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The commentators                    30-01-15

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...on rape law

It used to be that women who made stupid mistakes with men, who had non-violent sexual encounters in dodgy circumstances — while drunk or otherwise intoxicated, in the heat of the moment or for a million other reasons — did not wake up the next morning and decide they had been raped. Now, in our modern it’s-anybody’s-fault-but-mine culture, there’s a far easier option. Blame the bloke.
- Sarah Vine, Daily Mail

What women find hard to understand about the sort of rapists who claim they’re not rapists really, just normal men who misjudged things in the heat of the moment, is the glaring indifference to enthusiasm (or, in some cases, consciousness): what kind of normal man wants to have sex with someone who doesn’t want to have it with them?
- Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian

It's rather disturbing that police and prosecutors need to be reminded of what seems to me to be beyond dispute in the legislation. But Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders should nevertheless be applauded for doing so.
- Cathy Newman, Daily Telegraph

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If a woman alleges that she was raped why would the police not ask the suspect for evidence that she was consenting to sex? Especially if there are grounds to believe that the victim was not in a fit state to give such consent. 
This line of questioning is needed because all too often a victim’s failure to fight back is taken in some way to signal complicity in the act. But it is a well-known response to trauma for somebody to simply freeze. A rabbit in the headlights is not happy to be run over.
- Harry Hodges, Daily Express

If a man and a woman are out together and have far too much to drink, under these new guidelines the woman will have been incapable of consent on the grounds that she was sozzled, while the man will still be assumed to be sober enough to know he should walk away. How is this fair?
We are talking about people who are drinking or using drugs and assuming him capable of making the same judgments that he would when sober, while she’s being treated like some sort of a child, incapable of thought processes of her own.
- Virginia Blackburn, Daily Express

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Rosie in her bra and suspenders on Monday was the support act, sent on to test the audience. We may have to wait for the headliners - but not for long.
The Sun now has the results of its free market research. We can be pretty sure that bare boobs will vanish from page three, but they will do so without the paper appearing to have surrendered to a "spoilsport" campaign.
In the meantime, the Sun has had a bit of fun. And that's what it's best at.
- Gotcha!

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Comment digest courtesy of
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World politics
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January 9
Charlie Hebdo
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