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

[JackiFazaki]

So Sawdust, Xenia, Oxyiz. You support freedom to murder ?
Harming someone to death, and claiming that they asked for it, is a freedom is it?
We see you.

[pollyskettles]

@JackiFazaki

So Sawdust, Xenia, Oxyiz. You support freedom to murder ?
Harming someone to death, and claiming that they asked for it, is a freedom is it?
We see you.

How could anybody support that, least of all lawyers?

A lawyer who supports freedom to murder should not be allowed to practice law and should lose their licence.

[Oxyiz]

I honestly can't see how you've extrapolated that from my post. The mind boggles.

[JackiFazaki]

Really? Let us hear you condemn this violence, unequivocally, instead of waffling on about "freedoms".

[Dontknowwhyidoit]

Yes, you should support the campaign to end this defence

[MariaDingbat]

Yes, please support the campaign.

[Oxyiz]

I've already stated my unequivocal support for this early on in the thread. No need to be so aggressive at me. Save it for your actual opposition.

[spicelader]

Yes

[JustineMumsnet]

Thanks everyone for the pretty unequivocal response. We're very happy to put our full weight behind this and will of course keep you posted on next steps.

[ArriettyJones]

Fantastic. Thank you.