I wonder this every time I hear that argument. Less than 6% of people who (commit/are charged with, I'm not sure) rape actually end up in jail. A lot of rape victims have to deal with victim-blaming and, particularly in trial, the defense grabbing at anything about the person to convince the jury that "she was asking for it" or prove she's lying. Not a pleasant experience.

There are some people who'll do about anything for attention- but most people don't want to go through the trouble if they don't have to.

The fact that it escalated this far would indicate something more complicated than a case of "he said, she said." Ideally, it is then the job of the court to uncover the truth. Can Alice recall when it was that Bob gave her permission to borrow the car? Does either one have control-freak tendencies? Is there some past history to take into account? A plausible alibi is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. It has to be examined in light of everything else they know about the case.

As for rape, considering how much trouble it is to get a conviction, what does anyone have to gain by falsely claiming that somebody raped them? Perhaps there are some horribly misguided souls that think any attention is a good thing, even if that attention amounts to little more than a whore/liar label. Honestly, give the victims some credit, people. The vast majority just want to see that their abuser doesn't have the chance to traumatize someone else's life.

Now, granted, he certainly has much more motive to lie than she has, but that's still not anywhere proof "beyond a reasonable doubt". Take an analogy: suppose a case comes to court where Alice is accused of stealing Bob's car. Alice claims Bob clearly told her she could borrow his car; Bob claims he said no such thing and his car was just missing one day. Alice should get off, because her story is just probable enough to cause a reasonable doubt, even though given that Bob is a reasonable human being it should be pretty unlikely that he just forgot he told Alice she could borrow his car.

So Entendre would seem to be right and it's mostly a problem with the criminal justice system.

Plus I also disagree with your analysis of the concept of consent; men also have to give consent to sex. It's as important for the man to consent to sex as the woman. Saying that concept is a bad concept because it implies that it's something women have to give does not make sense because men (legally and morally) have to give consent just as much as women do.

As far as having to take precautions against rape because this system of which you speak is broken, that would require a complete cultural overhaul unless you simply mean that all people (women, children, and men) who aren't rapists should go to extraordinary lengths to protect themselves against rape, which is ostensibly inevitable. What lengths would you suggest, though? The identity of known victims don't give a clue -- a toddler of 3 to an adult of 80 is a potential victim of rape. Older women, women in their seventies and eighties, are often raped in their homes, at night, by an intruder. What are their options? They shouldn't own property, they shouldn't live alone, they shouldn't possess breasts, an anus, a vulva and vagina? What about men, in prison? What are the precautions they ought to take? We know for a fact that most rapists are acquainted with their victims and that most rapists are men: should women refrain from having male bosses, neighbors, spouses, children, friends, lovers, lest they be accused of not taking the appropriate steps to protect themselves against a crime, after all, we know takes place between people who know each other. Should men simply be banned or be placed under surveillance and curfew?

No, of course not. At least, I don't think so.

Y'see, I don't believe rape is inevitable, is "hard-wired" into our "species," or that it possesses a considerable gray area. If we, as a civilization, are at all prepared to take rape as a crime seriously, we would. We aren't, so we don't. Part of the reason for that, I believe, is because we have thoroughly warped ideas about women and sex. There are a considerable number of people who do not believe women enjoy sex, who believe sex is usually painful for women, and who sometimes consider a woman's pain correlative to a man's pleasure, if not actually causative. Therefore, its not such a stretch to think that a woman might regret sex, considering she, under this assumption, doesn't actually like it to begin with, but simply dispenses it for cash, for love, or for something more complex or complicated in return. People who believe that women don't like sex but that men do naturally see women as less than human; if men like sex, women are for sex. This a prude's understanding of sex, a childish, often self-centered, thoroughly distasteful notion of sex as defilement, something that men win through victory over women. Violent pornography underpins this philosophy; a wanton slut who submits to sex, which is filthy, will naturally submit to any other kind of physical torture and enjoy it!

Only in a completely repressed society are there people who actually believe that a significant enough number of alleged rape victims -- significant enough that "morning-after regret" actually is a well-known apology and defense of rape -- that women are so ashamed of having had sex with someone (someone who, at the very most, they were attracted to, if not actually someone they have a relationship with) that they are willing to actively pursue that person's imprisonment simply in order to save face. Save face against what? That they are sexually active?

Apart from that, "legal consent," the actual notion of "consent" in general, is a mistake. Again, it reiterates the false belief that women submit to something rather than actively participate in it, that women consent to having men or other women use their bodies for their own pleasure rather than women cooperating actively for mutual gratification. Consent makes sex sound like a one-sided affair, which it, generally, is not. Since rape is, in fact, a one-sided affair, an assault for the gratification of the rapist, consent lends sex an air of rape. We should strive to separate rape and sex from each other as far as possible, lest we contribute to this magical gray area in which all rape is sex unless someone is dead or bleeding, in which all victims are lying unless proven otherwise.

"Is it REASONABLE that a man COULD wake up the next morning, regret having sex, and accuse a woman of rape? Why, yes it is. It has happened, if very rarely."

No, it's not reasonable. Why would he do that? Also, please provide an example when this has ever happened, and that the men was proved to have been lying because he "regretted" sex. In fact, do you know of an example in which a woman admitted to having lied about having sex because she "regretted" that sex? Again, I don't.

Is it REASONABLE that a man COULD wake up the next morning, regret having sex, and accuse a woman of rape? Why, yes it is. It has happened, if very rarely.

Does that excuse actual rapists? Of course not. But your contention seems to be that the entire system of rape accusation and investigation is biased against women in particular. I don't think that's true -- it's biased against anybody who can't provide proof beyond reasonable doubt of a crime. In the case of rape, that's a very difficult thing, because the non-consensuality of rape is often impossible to prove beyond a reasonable empirical doubt.

What does that mean? One of several things -- perhaps our justice system is flawed, and we shouldn't require proof beyond a reasonable doubt to convict. Perhaps it means that we can't rely on the justice system to prevent or punish rape, and should try to figure out some other way to do so. Perhaps it means that we should each take our own precautions to avoid and prevent rape, regardless of how "wrong" it is that we might have to.

Legal consent of "yes" is only a start -- it won't stop liars on either side of the accusation. But it's an invaluable start; we can only work to make it a cultural norm.

No, that's not correct, Max. When people claim that women falsify rape charges because they regret sex afterwards, that's literally what they mean. They are suggesting that a woman who has sex with someone may thereafter "regret" it (in this scenario, women who have sex are "ashamed" of sex because sex is shameful for women and makes them feel guilty) and accuse the man or woman with whom they engaged in sex of rape. People who dabble in this theory (notably, defense lawyers) are lending credence to the myth that women (some women, all women) are always dubious in their relationship to sex, that sex is something they dispense and might later "regret" dispensing to other people rather than something in which they joyfully participate. If this particularly genus of rape apologia is popular, its because it mirrors popular patriarchal beliefs about "women's sexuality" (as though it were a separate and distinct thing from human sexuality) -- namely that sex is something women often regret or feel bad about, because engaging in sex makes a woman a whore, especially if she enjoys it. So, she shouldn't enjoy it. If she enjoys it, she's a whore. And if she doesn't it, then its her fault and no one forced her. So, under this theory, if a woman has sex with a man, even if no-one else ever knows or hears about it so that they can slut-shame her publicly, the overwhelming internal and self-actuated guilt she feels makes her somehow feel compelled to bring charges against the dude she slept with in order to quell her rising fear and self-hatred and shame. Of course, by accusing someone of rape she then reveals what a whore she is (under this theory about "regretted" sex). Kind of a double-edged sword, there, and a very deliberate message sent to rape victims to keep their mouths shut unless they want to be publicly humiliated for being a whore and a liar.

Arguments like yours are based on a misconception that needs to be countered. Because it does nothing but perpetuate rape appology of the women-lie-about-rape kind. Which, ironically, is the kind of thing that will turn juries against women.

this whole series is fascinating to me.

it has also ended up as a link onto a kink site (fetlife.com) as part of a discussion regarding the "advice" that a newspaper columnist gave to a young woman who was raped while at a party.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/chi-1127-ask-amynov27,0,7648053.column?page=1

thanks for saying so clearly what i have been trying to explain to people for a long long time. it is hard to do when i have so many emotions tied into the issue.

Are there similar behaviors which, individually practiced in sufficient numbers across the culture, can help de-normalize these rapes?

I also understand exactly what you are saying. I believe that rapists know exactly what they are doing and it is always done with obvious malicious intent. The trick is getting the majority to see it the same way so we stop having different "degrees" of rape and letting what are probably the most dangerous men to operate without fear and consequence.

“Yes means yes” is the most dangerous to rapists who work to prevent victims from saying no or who lie when their victim did say no. They want the public and the police to believe that their victims are the exploiters and the rapists are the victims of a crime which happens when rape victims go to the police. And they need the belief in accidental rapists in case all that denial fails to hide the truth.

I have never been able to figure out what is so difficult about simply asking your partner if he or she would like to have sex before having sex.