Political & Elections

BigG · Guru

RE: Why a lot of feminists are pretty much "done" with Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

If you had been indulging in extended social interaction with the man, it might soften the experience somewhat.

Or it might make it worse. I trusted this guy, and now he's attacking me?

busdriver11 · Guru

They say you don't know for sure how you'll react until you're in the situation. But I know that it helps, always, if someone is mentally prepared and has rehearsed what they would do it their mind. Of course, every time I'm in a public place, I look around me and figure out where are the exits, what I can use as a weapon, and whom might be a threat. Old habit, I suppose. I'd imagine for assault situations that take place when alcohol is involved, that would dull the reflexes.

But I can't believe that 1/3 to 1/2 of women don't have the normal "fight or flight" instincts of all human beings. Sure, a gun, knife, hand on the throat, different situation---but that's not what we've been talking about here. I guess part of what bothers me is the implication that women never have control, never can defend themselves or make good decisions, they are always victims, and have no power nor any personal responsibility. Even in situations where they know and are comfortable with the attacker. Something about me just finds that insulting to women, and I have to think that we can make decisions for our own safety.

Anyways, have to start cooking, cleaning and shopping (yes, someone has to do the typical woman stuff), so I'm outta this argument.
Merry Christmas!

BigG · Guru

If you had been indulging in extended social interaction with the man, it might soften the experience somewhat.

NOT a "stranger with a knife".

I would like to see Assange punished for the risk to and loss of life he caused.

But the PFC who actually stole the information is going to bear the brunt of official sanctions.

Again this is just the "brass" and civilian leadership covering for their lack of care and attention to their jobs. Why does the military, at a tactical level, need diplomatic dispatches? Knowing the Australian ambassador's wife's poodle has the runs doesn't help with the mission.

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

Busdriver, I can imagine that if I awoke to find someone's hands on me, I'd be petrified with fear. I'd know that, if it were a man, he would be much stronger than I, able to easily overpower me. I'd be terrified that if I did anything, he'd hurt me even more. I might disassociate and hope it was over soon. I don't know whether I'd fight back-- I'd probably think, as I think now, that fighting back would make the whole thing worse.

Even if you are correct and fighting back is the safest action, that doesn't mean women know it, or that women who do believe they should fight back can do so in the heat and terror of the moment.

busdriver11 · Guru

" I think most women would react the same if a strange hand was crawling on them instead of a strange spider."

You'd better believe it. I have spent alot of nights away from home, working. And a couple of times at home, I've woken up, and suddenly sat up, with a burst of adrenalin flowing through me, ready to kick ass....because my God, there is someone in my bed!!

Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm married. It's my husband.

And times in my hotel room, where I woke up because I thought I heard a noise. Grab the nearest item that could be used as a weapon, jump out of bed, turn on the light. Honestly, are there really that many women who would just lay there dead silent, as a normal reaction? I can't imagine that unless they were absolutely asleep, or inebriated. That doesn't seem like a normal human reaction for any man or woman.

busdriver11 · Guru

So apparently, creaturely, you either have the curiousity to google that information, or it is in your field of work? If your numbers are correct, it certainly seems that people should be teaching their daughters to scream and fight. I can tell you, it happens quite regularly in my town that we read stories of women who fought and yelled, and fended off the attacker. It works. I hope everyone here is repetitively telling that to their daughters.

Do you believe that these women had chronic immobility in this situation? Because it doesn't seem that is what either one is claiming, though one said that she was initially half asleep. I don't think that is the same thing. Do you think a grown woman would have chronic immobility, with a man she had just had sex with, even though she was not fearful?

Razorsharp · Guru

Do you have any links for that, creaturely? I would be interested in reading them. I can understand immobility if a rapist approaches a woman with a gun or some other demeanor that would suggest violence, but it simply seems strange that one would freeze when a strange hand in put on her. If a woman wakes up and discovers a spider crawling on her genitals, I cannot image the reaction of a typical woman would be to freeze. I think the most likely reaction would be to scream and brush the spider away. I think most women would react the same if a strange hand was crawling on them instead of a strange spider.

creaturely · Veteran Member

In fact, Razorsharp and busdriver, you apparently haven't any idea--or apparently the slightest curiosity about, what constitutes normal behavior during sexual assault and rape. Somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of adult rape victims report tonic immobility. (Some studies have shown 88% of all rape victims-- but this would include children). It has no correlation with prior sexual experience.

busdriver11 · Guru

Can't log onto this, BigG, need an account.

I'm trying to put my finger on what bothers me about this story. I really want Assange to go to jail, for anything. And my usual automatic reaction is to always believe the woman, can't help it, it's just the way it is.

But the timing of this is so ridiculously suspicious. Even someone who is contemptous of him, has to admit that.

And the other thing that really sticks out to me is the attitude of these women. That is, if the newspaper quoted everything correctly (and that would be rare). Reporting this would be believeable to me if there was fear, shame, anger....the normal reactions from sexual assault. These women sound merely irritated and annoyed---pissed off that they slept with a socially and sexually inept loser. Which doesn't make them sympathetic victims, and less believeable.

DonnaL · Senior Member

Exactly what I thought. This is the Guardian's description of the same time period as set forth in the police report, phrased somewhat differently from the Times's account:

"Police spoke to Miss W's ex-boyfriend, who told them that in two and a half years they had never had sex without a condom because it was "unthinkable" for her. Miss W told police she went to a chemist to buy a morning-after pill and also went to hospital to be tested for STDs. Police statements record her contacting Assange to ask him to get a test and his refusing on the grounds that he did not have the time.

On Wednesday 18 August, according to police records, Miss A told Harold and a friend that Assange would not leave her flat and was sleeping in her bed, although she was not having sex with him and he spent most of the night sitting with his computer. Harold told police he had asked Assange why he was refusing to leave the flat and that Assange had said he was very surprised, because Miss A had not asked him to leave. Miss A says she spent Wednesday night on a mattress and then moved to a friend's flat so she did not have to be near him. She told police that Assange had continued to make sexual advances to her every day after they slept together and on Wednesday 18 August had approached her, naked from the waist down, and rubbed himself against her.

The following day, Harold told police, Miss A called him and for the first time gave him a full account of her complaints about Assange. Harold told police he regarded her as "very, very credible" and he confronted Assange, who said he was completely shocked by the claims and denied all of them. By Friday 20 August, Miss W had texted Miss A looking for help in finding Assange. The two women met and compared stories."

However you're trying to spin it, it seems very clear from the report that any contact she was trying to make with Assange was regarding the STD test -- not because she wanted to go out with him again!

Like every other effort to dismiss the charges as frivolous, this one vanishes on close inspection. Again, I'm not saying he's guilty. I'm saying there's nothing frivolous about the allegations.

-- Edited by DonnaL on Thursday 23rd of December 2010 06:51:43 PM

BigG · Guru

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/world/europe/19assange.html?pagewanted=3&_r=4&src=twt&twt=nytimes

Page 3 paragraph 2.

First of all every woman's or man's complaint of rape should be taken seriously and these two have. An international warrent is no small thing.

There was no report until the women get together and "compared notes" or more prejudically, "get their stories straight".

The first woman did not experience sex without a condom. Assange "did something" to the condom?

The second woman pursued Assange. She initiated the relationship.

Putting these two women into the same class of victims as woman who have been forced at knifepoint is ludicrous.

Note the potential charges had been reduced in severity until someone "pulled some strings".

-- Edited by BigG on Thursday 23rd of December 2010 06:52:26 PM

DonnaL · Senior Member

BigG, I don't know where that's from, because I don't see it in the detailed Guardian article, but from what I gather, she was trying to reach him to persuade him to take an AIDS test.

There's nothing -- nothing -- I see in that report that's inconsistent with the charges being taken as credible and serious. I'm not prejudging anything. You seem to be. And I disagree with your ideas about how women are "supposed" to react when they're raped.

Razorsharp, I've spoken to a number of women who've told me that they froze when they were sexually assaulted, especially in that kind of setting. They haven't been able to believe it was happening. You're awfully presumptuous to be making assertions about what "normal" women do or don't do.

-- Edited by DonnaL on Thursday 23rd of December 2010 06:29:34 PM

-- Edited by DonnaL on Thursday 23rd of December 2010 06:30:37 PM

busdriver11 · Guru

"The reaction of the article's author, Amanda Marcotte, is strange. If a woman is sleeping and a man puts his hand on her genitals, a normal woman would not freeze and let the man continue. A normal woman would take some action to stop the man's behavior in that situation."

In her story she is very young. Probably inexperienced, and that could be a possible reaction for a child. Pathetic as that sounds.

To compare that to a grown woman (this is an assumption, here, from the story, so I could be off base) who is very obviously sexually experienced, is not an appropriate comparison. People just can't resist making the comparisons, it's human nature.

busdriver11 · Guru

Allegations of sexual assault can be quite complicated, can't they? People are perverse, men and women jump to take sides, based upon their own personal experiences. Which really doesn't have much to do with specific accusations against a different individual. Everyone makes judgements upon, if this happened to them exactly as specified, how would they have reacted? Aren't we all guilty of this?

I sure as heck don't remember people jumping in to apologize about the lies that were said about the Duke lacrosse players, but I certainly remember them jumping onboard to hang them.

Men=Instantly Guilty
Women=Always Telling the Truth

Razorsharp · Guru

Here's my story: I went out with friends and returned home, where another group of friends showed up with alcohol, hoping for a party. I was tired, so I said my goodnights and went to bed. I awoke some time later to find one of the latecomers in bed with me, with his hand in my vagina. I think he thought I was wasted and would sleep through it, but I wasn't. Still, I froze. To me, waking up like this was both terrifying and ludicrous, like finding a stranger in the house wearing a clown suit. Making sense of the situation took up too much brain space for me to choose the correct reaction. We all like to imagine ourselves as action heroes in our own lives, swiftly repelling those who threaten our safety. But indecision in such a moment is more common than most people realize.

The reaction of the article's author, Amanda Marcotte, is strange. If a woman is sleeping and a man puts his hand on her genitals, a normal woman would not freeze and let the man continue. A normal woman would take some action to stop the man's behavior in that situation.

-- Edited by Razorsharp on Thursday 23rd of December 2010 06:16:35 PM

BigG · Guru

"Later the same week, according to the police report, Ms. W got in touch with Ms. A to try to seek out Mr. Assange, after he had failed to keep a promise she said he had made to call her."

DonnaL · Senior Member

http://www.slate.com/id/2278906/pagenum/all/

The Perils of Charging Rape

The women accusing Julian Assange of sexual assault deserve to be taken seriously.

By Amanda Marcotte Posted Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2010, at 4:20 PM ET

When Julian Assange, the editor of WikiLeaks, was targeted for arrest by Interpol in late November, the right-wing British tabloid the Daily Mail was first on the scene with a widely linked but error-ridden article about the charges. The Daily Mail characterized Sweden's rape laws as those of a radical feminist dystopia, where men can be thrown in jail for consensual sex that doesn't involve a condom, and the police file rape charges on behalf of women upset that a phone call didn't follow a one-night stand.

The falsehoods quickly spread in part because many liberals invested in protecting WikiLeaks were eager to find ways to discredit the allegations, even if that meant characterizing the female accusers as hysterics and liars. Michael Moore went on Keith Olbermann's show and claimed, falsely, that Sweden would charge a man for sexual assault for consensual sex involving an accidentally broken condom. Feminist writer Naomi Wolf mocked the accusers, claiming that Assange's "crime" was merely dating multiple women at once.

In the initial days after Assange's arrest, when there was little solid information beyond the tabloids about what exactly the Swedish government may charge him with, some of the reaction was perhaps understandable. To a degree, even Slate's DoubleX podcast repeated the Daily Mail's misinformation. But as of Dec. 17, there has been no excuse. At that point, the Guardian obtained the depositions taken by Swedish police from the alleged victims. In these documents, one of the women alleges that Assange behaved threateningly with her and held her down to prevent her from reaching for a condom. He did end up wearing one, but she thinks he ripped it and deliberately ejaculated inside her. He also later rubbed up against her with his pants off, she says, against her will. The other alleged victim claims that she struggled with Assange over the condom all night, had consensual sex with him when he finally put it on, and then woke up later in the night to find Assange having sex with her, without her consent and without a condom. In my personal and professional experience with rape, these kinds of allegations are both credible and common. It's a bad idea to forget that, even when the alleged bad guy is a leftist hero.

And yet after the Dec. 17 revelations, Naomi Wolf doubled down. In a debate on Democracy Now this week, the author of The Beauty Myth read aloud part of the women's complaints—including the part in which one alleged nonconsensual sex while she was sleeping—and claimed that this couldn't be rape. Wolf's theory is that because this woman (as well as the other one) had consented to other sexual activities, and because she continued to socialize with Assange after the fact, she couldn't be telling the truth about being sexually assaulted. It's an odd hypocrisy from Wolf, who has written in the past about her own inability to speak out when, she says, she was sexually harassed by Yale professor Harold Bloom. When it came to her own experiences, Wolf was quite eloquent in describing how shame and the fear of reprisal can silence a victim of sexual abuse. Why is she now trotting out the same old hoary story about how the only believable response from a victim is to make a big immediate stink about it?

To express their discontent with the knee-jerk defenses of Assange, angry feminists took to Twitter. Blogger Sady Doyle started the hashtag #mooreandme to push Moore and Olbermann to apologize. (Wolf doesn't have a Twitter account, so there was no point looping her in.) Last night, Michael Moore went on Rachel Maddow's show and, without directly apologizing, shifted toward taking the rape allegations and the accusers seriously. He said, "Every woman who claims to have been sexually assaulted or raped has to be, must be, taken seriously. Those charges have to be investigated to the fullest extent possible." After initially denigrating the #mooreandme hashtag as a "frenzy," Olbermann also softened his stance by engaging on Twitter.

Moore's change of position is particularly gratifying for the feminist protesters. And because of my personal history dealing with sexual violence, for me the fight against taking on faith badly sourced efforts to discredit Assange's accusers was more than an intellectual exercise. Many of the details in the fleshed-out accounts the women gave, as published in the New York Times and the Guardian, paralleled the rape I experienced in the spring of 1998, when I was a 20-year-old college junior. I didn't fight back. I didn't report what had happened for a week out of confusion and shame, just like the women accusing Assange. I also said that someone had sex with me while I was sleeping, without my consent. I call what happened to me a rape because that's how the state regarded it, in obtaining a guilty plea from the assailant after making it clear he didn't have a good chance in court. (And at the time, there was another case based on allegations of attacking a sleeping woman on the docket.)

Here's my story: I went out with friends and returned home, where another group of friends showed up with alcohol, hoping for a party. I was tired, so I said my goodnights and went to bed. I awoke some time later to find one of the latecomers in bed with me, with his hand in my vagina. I think he thought I was wasted and would sleep through it, but I wasn't. Still, I froze. To me, waking up like this was both terrifying and ludicrous, like finding a stranger in the house wearing a clown suit. Making sense of the situation took up too much brain space for me to choose the correct reaction. We all like to imagine ourselves as action heroes in our own lives, swiftly repelling those who threaten our safety. But indecision in such a moment is more common than most people realize.

I was lucky: A male friend of mine happened to walk in on his way from the poker table to the bathroom. I weakly squeaked out, "Help," and he pulled the guy off me. My friend turned into an eyewitness, a relatively rare advantage in acquaintance rape, and the difference between my rape and many others that go unprosecuted.

Still, it took a week for me to admit that I'd been sexually assaulted. Mostly I didn't want the baggage that comes with pressing rape charges. Some people believe you and respond with a humiliating pity. Some people believe you but wonder why you just can't let it go. And some people deny that you were raped, the most painful reaction of all. My assailant dropped in for a visit at least once between the incident and my decision to go to the police. I wasn't home, but if I had been, I probably would have acted normally. I can't even imagine how much harder it would have been to follow through legally if the person I'd accused had been an international cult figure.

I'm not noting these parallels to pronounce on Assange's guilt or innocence. We don't have the facts to decide that yet. But Naomi Wolf was simply wrong on Democracy Now when she denied that the charges against Assange aren't credible because the accusers didn't deny consent with enough vigor or because they acted like nothing was wrong for days afterward. By shaming these women, Assange's defenders are in danger of sending a signal to future rape victims that speaking out is just not worth the cost.

I was in the audience last night, when Michael Moore appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show, and my body tensed up as he walked on stage. It had been a hard few days, dredging up all my unpleasant memories of my mistakes and self-doubt. Then Moore said all the things that he should have said in the first place: that the charges were credible and serious, that Assange's work with WikiLeaks doesn't preclude the possibility that he had done something awful, and that the accusers deserve to have their side of the story told. Hearing him firmly support women who make rape accusations unclenched my shoulders. Now if only Naomi Wolf would get the memo.

busdriver11 · Guru

That got a chuckle out of one kid, no response from the other. Oh well, one can always try. I I however, like your suggestion.

Wilford Brimley with steroid abuse? Now that is creative. I actually don't even want to hear what they would say behind my back. Probably that their parents don't exist at all!

BigG · Guru

Perhaps you can get your kids to refer to you as;
"Queen Victoria, Monarch of the Skies".

My own children describe me to friends who have not met me as;
"Wilford Brimley with a really bad steroid abuse issue".

This is a base calumny as I have never used steroids (I never amounted to much athletically either).

busdriver11 · Guru

"You're not serious, are you? You sound like Queen Victoria, who supposedly refused to believe in the existence of lesbians because she couldn't imagine what they did with each other."

I'm partially serious. I just didn't want a lengthy explanation. And anyways, I'm old enough, long married enough that I don't want detailed explanations of any male/male, male/female or female/female sex acts. But I've never been put in the same sentence as a queen before, so I'll take it. Maybe I can get my kids to call me Queen Victoria (okay, they'd only do that in a snide tone, but I'll take whatever I can get)!

I wonder if it is more publicity seekers than something like a CIA setup. I'm not defending this guy in the least, he is a loser of the highest order in just about every respect. But doesn't the timing seem incredibly suspicious? That is, if you go your entire life (if that is true) without any accusations, then magically two at the same time, as soon as you become front page news?

DonnaL · Senior Member

Suffice it to say I stand by what I said.

BigG · Guru

I think the allegations against Assange were carefully crafted to discredit him with the liberals who would otherwise be inclined to support him against the big bad government.

Heroin would be totally incredible.

The allegations have enough credibility to invoke a "knee jerk" negative reaction among those who would otherwise support what he has been doing with Wikileaks.

Killing him just creates a martyr. He HAS to be discredited to accomplish the government's purpose.

Can a woman decide 20 years after an assignation that the guy was a thoughtless and boorish fellow who was a very bad lay and that she had been raped?

What is the appropriate time dimension for this sort of accusation?

How long did the women wait to report Assange? The timing may be in some of the articles and I may have overloooked it.

At least in the second case, he did not initiate the encounter.

It is all so dubious and convenient for "the authorities".

What does this case do for the credibility of woman who have been abused?

The boy who cried wolf was finally faced by a real wolf after he had exhaused his credibility.

No "cause" has infinite political capital.

What did Crystal Mangum's accusations do for woman who are actually assaulted?

-- Edited by BigG on Thursday 23rd of December 2010 10:16:51 AM

DonnaL · Senior Member

To me, the notion that this is any kind of "setup" is absurd. If "they" really wanted to get him, do you really think that "they" couldn't have planted a tupperware container full of heroin among his possessions? Or that "they" wouldn't have made sure that any false accusations of rape were sufficiently replete with allegations of force to make even the reflexive doubters think that perhaps he might have done something? Nobody would dream up accusations like this out of wholecloth. It makes no sense.

As far as the accusations that these women have ties to the CIA are concerned, consider the source: the self-styled "Israel Shamir" (actually Jöran Jermas), the notorious Jew hater and Holocaust denier, as well as Swedish/Russian spokesman for Wikileaks.

Penetrating someone while they're asleep without advance consent is not like waking someone with a kiss. It is rape. Period. Whatever happens afterwards, and whatever the woman says or doesn't say. And from whatever perspective I look at it. The thought would never have crossed my mind to do anything like that, ever, in my former incarnation. And if anyone did that to me now, yes, I would consider it rape. No matter what my previous relationship with the person.

"I honestly don't even understand how it works that women can have sex with other women (but please don't explain it to me, I prefer to stay naive)."

You're not serious, are you? You sound like Queen Victoria, who supposedly refused to believe in the existence of lesbians because she couldn't imagine what they did with each other.

-- Edited by DonnaL on Thursday 23rd of December 2010 09:47:15 AM

Hindoo · Senior Member

Abyss wrote:

A big believer in propaganda, eh?

No, Abyss, not at all. Are you?

BigG · Guru

If this were Joe the plumber, Alice the office manager, and Wanda the dentist, the accusations of "rape" would be much more credible.

Considering who Assange is, what he has done, and who he has PO'ed, I have to regard the whole thing as very questionable.

Particularly in light of the circumstances of the liasons.

He "did something" to the condom? Pleease!

Jordcin · Veteran Member

"PS Please don't muddy the water with tales of women who do consent to sex, and later change their mind. No one approves of false accusations of rape."

_________________________________________________________

This is exactly what these woman did. We don't hear any evidence that their mouths opened and they told him to stop.

My point about her going out and getting food, coming back and falling asleep and him having sex with her while she was asleep was - she could not have been in such a deep sleep that she didn't wake up. Once woken up she should have said stop and thrown him out of her house. She didn't. A man has to assume consent at some point, as in the woman has not said no!

busdriver11 · Guru

Actually CF, I wouldn't have sex with a woman because I am female, married, and not gay. And I honestly don't even understand how it works that women can have sex with other women (but please don't explain it to me, I prefer to stay naive).

I didn't say it is only rape if it is at gunpoint or knifepoint, and I wasn't trying to muddy the waters about women who later change their mind. I merely stated that, "There is a wide space between violent sex at the point of a knife with one fearing for one's life, and drunken sex where a woman grudgingly goes along with it but regrets the act afterwards."

Meaning that there is a huge range between two extremes, nothing more. That doesn't actually seem like a controversial statement to me.

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

Busdriver11, I'm sure you would never have sex with a woman who didn't consent, but by your wishywashy It's not rape if it wasn't at gunpoint or knifepoint view, you're legitimizing other men who rape women: men who have sex with women who have passed out from alcohol, women who are frightened into submitting (not consenting) by bigger, stronger men, men who take consent for one sex act as consent for any sex act even when the victim explicitly denies consent.

Maybe the frat boy who has sex with the girl who passed out at the party shouldn't go to prison for the rest of his life. But he's a rapist, and he shouldn't get a pass.

And surely the attempt to prosecute Assange is political. But that obvious fact shouldn't blind us to the other obvious fact, namely that what he is accused of is unambigously rape.

PS Please don't muddy the water with tales of women who do consent to sex, and later change their mind. No one approves of false accusations of rape.

-- Edited by Cardinal Fang on Wednesday 22nd of December 2010 11:39:38 PM

busdriver11 · Guru

"I did find it hillarious, however, to read that he was actually complaining in the press the other day that these stories were "leaked...." Okay, now that was funny."

I know. I LOVED that. How about a taste of his own medicine?

"There's not a third kind of sex. There's nothing in between. If it's sex, but it's not consensual, it's rape. That's what rape is. If you have sex with a woman, and you don't have her consent, you are raping her."

Maybe it's all semantics, and the meaning of a word to someone. I consider rape to be something a man should go to prison for many years for, a serial rapist to be sentenced to life in prison without parole. There is a wide space between violent sex at the point of a knife with one fearing for one's life, and drunken sex where a woman grudgingly goes along with it but regrets the act afterwards.

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

I don't call it [this sex] consensual sex either, nor would I call it rape.

There's not a third kind of sex. There's nothing in between. If it's sex, but it's not consensual, it's rape. That's what rape is. If you have sex with a woman, and you don't have her consent, you are raping her.

poetgrl · Senior Member

All I was really responding to was the idea that these women's stories were "Laughable."

Not really.

As to the rest of it, who knows what the court will decide?

I did find it hillarious, however, to read that he was actually complaining in the press the other day that these stories were "leaked...." Okay, now that was funny.

-- Edited by poetgrl on Wednesday 22nd of December 2010 08:32:43 PM

busdriver11 · Guru

"Whether or not these women were raped, they clearly felt assaulted. That is NOT the same as consensual sex. I do not consent to whatever he may want to do just because I get breakfast and get back into bed. Sorry. No dice."

I don't call it consensual sex either, nor would I call it rape. Either way, as Jordcin said, the charge of rape is not in this story, apparently. I would guess that there are many women who allow things they later regret, go along with the flow because they don't want to make a fuss, continue socializing and sleeping with their attacker because they have no common sense or self worth, etc. But going along with something unwillingly (when sometimes the man didn't even know there was an issue), does not imply there is an act committed that a man should go to jail for several years to pay for. I hope people who have daughters teach them to vehemently push men away, yelling at the top of their lungs, if they feel sex is being forced upon them.

Now I hope that more charges come to light that have happened in the past for this loser, before he was notorious. I'd love to see him in jail for anything, forever. But if this is all there is, doesn't it seem highly suspect that all of a sudden two women come out with impossible to prove similar charges? Anyone here think that either of these women would have slept with a dysfunctional oddball like this if he wasn't currently famous? Or kept letting him hang around after the sexual malfeasance if he wasn't the news item of the day? Or reported something that obviously just irritated them, as opposed to terrorized them if he wasn't front page press?

Abyss · Senior Member

Hindoo wrote:

Well, here's one life-long feminist who's not "done" with Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann. Moore's support of Assange was flat-out wrong in my opinion, on more than one level. That said, Moore has been a brilliant spokesman for many things I strongly believe in, so I won't crucify him on this one. ... As for Olbermann, he's good for some gratifying evening entertainment. But, like Hannity and Limbaugh, he's just that: entertainment.

A big believer in propaganda, eh?

poetgrl · Senior Member

My presence in bed with you does not imply my consent for you to "use" my body however you see fit. I see nothing "laughable" about a woman saying she was assaulted by a man who she consensually got into bed with.

By the standards you are giving, women who go back to a man who has hit her are "laughable" for saying they were assualted.

No man has a "right" to sex with a woman just because she is "there." Not even a husband.

Whether or not these women were raped, they clearly felt assaulted. That is NOT the same as consensual sex. I do not consent to whatever he may want to do just because I get breakfast and get back into bed. Sorry. No dice.

Jordcin · Veteran Member

Cardinal Fang wrote:

Right, Jordcin, so if you have sex with someone, fall asleep, and then they shove a dildo up your butt that's not rape?

I don't know the answer to that but that's not what happened. And we really don't have the specifics to exactly what he was doing when she woke and whether to told him to stop doing it.

____________________________________________________________

Cardinal Fang:

Recall that the woman says that she previously had explicitly refused consent for sex without a condom

_____________________________________________

The problem is that neither woman were explicit in anything. The first one complained that he was being "too fast" in taking off her clothes, even breaking her necklace. She then says that she decided to let him go ahead and do it anyway.

The second one had consensual sex with him, went out in the morning to get breakfast, went back to bed and that's when he had sex with her while she was sleeping. Unless you are in a roofie induced sleep, you are going to wake up pretty quickly. There is no mention of her telling him to stop so it must be assumed she didn't.

____________________________________

It would look to anyone reading the story that there was no rapes committed. I don't think either woman has said "he raped me." There are three charges against him in this case. The word rape is never used.

Some of my friends and I have horrible stories about being raped by strangers in our teens and early twenties. In a apartment complex parking lot. Accepting a ride offered by a younger guy. By an older man in a foreign country as a teen. That doesn't mean that I would trivialize date rape or rape by an acquaintance. But these women's stories are laughable.

Hindoo · Senior Member

Well, here's one life-long feminist who's not "done" with Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann. Moore's support of Assange was flat-out wrong in my opinion, on more than one level. That said, Moore has been a brilliant spokesman for many things I strongly believe in, so I won't crucify him on this one. ... As for Olbermann, he's good for some gratifying evening entertainment. But, like Hannity and Limbaugh, he's just that: entertainment.

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

But when you are sleeping with a willing partner in bed, after already having had sex, both partners at that point have to assume what they are doing is consensual.

Right, Jordcin, so if you have sex with someone, fall asleep, and then they shove a dildo up your butt that's not rape? I think it is. I think falling asleep next to someone you just had sex with does not constitute consent for just anything they might want to do to you.

Recall that the woman says that she previously had explicitly refused consent for sex without a condom, and then while she was asleep, Assange penetrated her without a condom. It's not as if any reasonable person would assume that she would consent to something she'd already refused.

-- Edited by Cardinal Fang on Wednesday 22nd of December 2010 12:50:43 PM

Jordcin · Veteran Member

Cardinal Fang wrote:

Maybe someone can enlighten me on this phenomenon, but, how does one "sleep" through being raped (as in, "He raped me while I was sleeping.")?

Not to be too graphic, but the victim wakes up when the rapist is on top of them, penetrating them. That is to say, the rapist wakes up the victim by sexually assaulting them.

I understand what you mean by the sleeping party couldn't have consented because they were asleep. But when you are sleeping with a willing partner in bed, after already having had sex, both partners at that point have to assume what they are doing is consensual. If one partner initiates something while the other is asleep (it can work both ways), it has to be assumed it is consensual until otherwise notified. I did not read that she woke up and said NO! STOP! She went along with it. No longer considered rape.

If every sexual encounter that is initiated while the other is asleep is considered rape then there are a lot of male and female rapists out there who are married to each other.

busdriver11 · Guru

"But we need to be clear on what constitutes the crime of rape. We don't know whether Assange initiated sex with this woman while she was sleeping. But if he did, that was rape, whether or not the prosecutors can prove it."

Is that rape? You've got alot of guys out there thinking, gee, I rolled over in bed and tried to get some from my girlfriend/wife last month. Maybe they was successful, maybe not, but rape?

I'm glad I don't have daughters so I don't have to deal with these issues, but here's a rule of thumb I'd probably tell them. Don't invite strange and arrogant men into your bed, particularly when there is alcohol involved. You can avoid many bad situations, not all, but do not purposefully put yourself in harms way. If you keep associating with/having sex with/allowing the person to stay with you, if you have to wait a week or so to think about it...it ain't rape. I submit to you, that this is not a gray area that you have to chat with your girlfriends about and mull over for a week before you decide it's rape. Maybe it would be better to put a different name on it.

I have had a friend brutally gang raped, another whose sister and herself were raped by their alcoholic father for years, another (male) who was raped by a male relative, numbers of people who were molested as children. None of the attackers were prosecuted, though some were reported. It is heartbreaking and I would have been happy to see those men go to jail for the rest of their lives. Sending men to prison for "the world's worst screw? "Well, there ought to be some punishment for that dubious honor, I suppose.

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

Maybe someone can enlighten me on this phenomenon, but, how does one "sleep" through being raped (as in, "He raped me while I was sleeping.")?

Not to be too graphic, but the victim wakes up when the rapist is on top of them, penetrating them. That is to say, the rapist wakes up the victim by sexually assaulting them.

I think it's an error to get hung up with whether the victim realized at the time that this unpleasant, unwanted experience was in fact the crime of rape. A crime is a crime, whether or not the victim realizes it's a crime. This is as true of rape as it is of other crimes.

For example, let's say I'm the victim of some shady financial dealings by some credit card company. I don't like what happened and don't feel that I agreed to it, but perhaps I don't realize it was against the law. Nevertheless, if I later come to know that I was the victim of a crime, I can press charges. The company can't defend itself by saying that ok, yeah, it stole my money but at the time I didn't call the police.

The same is true for rape. At the time, I might not realize that the unwanted sexual encounter constituted rape, just as I might not realize that a swindling credit card company's taking of my money was illegal. I might think it was my fault-- I should have been more careful. I might think I should just suck it up. My not making a fuss, though, does not mitigate the perpetrator's crime. When I later go to the prosecutor, they should vigorously prosecute if they think they can make the case.

I don't know if the Swedish prosecutors can make the case that Assange raped these women. Maybe they can. Maybe there's other evidence-- maybe he admitted to other people that he liked to assault women in their sleep, or something like that. Maybe they can't.

But we need to be clear on what constitutes the crime of rape. We don't know whether Assange initiated sex with this woman while she was sleeping. But if he did, that was rape, whether or not the prosecutors can prove it.

Jordcin · Veteran Member

These women's stories are pathetic. They both had sex with the man. But at least one of those times it was rape for each of them. They both continued to hang out with their rapist and live with him for awhile before reporting it. One called a particular encounter rape because she was "half asleep" when it occured. No mention of waking up and telling him to stop. No mention of her saying stop and him refusing.

busdriver11 · Guru

Thank you for fixing that for me, CF, I do not write precisely nor exactly what I mean quite often.

To add to the argument, how does one possibly prove rape if they didn't go to the hospital, didn't report it, merely called it the "world's worst screw" and allowed the perpetrator to sleep at their flat for the next 6 days?

Poetsheart · Senior Member

Maybe someone can enlighten me on this phenomenon, but, how does one "sleep" through being raped (as in, "He raped me while I was sleeping.")?

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

How does one possibly prove rape if they'd had sex with the person that very night, and then when they were sleeping, that person took advantage of raped them.

Fixed it for you.

When trying to prove rape, you first acknowledge that in the situation you're positing, one person raped the other. "Taking advantage" of a person who can't consent by having sex with them is rape.

busdriver11 · Guru

To answer your question, BigG, some women are sleazy lowlifes, just like some men are. And some are merely like that for a small portion of their irresponsible lives, then they grow up. It's called "hooking up" and alcohol is often involved.

If this article is completely true, and who knows....the timing of this sure sounds like a complete setup.

Though I think they should just take him out, or arrest him for espionage and be done with it.

BigG · Guru

Do you think we could have meaningful interactions in this manner?

A somewhat more detailed link;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden

creaturely · Veteran Member

Perhaps you'd venture an opinion on why "a woman" does what she does. Or shall we converse entirely in pointed rhetorical questions?

BigG · Guru

Regarding the latter case in the linked article;

Why does a woman initiate contact and then invite a man into her home and into her bed?

busdriver11 · Guru

Well here is the thing. Do you automatically believe the woman, proof notwithstanding, no matter what? If a woman calls it rape, must it always be automatically assumed that one should err on the side of the victim, and assume it is true? Without physical evidence of violence or witnesses, how do you prove it is true? Do you naturally always assume the accuser is honest, and sentence the accused to 10 years in prison, just in case?

I'm not saying that if one had sex previously, or even recently, with the accused attacker and then was consequently raped, that it is not rape. But if there was no weapon, no physical marks, no screaming and fighting for their life, no witnesses or no proof, is that actionable for many years in prison? How does one possibly prove rape if they'd had sex with the person that very night, and then when they were sleeping, that person took advantage of them....they were angry, annoyed, irritated, but they did not scream or fight. I am saying that all rapes are not equal, all are not the same, and to pretend otherwise dilutes the serious crimes that happen against women.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending this guy. I hope someone assassinates him, and quickly. And I didn't have the patience to read through the entire blog either.