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Sex, Rape - to some people, i guess they’re the same thing

There seems to be a great deal going on in this article.

Appeal Judge Draws Fire Over Sex Consent [Look, it’s news from Australia!]

APPEAL court judges have erased an alleged rapist’s criminal record after ruling that a man could not rape and have consensual sex with a woman in the same encounter….At trial, the jury heard the 54-year-old defendant drove the woman to a location as a favour, saying “it will cost you”. Shetestified he took her to an isolated area and partially undressed her,then forced her to perform fellatio and have intercourse. The defendant argued the woman consented and the jury verdict was “unreasonable”.

Having done some reading, the jury apparently agreed the sex was non-consensual because she had a condition that caused all vaginal sex to be painful for her.

In his judgment, Chief Justice John Doyle said there was “no satisfactory explanation” for the verdicts, because the charges came from the same evidence.

…

Which is where my brain starts to get a bit broken.

First - heck yeah! She said she didn’t consent to either sex act, so why won’t the jury believe on both?

Second - what? I’ll have you know that I can be quite happy to have oral sex with someone and not feel up to anything else. One sex act can be consented to and it doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything else. If that second sex act is forced on me it’s still rape.

Yesterday,the State Government vowed to table new laws, wherein sex would become rape as soon as consent was withdrawn – even if the act had already begun.

Darn skippy.

Opposition legal affairs spokeswoman Isobel Redmond warned the new laws may interfere in people’s private lives. “When reading the legislation, one gets the feeling even married couples will need to sign a contract before they have sex,” she said. “You reach a point where you’re trying to legislate for every human behaviour. It’s not possible and it doesn’t lead to justice.”

Wow.

Yeah. Because (wait for it):

OBVIOUSLY it is a big huge deal to say to your sexual partner “Is this what you want?” OBVIOUSLY we will RUIN MARRIED SEX if we insist that no does in fact mean no. That no means no if I’ve had sex with you before, that no means no if I’ve had sex with you five minutes ago, that no means no IF I MARRIED YOU.

Where does Isobel Redmond get the idea that being sure your partner is wanting what you’re doing is such a horrible burden? Isn’t that supposed to be part of the fun?

In related news:

Blog Against Sexual Violence logo

This entry was posted on Friday, March 23rd, 2007 at 08:19 and is filed under Response to the News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Sex, Rape - to some people, i guess they’re the same thing”

  1. Jo Says:
    March 24th, 2007 at 21:22

    Interestingly enough, Ms. Redmond’s statement mirrors some of the labels applied to feminists, namely that they “think all sex is rape”.

    There’s an analysis in here somewhere, and I’m having trouble with it. :-/

    The steps I’m seeing are:

    If a woman’s consent matters, then all sex *can* = rape.

    Redmond/anti-fems:
    If a woman’s consent matters, then all sex *does* = rape.

    Again, Red/antis:
    If a woman’s consent doesn’t matter, then all sex *does not* = rape.

    So the only way to prevent (ignore) rape is (according to antis) to completely disregard women’s consent.

    Grrr.

    There’s a massive blog post in here somewhere. (April 5, huh?)

  2. Anna Says:
    March 24th, 2007 at 21:29

    Again, it gets back to that whole concept that feminists seem to think that men are adults and capable of reigning in their unbridled passions, and yet, we’re the man-haters.

    *sigh*

    I hope you write that blog post, Jo. I’ll look out for it.