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Wednesday's piece by Brendan O' Neill is wrong in citing the case of DPP v Morgan as if it were the law on rape.
That case was overturned almost a decade ago.
He says that feminist have wrongly said - about the Assange situation - "Sex without consent is rape". Let us let pass by the fact that, on that version, George Galloway is a feminist, since he "clarified" his first wrong assertions saying exactly that.
The law of rape is available to all, including yesterday's author, in the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
It says that it is rape if a man (A) has sex with either a woman or a man who does not consent and who A does not reasonably believe is consenting.
Whether a belief is reasonable has to be determined having regard to all the circumstances including any steps A has taken to ascertain whether s/he is consenting. (Section 1 ) However it also says that there is a presumption that there is no consent if the person was asleep or otherwise unconscious at the time of the relevant act. (Section 75)
On both bases, "Sex without consent is rape" as Galloway said, is a reasonable summary of the law when A's companion is unconscious.
Sleeping people cannot consent and what reasonable person could think that they can?
What has been discussed is some presumption of ongoing consent from earlier consensual sex but that is untenable since nobody can tell from a sleeping person whether they do or do not want to repeat the experience.
None of this affects the consensual nature of the earlier sex.
A's companion may be willing to have more sex but the only practical way to know his/her state of mind it to ascertain it at the time and that is certainly the lawful way to behave.
And when is a political party going to commit to making non-consensual male genital mutilation illegal? Non-consensual female genital mutilation is (rightly) illegal, though, I think, the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 goes too far by making consensual mutilation illegal too. (Genital mutilation seems crazy to me, but so do S&M, boxing, piercings, tattoos, etc. If adults want to have their own bodies injured, that's up to them.)
OK that is the law but can that "presumption" be refuted by subsequent statements and conduct? If the woman (I say woman as I assume the law does not apply to a woman fellating a man) quickly becomes fully awake and consents does that negate the presumption or does the offence still stand?
I believe there is no longer an offence of failure to report a crime (though I think there still is in the US) but in the circumstances of post contact consent is there still an obligation on the "victim" to report a the initial crime?
I accept that the law is the law but it can not cater for every situation and indeed the law can be changed as was the case with homosexuality.
There is a legal duty to report crime in the case of a few specific crimes. In general, there is no duty in English law to report a crime (or to prevent an injury for which one is not legally responsible): rape isn't an exception, though child-abuse, for example, is an exception, I believe.
How can men be expected to do that?
They can design rockets that take them to the moon. They can build bridges, divert the flow of lava from erupting volcanoes, work out how far the earth is from the moon. They can construct technology which allows us to communicate with someone on the other side of the planet without a delay.
But to ask a woman if she's OK with having his penis in her?
Are you insane?
There should be no debate on what is rape. Brendan is wrong with the title of his article: It Is Wrong to Say 'Sex Without Consent is Rape' There is a strict dictionary definition. Sex without consent. O Neill was wrong to assert that a man not having a guilty mind means it isn't rape. That is irrelevant on the question of whether it is rape under the dictionary definition. I think what he meant was that rape by a man that does not have a guilty mind should not be a crime. That rape should only be a crime when the man has a guilty mind. But as I say, whether he had a guilty mind or not does not determine whether it is rape. So he was essentially saying he preferred the pre-2003 law. To me the pre 2003 law, with the Morgan defence, was worse than having no rape law at all. Because it gave women a false sense of security.
My problem with you Vera is that you assume rape laws actually prevent rape or reduce it. That they are beneficial for women.
James, if your dictionary definition of rape is not the same as Vera's, you need a new one. Even better, don't rely on your dictionary to tell you if you are breaking the law.