Man cleared of rape after having sex with a woman who thought he was someone else

[Felascloak]

metro.co.uk/2016/05/12/woman-realised-she-was-having-sex-with-wrong-man-so-accused-him-of-rape-5876504/

I feel really bad for this woman (although I think if I was on the jury I probably would have thought there was a chance he believed he had consent). The headline implies she was unreasonably upset when she found the person having sex with her wasn't who she thought and so "falsely accused" him. Poor woman probably feels totally violated.
Also, what kind of man shags a woman who's gone home with a different guy, when that guy has just left the room for a minute. Ugh. He says he didn't even want to

And I think Lass was disagreeing with your addendum to my comments, don't you, gone?

Oh dear, Lass really isn't going to be happy that you accused her of being a feminist!

you' are the one perpetrating a dangerous myth.

No, what we're doing is assuming that men are rational thinking beings who are capable of managing not to rape women if they choose.

You rape apologists are so patronising and infantilising of men. It's almost like you think they have no control over their cocks.

I am very puzzled by the jury (dare I say that we are poorer for the low reimbursement rate for jury duty which leads to a disproportionate jury of our supposed peers). And puzzled by the defendant's actions on the night in question.

And continually puzzled by the idea that consent is defined by the man doing the penetrating.

I don't know how the jury were sympathetic to his reasonable belief. In his own words, he didn't ascertain consent to putting his cock in her. So how she consented to the activity (as per the law), I'll never fathom. He thought they'd just picked up a couple of slags, didn't he? As did the jury.

I think often of the woman in the hotel rape case where the defendant got acquitted because he thought it was his girlfriend. If any case demonstrated that rape law actually favours men, that was it.

Personally, I'm raising two boys to understand that if there is any ambiguity in a situation, to make the choice that doesn't harm anyone.

I've been drunk with blokes who were perfectly capable of keeping their hands to themselves.

I've been sober with blokes who weren't

How do I tell? Or do I need to just never be alone with men? That's a pretty bloody sad state of affairs isn't it?

It's not patronising to women to say that they are entitled to body autonomy, and that if they say they were raped, that I believe them, no matter what a jury full of people who think like you say Gone.

It's patronising to men though, to say that they can't be expected to keep it in their pants if they can't be sure the woman wants it, and downright insulting to women to say that if they're drunk they're fair game because how could a bloke be expected to know.

And I think Lass was disagreeing with your addendum to my comments, don't you, gone?

Yes. I was disagreeing with gone's statement about taking responsibility. It is entirely my responsibility as a driver not to drink and drive. It is entirely my responsibility to avoid sexually molesting another person.

Feminism has nothing to do with it. I am a lawyer. I expect the law to be upheld by individual people not committing a crime- not by potential victims trying to avoid being a victim.

In this particular case I think the acquital is problematic but that was the jury's decision. Juries and courts don't always get it right. Lawyers are entitled to disagree on the interpretation of the law. I'm struggling to see how if this had been prosecuted in Scotland he would have avoided section 13 of the Sexual Offences Scotland Act applying.

If a drunk man was lying on the floor with his wallet next to him, can I safely assume he has consented that I take his wallet as it may look like he no longer wants to keep it? I did sort of ask him and he mumbled something that sounded like a yes to me.

This business about the individual carrying out the penetration deciding whether someone has consented is pretty shocking to me. Does that mean that someone who is delusional can offer in their defence that they believed someone wanted them to have sex with them.

Many years ago I was stalked by someone I met at work. He mistook our professional relationship as something more than it was. It was a very distressing time for me, and I had to have my home phone number changed because of his persistent calls. HR gave me useful support, however in the end I had to leave my job because of the impact it had on my self-confidence. This person genuinely believed I was interested in him and whatever I said or did he took as signs that I liked him, fortunately he wasn't a rapist.

More info about the legal aspects of consent www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/rape_and_sexual_offences/consent/

(don't get me started on the he in 'if he agrees by choice, and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice' )

The legal position on consent in the UK is much more complex than gone thinks it is. This case could easily have gone the other way, because a "genuine mistaken belief in consent" is assessed subjectively by the jury, rather than just automatically accepting that the alleged rapist says they had the belief and it was genuinely mistaken. It has to be considered reasonable.

Well, maybe it would have ended differently, if rape myths and sexist attitudes weren't so prevalent in society. I agree with others who don't think his explanation meets that subjective test, by the limited facts we have here. There are capacity issues, as she was drunk, and aside from that I think a reasonable person would think it's quite likely that she would think it was the other guy getting back into bed, and therefore any further men wishing to have sex with her had a duty to ensure she was fully aware of what she was consenting to, and that required explicit consent given to him personally.

It's entirely a matter of interpretation, but I think they got it wrong in this case.

womenarein danger and within that frameworkdohave a responsibility to protect themselves

Everyone has a responsibility to protect themselves. It's why we teach children the green cross code as part of learning to cross the road - pedestrians have a responsibility to ensure that as far as they can tell by looking and listening, there are no vehicles approaching before they cross. But pedestrians don't always get it right, and drivers also have a responsibility to look out for humans and animals and other vehicles in case they aren't behaving as directed by the Highway Code. The expectation is that you are responsible for your own actions.

People should also consider protecting themselves by not doing things like getting too drunk - there's a higher risk of accident and injury. It's something that applies to men and women equally, and if you're with a good group, they'll generally take mutual responsibility to take care of each other - make sure they don't fall, make sure they get home okay and so on. This doesn't always work successfully, if everyone is pissed - but the idea of looking after people is still there. There are plenty of men out there who will help women get home and then decide not to have sex with them, even if the woman is coming on to them, because men are capable of recognising that other people might do things because they are drunk that they might not otherwise do, and it's possible to say no and avoid doing something that might not really be the other person's true intentions.

So men can take this responsibility, even when drunk themselves. Those who chose not to are putting themselves at risk of being a rapist. You'd have thought men would usually want to avoid that.

Ebear I'm trusting to the point of naivete when it comes to thinking that men are generally good. But I've had to learn that they are not all good, and we must live in the light of that, not as we would like to be able to live. Men can be predators. They can also be confused and make mistakes. Women do have a responsibility to look out for themselves and I will certainly be teaching my DD that. Perhaps they shouldn't have to but they do.

Women can send out very mixed messages at times as well; they have a responsibility not to do that either, again to protect themselves. That doesn't diminish the responsibility of someone taking advantage but it's still something we should be teaching women, especially in our multi-racial culture where encouragement is understood differently in different contexts. In the scenario of the OP, we actually have a woman who has, without invitation, got into the accused's bed. I'm all for not blaming the victim but I am struggling to see how her behaviour is anything but totally irresponsible and potentially confusing. Presumably she was aware that at some point he would be hoping to go to bed?

I still think I'd know perfectly well if a different bloke had got back into my bed.

There was a report last week of a 90 year old woman being raped by someone who broke in to her house. Did she fail to avoid putting herself in a situation where she would be raped?

Yes, of course!

You see, as a woman, you should commit suicide at age 18, or 21, whenever you become a legal adult. That's the only safe way to prevent rape.
(If we define any sexual violence a man does to you before that as sexual abuse of a child, that is)

By continuing to exist, you put yourself at danger of being raped!

So, it logically follows you are to blame if a man decides to rape you - after all, you were committing the horrible crime of existing while female.

Apparently, existing while drunk and female is even worse, but existing while female is bad enough.

One of the few countries where women are really proactive and responsible about avoiding rape is India, where they just abort female fetuses - prevents rape AND sexual abuse of children!

And because those women in India are not patronised by evil feminists and take responsibility for themselves, India has one of the lowest rape rates in the wo... oh, wait, actually rape is incredibly common in India. Strange, why would that be?

Well, probably they are not applying the strategy well enough - after all there still are women.

"Women can send out very mixed messages at times as well; they have a responsibility not to do that either, again to protect themselves"
This sentence is just horrific. Totally patronising to women AND men.
I'm starting to understand some Muslim movements. Wearing a burka and speaking to men only with a chaperone is a sensible way to avoid giving mixed messages to men, who clearly can't control themselves

What's the problem with mixed messages?

You see, I am a vegetarian. If someone gives me a mixed dish, meaning that there is some meat in it, but it's not all meat, I don't eat it.

Likewise, if someone gives me signals that they do not want to have sex with me, then I don't rape them, because I am a non-rapist. What other messages might be there doesn't matter.

(Just to make it easier to understand. I am not comparing the two morality-wise. Everyone is required not to rape. Vegetarianism is a personal decision.)

Innocent men don't accidentally rape women. Who does "accidentally" rape women are men who are looking at this from a "what can I legally get away with?" point of view.

I am still aghast at this attitude.

It's really, really easy to go through life without raping or sexually assaulting anyone. I have so far, and can't see why that would change.

If, at any point, there is less than enthusiastic consent from a party who is in control of most of their faculties, then don't do it.

If I have any doubts over anything, then I don't do it.

I recognise, that I have no right to shove any part of me in any part of anyone else, unless the messages I'm receiving are unambiguously a green light.

I really think that the best thing for women would be to change the law to put the onus on the person raping to prove that they had consent. No problem for those of us who only have sex with people who want to have sex with us, but would let us jail all the people who think that there's 'grey areas' around when they can put their penises in people.

Sadly Fela, wearing a burka and having a male chaperone at all times doesn't seem to prevent you getting raped, although I understand that courts are less likely to stone you to death for being raped if your male chaperone has been incapacitated but still conscious to act as a witness.

"we actually have a woman who has, without invitation, got into the accused's bed. "

This is not what happened.

She and bloke she liked got a lift back from the accused to the accused's flat. Bloke she liked then took her into accused's bedroom (how the hell would she know it wasn't his bedroom).

Bloke she liked left room naked. Accused entered room, nudged her to leave and then lay down next to her.

This is according to the accused's own account in the article.

Don't lie, gone.

Problem is Hell, that without lying, they don't have much justification.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I notice gone hasn't commented on the "man went into wrong hotel room and recklessly penetrated unknown sleeping woman" case. He was found not guilty so presumably that woman must have done something wrong, sleeping behind a locked door and all, because The Law must always provide the right answer, no need to examine it or query the jury's thinking...

gone

If you cant be arsed to read the thread properly or any of the details of the case then maybe you should be more careful with your "facts"

"we actually have a woman who has, without invitation, got into the accused's bed. "

That's really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Even if it were true, it's still not an invitation to him to have sex with her.

Yeah, if I found a man had, without invitation, gotten into my bed while I wasn't there, having sex with him would be the last thing on my mind.
If he was drunk, I'd just assume he had mistaken it for his bed and get someone to throw him out.

Sadly Fela, wearing a burka and having a male chaperone at all times doesn't seem to prevent you getting raped, although I understand that courts are less likely to stone you to death for being raped if your male chaperone has been incapacitated but still conscious to act as a witness.

You could also be raped by your male chaperone, sadly. Not all women have a trustworthy male relative, much less one who is willing to spend most of his time chaperoning them.

Learning self-defense and never leaving the house in a group smaller than five women might help to not be raped in the first place. (Of course, no males can live in the house. Allowing a male to live with you would result in automatic blame if he rapes you.)

Probably a nun-like lifestyle, about thirty women per house, only going out in groups of five, would be the safest approach. The nun's habit would also serve the same purpose as a burka ...

But how do you avoid mixed messages if there are a group of women? Surely a man is needed to advise. Possibly this is why eunuchs were popular historically.

Perhaps we could design an app for that?

We could call it "Mansplain"

I don't get the mixed messages thing. What counts as a mixed message?

Some men think things like simply smiling or saying hello at them is an invite, how the hell is a woman supposed to know which men to adjust her behaviour around? How does she tell which men equate a "yes" to a drink to "yes" to sex too?

Its seems like another way to blame women for the actions of men.

In every other aspect of life men are capable of knowing when someone doesn't want something given or doing to them, like if a men felt like brushing long hair, he'd be called a weirdo for just brushing someone hair without asking because he thought that if shes happy to have it brushed then they are happy for him to brush it and if they don't want their hair brushing by anyone other than someone who she wants to brush it then she should hide their long hair or get it cut, and she shouldn't do things like go to the hairdressers because it's a mixed message.

There doesn't seem to be any confusion about boundaries, respect and consent to everything other than women's bodies. Why is that?

Some men think things like simply smiling or saying hello at them is an invite, how the hell is a woman supposed to know which men to adjust her behaviour around? How does she tell which men equate a "yes" to a drink to "yes" to sex too?

Its seems like another way to blame women for the actions of men.

For their own safety, they need to develop instincts and try to work it out. This is not about blaming anyone. It's about safety.

What fairytale world are you all living in in? Don't you care about the real world that women are actually inhabiting? Or do you prefer to sit around thinking about a utopian existence in which women could roam naked and free while every men averted his gaze?

Bizarre.

Oh, and I didn't lie. it was, indeed, his bed.