10 Tips to Prevent Rape

[coldwed]

Should this leaflet be handed out to the public?

www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2141096

It's a bit like the tea and biscuits approach that the police take to rape at the moment. They treat the victims kindly, but actually investigating and prosecuting rapists is a no-no.

This pamphlet is about rapist behaviour, and challenging it. It doesn't say "11. If you've got sexsomnia, go right ahead son", but that's what has been said on this thread.

kritiq

threads about rape, by definition, engender tension

only a purely support thread wouldn't

and this thread isn't it

I don't think challenging excuses is derailing. I think the determination of some posters who have descended onto this thread determined to make it all about the validity of sexomnia is derailing.

It's a thread about challenging attitudes to rape. It has the potential to make people think. Focusing on a medical condition which may or may not exist - I don't know - which both partners are aware of narrows the discussion.

Sorry Aye, I have told you directionally how I think the law should work, ie if both victim and perpetrator say its is not rape then it cannot be considered rape. I don't plan on writing a legal treatise here for it.

And like Kritiq I think I'm off now, this is just getting dafter by the minute.

no, WMW, don't try to align kritiq with yourself

if she goes, it won't be because she thinks the thread is "daft"

It's actually a good example of how people will say they are against rape in the abstract, but when they come up against the reality of rape, their tone and their approach change. Rapists will always find excuses. The work required by feminists is to stop believing them. We are trained to give men who harm women the benefit of the doubt, we are probably not even aware we are doing it the majority of the time. On the thread about Joanna Yeates killer, quite a lot of people are giving him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't mean to strangle her to death and injure her in 43 separate ways whilst he was killing her. This is how the response to male violence against women operates in the real world, and it's why the harm continues.

Having read the thread my conclusion is that the world has gone mad.

No. And I loathe the case where a man was found not guilty of raping a woman because of it. Because if it is true then it's the man's responsibility to make sure he's not near other people. We wouldn't find sleep-killing acceptable - we would expect the person, once aware of their condition, to take measures to ensure no-one is put at risk.

If you are in a relationship with someone and they tell you they have this condition, if you sleep in a bed with them you know it will happen. It doesn't make it right or consensual, but it's a very different situation to 99.99% of rapes, and focusing on it is unhelpful.

And I don't think you sound like Dittany Thunderbolts. I think you sound like Bob.

Sorry, I think marriage and relationships are one of the prime means abusive men use to commit abuse against women, and the statistics back me up. The most common kind of rape is partner rape, and domestic violence is also far too common sadly.

So a woman in a relationship with a man who is doing that to her is as much of a victim as any other victim of rape. The problem for her is that she's supposed to be protecting the relationship at the same time her partner is using it as an excuse to abuse her. You're focusing on the "sexsomnia" as if it might be valid, my point is that rapists will always, always find an excuse.

Whatmeworry, I didn't call the conception of my son "rape", until someone pointed out that consent under coercion is hardly consent. Had you asked me 4 years ago if I'd been raped, I'd have said "no". I now know that I was. Repeatedly. People don't recognise their own rapes as such because of the patriachal system we live in, which promotes the idea that women are obects for men to exert ownership over. It was only 20 years ago that the law changed to recognise a woman could be raped by her husband. Lots of women, prior to, and even after, 1991 would have been raped and believed it wasn't "rape" as it was their husband's right.

Not every victim of rape associates their rape with rape.

You're focusing on something that's gotten through a court case so must be established enough medically to withstand some scrutiny, whether or not it's valid. And on relationships where the women have chosen to share a bed with the men concerned.

That's not about the 80% of rapes committed by men know to the victim or the vast number of women who suffer domestic violence and rape by their husbands or partners. It's a fraction of a fraction of a percent of cases where men have been diagnosed and subjected to sleep studies etc.

No. I remember linking to a survey of college students in California/San Francisco about sexual assault and rape. A big % of those whose experience fit the legal definition of rape didn't class it as rape.

The people involved not classing it as rape means nothing.

I'm going to say it again, it's about the reality of how when people are confronted by actual rapist behaviour by men, they make excuses for them.

Also your faith in the medical profession with regards to this is misplaced. Men have been finding excuses for other men's rapist behaviour for as long as rape has existed and this so-called condition "sexsomnia" (they refuse to call it "rapesomnia") is just the psychiatric profession giving another helping hand. Rapists walk free from court because male psychiatrists testify to this condition's reality.

This is just one example of how people make excuses for rapists, but there are plenty of others. They all need to be challenged.

I agree with thunders AND the Puffin. And KRITIQ. And the law.

I have arse-splinters.

Anyway, the rape-prevention stuff was going strong on the other thread but the bun fight was clearly more to everyone's taste.

thunder you do realise that not all sexomniacs are male?

I have even found a post from a woman on mumsnet who conceived a child by having sex with her partner in her sleep (she was the sexomniac). But hey why let a little something like facts interfere with your point of view.

I've been raped twice.

Both times, I was in denial about it for quite a long time. The first time, it took me a couple of years to acknowledge that it had indeed been rape.

The second time, it took me twenty years to realise that it had been rape.

The first time I was traumatised, the second time I was merely vaguely irritated. Which of course, is not supposed to be how women respond to rape. We're supposed to be utterly horrified and outraged by it. I suspect that that's what's behind the determination of some people to deny the fact that something is rape, when the law is absolutely crystal clear that it is - because they are buying into the rape myth, that it is the woman's response which defines whether rape is rape, as well as the man's intention. It's neither. It doesn't matter if a woman enjoys rape, welcomes it or hates it, her reaction is irrelevant as far as the legal definition goes.

Come to think of it, the man's intention is important in defining rape isn't it? Is it tht he must have a reasonable belief that a woman is consenting (as opposed to in the past, when if he had a genuine belief, however unreasonable, that was enough?) So in the cases of sexsomnia mentioned on this thread, it would not be legally rape because his belief that his sleeping wife is consenting is reasonable, based on their previous discussions? Have I got that right?

Oh look, women do it too. That's a new one.

I'd expect that women whose partners have had sex with them when they were asleep, had probably been raped. If you use Occam's razor its' the more likely explanation than a "sexsomnia' condition which is not a recognised medical condition despite a few pychiatrists trying to make a name for themselves touting it around.

Rapists rape when they get the opportunity when a woman is vulnerable in some way. A sleeping woman is very vulnerable to a predator.

JalHal - did she penetrate her DP while he was sleeping. If she didn't, I don't see how your post is relevant.

but to aplly the same principals she sexually assaulted her partner. And as we have already had it stated that Tcannys wife is legally sexually assaulting him as she is awake before any penetration takes place think it is very relevant.

thunder : would yo prefer the term parasomnia? perhaps with the afterthought of sexualy active?

I'm unsure about the existance of the condition (I come from a family of sleepwalkers/sleeptalkers, etc)

But then, regardless of it's existance, it cannot be used as an automatic presumption of consent. Consent should be active, willing (not just a case of "ohh, I'll just let him get this over with") and current.

For example, wrt current. You have the right to change your mind at any point. cOnsent cannot be presumed on the basis of "oooh, she was ok with it yesterday/eight hours/5 minutes/a nanosecond ago" If you're a sexomniac (trying to be courteous here, but it's a defense I don't believe in) then you are not in a position to gain consent. Therefore, you should be removing yourself from a position where you could rape someone.

If we put women iin a position where "sexomnia" is used as a defence for rape, under the basis that "he was asleep, he didn't know what he was doing", we demean every victim raped by their partners. It's the presumption of consent thing. You could see it now:
"She knew he had sexomnia, what did she expect?"
All the defense would need to do would substitute the first half of the sentence. Oh wait. That's what the rape apologists do already.

Little side note: Considering how clumsy sex can be, even at best of times, how do sexomniacs carry out their acts with such precision? I'm not sure I buy that...

Sorry, that's all jibberish, but still... I hope yoou get the gist of what I mean.

When on occasion i wake mrjacko up by surprising him does that mean that i've assaulted him because i didn't ask first?

but did she penetrate him while he was sleeping? If not it's a pretty tenuous connection.

But then would he be reckless if he knew he had the condition and still slept in the same room as someone else, regardless of their prior consent.

Besides:

Wife: He penetrated me whilst I was asleep

Husband: But she told me that she liked being woken up like that and I don't know what I'm doing when I'm asleep anyway.

Wife: That was last month before you gambled away the rent/slept with your colleague/told my mother she could rot in hell/I had a hard day at work/I just didn't fancy it.

Law: Prior consent is not consent to a subsequent act.

Jurors: I dunno. He has a point. She did say that it was ok.

RAPE MYTH.

I'm sorry that consenting in the general period of time partners get caught up in the "you can't consent if you're asleep" thing, but we really can't do away with that aspect of the law.