Consent Club

[_sabotage_]

Unfair depends on perspective. Macau was operating under Portuguese law but Chinese rule. Two of the three judges were mainland Chinese and the third was Portuguese.

While I may still have been convicted under Portuguese rule (actually I could have bribed my way out), the 8-12 year sentencing guidelines would have been blatantly ignored. In fact I remember around the time a guy was arrested in Portugal for his second trafficking offence bringing tons of weed into Portugal and got like 4 years. He also had the ability to get automatic parole, home leave, etc.

So I was imprisoned by the standards as observed by the Chinese.

[mrswdk]

I asked this several times previously, but of course no one can answer...what if he wasn't speaking clearly? but was grabbing her ass and pushing her head under the blankets while in his mind refusing consent a la Gump?

Hey look, a whole platoon of strawmen.

They are conditioning those at the start for their sex life to be afraid of sex, to expect to be called guilty just because a drink was drunk betwixt yes and sex.

Who? All those judges who disproportionately decline to prosecute alleged rapists? All those policemen and prosecutors who refuse to even take rape cases to court in the first place because they've decided there's insufficient evidence?

Or are you referring to fictional prosecutors in scenarios that you've just made up in this thread?

It's odd that I'm worried about the country with the most prisoners make laws easier to imprison people? I see.

It's odd that you're so concerned about being victim of a miscarriage of justice in the US based on nothing more than scenarios you are making up off the top of your head, and despite the fact that your sole experience of personally falling victim to a miscarriage of justice was in a country other than the US.

[_sabotage_]

Judges don't prosecute or convict, they guide juries, lawyers and sentence people that are convicted by a jury.

Prosecutors bring charges based on the laws. Would they suddenly feel that within the new scope of the laws that a jury would find the college student who was expelled guilty? If they condition university students to the new rule and choose a few cases where a conviction would be easy along those lines, then people would get used to punishing people along those lines.

Speaking of China, I wonder how much the one child policy affected peoples thoughts on sex. Up until a few years ago, most girls I talked to would assume having a boyfriend would lead to marriage. They often considered themselves a "traditional" girl. I pointed out that traditional girls were concubines with crushed feet married at 13. Where'd they get their idea of traditional from?

I wonder how their school's curriculum might have played a role, the stigma of being punished for having multiple children, how society may have helped set up the paradigm.

They didn't initially arrest many people for weed in the US, but year by year as people got used to it, as schools started teaching children to "just say no", as a certain percent of society rebelled against it, the arrest numbers went up. The DOJ is again targeting medical marijuana in California.

As the arrests increase, the bureaucrats increase and cling to their job like Dave Chappelle clung to Oprah. They are going to need to justify their jobs somehow, they are going to try to increase their influence somehow.

Do you think the American public lacks understanding of the concept of rape? Do you think 75% of those cases were legitimate but those cunning rapists pulled a fast one? How many were spurious? How many of the spurious cases will become legitimate by altering the meaning of consent?

Btw, those were his strawmen. Perhaps you can find this anonymous guy and tell him that.

[thegreekdog]

Judges don't prosecute or convict

This is correct... but they also throw out cases that do not mean some minimum standard.

I think you're grasping at straws at this point.

[AndyDufresne]

Here is Captain Kirk (animated) talking to Spock (animated). They are both saying the word 'sabotage.' Kirk always pronounces the word as 'sabatage', any time it comes up in any episode.




--Andy

[mandalorian2298]

It seems that I am late for my own party. I would like to thank my co-guest star sabotage for carrying the hosting duties in my absence.

Ok, here goes monster requoting made necessary by mrswdk's peculiar view on what facts are relevant.

Welcome to the first installment of 'But Was It Really Rape?', with your hosts sab and mandalorian.

Contestants are invited to judge which of the following cases constitute a rape and which do not. sab and mandalorian will then assign between 0 and 10 points to each contestant based on criteria such as accuracy of verdict, use of evidence and level of victim-blaming, after which two finalists will be chosen from the pool and face a specially prepared challenge.

So, for all those who wish to participate, get ready to play... But Was It Reeally Rape?

Case 1:

http://www.dreamindemon.com/2013/04/04/ ... y-johnson/

A lush is out wandering the streets in a drunken stupor when a passer by stops and offers her a lift. She accepts the lift and gets in his car, before the pair drive to a different location and engage in rough sex. Afterwards they remain together and the man drives the woman to a 7-11 at her request so that she can get more to drink. The stranger drives off and leaves her there, after which the woman accuses the man of rape and gets him arrested.

Note that earlier in the evening she had been with her boyfriend, who allowed her to walk off by herself and therefore clearly felt that she was sober enough to be left unaccompanied.

Case 2:

http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/stories/ ... ution.html

Dozens of schoolgirls in China's Yunnan province engaged in sexual acts with various prominent men. An older woman - Ms. Xu - would offer money to girls, who would accept it and then find more girls to accompany them to karaoke clubs chosen by Ms Xu. In these karaoke clubs they would then be invited to drink with senior officials and other prominent figures, and many would freely choose to do so.

After drinking they then engaged in sexual acts with their male drinking partners. Afterwards they would accept money from these men before returning home. These girls did so on multiple occasions, meeting Ms. Xu and the men for food and drinks at various locations. None of them reported any offense to the police.

Note: under Chinese law these schoolgirls are above the age of sexual consent.

Case 3:

The case of Ariel Castro

Three women lived with Ariel Castro in his Cleveland home for nearly two decades. They now allege that during this time they were repeatedly sexually assaulted ('rape' is such a loaded term) by him.

During this time, they were spotted in his garden and at shopping malls with him, never attempting to leave him or even behaving in such a way as to suggest that anything was wrong. One miscarried a child of his but another gave birth to a daughter, which she chose to keep, suggesting at least some consent. Castro was never seen with visible injuries, so the three woman obviously did not resist his advances very hard. He looks kind of handsome in the right light and has a nice little beard, so it's easy to imagine how the three women would have been attracted to him.

Case 1 shows how different people judge the rapiness of an event by different standard. Two drunk people having rough sex, one abandons another in 7-11 - I wouldn't call that rape. However, if you add " is a registered sex offender with multiple priors and an extensive violent criminal history, including gun possession, aggravated battery on a pregnant woman and two previous sex crimes, one of which involved the molestation of a child under the age of 16." and "the victim said she was struck on the head and raped."

Now I know that I can be predujiced, but I would be more inclined to believe that the rape happened based on the woman who claiming to be hit on the head and raped by a guy who has thus far commited such numerous and myriad crimes that he seems to be warranting a description "professional violent sex criminal"; then I would if women just said "We were drunk. We had rough sex and then he didn't pick me up from 7-11." - well it sounds a lot more rapey now.

2. Again, it is interesting which facts you deemed relevant and which you do not. Your version of events presents Ms. Xu as a cross between a pimp and Santa, who roams China in search of, according to your version, women above the age of consent, who are interested in prostituting themselves for gifts. She then puts them in contact with johns and they do the deed. That is not rap, that is prostitution, the world oldest trade which is actually legal in many modern societies.

Hower, if you add the things like "According to an insider, intermediary Xu X is a local powerful woman who forced schoolgirls into booked rooms to drink with customers, while drugging their drinks" then the whole thing starts looking a lot more as organized rape and lot less like a consensual business partnership. But hey, if you didn't think that the whole "hitting her over the head" stuff in the first story was relevant then I can see how easy it was to skim over those details about drugging and intimidation.

3. It does seem like a that Castro fellow has quite a thing for making girls want him. Unless he suplemented his charm with abduction, long-term imprisonment and stuff like that...but I'm sure that you would mentioned that.

Now, since site rules prevent me from fully expressing my opinion on mrswdk, I invite you all to participate in THE NAMING GAME! Your task is a simple one:

Find a word that best describes mental acuity of the individual who attempts to equate

A) a f-ing decade of imprisonment, torture, losing hearing in one ear, intentional induction of miscarriages, houndreds of account of rape (for which Castro plead guilty) etc.

with....wait for it....


B) a drunken guy slurring something along the lines of "Idnnwanto" and then deciding, by his own admission, that it would be more civilised to just quietly wait for a woman to finish having fun with his penis as opposed to physically preventing her from doing so.

[mandalorian2298]

Rape is forced sex.

No, actually, it's not. It's sex without consent. That's why statutory rape exists (the idea being someone under the age of 18 cannot give consent).

Now, I expect you don't agree with that definition and would posit it's another example of the state getting you down; but under legal definitions, that's the definition.

In the other thread he explicitly said that he doesn't care what the legal definition is and has his own opinion on what defines rape.

I'm pretty sure that you might be referencing my posts about cultural relativism. Allow me to give you an example that you might better understand why a mere fact that the law says something does not make it a moral truth, since laws are different in different countries:

Under Islamic law, rape can only be proven if the rapist confesses or if there are four male witnesses.

By this law, none of the examples about would be considered to be rape. You are free to believe so or you can believe that rape is something that is dependent on location where it transpires. I, however, believe that all laws are a written by fallible human beings and that they are to be critically examined not just accepted as irrefutable moral truths.

[_sabotage_]

I never noticed that Mrs changed the second one.

It had been a woman who was handcuffed and put in the back of a police car with an us handcuffed known rapist who the police had to drag off her and later confessed to the rape.

That was how the article had it. Mrs story was something like...well like the others she did.

[mrswdk]

There's so much irrelevant stuff in your last post that I'm just going to skip it and get straight to the point: are you basing all your complaints about an increasing number of dubious convictions and a draconian definition of rape on something solid, or do all roads lead back to your one anecdote of a college kid who was kicked out by his school administration? Because from where I'm standing, the statistics show that it's still pretty difficult to get a rape conviction in the US.

[Symmetry]

From the UK point, as I recall, part of the confusion about this arose from the difference between getting a rape accused to a rape being convicted at trial. The trial rate was pretty high in terms of conviction.

The middle step- getting a rape accusation to actual trial was by far the biggest problem.

[mrswdk]

Case 1 shows how different people judge the rapiness of an event by different standard. Two drunk people having rough sex, one abandons another in 7-11 - I wouldn't call that rape. However, if you add " is a registered sex offender with multiple priors and an extensive violent criminal history, including gun possession, aggravated battery on a pregnant woman and two previous sex crimes, one of which involved the molestation of a child under the age of 16." and "the victim said she was struck on the head and raped."

So you are happy to convict based on unsubstantiated claims of violence from the victim?

Why, then, did you brush off the male rape victim's claims that he repeatedly refused consent? What criteria are you using to determine whose word it is worth taking and who should be ignored?

2. Again, it is interesting which facts you deemed relevant and which you do not. Your version of events presents Ms. Xu as a cross between a pimp and Santa, who roams China in search of, according to your version, women above the age of consent, who are interested in prostituting themselves for gifts. She then puts them in contact with johns and they do the deed. That is not rap, that is prostitution, the world oldest trade which is actually legal in many modern societies.

Hower, if you add the things like "According to an insider, intermediary Xu X is a local powerful woman who forced schoolgirls into booked rooms to drink with customers, while drugging their drinks" then the whole thing starts looking a lot more as organized rape and lot less like a consensual business partnership. But hey, if you didn't think that the whole "hitting her over the head" stuff in the first story was relevant then I can see how easy it was to skim over those details about drugging and intimidation.

If you read again, you'll see that at no point was coercion or threat use. In their own minds the girls decided that Ms Xu was powerful and should be obeyed, and so they obeyed her. At least one girl called her mom saying she wanted to leave, and was able to leave. Sounds like a bunch of girls chose to drink with some older men of their own free volition.

Given the lack of any evidence whatsoever that drugging took place, I declined to admit it as evidence. I'm not having cheap and unsubstantiated accusations thrown around and used to slander innocent individuals - this game show has standards.

[mrswdk]

From the UK point, as I recall, part of the confusion about this arose from the difference between getting a rape accused to a rape being convicted at trial. The trial rate was pretty high in terms of conviction.

The middle step- getting a rape accusation to actual trial was by far the biggest problem.

Yes and no. In the UK, the majority of reported rapes don't go to trial, and roughly a third of those that go to trial result in convictions.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/mar/ ... onvictions

[Symmetry]

From the UK point, as I recall, part of the confusion about this arose from the difference between getting a rape accused to a rape being convicted at trial. The trial rate was pretty high in terms of conviction.

The middle step- getting a rape accusation to actual trial was by far the biggest problem.

Yes and no. In the UK, the majority of reported rapes don't go to trial, and roughly a third of those that go to trial result in convictions.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/mar/ ... onvictions

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/apr/23/rape-conviction-rate-high

For a more up to date take.

Figures released by the Crown Prosecution Service show that the conviction rate for rape prosecutions has increased to the highest on record, from 58% in 2007/8 to 63% in 2012/13. The CPS figures on rape are expressed as a percentage of cases where charges were brought and "flagged" as involving rape. In raw figures, there were 3,692 prosecutions for rape last year, resulting in 2,333 convictions.

The conviction rate for domestic violence has also increased by 1% in the past year to 74%. In 2005/6 it stood at 60%. There were 70,702 cases last year, resulting in 52,549 convictions and 18,153 acquittals.

[muy_thaiguy]

Rape is forced sex.

No, actually, it's not. It's sex without consent. That's why statutory rape exists (the idea being someone under the age of 18 cannot give consent).

Now, I expect you don't agree with that definition and would posit it's another example of the state getting you down; but under legal definitions, that's the definition.

In the other thread he explicitly said that he doesn't care what the legal definition is and has his own opinion on what defines rape.

I'm pretty sure that you might be referencing my posts about cultural relativism.

No, I was referencing sabotage's post. The one where he explicitly stated his definition of rape is different from the legal one. Like I said above.

Since the rest of your post was basically supposed off of you misunderstanding, it is inconsequential and thus, unneeded.

[_sabotage_]

No, Mrs, I'm not basing it on one case. I'm basing it on the Obama admin conducting an investigation on he case. What was the result of their investigation? If they hadn't expelled the student would the result have been different? Is the Obama admin enforcing a new definition of rape?

It's also based on California's new rule in regards to rape. Consent must be affirmative, conscious and voluntary and can be revoked at any time.

Do you have a condom? Yes. Ok I'm coming over. I'm going to have sex now, she then texted a friend.

Is that affirmative? Conscious? Voluntary? No according to the ruling, because she was drunk. She was sober enough to ask if he had a condom. She was conscious she was going to his place to have sex. She voluntarily went. But she couldn't give consent because she was drunk. How drunk was she? Well we will have to take her word on it. She didn't report it that night and so no check could be done. How drunk was he? Again, we can't say. But what we can say, according to the fact that he was apparently drunk was that if he had called rape first, she would have been the rapist, not him.

If the only measure of rape is, I was drunk, then if you suspect the other person is getting upset because it was a one night stand, or their friends are teasing them, you might just want to call rape in order to protect yourself from having the other party call rape.

They slow boil people with laws. If this definition of rape: I was drunk completely revokes prior consent or overrides all other considerations, then rape becomes extremely easy to allege and convict on. It precludes any possibility of defense. It wouldn't matter in many cases how drunk the person was, because it couldn't be proven. It doesn't take into account that the other person could have been just as drunk.

Nothing is taken into account, not by the college, but by the Obama admin, by the state of California. It's not just some stupid decision made by a college, it is a stupid decision that colleges are being forced to make by the government.

As for your male rape victim, you should write to the paper and suggest this man report his case to the police. To protect all the Gumps out there from all the Jennys. Justice is important for social stability, why is he trying to harm society by his failure to report?

[mrswdk]

mrswdk asked: are you basing all your complaints about an increasing number of dubious convictions and a draconian definition of rape on something solid, or do all roads lead back to your one anecdote of a college kid who was kicked out by his school administration?
sabotage answered: I'm not basing it on one case. I'm basing it on the Obama admin conducting an investigation on he case.

mrswdk asked: are you basing all your complaints on one case?
sabotage answered: yes.

What was the result of their investigation?

I don't know. Care to enlighten me?

If they hadn't expelled the student would the result have been different?

Related to a fictitious situation so there's no point taking this one any further.

Is the Obama admin enforcing a new definition of rape?

I wasn't aware they even could. Isn't it up to the individual states to decide what their legal definition of rape is?

[_sabotage_]

Is a person capable of giving consent after consuming intoxicant?

Yes or no.

Does consuming intoxicants revoke prior consent?

Yes or no.

[thegreekdog]

Is a person capable of giving consent after consuming intoxicant?

Yes or no.

Does consuming intoxicants revoke prior consent?

Yes or no.

We are in agreement that "it depends" is the appropriate answer to a lot of these questions. Where we part ways is that you believe prosecutors hold some mountainous sway of juries such that "it depends" is thrown out the window and juries MUST convict under all circumstances. I say "you believe" because you have literally no evidence (not virtually no evidence, not some evidence, literally no evidence) to back up your point of view.

Until you can convince (by using evidence) this is a pointless discussion for you to engage.

[mrswdk]

Yes*.
No*.

*depending on how much they have consumed

I notice you didn't bother answering any of my questions.

I was going to write more but tgd has summed up it pretty accurately.

[_sabotage_]

No, as I have repeatedly said (I know I did, I wasn't drunk...wait I was high), prosecutors prosecute according to the law, not according to personal feelings.

If the law is not: it depends, but merely: I had a drink, then it is much easier for a prosecutor to prosecute.

[mrswdk]

And is the law 'I had a drink' or 'it depends'?

[_sabotage_]

Seems like you've been stating that the law is "I had a drink" and I've been stating "it depends".

[thegreekdog]

No, as I have repeatedly said (I know I did, I wasn't drunk...wait I was high), prosecutors prosecute according to the law, not according to personal feelings.

If the law is not: it depends, but merely: I had a drink, then it is much easier for a prosecutor to prosecute.

No, prosecutors prosecute based upon the law, available evidence, and the perceived ability to convict. A jury trial is generally for questions of fact and this is where juries have the ability to determine a particular verdit. A procesutor is not going to bring a rape case to court if he/she does not think he/she will win and, therefore, will weigh the facts.

[_sabotage_]

I really don't know what you think this is about.

For me it is about changing the meaning of consent as I see happening in recent cases. These cases have not been trial, but are being debated in public opinion and enacted in universities.

It is my contention that it depends. That is how the law has been enacted. Consent has had a broad definition by law up til now. In general, people have wanted to see that the victim was a victim: the victim's consent was taken through violence, being drugged, threat, being unconscious, or unable to consent because of a handicap. But these things are very broad. As such, a jury would also like to see intent to cause harm by the accused. They want to know he is guilty.

This isn't always possible to determine. The evidence, the history, their history, the situation, how long between it happening and being reported all come into play.

But I see this being done away with. It was done away with in the college case as overseen by the Obama admin, it has been done away with in California universities who want to receive public funding and certain media outlets seem to want to do away with it.

If it is done away with, the tools available to the defense are greatly reduced. If a prosecutor just needs to show intoxication, or show any handicap, then that's what they will do. They will remind the jury of the law governing consent, the judge will remind them of the law and a defense tourney who tries too revert to the old law for their defense strategy will be held in contempt.

Sex to rape happens on a sliding scale. I don't think we need to take that scale away. But I see it happening. And I think it will cause more harm than good.