Changes in how rape will be investigated- about time!

No telling us we are being abusive when we aren't, is women know your place.

Asking people not to be abusive to others is telling women to know their place? What?

It's the old 'Devils Advocate' position isn't it, Cailin. A position taken by people who are not actually suffering or experiencing (and probably never will) the discrimination and unfairness being discussed.

No you haven't SubjugatedDad (I also hate that username). The vast vast majority of abuse comes from trolls. But thank you for coming along and telling us how we should behave. 'Women know your place'. Arguing our point and disagreeing with other posters clearly is not our place.

But I'm sure those whose corner you are fighting are grateful. It's not as if they haven't got the rest of the internet to peddle their myths and get the reassurance they crave that they can still carry on sticking their dicks into women. They only come on here because they think they can put those pesky feminists in their place.

Oh and I think I can safely talk for all women on here that they won't want to engage in private messages with you. Because that sounds incredibly creepy.

Btw SD I've never been abusive.

It must be so nice to be all theoretical about rape, to only concern yourself with the philosophical and legal implications of it and to be able to wag your finger at victims to tell them to worry about the poor hypothetical men who might maybe perhaps have to answer some tough questions.

Nosy, Scallops, Yonic, Cailin... It's fine, don't worry your pretty heads. Women lie, rape myths don't exist and the men who bring up and almost always inflate the numbers of so called false accusations are doing it from the best of intentions. Not just because they are goady, rape apologist fuckheads.

Cailindana, ironic or not, I'm just telling people that I don't think it's very nice to be so abusive to posters who disagree. You do not own this forum, and have only as much right to be here as anyone else, so surely posts should not be abusive?

The top post on this page, by AWholeLottaNosy is a prime example. Reported, by the way.

I do kinda see where TheSubjugatedDad is coming from. He is right about what he says about our justice system. The prosecution does have to make the case against the accused, and the accused has the right to remain silent. That's the problem with consent as it is currently framed as the essence of a crime.

Doesn't seem to pose a problem with theft cases, though. You know, where the victim says it was theft and the accused claims it was a gift. What happens in those cases? Does the defendant put up a defence outlining why they thought it was a gift?

(at the risk of the theft analogy derailing and undermining)

None of this is very complicated providing you are not shit at sex. Or a rapist.

Yonic. To answer the questions to asked on the last page.

I actually think the guidance is a good thing in that it is just common sense to ask the defendant why they thought they had consent, and any decent man who's not a rapist should easily be able to explain why he thought he had consent.

I think there are a few issues with it that would need some caution, but I'm not keen on opening up the debate in that direction on a forum frequented by rape victims. As i said, I think it's insensitive. I'd be happy to explain by private message or whatever though.

You have to admit there is some irony in a man coming on a forum to tell women, many of whom are survivors of rape, how they should behave when faced with an argument that improving investigation of rape might hypothetically affect some men.

Cailindana. I don't think anyone should be abused. But the reason I was defending them is more so because of the nature of the responses, it's all "rape apologist!" stuff. These posts, whilst insensitive, have a genuine motive that I went on to explain.

SD, just so I'm clear, you don't think it's right for people to bring up the 'what about false accusations' argument but you're defending people who do exactly that? Why? In case we hurt their feelings?

" But I've seen lots of other abuse towards posters on this forum, and I don't like it. "

I haven't seen this. Please do report it, personal attacks breach guidelines.

Scallops. Nobody is abusing me. I've never thought they were. But I've seen lots of other abuse towards posters on this forum, and I don't like it. That's all. I've been treated fine.

I understand the feelings (as much as a man can), yes. Is it an excuse for being abusive to other posters, no.

Some people will have different opinions to you, and you need to deal with it in a way that doesn't involve being an asshole.

And I'm not asking YOU to worry about a rare hypothetical situation; I'm just saying that some other people do worry about it. It's important to them, and if you find it annoying that it's important to them then you should just ignore their posts instead of being abusive.

Personally, I would not bring up issues like that on a forum that is populated with many people who have suffered rape. Just as I wouldn't bombard a forum or facebook of someone who's lost someone to murder, with arguments for the abolition of the death penalty or whatever. Let be clear that I have not raised the issue, I was just defending those who have.

Didn't really finish off my first point properly.

The kind of questions that the DPP is proposing seem very similar to the kinds of questions that might result if self defence was the defence to a crime. I doubt you'd find those unreasonable, SD, so why your concern here?

Nobody is abusing you. We are disagreeing with you. Interesting you see it that way though.

Men lie all the time about raping women. Thousands and thousands more men lie about rape. Why are you not worried about that? All these thousands of men getting away with raping women because they lie and because everyone knows they will believed. Including the victim. That is a much much bigger problem. Aren't us feminists always told not to worry our pretty little heads about the small stuff and concentrate on the big stuff? Apparently that only seems applicable when men aren't to be held accountable for their actions or lose their privilege.

It is most definitely in men's interests to maintain the rape myth that women lie. It does not surprise me a man is banging this drum. A drum that is banged ad nauseum every time rape and the minute possibility (and it is minute) of men being convicted of rape is brought up. Really you aren't saying anything insightful or new. You are just mansplaining to us about why we apparently don't understand the nuances of false rape allegations.

But my feminist bingo card is full now so that's good news!

Subjugated, what do you think of the example above when, if someone is dead or injured and someone else is admitting they caused it but is claiming self defence, then the police guidelines are, I'm sure, to probe that (what did the injured person do to make you feel threatened? When did you first feel threatened? What actions did you take to check if the threat was real? - might all be reasonable questions, n'est-ce pas?)

If you aren't already aware of it, a number of rape victims post on this board and these threads. This is lived reality, not a debating society.

Posters are 'hostile' because they've been raped (in many cases, including my own, more than once) their sisters have been raped, their friends have been raped, their mothers have been raped, their daughters have been raped. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of women are raped, every year. A tiny tiny percentage of those rapists are prosecuted, so few that in legal terms you would be forgiven for thinking rape wasn't really a crime at all. And you're asking us to worry about a hypothetical situation in which some tiny percentage of men might have a hard time at trial, maybe.

Can you understand why that might seem a little galling?

And, thus, it is proven that men define consent.

Tazers in bounty packs, please. Rape laws do not protect women.

In my third paragraph, add 'police' to the lines written court/jury/etc. The guidance will affect the whole thing I'm sure.

House, I'm not sure the issue of false rape allegations is relevant to this particular thread. Nonetheless, it is common on this forum for such posts to be written off with an accusation of rape apology. I don't think they are generally intended as such, and was just pointing out that there is a reasonable motive for providing such extreme and rare examples when discussing a law, in that it tests how fundamental rights are protected.

I know for many of you, increasing the amount of rape convictions is a priority, since many of you have had first hand experience of the problems in the system. But for others, protecting fundamental rights such as 'innocent until proven guilty' is even more important. That might seem ludicrous, but it you compare it to other issues (such as the families of murder victims who want the bring back the death penalty vs those who think even one false conviction is not worth it) then it makes sense.

I said I'm "not sure" if the issue of false rape allegations is relevant, and I'm not sure because I generally think that anything that moves the onus away from the prosecution and onto the defence is a bad thing. I know the law hasn't changed, and that this is only guidance relating to existing laws, but clearly the intended effect is to change how they are dealt with in court, no? Currently, there seems to be very little responsibility placed on the defendant to prove they had consent... and the intended change is that defendants will now have to argue their cases that they had consent. I don't really see how anyone could not think this is moving (if even slightly) away from the defendant being thought of as innocent and towards them being thought of as guilty-until-they-explain-themselves-in-a-way-that-convinces-the-jury. I'm not saying the change is a bad thing, by the way, just that I can understand why some other posters are concerned about how this affects the 'innocent until proven guilty' thing.

Clearly men should be questioned. But they also have the right to remain silent. Adverse inferences can be made by a defendants silence, but there are limits to this; nobody can be convicted based on silence alone. What if the defendant refuses to speak at all at a trial? I could see this becoming more commonplace if the trend moves towards grilling defendants. How do we reconcile the two issues? If someone uses their right to remain silent, then they cannot prove they had consent, (but since the burden is on the prosecution) we are back to square one.

On another note. People are saying that "innocent men have nothing to worry about", and whilst I would tend to agree, that really misses the point. Whilst I think it's incredibly unlikely that a woman who consented to sex would report a rape, because it could happen theoretically, the law and it's guidance need to be robust enough to account for such situations. So all in all, I think a lot of the hostility towards people who bring up the issue is really unwarranted.

And finally, what is with all the hostility on this forum anyway? I've been lurking for a while and it seems that if someone doesn't agree with the attitudes of a core clique of posters then they face a barrage of abuse. I don't think that's any way to act no matter what someone else's opinion is. Probably against forum rules, etc.