The Message of the Debate: Communicate About Sex

Although people draw different conclusions from it, there is one area of the date rape debate about which both sides agree: There needs to be more communication between women and men.

“The only valid point (Neil) Gilbert raised is that men and women, including college students, do not communicate very well about sexual issues,” says clinical psychologist Dean Kilpatrick, director of the Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Although Gilbert sees the rape-crisis movement as at least inadvertently promoting hostility and distance between the sexes, Patricia Giggans, executive director of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women, sees the reverse.

“I think the rape-crisis center movement is trying to promote communication,” she says.

Columnist Richard Cohen, a Gilbert friend and supporter, wrote about such miscommunication in the Washington Post: “Of course, no can mean no, but it can mean many other things as well, including ‘Not right now, but in a little while.’ ”

Others offer fuzzy anecdotes, even Heather McLaughlin, one of Gilbert’s students who was involved in the Students Organized Against Rape protest against him.

“Who knows?” McLaughlin asks. “I’m one of those women--I probably would consider myself not raped. I consider my (experience) very borderline. We’re socialized to submit: ‘I’m supposed to enjoy this, make him enjoy this.’ ”

Even his critics agree that Gilbert has touched a nerve. He has publicized attitudes that underscore the debate.

“The women’s movement has really proposed a very dramatic change in our thinking about sexual coercion, and it’s a very hard change to accept,” says University of New Hampshire sociologist David Finkelhor, author of “License to Rape.”

“Gilbert is on the wrong tack, I think. Men should not try to make women’s point of view wrong but (should) make men’s dilemma more comprehensible and elaborate the situation for men. There’s no doubt men need to change their behavior and give up their coercive style, but there are many aspects of men’s dilemma that are very deserving of compassion.”