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No ifs, no buts – having sex without consent is rape



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Published Date: 16 October 2008
Society's attitudes to this heinous crime need to change, and the prosecution service is doing its bit, says ELISH ANGIOLINI
IMAGINE a female friend or colleague saying, "I'll wear trousers when I go out, so that I am not raped," or, "I won't laugh and joke with my work colleague in case he rapes me".

These may seem ludicrous propositions. Most of us would be surprised ...



The full article contains 1034 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

 
1

truthsleuth,

16/10/2008 00:17:06
Rape is Rape yes maybe.
It is a serious crime but NOT as serious as murder nor serious bodily injury.
It is no more and no less than that and should not be carried under that heading.
At the moment it is the only crime where there is sexual discrimination.
The man has to prove innocence which he never can since he is the defendant and he is named whereas the supposed victim cannot be.
Either both should be named or neither.
2

Moscow,

USA 16/10/2008 04:50:27
Your schoolgils are forced to wear trousers, skirt bans etc. to protect male teachers from false allegations!

You Brits are notorious for sex crime, your teachers account for over 50 percent of ( FBI) educator related child porn interdictions across the entire EU.

You have three and a half thousand *very* active pedophile in Edinbugh at any one time and a lot of them ( 30 per 700) of them are teachers. That's one city!

Your schools are extremely dangerous. The time to sort it out was the 1960s. Your teachers are sending Scottish school uniforms to the Ukraine for custom porn!

You need to home-school until you can put something in the water.
3

Colin Wilson,

Aberdeen 16/10/2008 07:00:05
It's often claimed that "rape is not a crime of sex, but a crime of violence" but some of the points made in this item tend to contradict that claim. Particularly, it's conceded that attractive clothing or previous flirtation can have a bearing on the matter, which would not be so if the perpetrator's motive was purely one of violence.

"The law in Scotland is quite clear that sexual intercourse without consent is rape."

The law is clear, but unfortunately clarity does not equate to simplicity. The prosecution is expected to prove a negative; the absence of something which, in any case, exists only in the realm of the totally intangible. Inevitably, this is going to be difficult to prove conclusively in a court of law.

"Many people imagine rape consists only of a woman being dragged violently down a dark alleyway, with a knife held to her throat, by a man who is a stranger to her."

People say that "rape is rape", but I believe it would help if the law recognised that there are differing degrees of severity of rape. The type of crime described above is worthy of locking someone up and throwing away the key. Can the same thing truly be said of a situation where two people are taking part in consensual sexual activity, which then goes further than one person intended? Does the latter crime really call for a long prison sentence? As the article points out, people associate the words "rape" and "rapist" with the type of crime described above. If the law recognised another category of crime for the second type, it would help public understanding of it. It might even be that a higher proportion of accused would be prepared to plead guilty to it.
4

Urban Guerrilla,

Edinburgh 16/10/2008 08:05:52
What would be ludicrous about saying, "I'll keep my wallet in a zipped inside pocket so that there's less chance of its being stolen?"

Why, then, should women be allowed to take no responsibility for their actions while men are blamed and reviled every time?
5

Thelma,

Australia 27/10/2008 01:35:03
(4) So if a man has his wallet stolen from his back trouser pocker (not zipped) it's his own fault and he deserves to lose it...is that right? And the person who stole it cannot be blamed because he could tell from the bulge in the pocket that there was a wallet there and thought the man wanted him to steal it and he was also overcome with desire to have it and couldn't control his behavior. Is that what you meant?

 

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