The sheer physical strength of men in the aggregate as opposed to what women in general can put up also goes far - the potential of being physically outclassed from puberty on is something we all live with. Domestic violence alone, without rape thrown in, is a specter we could all deal with, and in fact huge numbers of women live with the memory of some incident or other. All women fly by the seat of our pants. Rape is the icing on the cake in many respects. (So to speak.)
From the Canadian experience (which involved renaming rape, and not extending the definition to cover assault of men by women) and from what I have read and heard first hand from other countries, there is a logjam when it comes to prosecution, no matter what laws are on the books and no matter how rape is defined. Currently in the UK, even with the definition that is operating, rates of reporting, prosecuting and success of cases in the courts are disgraceful. Women's knowledge of this means we end up putting up with it. Men's knowledge of it means rapists are not afraid. They also know that police and courts try to avoid ruining the life or reputation of the accused and are likely to give rapists the benefit of the smallest doubt, an aim where courts and police are concerned that simply does not figure in any other class of crime, and skews the focus of the prosecution process towards the interests of the accused, to the terrible detriment of the right of the victim. No matter how it is named, when it comes to prosecution, a rape charge gets transformed into an unfair burden for the accused.
When it comes to rape I feel a sense of despair that we are actually going backwards and not forwards and that there is an immovable and unshakeable opinion that resists all logic and appeals to a sense of common humanity. I am tempted to admit that women can't win for losing, but I do hold out hope that the baloney about mixed signals that serves to fudge the matter of consent and ruin so many cases for so many women once they go head to head with the 'courts of justice' would be seen for what it is when men stood up in court and told judges they had not given consent, purely because we are seen as a separate species that does not even speak the same language but men could not suffer this disadvantage.
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From the Canadian article:
"Ottawa lawyer Michael Edelson says there is so much nuance to sexual liaisons that men can genuinely mistake signals they receive.
“I see a lot of false complaints,” he says. “One of the big factors is that a lot of people are using drugs and drinking. They have sex and, at the end of the day, there are regrets. But it’s not sexual assault.” "
This is a shocking assertion, because there has clearly not been consent if someone is off their head or unconscious. I think it shows exactly what we are up against though. Ditto for the 'friends and family discount' alluded to. Something has got to change.
I don't agree with those Canadians quoted that the word 'rape' ever had any power to shock, the reasons being that it is something done by men to women, and that men tend to keep it to themselves when men do it to them. The bottom line is that men do not want to talk about rape. Men do not want to deal with rape. They do not want to feel the pain of victims and they do not want to examine whatever it is inside themselves that makes them rapists. As long as that situation obtains, women are basically talking to ourselves.
But what the anniversary of this legislation may point to is also that law alone is not enough. Women still feel shame and guilt about sexual assault – and are treated as shameful and guilty by some police and judges, and by peers and assailants. Sentencing too often minimizes the intimate violation of sex crimes, the horror of what Nicholas D. Kristof has called the body as “crime scene.” Changing all that may require a bigger revolution indeed.
(from the Canadian article)
I agree with this.