Is 'consent' relevant to sexual activity?

Is 'consent' relevant to sexual activity?

Feminists are fond of saying that only around 3% of men who are brought to trial and charged with rape are convicted. In their eyes that's proof of some kind of sinister conspiracy against women and proof that the law is on the side of rapists and against 'rape victims.'

It never seems to occur to them that the men who are accused of rape are generally acquitted for one of the following reasons:

1  The man didn't have sex with the girl (in other words, he's innocent)
2  The sex between them was consensual (in other words, he's innocent)
3  The girl's account wasn't credible for various reasons (in other words, she's lying or confused or mistaken)

Now the first reason for acquittal is obvious and the ONLY reason why that happens is either a mistaken identity by the girl or, more commonly, deliberate lying on her part.

That doesn't stop feminists objecting even to the acquittal of completely innocent men. A lunatic college professor even said that it did male students who were falsely accused of rape good because it made them wonder if they MIGHT have wanted to rape a woman.

Talk about twisted logic!

Now let's look at the issue of consent.

Under British law one aspect of the parts dealing with sexual offences is that sexual activity is lawful in itself except where there is an 'absence of consent.' This is interpreted in widely different ways by different lawyers and judges and their take on it ranges from demanding active consent at all stages of sexual activity, regarding the question of whether or not the person accused of rape or sexual assault knew that the other party had not consented, examining the question of tacit or implied consent and the capacity of a person to consent to sexual activity.

The law defines the 'absence of consent' in two ways - the first is when explicit consent to sex hasn't been given and the second is when the person consenting is presumed in law not to have the capacity to consent (the most obvious examples are children or women who are drunk or drugged or asleep).

Further refinements of the law come in the thorny areas of belief and knowledge. For instance the law states that rape 'must have the intention to effect the prohibited sexual penetration with the knowledge that it occurs without the consent of the victim.'

So straight away there are obvious problems. Let's list the most immediate ones.

1 The man must KNOW that he's fucking the woman without her consent.
2 The man must NOT believe that she HAS consented but carries on fucking her anyway in full KNOWLEDGE of that fact.
3 The woman MUST have made it obvious to the man that she hadn't consented.
4 The man must have fucked the woman with intent while knowing she hadn't consented.

So if the man - as the law has said on a number of occasions - honestly believes that the woman IS consenting then he CAN'T be found guilty of rape.

And if the man's not SURE - in other words if he thinks she MIGHT be consenting - again he can't be guilty of rape.

And without the conscious INTENTION of fucking her against her will he CAN'T be guilty of rape.

So basically it's the responsibility of the WOMAN at least if she's conscious to make it crystal clear to the man that she DOESN'T want to be fucked because in the absence of that clear demonstration the man CAN'T be guilty of rape.

It follows that if she DOESN'T do that then the man is obviously NOT guilty of rape.

So the entire responsibility for it rests on the WOMAN and NOT on the man for making it totally obvious that she doesn't want him to fuck her.

Unless she sets that down in stone it CAN'T be rape.

So if she DOESN'T make it totally explicit that she's NOT consenting to sex then it can't be rape.

In other words, unless she specifically REFUSES - and makes her refusal clear beyond any kind of reasonable doubt - she is giving at least her TACIT consent to being fucked.

And tacit consent in the eyes of the law is as valid as explicit consent.

It's NOT her consent that needs to be explicit; it's her NON-CONSENT.

Anything short of that IS consent.

So that places the responsibility for establishing consent on the WOMAN and NOT on the man.

That makes the interpretation that a woman who's drunk or drugged and gets fucked has somehow been raped a bit dubious.

The logical conclusion would be that if the woman HASN'T made it obvious that she's not consenting then he CAN'T be guilty of rape. So if she's drunk or drugged and gets fucked has she REALLY been raped?

Or is the fact that she's alone with a man and has CHOSEN to get drunk or drugged ACTUALLY a sign of her CONSENT?

Is her drunken or drugged state actually a ruse on her part to avoid the reputation of being a slut and though the law - rather illogically since it grants tacit consent in other areas of crime and social behaviour - calls it rape is it in fact 'really really rape?'

I can't see how it can be.

But I'll come back to that side of the 'rape laws' later.

In the meantime I'll look at the 'absence of consent' that justifies the feminists in calling rape a crime.

Is even that true?

In the first place I'll post an argument that 'consent in rape cases should be irrelevant.' This is put forward by the feminist writer Catherine MacKinnon. She claims that women 'are so unfree that even if a woman is shown to have given consent to sex, that should never be enough to secure an acquittal.'

In other words, in MacKinnon's eyes even consensual sex IS rape and a woman should be free to accuse a man of rape even though she fucked the man with total consent on both sides. His innocence is 'irrelevant' in her eyes.

So if a strident and extreme misandrist feminist like her thinks that - in her own words - 'consent in rape cases should be irrelevant' - and that 'even if a woman is shown to have given consent to sex' it's still rape then what can you do?

If all consensual sex 'is' rape then all sex is rape.

Which means that whether or not the woman consented is irrelevant.

So if all sex is rape then all sex is a crime.

Or (to take a more normal attitude rather than the feminist nonsense of MacKinnon) NO sex is rape.

Rape not only isn't a crime; it doesn't even EXIST if MacKinnon took her ideas to their logical conclusion.

So instead of trying to criminalise rape MacKinnon should be campaigning for the ABOLITION of the rape laws and the total LEGALISATION of rape!

MacKinnon is quite full of weird and wonderful ideas even by the standards of feminists. One of her brightest 'gems' is the quote: "Whenever I ask 'have you ever been raped', most women answer, 'I don't know,'" MacKinnon said.

So if a woman doesn't KNOW if she's been raped how can she possibly have the nerve to charge a man with rape?

If she is so stupid that she doesn't KNOW the difference between rape and consensual sex how the hell can she possibly go on to cry 'rape?'

I'll deal with another MacKinnon gem when I get to the question about 'capacity to consent.'

But I think I've already done enough to show that the whole idea of 'rape' being a crime is illogical nonsense.

Even so I'll carry on destroying the arguments for the feminist point of view.

What exactly is rape? Rape is either coercive sex - in other words, sex that the woman DIDN'T want and made it CLEAR that she didn't want but the man coerced her in some way (we'll discuss coercion in a minute) - or it's violent sex - sex where not only did the woman NOT want to be fucked but the man used violence against her to subdue her and end her resistance.

Now I can't see how a situation where a woman 'doesn't know' if she was raped or not could possibly be considered violent or even coercive?

Am I missing something or are the women who say 'they don't know' if you ask 'were you raped' just thick as two planks?

And coercion is such a wide term (especially in the way it's deliberately misused by feminists) it's almost meaningless.

MacKinnon for instance thinks that 'women are unequal to men economically, socially, culturally, politically, and in religion' and therefore that all sexual relations between them, however consensual, are inherently coercive.

She goes on to add that 'consent' in the fantasy vision of society she has 'means acquiescence. It means passivity. You can be semi-knocked out. You can be dead in some jurisdictions.' When the interviewer challenged her about her comment on death being 'consensual' MacKinnon responded 'sex with a dead body is necrophilia but it isn't regarded as rape.'

So in her eyes it's impossible for a woman - dead, comatose or alive - to 'consent' to sex.

Well, if she really believes that then she MUST logically support ABOLISHING rape as if a woman CAN'T consent then how can a man fuck her WITHOUT her consent?

Talk about contradictory messages!

Now let's get on down and dirty with the idea about 'capacity to consent.'

If a woman is - as the feminists are always trying to claim - equal to a man in every way (even though men are stronger, cleverer, faster and more capable) then she has an equal 'capacity to consent.'

So if MacKinnon and her mob seriously claim that because of 'patriarchy' she DOESN'T have the 'capacity to consent' then how can a man ever be arrested for rape? If the woman COULDN'T consent, how can the man be charged for having sex with her WITHOUT her consent if she's not CAPABLE of giving consent?

Anyway, the logical conclusion of MacKinnon's argument is that a woman isn't capable of making decisions for herself - on sex or anything else - so basically in HER eyes women are not just incapable of taking any responsibility for their actions but not even really capable of THINKING for themselves.

It always amazes me how much contempt feminists have for women. They look on us as if we're children or even some sort of mentally retarded and completely helpless bunch of wallies who can't do anything.

Another MacKinnon gem shows how deep her contempt for women goes. She says: 'Man fucks woman; subject verb object.'

So in her eyes the woman who gets fucked is just an object!

And she has the nerve to complain about misogyny!

Remember her words 'man fucks woman; subject verb object. Individual consent is beside the point.'

So the only logical conclusion on MacKinnon's 'principles' is that rape CAN'T even exist because a woman 'can't give her consent.'

Women have no 'capacity for consent.'

If that's true then what does it mean?

Surely it means that women are on the same level as objects, pets or at best children?

So in the feminist universe women never grow up!

They can't think for themselves, take decisions on their own or give 'consent' to anything.

Are all feminists stuck in a Victorian timewarp or what?

I'm going to discuss another side of the rape issue in another post.

But I think it's pretty obvious that whichever way you look at it a man CAN'T be guilty of raping a woman!