Strange thing about the DSK case is that he is in his 60s (30 years older than her) and smaller than her. AFAIK, no weapon has been alleged.
It’s a very valid question, in this particular case, and I believe his legal team has already raised it.
[FWIW, I don’t think biting is the real issue so much as simply keeping the mouth shut or otherwise not conforming to the desired shape.]
Please don’t make me resort to Google here at work for this:
Where is it I got the phrase in my head “if she ain’t bitin’, she ain’t fightin’” from?
I’m reminded here if the scene discussing weapons and lockjaw from “Shawshank Redemption”.
Also keep in mind the victim came from a country where women who fought back learned not to, the hard way.
This might be a stupid way of thinking given that we’re talking about a rape situation, and the woman is not going to have qualms about hurting her attacker, other than due to a fear of what he’ll do to her if she does. But wouldn’t it be quite difficult, psychologically, for your average woman to bite through a guy’s erect penis? It’s pretty brutal. I don’t imagine it would take much force to bite clean through it, or at least to open some serious wounds. You’d instantly have your mouth overflowing with hot blood, you’d have to spit out a bunch of gristly muscle, severed veins and nerve endings. For a regular woman who isn’t used to being around violence, let alone inflicting it, wouldn’t it take a fair amount of bottle to actually bring herself to do it? Or would the hatred and adrenaline make it instinctual, if they weren’t afraid of the retaliation?
Biting the testicles would probably hurt a lot more. This British woman bit them completely off.
The pain and shock from blood loss makes it very unlikely any man could fight back. The guy would be in a fetal position crying. Serves him right if he was trying to rape someone.
I think that the majority of women DO have qualms about hurting someone else, though. Even someone who is attempting to rape her. When I was growing up, I was considered quite the tomboy and extremely unfeminine because I’d play tackle football with the neighborhood boys, and wrestle and fight with them, too. It was considered quite appropriate for boys to engage in this behavior…but girls? NEVER! I believe that today, most kids, male and female, are not allowed to hit or hurt each other. But I learned how to take a blow, and how to fight back. Before I was 16, I had experienced two rape attempts. And the reason that they were attempts, and not completed rapes, was because I’d had a rough girlhood, and I’d learned to hit someone. Both would-be rapists were apparently astonished that I fought back, and I think that my aggression, as much as any pain that I caused, was the reason that I could get away from them. Most girls of my age, in those situations, would have screamed and pleaded, and then submitted to the rape. They wouldn’t have fought back.
Sometimes being a psycho warbitch from hell has its advantages.
I have not been following the details of this case, but all he’d have to do is make it so she can’t breathe through her nose. She wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut.
How does a mugger force you to give your wallet? Couldn’t you just keep your wallet in your pocket?
you are my hero
I reject the premise. Check out new york state sexual assault law:
http://www.svfreenyc.org/survivors_legal.html#A2
Making someone suck a penis without his or her consent is a criminal sexual act. It’s the same in every other state I know of. I don’t know any state where you can put a gun to a woman’s head and make her perform fellatio and have it not be a sex crime (as well as regular assault). Maybe it’s called rape, maybe it’s called sexual assault, maybe it’s called a criminal sexual act, but either way it’s a serious felony carrying a lot of prison time. If someone can cite an american sexaul assault statute that seems to permit forced fellatio, I’d love to read it (I don’t care about the law in Iran or Saudi Arabia).
I think maybe you are unique in having to open your mouth wide in order to breathe through it. I find that I can breathe reasonably well through my mouth simply by spreading my lips out while my teeth remain completely occluded. You’d have to threaten me with harm to force me to open my jaw.
Note the word “threaten”. That’s usually how its done.
Grabbing some stranger and forcing them to their knees in front of your naked body usually implies you’ve crossed a line and would not hesitate to use more force if the situation did not develop to your satisfaction… at least, that’s how the victim might see it.
I think you misunderstood the original post - he was asking how a man could possibly force a woman to perform fellatio since she’d just have to bite his penis, not disbelieving whether that could be illegal.
That’s an interesting legal question in its own right.
Can anyone claim to have been forced to do something based solely on their own assumption that the other guy “would not hesitate to use more force if the situation did not develop to [their] satisfaction”? Does it depend on what a jury would assume a “reasonable person” would assume? Or do you need some actual threat?
This is exactly what I was thinking. I don’t think most people (including men and women) are prepared to do something as brutal as remove a chunk of another person with their teeth. I would think that it would take quite a bit of effort to will yourself to injure someone to that extent, because there are so many justifications for not doing it. “He might hurt/kill me.” “It’ll be over soon.” “If I do what he asks, it won’t get worse.” “They might think that I assaulted him.”
I think the actual answer is going to vary on the wording of the local law in play. But generally, I think a jury is going to end up looking at what would a reasonable person assume. Actual threats will get you everytime, but how about this end of the spectrum: a person makes a legitimate delivery to a home, only to have the homeowner appear naked, door remains open, is it reasonable to presume there is a threat? No. But what if the door is closed behind our delivery person? Locked? The home is rural rather than urban? Somewhere we cross the line into reasonably believing we are in danger and needing to comply in order to survive. Does the other guy even have to demand the act or is the implication enough?
Disturbingly, if someone had the time, I am pretty sure it would be possible to find enough court cases to actually construct a pretty decent spectrum of potential fact situations. Really, this is the beauty of the jury system. A group of regular people are tasked with figuring these things out. Sometimes they are wrong, but I think that they get it right most of the time.
Possible. The important thing to remember, though, is the distinction between whether the perception is being used as a defense by a defendant or as a claim by a victim.
IOW, the “reasonable person” standard undoubtedly exists as a defense, e.g. “I shot him because I feared he was going to kill me”. The question here is whether it can be used to turn someone’s actions into a crime of coercion - “he forced me to do X because I decided he might harm me”. The situations are fundamentally different.
if he’s already grabbed the woman and physically forced her to her knees despite any indication of desire or cooperation (the crime of assault) would that not convince most reasonable people that further physical assault is a real risk?
Once in a while you may see a full-out nasty catfight between women (look up “curbing”), but most people, and especially most women are not prone to committing uncontrolled vicious injury. This is what makes them easier targets for someone without such compunctions.
DSK (allegedly) tried the same thing in France according to one journalist, but she fought her way out of it - without, apparently, inflicting any significant damage on him. And… he got away with it until now, because the victim did not think she could successfully prosecute him and risked complete loss of career and reputation; so that’s the social attitude in France to this sort of sexual and class politics. What do you think the attitude would be in Africa, where the victim was from?
Rapists will try any and every excuse. I recall there was one case where the woman was being assaulted and raped and when it reached inevitability she told him “at least wear a condom” - then he later argued that was her consent. IIRC the jury didn’t buy it.
Or how about simply, most people just don’t have that kind of violence in them? It’s got to be a huge win for an attacker when he finds someone constitutionally unable to become violent.
:rolleyes:
I don’t have to open my mouth wide to breathe. That’s not what I said. I was responding to someone saying why doesn’t the woman simply keep her mouth shut. If someone pinches your nostrils together and you hold your breath as long as you can trying to keep your mouth closed, eventually you’re going to have to open your mouth some amount, you’ll be gasping for air. All the man has to do then is pry your mouth open. Of *course *there will be a threat of harm.