Oh I agree...
...waking up to a surprise sexing without consent is rape.
However, lots of people engage in sex acts without explicit consent every day. Be it with a stranger or long term partner, yet it's not rape in the vast majority of cases.
Assumed consent is a dangerous thing, so I'm not willing to accept that.
If I woke up with a woman riding me, having had my drink spiked with Viagra, it's rape. However if I decide I like it and carry on, it's not. I think that's the concept that I consider 'grey'.
Galloway suggesting 'bad etiquette' was atrocious though.
(, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 19:07, Reply)
It's mistaken to think that explicit consent is always required
BUT consent can be tacit, or implicit; and it's still consent. And when it's absent, it's absent.
You're fighting a straw man.
(
Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 19:27,
Reply)
But if the definition of rape...
..is sex without consent, then all non explicitly consented sex is rape. Because proving tacitness in court tends to be hard.
(, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 20:56, Reply)
Not in the slightest bit.
I mean: you're right that it's sometimes hard to prove rape precisely when it comes down to questions about what counts as consent - but the idea of implicit or tacit consent isn't hard to grasp, and the law has no problem with it. And the fact that it might be hard to prove a rape doesn't mean that one hasn't taken place.
Note that any alleged perpetrator has a massive built-in advantage here, because he doesn't have to prove anything. It's the alleged victim who has to prove that she didn't consent. That works well for people who think it's OK to instigate sex with sleeping people, of course... but it does mean that the deck is stacked against the alleged victim from the start.
Try this from a different context: if the doctor tells me I need an injection, and my response is to roll up my sleeve and offer my arm, then it would be perfectly reasonable, ceteris paribus, to interpret that as consent. If your partner is awake, in control of her body, and wraps her legs around you while naked and in bed, then that might very well be the sort of thing that'd count as consent. It's not explicit, but it's a reasonable supposition in most cases.
Its not difficult.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 21:24,
Reply)
Exactly...
...If she carried on with the act then, presumably, it means tacit consent.
If she told him to fuck off and he continued, then it's rape. As it was, in the eyes of the law, up until that point.
(, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 21:56, Reply)
"waking up to a surprise sexing without consent is rape"
Only if someone makes an allegation of rape, presumably? Then the courts should get involved.
(
JamTallons, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 19:33,
Reply)
No.
It'd still be rape, even without the allegation. It'd just be an unreported one.
I'm slightly concerned by the syntax of Megamoss' post: he makes it sound as though it's the waking up that constitutes rape. Mind you, given the bone-headedness of some of the things he's said in this thread, that wouldn't wholly surprise me if he does think that.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 19:39,
Reply)
Not at all...
...that's your perception of what i've written, not my opinion or point.
As I said in another post, taking advantage of passed out/drugged girl is rape.
And none of it has been bone headed, just a different opinion to yours. If we go by what you've been saying, then anything other than explicit consent is rape, though you conveniently label it as a 'red herring' to avoid the lunancy of such a standard.
There are no strawmen here.
(, Tue 21 Aug 2012, 20:41, Reply)