Oh Salt N Pepa , how brilliant you were, on occasion. I remember floating along to that 'mighty good man' song most days during year ten and still remember all the lyrics. But the cause for this title, and the pausing of the post below / schizophrenically branching into something else already, is this morning's organisation and the fact that I've already done the class readings. With a large amount of focus, I might add :D including margin notes.
But admittedly that's not just because of the perfect coffee that kicked off my day, or the determination to make it not dissolve into strangeness the way yesterday did or a fear of my quite-erratic tutor, it's simply because it was interesting. And because the issue of rape in the law is one I never fully understood. Turns out that's because nobody does. It's all so damn sketchy.
Hugely disturbing, is the whole burden of proof thing. But everybody knows that. Daytime flick after daytime flick has professed it. It's common knowledge that most rape trials end up with no guilty charge, simply because it's hard to prove, because it's her word against his, or because the woman backs down due to discomfort and what not. What I didn't quite register is it's also partly due to the amount of possible defences the man has. For example, instead of it being an issue of 'reasonably believed he had consent', quite often it's 'unreasonably believed he had consent'...which is ridiculous. That's like saying... like saying... 'he wasn't allowed to speed, all the signs said no speeding, but he thought he was, thus it's not a crime' . What a lame-ass defence. And massively supporting the whole phallocentric idea of it being all about what he believed etc etc etc.
Also disturbing though is the 'reasonable belief' part, though. Turns out 'reasonable belief' comes about if: <- and this is highly difficult without brackets, by the by. but everytime I hit paste now , japanese characters flood the page. God knows why? But on with the show..
i) they're married , ...um.. what? once married the woman owes her husband / owner sex whenever he pleases ? odd. Suggestive of property much?
ii) they've slept together in the past., .... apparently this generally results in acquittal. Since when is sleeping with someone allowing them to do what they want to you for the rest of both your lives? If anything, sometimes sleeping with people makes you less likely to ever repeat the action :I .. ugh. gross.
iii) there's no evidence that she scratched or kicked him / nobody heard screams, ...again what? Does her saying no not count? Does the fact that perhaps she was too paralysed with fear to do anything, feature no where? But above all, since WHEN was sex just a permission thing. I mean.. that the woman goes 'ok. cool. sleep with me/take me/do what you will, you have my permission'. Where is the whole two people mutually interested / loving / involved / clearly up for it thing. What kind of guy sleeps with someone who is 'behaving like a zombie, as usual' <- which was one man's defence as to why he raped his wife . If she's usually a zombie... does that not spark a few questions, Son ? I ..argh. I can't explain. It's not coming out right. But the whole 'she didn't stop me' thing seems so stupid because it's not meant to be about that. At all. And the law is just feeding that attitude in. But I spose, if you're not relying on audible screams and fingernail scrapings, what are you meant to use as 'proof' ? And where do you draw the line, in terms of what was wanted and wasn't? Is it rape then if the girl is horrified and doesn't want it to happen but is too scared to speak up so admittedly accepts out of fear of negative consequences???
Sigh. I guess I was raised in a happy little Disneyesque world where no 'yes' or 'no' was needed because it was clear your girlfriend WANTED to sleep with you. And I guess I'm lucky to be in a relationship where not only am I heard and nothing is 'expected' but I WANT to sleep with my boyfriend and it isn't just a price you have to pay, as the readings imply most women feel majority of the time. And where said action involves actual happiness, intimacy and the rest.
I ... oh. out of time again. How many half posts are there in here now? too many.
How much coffee thus far? not enough.
How many things left to ramble about? a million.
Oh my.
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