An 'interesting' conversation with my MIL about rape

Well said HerBeX.

Until we get rid of the idea that women are a jar of sweeties and men are small children ("Well, if you don't want him to touch, put it where he can't see it!") rape will continue.

More and more I think what is incredible, is that most men are not rapists.

Given that our culture encourages them to be and for centuries has educated them that they have a massive entitlement to help themselves to women's bodies whether women want them to or not, it is actually astounding that in most cases, their humanity has emerged unscathed and most of them don't turn out rapists, not because of our cultural messages, but in spite of them. It says masses about their potential if they weren't constantly subjected to the corrupting messages of the patriarchy. Imagine how great they'd be.

Notjustapot, I think that there is possibly confusion around consent, as OMG has said, even though we think it should be clear, because we very rarely talk to young people explicitly about rape. If (as that link you posted highlights) rapists are thought of in the general population as nasty strangers that jump out and violently attack women, then I can understand how some people don't ever get around to interrogating where the line is drawn, we just assume it's something we know. As I've said, when I was growing up, no-one explicitly said 'THIS is consent. THIS is not consent' when actually that would have been really useful information.

I agree an adult male should know what consent is. I do think it's possible that a teenager might not appreciate when ardent turns into bullying or that that equals rape. (I also think very strongly that teenagers should know this, obviously. But how can they if they don't get taught those boundaries? As your link shows, our culture is shit at acknowledging them)

notjustapot, that second link is awesome. And shocking. And extremely convincing.

Well, yes, technically it is a crime.....

I think I'm just frustrated and puzzled about the confusion around consent, because it is generally not complicated. Is it? Maybe it is if the man is shit at sex and can't tell if a woman is enthusiastic or not. (not directed at you!)

omg, I agree with you that not many people know what rape is. Judges should direct juries accordingly and ensure that they do know that the women needs to give consent and what consent is. I don't think they are very good at it at the moment. I suspect that the number of freak juries might come down if judges were better at directing them.

Kathey Lette got to serve on another freak jury.

She talks here about when she sat on a jury where Kirk Reid, a serial rapist, was acquitted of a sexual assualt on a woman in an alleyway. She fought him and he ran away into the arms of a police officer. Again, more than one witness, a scenario where consent is unlikely and the jury still let him off.

There's a lot of freak juries out there. I wouldn't fancy my chances.

I have to disagree with you notjust. I didn't know that you could be prosecuted with rape for sleeping with a drunk woman with her consent even if it is your sexual partner you can still be taken to court because she wasn't of clear mind and I am sure many people don't including women. I only know about it because I educated myself.

herbex I refer to this case as unusual as I believe this is the first of its kind. If it is then it is unusual.

omg, this isn't the only similar case I have read about where a jury acquited despite the evidence of the accused being consistent with raping the victim.

Someone on the other thread mentioned the case of the ex celebrity BB contestent's partner's mate. When asked how he knew she was consenting he said she looked at him. Does that mean that everytime I look at a man I implicitly consent to sex. I look at men every day, I don't consent to sex with them. If looking at men equals consent, rape is nearly impossible given that most victims will look at their rapists at some point. Can rape only happen if you are taken from behind in a dark alleyway? It appears that jury thought so. But they must be another freak case, mustn't they?

This idea of insansity due to excess alcohol is interesting. Maybe it's true that the jury thought it was the case. Again, for how many crimes are the accused excused because of their alcohol consuption? If he'd got into a fight outside a pub they wouldn't have let him off so easily.

Women don't report rape because they know rapists get away with it. Those that don't know that will soon find out. Probably when the CPS drops their case due to lack of evidence.

Sue Lawley, it might help to look at Yes Means Yes Blog Lots of posts on there really helped me put all of this into context. This one is interesting (and shocking)

BoffinMum, I do understand what you are saying and I do think that being streetwise is a great message to teach our children. I just don't think having a generalised fear of stranger rape does anything other than restrict us, though. I think teaching about boundary setting and bodily integrity on a one to one level is much more useful.

OMG - consent is not a blurred line, though. I just don't believe that men are so clueless as to have a big problem with understanding if a woman wants to have sex with them. If in doubt, do nowt seems a sensible option. What's the worst that can happen if a man misunderstands and doesn't have sex? So, in terms of trials, I do not understand why consent becomes a blurry issue for juries. Like that friend of Jack Tweed who thought he'd got consent to stick his penis in the victim's mouth whilst she said that she was being raped by Jack Tweed because of the look she gave him. Just a look. Not a nod or anything, a look. And the jury believed him and he went free. So, yes, he should have been educated to get consent. But then you get all the wannabees crying because they think they have to get a form signed in triplicate. How do you educate them so that they will listen?

Yes Lenin you're right, that's at the absolute crux of it.

BTW, has anyone else seen this?

Fascinating and imo really well constructed film (using a real courtroom and court process around a fictional rape case) that really exposes these issues.

omg stop referring to this as unusual.

It is not unusual for juries to let really obvious rapists go free.

nearly half of rapes that get to court, do not end in conviction. Even if you believe that all 4% of allegations which are false, make it to court (unlikely), that still means that well over 40% of rapists are let off.

There was a case described by an MNer recently which actually was a clssic stranger rape - her DD was pulled down a dark alley and anally raped. The rapist claimed that she begged him for it and he reluctantly agreed. The jury believed him, or at least decided that if he wasn't telling the truth, he was too nice versus her, to pay the price for his violence.

OMG, as long as some men don't understand that unless they have obtained clear consent, it's rape, they could still argue that 'I didn't intend to rape her, I just thought she wanted to have sex with me.'

Actually (as I understand it) the laws re theft are far more clearly defined. I could not intend to steal from HRMC, but if I've misunderstood the tax laws and underpaid my tax, I can still be prosecuted for it.

IFeelSueLawley (great name btw), I think there are things you can replace the belief with, and I do think there are proactive things you can do, if not to avoid someone trying to rape you, then to avoid them being successful in doing so.

That's why what Fugitivus says in the blog post I posted earlier rings a bell with me. We can learn as women not to be apologetic about having our boundaries crossed, about asserting ourselves, about trusting our 'creep' radars and getting ourselves out of situations in which we are not comfortable as quickly as we can. We can teach our daughters what constitutes totally unacceptable behaviour in a relationship, and what some of the warning signs of that behaviour are, so that we are less likely to end up with manipulative or abusive partners.

Importantly for me, being able to trust trustable men is a really important and useful skill to and something we should be doing. Most men (I believe) are not rapists or potential rapists. We have the power as women and mothers to decrease the proportion of rapists in every successive generation via the values we propagate and the messages we instill in children and the equal, trustworthy, loving relationships we model between men and women.

I don't think any of this means that locking your house/carrying an alarm/trusting your husband/driving to the speed limit are not good ideas too.

What an amazing link. Have e-mailed it to myself for distribution to everyone I know! Thanks!

I also think it could have something to do with intent. You have to intend to rape or steal to be prosecuted as far as I am aware.

I thought I would mention that I was talking about not drinking to much alcohol as this impairs your judgement and will not help if you try to defend yourself. Although I think that was made clear in my posts.

Ok. Thank you for answering. Not sure what to think now. This is what having a set of beliefs being blown out of the water feels like.
What do I replace it with? I think I am going to have to think about all of this a bit more.
Off to change bed as son has had an accident. Hoping I won't think too much and will actually get some sleep.

I can't say whether there are more cases or not where this has happened but I do no believe I am being naive people should not be discouraged from seeking justice because there are a few unexplainable cases. I know I wouldn't. As I said this case is very unusual and rare and does not happen in every case. Most cases that make it to court with charges of rape result in convictions that is a fact. This is one of the things that I beleive should be taught in school and I do not believe for one second that all juries are biased towards victims. The problem with rape cases is that it is one of the only crimes that has to have belief and doubt in it due to lack of physical evidence. Exactly the same as any other crime if there is no physical evidence it is hard to prove. Eye witness testimony is very rarely accepted as the sole form of evidence in any crime and is scrutinised very heavily. This is why we see a lot more violent rape cases convicted than any other. I can't really see a way around that either. If only we had a 100% accurate lie detector every criminal would be convicted.

Side note: I can't explain the unusual case and what the jury were thinking in that one and you can't say this is what is going to happen to every rape case or even ever again. The only thing I can think of is that the jury found him not guilty with a reason of insanity due to excess alcohol. We need to get the whole ruling to get the correct reasoning behind the ruling.

No, actually I don't think there is an awful lot you can do to avoid rape. Unless you don't leave the house or trust any man to be alone with you. That's why educating men is critical. It isn't about teaching women how to avoid rape. It's about teaching men to stop raping.