Rape, California-style

TownHall.com ^ | 1/13/03 | Kathleen Parker

[Texas Eagle]

Hey, if you don't want to be accused of rape, wait until you're married before you have sex.

[griffin]

I was married and in divorce court my wife has accused me of attempted rape. Don't fool yourself. What they say goes. It's amazing.

[Maedhros]

Is KP considered liberal or conservative?

[cartoonistx]

Sorry. In California men are routinely charged with "spousal rape". Men are screwed if they are screwers here.

[goodnesswins]

AND, conversely.....if you do NOT want to be Raped...wait until you're married to have sex.....

[Texas Eagle]

Sorry. In California men are routinely charged with "spousal rape".

What the hell? If that's true, that is completely ludicrous. There are laws against spousal abuse but I find it hard to believe even in California that a guy could be charged with spousal rape solely on the grounds that his wife changed her mind halfway through. But I'm no Perry Mason so I could be wrong about that.

But still, the little puke who couldn't control his love thang gets no sympathy from me.

[Maynerd]

Major bummer. You can't prove the negative and you're assumed guilty.

[supercat]

She merely said, "I should be going now" and "I need to go home," according to her testimony.

Per another article, that's a gross oversimplification of her testimony. I forget the exact details, but the dialogue was more like:

Her: I should be going now.
Him: Let me go for a bit longer.
Her: No, I need to go home.
Him: Just a bit longer.
Her: NO, I need to go home NOW.

She used the "N" word at least twice, and if her testimony is to be believed (nb: since the jury apparently believed her testimony, the appeals court is bound to do so) her non-consent was clear and unambiguous.

[Texas Eagle]

AND, conversely.....if you do NOT want to be Raped...wait until you're married to have sex.....

Well, yeah....unmarried sex brings all kinds of drawbacks with it but in this case the guy was probably a lot bigger and stronger than she was and once she decided she didn't want to continue and wanted to stop she was simply physically incapable of throwing him off the ride.

[mvpel]

Boy, dating a woman is starting to get nearly as legally perilous as owning a gun in California.

[supercat]

Boy, dating a woman is starting to get nearly as legally perilous as owning a gun in California.

Well, if a woman indicates she's no longer keen on having sex, including saying "NO" at least twice, continuing after that should be perilous.

[Cvengr]

What is said and what is meant are two different meanings. The true meaning is probably best or closest understood by somebody who has become closest to the other's heart and soul.

Surprisingly, this is one of the interesting coincidences of marriage. The man closest to understanding the needs and meaning of his wife's soul, with the authority to act over her, is to love her and act properly. In some cases that proper action would be continuance of intercourse and in others immediate cessation.

One more reason why sex is best after marriage than before. Several thousand years of human development amazingly match our God given instincts per His plan. Of course plenty of humanists believe that rationalization in lieu of those God given systems provides a harmonious system of checks and balances through court systems rather than courting the systems of God.

[goodnesswins]

"She merely said, "I should be going now" and "I need to go home," according to her testimony.

I didn't see where she said "NO" anywhere.....

[First Amendment]

I read the other article a couple of days ago - very detailed. Once the Pandora's box of "anything goes" sex was opened up, the number of diseases, crimes and ruined lives is going to increase. Natural law says that sex is meant for marriage, and sex either before or outside of marriage is fraught with myriad troubles. I was a "bad" teenage girl in the 60's. I can easily imagine (even remember?) situations like this.

1. Any girl who goes to a house, with no adults, a bunch of boys, and alcohol, is BEGGING for trouble.
2. Any girl who lets TWO boys play with her at once is DEMANDING to have trouble.
3. Any girl who lets one (or was it two) boys have sex with her and then "changes her mind" doesn't know the meaning of the words "too late". The boy stopped in a minute and a half - sheesh.

This decision is very bad and no wonder men are turning queer. The boy was stupid too but if girls are sluts there are always boys at the ready.

[supercat]

What is said and what is meant are two different meanings.

No means no. While there are certain shades of meaning, from "No, not yet, but keep trying to make me say 'yes' if you like" to "No, not now, not ever, get lost you jerk", the "no" word pretty unambiguously means "no" unless it is followed up explicitly by something positive, e.g. hypothetically:

She: I should be going soon.
He: Okay, I'll hurry it up then.
She: No, no need to hurry.  Take your time.

Absent an explicit affirmation as above, though, the word "no" is pretty unambiguously negative.

[snowstorm12]

I think this was already posted on FR, but this article leaves out tons of facts.

[Reactionary]

True enough. She didn't say "no" at all. I guess now the Nazi feminists take "I need to be going" as being the same thing as being abducted at gunpoint and raped in a dark alley.

Absolutely amazing that this kind of legal garbage is tolerated. Rape? My eye.

[mvpel]

I don't know, it seems to cheapen the term "rape," when your failure to treat a naked, juicy, sweaty, delicious woman in bed with you like a red-hot poker, or a barrel of radioactive waste, the split-second after she half-heartedly expresses her second thoughts about the bumping and grinding you've been doing with her for some period of time, is brought into its scope.

Perhaps you could say the guy's in jail for being a bad lover, or having a small crank - if she'd been moaning "OH GOD!! DON'T STOP!! DO ME!!!" he might have "gotten off."

I guess I'll just have to teach my future son that if he's going to disregard my exhortations to not have sex before marriage ("do as I say, not as I did," "it's a different world out there today,"), that he'd better trust any woman who consents to have sex with him with absolute power over his freedom and his future, regardless of how much of a gentleman he may be. All it takes is a grudge and "I said no, and he didn't stop" under oath, and he can kiss his freedom goodbye.

[Conservababe]

Ditto, Kathleen. You articulated perfectly what I was thinking when I read of this farce.