I read a bit more on this, and the trouble is, you can be not enjoying sex and still consenting to it. I don’t know enough about the case to know whether there was enough evidence to be “sure”, but at the moment it doesn’t make me sure.
Of course you can. I didn’t say you couldn’t. I’m saying his testimony is concerning, not only from a witness perspective but as a defendant. His testimony states that he sexually assaulted her - he did not seek or get consent to touch her genitals but did so anyway. I’m trying to fathom how a man admits this in court, uses the fact that she’s discussed having a prior adventurous sex life as a mitigating factor, and that’s accepted. If anyone knows, I’d be very interested to know.
Yep, traumatised victims often have inconsistent accounts, especially with the weight of social expectations and the accepted victim script - until we stop expecting victims to behave perfectly, and only accept that someone is a victim if they physically fought someone off even when intoxicated, this will continue to be an issue.
One of the stories from that Reddit thread discussed earlier always sticks with me - in it the guy said that he raped numerous women as a young man, that the women who consented once he started having sex with them were “boring” sexual encounters, and the ones who “squirmed” were the best but hardly any of them ever said no. Some of them even contacted him afterwards being friendly, probably blaming themselves for what happened or in denial.
He used their shock and self-blame to his advantage, to continue raping women and knew that those women who went willingly to his apartment would have no recourse whatsoever. It was that calculated, and he was right.