Originally posted by chegitz guevara
There's no problem with "no means no," except for people who don't want to be constrained in their quest for sex and power. It's not a hard or inconvenient rule of thumb. Why do men so vigorously resist simple decency, cuz it's not women who protest the rule? I always told people that if they said no, I'd take them at their word, and go no further. Maybe I didn't get as much sex as I could have, but at least I'm not a rapist.
There's no problem with "no means no," except for people who don't want to be constrained in their quest for sex and power. It's not a hard or inconvenient rule of thumb. Why do men so vigorously resist simple decency, cuz it's not women who protest the rule? I always told people that if they said no, I'd take them at their word, and go no further. Maybe I didn't get as much sex as I could have, but at least I'm not a rapist.
There is a problem though. Read the paper I linked to. I don't necessarily agree with everything they say in it, but they are pretty clear on the rape stuff.
I am claiming two things in agreement with the authors of the article:
(1) Consent on its own as a basis for rape convictions creates problems (it tends to require that the defendant prove consent rather than the state disproving it).
(2) Simply taking saying "no" on it's own and ignoring the context of the utterance, since people often say "no" when they don't mean it, is not a sufficient proof of wrongdoing (there is a prima facie case for reasonable doubt). I urge you to look at the Berkowitz case on p.2 of the linked article. Can you say if this guy is innocent or guilty? I can't - that's why I think he should have been acquitted even if he did do it, because there was reasonable doubt.
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