because it was a long time ago. What's freaky was that she had been my friend. I'd known her since I was 12. She showed up on my parents' doorstep and told my sweet old Catholic father that said fellow was only "using me for sex." Said fellow and I, at that point, had barely exchanged two sentences. The whole thing was scary and nuts.

Anyway, on to the story. It's kind of plausible, actually, given that an awful lot of what happens in sex is mental. And that obviously this isn't something said wife did as a matter of course, so the novelty of the situation alone would pretty much mask any other novelty (assuming, of course, two women of the same size, weight, and fitness level). Plus, like apo said, without coffee, who knows?

That said, yes, different people have very different sexual styles, feel different, etc. And this is a total penthouse forum type question, and it's not as if the only contact would be cock/cunt, anyway--even if she doesn't touch him with her hands (and how does she get his cock inside her without doing that?), he's still going to feel her thighs and ass. And unless it's truly *pitch* dark, he's going to be able to see her well enough. So the question about telling the difference between *vaginas* is stupid and, as Parsimon pointed out, pretty reductive.

It's as though none of you have actually ever *had* sex.

Even the people who say it's plausible have all made appropriate caveats, B.

People: how do you reboot a goddamn Mac? Control Alt Delete is just too easy for those shitasses. They have their own unique creative code.

Apple key-option-escape. Or smash down the power button until it shuts off.

Ctrl + Command + the Power Button on your keyboard all together

267: The point is it's a stupid question. If you require definite plausibility to jerk off to this, Ogged, you're out of luck.

Do I need "Garry's Mod?"

Not as far as I know.

So sure, are they.

The baby porn was funnier.

The point is it's a stupid question.

Not stupid. Actual event.

how does she get his cock inside her without doing that?

makes a mockery of

It's as though none of you have actually ever *had* sex.

Do Macs have reset buttons? Why do I have one on my WinAmd, in addition to the power button, for that matter?

But y'all are probably talking about one of those itsy-bitsy toy computers anyway.

273: I'm willing to believe that the guy was raped. I'm just not sure I'm going to buy the "I had no idea it wasn't you, honey!" thing.

different people have very different sexual styles

Individual styles, however, can be affected by alcohol.

Jesus, I'm sorry that your erect cock is too small to be affected by gravity.

Would the guy call it rape? Probably not.

278 was me.

279: We are not told that alcohol was involved.

It has a gravitational force of its own, B.

281: If you woke up to a strange woman banging you, you wouldn't call it rape?

I don't believe you.

Anyone know what 1/2.C.1 or C.1 means when it appears on sheet music? It's followed by a dashed line showing that it applies to a certain number of notes. Specifically, I'm looking at classical guitar sheet music.

I mean, as *fantasy* material, fine, awesome.

But in real life, there's a naked stranger fucking you when you wake up? You'd freak the fuck out.

If you woke up to a strange woman banging you, you wouldn't call it rape?

"surprise sex"

284?? unless it was a uniquely ugly or smelly girl, no. If it looked like anyone i socialize with, naw. i might not contiue it though, i really like my sleep and am grumpy and lethargic when i wake up.

I had sex with a professional ladyboy once. The bright side of waking up next to a man was reflecting that at least this one hadn't run off with my stuff.

If you woke up to a strange woman banging you, you wouldn't call it rape?

Was it a stranger, or someone he knew?

I nominate 289 for the Unfogged Hall of Fame.

I'm going to say "no hands" probably (probably! don't yell at me about what's possible) also means no condom, which may not quite tilt it to rape, but is definitely a downside given that she's supposed to be unidentified.

If it looked like anyone i socialize with, naw.

at least reach over and grab a condom

Frankly, the story also doesn't tell us if it was someone he had ever had sex with before.

lots of people spend time and effort to fuck random people. its like complaining when the chinese delivery dude shows up, becuase you didn't get to choose what vegetables are in it.

But in real life, there's a naked stranger fucking you when you wake up?

It was in his house, so I'm guessing it wasn't a total stranger, just someone not his wife. But yeah, if you're in your house, and you've never seen the person in your life, that would be unsettling.

295, put the pipe down.

Those of you claiming it is impossible for the guy not to realize it isn't his wife are wrong. If the guy "knows" it is his wife he may mentally explain away contrary evidence by fitting it into scenarios involving his wife. These may become very elaborate and convoluted before the guy realizes what he "knows" is wrong and that it isn't his wife. This is a well known feature of human psychology which explains for example how pilots can in rare cases end up hundreds or thousands of miles off course without realizing it despite what might appear to be ample evidence that something was wrong.

Another example is wrong numbers. Usually one or both parties realize quickly it is a wrong number but if both wrongly conclude they "know" who they are talking to a long increasingly bizarre conversation can ensue before the truth dawns.

Of course this doesn't mean such an error is likely compared to the alternative that the guy is lying (especially if he has a strong motive to lie) but it is not impossible.

James B. Shearer is in fact making the most sense of anyone in this thread.

Is this really 300?

SPAAARRRRTAAAA!

No, this is SPARTAAAA!

YOU LOSERS

Oddly enough, yes. My mother has a story of a wrong number just like that.

But jesus christ, guys, of course it's rape. He may have been okay with it in retrospect, but that doesn't change the facts.

This game is taking a long time to download, Gonerill.

Boo. Let me know when and I'll restart the server.

But jesus christ, guys, of course it's rape. He may have been okay with it in retrospect

Yeah, I was just thinking he wouldn't describe it that way, but he obviously didn't consent.

Of course it's rape, but there's probably a lot of situations where the guy is unlikely to call it that, at least to his friends.

It's a little more complicated than just rape, if we assume that the 'I thought it was you, sweetie!' line is bullshit and that he knew the woman (since there wasn't a break-in) and was trying to cover his ass once caught. (If he's not lying, there's a case for rape, but this is a tall tale to swallow.) Waking someone up with a blowjob isn't sexually assaulting them.

By the way, I didn't know the full story when I posted this, and Will only told me later. I would have, uh, done things differently if I'd known from the beginning.

Waking someone up with a blowjob isn't sexually assaulting them.

Say what?

The main thing that sucks about this game is that now I'm browsing around using Windows XP. Last Windows I used at all regularly was Win 95. XP has clearly improved on the security and stability front, but all the old MS design suckitude is alive and thriving. Fuck off, you little speech bubbles appearing in the system tray! And who is this little doggie who wants to help me find things, FFS.

Waking someone up with a blowjob isn't sexually assaulting them.

Really? What if we flip the sexes?

you little speech bubbles appearing in the system tray! And who is this little doggie who wants to help me find things

You can turn those off, of course. I'm pretty happy with XP, but I've only used Macs a few times.

I am poking around for the kill-the-doggie button now. By all accounts XP was a big improvement over its predecessors.

You know, I would have thought this thread had potential, but it pretty much flopped.

But jesus christ, guys, of course it's rape.

hmm, is it? I think of rape as unwanted sex. The sex in this scenario starts off as unconscensual, but whether it's unwanted or not isn't determined. If the guy wakes up and rejects it, it's unwanted. If he wakes up and is OK with it, then the sex, while at one point unconscensual, was at no time unwanted.

The above explanation jibes much better with my intuition of right and wrong than "of course it's rape". And I'm OK with the fact that it's a consequentialist interpretation.

I have a feeling someone might reply with, "what if the receiver is in a coma?" While that complicates the issue, I think my interpretation is still valid.

By all accounts XP was a big improvement over its predecessors.

low bar.

It's not "unwanted sex," Michael, such that you can decide in the middle that you didn't really want it and everything that came before is suddenly rape; it's sex to which one party doesn't consent, which is what we have here.

308

Actually I think this is tricky as he may actually have legally consented but based on the mistaken belief that the woman was his wife. Such a mistake is not always rape. For example (as with the wrong number) if both parties believe they are with somebody else. And I think the law concerning consent obtained by fraud is quite variable from state to state.

do you really want to define rape in such a way as to make it ok sometimes?

low bar.

Hey, I was trying to be ecumenical.

It's not "unwanted sex," Michael, such that you can decide in the middle that you didn't really want it and everything that came before is suddenly rape; it's sex to which one party doesn't consent, which is what we have here.

If the dude wakes up and says "what the hell are you doing? stop it!", what came before is pretty clearly rape, no? Even if ten seconds after that he decides that the damage to the marriage has already been done so the stranger might as well finish what she started.

If it's not, then I totally missed out last weekend.

No, XP is really pretty good. I've had this laptop for about 18 months and I don't think I've had a system crash yet, and I have to think hard about whether I've had an application crash. If so, only a handful of times.

314: Nothing to do with flipping the sexes, but on the most plausible account I can construct where the guy isn't lying, he's in some sort of relationship with this woman already, the hypothesis that she is a stranger who had access to his house being a bit crazy. So she's initiating sex with someone she knows, and probably not impersonating his wife.

320: are you talking about the legal definition, or your own understanding of it (though maybe there's no difference)? If someone was to wake up to sex, and the reaction was "yee-haw!" then I simply don't think "rape" is a good word for that. Legally it probably is, and I believe a lot of people would accept the term, accepting that in this particular case it turned out that rape=good. Too weird for me, so I finessed my understanding of what rape is.

what came before is pretty clearly rape, no?

My point is that it was already rape, because it began without his consent. I suppose it's true that you can make it unrape if you retroactively consent, but unless and until you do that, it's rape. Does that make sense?

When women's magazines advocate spicing up your dull relationship by being spontaneous and waking him up with a blow job, are they advocating rape? Why not?

Waking someone up with a blowjob isn't sexually assaulting them.

Not if they're your partner, no. But if they're not? Yes.

Is there such a thing in the law as "standing consent?" That's what I imagine you have with a partner. Your spouse doesn't have to explicitly consent to every new sex act.

Waking someone up with a blowjob isn't sexually assaulting them.

Not if they're your partner, no. But if they're not? Yes.

this issue really needs to be cleared up before UnfoggedCon.

329 came so close to being moot-pwned!

325: Oh XP (warts and all) is clearly much better than it's predecessors. I just was pointing out that it was better than 95 or ME or whatever isn't actually saying much.

where the guy is unlikely to call it that

Not to open a can of worms (she says, as she pries the lid off the can and the worms wriggle out), but ...

"unlikely to call it that" = "unlikely to describe it as he actually experiences it" or "unlikely to actually experience it as such"?

Some of the guys here seem to be suggesting that, with some few exceptions, they have always and already given their consent. Which no woman that I know of in the world that I actually happen to inhabit has ever been to known to do.

I worry about trivializing women's experience of various forms of sexual violence (about which the vast majority of women are not okay in retrospect, it must be stressed). If we insist that it must be called "rape" even when he insists that he was okay with, or maybe even rather enjoyed, the experience, are we not opening the door to "C'mon, you know she really wanted it"?

I think the guys arguing "it isn't rape" are really lacking imagination here. Yes, *in your fantasies*, waking up to some woman blowing you is awesome. But if someone breaks into your house and you wake up with them on top of you, it is not going to be a pleasant situation, and all the macho nonsense about how boys always want it won't change that.

Sure, some guys are never going to call it rape. Just like a lot of women wouldn't call it rape if their partner or husband manipulates or forces them to have sex when they don't want to. But it is.

331: It's more opt in vs. opt out.

If we insist that it must be called "rape" even when he insists that he was okay with, or maybe even rather enjoyed, the experience, are we not opening the door to "C'mon, you know she really wanted it"?

No.

167: Lake Wobegon--where all the vaginas are above average.

My point is that it was already rape, because it began without his consent. I suppose it's true that you can make it unrape if you retroactively consent, but unless and until you do that, it's rape. Does that make sense?

ah. that's much less objectionable. i'd say that the rape-ness of the sex had yet to be determined before he woke up. maybe they'd been having a long-running affair involving exactly this sort of "accidental" behavior. maybe he went to bed secretly hoping she'd come in and jump him in his sleep. maybe he went to bed thinking that it was really too bad that he was married, because otherwise he'd totally be doing it with this woman.

the situation in which he doesn't wake up is different; maybe asking the question causes the collapse of the wavefunction or something. if only we had an analytic philosopher around.

you can make it unrape if you retroactively consent, but unless and until you do that, it's rape. Does that make sense?

I'm a bit stuck on whether it makes more sense for an act to remain in a state or moral indeterminacy (as per my 318) or for an act to have a changeable moral status, as per above.

"unlikely to call it that" = "unlikely to describe it as he actually experiences it" or "unlikely to actually experience it as such"?

The first. "Were you raped?" "Hell no! <well, i guess so>"

No, you don't make it not rape by retroactively consenting. You refuse to prosecute, which is fine, but it is still rape and the rapist did something wrong.

For instance, there are and have been societies where if a man rapes a woman, it's okay retroactively if he marries her.

Do we think that's okay?

B's right in 338. What opens the door for "c'mon, she liked it" isn't including this in the definition of rape, it's blurring the lines around the idea that any time there wasn't consent, it was rape.

344: thats a different kind of consent, or possibly no consent at all. which is different.

Also, to answer Ogged's question, yes, there must be such a thing as "standing consent" in a relationship. The wife who wakes up her husband with a blowjob does nothing wrong. Nothing at all.

For instance, there are and have been societies where if a man rapes a woman, it's okay retroactively if he marries her.
Do we think that's okay?

Please tell me you don't honestly think this is a similar situation.

I don't think anyone disagrees with anyone here. Standing consent exists in a relationship. However, marriage does not necessarily create a relationship that contains standing consent.

349, that should be "Standing consent CAN exist in a relationship".

The wife who wakes up her husband with a blowjob does nothing wrong. Nothing at all.

WORD.

331: What about a partner? Is there standing consent for a girlfriend? (Seems no.) I can see how this could have been rape, but not 'obviously, jesus christ' rape without more information, like whether the woman is a partner, like a former mistress, or part of some strange gang of key-having, no touching, female rapists.

In other words, the question is whether there was a situation of some kind of 'standing consent.'

:but it is still rape and the rapist did something wrong.

B, your Catholicism's showing.

"Honey, I wasn't raped! Good heavens, I appreciate your concern, but I actually have standing consent with my sister-in-law. Now let's snuggle."

Regarding consent I believe the test is actually whether a reasonable person would think consent had been given rather than whether consent was actually given. So initiating sex with someone asleep probably reasonable in an established relationship, probably not reasonable when not in an established relationship particularly when housebreaking is involved.

Is there standing consent for a girlfriend? (Seems no.)

I'd say yes.

For instance, there are and have been societies where if a man rapes a woman, it's okay retroactively if he marries her. Do we think that's okay?

That's confusing the legal and moral definitions of rape.

hypothetical situation. i have a female friend that i have a huge crush on and have been subtly trying to get into bed for most of the weekend. she ends up staying over saturday night on the condition that i not try to put further moves on while we're half asleep. i say "of course." she changes her mind while i'm asleep and wakes me up as described above. i am of course completely ok with this turn of events.

have i been raped? seems not.

what if as i was going to sleep, i realized that she was totally right to not want to take things any further and breathed a sigh of relief that this was discovered before anything irreversible happened?

would i have been raped then? probably.

I'm pretty sure 216 establishes standing consent for me to wake up Ogged with a blowjob.

I actually know a guy who was in a situation a little less complicated than 358 in high school. The girl had been pursuing him for a while, but he wasn't interested. He got drunk; she seized the moment while he was mostly unconscious. He didn't file charges, but he wasn't kidding when he said she raped him.

348: Sure. Because in a society where that is the norm, because being raped is *that* shameful, you're goddamn right the woman is going to be *desperate* to marry the guy once it's happened.

Cala, the situation is that the man is *married* and supposedly thinks, at least, initially, that the woman who is fucking him is his wife. And she isn't. Even if the woman is his mistress, and thinks that he will know it's her, it's at the very least a fucked up situation. Former mistress? Sorry. Your ex does not get to just come into your house and fuck you.

357: I'd say that in all partnerships standing consent is something that would have to be established, not just presumed.

I'll email you my address, swifty.

I didn't say it wasn't a fucked up situation, just that I can't see that's it's necessarily anything more than that.

I'll email you my address, swifty.

So much for plausible deniability.

Surprise me!

358: To get past the double standard we've all got in our minds, all you have to do is turn the situation around.

I'm a woman, I've been after a guy for ages, there's a party, he stays over at my place, it's clear that he is "not interested." I wake up and he is fucking me.

Yes, that is rape.

Now, if he *wakes* me up by petting on me, or getting into my bed, and starts to make a move, that's making a move--I can respond, or I can refuse. But the fact that I have been flirting with him, making passes at him, chasing him, whatever, does not license him to fuck me while I am asleep, no it doesn't.

And it doesn't if the situation is reversed, either.

Sorry. Your ex does not get to just come into your house and fuck you.

actually, my ex's do. But I'm not married.

Because in a society where that is the norm, because being raped is *that* shameful, you're goddamn right the woman is going to be *desperate* to marry the guy once it's happened.

Surely you concede that these are vastly different types of desire we're talking about, and not only that, the object of the desire is different: the sex on one hand, the marriage and escaping shame on the other. This is really twisted logic.

Damn. The one thing that was keeping me from buying TF2 was that I don't really want to play a multiplayer games with a bunch of strangers on the Internet. But if there's an Unfogged server...

Bwhahaha. 80% downloaded here.

BTW. ogged, you don't need Garry's Mod unless you wanna do stuff like this.

364: It's not rape only if the person fucking him has reason to believe that he'll know it's her, not someone else. Which her behavior certainly seems to suggest otherwise.

In any case, if it's not his wife, or a *current* girlfriend with a key and permission to stop in whenever--which, given that he's married, is highly unlikely--it is, at the very least, breaking and entering. Which gets us back to the suspicion that the rapist knows very well that he isn't going to realize it's her. Which means it is indeed rape, both because it's non-consensual and because she is *intending* it to be non-consensual.

368, see 367.

Did somebody link upthread to someone pretending to be someone else, and having the court rule that it wasn't rape, or did I read that somewhere else?

Seriously, Michael, if you think it would be perfectly okay for an ex-girlfriend to let herself into your house and fuck you in your sleep, then you're a pretty messed up guy, and whether or not *you'd* consider such a scenario rape isn't germane to whether or not it is, as a general rule, okay.

I'm a woman, I've been after a guy for ages, there's a party, he stays over at my place, it's clear that he is "not interested." I wake up and he is fucking me.
Yes, that is rape.
Now, if he *wakes* me up by petting on me, or getting into my bed, and starts to make a move, that's making a move--I can respond, or I can refuse. But the fact that I have been flirting with him, making passes at him, chasing him, whatever, does not license him to fuck me while I am asleep, no it doesn't.

the two of you go to sleep curled up with each other in the same bed, he says "now behave yourself!", you think "ah well, he'll come around eventually", and wake up with his head between your legs. that's rape?

you're a pretty messed up guy

Come on, B.

367...you say there isn't a double standard. Then you say that as a woman, you would obviously consider something to be rape that is exactly the same as something a man says he would obviously not consider to be rape if it was done to him.

I think that in some situations, like that one, it should morally be considered rape if the person initiating the sex is able to overpower the other person.

you know, i only opened this thread to ask a question about sheet music. Quit distracting me.

I don't know anything about sheet music.

BTW, are you Michael Schneider, or Michael Vanderwheel, B.A.?

at any rate some people will be unhappy about your insufficiently specific pseudonym.

Michael is the original Unfogged Michael.

I'm really not trying to be an asshole to Michael. But if a woman in an internet discussion said, oh, my boyfriend hit me, but it's okay because I really deserved it and he didn't hurt me, I would think that she was messed up. And that her saying that sort of thing is okay was Not Good, and shouldn't be passed over.

So yeah, humorless, but rape is a serious enough issue that I don't think it's okay to just let a statement that one's exes are welcome to break in and fuck one go without pointing out that it's a pretty messed up way to look at things.

Seriously, Michael, if you think it would be perfectly okay for an ex-girlfriend to let herself into your house and fuck you in your sleep, then you're a pretty messed up guy,

For someone in an open marriage, you're awfully fond of passing judgment on other people's sex lives. Anyway, I give no weight to this opinion, not least because you've jumped in and made a key assumption that is not only unwarranted, but wrong.

or did I read that somewhere else?

The 'by force' vs. 'by fraud' thing; I was just wondering where I'd read that.

the original Unfogged Michael

Maybe I should go by that.

to be sure, i'm not saying "i thought they'd be ok with it" is in any way bearing on whether it is rape or not. if you have sex with someone in they're sleep, were absolutely convinced they'd be happy about it, and are wrong, that's the risk you took.

but if they were not only ok but happy you did so, then you successfully played a dangerous (and maybe hot?) game.

i'm too cautious to try that kind of shit, but i don't see that it's automatically rape.

372: We don't know any of those things, is what I'm saying. So it's a question of which is more plausible, a situation where there's some sort of standing consent (like a girlfriend or mistress) and a whole lot of mistaken identity, or a stranger rape following a burglary. I'm thinking the former is a little more plausible, not that rape is impossible.

378: Sigh. So it's only rape if there's evidence of physical force? You don't want to go there, Ned.

Look, the fact that a lot of men, including apparently many of the men here, have such a hard time imagining what it would *actually* be like to be raped--as distinct from fantasies of attractive people waking you up with blow jobs, or fantasizing about total strangers on the street, or thinking hell yeah, I wish I could fuck my ex--doesn't mean that it's okay for women to rape men.

I can't believe that you guys really truly think it would be simply fabulous if someone fucked you while you thought they were your wife (or girlfriend). The fact that you can come up with highly improbable scenarios where hey, it would be *great* to wake up with the girl I've been mooning after for months in bed with me!, really isn't evidence of anything other than how very difficult it is to get past one's conditioning about what men are supposed to want.

Not all rape is stranger rape.

And now I'm going to get away from this thread for a while, because what y'all are saying is genuinely upsetting to me. And *I'm* the one who's supposed to hate men.

So it's only rape if there's evidence of physical force? You don't want to go there, Ned.

Ned didn't say "only". Nor is it obvious (to me, at least) that that was the implication of what he did say.

The one thing that was keeping me from buying TF2 was that I don't really want to play a multiplayer games with a bunch of strangers on the Internet. But if there's an Unfogged server...

See, this was my view as well. My laptop isn't exactly permanent server material, but maybe I'll find some suitable PC lying around that meets the specs for the dedicated server.

390: it should morally be considered rape if the person initiating the sex is able to overpower the other person.

389: No, not all rape is stranger rape. I'm not arguing any of the things that you seem to be attributing to me, just that the THIS IS OBVIOUSLY RAPE reaction seems to me wrong given that we have next to no details.

or thinking hell yeah, I wish I could fuck my ex

It's amazing to watch you make all these assumption, and to think they're warranted and accurate! It's not a fantasy -- it's happened! I think you're also assuming that these are just thoughts - again, you're wrong! There's a verbal agreement.

It's OK to be wrong because you're not thinking everything through, but it's rather unseemly for that to result in disparaging comments about the person you're having an issue with.

392: Given that the context was "a woman raping a man", I took Ned to be saying "if she can overpower him, it's rape".

391: Well, I'm not gonna download Steam *and* TF2 tonight, but if you manage to get a server set up, let us know. I'll probably be picking up the Orange Box this weekend.

Will there ever be more details revealed about the actual RL scenario that inspired this Ask The Mineshaft?

I can't believe that you guys really truly think it would be simply fabulous if someone fucked you while you thought they were your wife (or girlfriend). The fact that you can come up with highly improbable scenarios where hey, it would be *great* to wake up with the girl I've been mooning after for months in bed with me!, really isn't evidence of anything other than how very difficult it is to get past one's conditioning about what men are supposed to want.

where the hell are people saying this? michael says his ex-girlfriends can come over and have sex with him whenever they want, and is presumably single. waking up in bed with people with whom i have a mutual attraction but also a mutual uncertainty about the wisdom of sex is a hell of a lot more common in my life than strangers breaking into my house. cala says that we don't know if this was a situation involving a long-running affair or some other situation where the guy was presumably ok with things or if it was the very unusual woman-rapes-man scenario.

392: you think that contradicts what 390 says?

The fact that you can come up with highly improbable scenarios where hey, it would be *great* to wake up with the girl I've been mooning after for months in bed with me!, really isn't evidence of anything other than how very difficult it is to get past one's conditioning about what men are supposed to want.

Look, someone came up with an improbable scenario of that sort, and you said "Fine, but if that improbable scenario happened to me, I'd consider it rape." Nobody said the scenario wasn't improbable.

I really don't want to have an argument about this because I have never read a single book about what it is like to be raped and therefore whatever I say is sophomoric.

i'm really interested to know the rest of the details of this ATM.

B, you cannot (responsibly) cite the norms of some distant past, without acknowledging the (socio-cultural, blah blah blah) logic of the norms of that distant past.

Yeah, once upon a time, when people were not so much unique individuals as members of families/kinship units (clans, tribes, whatever you want to call them, and call them what you will), it made sense to force the man who raped a woman to marry her, as a form of compensation and as a way of making right, in much the same way that it made sense to force the man who killed another man to pay mangelt, because neither he nor she were seen as, nor experienced themselves as, unique individuals whose sexual/reproductive experiences (there was no such division, of course, before modern birth control) were fundamentally expressive of their deeply and authentically true selves in any meaningful way, but were just practically and actually concerned with matters like, 'Who is the father of this child? Who will claim and pay for its upbringing'?

Anybody nowadays who trades on such notions is truly and deeply a certified creep, of course. But it won't do to selectively cite aspects of that world, without acknowledging its fundamental difference from our own.

It's OK to be wrong because you're not thinking everything through, but it's rather unseemly for that to result in disparaging comments about the person you're having an issue with.

upon reflection, this might have been a bit snotty of a way for me to take issue with B's going personal. I've been reading stilted literature, though.

Mentioned above is the movie Single White Female, in which the blowjob given by Jennifer Jason Leigh to her roommate's sleeping boyfriend is very certainly rape, and the boyfriend (Steven Weber?) reacts as a rape victim.

Thomas Jane is also raped by Paulina Podzhrszka in Thursday.

It is pretty clear to me that the scenario described in the post is rape. I am also very cautious about accepting "standing consent" supposedly existing within a relationship. Not crazy about some of the scenarios I can imagine around that.

Having some video issues with TF2. I'll let you know how it goes.

K.

402: That stuff isn't just about the distant past; and I am quite comfortable asserting that, regardless of socio-cultural norms, women who were forced to have sex with men, or to marry men who forced them to have sex, were raped, probably throughout their lives. Whether or not they called or considered it rape back then isn't relevant to whether or not that way of living is (or was) fundamentally wrong, which I believe it is.

I'm not attributing scenarios; I'm dealing with the scenario given in the post. Which yes, has very few details. Given the details we *have*, it's rape. Sure, details may be forthcoming that make what *actually happened* not rape, but the scenario as described, is rape. Whether or not Michael would be willing to have sex with his exes isn't germane to the discussion, unless he is saying that he would be willing to have sex with his exes *under the conditions described in the post*, which--if so--I would consider a messed up point of view.

What's bothering me is how much work people seem to be doing to not have to call the scenario, as given, rape. I find that really disturbing.

Is there such a thing in the law as "standing consent?" That's what I imagine you have with a partner. Your spouse doesn't have to explicitly consent to every new sex act.

Dan Savage had a pretty good analysis of the standing consent thing a few months back. His claim is that being in an intimate relationship with someone doesn't necessarily give you standing consent to sex up your partner, but does give you the right to proposition your partner in ways that would be considered sexual harassment normally.

The scenario as described is rape, plain and simple.

Oh, and TF2 is the bomb.

What's bothering me is how much work people seem to be doing to not have to call the scenario, as given, rape. I find that really disturbing.

They don't want to discourage anyone at the meetup.

I can't believe I read the whole thing.

Me either.

408 is essentially what 337 meant.

I can't believe how long this threads been dragged out in circles.

wait, that's not true. I can believe it.

C'mon teo, it's two hours earlier for you. Then again, I know nothing about night life in your area.

Like many threads here, this one rouses big male-female issues. Many men here do not regard what happened as rape, and seem vaguely to think that it might have been sort of nice.

So are these men shallow jerks who only dream of easy consequence-free sex with anonymous strangers? ("Angel of the Morning") Are they victims who fail to realize when they're being raped? Are they fantasists enslaved to male stereotypes who refuse to understand what actually happened? By their giggly attitude toward the present case, are they actually endorsing rape?

Alternatively, should women take the same kind of benign, untroubled attitude toward scuzzy, deceptive, uninvited sex that many men here seem to take? Is the idea of rape as the fate worse than death just a vestige of the days when virginity was a girl's only commodity ("pie", "scarce resource") of any real value?

Deep questions indeed. Also, I'm drunker that usual and thus incapable of not posting.

I know nothing about night life in your area.

Neither do I.

I wish i was drunk. Actually, I wish I was home getting my wife drunk. The storm that was flooding everyone out west is now dumping a bunch of snow on Utah.

Still no snow here. Lots of wind, though.

OTOH, looking at the water situation in the Southeast, snow's not such a bad thing.

re: 285

Not sure if anyone has replied to that comment [I've only read that far] but it's usually notation for a 'barre'. The C is followed by the fret at which you barre and the dashed line indicating the notes shows how long you need to hold the barre for. The 1/2 before the C.1 indicates a partial barre at the first fret, e.g. the top 3 or 4 strings rather than all 6. You might play a partial barre if you need to keep lower strings open for 'bass' notes. In this case a partial barre at fret 1 would give you, Ab, C and F fingered with the barre and would leave your 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers free to play notes above the barre. I'm assuming you know what a barre is?

Also, re: above, of course it's bloody rape. It's also not that implausible in the sense that it falls well within the purview of 'crazy ex-g/friend' stories that I have either heard or actually been party to.

re: 420

Also, check:

http://www2.kb.dk/elib/noder/rischel/RiBS1028.pdf

there's loads of barre notation all over that. Only this time, with roman numerals after the C to indicate the fret.

All I can say is: affirmative action is racist, people. Pure and simple.

All affirmative action is rape.

Let's all marvel at the time-stamp, that I am up at school on a Saturday morning, getting work done.

The more he drinks, the more sense Emerson makes. 415 is awesome.

And yet, the more sense he makes, the more he continues to drink. Why, God, why?

425: I am the king of rationalizers, but even I don't refer to commenting on unfogged as "work."

Given the details we *have*, it's rape.

B is, of course, right about this. Does anyone actually disagree? Shearer settled this entirely in 356.

I'm multi-tasktic.

It's not rape if she's super hot, like Lara Croft, right?

Does anyone actually disagree?

Apparently some of the men in this thread do disagree. See 415 for a brief but comprehensive summary.

Yeah, I posted my 'of course it's rape' and then went off to bed. If you wanted to quibble about "Maybe they're in the sort of relationship where she reasonably believed there was standing consent to sneak in and screw him", I suppose I can conceive of such a relationship, in which case it would be weird but not rape. But given that the story as told has him not knowing what's going on, that doesn't sound like the facts.

I'm still in Miami, not in ur rapethreads!

I think LB is underestimating the degree to which nutty people make whacked out decisions that add up to crazy situations.

Heebie just articulated why I would have thought that LB would hone in on this topic with greater clarity.

Lawyers get to witness people making really bad decisions that do not make any sense.

Although this is remarkably like Single White Female, it is real so I cannot reveal any more details. Sorry.

The focus on the question is not whether the woman did anything wrong.

Focus on whether the man did anything wrong. I believe that he has a short grace period before his penis remaining in her vagina is something that he shoul be accountable for.

Everything I've worked on has been people making bad business decisions, not this sort of thing. I suppose I'll believe that I was underestimating the amount of weirdness out there.

(And no more details at all? Given what you've already told, the answers to questions like: did they have a prior sexual relationship? Is the point of the question that he's trying to convince his wife he didn't do it on purpose? don't seem any more identifying.)

No prior sexual relationship.

Yes, he is the person in the hot seat.

436: Again, given what you've already told us, giving us a clue as to how long he's trying to justify, and on the basis of what evidence he's trying to explain, doesn't seem more identifying.

I'd have thought it wouldn't be long before you'd realize for the reasons already given above and with the drink/drugs caveats also.

A minute or two, maybe?

Does he get 10 seconds to throw her off? How long before one would reach up and touch her hair? How long before one would realize the difference of her hips? etc....

Assume that the two woman have very similar shapes.

The focus on the question is not whether the woman did anything wrong.

Focus on whether the man did anything wrong.

This seems fucked up, whoever he's in trouble with. Assuming that his wife? whoever? believes the no prior relationship, she sneaked into bed with him while he was asleep, the guy was sexually assaulted in his sleep. Giving him a hard time about how he handled it in the moment, short of realizing that he wasn't screwing his wife and going on to an extended session of voluntary, acrobatic lovemaking seems really off to me.

How long before one would reach up and touch her hair? How long before one would realize the difference of her hips? etc....

I assume some of those things are dependent on extant facts about his sexual relationship with his wife.

I wasn't around here last night to read this thread, but I had the strangest sex dream as I was waking up this morning. But now I'm having trouble deciding if it was a great dream or a terrible nightmare.

Also what 443 says.

445 is useless without pics lurid details.

Also, 443 is completely correct.

Further to 443, if we're actually analyzing the culpability of an assault victim here, which, you know, gross, I'm not sure that 'realization' is the relevant time period. I'd give someone just waking up a couple of minutes to boggle about "WTF do I do about this?" (This, longer for a guy, because I'd expect him to have somewhat less worked-out thoughts as to whether being sexually assaulted in his sleep is acceptable -- I'd figure a certain amount of "Shouldn't I, as a Real Man™, be enjoying this?" to work through, which could turn into a couple of minutes of continuing to participate.)

Ditto 443 and 449. Also, "no prior sexual relationship" = "woman unknown to man," or not? Because I can also see some panicky, horrified thinking on his part of "Oh my God, did I invite SuzyLou into my bed? What the hell happened last night?" meanwhile not actually yelling "no" or "stop."

A male friend of mine, bisexual, was having a mostly casual affair with his male roommate/landlord (his female partner also lived in the house, they had an open relationship.) One night, my friend awoke to being fellated, and realized fairly quickly that it was his landlord/roommate who was doing the fellating. Even though there was a prior, ongoing (until that point) sexual relationship, he felt violated, and basically felt that he had been sexually assaulted.

I haven't read the whole thread, but perhaps Kotsko or someone can help me out -- isn't there something in the Bible or the Talmud about a case of rape where the rapist's contention was that the victim had enjoyed part of the activity, making it not rape, to which the response was, if somebody stuck their finger in a jar of honey, then shoved it in your mouth, the sweetness of the honey would not change the fact that it was a violation of your person?

I'm trying to imagine the circumstances under which a couple would be working through this mess with lawyers, rather than each other and/or therapists. I suppose if it's some divorce-related adultery case, it's relevant to ask whether this took place in a state that even has a statute that allows for men to be raped. IIRC, the FBI stats didn't (still don't?) have a category for that. Some kinds of sexual assault, yes. Rape, no.

And by "allows for" of course I mean "provides a definition that encompasses men."

Basically, Will, if the guy's basic story is believable or at least if it's believed by whoever he's in trouble with, and you have any access to the person with whom he's in trouble, you should be giving her a sharp talking to about WTF she's thinking.

dumber ask the mineshaft question. man and woman are in the act(s), man has trouble maintaining the erection. how many of you blame yourself (eg. why doesn't he like what i'm doing? why am i not man enough to be rock hard?)? how many blame the partner?

Yeah, I think we can all be forgiven for going off topic when the intended question was "so this rape victim, how pissed should his wife be at him?" The answer to that is clearly "zero."

If the guy was assaulted, he didn't do anything wrong. So will, am I correct in reading you as trying to determine the time period in which a reasonable person would have recognized it wasn't his wife in order to determine whether there was in fact consent?

452: Given that it's will, I'm guessing a divorce. So the guy's claiming 'I thought it was you I was having sex with' and the wife's "He was cheating on me."

Yeah, under my parenthetical in 449 and Witt's follow-up in 450, I'd argue that that's still the wrong question for determining culpability.

459 to 457. To 458, if this is any kind of determinative question in a divorce, someone's thinking is really messed up. Hopefully they're breaking up over all sorts of other stuff, and this is a pretext.

I believe that he has a short grace period before his penis remaining in her vagina is something that he shoul be accountable for.

I think this is true, as far as it goes, but it has less to do with "telling the difference between the feel of his normal sex partner's vagina and someone else's" than with how much of a deep sleeper he is. I can be pretty darn confused when first awakened. HOWEVER, the scenario as given here has him waking up to the blowjob, so it sounds like he's relatively alert when the actual sexing starts. I'd expect only a very, very brief grace period then before he should be saying, "Honey? Honey?" and then freaking out.

James Shearer has a possibly reasonable point, though -- it seems like if you want to defend this guy's position, you might actually want to get an expert witness involved.

(Also, the degree to which he seems traumatized by the realization that he was misled would probably affect how credible I found his story.)

What do I know from expert witnesses? Ignore me, I'm loony.

460: I'm not a divorce lawyer but I'm under the impression that 'person's thinking is messed up' is the norm, not the exception.

464: For someone already divorcing, sure, at which point it's not about this story. For someone contentedly married, if this story is the reason they're divorcing, someone needs to reexamine their thinking.

If it is the sole reason, I'd guess the wife thinks she's divorcing over infidelity and his claim to have been having sex with someone he thought was her is bullshit.

I know I shouldn't comment without reading the whole thread, and I know it doesn't really answer the question originally posed, but on the rape issue, I would propose that the concept of ratification be brought into the discussion.

How long after he realizes it's not a relationship to which there is standing consent, does his failure to end sexual activity mean that he's ratified, that is, retroactively given consent.

On the question presented, going strictly from memory here, and we're looking far back into the past, I'd say that while vaginas, techniques, smells, sounds can be very very different, nothing prevents them from also being similar enough to fool someone groggy from sleep for half a minute or so. It's a fact question, then, undeterminable as a simple matter of principle.

466: I'd buy that, but it makes the question irrelevant -- if she doesn't believe the initial assault, the time-lapse doesn't mean anything. (And if she does believe the initial assault, but is holding him to a high standard of reacting with all his wits about him in the moment, then her mode of thinking is unfortunate.)

As a rather elderly professor muttered during the sexual harassment '90s, much of this sort of nonsense could be avoided if only people would act like ladies and gentlemen.

her mode of thinking is unfortunate.

Heh. Such a nice polite euphemism for 'fucked up'.

Well, presumably she doesn't believe the initial assault at least in part because she thinks that the entire scenario is absurd, ridiculous, and completely implausible; he's saying, "but no, seriously, it took me a minute to realize what the hell was going on." Then she says, "Oh please, how could that even be possible?"

I could sort of work up something but it sounds like a bad episode of Law and Order: the Neverending Series. She thinks he was having an affair; he claims, no he wasn't, this woman just gave him a blowjob and then mounted him; she doesn't believe him, but can't prove anything about the blow job (he was asleep, he couldn't see her, he claims, so who knows?); but wait, forget the blowjob, he's claiming she then mounted him and he still thought it was the wife; she argues, if that's the case, it should have taken him X amount of time to figure it out; he argues that X+Y is reasonable.

re: 471

Oh yeah, I can totally believe that someone would be suspicious of the story. It does seem somewhat implausible. But, if there are other reasons to believe the initial assault took place, then, LB's 443 seems right.

if we flip the sexes and we're now wondering how pissed the husband should be about finding out it took his wife a few minutes after waking up being raped by, say, his brother, to start fighting him when she realized it wasn't her husband...then I think we say the husband is being insane.

will, the Single White Female rape portrayal included an orgasm by the man involved. You say that your scenario is similar to the SWF scenario. Clearly, director Barbet Schroeder intended to portray this as a rape. I'm sympathetic to Schroeder's point of view on this, and I don't think the amount of time involved (or the ultimate orgasm, if there was one) is terribly relevant.

471-473: Yeah -- the real issue here seems to be whether she finds the story of the initial assault plausible. If that's her real sticking point, than quibbling over "I don't believe you, and even if I did believe the beginning of your story, the way it played out doesn't make any sense," while it may be what the parties are formally doing, doesn't have any real meaning.

will, the Single White Female rape portrayal included an orgasm by the man involved. You say that your scenario is similar to the SWF scenario.

I simply said it was similar, not that it was the same.

477: Okay. But you've only provided information that emphasizes the similarities. Given your emphasis, the nature of the responses seems pretty unavoidable. Yet I sense you're dissatisfied with the answers.

I'd expect only a very, very brief grace period then before he should be saying, "Honey? Honey?" and then freaking out.

How brief?

His significant other is not the one he is trying to convince.

Okay. But you've only provided information that emphasizes the similarities. Given your emphasis, the nature of the responses seems pretty unavoidable. Yet I sense you're dissatisfied with the answers.

I mentioned Single White Female because people kept asking whether it was real, but nobody mentioned that movie.

I am not looking for a particular answer, just how people react.

480: You're not going to get useful answers unless you actually tell the story. You've told enough to make it recognizable to someone who knows it and happens across this thread -- I can't see an ethical issue with telling more so long as you don't give names.

If he's not in trouble with his wife, I'm wondering if we're talking about diminished responsibility of some sort of the assailant -- she's mentally ill or something -- and he's in trouble with someone who's responsible for her.

474 is very true.

Seriously, Will, presented as a true story without details, this is creepy as anything. You're telling us about someone getting raped, and asking us for reactions about what sort of reaction to getting raped would make it his fault. Now, I can make up stories where this isn't insane, but I don't want to play around with "Well, this is one way I could blame the guy for getting raped, and this is another way it could be his fault..." If there's something about the story that makes it reasonable for him to be on the hot seat, you haven't told it to us.

I think Shearer's points way up thread make a lot of sense. If the guy is honestly expecting his wife to be there, his brain will explain away a lot of evidence that doesn't fit.

But I have to say I find the scenario pretty implausible. First the claim that the primary identifier is supposed to be just how PIV feels, rather than other things like the person making a sound or touching them or something. Is the guy arguing that he couldn't have known sooner because that was the only contact he had? Wouldn't that be a tip-off? Do he and his wife normally not touch each other while having sex?

But assuming all of that is plausible, and a sleep not affected by drugs or alcohol, I'd say under a minute.

But assuming all of that is plausible, and a sleep not affected by drugs or alcohol, I'd say under a minute.

I would probably agree.

484:

It is a creepy situation. Agreed. Nothing added will make it less so.

And I'm hammering on this but it's because it's really bothering me. Will's set this up so that we're expected to treat having an insufficiently speedy and well-thought-out reaction to waking up in the midst of being raped as the rape victim's fault -- the instant he was able to identify what was going on, if he didn't throw her across the room, he's responsible (and we're not supposed to talk about her responsibility). That's seriously, but seriously fucked up, and I'm really disturbed by discussing it on those terms.

(I do apologize for messing up the Penthouse Forum fantasy nature of this all -- there's nothing wrong with this kind of thing as a fantasy. But if we're talking about a true story like this my skin is crawling.)

If there's something about the story that makes it reasonable for him to be on the hot seat

Maybe she's underage. It was someone who lived in the house, perhaps an au pair or some such.

But assuming all of that is plausible, and a sleep not affected by drugs or alcohol, I'd say under a minute.

Overall, this sounds about right. I could easily imagine scenarios in which it could last that long.

487: The way you're talking about it is what makes it creepy, Will (well, the situation's creepy, but the framing is independently awful). Why are we trying to analyze how a flaw in the guy's reaction to being raped makes it his fault?

488:

As you know, we dont always get to pick our facts or make them less creepy.

490 seconded.

This would be made significantly more complicated if it were a mother/(step)daughter confusion.

Why are we trying to analyze how a flaw in the guy's reaction to being raped makes it his fault?

Come on LB. You are a lawyer. Do you make up facts just for fun? Or do you analyze them the way they are??

I don't honestly think you could put a time frame on these things. When I've been had sex with in the middle of the night, it could have been a strange for all I know the whole time. I sleep really deeply, and I doubt I would have noticed that it wasn't my partner (unless the person was causing me pain) until it was over, if even then. I think it's a terrible mistake to assume there's some "time limit" when really this is about one's level of consciousness at the time of the rape.

I neglected to mention the possibility in 493 on purpose. The squick factor in this story is already through the roof.

494: If the only relevant facts are the ones you told us, anyone blaming the guy for this is an incredible shithead, and you're an incredible shithead for implying that one could reasonably blame a rape victim for reacting in an insufficiently speedy and well-thought-out fashion. If there are other relevant facts you haven't told us that change the situation, you haven't told them to us.

It seems like, at this point, the discussion is stalling because we have an Ask The Mineshaft without a question.

The original question, "how long should it take him to notice" got a variety of answers, but there's isn't much to discuss about that.

So the question we all want to know, as readers, is "why did that question end up being relevent?" which we don't know.

In the Middle East a woman who has been raped is often stoned. Was this guy stoned?

I am a shithead now, LB? That is pretty harsh. Have I blamed this guy at all? Even once? Has it even crossed your mind what a lawyer's function in this situation might be?

You realize that my name isnt NCProsecutor? Or anything with "prosecutor" in it?

Name calling might not be appropriate until you think about this issue more thoroughly.

If he's defending the wife, surely his position is not going to be "The man let himself get raped." If he's defending the man, pointing out the obvious gender double-standard here would be a good thing for his case. (No woman raped in the middle of the night could reasonably be asked whether she was okay with it for the first few seconds because she didn't respond with appropriate horror. Doesn't even pass the laughability test of misogyny.)

I know it's harsh, I meant to be harsh. Switch the sexes and see if there's any way to have the conversation that isn't viscerally disgusting.

If you want me not to be disgusted with you, explain why talking about when it becomes his fault makes any sense, or explain why talking about it when it becomes his fault isn't what you're doing.

you're an incredible shithead for implying that one could reasonably blame a rape victim for reacting in an insufficiently speedy and well-thought-out fashion

This seems excessively harsh. Imagining myself in this guy's position, I would expect most people not to believe me. And if I were a prosecutor, I'd be feeling pretty confident.

On preview, double-pwned by Will.

502:

I dont really care if you are disgusted with me. You are a lawyer. You should understand what that means. Maybe not though if you have never represented actual people.

Regardless, you can check your email.

Name calling might not be appropriate until you think about this issue more thoroughly.

And this is just bullshit. Maybe there's some way in which your framing isn't repulsive. If there is, explain it and I'll apologize for having been too stupid to figure it out. But I am too stupid to figure it out, so if you want me to appreciate your justification, tell me what it is.

488: If the question is whether the guy was raped, or whether he's making up a bullshit story, it's not, judging whether someone who we all agree was raped acted appropriately (which would be awful), but whether there was any reason to suppose there was a rape at all. We're weighing the probability that he's lying and this was ordinary consensual sex against the probability he was raped and thought for a time that it was his wife. I don't think the assumption here, pace 474, is that he must have started struggling; just how long would it take him to know?

It's complicated further as the guy's line, as near as I can tell, was that he consented because he assumed it was his wife. He's not claiming there wasn't any consent at all. If that's his defense against whatever the claim is (that he had sex with the au pair/the mentally ill sister/whatever), then it's a good question whether it was reasonable for him to assume that it was his wife.

Shithead went too far, LB, but I think most of the shitheadery here could probably be grouped under "stuff that is probably a lawyer's job to consider, even if it's horrible and manipulative," right? Lawyers are shitheads, but that's why we came up with this nice euphemism for shithead, "lawyer."

Maybe there's some way in which your framing isn't repulsive.

You realize that 75 percent of what I do is repulsive from someone's perspective. I'm quite surprised at your reaction.

Shithead went too far, LB, but I think most of the shitheadery here could probably be grouped under "stuff that is probably a lawyer's job to consider, even if it's horrible and manipulative," right? Lawyers are shitheads, but that's why we came up with this nice euphemism for shithead, "lawyer."

It is a term of affection between lawyers. LB was just expressing how much she cares for me and appreciates me.

Ratification changes it from rape to adultery. I can imagine all kinds of ways that this might be legally significant. And I can imagine the wife arguing that knowing silence amounts to ratification. In this scenario, we're not measuring the time between consciousness and 'throwing her across the room' but rather between consciousness and saying 'wtf?'

Among lawyers:

-You're an incredible shithead, and I'd like you to be the best man at my wedding.

-Sweet. This means I can shtup your stepdaughter, right?

-God, you asshole, I love you so much.

501: I'm seeing this whole thing as trying to assess the probability of two claims.
1) The guy is lying, he knew who the woman was, and it was consensual through and through.
2) The guy is telling the truth, that he thought it was his wife, meaning that will's lawyerly opponent is going to ask whether it was reasonable that the guy thought so.

Given further that we're asking about a time lapse, I'm assuming that will's opponent is bringing it up, and part of will's defense of the guy is arguing that the guy's reactions (pushing her away in 30 seconds vs. 15 seconds) are consistent with someone in scenario 2 vs. scenario 1.

I'm not sure pointing out the double standard would help, because if I can imagine a woman in the same position (not just 2, both 1 and 2) wouldn't be better off, but maybe I'm just a cynic.

508: I got your email and replied. I still don't like the public conversation.

506: If that's his defense against whatever the claim is (that he had sex with the au pair/the mentally ill sister/whatever), then it's a good question whether it was reasonable for him to assume that it was his wife.

But that still leaves the question as "Was your a reaction a plausible one for someone being assaulted, or did you react in an unreasonable enough fashion that your claim not to have consented is unbelievable?" And I don't want to interrogate a rape victim's reactions (short of "Hey, cool, it's you, let's screw some more!") on that level.

Coming back to the topic, it doesn't seem entirely implausible to me that the sex might continue for quite a while, given the right circumstances, sufficient similarity between the woman involved and his wife, mix in a bit of tiredness, or whatever.

I'm generally not that deep a sleeper, but now and again I sleep the sleep of the dead, and my wife has described having a conversation with me in the middle of the night which I have absolutely no memory of the next day [and lots of other people have similar experiences, I gather]. So, it's not entirely implausible that in that sort of sleep-fugue, someone could be a passive participant in some sexual act and not realize the other person was someone merely similar to their actual partner.

Excellent analysis Cala.

So how much time does he have?

LB, if you take an absolutist "this is rape" position, then it's a strange conversation to be having, but that seems to be at issue.

510: Ratification changes it from rape to adultery.

This gives me the screaming willies. Someone crawls into your bed and rapes you, and we're discussing whether the speed with which you react 'appropriately' to the situation constitutes ratification?

re: 515

And the answer to that is going to have to be 'anywhere from 10 seconds to 45 minutes, depending'. It surely doesn't seem likely that there's some fixed time period that's going to work in this case?

517 -- Are you arguing that ratification is impossible as a matter of law?

516: On the public facts, I don't see any reason to take anything other than an absolutist "this is rape" position.

519: No, I'm saying that interpreting any reaction short of "Hey, cool, it's you, let's keep fucking" as ratification is disgusting as a matter of fact.

Thinking about this last night reminded me of another tale from the far frontiers of plausibility, the last case my dad (a neuropathologist) consulted on. It involved a couple of hunters, one of whom died from an axe wound to the head one night at their hunting camp. The defendant argued that the two had been drunk and fooling around with the axe, throwing it around until, on the final throw, it landed blade up behind the chair which the deceased subsequently tipped over backwards while seated.

521 -- Do the words have to be spoken aloud?

515: So how much time does he have?

This is the question that I find really totally absurd. What's someone going to say? "Well, if it was my husband, I'd give him 42.3 seconds before I'd expect him to notice it wasn't me." Isn't that bullshit through and through? Doesn't it also matter how deeply asleep he was, if he'd been drinking, if there was any light in the room, how different her body or movements were, etc? And that's where you get into LB's squick factor. I can't think about any of those as exculpatory factors when the guy is obviously not to blame anyway. The real problem here is not figuring out whether he sleepily enjoyed sex with someone he thought was his wife. The problem is whether someone else came in the house, pretended to be his wife, and raped him. If it was pre-arranged or if he consciously consented, it's adultery.

524 seems right.

513: Here's where it's weird because of the false/mistaken consent issue. It's not like a case like 474 where the claim is 'I woke up to my husband's brother raping me.' Or a typical date rape claim, where 'I didn't give consent at all.' And in either of those cases, it would be beyond boorish to argue that the person's reactions weren't appropriate. They might have been startled, or scared, and in a position of weakness.

But that's not the case we have here. It's 'I gave consent, so I wasn't coerced into sex, but I was mistaken about who I was consenting to, because I thought it was my wife.' And so the prosecutor asks -- what did you do next?

And will isn't arguing, I'm guessing, that the guy is saying 'I gave consent, and when I discovered the truth, I was just too stunned, so I lay there and let her rape me.' If the guy were saying that, I think it would be wrong to question his reactions. (But will might find himself in a case where he had to argue against that.)

But that's not what I gather we have here. The guy is saying something like 'I gave consent, but as soon as I figured out I was wrong, I not only revoked consent, but I stopped and was able to do so, and she didn't persist!' And the prosecutor bearing in mind asks whether, given that he was in fact capable and actually did all of that, the time that lapsed better supports my earlier 1 or 2.

523: No, sign language would work. Or the guy being fully awake, in a well lit room, and happily and consciously participating (like, disengaging to change positions, and then re-engaging), sure, that would be ratification. But picking apart the speed of someone's reaction to being assaulted to see if they're innocent because they reacted right, or if their reaction demonstrates that they really wanted it, is fucked up.

It seems like regardless of whether the facts as presented above add up to rape, it's not offensive to suggest that an attorney might have to convince someone that rape is what it was. I realize that the question presents the scenario as fact, but surely the underlying question is: what would it take for you to believe that this is what happened?

Along those lines, evidence that husband is or is not a heavy sleeper would be relevant.

Plus, there's a long tradition of defense lawyers for people accused of rape doing exactly that with rape victims.

"Oh, you didn't scream loud enough? You didn't claw his eyes out? Damn, you as good as consented, didn't you?"

We, rightly, tend to think of that as deeply shitty.

Cala gets it exactly right. Keep in mind, people, that it sounds like Will is defending this guy.

In any case, I'm with Bear and ttaM that there's no answer to the question without a whole lot of facts very specific to the situation -- degree of similarity between the wife and the intruder; how the guy sleeps; how dark it was... "10 seconds to 45 minutes" sums it up.

The underage au pair thing seems relevant to me as a comparison. If this were a criminal trial about statutory rape, and the au pair had come in the middle of the night while the wife was away and started fucking the guy, even if he woke up and noticed it was her and didn't stop the act, I highly doubt he could be convicted of having statutorily raped her. Right?

hahaha No need to defend me.

The questions that life throws us are often shitty, fucked up, and difficult to comprehend. Every single day someone does something that many people cannot comprehend.

Businesses do it too. The blood just isnt as easy to see on their hands.

I really don't think that 529 is what's up here, though. The question is whether husband's description of what happened is credible -- not his or our characterization of it as rape, but his claims about the actual sequence of events -- or whether it sounds like a fairy tale he made up to cover over some other sequence of events. Unfortunately, we don't actually have the facts that would let us determine that, but it sounds like Will is asking what our intuitions would be about what timelines for this scenario would feel credible or incredible. No?

I highly doubt he could be convicted of having statutorily raped her. Right?

No, no, of course not! Everyone will immediately believe him.

Contra my own earlier agreement with the "no telling how long it could go" claim, I think I see what Will is getting at now: think of the subsequent legal discussion as a negotiation with an unsympathetic party; in that case, what amount of time you think you could plausibly claim the husband was ignorant? In that case, I'd go back to my original "around 30 seconds" answer.

That said, I agree that the plausible-time question is indeed dependent on a lot of factors that we don't know about from what we have here.

534:

Si. The detective girl is so smart.

But picking apart the speed of someone's reaction to being assaulted to see if they're innocent because they reacted right, or if their reaction demonstrates that they really wanted it, is fucked up.

I'd agree with you if I thought you had the reasons they were picking apart the speed of the reaction right. But I'm not sure you have even the reaction right. We're not asking 'how long, once you realized it wasn't your wife, did it take you to express your objection.' We're asking how long it took him to notice that it wasn't his wife, in a situation where he presumably withdrew consent successfully as soon as he realized that.

The question doesn't fit the usual blame-the-victim model. I can only postulate that the reason that they were asking about 'time to recognize' as opposed to 'time to react' is that whether it's plausible to believe the man's story of blind consent.

527 -- Ok, ratification is possible, and it can be non-verbal. You're willing to say that position changes in a well lit room are indicative of consent, and no one would disagree. You don't say that this is the least conduct from which you would imply consent, and rightly so: it's a dopey place to draw that line.

There is a line. It's a long way from 'changing positions in a well lit room.' It's closer to but not exactly at 'knew or should have known that the assailant wasn't the wife.'

526 -- Consent was non-verbal here as well. Actually, there wasn't consent at the time the conduct began, but I think you have to imply it at some point.

532: Well, the issue there is 'noticed it was her', isn't it? I'd say that the question of "in a dark room, waking up from sleep, how fast before you knew it wasn't your wife?" is really different question from "how fast before you knew who it was?" If he didn't know who was fucking him, you couldn't call it statutory rape.

535, 536: The thing is, though, concentrating on the time-lapse, and ratification, seems really weird. His credibility problem kicks in with "I was asleep and woke up with her climbing on top of me", not with "It took me three minutes instead of thirty seconds to figure it out." I can't see what could establish a tight enough timeframe where the length of time was the issue.

shivbunny weighs in with thinking 'it could be a while... maybe even as long as two minutes if he's a heavy sleeper.'

534, 538, 539: The problem with all of this is that the question seems to assume the length of time the sex continued for as a neutrally agreed-upon fact -- that it's known that penetration took place for 3.75 minutes, and he then said "OMG, you're not my wife" and withdrew consent, so we're just arguing about whether it's plausible it could have taken that long.

If the facts of the entire encounter are disputed, focusing on the time-lapse as affecting his credibility seems peculiar.

541 -- If the conduct was interrupted say 1 minute in, and the man, caught, said to the assailant, 'hey, what are you doing here, I thought it was my wife' you'd certainly care whether or not he should have been able to tell within a minute if it was the wife.

If I were on a jury, anything beyond 2 minutes would be enough for me to confidently reject the story (barring him being drugged, etc.).

Yes, at what stage of the sleep cycle you're in makes a big difference. Under what conditions, though, would it not be adultery?

If the facts of the entire encounter are disputed, focusing on the time-lapse as affecting his credibility seems peculiar.

What is so peculiar about this???

In court, one side presents their facts. The other side typically presents their facts. There are often one or two large factual disputes and a number of similar facts with some details different.

"It was 10 feet away."

"It was 17 feet away."

This happens every single day.

544: Well, not really -- we're back to blaming the victim again there. If the facts of the encounter were objectively established (an interruption wouldn't do it, because it wouldn't say how long things had been going on before the interruption, or how they started. You'd need a bedroom security camera.) then asking about the plausibility of when he should have been able to tell the difference implies that he's responsible for bringing the encounter to an end the instant he figures out it not his wife.

Will, I just emailed you.

go ahead/

532: Not a lawyer, but I think the point of statutory rape is that the victim is too young to consent meaningfully. I don't think you can get out of it by saying that the younger person started it.

543: I am presuming something like those facts have been agreed upon, and that the question is the interpretation of those facts, yes. And I presume that because indeed it makes no sense for will or the guy opposing him to be focusing on such a tiny time-lapse issue if there are other things to dispute.

Ok, I'm sorry to do this to another post, but if this gets linked by a bigger site, there's some chance of the principals being recognized, so I'm going to unpublish this. We'll have to think about how to deal with things like this in the future. I hate doing this.

I can imagine that the husband is already on the record with a particular version of these events. Not so weird to imagine that the other side would seize on his timeline as a credibility-affecting aspect.