Free Republic

They are making men illegal. The former Spanish football chief Luis Rubiales faces a prison sentence of 30 months if convicted of charges of sexual assault and coercion. Rubiales grabbed and kissed footballer Jenni Hermoso at the Women's World Cup medal ceremony in August last year. He says it was consensual. She says it wasn't. But that's not the point. The point is that an area of life which has always been governed by manners, custom and judgement has now fallen under the grey, chilly shadow of criminal law. I confess I have not been all that given to grabbing...

British police are investigating the alleged gang rape of a girl’s avatar in a virtual reality game, in what is believed to be the first probe of its kind involving the metaverse. The alleged victim, identified only as a girl under 16, was wearing a virtual reality headset in an immersive game when her avatar, an animated representation of her, was raped by those of several men, the Daily Mail first reported. Although the accuser did not sustain any physical injuries, she may have suffered trauma similar to someone who’d been raped in real life, police sources told the outlet....

Home Secretary James Cleverly caused quite a stir recently as reports emerged that he had joked that “a little bit of Rohypnol is not really illegal”. At the end of December, reports began to emerge that the home secretary had made what his spokesperson described as an “ironic joke” at a Downing Street reception. The joke was made to a group of women and involved him stating that if he only put a small amount of date rape drug in his wife’s drink then it “wasn’t really illegal”. Ironically, this statement from the Home Secretary came just after plans to...

Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose used “fame, status and power” to violently rape a one-time Penthouse Pet back in his rock ’n’ roll heyday, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday. Sheila Kennedy, now 61, accuses Rose, also 61, of violently attacking her and anally raping her in a Manhattan hotel room in 1989, according to the complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court. The Post has reached out to Rose’s spokesperson and attorney for comment. The assault allegedly took place in February 1989 after Kennedy — who was Penthouse’s Pet of the Year in 1983 — first met...

Another woman has come forward to file a civil suit against Bill Cosby, alleging that he drugged and raped her in the 1970s after inviting her to his comedy show. Donna Motsinger, who now lives in New Mexico, filed the complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday, saying that she met the comedian in 1972, when she was waitressing at The Trident, a renowned Sausalito restaurant and celebrity haunt. Cosby would come in every day, hanging around to chat with Motsinger, who was 31 at the time, according to court papers. In an attempt to “lure and groom” her...

Actor Danny Masterson (primarily known as Hyde on "That 70s Show") has been convicted of rape. Specifically, he was convicted of raping adult women in his home, women who were in their 20s at the time. And he has now been sentenced for it. Thirty years to life. That's a heck of a sentence. The allegations surfaced in 2017 and 2018. The crimes – the alleged rapes, which he has completely denied - took place between 2001 and 2003. We shouldn’t want to take his side. He's a Scientologist - a particularly offensive cult that has a huge amount of...

Spanish state prosecutors have accused Luis Rubiales of sexual assault and coercion for kissing a player on the lips without her consent after the Women’s World Cup final, the country’s prosecutors’ office said Friday. Rubiales, the now-suspended president of the Spanish soccer federation, kissed Jenni Hermoso during the awards ceremony after Spain beat England to win the title on Aug. 20 in Sydney. Prosecutors presented their case for potential criminal charges against Rubiales to Spain’s National Court in Madrid two days after Hermoso formally accused him of sexual assault. FIFA suspended Rubiales from his post on Aug. 27, a day...

The headline quote is Professor Glenn Reynolds’ reaction to a post by Jazz Shaw about how “the #MeToo movement abandoned women.” The thought occurs to me, “Is Jazz Shaw really so naïve as to believe the liberals were arguing in good faith?” And this in turn reminds me of something I once remarked about Conor Friedersdorf, namely that his basic problem seemed to be insufficient cynicism. If your beginning assumption about politics is that everybody actually believes what they say — if you grant them the benefit of the doubt as regards sincerity and their professed ideals — then you...

Disgraced actor Armie Hammer may be working as a timeshare salesman in the Cayman Islands after all. After his lawyer denied the claim last week that the 35-year-old actor — who is accused of sexual abuse — ditched the spotlight to work at a resort, a source claimed to Variety that that is indeed what he’s doing because he’s “broke.” “He is working at the resort and selling timeshares. He is working at a cubicle,” the source alleged. “The reality is he’s totally broke and is trying to fill the days and earn money to support his family.”