As Villa noted the same legal principle applies in the United States. So, apparently, if your SO likes to get spanked you are breaking the law. (The “wooden spoon” as lethal weapon blows my mind.)
It sounds like it comes down to reasonable doubt. If she doesn’t have a scratch on her, no evidence of rough sex and he doesn’t have a scratch on him, it essentially becomes her word against his. Personally, I’d have a real hard time convicting someone of rape when the only evidence is “He raped me.” vs “No I didn’t.”
Der Trihs “America is full of prudes!” ranting aside, it’s because these events require sanction from the state by completing certain requirements.
Pro wrestling is fake. It’s basically a professional stunt show. It’s no more “assault” than a choreographed ballet.
Boxing is allowed because everyone involved undergoes a thorough medical exam before the fight begins and a doctor is present during the fight at all times.
I’d imagine if someone promoted their BDSM activities by announcing it beforehard, getting checked out by a doctor first and then having a doctor present the whole time, no one could say boo.
When I was a freshman in high school, I went to a lady friend’s house, and we hung out for a bit, I hugged her when I left, and then I finished my walk home. Not too much later, some guy drives to my house, saying how I sexually assaulted this girl. Apparently she had called her friend, and said that I had assaulted her.
So over the next few days I was terrified that her and her parents would get the police involved, thinking that I could go to jail for something that I did not do. Finally all of our parents talked, and it came to light that this girl had made up everything, for some crazy 15 year old girl reason.
This event scared me so much, that I had trouble doing anything sexual with a girl for a few years afterwards. Lying about rape, I can only imagine, would be exponentially worse.
Any person that lies about being raped should be punished severely, as it can truly ruin a person’s life.
We don’t normally protect the identity of the accuser. It seems like BwanaBob’s suggestion is a fair compromise.
Even when they recant, it’s sometimes not enough:
Is this true? If so, why do we hold drunk drivers responsible for their actions?
The haters and the amoral are not that hard to spot, and they’re not that common. It takes maybe five minutes of conversation to start figuring out that something’s off, if you’re willing to go to the effort.
That’s twice in one post, and there are numerous other occasions where you’ve said pretty much the same thing, Der Trihs. First, I think it’s a disparagement of men and an unfair characterization. Second, I think it’s an excuse to abdicate your responsibility for your behavior.
Judgment is not an inborn trait. You aren’t born with all the judgment you’ll ever have and forgiven for bad decisions because you used up your allotted good judgment.
If you and your fellow men really are that lacking in the mental faculties to minimize the risk inherent in human relations and to make decisions based on something other than how hard your collective dicks are, then celibacy is probably your best bet. Invest in a Real Doll, cut off all contact with the rest of the world, and go Ted Kazinsky, because Og knows we are all bastard-coated bastards with bastard centers, and you will, inevitably, be chewed up, spat out, and stomped upon by dregs of inhumane humans.
This is a false analogy and weak besides. Making false accusations of rape is not legal. It’s answerable to both criminal and civil penalties. Perhaps these aren’t as severe as they should be, but that’s a long sight from saying they’re okay.
It is also not publicly approved of. The worst that happens - which is plenty bad enough - is some misandrist saying that they have no sympathy for a falsely accused man because so many women have been harmed by rape, that it’s just evening the score. And there is very little sympathy for that point of view.
Save the ad hominem for the Pit, sir, and your snide commentary for when there’s actually a cause.
First, I’d like a cite connecting your first statement with the second. Certainly some people find the idea of one night stands objectionable on ethical, moral, or it-squicks-me-out grounds. That does not then translate to being comfortable with the idea of anyone falsely accused of a crime.
Rule of Thumb #1: Don’t stick your dick in the crazy.
Rule of Thumb #2: Don’t stick your dick in the lying cunt.
Rule of Thumb #3: Don’t let your dick out-think your brain.
Hell, I don’t even own a penis, and those three were just off the top of my head.
Yeah, right. :rolleyes: Untrue, and irrelevant, since the “haters and the amoral” can still falsely accuse you whether or not you recognize them for what they are.
What does my behavior have to do with anything ?
Yeah ! And if women get raped, it’s their fault ! They should have just locked themselves permanently in their apartment with a lot of romance novels ! If they didn’t realize that a man was a rapist beforehand, then obviously they are just too stupid to function.
[/sarcasm]
Oh, garbage. The women aren’t punished, and their names aren’t even released. So they can go and do it again if they feel like it. It’s only “illegal” in the most technical of senses.
There’s a lot of sympathy for it. And the worst that happens is that the man’s life is ruined, and people like you blame him for it.
You’re a woman ? No doubt that’s one reason you are so very willing to see men’s lives ruined and blame them for it. You know that YOU aren’t at risk.
If it’s so easy for a man to get put away on a baseless accusation, why is it that most rapes go unreported and that most women who get raped don’t see their rapists jailed? In most cases, men do get away with rape, and yet women don’t stop hanging out with men. Rape obviously isn’t legal or publicly approved of, but it’s not so easy to obtain justice, and I seriously doubt I could go out and just get a guy jailed because I didn’t like him.
Here’s the real problem, Measure for Measure, several of the posters in here are taking a real problem and using it as an excuse for not exercising good judgment and making healthy decisions about their sexual relationships.
Vindictiveness, maliciousness, spitefulness . . . all of these traits don’t suddenly appear out of nowhere. For one thing, the people who possess these traits don’t have the patience or fortitude to keep them on a leash. If they had patience and fortitude, pretty much by definition, they wouldn’t be vindictive, malicious, or spiteful.
So, while our hypothetical man in a bad relationship about to get accused of rape may not have been the object of said traits beforehand, they were certainly present around him, he just refused to see them.
I’m not blaming the victim. If his vindictive, malicious, and spiteful lover files a false rape charge against him, she should face the full penalties of the law, and I will completely support him in seeking civil penalties for Defamation of Character. But to say that he had no say in being part of such a relationship is to relegate him to the status of human plankton - at the mercy of the winds and tides of the rest of humanity, especially the half with vaginas.
The only point I disagree with you here is the characterization of anyone who “looks down upon the promiscuous” as being a prude.
Morally, as I am not bound by any Judeo-Christian or other Abrahamic religious mores, I have no problem with promiscuity.
Ethically, so long as all the involved parties are consenting adults in private, I have no problem with promiscuity.
From a health- and character-conscious perspective, I have some problems with promiscuity.
But that’s a whole 'nother thread on another day.
phouka: As it happens, I meant my titular comment on page 2 of this thread literally. I didn’t think that your call to be a good judge of character was a bad point. I did not think the argument was a good one either - it was in between.
Why do I believe it to be dangerous?
Again, AIDS educators cringe when somebody suggests that since they are sleeping with a nice girl or boy, they need not practice safe sex. And I gave a cite to prove it.
Furthermore, I maintain that it’s actually easier to scope someone’s sexual history than their potential for vindictiveness. I deny that such character assessment can be done in 5 minutes. I deny that vindictiveness is rare – I’ve seen at least one nice girl (and generally speaking, a good person) practice it, to my surprise. In matters of the heart, such ugly emotions such as jealousy and the like can appear seemingly out of nowhere.
I know of little or no evidence that the majority of women making false accusations of rape are obviously pathological. This thread provides anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
And again. There is solid empirical evidence that people are not only terrible at judging character, but that a large share of the population vastly overestimates their ability to do so. I can pull more cites if you want – the AIDS link was only one example of that.
I speculate that indeed we are evolutionarily programmed to see our partners in a rosy light – but also fly into rage if we perceive betrayal.
My alternative to “Judge character” is “Practice good conduct”. Do what you can to protect yourself in the event that you drew somebody in the least favorable 5%. [1]
Now those 2 strategies are not mutually exclusive, and it’s best to use all your tools. But depending upon your ability to look somebody eye and judge their soul is foolhardy. Far better to understand the incentives faced by both parties and the permissiveness of the social environment for various behaviors.
phouka: I wanted to focus here on the crux of our disagreement. If you believe it important for me to address the other points, let me know.
To be clear:
Again, I disagree. In fiction, most evil is the product of obviously evil people. In reality, not only are the truly monstrous often charming, but most unhappiness is prompted by the behaviors of the morally ordinary.
[1] Good conduct involves more than that of course. But I’m focusing on the issues raised in the OP.
Assuming that’s even true - and I have my doubts - it would because it’s innately hard to prove something like that, and because apparently many women are reluctant to accuse actual rapists.
Not that it’s very relevant, since there’s no particular connection that I know of between actual rape victims and women who lie about being raped.
Garbage. It’s not easy to tell who is trustworthy. And a woman is perfectly capable of falsely accusing a man who DOESN’T have a relationship with her.
Oh, please. Bad people are perfectly capable of patience and fortitude.
And what if he’s not IN a relationship with the woman in question ? What if his refusal to be with her is the motive for lying, even ? What if he doesn’t even know her ? What if she’s just a good liar ?
Oh, you most certainly are.
I can just imagine the reaction if I posted a long screed about how women wouldn’t be raped if they were careful, that it’s easy to tell who’s a rapist and she was an idiot for not realizing she was in danger. And how women who complained about men being let off on rape charges were “taking a real problem and using it as an excuse for not exercising good judgment and making healthy decisions about their sexual relationships.”
But that’s not blaming the victim ! Nope, not at all !
Clearing up some loose ends:
With regards to legal sanctions taken against BDSM in the US and Great Britain:
My jokiness aside, I was just saying that we might pause before ascribing everything to puritanism, since there’s more than 1 democracy that seeks to curb such activity. IMHO, if an activity is a) weird, b) injurious, and c) threatening but mostly d) weird, then then state will show malign interest unless e) lobbyists, PR shills and fundraisers are recruited. [1]
Blaming the victim
Well I for one don’t have a problem with encouraging men to modify their defense provided that the critic offers advice that is effective, realistic, grounded in empirical evidence, reflects solid risk assessment and takes the preferences (though not necessarily morals) of the male as given. It’s always good to improve one’s game.
But it’s less helpful when potential calamity is used an excuse to push a partly or largely irrelevant set of behavioral norms.
As it is, Sanity Challenged points out that some professionals offer advice to males which is laughably unrealistic or ridiculous. I recall reading a NYT article by a female who ended up dumping her sorry boyfriend after overdosing on this sort of stuff, though she framed it as “Drifting apart” and the like.
I’d like to end on a positive note. I’m actually fairly sanguine about male-female relations. Though some writers will enable batshit and aggrieved behavior, that sort of thing really peaked in the 1980s. Since then public batshitism has steadily declined as the female labor force participation rate has pressed forward. Today, female college aged students expect to have careers, responsibilities and challenges, so they train themselves accordingly. All of this has been considered wholly unexceptional for years. There will always be nuttiness of course (and heck, the male predilection for violence is far more prevalent and therefore harmful than most of the other malignant behaviors addressed in this thread) but the kneejerk defense lobby is smaller than it used to be.
[1] [hijack]So support the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund! [/hijack]
It is nice to see people finally admitting what we all secretly knew:
Rapists and women who could potentially make false accusations are exceedingly easy to recognize on sight, and any woman or man who willingly associates with their respective poison deserves what they get. Granted, willing association is not a necessary prerequisite, but if you see a rapist or a false accuser, wouldn’t you avoid being anywhere near them or even letting them know who you are?
It doesn’t do anyone any good to pretend that rape victims and the falsely accused are not mostly responsible for their own situations.