Man cleared of rape after having sex with a woman who thought he was someone else

So men are like unfortunate accidents on building sites?

"Or would you perhaps acknowledge that although you could be raped in your own front garden, you are much more likely to be assaulted in the bikini at midnight, so it makes sense to avoid that scenario?"

85-90% of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim. So a woman is more likely to be raped wearing leggings in her own front room than in a bikini at midnight in a bad area.

If you are playing the odds, it makes sense to avoid male friends, family members and partners. Is that your suggestion, gone?

I'm not often lost for words but gone and misssmithx have me stumped.

And dragging in health and safety is beyond bizarre.

Let's try a very simple example. I live in an upmarket part of a city. Many of the houses have burglar alarms, including ours.

The alarm is never switched on because we're not convinced the cats won't trigger it and to be honest we don't know how it works. We disclose on our insurance that we have a non operational alarm.

If we were burgled the police would ask if the alarm were on. We would say no. The police are not then going to say, oh well, sorry , nothing we can do, you were asking for it. If it came to trial the defence are not going to suggest I am in any way, shape or form responsible for the theft.

And by the way , my position has nothing to do with feminism or being a feminist.

Palmer, I wish there was a "like" button for your post.

I also hope that lurkers reading this thread (1 in 4 of whom will have been raped or sexually assaulted) take from it the fact that the majority of us are on their side.

It is not some indicator of "feminism gorn mad" to want a robust criminal justice system which punishes rapists (and terrorists, and murderers, and...), it is an indicator of a civilised society. The question I think lurkers should perhaps ask is "Would you rather live in our "crazily utopian" world where there is a criminal justice system which punishes people who commit crimes, or in Gone and her chum's Hobbesian race-to-the-bottom world where criminals run rampant and it is the responsibility of law abiding individuals to keep out of their way?"

I'm glad we understand each other buffy :)

They are not female safety issues they are male violence issues
Miss I'm most likely to be murdered by a husband, so do you suggest women take the safety step of not getting married?

Oh, and I am well aware that I am unlikely to change either you or the other rape apologist on the thread's mind, so please don't think it's for your benefit, but there will be women reading this who will read yours and her posts who might believe that there was something they could have done to stop their rapist.

I don't much care what you think. I do care about those women, their pain and self doubt.

So, to those women:

No, you are not to blame.

It doesn't matter if you had a drink, what you were wearing, that you went home with him, that you had had sex with him, that you were married to him.

There is nothing that you did to which the response could be "You deserved this"

The only person responsible for the criminal act perpetrated against you is the criminal who did it.

gone, I have contributed many times and I am very aware of your contributions, hence my post after you accused me of lying.

I'm sorry you don't like it.

I'm not keen on people who propagate rape myths, but sadly there's a lot of you about and I feel honour bound to expose your beliefs for what they are.

So there is just no point going down a prevention route for women, when the one foolproof prevention route is to for men to stop raping.

Beggars belief that there are people out there subscribing to this

Would you then be in favour of the government cutting funding for the various campaigns they run to raise awareness of female safety issues? And would you walk in a bikini through a 'bad' part of town at midnight on the basis that you could be raped in your front garden at lunchtime so you might as well not bother thinking about it? Or would you perhaps acknowledge that although you could be raped in your own front garden, you are much more likely to be assaulted in the bikini at midnight, so it makes sense to avoid that scenario?

palmer There is no need to tell me what I said, or even to paraphrase it. Who appointed you translator? It's all there upthread. I suggest you contribute something of your own, rather than putting a spin on others' comments.

It is EVERYONE'S job to take responsibility for their safety Palmer. Builders wear high-vis vests to reduce accidents. They aren't infallible but it'll reduce their chances of getting hit by a JCB

gone, sadly it isn't. That is your exact implication and you have, until it was stated that baldly been happy to state it.

This is what all your rape myths boil down to, that men can't help themselves unless women do whatever magical thinking you deem necessary to stop them. Which is a pretty disgusting view both from the pov that you feel that men are incapable of not raping women and from the pov that women are responsible for men's rapist tendencies.

Do we live in a utopian society where no one is a violent criminal? No, of course we don't. Is it women's job to take responsibility for men's violence to them? According to your rhetoric it is.

Nope. Just that there will always be terrorists, murderers and thieves around. Don't go to the middle east and you have less likelihood of getting blown up, don't walk down a rough area at night where murders are known to happen and you have less chance of getting murdered, don't leave your doors unlocked and you have less chance of getting robbed etc

Understand? :)

Did you read what I wrote? You can't avoid rape through your own actions. You can't avoid a suicide bomber for that matter.

It's also foolproof to stop terrorists from terrorising, murderers from murdering, thieves from stealing etc. In an ideal world maybe but we aren't getting that utopia ever

The problem is that there is no practical action a woman can take that really protects them from rape. If there was just one thing "don't do this and it won't happen" then of course it would be sensible to do it. If I ever had a ONS I wouldn't go to his home, but bring him to mine. But how much did that actually protect me? He could still have pulled a knife or drugged me (eg) and raped me. I could avoid going out after dark - but women get raped in broad daylight. I could avoid wearing revealing clothes - women get rapes in burkas. I could avoid being too young and pretty - women in their 90s are raped.
So there is just no point going down a prevention route for women, when the one foolproof prevention route is to for men to stop raping.

What you are trying to contend is that there are some men who just can't help themselves but to rape women and that it is women's responsibility to prevent those men raping them.

That, Palmer, is a lie.

We're not married to the idea of woman as victim at all gone. This has been explained to you, in little words, so that even the stupidest person in the world could understand. It's not difficult really.

The difference between someone being raped and someone not being raped in exactly the same set of circumstances is the presence of a rapist. What you are trying to contend is that there are some men who just can't help themselves but to rape women and that it is women's responsibility to prevent those men raping them.

Feminists tend to see men as in control of their actions. We tend to think that men can control themselves. You don't. Poor men. Slaves to their criminal actions? I think not.

I personally have a negative view of all of them (all acting stupidly) or a negative view of none of them (no one necessarily guilty if the misunderstanding was truly a misunderstanding). Whichever way you like to look at it. I don't assume there is a victim here at all and the only reason I have spoken up in the accused's defence (and he obviously does have a rational defence because a jury has found him to be innocent) is because the woman in question has been assumed the victim on evidence that is open to interpretation.

Ironically for a group that wants women to be strong and unfettered, feminists are very quick to read victims and villains into a situation when (as the jury has decided) there may well be other explanations.

Feminists on this board are also slow to encourage women to take practical action to protect themselves in the real world we're living in because in an ideal world they wouldn't have to take such action and they would prefer to hold their hands up in horror as women are raped than suggest there is such a thing as acting responsibly to stay safe. It should be obvious that it's possible to both be a completely innocent victim of rape and also to have possibly made choices that made one vulnerable to a rapist. It shouldn't be necessary to shut down any dialogue about safe, cautious behaviour on the grounds that such talk is apology for rape. It should be possible to talk about behaving sensibly in the real world we're living in without this seeming like an attack on victims of rape.

I wouldn't say the woman in question did anything 'wrong'. She was unwise to go home with a stranger, especially while very drunk. If the accused really did say 'go and meet X in the living room' she was unwise not to go and do that. Regardless, if she really was raped, she is no way responsible for that action having occurred. But she was still a participant in a chain of events that led to her being in a vulnerable situation. It is deeply ironic that a group claiming to care deeply about women are so protective of the concept of 'woman as victim' that it is taboo to recognise this.

The problem with getting on like this is that it eventually backfires against the group you're trying to protect. By all means, educate men - but don't expect more from them than you expect from women. To turn a scenario around, how is a woman supposed to know 100% that a man who has sex with her is of completely sound mind at the time? Is she equally responsible for ascertaining this? If she in any way 'helps' him to enter her by guiding his penis or moving her body downwards over his penis when he's inebriated, has she raped him? What if he decides the next day that, despite blanks in his memory of the event, he was not asked for consent and even if he had been, she should have known he was too drunk to give it? Is he within his rights to decide he was raped at that moment and define the event as rape in absolute terms? What if she disagrees?

Having sex with someone your mate originally brought home isn't rape

No it's no necessarily rape! Yet posters convinced of this man's guilt have been talking about this as if it's yet more evidence of his guilt. It is not evidence of his guilt, any more than the woman getting into a strange bed in a strange house exonerates someone trying to rape her.

I'm really finding it harder and harder to find anything to criticize about the woman here. She went on a night out (legal), had some drinks (also legal), met a chap she fancied (still legal), went back to a flat to have sex with him (100% legal). The guys get switched around in the dark, and then from her point of view gets raped. Beyond making a mistake in the dark what did she do wrong exactly? Should women never have drinks? Should they be perpetually establishing the ownership of every room they happen to be in?

If we are all human beings and we establish seperate moral categories/behaviours for one group we are being the very definition of discriminatory (and we've also created a deeply flawed moral system to boot).

If for some reason your sympathy lies with the man here, and honestly the more I examine his and his friends behaviour the more questions I have about their conduct, but fair enough we differ. Why precisely must the woman come under fire? Bieng sympathetic to the man requires no negative view of the woman so why do it?

Having sex with someone your mate originally brought home isn't rape

Oh, but it is. Because she didn't consent.

It makes me really, really sad to come here to this feminist board and see all the feminist bashing and rape apologism. Gone, you really seem to have had an empathy fail here - or rather that all your empathy is going to men in an imaginary future peopled by vindictive feminists lying about rape. I wonder why that is? That you're so heavily invested in protecting men at the cost of women?