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a fair call Julie

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Strange they went to a pharmacy together for morning after pill then had coffee, and she continued to communicate with him for at least a month. That was until she found out who he was! Maybe she’s wanting the same celebrity and compensations as Brittney. I call BS on the whole story.

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Re: "Strange they went to a pharmacy together for morning after pill then had coffee, and she continued to communicate with him for at least a month."

Quoting from the news.com article:

"Police will allege the woman told Mr Lehrmann she needed to get the “morning after” pill and that he agreed to take her to a chemist.

The woman and the accused then left the property in a farm ute to attend a chemist.

After visiting the chemist, police allege she asked Mr Lehrmann take her home and he stopped off at McDonald’s on the way.

During the following week she exchanged messages with him on Snapchat, where she noticed his Snapchat name was BruceEmery. Emery is Mr Lehrmann’s middle name."

End of quote.

Going to get the morning after pill indicates the woman was concerned about the risk of unwanted pregnancy.

According to her account as reported on news.com:

"Police will allege the woman told Mr Lehrmann to put a condom on, but that the next thing she remembered was waking up with the accused on top of her.

The police will allege that Mr Lehrmann was not wearing a condom and told the woman they had sex numerous times, and that he had ejaculated inside of her, but that she had no recollections of this.

Failing to wear a condom without a partner’s permission is considered sexual assault under Queensland law."

End of quote.

I agree, failing to wear a condom without a partner's permission is sexual assault. Apart from being violated in that way without consent, the woman has been put at risk of an unwanted pregnancy and potentially sexual disease.

Without witnesses of course how do we know her account is true? I presume that's up to the police and lawyers to evaluate.

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These woman are creating the situation then claiming to be the victim. I’m fed up with them and feel very sorry for the men being used and wrongly accused.

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I guess each case is different, they have to be evaluated on their own evidence.

There's definitely been a devaluing of committed relationships between men and women, this is not good for society.

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There is an entire me too movement on these dating sites where woman have just become, let’s say sex maniacs thinking this is what men want. It’s the reverse 18 year old boy coming of age but it’s far worse. So many younger woman talking about not being able to find a life partner when this is their behaviour and more so they have a partner list of must have requirements but can’t adhere to themselves. It’s modern day prostitution with payment by a meal and night out. Very sad!

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Yes it is sad.

When you think about these 'hook-ups', what are people getting out of it?

Are they so desperate for some physical connection they're willing to give themselves up to these fleeting and potentially dangerous encounters?

And goodness knows what's expected of the women these days...

Seems like children are being groomed from school years for promiscuity, including as portrayed in the mainstream media.

There's a lot to be said for 'old-fashioned values'...wonder if they will become fashionable again?

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Stealthing is a shit move though.

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I’m 70 now, but when I was young we knew you choose to drink you also choose to be drunk, same applies to drugs. Since Julia Gillard removed the word women from the sex discrimination act and cultural Marxism decided all white men bad people appears to be confused. Step up folks and take personal responsibility for your behaviour. Stop expecting big brother to regulate your life and handing over control and responsibility to others. Or trying to make others responsible for your choices.

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Re: “Removing a condom during sex without consent will be considered rape and attract a maximum penalty of life in prison under sweeping laws introduced to Queensland parliament on Wednesday [11 October]. The new laws, aimed at criminalising the tampering with or removal of a condom without consent – commonly referred to as stealthing – will be introduced into parliament as part of an affirmative consent model.”

Do you not think ‘stealthing’ is wrong, i.e. removing a condom without consent?

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A good question, though whatever views I might have are neither here nor there. Given that both the term and the act were unknown to me until a few days ago, it is a new question for me, though probably not for moral philosophers. I knew about Assange of course, but mostly in the context of what i take to be the ridiculous description of the act of having unprotected sex as "rape".

Things can be wrong but not illegal. There is a good case to be made that lying or deceiving a sexual partner is always "wrong". Eg, yes I am on the pill (when I'm not). No I am not married (when I am). No, I am not seeing anyone else (when I am). I am not fertile now (when I might be), so there is no chance I will get pregnant. I have no STDs (when I do, or think I might have). etc.

As one of the other readers said, stealthing is a shit thing to do. Is a deceptive act within an overall consensual context wrong, and how wrong, in the overall scheme of things. It is a murky area. It turns out that sex often occurs without full, relevant information. The question is one of honesty. Would I have consented if I had had full information. Should the State try and regulate all these? better for people to use the precautionary principle for a good life. No sex outside of marriage. But this is not our inherited world.

I do confess to thinking that it would be hard not to notice condom removal. I suppose - not being of the condom using class - that one might surreptitiously take it off without the partner noticing. No one has ever asked me to wear one, nor would I ever wear one, so I am not one to have any views about condom etiquette or the morality of condom removal. But in at least some cases, removal would be obvious. If one party notices the removal and objects, saying let's call the whole thing off, then that very quickly gets to the question of consent. Any form of sex without consent is rape at worse, sex abuse at best. Both legally and morally.

Then there is the question of homosexual sex and AIDS. Where STDs could be fatal. Yes, I realise that once you start differentiating among more and less serious health risks, you are on wobbly ground. Legally, certainly. Again, like with hookup culture (see below) - which homosexuality often is - I am the wrong person to ask, since I think homosexual acts are wrong. Many, of course, will disagree. Fine by me.

It all comes down to trust. The hookup/drunken/cocaine sniffing culture, where so often one or both parties are not fully with it, is begging for trouble of a stealthing kind, and all sorts of potential misunderstandings besides. And all kinds of other murkiness. These new laws are made for a hookup culture as are Speakman's ludicrous verbal permissions. A hookup culture that, in the best of worlds, I think, would not exist.

A little like Christ and reference to Moses's divorce laws. Moses only created the rules about divorce because the Mosaic Jews were, in Christ's words, "unteachable". Divorce itself is morally wrong in Judeo-Christian eyes. and theology.

Bottom line, I do not place unprotected sex, whatever the degree of knowledge of the participants, on a par with rape, and so the use of the word is, I think, wrong and (in Lehrmann type cases) likely harmful to fair trials. Making the sentence for stealthing up to life is, again, ridiculous.

So my answer is not a simple yes or no. Perhaps you think it should be. In which case, sorry.

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Paul, re your reference to "Assangian rape" in your original article.

That case was a few years ago, so I looked for some information and was rather startled to read this account in The Guardian in 2011: Julian Assange tries 'silent' strategy in court fight to beat extradition: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jul/12/julian-assange-strategy-fight-extradition

Quoting from the article:

Referring to evidence of an encounter on the night of 13 August given by a woman known as AA who was putting Assange up at her apartment, Emmerson said: "The appellant's physical advances were initially welcomed but then it felt awkward since he was 'rough and impatient' ... AA was lying on her back and Assange was on top of her ... AA felt that Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina directly, which she did not want since he was not wearing a condom ... she did not articulate this. Instead she therefore tried to turn her hips and squeeze her legs together in order to avoid a penetration ...

"AA tried several times to reach for a condom which Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and try to penetrate her with his penis without using a condom. AA says that she felt about to cry since she was held down and could not reach a condom and felt this could end badly."

End of quote.

Presuming that the account of AA is true, what do you think about it?

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As you suggest Paul, to be on the safe side "Perhaps every sex act should now be preceded by a full and frank rule-making discussion involving participants, with notes duly taken and decisions recorded (preferably recorded on some device). Obtain witnesses, perhaps...."

It's a pretty tricky situation, with a lot of potentially misplaced trust involved...particularly between people who are strangers.

Quoting from the article*:

"Police will allege the woman told Mr Lehrmann to put a condom on, but that the next thing she remembered was waking up with the accused on top of her.

The police will allege that Mr Lehrmann was not wearing a condom and told the woman they had sex numerous times, and that he had ejaculated inside of her, but that she had no recollections of this."

If we take this case at face value, why do you think the woman wanted the man to wear a condom, and why is she aggrieved that he did not?

* https://www.news.com.au/national/queensland/courts-law/bruce-lehrmann-met-toowoomba-woman-at-strip-club-before-rape-police-allege/news-story/1801ba5d43f5c51c4f5078d9a4df1938

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The Nanny State is indeed a worry - from the sublime to the ridiculous to the dangerous.

But when Nanny is a pack of psychopaths, lookout.

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Such madness. I wouldn’t blame young men or any men if they did a Lysistrata in reverse! Stop the war on men.

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It's pretty grim...

I can't see what joy either party gets out of these 'hook-up' experiences.

It seems to be part of a general debasing of society...apart from dictated virtue-signalling on climate change and jabs and what have you.

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Yes it does. It just seems ludicrous.

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