Is a man accused of rape guilty until proven innocent?

Erm if you can't have esex with someone senior to you at work, I'll have to hand back my lovely dh then!

not that he ahd actual mental power over me: was all theoretical, in fact I was 'in' and he was not.

not having sex with a women they have any kind of hold over without having been in a situation to establish that tehre is a mutual agreement and no power imbalance might be more sensible?

Hmm anonymity

I don['t think men accused of rape are specific but generrally amongst accused people tehre is a case no? mainly for the sake of those who are related to them

The man I mentioned below lives in a small village and has 2 dd's under ten; isn't there a case that his case should not be publicised until after convuiction?

of course many victims come to light following publcity so there is a huge downside and I am not sure which way I fall

If women were more able to be taken seriosuly and get appropriate convictions then I might be more in favour of accused anonymity than not, as I presume more victims would present tehmselves first

Difficult; not clean cut eitehr way

Actually scratch one of those things "Men get sexually assaulted by women all the time as well and why aren't we (feminists talking about rape) making a fuss about that ( a thread ages and ages ago)"

as it was an awful long time ago and I doubt I could find it, and maybe you were aligned with the people arguing that point rather than making it yourself.

The other 2 stand.

"I would have thought most women would actually prefer men to have an opinion on these things"

Yes of course

But when the opinion is that

Men should be given anonimity in rape cases
Loads of rape cases are down to a "misunderstanding"
Men get sexually assaulted by women all the time as well and why aren't we (feminists talking about rape) making a fuss about that ( a thread ages and ages ago)

And these opinions are aired in the Feminist section of MN, then the person airing them can expect a strong (and not terribly positive) response.

I don;t think that the purpose of these threads is for everyone to hold hands and agree, there is certainly room for conversation and discussion and differences of opinion. But this is still the Feminist section, and if someone has ideas which are generally and fundamentally the antithesis of what most feminists (and indeed women) think, and comes on repeatedly to air them, then it can get a little tiresome.

You know where most of us stand on this. We have done it all before, We know where you stand on this, we have done it all before. i understand that fundamentally you disagree with a lot of things about the arguments surrounding rape, but is this the best place to air them, time and time again?

I don't go onto minority interest threads repeatedly and say that all the people there are talking shit. What would anyone gain from it?

Of course you are free to say what you like, but I don't understand why? Why keep coming and saying these things that you know many violently disagree with, is it that you feel that what we are all saying is so nuts that a sane voice of reason has to come on in case any readers are sucked into the dark side?

Why do you feel so strongly about this subject?

And can we also have less of the loaded and somewhat sexist "pub vomit"/ "throwing your weight around" comments? I have put my comments in a perfectly reasonable way on this thread. I don't think they deserve to be dismissed like that.

OK dittany as you want to be straight can I comment?

you make excellent and valid points on many threads; I am intersted in hearing your views on subjects even though I don't always agree but

sometimes I look on to see what your POV is and you ahve been drawn into off-topic arguments with people and the thread has ceased to be about X Y or Z.

personally I would prefer to ehar your informed feminist take on the points provided, and for you to ignore the many posters you don;t get on with.

Becuase I can't learn anything, whetehr or nto I agree with it, from that.

And see? off topic LOL.

Anyone who rapes or condones rape is a bastard and society needs to wise up to a women's right to her own body and security of knowlkdege that only she can decide who might access it. tehre are still far too many myths about women meaning yes when they say no about, too many idiots like that BNP bod who claims women like sex so rape is OK, for society to allow any leeway at all.

Oh, dittany...(Why do you never come into any of the threads where people are having a laugh and agreeing with me?!) I shall continue to say what I like, when I like. The arrogance of telling me I'm not "allowed" to respond to you is breathtaking - and I doubt that is viewed with all that much approval by those who run this place. You can ask them, if you like...

I would have thought most women would actually prefer men to have an opinion on these things and attempt to engage with the arguments - even if they don't always agree with YOU - rather than shrugging and saying "well, I don't really give a shit, to be honest." But it seems you prefer the latter.

Dittany you can't tell people not to respond to your posts on a public forum; ignoring posts you feel are aimed at you (rightly or wrongly) is far more productive.

There have been loads of surveys and studies and things (which I don't have any links handy for) that show things like

Men think it is OK to force a woman to have sex under certain circumstances
That women say no when they mean yes
That women will struggle and shout etc when they are raped and if they don't do that then it wasn't rape
That women are at leat partly to blame if they have been drinking/flirting etc

and so on and so on

I think that it is far from certain that everyone apart from rapists thinks rape is unacceptable, indeed many don't think it's even rape unless all of the "stranger/dark alley/women not drunk/loads of injuries" etc boxes are ticked. Up until a couple of decades ago it was legal to rape your wife. I am not sure that the public in general do broadly accept that rape is always unacceptable.

Also intersting the choice of words "neither men or women think rape is particularly acceptable". which has wriggle room. Even making the point it is seemingly accepted that to say " men and women think rape is totally unacceptable" is a stretch.

Are there any compelling reasons why a woman should NOT be presumed to consent to any/all sexual activity, at any time, and with anyone

I would love for someone to explain why the current status quo of assumed perpetual consent is justified and right

Someone I know has managed to get away with a rape charge (and managed a subsequent good character sentence disocunt on another chrage as a result) becuase the only winess refused to testify on the basis that the victim was a prostitute so it's not the same.

Cases like that make me furious.

Guilty until proven innocent though is wrong of course.

This perception about women being responsible- we have a responsibility to ourselves to keep as safe aspossible but should we choose to walk naked and drunk down the high street at 3 am then any man that touches us is still 10%% wrong and guilty.

If we say or indicate no, or cannot give a sign of agreement to sex for any reaon then it is rape and it is worng. We may have failed in a duty to oursepves but that is not to have a bearing on a rape charge.

IMO.

Er, and if you wish there's an ignore button why did you address mine?... I seem to recall being rebuked by you in the past for not addressing you directly. It's now clear I'm not expected to have an opinion at all in your Esteemed Presence.

And these attempts to drive a wedge seem to forget the one very important point - that neither men or women think rape is particularly acceptable and that we ALL want the same thing: for more actual rapists to be found guilty and to be sent to prison.

dittany, you get so very cross so very easily. I too wish there were an ignore button. Woop-de-do, we agree.

Did you not see I have accepted for the sake of argument (despite the issues that can be debated around it) your suggestion that the defending needs to "actively prove seeking consent"? And I'm just asking, in an attempt to take that on further, what form(s) that evidence should take - a verbal statement, or something more.

And if not a verbal statement, what implications does that have for statements given under oath? Because it seems to suggest that the verbal statement given under oath is automatically not a strong piece of evidence.

I think it's a sensible question. Does nobody else think it's a sensible question?

(I also note I am not the one equating the violating of women and the burgling of property.)

I have little understanding of how the legal system works. But it seems to me that a many men accused of rape have multiple rape allegations made against them. Is there no way that there could be a change in the law so that when a number of unconnected rape allegations had been made against one man he could be tried using the combined weight of evidence against him?

I am assuming a similar process happens with things like fraud - where multiple instances of fraudulent activity are all looked at in one trial to demonstrate that it isn't some kind of misunderstanding of error.

Sorry if I am being a bit stupid. I am typing from a position of ignorance. It just seems that there are so many cases of murder of women or children where the perpetrator had a past history of rape allegations. My friend was abducted and murdered by someone with a series of rape and domestic violence allegations against him, and I just feel there must be ways of stopping this escalating behaviour. By saying that I am not trying to make the act of rape itself into some form of triviality, but it does seem as if we keep trying to normalise rape as some kind of misunderstanding and pretend that it is separate from other violent and sadistic patterns of behaviour.