Ending "Rough Sex" defences - Harriet Harman is taking action

[WomanDaresTo]

Hello. I have some very hopeful news on ending the successful use of "rough sex" as a defence to the death or injury of women and girls (with 56 killed, and many more injured, in the UK)

Harriet and Mark Garnier, the local MP for Natalie Connolly and her family, have published a piece today on rough sex defences. They propose to add to the Domestic Abuse Bill to explicitly consider these cases.

"For years, men got away with murder claiming that “she asked for it”. Cynically known amongst barristers as the “nagging and shagging defence” this excuse for violent men was shut down only as recently as 2009. We now have the modern version of “she was asking for it”. It’s time we shut that down too and we can by adding it to the Domestic Abuse Bill."

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rough-sex-murder-harriet-harman_uk_5d309e09e4b020cd9940533c

I'm THRILLED to see this, and once we understand more on the proposals, will make sure we organise to give this the best chance of success. (lots of caveats to come - e.g. it's a long way from law yet, and it won't apply to Scotland- but still thrilled)

to all of you who've helped We Can't Consent To This so far.

It is great that she is standing up for this, but her PIE connections make me feel that a different spokesperson would be better. She should have gotten out of politics after all that. imho

Good news. I hope they succed.

succeed.

I'll email my MP but he is Mark Field.

Which should have been longer, not shorter, because you're meant to look after your partners, not stab or strangle them. "Sex that went wrong" should be an aggravating circumstance, not a mitigating one

Maybe.

As the facts of manslaughter can vary greatly from case to case. When faced with such variance, the Sentencing Council's guidelines tend to be of a general nature, see here, it's already a document running to 30 pages, but I'm sure there's always welcomed room for a little more guidance from MPs for the Judges.

My MP replied and said this has their support & backing.

I have written to my MP this morning. I wrote to him earlier in the year about Broadhurst's sentence for the death of Natalie Connolly and received a reply from him enclosing the Attorney General's report. We'll see what he says this time.

We'll see what he says this time

Maybe he'll send you this

What bobtheduvet said: the law needs to change.

In a BDSM relationship, the dom takes responsibility for the safety of the sub during scenes. Broadhurst took responsibility for Connolly's safety and then didn't discharge that responsibility. He became too intoxicated himself to do so, continued the scene whilst she was intoxicated, put a bottle of cleaning fluid into her vagina when chemicals of that nature should be nowhere near the vagina, and failed to perform aftercare by going to bed whilst she lay collapsed at the bottom of the stairs.

Dr Em has written extensively on how the law treats men as slaves to women's consent: that once we ask for an act to be performed, they have no choice but to do it. (Strangely this never applies to mowing the lawn nor putting the bins out.) BDSMers have known for a long time that this is bullshit: doms do not have to give the sub everything the sub asks for (and indeed the sub would not actually be submitting if that were the case). The concept of "safe, sane, and consensual" indicates that for a dom to do something to the sub, it must be safe, it must be sane/sensible, and it must be consensual. Putting a bottle of cleaning solution in her vagina was not safe. Continuing the scene whilst one or both partners was intoxicated was not safe. Leaving her at the bottom of the stairs collapsed was not safe.

He was her dom. He chose that role. He chose to take responsibility for her safety. He chose to let her down. The law needs to understand the dom-sub dynamic better and reflect the abusiveness inherent in doms choosing to be negligent.

He was her dom. He chose that role. He chose to take responsibility for her safety. He chose to let her down. The law needs to understand the dom-sub dynamic better and reflect the abusiveness inherent in doms choosing to be negligent

Seems to me, the law understands well enough. He did receive an immediate custodial sentence for being negligent.

That the sex-related injuries served as mitigation not aggravation indictes that the law does not understand. The sentence was too short.

I don't suppose for a moment that applying sentencing guidelines to fit the facts of a case is straight forward. The blog above contains a link to the Judge's sentencing remarks if you're interested.

How much would you have given Broadhurst, I wonder ?

Serious question bd67th - do you know if courts use the services of expert witnesses in these 'sex games gone wrong' cases? They're used in a range of other cases, strikes me they could be useful in ones like this.

Just emailed my MP - thanks for all the hard work on this campaign

do you know if courts use the services of expert witnesses in these 'sex games gone wrong' cases? They're used in a range of other cases, strikes me they could be useful in ones like this.

Yes they are, but generally they are expensive and generally the defence simply can't afford them - and one criticism arising from the Broadhurst case (see the above blog) was that a rich defendant could afford several experts to give their opinion. Balance this against the lack of public willingness to pay for the legal costs of defendants.

Bobtheduvet - while leaving the door wide open for abusive people to take advantage and get away with murder

If you're the type of villain that wants to get away with murder that you've planned and carried out, you are hardly going to phone up the authorities next morning and turn yourself in for a 3-4 years stint in jail. All evidence is looked at in the rounds. for example, there was evidence to the jury that Connolly enjoyed kinky sex, supporting Broadhurst testimony. There was evidence from a forensic biochemist that the level of alcohol and cocaine in her system was at a lethal level. Look at the evidence and take it from there.

sawdust I would have gone for a category B sentence because inserting a bottle of cleaning chemicals into any person's body goes beyond "irresponsible". He didn't even empty the bottle and rinse it thoroughly first, what if the top had come off whilst it was inside her? Failing to stick around after causing that injury and call her an ambulance was a huge breach of dom-to-sub duty of care, and the law does not understand that that duty of care is greater than that which you'd owe to a lover outwith a D/s relationship.

BobTheDuvet[1] is right on the nail. I don't believe it should be possible in law to consent to these kinds of injuries.

bdsm as a legitimate mitigation, protects the rights of those who want to take part in it

It protects abusive and careless doms. It removes protection from subs, who are the most likely to be hurt or killed.[2] I agree entirely with your later assertion that protecting the vulnerable trumps the desire of doms to spank subs or subs to be spanked.

[1]: Who sawdust does not challenge, perhaps because Bob uses a male name and is perceived to be a man?
[2]: Source: I exited the "scene" a few years ago after learning the hard way that some doms use the scene as a cover story to abuse subs.

Finally Sawdust gets around to challenging Bob.

If you're the type of villain that wants to get away with murder that you've planned and carried out, you are hardly going to phone up the authorities next morning and turn yourself in for a 3-4 years stint in jail

1. Given the state of modern forensics, getting away with murder gets harder and harder all the time. Turning yourself in and using "she asked for it" as a defence gets you out in a very short time.
2. It's possible that Bob's talking about a different case, as there are several cases where the "sex gone wrong" defence has been used and in the Diane Warburton case it was used successfully to acquit. If you were the kind of guy who wanted to kill for sexual pleasure or power over a woman, taking advantage of "it was BDSM, she asked for it" is a no-brainer and turning yourself in makes your version of events seem more believable.

BobTheDuvet is right on the nail. I don't believe it should be possible in law to consent to these kinds of injuries

Actually it varies from activity to activity. In sex, it is not possible to consent to injuries above common assault. Whereas in sport it is - boxing (being the most obvious example, which escaped Bobtheduvet's reflections), rugby is another example - when you go onto the pitch you are giving consent to the possibility of sustaining actual bodily harm (happens very often) and wounding / previous bodily harm (less often, but not rare). There is a risk in most contact sports.

In the case of contact sports, we take steps to mitigate the risks:

• banding participants by weight, age, and sex
• issuing protective equipment like boxing gloves and mouthguards
• having umpires and witnesses present
• having first aiders on standby
• phoning ambulances immediately in case of serious injury and not just leaving people to die
• not holding knives at people's throats and not inserting containers of cleaning chemicals into their vaginas, because it's almost like contact sport and abuse thinly-disguised as D/s are completely different activities.

But in contact sports, such as rugby, it's not a criminal offence to cause such harm on another person.

We demand that the athletes be sober too, that's another safeguarding thing we do that differentiates contact sport from BDSM (D/s being asubset of that).