Poor poor men and boys

These are the same charities who publicly say that these men pose no risk.

i read this too and found the defence completely repugnant. I don’t think the legal profession should be allowed to use arguments like this as part of their defence – it must be so traumatic for the victim to have to hear this. Can you imagine anyone defending a man accused of a racist attack by saying that the way he was raised made it seem ok to him to attack black people? Or gay people?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dc_D7W8N0d3/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&stkn=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

When you see it from the other side, you see how ludicrous it really is

I didn't know that quote from Abelard, but was using the behaviour of those responsible, who, I understood, were determined that he should never see his wife again, because they believed he would be able to do something.

I think some of the mindset of "they didn't know better" as an excuse, is absolutely not okay. But I am very much in favour of early intervention and talking rhough what rape and sexual assault actually is far earlier and more openly than often happens.

I had a very upsetting experience in my early 20s. I typed up the whole story but it was too long but in effect, I was almost raped by a man I'd known for a long time and liked after I had found myself in a drunken snog with him.

The key thing is that afterwards, he knew. He wrote me a letter a few months later and bizarrely, many years later I ran into him in a pub in a completely different country. I saw him and froze. And he, understanding, didn't come anywhere near me, and quietly left.

He KNEW. But, in his stupid 21 year old mindset, he had thought that because I was kissing him and had agreed to come home with him, sex was basically guaranteed. I'd like to think this man learnt a lesson from that experience - I think, based on the way he behaved subsequently around me, that he did. But my point is that perhaps if we had better teaching and discussions, earlier, in those days, this wouldn't have happened in the first place. He wasn't a bad man. But he nearly did a very bad thing.

I was teaching DS about "consent" from when he was a toddler - he has always been taller and bigger than average and so no, at 2 he was not at risk of raping another child, but he absolutely was able to physically overpower other children and I was very firm with him from day 1 that he couldn't play that "fun" roughhousing game if the other children didn' tlike it and as we started talking about sex as he got older, part of that conversation has been discussing the importance of being 100% certain that the girl is a) keen b) capable of consenting.

The brain is strongly affected by hormones; both physical and chemical castration are similarly effective here, reducing testosterone levels by about 90%.

Castration doesn't entirely eliminate rape: some castrated men are still capable of erections, and of course sexual assault is possible with other objects. However, recidivism is much lower in castrated rapists (below 10%) compared to non-castrated ones (around 1 in 3).

In Abelard's case, his castration did appear to remove his sexual urges. He wrote that "completely it freed me from the heavy yoke of lust".

I agree and that's why I proposed chemical castration. Jurors would, I think, be much less squeamish and are of course only considering guilt, not sentencing.

Special courts are now going to happen, in England and Wales anyway.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5lympv9nw3jo

Agree. Chemical castration would entail repeated injections which would involve monitoring.

Just castrate them. Job done.

If the sentence was chopping cocks off, the already parlous conviction rate would plummet more. Men won't sentence other men to that.

What we need is special courts, properly trained in all the myths and research, finding the balance of probabilities and sentencing with public safety as the only consideration. No juries of 'peers'. It would take skill and a lack of 'sides' but is worth trying. I'd volunteer for a public trained jury system.

First step is to stop exxcusing boys from bad behaviour with "boys will be boys". Yes, your 5yo probably didnt mean any harm by pointing and laughing at seeing the girls knickers on the climbing frame ir just from falling over... but the girls remembered. They started to alter how they played. They were upset.

According to some survey, there was a high percentage of men who would sexually assault if they could get away with it, presumably many of them haven’t and therefore the not getting away with it has stopped them so, to my mind, at least partly the focus could be on the not getting away with it part.
I’m not a statistician or data analyst or whatever to claim that survey is enough to base anything on but we’ve got to start somewhere because what they’ve been doing has led to an epidemic of MVAG.

There's more stuff coming out. I'm sorry to link to the dreadful Daily Mail, but have you seen this: https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16145349/charity-teaches-migrants-not-sex-underage-girls.html
I think there's a disturbing underlying message to both this and the official government leaflet, that we British women are available for sex but you've just got to make sure that we're old enough!

I remember a training course years ago where some of the excuses for raping children were bizarre, along the lines of “I just tripped and it went inside her” so probably long overdue.

Castrating doesn't necessarily remove the urge, just the tool. It's a brain thing. So, with the additional resentment, may lead to worse assaults. Chemical castration, as with Alan Turing might work. Basing the first claim on the treatment of Peter Abelard, who didn't deserve it, as Turing didn't.

People are bad at understanding consent generally. Girls aren't better at understanding consent and when it has been violated, whether they are the perpetrator or the victim. We all need to do better with future generations.

I think castrating rapists is an excellent idea…

BUT you’d have to be absolutely certain they were guilty first. And with a punishment like that, I think juries would be more reluctant to convict.

Where were their parents whilst they were growing up? Why weren’t their fathers and mothers instilling values and behaviours in them?

If proper parenting for 18 years didn’t work then I doubt a short education course will.

This rapist raped a bedbound woman in her 70s and claimed she’d assaulted him. His lawyer said the victim had treated him with “friendliness” and his “cultural background meant he didn’t understand those manners and behaviours”.
She said his “background and cultural upbringing” should be taken into account to “understand how this offending came about”.

If some men think it’s ok to treat women like that, then they’re the ones who should be kept at home in burkas.

www.thetimes.com/article/e1a3dbb2-f0dd-423f-a983-f02dc8a546a4?shareToken=184a7f4863c6c439b717c27c78d39736

There was actually a case a few years ago where a man's claim that he tripped and fell into someone's vagina was actually believed. I'm still in shock. Luke Littler doesn't have that accuracy with the darts.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/millionaire-ehsan-abdulaziz-who-said-he-accidentally-tripped-and-penetrated-teen-is-cleared-of-rape-a6774946.html

This whole things is a mess.

As a society we totally have our heads in the sand about the way sexual assault and rape is handled by the police and judicial system - assaulted women have a Herculean effort to even bring a prosecution let alone justice in court.

Conversely we have a proportion of the population who clearly have no problem with men in women’s spaces in the name of “be kind” which leads to women having to call their rapists ‘she’ and say ‘her penis’ in court.

We have hard working nurses losing their jobs for not wanting to change in front of men and just asking for privacy.

The civil service, the unions and the NHS continue to ignore women’s right to dignity and respect.

We are encouraging an increase in conservative Islam and swathes of immigration from countries that are positively mediaeval when it comes to attitudes toward girls and women.

This ‘training’ - if I read the article right - is couched in language that suggests it’s protecting them from ‘getting into trouble’ rather than protecting girls and women.

It’s really is infuriating and depressing. Society really doesn’t give a shit about us does it?

Agreed. There is nuance in this and far more needs to be done.

I'll rephrase.

Addressing this by talking about rape as if that's a problem that just happpens to exist is going to be far less effective than earlier interventions that focus on stopping the rot before it starts by improving attitudes to female bodies and helping develop healthy ideas of manhood.

Some men with problematic ideas about women genuinely change, yes, but the majority just learn not to admit to certain beliefs outside circles of like-minded men. The earlier the intervention starts the better the chance of stopping those ideas developing in the first place.