sexual history of rape victims

[dorade]

As I understand it, judges have the discretion to allow the defence to question a rape complainant on her sexual history. (Please correct me if that is not correct).

Can anyone explain to me why judges need this discretion and under what circumstances, if any, the use of it could be justified?

Yes but that is covered by reasonableness. You have to apply the criteria of a reasonable man, not an abuser. Otherwise you are guilty.

The notion of enthusiastic consent when talking about rape merely means that she is actively participating - not passed out on the sofa, or lying rigid with fear. Most men should be able see the difference.

"Reluctantly agreeing to go out for the evening is kidnapping."

Yes Larry, of course that's exactly the same. That's exactly what will happen if we start arguing for enthusiastic consent isn't it? Suddenly hundreds of friends could be charged with kidnapping! Friends will left wide open to charges of theft when lending money. God! What can we do?

You do come out with some corkers, Larry.

Yes for once I agree with Larry (falls off chair), the law has no business coming into the bedrooms/ homes of individuals where those individuals are not actually being directly coerced/ forced as patriarchal law defines coercion/ force (and of course it defines it coercion narrowly, which being a blunt instrument, it has to really.)

Feminism's all about changing society so that the invisible, societal and psychological coercion about which the law can do little and which many men want to pretend doesn't exist so that they can carry on happily being rapey without being defined as rapists, is recognised for what it is and stops being a thing as much as the obvious, individual coercion / force which the law recognises and has some structures to at least attempt to deal with (though it fails dismally in that).

We need to raise men who have so little empathy for women, that they see very little wrong with using women as little more than breathing wank-socks, rather than active, participating partners in sex.

That's a task that goes way further than the law can. The law tries to deal with the way we live now. Feminism's about changing the way we live so that the assumption of the average person in the street and therefore the average person on a jury, is that if you're not a rapist, you probably want a sexual encounter to be genuinely consensual, not just technically consensual as defined by man-made law as present.

"You have to apply the criteria of a reasonable man"

Says it all.

Reasonable men made laws that said it's OK to put their cocks in women who don't want them to put their cocks in them and not have it called rape.

They gave themselves permission to rape women without their law defining it as rape.

Reasonable men have given women a bum deal over the years.

Larry's quite good at demonstrating the prevailing attitudes about rape and consent that we're up against, that's for sure.

Yep I agree Basil. Men haven't been particularly reasonable towards women up to now. The whole legal system has been made by men, for men and to a large extent is still run by them.
A shift in the Oveeton window is required which is what feminism is trying to do.

Juries are not composed of solely men. Reasonable is firstly clarified by a judge and then debated by a mixed sex jury.

I think rape is well defined. The problem is that, often, by its nature, it is hard to prove and proving it causes further hardship to the victim. I accept the problem as defined by the majority here. However the solutions proposed are to infantilise women by not accepting their free right to consent for whatever reason or to ride roughshod over centuries of jurisprudence to change the burden of proof. These are not right under virtually any moral code nor will they ever happen

Juries are not composed solely of men, no, but they are composed of people who have been brought up in a society which sees the world through the eyes of men; on the whole, white men.

It's perfectly reasonable to ride roughshod over centuries of jurisprudence, when that jurisprudence is rooted in male supremacy, rather than in equality.

Funny how so many men are willing to ride roughshod over centuries of jurisprudence, religion or tradition when it comes to equality for other groups but not for women.

"I think rape is well defined"

Need I say more?

Are they, basil? For example?

However the solutions proposed are to infantilise women by not accepting their free right to consent for whatever reason

Larry. Could you explain how tackling the behaviour of men (some men?) towards sex and consent, and attempting to dispel the rape myths in society infantilises women? Because I just can't see it.

And how on earth are we not accepting their free right to consent? We're talking about rape trials here - you can pretty much guarantee that if a woman has got her case to trial, she thinks she didn't consent.

One example: gay marriage

If you make it a potential crime to not " enthusiastically" consent, how are you going to define it? A decibelometer in the bedroom, anhydrous copper sulphate to test for moistness? Or the much maligned consent form? I can imagine men just withdrawing from sex without consent form signed. Do we really want that?

Oh, yes Buffy - that's probably what he's trying to do. Not muddying the waters at all, oh no, not Larry.

Larry. We are not planning to send the rape police into people's bedrooms and haul off husbands whose wives had sex with them a bit reluctantly, or whilst not whooping for joy throughout.

Please just take my word for that.

However, the nature of consent is clearly very dubious in legal terms and can be twisted by rapists into getting a court to believe he reasonably believed she was consenting. Like in Beatrix's case study - he argued that even though she was in a deep drunken sleep, he thought he could take her moans as consent. We have to start seeing consent as about actively saying yes, with words, actions, body language etc, rather than the absence of a 'no' (because she was in a drunken sleep).

Larry, your last post is foul.

LOL, men will stop having sex with women unless they're allowed to define what consent and rape is (and they're allowed to have a rapist's definition) and unless they carry on having the right to use women as wank socks and not define that as rape.

Frankly Larry, if men like that stop having sex with us, I don't think we'll be missing out.

We'll continue enthusiastically shagging the men who only want to have sex with women who want to have sex with them and a fine time will be had by all.

It's really funny watching men get really angry and indignant when they think their right to rape us without it being recognised as rape, might one day be threatened because of evil feminists.

I love the way they threaten to withdraw their penises as punishment for us not accepting sex on their terms (which might include the odd rape here and there).

Withdraw away boys. There are still plenty of men out there who aren't rapists and don't go limp at the thought that one day, we might live in a society where they need to get consent for penetrating a woman. Because that's what they do each time anyway. No big deal for them.

I'd rather sign a consent form than be raped, thank you - but it would be worthless anyway because you can withdraw consent for sex at any stage. So it's a stoooopid argument Larry.

It's not too much to ask for a man to ensure she's actively participating in sex is it?

Men like Larry concern me - they see consent on their terms - the male view. "she didn't say no" is translated in 'she consented.' It's a very twisted view of sex of something that is got by men from women - rather than something that is mutually participated in by 2 people.

When sex is completely mutual, then 'consent' is never even in question.

I don't think it's a male view per se Sabrina.

I think it's a rapey/ patriarchal male view.

Whcih of course, is the one that historically has been imposed on all of the rest of men and women in society and the one upon which our laws and traditiions are based, and the one which feminism challenges.

Yes, Basil you're right. Patriarchal view.