IN THE UK, SEX IS A GAME OF 'GOTCHA' !!!

[Daanyeer]

Source: mensdaily

Posted on Mar 27, 2009

One of the judges said sex amounts to rape if the woman is incapable of giving consent. But he added: 'Where the complainant has voluntarily consumed even substantial quantities of alcohol, but nevertheless remains capable of choosing whether or not to have intercourse, and in drink agrees to do so, this would not be rape.'
This recently decided case raises some current questions about rape in the UK.

As far as we can tell from this article, a British lawyer got stinking drunk and woke up the next day with a naked man, Peter Bacon, beside her in bed (Daily Mail, 3/25/09). They'd had sex the night before. He says it was consensual; she says she was too drunk to consent.

The woman admits she has no memory of what transpired that night, and, as every trial lawyer knows, that means she's abandoned the field to the only other person involved - the guy. She doesn't remember, but Bacon does and he's saying that she consented every step of the way. Case closed? Don't be too sure. Apparently the new law in the UK is that if a woman (what about a man?) is unable to give consent, then sex equals rape.

That would seem to make the issue whether her intoxication rendered her incapable of giving consent. I completely agree with feminists who say that a woman who is unconscious due to alcohol, drugs or some other cause is off limits. She can't give consent or understand what's going on. But that's not what happened in the Bacon (as usual the suspect is named; the complainant is not) case.

There, she clearly was intoxicated on the night in question. The article states that, when tested the next day, she was still over twice the legal "drink-drive" limit. So she and the prosecution say she was too drunk to give consent. Bacon says that she did in fact consent to everything. So the case seems to present the issue pretty clearly - can simple intoxication make sex into rape?

The answer, according to the judge quoted above in a previous case, is yes it can. But does it? In any situation a couple is involved in that includes alcohol, what certainty can a man have that sex is not rape? The answer to that seems to be 'none whatsoever.' As it stands in the UK, drinking may deprive a woman of her ability to give consent, or it might not. The only sure way for a man to find out which it is would be to go ahead and have sex, be charged with rape and see if he goes to prison or not. Normal life or twenty years behind bars? Roll the dice and see which comes up.

Fortunately for Bacon, he rolled a seven. This article tells us that the jury of seven women and four men took all of 45 minutes to acquit him of the charge (Daily Mail, 3/27/09). And that owes a lot to the fact that the woman admitted that she could remember nothing about the night in question. But if she'd claimed she did remember and was too addled to make sense of what was going on that night, then it's snake eyes for Bacon and a long stretch in the slammer.

And of course whatever applies to alcohol applies to drugs as well, prescription or otherwise. So potentially, a woman could, entirely unknown to the man, take prescription medication, have sex, and claim the medication rendered her incapable of giving consent.

What the British law does now is deprive men of any form of notice that their behavior is not consented to, that it violates the law. There seems to be no requirement that the woman ever say 'no' or manifest non-consent in any way. How is the man to know? He's not and that's his tough luck.

Perhaps the single most important goal of law, civil or criminal, is to channel people's behavior in socially acceptable directions. To do that, laws must inform people what behavior is prohibited so they can know what to avoid. Any law that fails to provide some indication of what constitutes compliance with- or violation of- its requirements is worthless as anything but an exercise of naked police power. Peter Bacon got lucky. The next guy may not.

Some people may think that's an ideal system, but for the men of Great Britain, it amounts to little more than a high-stakes game of 'gotcha.'

Thanks to Lisa for the heads-up.