Yes, consent can be withdrawn!
By David Fisher. Filed in life |Tags: 5-10, baltimore, cnn, digg, maryland, media, rape, reporting, seconds, sex crimes, Uncategorized
I suppose I have to thank my friend Viv for turning me onto reading up on feminism. I saw on Digg, and then on CNN (originally reported by the Baltimore Sun) that there was recently a Maryland case in which (in short) a woman said for a guy to stop while they were in the middle of sex. He kept going for 5-10 seconds and didn’t listen. She filed rape charges and the courts agree, it’s rape. I agree with the courts. What I’m simply shocked by however are the reactions to it. Only 8 states now allow for a woman to withdraw consent in the middle of sex
Attorney Julia Morrow in an CNN interview said several shocking things:
- In Maryland this is going to open up the flood gates [to frivlious rape cases]
- Individuals need to take responsibilities for their own actions
- ..putting yourself in that predicament.
- This won’t keep hoards of women… from running to the police and making out rape complaints.
- If she agrees to the ultimate act… and engages in the act [and changes her mind], should that guy have a felony conviction?
I think this is common sense and I wonder how this is not applicable in all 50 states? The issue that kept being brought up is some “stopwatch factor” nonsense, along with the allegation that all women would vengefully charge men with rape for the fun of it and that the courts will be clogged with rape cases now.
If the courts only were full of rape cases now! Only 16% of rape cases are reported to the police. The process of reporting a rape and charging someone with it isn’t something that people take lightly.
The complaint about 5-10 seconds is utter nonsense. First of all, sit back and time out 10 seconds. Now think of it being a really bad 10 seconds for you. Imagine yourself being violated for 10 seconds. Imagine a root canal or something painful. 10 seconds is kinda a long time depending on the circumstances.
I’m just wondering how dim a guy has to be to not notice that his partner is clearly saying no and pulling away for that time period. Also I’m imagining that his reaction to it will have a lot to do with hers afterward. If she says No sometime in the middle, and he stops, comforts her and talks to her then I’m guessing that everything is ok. If he keeps slamming on for 10 seconds, gets rougher, won’t let her go, and afterwards doesn’t understand why why is upset- then that is pretty clearly rape.
“[So] are you going to let me hit it?” he said, according to police. “I don’t want to rape you.” (This doesn’t sound like pillowtalk or foreplay to me- dave)
…she agreed to sex “as long as he stops when I tell him to.” As he began, she told him to stop because he was hurting her, but he kept going for five or 10 seconds, she said. (she had already tried to warn him that she might need him to stop, he should have been paying attention!)
Just because someone consents initially does not mean that you can do anything and get away with it. You might be hurting them, or they simply might have some other reason that they no longer want to. I was with someone once and a certain position brought up some really bad memories from a prior experience that they had in an abusive relationship. Within about half a second I could tell that something was very wrong and we stopped and talked about it. My first attempt at sex experience didn’t go so well. She was “consenting” but the attempt was very painful for her. Had I been a complete jackass and just forced it and made it happen, and she said no then… clearly that would have been rape.
The only thing that strikes me about this case that I do not like is the hypocracy involved in the details of the situation. It was an 18 (they keep referring to her as woman in a very stately manner on the news, attempting to imply that she “should have known better”) girl and two guys aged 15 and 16. Had the genders been swapped, then the older guy would likely be charged with stautory rape. As is, of course guys at 15 are able to consent to sex, whereas girls aren’t.
So again, in short, anyone (guy or girl) can revoke consent to any sexual act at any time. A sexual act without consent is rape. Perhaps there are different degrees/severities of rape and of course common sense must come into play, but violation is violation.