Is THIS rape?

[wellisit]

The whole unbelievable george galloway thing got me wondering, not for the first time, whether something I once went through was technically rape? I can't say it affected my life that much other than to make me grow up and feel a bit squirmy and ashamed/dirty when I think of it, but I can certainly see why it'd be a grey area and there's no way I'd seek a conviction even though I despise the twat.

You're in bed with a man, you want to be there up to now, he is between your legs, the moment has come so you say to him something like 'ok big boy, time to put a condom on then' and instead of putting one on, he just carries on without a word, plunges in and in literally ONE thrust, has come in you....hm.

It was worse than just disappointing. I didn't want his cum in me! I certainly didn't want to be pregnant, or take the risk of a disease. He wasn't a loving partner, little more than a one night stand.

I lay there feeling angry and squirmy for a while as he just went off to sleep and then gathered up my things and hurriedly left in the dead of night feeling dirty.

(He wasn't a teenager or anything, he was in his 40s, I mistakenly thought older men would be good in bed!)

Soooo, is that rape? I kinda think yes, as my consent ended the minute he didn't put a condom on, but certainly not as bad/damaging as what two of my friends have been through with work colleagues and minicab drivers. Or, am I just a dramatic silly girl?

Trills Thu 23-Aug-12 11:53:10
The law recognises that non-consensual sex is rape.

Actually, it doesn't.

see www.rapecrisis.org.uk/Definitionofrape2.php

Under section 1(1) SOA 2003 a defendant, A, is guilty of rape if:

_ A intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of B (the complainant) with his penis;

_ B does not consent to the penetration; and,

_ A does not reasonably believe that B consents.

and
For the offence of rape to have been committed the defendant must have penetrated you without your consent, or continued to penetrate you after you withdrew your consent, and the defendant must not have reasonably believed that you were consenting.

If he had reasonable belief in consent, it wasn't rape.

"dequoisagiti"

she never said
what she said at time
she could have said anything
this what she wrote

You're in bed with a man, you want to be there up to now, he is between your legs, the moment has come so you say to him something like 'ok big boy, time to put a condom on then

see something like not what she actual said
and she as he did responded he might not have heard her
you do have to repeat your self sometime s

you can use you hand and pull it out you know

but as i said at the start

if you think you have raped you have

if i am the jury then what i think matter but other wise ......

i think you should always make your self as safe as you can if want some to wear a condoms you tell clearly
surely as part of sex you touch each other so helping someone put a condom part of it

OMC, my contention is that the man here didn't have reasonable belief in the consent, as the OP had made it clear she wanted to use a condom.

See my post on the Assange case above which makes it clear that, in the UK High Court's view:

....it would plainly be open to a jury to hold that if AA had made clear that she would only consent to sexual intercourse if Mr Assange used a condom, then there would be no consent if without her consent he did not use or removed or tore the condom.

TDOE possibly, in this case. Sure.

What you said was: The law recognises that non-consensual sex is rape. which can set all sorts of apologists off.

If there's reasonable grounds for believing consent from your partner it's not rape. (cf. other places where you "You mean if I wake my husband up..." etc.)

Trills "The law recognises that non-consensual sex is rape. Juries should be educated about what the law actually is, and make their decisions based on that"

I think saying 'rape is rape' is fine for us as a society, hence me saying that I thought the O/P had been raped. Unfortunately, the legal system is a very blunt instrument and should be treated accordingly. As I alluded to in my original post, punching another person in the face can, depending on the damage done, be prosecuted on a spectrum ranging from common assault (relatively minor) to attempted murder (pretty serious). If every time someone was punched in the face, the guilty party was sent down for attempted murder and given a life sentence, the prisons would be overflowing. Similarly, if the victim nearly dies yet the perpetrator only gets a 6 month suspended sentence (I know this happens all too often in the real world), where is the justice in that?

Grading rapes will simply allow juries to impose sentences on miscreants far more easily than they do at present which would, hopefully, lead to a higher prosecution rate of the scum, and justice to be done.

This thread has raised an issue for me. I have given it lots of thought over the years and have never really been able to clarify things in my mind and therefore concluded it was a non-issue. However, reading this has made me rethink. Maybe you MNers could help me with it.

I met a man in a club, my friends new him but I didn't. I had been drinking but wasn't paralytic. We got on well, he offered to drive me home... We ended up parked up somewhere. We started kissing etc, he was fingering me (sorry for tmi), I got a condom out of my purse and said he should put it on. He said there was no need as we weren't going to be going 'that far'. He carried on fingering me, we were in the car and it was dark. This is going to sound ridiculous, and I'm mortified even typing this, but suddenly I realised his penis was inside me and he had come. His penis was so small that I hadn't actually realised it was no longer his finger I could feel.

I wasn't too drunk to realise what had happened. I know I shouldn't have had a one night stand with a stranger. I was so shocked afterwards that he just drove me home.

I was only 16 :(. He was mid twenties. I became pregnant.

I have never been able to tell anyone what happened that night. Even my own mum - instead I just took it when she ranted and screamed at me, how stupid I was, how drunk or drugged up I must've been not to notice the condom had split (of course I lied and told her that's what had happened). I was a slightly out of control teenager and I think she expected very little of me.

The man never wanted to know his baby, I saw him only once afterwards when he told me he wanted nothing to do with either of us. My son is almost 17 now so it was a long time ago, he knows nothing of how it happened, just that his father didn't want to know.

I don't think it was rape but I've always known it was wrong. I'm surprised how upset I feel having typed this out - and I'm not sure why I feel like this. Sorry.

Sorry, it's judges that impose the sentences, not juries. My bad.

Jessie, I believe that was rape. I'm so sorry

I believe you Jessie, I'm so sorry that he did that to you. It was rape, of course, you know that.

How awful for you knowing that your boy is the result of that night. :(

What you said was: The law recognises that non-consensual sex is rape.
OMC, that was Trills.

I accept the info from the Rape Crisis website is the law.

Yes it was rape. He had consent once a condom was placed on him. He chose to carry on before this. So consent was not given for non protected sex

TDOE at the misattribution.

JessieLovesWoody Yes, you were raped. I'm sorry you met such a scumbag. I hope you and your son managed to have a happy life despite the dreadful start.

The statute makes it clear that the legal test is about ascertaining consent not just the existence of consent. To be rape the victim has to have not consented and the rapist has to have failed to ascertain consent or have a reasonable belief that he has ascertained consent. Missing the word ascertained is quite important to the meaning of the law here!

Thanks Offred Deciding whether a belief is reasonable is done by considering any steps he has taken to ascertain whether she consented (subsection (2) of sections 1-4).

:(

Wow, I feel in quite a strange place really. It all seems a lifetime ago though.

We have had a very blessed life OneMoreChap, I met my amazing DH when DS was a young baby and we've had 3 more children together.

Jessie: the situation as you've described would be rape. He told you he wouldn't go 'that far' but then went ahead and did it. He lied to you to lead you into a false sense of security. You didn't give consent to sex because you didn't think sex was going to happen. He decided to have sex but didn't give you the opportunity to decline.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. I don't have any personal experience of anything this grave but I'm sure there are rape helplines that can help you work through unresolved feelings, if you feel the need.

Jessie, I'm not surprised you feel upset typing that out, that guy did a terrible thing to you. It was rape, definitely. You consented to sex on the condition that he wore a condom, he told you you weren't going to have sex, and then he went ahead anyway, without a condom. He tricked you and that was rape. He changed your life in a massive way.

Are you ok?

No, not ok really. Don't know what to think really. Deep down I've always felt I was tricked, but justified it by telling myself he just got carried away.

I think I'm just as upset that my mother went to her grave thinking that her daughter was so irresponsible :(. I was no angel, obviously, but I'd never had unprotected sex until that night and the choice had been denied to me.

I have to take the children out now but would like to come back later if that's ok. Don't want to hijack the thread though.

You could always start your own thread Jessie. I think coming back would be a good idea, it does seem like you have a lot to come to terms with.

Hi
I haven't read the whole thread but exactly the same thing happened to me, even down to me gathering up my things and disappearing off after he fell asleep. I felt violated at the time.

This was when I was travelling abroad and the guy came to find me and we eventually saw each other for a bit but I've never quite forgotten that and didn't ever feel that comfortable around him.

After I read the Assange story it brought it all back to me and I felt quite stressed out thinking about what happened.

The whole experience was quite horrible. This guy wants to come and visit me in October (he is in this country anyway) but I think I might be busy.

Sorry to hear this happened to you, OP. It is quite shocking when it happens.

Sorry it happened to you Shirstem. Yes no need to see the guy again x

I'm so sorry he did that to you, Shirsten. Definitely no need to see him or indeed contact him ever again if you don't want to. You owe him nothing. I wonder if sometimes women carry on "as normal" with men who have assaulted them out of a kind of bravado - look, I'm not scared of him, I can meet him and be normal. I haven't been raped but definitely been intimidated sexually by someone and felt that I would sort of be letting him win if I refused to speak to him again. :(

Jessie, I hope you're ok. I really think it would be great if you spoke to someone like Rape Crisis (0808 802 9999), so you can talk about what happened. They should be able to assure you that you don't have to feel any particular way about it (like, "over it", or conversely, devestated).

Thanks both. He's visiting from Australia (met him in NZ) but I am quite busy when he is here. He's almost a whole other post in itself!

I carried on seeing him after this happened when we were both back in Australia because he was quite sweet to me - but the bar was set very low by a previous abusive partner. I do remember feeling horrible after the first night together (and this was the first time I'd ever done anything like that) but my head was still a bit all over the place because of the previous guy.

Sorry to read your story, Jessie. It does amaze me the entitlement that some men feel to act however they want to without regard for anyone else (or themselves for that matter as they could be putting themselves at risk, never mind anyone else).

I never believed that women could see someone again after something like that, until the other day after posting on here I recalled I'd actually been assaulted by an exGF. Nothing like these instances, but non-consensual (actually refused consent) and unwanted. I carried on going out with her because I adored her, but it did rattle me a bit to realise that is what had happened.

And that was 30+ years ago; with someone I loved.
So I can't even begin to imagine what some of you have felt.

Despite any nonsense anyone else tells you, this is actually a good sort of place to share/question/ your experience. Female or male.

No worries on hijacking my thread - sorry to have dug up memories for you girls but it seems we've had similar thoughts thanks to mr assange... :(

As to the other questions - I was 20/21 at the time and older men were rumoured to be experienced yada yada. I quickly learnt!!!

They have to be hard before a condom can go on, so if he's not hard by the time you clamber into bed, can you be forgiven for not having one on prior? I would always help a partner put one on if needed - was never given the chance here.

There was no way I could physically stop him/complain/repeat myself/remove him, he was so bloody quick! I'm really not exaggerating how quick, literally one thrust - it was pretty gross, more just insemination than sex. It took me a few moments to actually realise what had happened, my mind couldn't quite process it...

...not a slur on quick-coming guys btw, but a little warning would be nice, and a CONDOM