PERSPECTIVE ON RAPE : Just Say ‘No,’ Just Hear ‘No’ : Bumper stickers that trivialize sex say a lot about how seriously we take the issue of consent to intercourse.

We are a culture that has learned to think in slogans, and bumper stickers may be a truer gauge of what matters to Americans than newspaper editorials. I am sure about one thing that matters a lot. No surprise here--it is sex.

Pick any occupation and there is a bumper sticker bragging about how plumbers or lawyers or cement pourers or accountants “do it”: with their briefs on, with their slide rules out, under water, in the air. Lots of people seem to be doing it, or at least thinking about it, and plastering the news on their fenders. We ride around habituated to these casual, public andslightly sniggering announcements about sex.

There is also another familiar bumper sticker--the “Just Say No” message of drug education fame. We teach children that what they say counts, that if they “just say no,” they will be in control, their decisions not to participate will be respected, and they will be safe from the harms of drugs.

Saying “no” may work for kids declining drugs. But it often works less well for women who say “no” to sex, women who do not want to “do it.” Saying “yes” or “no” matters tremendously here. It is the difference between sexual intercourse and rape.

Some people seem confused about the difference between sexual intercourse and rape. The first is a voluntary, often intimate association. The second is a criminal act. The difference between them is not the time of day or the location or what either person was wearing--or what their grades in high school were. The essential difference is consent.

Consent--agreeing to something--is usually not a hard concept to understand. It may at first appear more complex in the context of rape. One reason is simply its unexpected presence. There is no other crime defined in terms of consent. Only in rape is the victim asked, “Did you agree to it?” Compare “Did you agree to be punched in the face?” “Did you agree to be mugged?”

A second problem has been the language of consent, in most other circumstances no problem at all. Parties to an agreement signal consent by saying “yes.” But, so the story goes, everyone knows that women say “no” when they really mean “yes” because “no” is the acceptable social response. With one word--”no”--supposedly standing in for both “yes” and “no,” men have understood their job to be to persuade the woman into “yes,” and if that fails, to take her “no” for the “yes” that they thought was there anyway, no matter what she said.

Here the law is a grim conspirator. In most jurisdictions, rape is defined not just as sexual intercourse without the woman’s consent but as sexual intercourse without consent and as a result of force or the threat of force. So, saying “no” may not be enough. You have to say no, then wait and fear being overpowered, and then resist (complexities that don’t fit on a bumper sticker).

By refusing to accept a verbal “no” as the end of the matter, the law requires women to be afraid. Fear is, of course, nothing new to women. We incorporate it into how we negotiate quite ordinary events--where we park, how late we stay, whether we smile at a stranger. Women can inventory the events of any day and list the ways they have been careful, the routinized responses to fear. Rape laws formalize fear. By burdening simple consent with the requirement of resistance, they keep women afraid.

Rape laws undermine consent in another way, too. There are few instances where consenting to something once means you have agreed to it forever. Remember, rape is still defined in many states as sexual intercourse with a woman who is not one’s wife, without her consent and as a result of force or threat of force. So, for married women, having agreed to marry means they have agreed to sex for the duration. In effect, marriage is a waiver of the protection of rape laws. Saying “no” to a husband may not matter at all.

The idea that there is a free zone, like marriage, in which rape can occur without consent leads to yet another problem with the way consent to sexual intercourse is popularly understood--specificity. The law says that rape is sexual intercourse without the woman’s consent. That ought to mean that the woman has to consent to the intercourse itself--not just to a ride home, a movie or a walk around the block. Without this explicit consent, every time, intercourse is rape, as much a crime as punching someone in the face without her consent. Yet juries and prosecutors routinely infer consent to sex from the fact that a woman agrees to go on a date, or from the fact that she has chosen to be in a certain place at a certain time.

There are other, less legal reasons why decisions by women to decline sex are not taken seriously. Go back to the bumper stickers. In many ways we seem to take the view that sex is no big deal, a funny subject for puns on car bumpers. What’s the problem? Who wouldn’t want it?

I think the answer is “lots of people,” but I’m only sure about lots of women.

Imagine a society--or a legal system--where saying “yes” to intercourse is regarded as skeptically as saying “no” is now. In this imaginary society, spoken words are accompanied by cartoon-like bubbles over one’s head that tell what the speaker really wants. We might learn that women consent for many reasons. Sometimes “yes” would mean “Yes, I want to.” But other times, I’d bet that “yes” would mean “What’s the point in saying ‘no’? It’s going to happen anyway.” Or, “If I say ‘no,’ he’ll get angry, and then what?”

In our world, “yes” always signifies “yes” with regard to sex. That’s OK. But if “yes” means “yes,” then “no”--just “no”--has got to mean “no.” Otherwise, both are confusing. Let’s try that on a few bumper stickers.