[Vicky.]

So women should avoid being anywhere with men ever. Including men that they know. Just, do not ever be anywhere with a man? Yeah, thats realistic.

Then it would be, women, why are you blaming all men for what happened. Thats unfair.

Basically, its always womens fault. Surprise.

[Niamh.]

Imagine if we were talking about murder, "People should just make sure not to get murdered because the conviction rates are bad"

[Vicky.]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Imagine if we were talking about murder, "People should just make sure not to get murdered because the conviction rates are bad"

Quite.

[thesheriff443]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Imagine if we were talking about murder, "People should just make sure not to get murdered because the conviction rates are bad"

But We are not talking about murder.

More women are getting raped, less rapist are getting convicted.

Logic tells us you are safer wearing a cycle helmet from head injury when you ride a bike.

So in tern you are safer not going home with strangers.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by thesheriff443

But We are not talking about murder.

More women are getting raped, less rapist are getting convicted.

Logic tells us you are safer wearing a cycle helmet from head injury when you ride a bike.

So in tern you are safer not going home with strangers.

Oh I know we're not, believe me I know

[thesheriff443]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Oh I know we're not, believe me I know

That's good then!

[Vicky.]

Originally Posted by thesheriff443

But We are not talking about murder.

More women are getting raped, less rapist are getting convicted.

Logic tells us you are safer wearing a cycle helmet from head injury when you ride a bike.

So in tern you are safer not going home with strangers.

But you are more likely to be raped by someone you know. So logic tells you to never live with a man, never go to male friends houses, infact never go out with male people as they could spike you...etc

Of course women DO modify their behaviour somewhat because of the behaviour of some men. But this woman did not randomly go back with a bunch of men she did not know. She went back in a group, with other women too, to a house party.

[Cherie]

In terms of risk what she did seemed pretty risk free tbh, they were household names and she was in a group.

The rape conviction stats are pretty grim.

[thesheriff443]

Originally Posted by Cherie

In terms of risk what she did seemed pretty risk free tbh, they were household names and she was in a group.

The rape conviction stats are pretty grim.

But at some stage she found herself in a bedroom?

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Cherie

In terms of risk what she did seemed pretty risk free tbh, they were household names and she was in a group.

The rape conviction stats are pretty grim.

NI seems really bad, Britain is a little bit better but not much (6% I think?) I can't figures for the Republic of Ireland but we do atleast seem to have a better way of handling rape trials here. Neither the accused or accuser are named and the public are not allowed to attend rape trials

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crim...orth-1.3443644

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Cherie

In terms of risk what she did seemed pretty risk free tbh, they were household names and she was in a group.

The rape conviction stats are pretty grim.

and she was not raped

[Vicky.]

https://www.independent.ie/irish-new...-36757069.html

another list of dos and don'ts.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-new...-36757069.html

another list of dos and don'ts.

Yep she has it nailed. Just going through your other article now

[Vicky.]

Also possibly the best roundup of events I have seen yet

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crim...43620?mode=amp

For anyone commenting without actually knowing anything of the case.

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

Also possibly the best roundup of events I have seen yet

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crim...43620?mode=amp


For anyone commenting without actually knowing anything of the case.

There are a few things in her statement that I can't make sense of

She said she froze as Jackson pushed her down on the bed and with her tight trousers caught at her knees, she couldn’t move. “I was face down on the bed and he was having sex with me.”
Jackson knew she did not want it to happen “but he kept going”, she said.
Then the door opened and Olding walked in. “My heart just sank. I knew what was going to happen. I looked Patrick Jackson straight in the eyes and said ‘please no, not him as well’.”

how could she look him in the eyes if she was face down on the bed
?

t this point the door opened and she heard a female voice. The jury would later hear this was Dara Florence, a key witness in the case.
The woman turned her head away because she feared, with all the photographs being taken downstairs, that she might be filmed. Jackson asked this other woman did she want to stay but Florence said no and shut the door.


When she heard the female voice why didn't she shout out, would your first thought be I don't want to be filmed and even with your head turned away you could still shout out..

but then the testimony from the taxi driver is very condemning..

its a difficult case for sure

[thesheriff443]

Let's just clear this up, there is no way that I think a woman going home with a stranger gives him the right to rape her.

But women do need to think twice about going any where with someone they have just met.

I have also suggested a device to give women more protection when they are out.

At the moment the only real protection a woman has is to nog go home with strangers and this is based on this case!

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by thesheriff443

Let's just clear this up, there is no way that I think a woman going home with a stranger gives him the right to rape her.

But women do need to think twice about going any where with someone they have just met.

I have also suggested a device to give women more protection when they are out.

At the moment the only real protection a woman has is to nog go home with strangers and this is based on this case!

You admitted earlier that most rapes are committed by men the women already know.

So... avoiding strangers isn't going to do much for rape statistics. Unless they are to avoid being alone with any man they know in their life?

[bots]

I haven't been following this case, so please forgive my ignorance of it.

I would just like to put this out there. Under what conditions should a woman be fearful of the potential for rape? In all my years, i've not experienced a single situation where a woman was ever in that danger, whether that be a night out at the pub, office party, train journey, even at strip clubs.

The danger doesn't come from the situation or the attire that a woman chooses to wear. It comes from predators, and predators can strike at any time and at any place.

We can say that woman shouldn't put themselves in a vulnerable position, and to an extent that has some truth, but life is an organic thing, we don't pre-plan every moment of our lives in advance. What was a relatively safe scenario with 3 people in a location, can become an unsafe one if one person leaves, even for a minute. It's impossible to remain safe and secure from predators at all times.

For way too long women have been at a disadvantage, and if that means there needs to be some positive discrimination in their favour to offer them more protection, then it should be done. These predators need to be held accountable.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

I haven't been following this case, so please forgive my ignorance of it.

I would just like to put this out there. Under what conditions should a woman be fearful of the potential for rape? In all my years, i've not experienced a single situation where a woman was ever in that danger, whether that be a night out at the pub, office party, train journey, even at strip clubs.

The danger doesn't come from the situation or the attire that a woman chooses to wear. It comes from predators, and predators can strike at any time and at any place.

We can say that woman shouldn't put themselves in a vulnerable position, and to an extent that has some truth, but life is an organic thing, we don't pre-plan every moment of our lives in advance. What was a relatively safe scenario with 3 people in a location, can become an unsafe one if one person leaves, even for a minute. It's impossible to remain safe and secure from predators at all times.

For way too long women have been at a disadvantage, and if that means there needs to be some positive discrimination in their favour to offer them more protection, then it should be done. These predators need to be held accountable.

It's good to hear that from a man BOTS, thanks.

[Tom4784]

A large number of women will experience sexual violence in their lifetimes, it's a ****ing epidemic and it has been for eons and acting like there's preventative measures is just wrong. Why should a woman have to live her life more cautiously just because, as a soceity, we don't tend to blame a rapist completely for their own actions and choices? 'Oh they committed rape but the woman shouldn't have done this or that!'.

Nothing will ever change while attitudes like that are prevalent in society.

[Niamh.]

.

So to Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding, Blane McIlroy and Rory Harrison, I say this: you may have been found not guilty of the charges brought against you, but you are all guilty of being utter scum. You are damned by your own words. “Spit roasting” women with your friends and later laughing about them as “sluts” and “flutes” doesn’t make you “top shaggers”. It makes you pathetic, inadequate misogynists who see women as nothing more than mere masturbatory receptacles. If you think leaving women bleeding, torn and crying is normal then you should not be having sex. I hope and expect that no woman will ever want to touch any of you after this case. You should not be wearing the jersey of any national sports team, regardless of the verdict.

https://www.stylist.co.uk/long-reads...mpression=true

[Crimson Dynamo]

When my friend told me she'd been coerced into sex I believed her - but was I right?

I brooded long and hard this weekend about #MeToo and the recent slew of rape trial scandals and the confusion they’ve inevitably sowed in female breasts. For most women the defenestration of Harvey Weinstein was a long-overdue sign that a certain form of sexual predation, involving using your professional status as a crowbar, would not be tolerated again. Who knows whether Weinstein will ever be found guilty in a court of law, but it’s fair to say the court of public opinion is firmly against him.

Then there’s the Belfast rape trial, involving Ulster rugby players who were eventually acquitted of any offence. The crude and debasing social media messages sent between defendants about the girl at the centre of the trial, not to mention the fact she suffered a bleeding vaginal lesion means many people, myself included, can’t help feeling there were offences against basic human decency.



Pulling in another direction, there’s the resignation of the Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders, whose term of office saw an alarming number of failed rape trials: prosecutions that collapsed after it became clear potentially exonerating evidence (such as flirty online messages following supposed rapes) had been withheld by the police. Cases that, it seems, should never have come to trial. Suddenly many a female heart was stricken with thoughts of a son or younger brother standing in the dock because an awkward sexual encounter had been misconstrued, or regretted.


Yesterday we learnt of a teacher who lost care of a child he’d just adopted because of false allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour. We cannot avoid the truth that men can find themselves vulnerable too. That the truth may not be instantly or easily resolved – indeed, the truth may not be recoverable at all.



Rape is the hardest offence to prosecute because in almost all instances nobody witnesses the disputed sexual encounter and – unlike murder, GBH, burglary or fraud – it’s often impossible to say for certain an offence has even been committed. That’s really what the trial’s about. Yet we still act as judge and jury on the Twittersphere, expressing our convictions with an almost messianic sense of certainty. We stare at photos of those charged with sexual assault, read press reports and issue our own verdicts: happiest when our cherished social templates go unchallenged.

Yet it’s vital to bear in mind nice guys can and sometimes do behave in an uncharacteristically oafish fashion and that boorish rugger lads have plenty of consensual sex. However outraged I feel about the low rate of rape convictions, however dark my feelings about Weinstein and the Belfast defendants’ “spit-roasting”, there’s no doubt we must cling to the central tenet of justice: guilt must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. I know from personal experience how easy it is to let personal prejudice and dislike distort your better judgement.




Twenty-eight years ago I was an undergraduate in my final year of studies, discovering the joys of feminist theory and bohemian escapism. This largely meant that when I wasn’t devouring the works of Doris Lessing and Sylvia Plath, I was swimming naked in the Thames near Abingdon. My interactions with female intimates had a coven-like intensity, which included fomenting fierce dislikes for certain male contemporaries. So when a friend came to me in tears and said she’d been coerced into sex by a man who I was borderline allergic to, I accepted every word without question.

This youth seemed to me to suffer from a particularly toxic brand of condescension and aggression. I’d heard him openly boast of twisting female academics round his finger. My friend was reluctant to take the matter further, which I put down to her conflict-averse and somewhat fey nature. I was the bold, mouthy one in our friendship, so it was clear to me I should act as her champion.

Once resolved, I marched my friend off to lodge an official complaint with the women’s officer and dean, prompting her when she fell strangely silent about her ordeal. The offending student was duly put through disciplinary procedures, which included a period of rustication and instructions to live outside the college’s grounds.

I never felt more like a warrior queen than when I strode across the college lawns shortly after these admonishments and the man came up to me and lobbed a huge gobbet of spittle at my foot. I felt proud of my defence of truth and honour: like Joan of Arc and Boudicca merged into one.

And that’s how I continued feeling for a couple of years. By then I had moved into a flat in London with a group of women, including my assaulted friend from student days. As the months passed, I noticed my friend was inclined to be worryingly economical with the truth. She was also alarmingly flirtatious (and I approve of flirting on the whole) with any man who entered the apartment, sitting at their feet laughing and rubbing their legs. She had a boyfriend of her own who seemed to exist on a pitch of rampant jealousy and despair. He would phone asking where she was and the truth was we generally didn’t know.
"I will never know for sure what happened in that student bedroom three decades ago, but I now embrace my ignorance, uncertainty and the fact some sexual encounters are ambiguous"

Then a trusted mutual friend took me for a drink and revealed that my flatmate had told her boyfriend she’d been raped by a work colleague. I knew the man in question well and simply couldn’t believe it of him. More than that, it made no sense that she would only discuss the rape with her pathologically jealous boyfriend. I decided to quiz the work colleague concerned and after some gentle probing he admitted he’d been having a consensual affair with my flatmate for six months. He gave examples of their pillow talk that absolutely tallied with my friend’s vernacular and humour.

As we talked, a terrible realisation struck me. What if my certainty that my friend had been sexually assaulted during our university days was also open to question? Was that why I’d had to propel her before college authorities? And why the accused youth felt so angry he literally spat on my feet? The woman at the centre of this story is the only friend I’ve ever had to simply stop seeing: her relationship with the truth was simply too taxing. In mitigation, her childhood had been complicated and she had hinted at sexual abuse. Perhaps that was another fabrication, perhaps not.

I will never know for sure what happened in that student bedroom three decades ago, but I now embrace my ignorance, uncertainty and the fact that some sexual encounters are ambiguous. What a learned friend calls “two bad psychodramas colliding”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/li...udgement-rape/

[Marsh.]

"*He played CCTV footage from Ollie’s nightclub which appeared to show her briefly touching the knee of footballer*Kyle Lafferty*and momentarily holding onto the arm of his teammate Will Grigg. "

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

"*He played CCTV footage from Ollie’s nightclub which appeared to show her briefly touching the knee of footballer*Kyle Lafferty*and momentarily holding onto the arm of his teammate Will Grigg. "

I know right? :/

[Marsh.]

Kind of baffling that vaginal tears and profuse bleeding can be construed as "sex" but holding onto the arm of a rugby player in a nightclub is seen as consent to said sex. Wtf?