I read a Cosmo magazine today; I didn’t mean too, it just kind of happened. Oh the shame. I was sitting in a health centre today waiting to get that cotton ball that got stuck in my ear flushed out, and while I was waiting a headline caught my eye “A New Kind of Date Rape You Must Know About” (which I also managed to find online) from an old September 2007 issue. ‘This looks like a good way to kill the next 5 or so minutes’ I thought to myself as I picked up the magazine and began perusing the article. In retrospect I should have resisted. I thought that by now Cosmo would be a little bit less sexist, but apparently I thought wrong.

Halfway through the first sentence I realized that the author of the article didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, and the content she was spewing out was not only absurd but blatantly misleading and harmful. The article was about “Grey Rape” which was defined as “sex that falls somewhere between consent and denial” and where it is impossible to tell if a woman consented or not. The author, Laura Stepp, uses some real-life experiences to explain “grey rape”.

In one situation a woman was making out with a guy and after telling him straight up that she didn’t want it to proceed to sex, he pushed her down and penetrated her anyway. While the man was penetrating her she repeatedly told him to stop.

In another scenario a woman was pinned down on a bed after inviting a man into her hotel room, and according to the woman, was sexually assaulted and had to struggle to escape.

And in another scenario a women passed out only to awaken to a man on top of her.

According to Laura Stepp what makes these assaults “grey rapes” instead of “rape” is that none of the women were forceful enough in making there objections known. As I finished reading the article I found it difficult to contain my rage as I thought to myself: “That’s not ‘grey rape’ you dickless misogynist pig that’s rape!”

And how could it not? It was clear from the women interviewed in the article that they were forced into sex, each said no, and each one was physically overcome – with the exception of a woman who was unconscious. Now, I’m not a lawyer but, from what I read it sure sounded like "rape" to me, not "sex," not "grey rape", but rape.  

Let’s look at it this way. If someone was attempting to murder you, but you blacked out from shock before they repeatedly bludgeoned you, would that be “grey-murder?” Or does this whole grey area only exist when it comes to sexual assault against women? I was under the impression that regardless of whether you’re drunk, already making out, on a date, or whatever, saying “no” means just that. Logic like this “grey rape” just aids in exonerating men from their culpability in violent sexual crimes, as well as perpetuating the kind of silence and denial that helps foster rape and abuse.