Kink and sworn affadavits

[FermatsTheorem]

This is prompted by the Laura Huteson thread.

For those who haven't read it, Laura was killed by Jason Gaskell. He severed her carotid and jugular (using a knife he kept under his pillow for use, so he says, in "sex games"), then claimed it was a sex game gone wrong. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and has got six years. This is only one such case recently - in another recent case, a woman was strangled by a man she'd met in the bar that night who claimed to have been engaging in consensual "breath play" gone wrong. (With a man she'd only just met. As my Scottish mother would have said, "Aye, that'll be right...")

Anyway, I've started a separate thread because I have a suggestion of a practical nature, for some activism. It struck me that if I were a younger woman and still dating, I'd be tempted to make out a sworn affadavit, saying that my tastes in sex were very vanilla, and if my dead body were to be found, having been strangled, anally penetrated and/or cut with a knife, and the defendant claimed that it was a sex game gone wrong, then the bastard would be lying because there was no way I would consent to that. Any lawyers out there know if such a document would carry any weight?

Do you think there would be any mileage in trying to persuade young women to make such a statement as a political act? As a way of saying "Men are getting away with murder here. No more. We want them to know that in the event of our death, we will still be able to speak, and let the legal system know 'I did not consent'."

That is shocking...six years...so not only has he got away with murder, He has managed to victim blame her in the process as well as sullying her reputation which is bound to add to her families grief.

I don't know if that would realistically work or be a solution, because the thing is even if you did consent to something "kinky" at one time it doesn't mean that the time you do it with a murdering bastard wasn't still murder. Or that consenting to, IDK, hot wax play or light blindfolding means that you also consented to being strangled.

It's kind of almost (in my view) like writing a statement saying "I don't like sex and I will never have sex, therefore, if somebody has sex with me, it was rape" - although it's not really because in that scenario you'd be around to explain whether you'd consented or not.

I think the law should automatically treat any kind of assault, particularly anything life-threatening as being non consensual regardless of what agreements parties actually have in place. There should be no "It was a sex game, your honour" defence because in reality it ought to be illegal to consent to - in fact, I thought that it was. If it's not being treated as such then this is the problem. And I don't think that making a statement not to engage in so-called "kinky" sex is key.

It's not just young women though. It's all women who find themselves on the dating scene once again.

No way would I bring a man back to my house for sex if my children were in the house.

My ex was emotionally and sexually abusive but of course he has now a new partner and new children. Fair dues to them all. I know what went on when we were together.

Not all men of course. But I don't know who is naughty and who is nice.

Sex game gone wrong isn’t even an excuse ffs. If you (generic you, obviously not you, OP) want to role play knives you don’t use one that’s capable of killing.

You retain responsibility for your actions - if you cut someone’s throat during sex you’ve still fucking killed them by cutting their throat. I’m just appalled by this case... horrific.

I meant to add.

Would you date as a woman in her middle age someone like Jason Gaskell (who had also aged obviously and is older than you - though my prediction is that he would go for the younger model).

Yes, I think I agree with the principle, Bertie, I guess I was musing on a pragmatic form of activism. (Actually, I have heard it proposed, in the spirit of "shifting the Overton window", that all sex should be presumed to be rape - and you'd therefore have to be incredibly careful as a man to behave sufficiently decently towards your partner so that she did not report you... I don't think it was meant as a serious suggestion, more as a "well, at the moment the criminal justice system is stacked incredibly heavily in the man's favour - what would it look like if it were stacked equally heavily in the woman's favour" sort of thought experiment.)

Another thing I don't get is how, in the light of the "Spanner Case", which set the precedent that one cannot consent to actual bodily harm, how these cases go through at all.

Also (may have read too many SAS type novels for my own good), my impression was that slicing through someone's carotid artery and jugular was not something you could do accidentally - it requires a hell of a lot of force and a very sharp knife to slit someone's throat. Not just a bit of "blood play" (boak) gone wrong.

It's down to the "reasonable doubt" issue again. How could we change society so that a jury's immediate assumption would be that a normal, reasonable woman would not consent to actual bodily harm as part of sex, and unless it could be proven (diary entries, blog posts, whatever) that she actually had that kink, the man could be presumed to have committed ABH/ murder rather than manslaughter in the form of a sex game gone wrong.

Interestingly, the only real-life case of this I knew of (tangentially - it was a friend's former partner), the man who strangled a male prostitute during sex didn't get away with the defence that it was a sex game gone wrong, and was convicted of murder. I can't help but wonder whether the fact that the victim was male made the difference.

placemats I wouldn’t no.

But the women I know my age who are getting back into dating after divorce or sadly death of a partner are finding that things are rather different to when we dated first time round (90s for most of us, we aren’t even old..)
Friends report colossal sexual entitlement among men, including expecting full defoliation, anal, choking and spitting etc. It’s been a shock to them. Porn again.

If anything happened to DH I don’t think I’d be in the market for a replacement tbh.

full defoilation - whats that ? a brazilian??

Full waxing - no hair at all (meant to type depilation but defoliation of the Urwald seems apt as well..)

They may just have been unlucky but their stories are consistent. Grim

I think that anything life threatening should not be something that one can consent to. It should be assumed that someone is not in their right mind and cannot consent. The onus is surely on men to not kill their sexual partners ? I am struggling t get my head round him getting SIX YEARS for killing her. Is that what a woman’s life is worth ? Six years ?
This is also the second case like this that I’ve read about recently. The huge risk of porn has allowed men to say that the woman they killed consented to a life-threatening act, and be believed I court.

People who like kinky sex are well-advised to have a written statement of what they agree to and what they will never agree to (aka "hard limits") along with details of allergies and health conditions, as a basis for pre-scene discussion. I would be very interested to know whether that document or a similar one would stand as evidence in a murder trial that the victim did not agree to e.g. choking.

It's an appalling case and not the first.
In Holland I believe they have a law of Strict Liability so that drivers are liable if they crash into a cyclist.
Is it too much to ask that the same apply to sex "games"?

Also Bowl

In these cases I feel strongly that no matter what the apparent consent, if there is a death through violent means (as opposed to, say, a heart attack) then it is classed as a murder. If you use sufficient force on another person as to kill them, then you should be prosecuted. Sex does not ever need to involve any life threatening practices and I feel really men should be discouraged from proposing them.

Friends report colossal sexual entitlement among men, including expecting full defoliation, anal, choking and spitting etc. It’s been a shock to them. Porn again.

If anything happened to DH I don’t think I’d be in the market for a replacement tbh.

I'd become a cat lady.

I can't help but wonder whether the fact that the victim was male made the difference.

Of course it fucking did.

Of course it did.

Men's lives are still worth more than women's.

But the point is that this stuff IS supposed to already be illegal. I remember reading an article about it in some "edgy" magazine because the advice from the journalists was to make damn sure that you got consent AND trusted the person you were going to do anything "kinky" to because they can easily turn around, go to the police with bruising or anything else sustained from sex and say "This person assaulted me". And that's not even getting into practices where you could kill somebody - which is exactly like driving a car, you can't just defend it by going "Oh well the cyclist was in the wrong lane" - it's your responsibility as the one in charge of a bloody great metal object to be aware of cyclists, children, confused elderly people, etc. And the same in sex - if you're going to "play" with life threatening things then you need to be massively careful, I can't imagine that the law would ever be on your side. It shouldn't be.

If that's not what's happening in court cases where somebody has died, FFS, why?

And I also wonder if the rates of conviction are different where the person who has been killed is male vs female. That ought to be investigated - formally - surely?

BTW, I did most of my dating in the 00s and while yes some men are into this stuff defo not all. It's not something you have to accept, no way.

It's so grim
Twisted that being "sex positive" has led to a situation where men can get away with killing or raping women by claiming they liked rough sex (I'm thinking of the Ulster trial and the victim bleeding from a laceration in her vagina)
It's horrific.
I think even if there was an affidavit the defence would just claim the woman had changed her mind.

Bowlofbabelfish I feel the same way- if we split up or he dies I am not going to waste my time with dating, just going straight to cronehood with 15 cats in tow.

Yup - if anything happens to DH I'm going to become crazy dog lady, crazy yoga lady, and crazy gardening lady.

There was a label going round twitter a while back "Refuse to Date Men that watch Porn"

That is a label to live by. I really do blame violent porn for this latest backlash against women. Even the TRA movement against us is soaked in porn.

I'm setting up a petition, it's on the other thread but it's here as well, if anyone wants to give any feedback to make it better I'd be grateful

Abolish the defence of accident and consent, for killing someone during sex
There have been several cases in the news of men being found not guilty of murder, when they killed women during sex. They claimed the dead women had consented to life-threatening acts even though they had only just met and that the deaths were accidental. The men's unlikely tales were believed.

More details
Most women do not want to be strangled, tortured or cut with knives at any time, whether they are having sex or not. The presumption should be that the duty of care we all have to each other in every other situation in life, does not suddenly disappear in sexual situations and that if you cause the death of another person, either in or out of bed, you should not be able to use the defence that that person consented to the risk that you would kill them. Stop men getting away with murder.

ToetoToe, you know Facebook banned the group "Refuse to date men who use porn"?

Women aren't even allowed to object to men's abuse of us

But they've set up a new one

We will not STFU

Six years is an insult to that poor woman and her family.
Incidentally ( and only anecdotally) I dated a lot in the past 10 years, as did several of my friends, and I haven't come across one man who expected (or got) choking, spitting or anal!
I had a phase of (ahem) 20 something partners and while they were a bit..in a rush to get to the main action, they weren't asking me to do anything dodgy.
I'm not sure if that is just luck or if I have good instincts. Tbh if men are into dodgy stuff they introduce sex/kink as a topic right at the texting stage, sort of to test the water. Which is fine I guess, and it's fine for women to want to experiment, I'm just a bit put off by hyper sexual texting and prefer a bit of old fashioned romance.
The trouble is, women can't know beforehand if "kink" is going to be used as an excuse for terrible violence.
I almost see the verdict as a cautionary tale from the judge. Don't enjoy your sexual freedom too much women, look what can happen to you.

Lucky you! IfNot I've had a couple of relationship too and this wasn't expected of me. But I was put off by many who expected a straight into between the sheets scenario. I understand life is too short but whoa! steady on mate.

I enjoy the company of all my male friends (and their partners) but it's not just about being wary of porn and sex, it's the living with someone again that cements my resolve to being a cat lady - though I have only one male cat and I'm definitely his Human Slave No 1.

Oh well yeah, living with a man..I'm with you there! I fancy getting old in a cottage with dogs, horses and possibly a small pig to keep me company.