MNHQ here - should we support the campaign to end ‘rough sex’ defences?

[JustineMumsnet]

Hello

As lots of you will already know because their campaign originated on Mumsnet, the group We Can’t Consent To This has been running a campaign to end ‘rough sex’ defences - and we’d like to know what you think about MNHQ signing up as a supporter of their
campaign.

Their aim is to end a situation in which defendants can claim that the death of or injury to a woman was caused by ‘consensual sex games gone wrong’.

They say:

‘We’ve now found 60 UK women who’ve been killed by men who claim a sex game gone wrong - and in the last 5 years the defence was successful in 7 of the 17 killings of a woman which reached trial, with the man being found not guilty or receiving a manslaughter conviction. We've found many more women injured in what the accused men claim was consensual sexual violence.
Yet more women tell us it’s now commonplace to be assaulted and abused by men they’re dating, with 38% of UK women under 40 reporting being assaulted - choked, slapped, gagged or spat on - in otherwise consensual sex. That equates to 3.6 million women under 40 in the UK who have experienced unbidden violence in sex - and we know that women over 40 experience this too.
We do not believe that women can consent to their grievous injury or death, and will campaign until claiming this is no longer a useful defence.’
We Can’t Consent To This is currently lobbying to tackle these ‘rough sex defences’ by adding amendements to the Domestic Abuse Bill that is going through Parliament, meaning that now is the time to get writing to MPs to encourage them to support the changes.

We'd love to get behind this campaign but as ever we said we’d ask you what you thought - so please let us know by adding your thoughts here or voting YANBU for ‘Yes please I’d like Mumsnet to support this campaign’ and YABU for ‘No, I don’t think Mumsnet should support this campaign’. (Apologies for using the AIBU metric for this but it’s the best way we have at the moment to get a snapshot survey of people who’ve read the OP.)

Big thanks

[Pelleas]

Yes, I'd support this campaign.

[LivingThatLockdownLife]

Yes

[JesusInTheCabbageVan]

Can't believe anyone would vote YABU. Why??

[ScarfLadysBag]

Yes

[MsAwesomeDragon]

Yes!! Of course you should!!
I don't see how anybody ever believes this defence in the first place, it's clearly nonsense!

[PicsInRed]

Yes. Absolutely.
Please, please lend MN's weight to this.

It is an abomination that murder effectively becomes legal as long as a man claims there was sex involved. It's a perverse new version of rape being effectively legal if you were on a date or married to your rapist.

Sex should never be a defence to murder, even if the woman signs a damn consent form to choking. Men should be legally put on notice that choking which leads to even accidental death, even from consensual acts of choking, even if she begged for it she didn't will still be murder, and punished accordingly.

Men can then act accordingly. I predict an immediate decrease in domestic choking murders deaths.

[NewAccountForCorona]

Of course

[GirlCalledJames]

Why do you ask, isn’t it obvious that you should?

[JoeExoticsEyebrowRing]

Hell yes!

Weirdly 98% is YANBU (which is obvs good to see!), but 4% is YABU?

[RubyViolet]

Definitely support.

[NameChange84]

@JesusInTheCabbageVan it will be one of the repeat offenders who berate anyone on MN and call other posters because they themselves “love being choked” and how it’s a part of a “healthy sex life” usually added with some insult about everyone else being “vanilla” 🤢

Even if that’s personally the case for them, their attitude to women being murdered with rough sex being used as defence is appalling.

[JoeExoticsEyebrowRing]

Men should be legally put on notice that choking which leads to even accidental death, even from consensual acts of choking, even if she begged for it she didn't will still be murder, and punished accordingly.

This. I bet the 'sexual appeal' of choking for men would soon dwindle.

Funny how its never the men who enjoy being strangled is it?

[ForeverBubblegum]

Yes

[DinosApple]

Absolutely, yes!

[katmarie]

Without a doubt mumsnet should support this campaign, no one can consent to being killed during sex.

[GoddamnGodBless]

Yes, MN should absolutely support this campaign with all you've got.

I would be terribly disappointed if you didn't.

[whatnow40]

Yes please!

[Euclid]

Definitely yes.

[onalongsabbatical]

Yes.

[LittleCabbage]

A resounding YES.

[Galvantula]

Yes, definitely.

[ItsNotNormalLove]

Absolutely yes, why on earth would you not?

[billandbeninsanfrancisco]

Yes of course

[FatalSecrets]

Without a shadow of a doubt.

I can’t believe anyone would say otherwise.

[MinnieMountain]

Yes.

Why wouldn't MN support this?