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For some, rape is apparently an ambiguous and confusing issue.
Back in 2008, Dame Helen Mirren caused a considerable stir when, in an interview with GQ magazine, she characterized "date rape" as a "tricky" area that need not necessarily be a matter for the courts. If a woman ended up in a man's bedroom, engaged in sexual activity but then said "no" to intercourse, Mirren suggested that if that refusal was ignored, the man "cannot be ha[d] into court under those circumstances." Instead, she argued, "it is one of the many subtle parts of the men/women relationship that has to be negotiated and worked out between them."
Agreeing with Mirren's remarks, then Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe waded in with her own bold statement on the issue, asserting that: "Dame Helen is absolutely right. This is sheer common sense prevailing." Articulating the now widely discredited 'she was asking for it' argument, Widdecombe continued by stating in no uncertain terms: "Of course if a woman goes back to a man's room she has responsibility for her actions. Of course she should accept that she has got herself into that position [...] If we say to women that you can go as far as you like with a man but once you don't like it then you can go running to the law, well then we are offering them a false comfort."
More recently - only yesterday, in fact - it was George Galloway's turn to muddy the waters and treat us all to his own particular take on the issue of rape as he set out his views regarding the ongoing furore surrounding Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange. Speaking in his weekly online video broadcast, Good Night with George Galloway, the Respect party MP for Bradford West set out to discredit serious claims made against Mr Assange, who is currently sheltering in Ecuador's London embassy in a desperate bid to avoid extradition to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning over accusations - stringently denied - that he committed sexual assault against two women in Stockholm, in August 2010.
Condemning Assange's "personal sexual behaviour" as "sordid and disgusting", Galloway paints the scenario from which the allegation arises thus:
"Woman A met Julian Assange, invited him back to her flat, gave him dinner, went to bed with him, had consensual sex with him. Claims that she woke up to him having sex with her again. This is something which can happen, you know."
Sordid and disgusting though it may be, apparently this is not rape: "Even taken at its worst," Galloway protests, "if the allegations made by these two women were true, 100% true, and even if a camera in the room captured them, they don't constitute rape. At least not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it."
The crux of the issue, according to Galloway, is that "Not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion. Some people believe that when you go to bed with somebody, take off your clothes, and have sex with them and then fall asleep, you're already in the sex game with them. It might be really bad manners not to have tapped her on the shoulder and said, 'do you mind if I do it again?'. It might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning."
In Sweden, as in Britain, however, having sex with someone while they are asleep is more than simply bad manners. It really is rape, Mr. Galloway, because here is the simple thing: everybody does need to be asked, every time. Whether it's the woman in Mirren's scenario, or the one in Assange's, every person has the right to say no, at any stage, and have that right respected. In suggesting otherwise, Galloway's understanding of rape is not only offensive and provocative, but also deeply insensitive to the ordeals of many countless victims of sexual assault.
Follow Sophie Rodger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SophieRodger1
What is your solution to the example you raise?
If, for example, a couple are having sex and the woman decides after penetration that she wishes to stop, it is right for the man to stop. If he doesn't (or depending on the timing, can't) stop, he is probably raping her by legal definition. But this is clearly less serious than a man attacking and raping a stranger in the street. To say the two crimes are equal, and should be punished equally, is clearly wrong to my mind.
On your example, a lot of people agree with you. In Sweden, for example, there are gradations in the legal definition of rape - each carrying different sentences - to reflect this.
QUOTE: "A man or woman should have the opportunity to say no in every single instance"
...or 'prior to each insertion' as Galloway put it. What if the man withdraws to change position? What if the couple are in a healthy, long-term relationship and know each other's sexual proclivities without asking? What if the couple are part-way through a wild night of repeated sex? In every case should the man ask for a verbalised indication that he should penetrate the woman? I don't find that expectation realistic. It certainly sounds awkward. There is clearly room for argument, a fact backed-up by the existence of differing sentences under Swedish law (although I think there are only 'rape' and 'gross rape', the latter being particularly violent or involving multiple attackers).
Those tired expressions don't really convey it, do they. It's very hard to put into words how and why rape is a horrible experience when there isn't fighting, violence, threats, or drugging, just someone pinning you with their body weight and ignoring what you say... And it's not to diminish the added horror of when there are those things. But you will have to take women's words for it on this one.
So how would you propose that this consent should be recorded?
Quote: "having sex with someone while they are asleep is more than simply bad manners"
So how do you react to the what the complainant is reported to have said? This is from the notes of the police interview:
"They sat on the bed and talked and he took off her clothes again. They had sex again and she discovered he'd put the condom only over the head of his penis but she let it be. They fell asleep and she woke by feeling him penetrate her. She immediately asked 'are you wearing anything' and he answered 'you'. She told him 'you better not have HIV' and he replied 'of course not'. She felt it was too late. He was already inside her and she let him continue. She couldn't be bothered telling him again. She'd been nagging about condoms all night long."
At what point do you think SW said "no"?
Your quoting notes from the police interview really does not require my comment: I don't set out to judge the details of Assange's specific case. My issue is with Galloway's ludicrous comment that "Not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion". The simple fact of the matter is that yes they do. Galloway may have been talking about Assange's case in particular, but in the process he has made general comments about rape - and, as you can see, I stringently disagree with those comments.
I would have thought you could come up with something better than that since made "asking" a requirement.
Quote: "I don't set out to judge the details of Assange's specific case"
We wouldn't be having this discussion if not for the Assange case so it would be illuminating if you would express your opinion based on the statement made by the complainant. Did Assange's actions constitute rape? Surely you must have an opinion. The full text is even more illuminating:
http://rixstep.com/1/20110131,00.shtml
We do also expect the people we have sex with to take cues from us, in that moment, as to what we want. Yes, courts will inevitably need at least a verbal "no" or physical struggle to go on (given consciousness). But in real life, if you push a girl onto your bed and penetrate her while her face is all stunned horror, you've raped her.
In this happened exactly as written, that's rape. He actually used her unconscious condition to do something to her she'd been asking him all night NOT to, penetrate her without protection.
It would've been much worse if she had then outright told him to stop or tried to push him off and he had still continued. (And Swedish law reflects that in its degrees of rape.)
But don't you see how hopeless saying "no" must have felt at that moment? How tired she must have been, and how little reason she had to think he'd stop if she just said "no"? He knew she didn't want this. "She had been nagging him about condoms all night."
I would love to hear Ms Rodger's thoughts on GOP candidate's view of abortion and rape..apparently its v rare to get pregnant from rape??
What is truly concerning, I think, is the subtext of Akin's comments: "legitimate rape" rarely results in pregnancy. Does that mean that we are to accuse a woman who claims she was raped and got pregnant of lying? That it can't have actually been rape? This seems to be the implication that we are left with until he elaborates on the difference between 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' rape.
What is also totally perplexing is that someone in this position - a republican congressman and his party's Missouri nominee for the Senate - is so ignorant, not only in his views, but in his basic preparation for a high-level political campaign. I suppose we can only be thankful that his sheer idiocy has been exposed now and that, as a result, he's facing considerable pressure to quit.
You're aware I guess that the 'legitimate rape' thing was used in medieval times to acquit rapists? If the woman got pregnant (possibly the only proof she had of the rape) then the man would just say 'she must have wanted the sex'.