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Blackleaf

If she's blotto, he's a rapist. How absurd

By Mary Wakefield
(Filed: 12/03/2006)

This week, British men will have to suffer perhaps the most aggravating bout of bossing the Government has yet undertaken. It starts on Tuesday with radio ads and posters; by next Sunday, London will be slick with stickers: Men! Be sure you have a woman's consent, or risk being convicted of rape!

It's a serious business, this campaign for consent - costing £500,000 and fuelled by frustration: despite a decade-long attempt to reduce the incidence of rape, to the Government's intense irritation, there are still roughly 12,000 allegations a year and only 1 in 18 men convicted. No progress. Not good enough. More aggressive mollycoddling needed.

So as part of the same campaign, the Home Office also plans to amend the Sexual Offences Act of 2003 so that a drunk girl can't say yes. Though she swoons as she staggers, and begs a man to stay the night, if a woman is utterly pie-eyed, the new law will say her consent to sex means nothing. And if she then takes the man to court, she'll win. The man can swear she wanted him, produce friends to testify to her drunken attempts to unbutton his shirt, but if she claims to have been blotto, he'll be banged up for rape.

It's a surreal scenario, one guaranteed to make men feel bitter and blame New Labour's feminist agenda. But the campaign for consent isn't simply a cruel swipe at men - it's more mysterious than that, and shot through with misogyny too.

There's the suggestion, for instance, that girls are feeble, sexless creatures who'll keep mum unless they're asked. That if he wasn't reminded constantly of his duty by posters in pubs, a chap might undress his date and have his way while she stood, silently, waiting to say "No".

Then there's the implication that women are, by definition, unable to take their drink. According to the amendment to the Sexual Offences Act, a woman can be in her right mind one minute, and out of it the next.

Why this peculiar disparity between how the genders are judged? If a woman, when drunk, isn't responsible for her actions, then why should a man be? If Stella Artois can force a girl to assent to sex against her will, then why can't a man claim it was the Stella that removed his trousers too?

It's not that women aren't often genuine victims, but that the picture of them here is absurd, almost Victorian, and there's something both suspicious and patronising about directing the anti-rape campaign at men. It's as if there's no point warning women to carry alarms or to book taxis home; no reason to print posters encouraging teenage girls to think before they drink, because the puddle-brained little loves won't understand.

Instead, all £500,000 has to be spent on encouraging men to follow a creepy and unnatural code of behaviour. Ask for consent, say the stickers, but how and when? Before dinner or after? If it's obvious she's up for it, won't a question offend?

The world as imagined by the Home Office is a caricature - full of women without responsibility and men without consciences, and with a mystery at its heart. Why, of the 12,000 or so rape allegations made each year, has the Government chosen to focus on the 4,000 that women admit were fuelled by drink? Why, when there are 8,000 more savage sex offenders out there, is it so keen to convict the men most likely to be in court not for knife-point rape, but for a boozy wrangle over semi-consensual sex?

The answer to this, and the reason that the whole curious world view entailed by the consent campaign makes no sense, is that there's a hidden agenda. The point of the project is, of course, not to see fewer women assaulted, but to secure more convictions instead.

Neither the campaign nor the new law, if passed, have a hope of changing male behaviour, but they will make it almost impossible for juries not to convict men who have had sex with drunk girls, and then, for once, the Government can brag that they've sent a few more rapists to jail.

• Mary Wakefield is Assistant Editor of The Spectator

telegraph.co.uk

Rinty · Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 2:48 pm Post subject: g

Makes sense to me. If I were to emty your pockets of cash while you were drunk and incapable of stopping me, I could easily claim that you didnt say no so therefore its ok.

People who are drunk are deemed not capable of operating machinery at work or a car so are already deemed incapable of controlled behaviour while drunk under law.

The funniest bit by this columnist was a reference to New Labours "feminist" agenda. Where did that come from? What feminist agenda? If only Labour were a quarter as socialist or feminist as the right try to claim, then we would see some real change.

azzuri · 'Our Scotland' Fossil Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 3792

I am actually quite angry about this.

I understand the premise, but why one rule for women and another for men?

This reporter is correct - this is all about gaining more convictions. This is why we need to break free of Westminster - otherwise between ID cards and these crazy laws we'll be living in said 'nanny state' sooner than we think.
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Aventinian · Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 4:10 pm Post subject: Re: g

Um, the law of rape in Scotland has been clear for a very long time - if the man believes consent was given (and that doesn't even have to be a reasonable belief) then he did commit rape. The law in England does not affect us. If anything, I think it's too weighted _against_ the woman.

We already are living in a nanny state - Labour have turned the Scottish Executive into a machine to exercise control over every part of our lives and I imagine the Nationalist/Socialist parties would make it worse yet.

Blackleaf · Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 6:18 pm Post subject:

Blackleaf · Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 6:20 pm Post subject:

Aventinian · Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 9:02 am Post subject:

Well being to rat-arsed to know what you're doing is not a defence against a crime if you voluntarily put yourself into that state. And quite right too. No normal person would get himself into this situation - just don't shag girls that can barely move and I imagine you'll be fine...
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Neil · Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 4:48 pm Post subject:

Bit tough on a lass who can't have a drink if she fancies it. Probably best if she carries a few consent forms in her handbag so that it will all be legal.

In fact people are going to continue behaving like people & juries will, almost always, be sensible. the only result will be a larger number of failed prosecutions.

Of all the possible reasons for supporting independence the idea that we will thus escape the entirely English run nanny state for the classic liberal values of Holyrood seems particularly improbable.
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