The Assange case: What makes it rape-rape?

If you’re on Twitter you’ve seen all the questions about the rape allegations against Julian Assange. People are asking — is what he did rape-rape? Conspiracy theorists scream that it is extremely convenient that these charges came up now, and others are saying that it’s not rape because all he did was lie about using a condom. While I understand the suspicion of the former group, I’m not sure that the latter realise that what they are describing is still a rape. I don’t know if he did rape her, but the point is that we treat agreements made while in the act as though they are meaningless.

Consider an alternate … transaction (for want of a better word) … you buy a car, under the assumption that all of the parts in that car qualify it to be a 4×4. When you get home, you find that the essential part that makes it a 4×4 isn’t there. Someone who sold you this car lied to you. What would people describe this as? Bad luck? I don’t think so. Would they tell you to just forget about it, because it had already happened? Even less likely. If the sale hadn’t gone through completely, wouldn’t you be entitled to withdraw from it, and say you no longer wanted the vehicle? Definitely.

What about this? You enter into an agreement with a business partner. You decide that all business deals can only go forward if both of you sign on. Your partner decides that she has higher signing authority and goes forward in a deal involving your funds. The agreement is not what you decided, but she went ahead and did it anyway. Would people shrug their shoulders and say “ag shame”? No. They would say that you had agreed on x and she had done y and that you should have some form of legal recourse.

Why then, in a sexual situation when two people agree on the conditions of the sex eg wearing a condom, and one partner continues without one this is not an act that the first person has agreed to. If the first person then asks the person to stop, and they do not stop, this is rape.

The details of the Assange case are only relevant in so far as they raise the issues for discussion. Trying to have sex with someone who is asleep is also attempting to rape them. According to our law, you have to consent to sex for it to be, well, consensual. Sex is not something you give as a gift. What do I mean? I mean that when I say yes I want to have sex with you at the start of sex, it doesn’t mean you now own the encounter. It is a two-way (and maybe three or four-way) agreement. The issue of consent may seem complex to those who wish to believe that women think up hundreds of excuses to label their sexual encounters rape, but it’s simple as the car example and the business example above illustrate. When I say yes to one thing, it doesn’t mean that I say yes to any old thing you decide to do. If you do things to me during a sexual situation, that I have not agreed to, and I ask you to stop, and you do not, it is rape.

People were also confused about the conditions of the law earlier this year when we heard about a woman who laid charges of rape against a man who had lied about his identity. The man tricked the woman into believing that he was Jewish. She then had sex with him, and when she found out he was Palestinian laid charges of rape. This is still rape under our law. Why?

Let’s use another business example. I say, buy this laptop from me. It’s my old one. It’s totally legit. You buy my laptop. Meanwhile, I stole this laptop, and the police arrive at your door because you have bought stolen property. Haven’t I royally screwed you over? Yes. So did the Palestinian man. He told her he was someone he was not. She would not have had sex with him otherwise. His lies were the foundation of her decision to have sex with him. When you are deceived into a sexual act, you have not given consent.

Perhaps it is because we live in a country where many rapes are extremely violent that we forget about other instances of rape. Rape where someone has sex with someone without their consent. The sexual offences act makes it really clear when you can’t give consent:

When you are forced, intimidated or threatened.
When someone abuses their power and you are unable to show that you don’t give consent.
When you are deceived into agreeing to the sexual act.
Where you are unable to think properly or understand the nature of the act because you are asleep, unconscious, unable to think properly because of drugs or alcohol, a child below 12 or mentally disabled. In these cases you cannot give consent, and even if you agreed to the act, it is rape.

So, surprise-sex is rape-rape. Sex with someone who’s having a nap is rape-rape. Lying about the conditions under which you are having sex is rape-rape. Any questions?