Over in another thread, I tried to explain that sexual exclusivity was a factor in whether cases of alleged "marital rape" should be prosecuted. Many of you modern "Social Progressives" (for lack of a better term) were unable to see why that should be the case, why it would be a factor at all whether the husband was cheating on his wife. Woman claimed her husband repeatedly raped her, jury says he is not guilty I think nothing illustrates this more than the case of Julian Assange in Sweden. He was sleeping with two women, at the same time. When both women found out about each other, they were very angry. The went together to authorities to see if they could legally compel Assange to submit to an HIV test, somewhat fearful that they might have contracted that sexually transmitted disease. (If the man they had been sleeping with had been two-timing them, what type of man was that? How many other women had he been sleeping with?) Once at the police building, a radical feminist prosecutor talked them into pressing rape charges against Assange. Not that Assange had actually committed true "rape" against either of them, nor is that even the original reason they had gone to the police in the first place, but that country did have unique and very "progressive" laws governing consent and sex in the bedroom, and under those laws Assange could be prosecuted, and the women were very angry at him (angry at him mainly for two-timing them). Most people would view the actual reasons for the "sexual violation" accusations against him as ridiculous. In one case he was accused of putting on a condom and then taking it off without the woman immediately realizing it. Even by her own admission in the police report, she realized the condom was off less than a minute after intercourse began but she did not say anything and continued to let the intercourse continue. In the case of the other woman, he was accused of pulling apart the woman's legs and having sex with her. She had not given consent in that specific sexual instance, but neither did she say no either. They were sleeping together in the same bed, only partially dressed, and they had previously had sex before in that bed. Shortly afterwards the woman had attended a social gathering with Assange, the two seemed to be a "couple", and all the witnesses described the woman as acting normal. Obviously the farthest thing away from real "rape", but under Swedish law, based off the women's accusations and facts, the man could still be charged with "sexual violation" (a milder category of "rape") in both cases. Assange Accusations in Sweden Sorry to go off on a long and complicated separate tangent, but the point is Assange's fidelity with the two women was a factor in the rape charges against him. Not in law, but certainly the reason why the women decided to press charges against him. I have little doubt that this was a factor in why the female prosecutor suggested the rape charges, to be able to allow the women to "get back" at the man for the wrong he had committed against them - the wrong of two-timing them and "infidelity" (since he was acting like he a "couple" with each of them). The matter of sexual exclusivity was also a factor - albeit a smaller one - in another story. An older man, who was already married, took advantage of young 16 year old teen girl, in a case that sounds close to molestation by the way the woman later angrily described it. "Took advantage" is the right terminology, since the case fell a little bit short of rape. In that thread, I wrote that the man should have been punished with two to two and a half years in prison, and that maybe another half year should be added on in addition to that because he was already married. Some of you might ask why him being married would even be a factor when it comes to the wrong committed against the victim. The matter is one of sexual exclusivity. What he did to her was bad and wrong, but it was more wrong because he was already married. Not wrong merely just because he was committing adultery, but a component that made what he did more wrong against the girl he was taking advantage of. Pastor John Lowe II Admits To "Adultery" Until the Victim Speaks!!! "I Was Only 16." Had the man not been already been married and involved in a sexual relationship with another woman, we might feel a little bit more sympathy towards him. Like he didn't already have another relationship going on, so this girl was his only outlet. He was giving her his exclusive attentions, and not sleeping with anyone else. Being committed to her, with even the likely possibility that he might even stay with her. This is an important thing for a woman. Even in the case of a woman who is being taken advantage of, and yes, even in the case of a woman who does not want to continue be with the man. Women really do not like having sex with a man who is having sex with other women. It is a disrespect to them, it is viewed as being more "dirty", and poses greater risk of exposing them to sexually transmitted disease. Imagine that the man had impregnated this girl. If he was exclusively only with her, there is a possibility this man could have provided for the child or stayed with her, perhaps even marrying her. (This often happened in the old days) When he is already married, as a general rule that usually would stretch his available resources and make helping to raise this new family non-viable. This may sound very old-fashioned to some of you, and hopelessly outdated, but it is how social conservatives view things. In older and ancient times, the rape or taking advantage of an unmarried girl by a man who was himself unmarried was even seen as significantly less worse than the rape or taking advantage of a girl who was already married. (And especially all the more so if that unmarried girl had already lost her virginity) This view even persisted in England up to the Nineteenth Century. If on the other hand the man was known to sleep around with many women, the man would be likely to be seen as "a scoundrel", and a crowd from the community might beat him up, drive him out of town, or one of the girl's relatives might even kill him. (If caught, the relative would be likely to get much less punishment and people would be more sympathetic towards them) Even in this borderline case of rape, sexual exclusivity can still be seen as a factor in the wrong committed against the victim.
There are relationships in which there is actually no expectation of exclusivity. Open marriages in which both parties want variety and are willing to tolerate (or in some cases, actually enjoy) the other person having the same. So it really comes down to what the implicit or explicit expectations are of all parties involved. In the case of Assange, each woman may have been having sex with him under the condition that they are exclusive. If true that kind of is a borderline situation, if the consent is based upon something that isn't actually true. As far as taking the condom off secretly, this is known as stealthing and is being recognized as a form of sexual assault. It's a big deal because the risk of STDs and pregnancy significantly increases without a condom, so it makes sense that for many people consent would be contingent upon using a condom. The other case with "pulling the legs apart" is ambiguous. In the situation where they had already had sex before, there is more room for implied consent. Was she playing, or physically saying no? I don't know from what you described. If that sort of behavior was unusual, it would have been prudent for Assange to check if things are okay before proceeding. In the other case, no I don't think him being married should be a factor at all in the charges for his actions with the 16 year old. But it could cause additional consequences in terms of divorce. The wrongness is increased if he violated his agreement with his wife to be exclusive, but for all an outsider knows they could have an open marriage.
There was probably an implied assumption. I doubt they actually made any explicit agreement in words. People rarely do. It can sound very awkward and a little offensive. Even at a marriage ceremony people usually don't say "and I promise to never have sex with someone else", although everyone knows that commitment is implied. So what next? Will boyfriends be punished for "rape" because they were cheating on their girlfriend with another woman, since (supposedly) consent to sex was only given by the woman with the understanding he was not having sex with another woman?
From reading everything about the story it sounds like she was begrudgingly accepting the sex, even though she was not enthusiastic about it and her body language probably said "I am not really feeling like doing this right now, but fine, you can do it, I will not stop you." She didn't say anything or give any obvious body signal that it was not okay. Remember, she made no complaint about this until many days later. He continued to sleep in her house for 6 more nights and she even threw a party for him, in the time between the alleged "sexual violation" and when she reported it. It's obvious that what she was really angry about was that he had been sleeping with the other woman, possibly at the same time he was seeing and had been sleeping with her. Both women made no complaints until they found out about each other. In fact they did not even realize that what had been done to them constituted something illegal until after the prosecutor had informed them that criminal charges could be pressed. When they initially went to the police station together, it was not to file a criminal complaint but to try to get the man to be forced to submit to an HIV test.
Well I know. That's why I called it borderline. I'm not quite sure where to draw the line. People can certainly be punished for having HIV and not being honest about it with their sexual partners. It seems like cheating is not over the line, but misrepresenting HIV status or your gender are.
I think the girl felt anger partly out of the fact that she was led into the sin of committing adultery. Even though she was kind of young and naive and it was almost a little like a molestation. She knew the man was married to another woman and that having sex with him was wrong. In her religion and value system, that is wrong, and the man committed a big wrong against her by leading her into doing that. Then she had to live with the shame of having had an ongoing sexual affair with a married man, not just any man but the pastor of the church her family and everyone she knew went to. I'm sure many Social Progressives will have trouble understanding this, and why this would add to this girl being upset.
That case was decided on a lack of evidence that rape had occurred and not being beyond a reasonable doubt he could not be sent to prison.
Yes, and part of that "lack of evidence that rape had occurred" may have been that they were not sure that it was a rape. The jury did not really specifically say whether they chose not to convict because they weren't sure whether the non-consensual sex between husband and wife was rape, or because they weren't sure that the wife was not totally lying about her account of what happened. Likely BOTH may have been factors, to several members of the jury.
He said she said, they did not prove anything had occurred you are trying to read something more into it. There is no state in which martial rape is legal and I am sure the judge instructed the jury on that if not the attorney's else charges would never have been brought.
My argument is that even if "something had occurred", they were still not sure that constituted "rape". On the contrary, I believe YOU are the one who is reading your own bias into this, assuming that they could only have come to their decision based on one reason. That depends how you define "marital rape". See, there's some aspect to that statement where you are just using implied circular logic. In logic, we would call that an equivocation fallacy, where you are trying to use a terminology in your statement with a meaning that may be different, when your argument is dependent on that difference in meaning. Example: "Only really bad people get the death penalty, so it perfectly okay." "If you cheat on your wife, you are a really bad person." Both statements may be true, but the terminology "really bad person" does not have the same meaning in both statements. To commit an equivocation fallacy, you might take both of those statements and try to combine them to say: "It is perfectly okay to give people the death penalty if they cheat on their wife" We know that such a statement would be absurd, and is not a proper logical combination of those other two statements.
