Rape, blame, responsibility, Amnesty, etcetera.

A footballer was on trial for rape recently, and his defence was that she had consented to sex. He also happily admitted that she was paralytic, couldn't stand up and had been throwing up in the taxi home from the nightclub. Yet he still thought she was in a position to weigh up whether she wanted to have sex with him.

clearly have a degree of ambiguity for lawyers, prosecutors, etc. the issue here is not whether the woman 'asked to be raped', but of establishing what actually happened, what there was by way of explicit consent. in relationships you don't always have 'explicit consent' -- and there is such a thing as rape within relationships.

Which means that ultimate responsibilty lies with the man doing the raping.

I'm also somehow able to not steal a bike if it's left unlocked outside a shop, and not nick someone's wallet if I see it poking out of their pocket on the Tube. People do silly things, but the blame if a crime is committed lies with the criminal.

S'not rocket science.

not analogous, though. iraqis killing US soldiers are not criminals, they aren't breaking any generally agreed laws. whereas the US troops using chem weapons and torturing iraqis are.

(OK, perhaps technically the US are not "at war" with Iraq any more, but it's still an illegal occupation.)

If two 14-year-olds have sex, the boy can be prosecuted for rape but not the girl. Which is odd, especially as a 14-year-old girl is emotionally much more grown-up than her male counterpart.

So there's some room for improvement in the law there, but I'd guess that women having sex with a man against his will is pretty rare compared to the other way around — the man has the more 'active' role in proceedings, and if he's really, really drunk any would-be female rapists will find themselves trying to play snooker with a length of rope, if you know what I mean.

i certainly think that a women, not matter what state shes in or what shes wearing, is neither to blame nor responsible in any way if she is raped. but i think that there are certain conditions whihc might contribute to a rape occuring. its when a moral aspect comes in that i think judgements of this kind get twisted. there is a chance that if you control your drinking, cover up etc, you might be able to reduce the risk of rape, but this doesnt mean that there is moral force compelling you to do so, i think.

xpost i agree with trife that the idea that the woman should have to say no for sex to be declared non-consensual is freaky, given the power dynamic involved with sex why shouldnt there be a burden of proof that either partner said "yes", rather than "no"?

i dont expect to have to refuse everything that i dont want, i prefer to be asked if i do want them in most cases. why shouldnt this be the same in sex?

Don't bank with NatWest, then.

XXXXpost.

Whew, that one almost got away from me there!

That's not what anyone's saying though. What I'm saying is that if you impair your senses through intake of chemicals to a point when you cannot avoid certain situations, then you have to take responsibility for getting yourself in a fucking mess where something bad can happen. Yes, the rapist is 100% to blame for the rape itself, which is an entirely reprehensible and disgusting act and not the behaviour of a normal, moral human being; but if you are blind drunk and are raped in a situation where you would not have been raped were you not blind drunk, well, you got yourself drunk. Same if you get beaten up. It's awful and horrendous and no one should be beaten up or raped, drunk or not, but there are assholes out there and if you've half a brain you should know that and take steps to avoid them.

Henry's made some very cogent points about different kinds of rape too, obviously.

XXXpost.

really nick? what if you werent paying total attention and were rear-ended by another vehicle, which seems much closer to rape than driving your car into a tree or something, does that person deserve to be shamed as well? what about if youve been in a car wreck of your own making, lost both your legs, and then i kick your crutches out from under you and rob you? hey maybe "responsibility" isnt as important as your tory ass thinks it is

If you're not paying attention and someone rear-ends your car then yes, pay fucking attention. Take responsibility for your own actions and be aware of the potential asshole actions of others. How this makes me a tory I'm not quite sure, except that accusing someone of being a tory when they extole not 100% sassy "not my fault" uber-liberal bullshit opinions is a common ILX habit. As is anonymity.

drunkenness and immodesty are almost universally considered moral issues.

it's so normal pregnant women and toddlers do it.

It's a shame because this thread had got me thinking about some interesting stuff, and it seemed like quite sensitive things were being debated in a way that didn't make me feel uncomfortable on a personal level. Which it now does.

I like how Trife is now insinuating that I am a rapist. Not every victim is innocent. Not everything you read in the papers is true.

I take Nick's point, but the logic seems flawed somewhere. Maybe I'm being dumb but "The guy's 100% responsible, but the woman needs to take some of the responsibility" doesn't make sense to me.
-- Come Back Johnny B (john.barlo...)

you're looking at it from the wrong end of the telescope. with a large number of rape cases, the thing is to prove that an offence has taken place -- to prove that the woman is 'a rape victim'.

it's difficult to prosecute for rape, at levels below violent attack, precisely because concepts like 'consent' become very slippery when drink/drugs/etc is involved. so you have lots of very ugly court cases where the guy has clearly 'taken advantage' (and of course he may well have been under the influence also) but it's very hard to prove that the victim was not consenting -- partly of course because of lack of witnesses.

nick hasn't said the crime of rape is diminished by the irresponsibility of the victim, but it's actually fairly cold comfort for victims to know that they have some internet dude in their corner saying it's categorically never your responsibility to do your best not to get into difficult situations, like some guy's car at the end of the evening when you're shitfaced.

(Sorry Kate)

im sure rape victims enjoy some creepy internet dude looking for ways to blame them and increase their exact percentage of culpability even more

When a person, a private citizen, about their OWN business, fails to take whatever "reasonable measures" (avoiding drugs and alcohol; avoiding bad parts of town; avoiding living in a flood plain; avoiding living over a faultline; wearing heavy clothing; having a penis; carrying weaponry) then there are no damages to be apportioned to other parties. The victim is the only victim. So why does blame need to be apportioned?

Because it is in society's job description to protect the freedom of its private citizens to go about their own business. So by apportioning blame to said private citizens, you are effectively stating which protections are not in society's job description, and saying "we do not, as a society, give a shit about people's freedom to do this or this or this." What do you think should fall under "at your own risk" and what should be protected? Is going down the pub looking hot and having a few more than you really should (possibly because everybody else was cheering you on) honestly fall in the same fucking category as "trying to jump my snowmobile off this 50 foot bluff" or "racing motorcycles in the pouring rain?"

I'm not going to touch the idea of not blaming the rapist because the victim was so drunk because that's patently absurd and indefensible, ergo not worth anyone's time.

no-one has done this!

Wow that Jez article indicates that the judge has form in this area, which makes it even more disgusting.

got into really aggravating fb arguments with friends over sentencing leniency and how this is really not the case to hang your hat on when it comes to the whole harsh-prison-sentences-are-bad thing.

there's this inherent grossness in how sex as a depersonalized act is both incentivized and demonized depending on context and who is involved

I have been disconnecting from so many media sources this week, made easier because I've been on vacation, but it's been gnawing away at the back of my mind.

sex isn't inherently good or bad. sex requires mutual consent and interest. the phrase "getting some action" or some variation thereof, which the rapist's father in this current case in the media used, is an indicator that there's some inherent value in one individual pursuing a sex act regardless of whether the other party can give consent, because it's somehow still an inherent good to that mindset even if you're perpetrating the act on someone who can't give consent, or has expressly denied consent.

there's something at the root to many of these cases that fall between what people see as pure acts of violence (which rape, at its root, is) and the supposed murkiness of drunken actions or mixed signals or whatever is used to brush a lack of communication under the rug

honestly, these things make me question my own past actions and those of people I know, as far as whether I had sex when I didn't necessarily want to because it's "what you do" when drunk and hooking up or w/e. and whether I misread cues or was the stereotypical man pushing and testing boundaries in some situations instead of backing off when it was clear I should have

I don't think we can continue to be lenient. but there needs to be some serious reflection in society when a number of people think that an act between two people where one person is praised and the other told they should be ashamed is normalized. we're still at the point where "got some action" and "shouldn't have let him" are the viewpoints of perpetrators and some of their authority figures are reinforcing that view

On the same day, on the same site:

http://wonkette.com/605534/teen-tennis-player-who-sexually-assaulted-autistic-girl-will-not-have-future-ruined-by-prison
It’s so weird how this keeps happening, right? You know, like it just happened with Brock Turner, and his beautiful future that no one wanted to dare ruin! Jeez, it is almost like if you are a white teen athlete, and you sexually assault someone, people are really concerned about how that might affect your future!
Read more at http://wonkette.com/605534/teen-tennis-player-who-sexually-assaulted-autistic-girl-will-not-have-future-ruined-by-prison#VWG0vX911mfLCGtW.99

http://wonkette.com/605513/lets-talk-about-juanita-broaddrick

can absolutely see Bill Clinton doing this (then, not now) and not even thinking of it as rape, but thinking of it as dominant, alpha sex. I can see a LOT of men doing that during that time period, before we started telling them in the ’80s, “hey, that is rape, do not do that.” I can see YOUR NICE GRANDPA doing that, back then.
***
Rape is about power, not sex.” For those for whom it’s about power, those are the serial rapist guys, and they hate women and want to punish us. But I don’t think that’s in every case. I think good men can rape, and be sorry, and not do it again. This is very bad feminism.
***
To sum up, I think Bill Clinton could very well have raped Juanita Broaddrick; that it doesn’t make him an evil man, or irredeemable (I’m Catholic; we’re all forgiven, if we’re sorry, and Broaddrick says Bill Clinton personally called her up to apologize). It doesn’t even necessarily make him a bad feminist — you know, later, once he stops doing that.

Thought this revive was going to be about Kurt Metzger.

http://www.dailydot.com/irl/kurt-metzger-sexual-assault-amy-schumer-twitter-block/

xpost that last half of the last sentence is worthy of the site being taken down.

Yeah I p much felt like wonkette should be deleted after I read that, especially coming from its publisher.

Also, as if it weren't enough "once he stops doing that," oh you mean other than the time he abused the oval office to have an affair with a young intern.

my alma mater, byu, finally getting into some hot water over this. way overdue. that place is a patriarchal cesspool.

and institutionally vulnerable because it's so opaque re: its retrograde policies about student bodies. i can't lie i'll be more gratified the more they get punished for it, but also if it leads to change in de-fanging the honor code it would have a real effect on hundreds of students who get caught in that horrible whirlpool every year.

This has to be fake, right?

https://twitter.com/realbrockturner

Brock Turner ‏@realbrockturner June 29
Loving the new #HeterosexualPrideDay hashtag! #Proud #Swimmer #Hetero

I'm pretty sure this is a troll account