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

Sadly Fela, wearing a burka and having a male chaperone at all times doesn't seem to prevent you getting raped, although I understand that courts are less likely to stone you to death for being raped if your male chaperone has been incapacitated but still conscious to act as a witness.

I am still aghast at this attitude.

It's really, really easy to go through life without raping or sexually assaulting anyone. I have so far, and can't see why that would change.

If, at any point, there is less than enthusiastic consent from a party who is in control of most of their faculties, then don't do it.

If I have any doubts over anything, then I don't do it.

I recognise, that I have no right to shove any part of me in any part of anyone else, unless the messages I'm receiving are unambiguously a green light.

I really think that the best thing for women would be to change the law to put the onus on the person raping to prove that they had consent. No problem for those of us who only have sex with people who want to have sex with us, but would let us jail all the people who think that there's 'grey areas' around when they can put their penises in people.

What's the problem with mixed messages?

You see, I am a vegetarian. If someone gives me a mixed dish, meaning that there is some meat in it, but it's not all meat, I don't eat it.

Likewise, if someone gives me signals that they do not want to have sex with me, then I don't rape them, because I am a non-rapist. What other messages might be there doesn't matter.

(Just to make it easier to understand. I am not comparing the two morality-wise. Everyone is required not to rape. Vegetarianism is a personal decision.)

Innocent men don't accidentally rape women. Who does "accidentally" rape women are men who are looking at this from a "what can I legally get away with?" point of view.

There was a report last week of a 90 year old woman being raped by someone who broke in to her house. Did she fail to avoid putting herself in a situation where she would be raped?

Yes, of course!

You see, as a woman, you should commit suicide at age 18, or 21, whenever you become a legal adult. That's the only safe way to prevent rape.
(If we define any sexual violence a man does to you before that as sexual abuse of a child, that is)

By continuing to exist, you put yourself at danger of being raped!

So, it logically follows you are to blame if a man decides to rape you - after all, you were committing the horrible crime of existing while female.

Apparently, existing while drunk and female is even worse, but existing while female is bad enough.

One of the few countries where women are really proactive and responsible about avoiding rape is India, where they just abort female fetuses - prevents rape AND sexual abuse of children!

And because those women in India are not patronised by evil feminists and take responsibility for themselves, India has one of the lowest rape rates in the wo... oh, wait, actually rape is incredibly common in India. Strange, why would that be?

Well, probably they are not applying the strategy well enough - after all there still are women.

Ebear I'm trusting to the point of naivete when it comes to thinking that men are generally good. But I've had to learn that they are not all good, and we must live in the light of that, not as we would like to be able to live. Men can be predators. They can also be confused and make mistakes. Women do have a responsibility to look out for themselves and I will certainly be teaching my DD that. Perhaps they shouldn't have to but they do.

Women can send out very mixed messages at times as well; they have a responsibility not to do that either, again to protect themselves. That doesn't diminish the responsibility of someone taking advantage but it's still something we should be teaching women, especially in our multi-racial culture where encouragement is understood differently in different contexts. In the scenario of the OP, we actually have a woman who has, without invitation, got into the accused's bed. I'm all for not blaming the victim but I am struggling to see how her behaviour is anything but totally irresponsible and potentially confusing. Presumably she was aware that at some point he would be hoping to go to bed?

I still think I'd know perfectly well if a different bloke had got back into my bed.

womenarein danger and within that frameworkdohave a responsibility to protect themselves

Everyone has a responsibility to protect themselves. It's why we teach children the green cross code as part of learning to cross the road - pedestrians have a responsibility to ensure that as far as they can tell by looking and listening, there are no vehicles approaching before they cross. But pedestrians don't always get it right, and drivers also have a responsibility to look out for humans and animals and other vehicles in case they aren't behaving as directed by the Highway Code. The expectation is that you are responsible for your own actions.

People should also consider protecting themselves by not doing things like getting too drunk - there's a higher risk of accident and injury. It's something that applies to men and women equally, and if you're with a good group, they'll generally take mutual responsibility to take care of each other - make sure they don't fall, make sure they get home okay and so on. This doesn't always work successfully, if everyone is pissed - but the idea of looking after people is still there. There are plenty of men out there who will help women get home and then decide not to have sex with them, even if the woman is coming on to them, because men are capable of recognising that other people might do things because they are drunk that they might not otherwise do, and it's possible to say no and avoid doing something that might not really be the other person's true intentions.

So men can take this responsibility, even when drunk themselves. Those who chose not to are putting themselves at risk of being a rapist. You'd have thought men would usually want to avoid that.

The legal position on consent in the UK is much more complex than gone thinks it is. This case could easily have gone the other way, because a "genuine mistaken belief in consent" is assessed subjectively by the jury, rather than just automatically accepting that the alleged rapist says they had the belief and it was genuinely mistaken. It has to be considered reasonable.

Well, maybe it would have ended differently, if rape myths and sexist attitudes weren't so prevalent in society. I agree with others who don't think his explanation meets that subjective test, by the limited facts we have here. There are capacity issues, as she was drunk, and aside from that I think a reasonable person would think it's quite likely that she would think it was the other guy getting back into bed, and therefore any further men wishing to have sex with her had a duty to ensure she was fully aware of what she was consenting to, and that required explicit consent given to him personally.

It's entirely a matter of interpretation, but I think they got it wrong in this case.

More info about the legal aspects of consent www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/rape_and_sexual_offences/consent/

(don't get me started on the he in 'if he agrees by choice, and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice' )

If a drunk man was lying on the floor with his wallet next to him, can I safely assume he has consented that I take his wallet as it may look like he no longer wants to keep it? I did sort of ask him and he mumbled something that sounded like a yes to me.

This business about the individual carrying out the penetration deciding whether someone has consented is pretty shocking to me. Does that mean that someone who is delusional can offer in their defence that they believed someone wanted them to have sex with them.

Many years ago I was stalked by someone I met at work. He mistook our professional relationship as something more than it was. It was a very distressing time for me, and I had to have my home phone number changed because of his persistent calls. HR gave me useful support, however in the end I had to leave my job because of the impact it had on my self-confidence. This person genuinely believed I was interested in him and whatever I said or did he took as signs that I liked him, fortunately he wasn't a rapist.

And I think Lass was disagreeing with your addendum to my comments, don't you, gone?

Yes. I was disagreeing with gone's statement about taking responsibility. It is entirely my responsibility as a driver not to drink and drive. It is entirely my responsibility to avoid sexually molesting another person.

Feminism has nothing to do with it. I am a lawyer. I expect the law to be upheld by individual people not committing a crime- not by potential victims trying to avoid being a victim.

In this particular case I think the acquital is problematic but that was the jury's decision. Juries and courts don't always get it right. Lawyers are entitled to disagree on the interpretation of the law. I'm struggling to see how if this had been prosecuted in Scotland he would have avoided section 13 of the Sexual Offences Scotland Act applying.

Personally, I'm raising two boys to understand that if there is any ambiguity in a situation, to make the choice that doesn't harm anyone.

I've been drunk with blokes who were perfectly capable of keeping their hands to themselves.

I've been sober with blokes who weren't

How do I tell? Or do I need to just never be alone with men? That's a pretty bloody sad state of affairs isn't it?

It's not patronising to women to say that they are entitled to body autonomy, and that if they say they were raped, that I believe them, no matter what a jury full of people who think like you say Gone.

It's patronising to men though, to say that they can't be expected to keep it in their pants if they can't be sure the woman wants it, and downright insulting to women to say that if they're drunk they're fair game because how could a bloke be expected to know.

I am very puzzled by the jury (dare I say that we are poorer for the low reimbursement rate for jury duty which leads to a disproportionate jury of our supposed peers). And puzzled by the defendant's actions on the night in question.

And continually puzzled by the idea that consent is defined by the man doing the penetrating.

I don't know how the jury were sympathetic to his reasonable belief. In his own words, he didn't ascertain consent to putting his cock in her. So how she consented to the activity (as per the law), I'll never fathom. He thought they'd just picked up a couple of slags, didn't he? As did the jury.

I think often of the woman in the hotel rape case where the defendant got acquitted because he thought it was his girlfriend. If any case demonstrated that rape law actually favours men, that was it.

Oh dear, Lass really isn't going to be happy that you accused her of being a feminist!

you' are the one perpetrating a dangerous myth.

No, what we're doing is assuming that men are rational thinking beings who are capable of managing not to rape women if they choose.

You rape apologists are so patronising and infantilising of men. It's almost like you think they have no control over their cocks.

And I think Lass was disagreeing with your addendum to my comments, don't you, gone?

Oh, another irony meter bites the dust - I've namechanged but Lass and I regularly disagree from pillar to post, and I'm not sure she'll thank you for describing her as a feminist...

I understood, hell. The car analogy is a good illustration of the point I was trying to make; the pedestrian may be hurt but it may not be the fault of anything but rubbish communication.

But aren't you saying that A can be in a state of apparent consent but it is not consent unless B has correctly judged A to be capable of giving it? That sounds very ambiguous.

I expect men and women to obey the law.
Except that you're not willing to accept the law, are you? It's found this chap innocent. I didn't make the point about driving, BTW. That was a quotation from hell But I did think her comments pointed towards giving women responsibility for not putting themselves in positions where they might be raped. However, she disagrees. Interesting though, how her comments are damned if they appear to be coming from a poster you disagree with. I expect you would have expected such a 'woman hating' sentiment from me and not from her, wouldn't you.

And in reality, the asking for consent is surely more implied, with tentative sexual touching on one side and consent to this continuing being given or withheld by the other party either reciprocating or drawing back. I think would be disingenuous and unfair to men to claim no knowledge of this and insist it all happens on a verbal contract. The reality is that it doesn't and there is often no expectation that it will. I'm not aware of any consensus in society that it's wrong for sex to occur without that kind of verbal consent. And that's important if we're going to define a rapist as someone who hasn't followed that pre-determined path, and a victim as anyone who had sex without having the question put to them. I also think it's disingenuous to hand the responsibility of asking that question to men because they're the ones being 'active' in the physical act of sex.

The difference is that I think we should be doing something about it,
And what are you doing, exactly? Not even the law agrees with you. The code of conduct you're outlining is never going to happen. You're striving for a utopian society where women can live free from any potential male threat in the full knowledge that it won't happen and there is very little you can do about it. In refusing to consider that we're living in a very different world where women are in danger and within that framework do have a responsibility to protect themselves whether they should or not, you' are the one perpetrating a dangerous myth.

Perhaps you could publish a pamphlet or a booklet or something entitled 'Men: 3 questions to ask before sticking your dick in a woman.' It could come with a breathalyser perhaps

You feminists are so patronising towards women.

I don't mean to be facetious

And yet here you are being it again.

Spreading rape myths like a pro.

Because I don't think that saying women are entitled to get as drunk as they like while expecting the male population to protect them from themselves is a reasonable position

Well, isn't it lucky that no one is asking them to, what humanity is asking men to do is to protect women from rapists, women don't "protecting from themselves" they need protecting from men who think so little of them that they stick their dicks in them when they are too drunk to consent to it, like criminals.

You're living in a fantasy land if you think women have the right to live as if men everywhere will say 'no, even though you're saying you want sex, you're actually too drunk to know what you're talking about....

I am aware that we live in a world where some men won't think twice about sticking their dicks in women they know are too drunk to give meaningful consent. The difference is that I think we should be doing something about it, not preserving the status quo where men who knowingly stick their dicks into women who have given no consent aren't acquitted by juries steeped in rape mythology.

Waspishly condemning anyone who has sex when they're drunk is never going to get you anywhere.

So stop doing it then.

Because I don't think that saying women are entitled to get as drunk as they like while expecting the male population to protect them from themselves is a reasonable position

I don't expect the male population to protect women from themselves. I expect men and women to obey the law. Oh I know they don't but that doesn't diminish the application of the law.

If one comes across a man or a woman who is so blind drunk one could steal his or her phone or wallet with absolutely no come back I would hope most people would not do so. Those who do are just as guilty as if the victim had been stone cold sober.

Gone your point about driving when drunk is nonsensical. The person who is drunk and drives commits a crime. I have a moral and legal obligation to avoid putting myself in a situation where I will be driving a car when drunk. I have a moral and legal obligations not to pester or harass or touch or grope men (and women for that matter) who don't want to have sexual contact with me.

I have no moral or legal obligation to avoid situations where I might be raped.

How the hell do I even do that ? I've spent 39 years living in cities and walking home alone at night. I've never experienced any problems. There was a report last week of a 90 year old woman being raped by someone who broke in to her house. Did she fail to avoid putting herself in a situation where she would be raped?

My position on this thread is of a piece with the other thread in that I am keen to think through the rights of other members of society, and the responsibilities of women to other members of society.

Women's responsibility to do what? Respect the right of random men to put their cocks in them and not make a fuss?

Sod that.

30 years ago, it was far more common to drink drive, smoking in bars was legal and marital rape wasn't against the law.

I'm not living in a fantasy world to think people might stop and give a shit about the possibility of not having sex that might be unwanted, given that there are no consequences of skipping such uncertain sex and potentially terrible consequences of going ahead. I'm sorry you have so little faith in your fellow humans, though. It's dispiriting to engage with you, especially as you accuse feminists of hating other women.

Heigh ho. If I don't speak to you again, do have a lovely evening,

If she had touched his dick when he came in and he didn't consent and called the police, she might well have been charged with sexual assault. Her defense would probably have been that she believed him to be the man who had just left who she was in consensual sexual contact with.

But you have utterly missed the point. First and foremost, if A is in a state of consent to touching from B (as he, apparently, was to her) then no assault has happened. It is only where A is not in a state of consent that the defence of reasonable belief in consent comes into play. In that instance, A can be assaulted by non-consensual touch, but B can be found not guilty of the assault.

If I crash into a pedestrian with my car, I might or might not be guilty of reckless driving, but the pedestrian remains hurt, whether or not a crime is committed.

Going back to the hotel case, the woman was clearly raped (penetrated without consent) regardless of the man's guilt of the crime of rape. Do you see?

Because I don't think that saying women are entitled to get as drunk as they like while expecting the male population to protect them from themselves is a reasonable position