IMF head Strauss-Khan charged with sexual assault, attempted rape and imprisonment of hotel maid in New York

[darleneoconnor]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13402845

Can these sroties ever be reported without a discussion of whether the woman is lying or provoked the man?

It's like Julian Assange all over again.

There was a french man being interviewed about it on News 24 and you could sense a different attitude between him and the British newsreader, Nicholas Owen. The french man was emphasising how bad a crime it was, whereas the newsreader seemed to be fishing for some 'rape myths'.

We'll see how this one pans out.

Okay then, you're on. I shall start a thread (after I've had a fortifying cup of tea )

ChristinedePizan wrote - "But is there a difference between a rapist who goes out to rape in a premeditated way ... and one who is an opportunist."

What part of deciding to insert a penis into another person's body without consent is not premeditated?

If this guy is guilty, whats really concerning is that rich and powerful people like him are surely more likely to be found not guilty.

I watched almost all of the OJ Simpson trial on TV. There really wasnt a shred of doubt that he was guilty, but the best defence money could buy somehow got him off

I agree dittany - I haven't read that much about what happened here but he certainly planned his assault on Tristane Banon.

vesuvia - that's not quite what I meant. I think there are spur of the moment rapes (I think both times I've been raped that was the case) and ones that were pre-planned. Obviously the act itself is pre-meditated.

Even the spur of the moment rapes reflect a state of mind which is a kind a pre-meditation, I think: "Whenever I get the chance". Otherwise the attacks wouldn't happen. To decent men, the situations rapists seize on would just not register as a sexual opportunity.

Oh yes I agree entirely. I suppose this is a question I'm never going to know the answer to unless there has been a study looking at rape patterns and, given that most victims don't report it, it's fairly unlikely that it's out there.

Christine this blog post by Yes Means Yes might well offer you some enlightenment on that point....
I'll look for your thread. I'll happily help ward off rape apologists, should any turn up.

Rape is partly about sense of entitlement. 'What? No? Did survived say no? Surely not? Why would she say no?I must have misheard her...anyway whilst we're here.....' no woman should have to repeat herself or shout at another adult to get them listen. Unless we really are supposed to treat men like toddlers. And I won't.

Bugger! Bloody iPhone .... I don't know where 'survived' came from...

Thanks IC - will have a look at that. Timings have slipped a bit - been on the phone dealing with family stuff and I will start a thread

www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2071865,00.html

Former prosecutor explainsvthe details.

I have just fired off a note to BBC News via their website, which included this para:

"I am angry that so much comment has been made about him being a "womaniser", a "ladies man" and having "affairs". Do your editors intend to give the impression that this case is a sex encounter gone wrong, rather than a crime of violence?"

I think I am just going to stick to listening to 6Music. I used to like knowing what was going on in the world. Not so much anymore.

I have just spent the evening with my French parents in law. MIL is a staunch socialist and PIL is regurgitating rape myths.

We agreed to stop shouting at each other change the subject.

Sorry, meant FIL is regurgitating rape myths - although TBH they both were.

Sorry to hear you had to sit through that, Beachcomber.

I read on the Guardian site today that only 10% of the 75,000 French rape victims each year go to the police.

There is a higher rape conviction rate in France though, isn't there?

I dont know about America.

Now that the Arnie story is out the two are going to be compared as if consentual and non-consentual sex are comparable.

The news has shocked France. In a CSA poll, 57% of voters and 70% of Socialists said they thought Strauss-Kahn was the victim of a plot. The philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy said Strauss-Kahn had been his friend for 20 years and would remain so: "Charming, seductive, yes, certainly; a friend to women and, first of all, to his own woman, naturally; but this brutal and violent individual, this wild animal, this primate? Obviously no, it's absurd."

From the Guardian. Surprise, surprise re BHL- IIRC he was fiercely defending Polanski as well

Every time I see or hear BHL I want to shout who gives a fuck what you think

The man is a blight.

I'm constantly amazed at the audacity of some men to vouch for the behaviour of their male friends around women. How the bloody blazes does he know what it's like to be a woman stuck in a room with S-K? Yet apparently the idea that he would be violent is "absurd".

yy to BHL- pretentious twat. And also 57% of French think it was a set up? 57%?

As dittany said on the clothes thread "I think the problem in a way is with the word rapist - people think that rapists are some kind of evil inhuman monsters who don't look like ordinary men. Thing is they do. Ordinary men rape. They're the ones who are doing it. They live amongst us. So people need to stop twisting rapist into this thing from a horror film, or CSI episode, and start addressing the reality, which is that most victims are raped by men close to them - their husbands, their partners, friends, acquaintances etc. Until then we'll have this stupid fantasy of an evil rapist jumping out from behind a set of bushes and dragging his victim into a dark alley because he was overcome because of the short skirt she was wearing."

Or are raped by senior politicians when you are doing your job. (I'll thow in an allegedly if it makes some people happy).

How many rapes by husbands, partners, friends, acquaintances or customers have to happen before the vast majority of people realise that the dark alley rapist is a tiny proportion of rapists? Not 75,000 a year as in France or at least 47,000 a year in the UK, that's for sure.

I heard that French politician Edith Whatever-her-name is being interviewed on the World at One and she was saying 'No of course he would never do something like this, it's absurd'. How can anyone really say with utter certainty that they 'know' someone wouldn't rape? And given what's since come out about Tristane Banon, I think both she and BHL are lying through their teeth anyway