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Ms. Bindel and logic

On Saturday rumours circulated that some supporters at Bramall Lane would pay tribute to Evans with handclaps in the ninth and 35th minutes of the game (corresponding to his shirt number and goals he has scored this season). Apparently this was a damp squib with few taking part, but the fact it was suggested at all was because of the widespread support for a convicted rapist among the football fraternity.

Absence of widespread support is evidence of widespread support.

Sigh.

When footballers go to brothels, have women delivered to hotel rooms, visit lap-dancing clubs, or \”harvest\” local girls to line them up for group sex parties, it is not seen as evidence of misogyny.

Women who hang around hotels looking to pick up footballers are viewed as \”goal-diggers\” and groupies. Players view them with contempt and they are painted as slags who have no other purpose in life than to marry a rich man.

Perhaps it isn\’t evidence of misogyny. Perhaps it\’s evidence that young women offer sex to the males they perceive, however strangely, to have status in their society.

64 thoughts on “Ms. Bindel and logic”

  1. I think that the girlies entirely correctly perceive that the wendy-ball players have status in their sub-culture and, due to their income, considerable status in wider society.

    You have to get to relatively exalted circles for discussions of Glyndebourne or the latest exhibitions at the British museum to replace the requirement, amongst even professionals, for men to have a comprehensive knowledge and an obsessive interest in football. In a very few circles, that would be one of the rugbies rather than soccer.

    It doesn’t mean that the professional footballer sub-culture (rather in the petri dish sense) isn’t misogynistic. It just means that girls consider (rightly or wrongly – but it is their choice) that the potential rewards for demeaning yourself, as a woman, by participating in the selective behaviour are sufficient to justify the risks.

    For non-sexual expressions of this in modern society, see zzz-Factor (or any of the other music mostly-talentless shows) or those reality TV shows which haven’t decayed to “hints at in-show sex”.

  2. So Much For Subtlety

    Perhaps it isn’t evidence of misogyny. Perhaps it’s evidence that young women offer sex to the males they perceive, however strangely, to have status in their society.

    Sure. But I think Ms. Bindell is alleging it is misogyny not to appreciate the wonderful generosity of these young women in laying down their …. well laying down for the rather inexpensive pleasure of young football players. To f**k ’em and insult ’em is not, how does one put it?, a reasonable judgement on their moral worth, but proof of a deep and abiding hatred of women.

  3. To f**k ‘em and insult ‘em is not, how does one put it?, a reasonable judgement on their moral worth, but proof of a deep and abiding hatred of women.

    I don’t see why it can’t be both.

  4. The real problem here is that there are large numbers of young men who see nothing wrong in having sex with a woman who’s too drunk to give legal consent.

    Whereas journalists using the word ‘misogyny’ in a way some bloggers may not like is barely a problem at all. So why Tim are you sighing over the side issue and ignoring the actual problem?

  5. PaulB: can we not say there’s something wrong with young girls getting blotto with strange men in hotel rooms, then? It does take two to tango, you know.

    And I suspect drink has been taken by the young men too. How come that’s never perceived as a deleterious effect on their consent?

  6. JuliaM: yes certainly we can say that.

    In this case, the man convicted was not one of the two tangoing, but a third person, previously unknown to the victim.

  7. From what I’ve read of this, he doesn’t seem to have committed any crime. He had sex with a girl who was drunk, who regretted it afterwards. Drunk people do regrettable things. I speak from experience. That is why there are jokes about “I’ve never gone to bed with an ugly girl, but I’ve woken up with a few”.

    These laws were designed by the Feminist movement with the sole purpose of entrapment of men, because men are evil and sex is dirty. The standard ideology of Feminism is that women have rights and no responsibilities, and men have responsibilities and no rights. It’s up to a man to try to guess whether a girl is going to regret her drunken behaviour the next day, and if he guesses that wrong he goes to jail, does not pass Go, and does not collect £200.

    Girl gets drunk, has sex, next day says, “I’m a nice girl, I wouldn’t choose to do that”, man goes to jail. Total bollocks by any standard of justice.

  8. “It’s up to a man to try to guess whether a girl is going to regret her drunken behaviour the next day, ”

    Another way of looking at it would be to say that a man who is with a drunk girl needs to take extra care when it comes to matters of consent because, as everyone knows, people do things when drunk that they would not do when sober. Not only is there the slight risk that he could get accused of rape.. there’s the small matter of it really not being very nice to take advantage of people who are drunk.. sexually or otherwise.

    I’ve managed to get through life without ever taking sexual advantage of someone who was very drunk.

    That drunken consent is not legal consent is absolutely fair enough. And if in doubt, keep it zipped.

    There IS an issue (as JuliaM alludes to) with a dipsarity whereby somone would argue that where both parties are too drunk to consent then one is a rapist and the other is not. I don’t know if a case with such facts has ever played out in court (logically one would think yes, but in all the years of this debate going on, I’ve never been directed towards an example)

  9. TTG,

    The reality is that this law, like similar laws in other jurisdictions (I believe Canada was first) are a purely feminist construct designed to target men with post-hoc construction of rape offences. They have been formulated deliberately by the Feminist Movement. They include a presumption that only women can be taken advantage of, and that sex is inherently a thing that men do to women, because that is how Feminists see the world. All sex is a male construction imposed upon women and, if they can’t stop it altogether (even Feminists realise that’s a hopeless cause) they can at least make it as fraught with peril as possible, and take down the occasional phallocrat to the resounding harpie cheers.

    Every night of the week there are drunk people having sex. Some of them will regret it the next day. Some of them will be grateful that drunken perceptions got the other person into bed with them, as with the old “Drink, getting ugly people laid since 1642” type of joke.

    Some people might like the world to be all middle class politically correct twits carefully adhering to some stringent set of social rules. The real world isn’t like that. It’s Dwayne and Sharon shagging against the back wall of Spaggers Nitespot, in divers states of inebriation. Who is taking advantage of who, if anyone, is generally in the eye of the beholder.

  10. IanB: you seem to have gone off into a rant wholly unconcerned with the facts of this case.

    What happened is that footballer A met woman Z on a street near a takeaway in Rhyl. CCTV evidence and witnesses agree that Z was very drunk. A and Z went in a taxi back to the hotel where A was staying, and had sex. Then footballer B, a friend of A, came into the hotel room (he had a keycard obtained by lying to reception). B had sex with Z: A left at some point before or during.

    A and B claim that Z was not all that drunk, and that she agreed to have sex with B when he came into the room. Z says she remembers nothing.

    A and B were both charged with rape. The jury acquitted A but convicted B.

    The law says that valid consent to sex can be given only by a person who “agrees by choice, and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice.” The jury must have decided that A could reasonably have believed that Z had the capacity to consent but B could not reasonably have so believed.

    So what we can take from this case is that a jury will give a man considerable latitude in a case where two more or less drunken people meet on the street and go back to his room. But much less latitude if he walks into someone else’s room and finds a very drunk stranger in the bed.

    Given the facts, do you, IanB, still disagree with the jury?

  11. So Much For Subtlety

    PaulB – “The real problem here is that there are large numbers of young men who see nothing wrong in having sex with a woman who’s too drunk to give legal consent.”

    Are you follow La Bindell in arguing that the utter lack of support for this man from the terraces is somehow massive support for this man? If not can you please clarify precisely what you mean by “large numbers”? By that do you mean utterly trivial numbers of men who pose such a minor risk that huge numbers of British girls feel perfectly safe going out and getting utterly sh!tfaced on a regular basis in the company of men they do not know? Which, I admit, they are. By and large.

    No country in the world is as safe for women. Just try to get that drunk in public in Turkey or even Japan and see how gentlemanly people are.

  12. The law is feminazi garbage. If this woman says she can remember nothing, how can she say if she consented or not. What the law says is bollocks. A could reasonably believe but B couldn’t–on what possible basis can that be decided in the abscence both of witnesses and any memory on the part of the “victim”.
    If even A and B were as drunk as Z the law will still load them with blame and absolve females of all responsibility. If she gets drunk and doesn’t know where she is or what the hell is going on she should moderate her boozing or stop.If she demolished her consciousness behind a steering wheel she would get no favours from the law but if there is any chance to attack men or peddle hatred for them then it is a different story.

    The reason the feminazis have got as far as they have in undermining men is down to the legions of manginas who support oppressive and obnoxious laws against their own sex.

  13. You’re right there Mr Ecks about the Maginas…

    and the bigger sin is that modern women loathe the manginas hence the divorce rate…

    and let’s not get into divorce where the majority of divorces are initiated by women and result in the men getting a much more thorough screwing than Miss Z did in that hotel room…

  14. What this case has established is that if you walk into a bedroom not your own, find a very drunk woman you’ve never met before in the bed, and have sex with her, a jury may convict you of rape even if you say she uttered a word of consent. Presumably the same would apply if it were a very drunk man in the bed you had sex with.

    Personally I’m pleased to learn that I can go to bed drunk without being deemed to have consented to sex with any man who wanders into the room. I’m somewhat surprised that anyone here should feel otherwise.

    SMFS: I’m told there has been considerable support on the internet for the convicted rapist.

  15. I’m told there has been considerable support on the internet for the convicted rapist.

    There’s “considerable support on the internet” from everything from the second coming of Hitler, to Ritchie, to NAMBLA all the way through to Scientology. That’s because it’s the internet. However, there didn’t appear to be much of it at the match, amongst what you might expect to be a distinctly partisan population.

    I agree (as above) that the football WAG-trial-out culture is significantly misogynistic and chimes badly with the wider drinking until legless culture*. I’ve been superficially involved in investigations of a couple of very unpleasant incidents. I believe, from what I’ve heard, that the jury don’t seem to have made an obvious mistake re Evans.

    * Which is where I’m aiming at tonight – but that’s medication agin’ a bad dose of man-flu.

  16. So Much For Subtlety

    PaulB – “Personally I’m pleased to learn that I can go to bed drunk without being deemed to have consented to sex with any man who wanders into the room. I’m somewhat surprised that anyone here should feel otherwise.”

    Can I just say that I agree on both points.

    “SMFS: I’m told there has been considerable support on the internet for the convicted rapist.”

    Yeah, but you were told by Julie Bindel.

  17. Bizarre that people disagree with PaulB about this case.

    Mr Ecks,

    If this woman says she can remember nothing, how can she say if she consented or not

    If she truly remembers nothing, it seems unlikely that she (legally) consented.

  18. PaulB, firstly if the genders were reversed nobody would give a damn.

    Secondly, the problem with this law is post hoc analyses of capacity to consent, retroactively applied to the participants. We have over the years gone from “if a woman says no, she means maybe” to “if a woman says yes, she might later decide she meant no”. This is not progress. It is not even rational. There is no practical means of deciding at what state of drunkenness a person is no longer responsible for their own decisions and, as Ecks has pointed out above, nobody waives responsibility for drunk drivers. “It’s not my fault that I’m as pissed as a rat behind the wheel officer, because I’m as pissed as a rat, you see.”

    Furthermore, sexual consent is rarely explicit, it is implicit. Thus, people initiate sexual actions and continue unless there is a refusal. The girl did not refuse sex with the convicted man. At the time, her actions thus constituted consent.

    So, only because she can decide the next day that she wouldn’t have done that sober, can this be reconstructed as a rape, under a deliberate anti-male feminist law. The whole point of drinking is that it changes one’s behaviour; it is famous for loosening inhibitions. That is a primary reason that people take this drug. It is thus nonsensical to define a person’s behaviour in terms of their sober behaviour. Would you have danced on that table and mooned everybody sober? No, you wouldn’t. You were drunk, and that is why you did it. That doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible for it. If you don’t want to do things like that, don’t take the drug that may make you act that way.

    As also stated above, the major reason we have laws this bad is the legions of men who are, frankly, Uncle Toms who support anti-male activism because they’ve fallen into this mindset of gaining female approval. I remember a previous discussion of feminism here in which PaulB said, “would you want your wife or partner reading this?” Who gave women the moral authority in our society, Paul? Do you think feminists worry about their “husband or boyfriend reading what they’ve written”?

    Come on Paul. There is not a single law that prefers men over women, but increasing numbers that are deliberately targetted at men, authored by womens’ activism. Stop supporting Jemima Crow.

  19. Bizarre that people disagree with PaulB about this case.

    Most of us (with the possible exception of IanB, but he’s a big lad and can comment on his own behalf) aren’t. We are disagreeing with his insistance that disagreeing with La Bindel’s insistance that there is massive support for Evans is, in fact, actually support for Evans. He is, as far as this thread is concerned, tilting at windmills.

    That a man may be legally, morally and actually guilty doesn’t excuse journalists who write utter tripe about society’s response to the case.

    Yes, Paul’s right in his basic point (if not his aim). Evans and his ilk are a more acute problem than Bindel and hers. Whether, in the grand scheme of things, they will end up doing more serious damage to society as a whole (as opposed to rape victims in specific) is still up for discussion.

  20. IanB,

    There is no practical means of deciding at what state of drunkenness a person is no longer responsible for their own decisions …

    That’s ridiculous; sometimes it’s pretty obvious when a person is drunk, not all the time, but that’s what a jury is for, to hear both sides of the case, evidence from all the witnesses. If there is a woman in a bar that can barely stand on her own two feet, she’s slurring her words etc, I think it’s a reasonable assumption she’s drunk and lacks ‘capacity’ for legal consent.

    Furthermore, sexual consent is rarely explicit, it is implicit. Thus, people initiate sexual actions and continue unless there is a refusal. The girl did not refuse sex with the convicted man. At the time, her actions thus constituted consent.

    Christ, do you really think that non-refusal constitutes consent?

  21. Christ, do you really think that non-refusal constitutes consent?

    Yes, because that is how social interactions function among human beings routinely. Try to remember the last romantic movie you watched where the couple asked formal permission before the strings swelled and they started snogging. Human sexual proceedings generally are a string of initiations and acceptances of each stage. That’s just how we are. We don’t sign contracts. In a society where men are more expected to be initiators, women take the role of censors, exercising a veto. If they do not, in the real world that constitutes consent. I have performed innumerable sexual acts on others, and they upon me, for which no prior formal consent was declared. And life would have been very dull indeed if we all hadn’t acted that way.

    If there is a woman in a bar that can barely stand on her own two feet, she’s slurring her words etc, I think it’s a reasonable assumption she’s drunk and lacks ‘capacity’ for legal consent.

    The problem is, that in stating this, you arbitrarily criminalise numerous drunken sexual couplings which occur every day. How drunk is too drunk? Indeed, there is a fictional, comedy cliche of the couple waking up next to one another after drinking and saying “did we?” and “Oh god, we did!” or “let’s pretend we didn’t” etc. This is all part of the normal social sexual sphere.

    A rational law on rape can only be based on force; that might be literal physical force, or threat. All that is, and always has been, recognised as rape. Once you want a jury to judge what level of drunk counts as “not consent”, you’re down to arbitrary subjective opinions.

    And, does a drunken man get a pass from the court for not being responsible for his actions? If both are drunk, how can we hold the woman not responsible for the simple decision of consent, but hold the man responsible, in a drunken state, for having to second guess what the woman might have decided if she were sober?

    All this is madness.

    There is a significant proportion of false rape claims which occur because the woman, post hoc, is ashamed of impulsive sexual behaviour. If women are given legal justification for withdrawing consent in this manner, they will use it. Not because they are evil, but because they are humans; as a species we are masters of the post-hoc justification (indeed, the rapist who says, “she was asking for it” is another example). A woman in a puritised society who feels ashamed of the previous night’s impulsive sexual behaviour is incentivised to grasp at the straw of “I didn’t really consent, because I was drunk” if it is offered. The anti-sexualised harridans of the Feminist movement know this, which is why they’ve pushed these laws through in every jurisdiction they have been able to.

    I will say this again; a drunk who chooses to drive is responsible for her actions. So is a drunk who chooses to have a shag. That’s the only rational approach that a law can take, and remain just.

  22. The drunk driver is held responsible because he puts others at risk of being killed. We want to mitigate that risk; we say it’s such a serious risk that it constitutes criminality to get in that state and behind a wheel.

    The only person the drunk woman is putting at risk is herself.

    The problem is, that in stating this, you arbitrarily criminalise numerous drunken sexual couplings which occur every day. How drunk is too drunk? Indeed, there is a fictional, comedy cliche of the couple waking up next to one another after drinking and saying “did we?” and “Oh god, we did!” or “let’s pretend we didn’t” etc. This is all part of the normal social sexual sphere.

    Of course it is, to some extent, but not a relatively sober man with a shit-faced female stranger.

  23. There is obviously a clear moral difference between, say, (A) not getting consent from a male or female you have a sexual relationship with, and (B) engaging in some kind of sexual activity with an incapacitated male or female stranger.

    We haven’t criminalised the morning wake-up blowjob, for example.

    Christ.

  24. I accept SE’s point that I may have read too much into the apparent levels of support on the internet for Evans. But I assure you that I have not been influenced by Ms Bindel.

    On the other hand, there are three commentators here – a sizeable minority – who see it as a vile act of oppression, implemented by “feminazis” abetted by “manginas” and “Jemima Crows” that they are not legally permitted to walk into a bedroom not their own, find a very drunk woman they’ve never met before in the bed, and have sex with her. If it’s true that the general level of support for Evans is tiny, then this forum would appear to have a disproportionate concentration of his supporters.

  25. We haven’t criminalised the morning wake-up blowjob, for example.

    That turns on exactly the same legal nicety (s4(1)(d) & s4(2) SOA03) as we must presume exonerated Mr McDonald. A “reasonable belief … having regard to all the circumstances” that the person would or had consented.

  26. The drunk driver is held responsible because he puts others at risk of being killed. We want to mitigate that risk; we say it’s such a serious risk that it constitutes criminality to get in that state and behind a wheel.

    That is beside the point. The issue is whether drunks are culpable for their actions. We do not say that drunks are not responsible for driving, beating their wives, starting fights, etc. Only in this one specific legal matter has it been decided that they are not. Purely to satisfy the desires of feminists.

    PaulB-

    they are not legally permitted to walk into a bedroom not their own, find a very drunk woman they’ve never met before in the bed, and have sex with her.

    You keep harping on about this “walking in” business, as if that were the crux of the matter. What we are discussing here is the general issue of whether women can withdraw sexual consent post hoc. Remember, the other men she had sex with were charged with rape too. She and the prosecution were trying to withdrraw her consent from all the xexual activity she indulged in; at least the jury wouldn’t support her that far, but under this unjust law, they could have done.

    Additionally, you keep saying “walked in and found a drunken woman” as if he wandered into a room at random where a woman happened to be on a bed. In fact, he was given a heads up that there was a small gang bang in progress, and he joined in with that. Your choice of words creates a false impression of the situation that actually occurred.

    On a general level, this type of law is typical of the style of bad laws that Progressives prefer. The court system works tolerably well when a jury are asked a straight question of fact; did A commit crime B. Under normal common law, a trial can only be held if a crime can be shown to have been committed (corpus delicti) and then the jury are asked, did the person in the dock commit the crime?

    Under Progressive laws, the jury are asked vague moral questions; were Adam and Bob “acting in a grossly indecent manner?” or “does this girl look under 18 to you?” or “do you think these men are racists?”. In this case there is no doubt that the sex took place and that she consented to it. The jury convicted on an arbitrary, morally laden judgement of, effectively, whether a man was a cad and a bounder. Courts are reasonably good at dealing with facts. They are not the place to deal with morals.

    This girl got drunk, lost her inhibitions, indulged in group sex, then regretted it and used an unjust law to exculpate herself of shame by shifting it onto the men she had sex with. It is fundamentally unjust. It is interesting to note how the hegemonic view is that it is terribly wrong to even object to this miscarriage; the typical use of the Progressive moral sledgehammer to silence dissent. Considering the long, shameful history of the Feminist Movement supporting female murderers and demanding their release, the least that men, as a class, have the right to do is to object to a clearly biased, and unjust, law imposed by that same movement.

  27. What we are discussing here is the general issue of whether women can withdraw sexual consent post hoc.

    Actually, I think that is what you are discussing. And it is a valuable point to discuss. But it is certainly not what Paul is discussing.

    In this case there is no doubt that the sex took place and that she consented to it.

    Are you sure of the latter? There was either reasonable doubt regarding her consent to sex with McDonald or the jury believed that McDonald had a reasonable belief that she had consented to sex. Based on her going up to the room with him. If the law was as biased to the feminist position as you claim, he would have been convicted.

    However, I also don’t believe it is as clear as you maintain that she consented to sex with Evans as opposed to McDonald. But then I’m not in possession of all of the facts of the case, or even the subset that was presented in court. I suspect you’re not either.

  28. In fact, he was given a heads up that there was a small gang bang in progress, and he joined in with that. Your choice of words creates a false impression of the situation that actually occurred.

    There wasn’t a gang-bang in progress. If there had been, I would have said so. But it would not have helped Evans’ defence: my dictionary defines a gang-bang as:

    successive sexual intercourse with one, usually unwilling, female by a group of males.

  29. Paul, your dictionary is a strange one. I’ve never heard the “usually unwilling” clause anywhere else. If indeed that is the correct definition of the term, then I used the wrong term. But since Wikipedia (the consensus of the internet, in a sense) defines it as

    “Gang bangs are not synonymous with gang rape because all sexual activity is consensual and is often organized and orchestrated by a partner.”

    my usage to describe a consensual situation would seem to be at least valid, if not the only possible usage. As wiki seems to note, one would use the term “gang rape” if it were rape.

    Surreptitious Evil-

    Actually, I think that is what you are discussing. And it is a valuable point to discuss. But it is certainly not what Paul is discussing.

    That is because Paul is using a typical Progressive stylee of argument (and indeed law) which is to distract everyone from matters of fact, by concentrating on moral condemnation. A good example of this was the recent double jeopardy trial of the Lawrence Two-So-Far, in which the court went through a farcical pantomime of pretending there was significant evidence, where their actual conviction actually depended on the moral condemnation of them as racists.

    It is thus interesting to note that we have gone from one bad position, in which rape victims were condemned for their personal morals, to an equally biased reversal in which defendants are condemned for their morals. This is arbitrary law, it is unjustifiable in a free society, and is an articulation of the conclusion reached by the legalist doyenne of the Feminist Movement, Catharine Mackinnon, that a feminist society cannot be a liberal society. One has to choose one or the other, and we have chosen the wrong one.

  30. Ian B,

    The drunk driver is held responsible because he puts others at risk of being killed. We want to mitigate that risk; we say it’s such a serious risk that it constitutes criminality to get in that state and behind a wheel.

    That is beside the point. The issue is whether drunks are culpable for their actions. We do not say that drunks are not responsible for driving, beating their wives, starting fights, etc.

    On the contrary, it is the point. Your drunk-drivers, wife-beaters and fight-starters are risking or causing harm to others. That is why they are culpable. The drunk man or woman who is raped is not causing harm to others – harm is being done to them. But you say they are culpable for that harm?

    By the way, feminazism doesn’t seem prerequisite for drawing such a distinction.

    What we are discussing here is the general issue of whether women can withdraw sexual consent post hoc.

    Don’t shift the goalposts. We were talking about consent and capacity for consent. Whether the real-life case of a woman who fell over in a kebab shop, who appeared to a hotel receptionist to be “extremely drunk”, “stumbling” and “slurring”, has capacity to consent to or is culpable for a male stranger penetrating her.

    Probably worth pointing out again that the man she accompanied to the hotel room wasn’t found guilty, which puts the lie to the black-and-white view you appear to have.

  31. UKLiberty-

    You are the one making the artificial distinction, by adding in this clause about “harm to others”. Libertarians may care about that, or Utilitarians. But it’s nothing to do with the “too drunk to fuck” issue. Either a drunk person is responsible for their own decisions, or they are not.

    If this drunk woman was a “drunk woman who was raped”, it would be rape. Instead, this was a drunk woman who had sex. If any “harm” (which onstitutes nothing more than regret, a common “harm” indeed) occurred, she is indeed culpable, just the same as a drunk who falls and knocks his teeth out (harming only himself) is culpable. The fact that the next morning he wishes he hadn’t is neither here nor there.

    Whether the real-life case of a woman who fell over in a kebab shop, who appeared to a hotel receptionist to be “extremely drunk”, “stumbling” and “slurring”, has capacity to consent to or is culpable for a male stranger penetrating her.

    And there is no way to answer this question, because it is in fact meaningless. Consent is an act, and she committed that act by consenting. That’s all there is.

    Probably worth pointing out again that the man she accompanied to the hotel room wasn’t found guilty, which puts the lie to the black-and-white view you appear to have.

    Which actually demonstrates the perversity of the decision, and how the court was really judging arbitrarily the morals of the defendant Evans, rather than “capacity to consent”, which was the weapon used. Apparently this woman was in a quantum superposition of states in which she was simultaneously capable of consenting to (A) but not to (B). Which is pretty absurd.

    The sole purpose of this law is to jeopardise men. Many of the white knights here no doubt are thinking, “well I wouldn’t act like that bounder Evans, so I am safe”. But many men may go to a party, meet someone, and one thing leads to another… and then the next morning she declares she was drunk and her apparent consent was not legal consent, and you’re off to court. What argument are you going to use, now that the law has put you in the impossible position of having to make decisions for other people, based on your own assessment of how drunk they are? Is that really compatible with UK “liberty”?

    This has reminded me of a discussion about sex with a female friend some years ago. She was somewhat overweight, and preferred to have had a few drinks before sex as otherwise she felt shy and inhibited about her body. (The discussion had come up because my partner at the time liked a glass of wine or two to “get in the mood” and I myself like to be stone cold sober, and dislike being even mildly tipsy when doing the deed). How do we integrate these realities into this fierce feminist legal construct? Breathalysers? Only have sex with someone who can walk a chalk line and write out the alphabet?

    The Feminists just want as many innocent men convicted of rape as possible. They don’t care. The rest of us do need to care. Any non-feminist who supports them in their vicious madness is simply being a useful idiot.

  32. Apparently this woman was in a quantum superposition of states in which she was simultaneously capable of consenting to (A) but not to (B). Which is pretty absurd.

    That is a possible, but unlikely, reading of the reasoning behind the difference in the verdicts. I would suggest it is far more likely (although neither of us know and it would be illegal to ask anybody who does) that the jury considered that her going up to McDonald’s room with him gave him (and only him) reasonable belief that she consented to sex. In the conjectured absence, of course, of her explicitly denying consent. And despite the fact that, legally (law as it is not law as we might want it to be), she might have been incapable of actually consenting.

    They appear to have decided that that presumption of reasonable belief in consent did not extend to Evans.

    Which is an unsubtly different picture from the one you are painting so emphatically.

  33. That is because Paul is using a typical Progressive stylee of argument (and indeed law) which is to distract everyone from matters of fact.

    IanB: Strange that you should say that, because I’m the one who talking about the facts of the case, while you’ve been ranting on about who-knows-what. If you want to discuss this further, I suggest you tell us whether you agree with the conviction of the man who was convicted, and if not why not, having regards to the actual facts of the case as reported.

  34. I’ve already answered that Paul. There should have been no conviction, nor a court case, since there was no rape. I can’t be more clear than that.

    I suspect you want me to answer the question of whether he should have been convicted under the law as it is currently. I cannot answer that question, since the law leaves it to an entirely arbitrary judgement by any jury; there is no fact to be ascertained (as there would be in, “did Bob steal Alice’s lawnmower?” type cases). Nobody can answer that question, since there is no objective issue of fact to answer. There is just the opinion of whether having sex with somebody drunk is in one’s personal opinion immoral in some way.

    So, on the facts of the case, if I had been on the jury I would have refused to convict in a jury nullification stylee. There was clearly no case to answer.

  35. Paul, just to add this-

    This is the equivalent of legal situations created by a previous terrible, (first wave) feminist/progressive law, the Gross Indecency Law. Should Oscar Wilde have been convicted? Alan Turing? Numerous other gays?

    The answer is “yes” or “probably” under the law as it stood. But the answer is “no” in that the law itself was an unjust affront to a just society, created purely by vicious minded activists bent on persecution. Of men. As per usual.

  36. Ian B,

    You are the one making the artificial distinction, by adding in this clause about “harm to others”.

    I know – I am talking about what I think is the basis for the law. I thought that would be permitted given your banging on about feminist hegemonies.

    Either a drunk person is responsible for their own decisions, or they are not.

    What decision?

    What decision relating to Ched Evans did the woman make in this particular case?

    If any “harm” (which onstitutes nothing more than regret, a common “harm” indeed) occurred

    You don’t believe in psychological or ‘mental’ harm, then.

    Consent is an act, and she committed that act by consenting.

    What consent did she give to Ched Evans? Tell us how she expressed it, what was its nature, how it was committed.

    Or was it implicit in her lying naked with her legs spread on a hotel bed, too drunk to say “no”?

    Apparently this woman was in a quantum superposition of states in which she was simultaneously capable of consenting to (A) but not to (B). Which is pretty absurd.

    Um no, because it might turn on the clause SE cited : ” (s4(1)(d) & s4(2) SOA03) as we must presume exonerated Mr McDonald. A “reasonable belief … having regard to all the circumstances” that the person would or had consented.”

    http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/4

    Presumably Richards was cleared because the jury could not find beyond reasonable doubt that Richards did not have reasonable belief.

    But many men may go to a party, meet someone, and one thing leads to another… and then the next morning she declares she was drunk and her apparent consent was not legal consent, and you’re off to court. What argument are you going to use, now that the law has put you in the impossible position of having to make decisions for other people, based on your own assessment of how drunk they are? Is that really compatible with UK “liberty”?

    What it means is that a man ought to be wary of shagging women who are so inebriated they fall over, stumble, and slur their words, even if he doesn’t think it’s wrong to shag someone in that state. It doesn’t seem like a great infringement on liberty to me, as there are lots of women who aren’t in such a state, but then I have been indoctrinated by the feminist hegemony, so I would say that.

    She was somewhat overweight, and preferred to have had a few drinks before sex as otherwise she felt shy and inhibited about her body. (The discussion had come up because my partner at the time liked a glass of wine or two to “get in the mood” and I myself like to be stone cold sober, and dislike being even mildly tipsy when doing the deed). How do we integrate these realities into this fierce feminist legal construct? Breathalysers? Only have sex with someone who can walk a chalk line and write out the alphabet?

    ‘Partner’ implies a relationship. In the unlikely event your partner makes a complaint that you, say, initiated penetrative sex while she was asleep, or that you had penetrative sex after her four glasses of wine instead her usual two, the jury (if it ever gets that far) will hear you’re in a relationship and the details of it, the history, the circumstances, and I think the chance of a guilty verdict is infinitesimal.

    A woman who drank two glasses of wine to loosen her own inhibitions is in a different state to a woman who has consumed so much alcohol she is “stumbling”, falling over, “slurring” and appears “extremely drunk” to strangers.

  37. It doesn’t seem like a great infringement on liberty to me, as there are lots of women who aren’t in such a state, but then I have been indoctrinated by the feminist hegemony, so I would say that.

    Maybe it doesn’t seem like much of an infringement to you. Just as, if you don’t take drugs yourself, the drugs laws aren’t an infrinegment of your liberty either.

    But out there this weekend, there will be some guy at a party with a drunk woman and the chance of a shag, and he’ll be playing russian roulette if he trusts her consent, because she and a court can withdraw it retrospectively later on, and then he will be retroactively declared a rapist. That is the law you are supporting.

    but then I have been indoctrinated by the feminist hegemony, so I would say that.

    Pretty much, yes. It’s sad.

  38. Ian B,

    Maybe it doesn’t seem like much of an infringement to you. Just as, if you don’t take drugs yourself, the drugs laws aren’t an infrinegment of your liberty either.

    They are an infringement; I don’t think I should be prevented from consuming drugs even if it’s for my own good (see On Liberty, JSM). But yet again you conflate ‘something someone does to himself’ with ‘something someone does to another’.

    But out there this weekend, there will be some guy at a party with a drunk woman and the chance of a shag, and he’ll be playing russian roulette if he trusts her consent, because she and a court can withdraw it retrospectively later on, and then he will be retroactively declared a rapist. That is the law you are supporting.

    What was the nature of the woman’s consent to Ched Evans?

  39. he’ll be playing russian roulette if he trusts her consent, because she and a court can withdraw it retrospectively later on, and then he will be retroactively declared a rapist.

    Have you any evidence, in case law, that this has happened (no, Evans does not count)?

    You’re trusting her when she says she’s 16 too, you do realise?

  40. What was the nature of the woman’s consent to Ched Evans?

    Participation. How many sodding times do we have to go around that mulberry bush?

    You’re trusting her when she says she’s 16 too, you do realise?

    Yes, but at least her age is a matter of objective fact that she cannot alter retrospectively if she feels like it. You can if you’re really worried ask for proof of age. What proof can be had that a drunk woman won’t change her mind the next day? There is none possible.

    So effectively, the only way to guarantee not becoming declared a rapist is to never have sex with a woman who has been drinking. Which, since that is not going to become the norm, means that men are simply exposed to arbitrary prosecution. Go to a party or a pub, meet a woman, have impulsive sex. You might be a rapist. Depends on what she decides later on.

    That is a lot of things, but it isn’t justice.

  41. Participation. How many sodding times do we have to go around that mulberry bush?

    Active participation? Passive acquiescence? Or passed out and unable to do anything about it?

    You can if you’re really worried ask for proof of age.

    If you’re meeting her in a pub, she’s got fake ID.

    Go to a party or a pub, meet a woman, have impulsive sex. You might be a rapist. Depends on what she decides later on.

    Please, if you have evidence that juries are deciding cases this way, would you please link to it. Because that isn’t what happened in the case we are discussing. In fact the victim didn’t claim that she didn’t consent. She claimed she couldn’t remember. The evidence of her drunken state came from 3rd party witnesses and the CCTV.

  42. I typed out a response, but SE @41 is more accurate and eloquent.

    Also, I just realised that I have been using “Richards” instead of “McDonald”.

  43. If you’re meeting her in a pub, she’s got fake ID.

    In which case there shouldn’t be a case to answer, but the feminists running the legal system will of course make sure there is. Similar problem.

    Please, if you have evidence that juries are deciding cases this way, would you please link to it.

    That isn’t the issue. That is what the law enables.

    In fact the victim didn’t claim that she didn’t consent. She claimed she couldn’t remember. The evidence of her drunken state came from 3rd party witnesses and the CCTV.

    Which is precisely my point. The law allowed a post-hoc nullification of consent based on the court’s opinion that she was “too drunk to fuck”.

    She did actually accuse both men of rape, on the basis that she was too drunk to fuck, regardless of what consent she may have given or not at the time. It entirely supports my argument, not yours.

    The drink driving law at least sets a blood alcohol level that says you’re too drunk to drive. The drink fucking law simply says you and the court can decide that later. It is entirely arbitrary.

  44. Which is precisely my point.

    Then, I’m afraid, your point is sufficiently close to nonsense to be indistinguishable therefrom.

    The law allowed a post-hoc nullification of consent based on the court’s opinion that she was “too drunk to fuck”.

    The law allowed the jury to reach a reasonable decision based on the facts presented to them. They (appear to have) decided, on the evidence, that McDonald had a reasonable expectation of consent but Evans didn’t. You claim, without evidence, that she consented by merely being there. It has been established – well before this case, and I think quite reasonably, that lack of refusal of consent is not enough to presume consent.

    I reiterate – McDonald was found not guilty.

    There are many laws that require the finder of fact (magistrate, DJ or jury) to make value judgements. These include “dangerous driving”, theft offences (intent to ‘permanently deprive’), murder (intent or accident), defensive violence (‘reasonable force’). It is a fundamental plank of the common law rather than the code law system that you are seeking to over-turn here.

  45. Sorry, that shouldn’t have been “claim without evidence”. It should have been “claim without providing legal reasoning for your point”.

    That I leave my door open is not consent for one of the local scrotes to nick my stuff. It is, however, high risk behaviour. He’s still a thief.

    That she was passed out on a stranger’s bed, having had sex with him, is not consent for one of that stranger’s mates to rape her. It is, however, high risk behaviour. He’s still a rapist.

    Mind you – we’re not going to agree on even a point of discussion. You maintain her physical presence should be sufficient for consent (although you do agree that that isn’t what the law says, therefore you think the law is wrong.)

    Many of the rest of us think that consent needs to be more than that and can see the legal reasons in the nuances between the contexts of McDonald and Evans that resulted in one getting off and the other getting 5 years.

  46. Ian B, you are missing the point, you are the one claiming she consented, you are saying the law allowed a post-hoc nullification of consent, so we are asking you what was the nature of the consent, what was the nature of her “participation”.

  47. Participation is participation. For heaven’s sake.

    Look, you and me play a game of tennis. I never explicitly said I wanted to play tennis with you. Afterwards I say I was drunk, I wouldn’t have played tennis sober, and what constituted my consent?

    All the answer you have is, “But, you played tennis with me. You were free to say you didn’t want to, or to leave the court at any time. You didn’t. I construed that as consent.”

    What the hell other “nature of participation” is there? And do you really think that a jury, or anyone else discussing the case (e.g. on the internet) can come to any meaningful conclusions once they start being asked what I might have really wanted to consent to if I were sober? How can the law operate other than on the basis of what people actually did?

    Are you going to come up with an objective definition of how symptomatically[1] drunk I have to be before our tennis game ceases to be consensual?

    Oh, I remembered something from some years ago, another anecdote, back when I was in theatre. A certain actress friend of mine was a lesbian. A proud and out one; regulation haircut, “Hello, I’m a lesbian” mode of introduction. She was also a heavy drinker. When drunk, she would frequently forget she was a lesbian and invite the cab driver who’d taken her home in for some rumpy pumpy. This had resulted in three abortions. I even slept with her once, though fortunately my own drunkenness overwhelmed me before any deed occurred.

    Was she raped? Were the cab drivers rapists for not turning down her invitations? Would I have been a rapist but for strategically passing out? And, indeed, was she a rapist for trying to seduce me when I was clearly so drunk?

    Come on. There’s a lot of court cases to be had here. We’d better get our drunk scale organised.

    [1] I remind you again that people are drawing conclusions from drunken symptoms on a CCTV and reported by witnesses. Do you have any idea how arbitrary that is?

  48. I’m seriously wondering whether half the problem we have here is people with no proper experience of serious binge drinking and its inevitable social consequences.

  49. “What the hell other “nature of participation” is there? ”

    Ian, we haven’t made a claim about her participation – it is you who claims she participated. Presumably you have some basis for saying she participated – surely you wouldn’t just invent it? See, I have the impression (and this could be completely incorrect and unfair) that she was lying semi-conscious or unconscious on the bed by the time Evans got there and he had sex with her and she didn’t have a clue what was going on. Now, I don’t count “being penetrated while unconscious” as “participation”. (again, it may not have happened that way.)

    So in what way did she participate? I don’t know why you’re finding this so difficult.

    Did she invite Evans into the room? Did she say “get your trousers down love, I need another shag but your mate’s worn out?” Or was she just lying there, unconscious and naked on the hotel bed?

  50. Ian B: all these anecdotes are, er, as interesting as they are, but they’ve got nothing to do with the actual crime Evans was convicted of. To repeat, the victim had never met him before he came into the room where she was in bed with another man. She was very drunk. He had sex with her. This is what you need to defend.

    The only thing you’ve come up with so far is that he’d been invited there by the other man. I submit that that is irrelevant. Do you disagree?

  51. To repeat, the victim had never met him before he came into the room where she was in bed with another man. She was very drunk. He had sex with her.

    Er, they had sex with each other. I appreciate you’re a feminist, but you’ve really got to get past this “sex is something men do to women while the women lie back and think of England” mindset. It wasn’t true a century ago and it isn’t true now.

    I’m not interested in your moral judgement of Evans, so I’m not interested in defending him. I am, repeatedly, just pointing out that a law which allows a woman to retrospectively withdraw consent because she was drunk is not a just law.

    I will repeat again, AGAIN, that she wanted both men convicted of rape, but one was acquitted (the jury at least had partial wisdom), so the specifics of Evans arriving later are irrelevant. In her mind, and in the minds of the prosecution and police, she was raped by both, because she retrospectively withdrew consent from both.

    So that’s the issue. The withdrawal of consent after the fact. Whether or not Evans is a cad and a bounder is neither here nor there.

  52. I will remind you Paul that the “actual crime Evans was convicted of” is “having sex with a drunk woman”. So my lesbian friend anecdote up there is particularly relevant, and I wonder what your opinion would be if she accused one of those cab drivers of rape the next day.

  53. If we were arguing about whether McDonald should have been convicted, you would have a point. (On balance, and since you didn’t ask, I think the jury was right to acquit him.) But we’re not. She did not invite Evans to have sex with her. McDonald is a cad and a bounder: Evans is a rapist.

  54. I will repeat again, AGAIN, that she wanted both men convicted of rape

    What she wants is irrelevant. I want a certain UK politician (well, actually, at least three of them) convicted of murder. It ain’t going to happen.

    because she retrospectively withdrew consent from both.

    No, she claimed she had no memory of consenting. That claim was denied by both Evans and McDonald. She could have claimed that she had actively refused consent.

    What you end up with here is “is there a case to answer?” Given that neither man denied having sex with her, the rape / no rape question came down to the simple question, as it so often does, of consent. Which is a matter for the finders of fact – in this case, the jury – not for the victim, the police or the CPS.

    Regardless of your opinions of the law, I would suggest that the published facts of the case and the third party and CCTV evidence suggest that there is some doubt as to whether she willingly consented.

    So that’s the issue. The withdrawal of consent after the fact.

    No, there is a dispute about “consent under the law” (did I just feel my wording channel a small bit of ‘Fools on the Loose’. Yuck. I must go and ritually purify myself!) This was resolved against her with regards to McDonald and in agreement with her with regards to Evans. That’s what juries do – they come to decisions as to the facts of the case based on the evidence presented and the law (as informed by the barristers and directed by the judge.)

    Whether or not Evans is a cad and a bounder is neither here nor there.

    Indeed not, it isn’t a crime. Rape, on the other hand, as Paul states, is.

  55. I’m seriously wondering whether half the problem we have here is people with no proper experience of serious binge drinking and its inevitable social consequences.

    Sure Ian, all your opponents here are teetotal, naive, frigid, virgin prudes who have been indoctrinated from birth by the feminist hegemony…. (fegemony? fehegemony?)

    Can I just say, if you really have such difficulty distinguishing between (A) a partner who likes a couple of glasses of wine to loosen her inhibitions and (B) a stranger slurring, stumbling, appears extremely drunk, falls over in a kebab shop or an intoxicated girl your mate said you could have sloppy seconds with, you are at serious risk of going to jail.

    Just for your future reference.

  56. Can I just say, if you really have such difficulty distinguishing between (A) a partner who likes a couple of glasses of wine to loosen her inhibitions and (B) a stranger slurring, stumbling, appears extremely drunk, falls over in a kebab shop or an intoxicated girl your mate said you could have sloppy seconds with, you are at serious risk of going to jail.

    Indeed I apparently am. The question is where this magic dividing line, and where “loosened inhibitions”, which is already a changed mental state, becomes “anyone who has sex with her is a rapist”. Because you seem to be very clear in your mind about where this dividing line is, but have a curious reluctance to tell us how we’re going to objectively define it.

    A just law is written such that a citizen can clearly know when they are breaking the law. If it can only be decided whether an act is in breach of the law by a court, it is not a just law- and yes, this applies to many laws (e.g. an obscenity law).

    And this is why we keep going around the mulberry bush. You want to divide routine human acts into legal and illegal, but then let nobody know which is which, and then pull this “high moral character” argument that you know the difference. Well, I’m a stupid chav (for argument’s sake) and I want to know what the difference is, because I don’t have your superior, godlike vision of human behaviour.

    I have given anecdotes from real life precisely to show how normal it is for people to be in the state you describe. If you ruthlessly applied this law, hundreds of thousands of men- and only men, mind- would be in jail for “rape as defined by UKLIberty”.

    That is why I am being drawn to the conclusion that the defenders of this are naive of drunk-as-a-skunk face-in-a-kebab culture, because if you were familiar with it you wouldn’t be thinking things are as clear cut as you are.

    We’re back to this- woman gets pissed, has sex, regrets it, repots man for rape. You want a world of abritrary law like that? Welcome to the world of the Progressives. If you want a semblance of liberty as your name implies, you’d see what’s wrong with it.

  57. SE-

    What she wants is irrelevant.

    Not when the State- in the form of the police and pr9osecution- want it as well. The jury got half of this right by acquitting one of the defendants, but under Feminist law they were both in jeopardy. UKLiberty is repeatedly making the case that stumbling in the kebab shop was proof she couldn’t give consent; this was before either man had fucked with her, so either both should have been convicted or neither.

    This is why I am trying to focus on the law itself, because this kind of law makes the justice system simply arbitrary. Nobody having sex after drinking knows whether they’re breaking the law or not. Nobody can know how drunk is too drunk. It’s insane. It would still be insane if there were an objective blood alcohol level (a la drink driving) specified, it is simply insane to relieve drunks of culpability for their own actions. But it is doubly insane to have a law as arbitrary as this.

  58. Don Juan, let’s take it as read that you have had more sex with more unconscious women than I have.

    Can we also get past your argument re the more people who do something the more unjust it is to prohibit them from doing it? Because that’s just silly when it comes to ‘offences against the person’. Unless of course you believe that just because large numbers of men punch each other after kicking out time it ought to be made legal to punch someone.

    It’s odd that you think I have a magic dividing line, because I haven’t said that. I have merely been drawing a distinction – obvious, to me – between two particular hypothetical circumstances (two glasses of wine vs. clearly intoxicated).

    I’m not “repeatedly making the case that stumbling in the kebab shop was proof she couldn’t give consent”, I haven’t said it’s “proof”. What I’ve implied is that it’s evidence of intoxication, which speaks to the point about whether she has capacity to consent. But, as you don’t believe in consent, or it’s irrelevant to you, or whatever, we will continue to talk past each other, won’t we?

    The law on rape is pretty clear. I’d give some examples (hypothetical and real) of when it’s obviously rape, when it’s not rape, and when it’s going to be a difficult case if there is a complaint, but as you can’t see the difference between the earlier two hypotheticals I can’t really see the point, can you?

    You can’t see the difference because you don’t understand / believe in this notion of consent and having capacity to consent.

    If you ruthlessly applied this law, hundreds of thousands of men- and only men, mind- would be in jail for “rape as defined by UKLIberty”.

    1. I didn’t write the law. 2. Hundreds of thousands of men might be in jail if there were allegations of rape in the first place and if the police investigated and if the CPS thought there was a reasonable chance of winning a prosecution and if juries believed beyond reasonable doubt the men were guilty.

  59. Actually, I’ve been thinking about this.

    The test case for Ian’s position is actually if a guy is charged with rape, the ‘victim’ says she was entirely happy with it*, and the feminazis (or manginas) insist that she couldn’t consent because she’d had a couple of glasses of vino.

    That happens, no probs, I’ll be welding him into the barricades. With spikes on.

    * Okay, no woman’s ever “entirely happy”. Just run away before they critique you with their friends. You’ll be much happier!

  60. This case is instructive:

    http://www.metro.co.uk/news/598172-chef-cleared-of-too-drunk-to-consent-rape

    Its a clear case of man has apparently consensual sex with drunk woman who (being solicitor, of the legal type, not the street corner variety) knows the law and screams ‘Rape’ when she wakes up in bed with him the next morning.

    He is found not guilty(thank goodness), but I would ask whether those who are debating with Ian B (who I agree with) think that a law that allows a man to be accused of rape in such circumstances, and have to go through a trial, is a just law?

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