Is a man accused of rape guilty until proven innocent?

[APBrasRule]

I have listened to a lot of debate about rape over the years and I felt it was a great step forward when a woman who had been raped was given anonymity in court.

However listening to Woman's Hour this morning I felt we now want to change the burden of poof from proof of guilt to the man having to prove he is innocent.

"I would have thought most women would actually prefer men to have an opinion on these things"

Yes of course

But when the opinion is that

Men should be given anonimity in rape cases
Loads of rape cases are down to a "misunderstanding"
Men get sexually assaulted by women all the time as well and why aren't we (feminists talking about rape) making a fuss about that ( a thread ages and ages ago)

And these opinions are aired in the Feminist section of MN, then the person airing them can expect a strong (and not terribly positive) response.

I don;t think that the purpose of these threads is for everyone to hold hands and agree, there is certainly room for conversation and discussion and differences of opinion. But this is still the Feminist section, and if someone has ideas which are generally and fundamentally the antithesis of what most feminists (and indeed women) think, and comes on repeatedly to air them, then it can get a little tiresome.

You know where most of us stand on this. We have done it all before, We know where you stand on this, we have done it all before. i understand that fundamentally you disagree with a lot of things about the arguments surrounding rape, but is this the best place to air them, time and time again?

I don't go onto minority interest threads repeatedly and say that all the people there are talking shit. What would anyone gain from it?

Of course you are free to say what you like, but I don't understand why? Why keep coming and saying these things that you know many violently disagree with, is it that you feel that what we are all saying is so nuts that a sane voice of reason has to come on in case any readers are sucked into the dark side?

Why do you feel so strongly about this subject?

Actually scratch one of those things "Men get sexually assaulted by women all the time as well and why aren't we (feminists talking about rape) making a fuss about that ( a thread ages and ages ago)"

as it was an awful long time ago and I doubt I could find it, and maybe you were aligned with the people arguing that point rather than making it yourself.

The other 2 stand.

Hmm anonymity

I don['t think men accused of rape are specific but generrally amongst accused people tehre is a case no? mainly for the sake of those who are related to them

The man I mentioned below lives in a small village and has 2 dd's under ten; isn't there a case that his case should not be publicised until after convuiction?

of course many victims come to light following publcity so there is a huge downside and I am not sure which way I fall

If women were more able to be taken seriosuly and get appropriate convictions then I might be more in favour of accused anonymity than not, as I presume more victims would present tehmselves first

Difficult; not clean cut eitehr way

Erm if you can't have esex with someone senior to you at work, I'll have to hand back my lovely dh then!

not that he ahd actual mental power over me: was all theoretical, in fact I was 'in' and he was not.

not having sex with a women they have any kind of hold over without having been in a situation to establish that tehre is a mutual agreement and no power imbalance might be more sensible?

sancti yes there is an argument for anonimity for serious crimes generally

but why single out rape? that is the big problem with the proposed legislation

Yep agree SGM and ISNT

I guess OP initials stand for Agent Provocateur so maybe that's a little clue as to what happened here

Or maybe not, an agent provocateur isn;t what I thought it was

Is the colloquial use someone who is paid to stir up trouble?

If so then I retract my last post and hereby claim my prize

I'mSoNotTelling, you appear to be putting words into my mouth. Have I said that long string of convenient straw-man stuff you spout? I don't think so. You address me as if I'm someone who has come on here and said these things "again and again", which bemuses me somewhat. (I don't think I have ever talked about rape on here, in fact. Or if I have then it's been for about less than 1% of the time I've spent on here.)
Why the question "Why do you feel so strongly about this subject?" I'm puzzled. Would you ask a woman that?

Lenin, my opening was precisely because I had the same reaction to the OP - not clear if that's her view or one she heard on Woman's Hour and may not have agreed with, but it's am unreasonable one all the same.

Yikes

UQD I have realised that I have you confused with another poster with a very similar name.

I am very sorry about that. Anything I said to you after 8 I definitely had the wrong person.

Apologies again.

Well, that's OK. Who has a similar name to me? I'm interested now... Hiding this thread now, though, so won't add any more.

It's another 3 syllable dad who there was a big ding-dong with on the thread about anonimity, and other things as well.

I am sorry I confused you with him, I went for you with gusto thinking that we had history with all of this, when of course we don't.

ROFL very good

I have no experience with the ding-dongs of any of the dads in question