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Apparently some Men’s Right Activists have no trouble believing the rape accusations against Julian Assange. They just have trouble giving a shit about rape.
Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit on Reddit, the regular crowd was discussing an article about Assange. One of the allegations against Assange is that he raped one of his accusers in her sleep, without wearing a condom. (EDITED TO ADD: According to her account, she had told him explicitly the night before that she would not have sex with him without a condom, and had in fact refused unprotected sex with him when he’d tried it that evening.) As the article recounts the (alleged) incident:
She says they had consensual sex but she woke up the next morning to find him having intercourse with her to which she had not consented.
When she asked him if he was wearing anything, he had allegedly said: “I am wearing you.”
This response got high-fives from some of the Men’s Rights redditors. One quoted Assange’s (alleged) remark, then added “Nailed it.” Eight upvotes for that comment, no downvotes. Another quoted the same remark, and added “LIKE A BOSS.” That got upvotes as well.
So apparently, to some MRAs at least, raping a woman in her sleep is A-OK, just so long as you’ve got a witty one-liner at the ready when she wakes up.
>If that is rape – sliding your penis into a woman's vagina the next morning (after kissing and caressing her for a while) – I am guilty of about 500,000 counts of rape.Damn you morning wood!I wonder why none of the women ever pressed charges against me.I guess that will remain a mystery. Could it be that the women enjoyed themselves?Oh no!Wait!I am not also on the sh*t-list of any government agencies.I get it now…
>Same kind of shit happens on feminist websites too. I dunno. I think you should try getting into another tussle with a big MRA. Seems like you're running out of steam comment sniping.That's just IMO, of course.
>Scarecrow: According to her account, she had told him explicitly the night before that he did NOT have her consent to have sex with her without a condom. See here for details: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-swedenI edited my post to make this clear. And sure, some people like to be woken up to have sex. That doesn't mean that guys have the right to shove their dicks into sleeping women they barely know just because, you know, she MIGHT like it. (And again, in the case of Assange, he's being accused of doing something she had explicitly said no to the night before.) In relationships where there is trust and communication, one or both of the partners may make it clear that they would not mind being woken up by sex. That's consent. If when they are awoken by their partner doing sexual things to them they decide they don't want to, they can say no and revoke that consent instantly, and the partner is obliged to stop immediately. It's pretty simple: if there is the slightest doubt that you have consent, don't do it.
>This "consent" thing is not that hard. And in this case it's also not that hard to understand where, if what the state says happened happened, a clear case of rape occurred. It should go without saying that I am neutral on whether what happened happened, but since keep that in mind when I say:If someone says no, absolutely no unless you wear a condom, that no means no. If someone vigorously defends that no and keeps saying no when you keep asking to bareback, that no means no. It still means no. That person has one condition for saying yes, and that is that you wear a condom. If you finally agree to wear a condom, accepting that your partner said it's no, absolutely no, unless you wear a condom, well then hey, enjoy! You're about to have sex! If while your partner is sleeping or not fully conscious you penetrate her against her express wishes, knowing she said no, no, absolutely not without a condom, you are raping your partner. If your partner wakes up to find you penetrating her without a condom, against her express wishes and without even bothering to try to get a yes from her, and your partner just gives in, that does not mean the act of rape *didn't* happen any more than it means giving in to someone hitting you means that the person didn't strike the first blow. What is alleged is rape and coercion. Try to define any other boundary of another person's basic rights by how the alleged victim responds to the act and not by the act itself and see what kind of fun slippery slope you find yourself on. Eoghan, though I understand that the comment I am responding to will likely be erased as soon as the guy who runs this blog sees it, people being woken up by an act their partner knows they like is not the same thing as having a partner knowingly violate your express and stated wishes and doing it while you're asleep so as to make it harder for you to resist.
>Oops my computer ate part of my statement. I meant to say "but since it seems so hard to discuss this case like rational adults," keep that in mind when I say….
>1)Thomas over at Yes Means Yes has a good example of how this consent thing works for sex-while-asleep: Sleep and Negotiating Consent2)Plenty of women do feel violated by having a man start fucking them while they're asleep, but don't press charges for various reasons (I had an acquaintance who got knocked up by her ex that way); that still means it was a rape though, part of that 60% or so of rapes that are never reported to the police.
>@Futrelle:Funny, I have "shoved" my dick into a sleeping many a time – never got a complaint.Hmmm…And yes – they did wake up smart-a$$.
>so you've possibly indeed raped and violated a woman or two. why is this something you feel proud enough of to brag about it online, scarecrow?
>Perhaps Scare Crow never got a complaint because he was in a relationship with someone who was okay with that kind of thing, which makes his entire example pointless because we're talking about someone allegedly doing something he knew his partner was not okay with, awake or asleep?
>good point, M.though, the tone-deafness on the "consent explicitly denied" part of the issue is worrisome anyway, regardless of whether he's just being an ass on purpose, or really can't tell the difference.
> M said… This "consent" thing is not that hard. I doubt that. Otherwise in the case of Mr. Assange and many other similar cases it would be easy to judge who is wrong and who is right.How can you prove what she said (and what he said) in a case he says – she says…. without any other evidence, solely out of the word of these 2 women who even have a right of anonymity?… no means no …If you finally agree to wear a condom…The problem is that YES means also sometimes NO.Any woman who was drinking something or who took any medication cannot give consent – she might further claim she misunderstood as her native language is not the same native language of the man, even if she said yes. In general, a woman can recall her consent any time, even months later out of any reason you can imagine. The responsibility, whatever happened, is always with the man only in Western countries, despite the woman is also an adult. He also might be drunk, under medication, did not understand clearly what she said – nevertheless the responsibility is with the man only – not really fair, as the woman is considered by law to be like a small child unable to decide properly. These 2 women fully agreed to sleep overnight in private rooms in the same bed with him, how can they claim to be suddenly surprised that they had sex with this man? —–About Julian Assange, he is not known to be a friend of the MRAs. He was fully co-operating with feminists in the past, got even awards for his pro-feminist activities and now, after he is infamous and is rich, some women show up to extort money from him.What these women say, who are reporting their rape experiences for the first time after months these incidents took place, is not very creditable. Just my opinion, we will see.MRAs do not encourage a sexual relationship of this kind. What Mr. Assange did, so-called one-night-stands with various women who know each other – is very risky.He is now in some troubles, his problem. Why did he not listen to the Men's Rights Movement?
>@M and Jadehawk:You two are obviously bitter because you are not getting any (at least any that is worthwhile).
>BWWWWWWWWWWAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA
>ScareCrow, your wishful thinking doesn't come up to the standard of evidence.Rather, it reeks of projection.–(There, there. It'll be all right!) 😉
>"In general, a woman can recall her consent any time, even months later out of any reason you can imagine."What planet are you writing this from?
>"What planet are you writing this from?"The one where Christians are a persecuted minority, whites are the most discriminated against race, and the the lucky duckies of this world rule over the rich in a true tyranny of the proletariat; of course.
>Even the feminists are divided on it. Just take a look at Naomi Wolf vs J. Freidman. So civil too
>M and Jadehawk, meet Yohan! Yohan does indeed live on another planet. I used to try to fact-check his comments but have given that up as he can make up new untrue facts faster than I can rebut them. I'll just do a couple of little fact checks here: "now, after he is infamous and is rich, some women show up to extort money from him."Uh, there is ZERO evidence the women have made any attempt to get money out of all this. What they tried to get Assange to do was to get a test for STDs. "What these women say, who are reporting their rape experiences for the first time after months these incidents took place, is not very creditable."The women in fact went to the police shortly after the alleged incidents, in August. For evidence, see the link I posted earlier in the thread. (Yohan being Yohan, there is precisely zero chance he's actually read it.)
>http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/20/naomi_wolf_vs_jaclyn_friedman_aJACLYN FRIEDMANAnd the result of that is not only that these women are receiving death threats, they are in hiding—one of them has gone to Palestine, because she couldn’t feel safe in Sweden anymore—That's a ridiculous argument, to feel safe in Palestine and to feel in danger in Sweden…NAOMI WOLF: he took off Miss A’s clothes too quickly for her comfort. She tried to tell him to slow down, but then, quote, "she allowed him to undress her." This is what the report says. … if you’re going to treat women as moral adults and if you’re going to take the issue of rape seriously, the person who’s engaging in what he thinks is consensual sex has to be told, "I don’t want this." And again and again and again, these women did not say, "This is not consensual." Yes, clearly even feminists are divided what is consent and what is not…NAOMI WOLF: —where did they say no? JACLYN FRIEDMAN: I did not interrupt you when you were speaking,It seems the arguments of FRIEDMAN are rather poor compared to those of WOLF.FRIEDMAN's arguments are very evasive and avoid to give clear answers to clear questions.Men are not machines, and their personal decisions are not those of computers. You cannot expect a man, who is not educated as a lawyer and who has no deep-insider knowledge of how to interpret the law including cases of precedence (in this case even laws in another country) to act as a sex-machine while asking permanently for consent for every single detail.May I undress you?YESMay I undress you quickly?NOWhat kind of consent is that?
>AVID: The women in fact went to the police shortly after the alleged incidents, in August.But they did not file criminal charges, they reported and tried to 'negotiate'…Just you, as an American should know what this means…
>"But they did not file criminal charges, they reported and tried to 'negotiate'…"wrong.timeline of events
>Yohan, as someone who, from what I've seen in my short time here, posts often about the differences between different countries and their legal systems, you might want to ease up on saying that because the accusers didn't "report to the police" in the same way they do in other countries, something nefarious went down. They sought advice from the police and the police decided to charge, which is perfectly normal in Sweden. It also, I would hope, should maybe ease some of the vitriol aimed at these women because they are not the ones alleging anything, the *state* is. Dr. Deezee, I have a lot of thoughts on the Friedman-Wolf debate but I don't know if any of the Man Boobz regulars' understanding of feminism (from what I've seen reading archives) is up for that discussion, frankly. I don't think a place where several commenters *really, really* think feminism is some monolithic anti-male beastmonster is a productive space for discussing the finer points of Friedman vs. Wolf. My short take on it though is that Wolf wasn't actually even debating on feminist grounds in that debate, which is fine, but I can't say I've seen a single other feminist take her side. I know they're out there but I've yet to encounter one of them.
>David Futrelle said… M and Jadehawk, meet Yohan! Yohan does indeed live on another planet.http://www.thelocal.se/31094/20101227/http://www.thelocal.se/30992/20101221/Not all people share your opinion, David. This is what you cannot understand. You are too narrow-minded in your feminist views.And about Mr. Assange, as I said already, he is not an MRA. He is not even MRA-friendly. That's his problem now.
>from Wikipedia"Assange founded the WikiLeaks website in 2006 and serves on its advisory board. He has published material about extrajudicial killings in Kenya, toxic waste dumping in Africa, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantanamo Bay procedures, and banks such as Kaupthing and Julius Baer.[9] In 2010, he published classified details about American involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks and its five media partners began publishing secret US diplomatic cables.[10] The White House has called Assange's release of the diplomatic cables "reckless and dangerous"."He has recently been quoted as saying“I fell into a hornet’s nest of revolutionary feminism”You feminists just fucked up real bad! He… He… He…
>Ahaha yes being a narrow-minded, grievance-driven weirdo who has departed reality to move into some sort of Fantasy Oppression Summer Camp would have saved Mr. Assange a headache, I'm sure,.