I don’t really know what to say about this that Feministing, Feministe, and Pandagon haven’t already said, but everyone needs to be aware of this. An appellate court in Maryland has ruled that after sex has begun a woman has no right to withdraw her consent.
Feministe had this to say:
let’s pretend that “average person†Partner A doesn’t stop when “average person†Partner B asks him to. Partner A keeps going. Partner B asks him to stop again. He doesn’t. Then Partner B yells at him to stop. He doesn’t. Partner B tries to push him off. He holds Partner B down. Partner B screams for him to stop, cries, struggles to get away. Partner A doesn’t stop until he’s finished.
What does that sound like? Would a reasonable person, with no intent to harm another, act in the way that Partner A did? Should Partner A have legal protection? Is this a standard that we want enshrined in the law?
Pandagon:
The opinion has the background as to why once consent is given, it can’t be withdrawn. Basically, the tradition of laws against rape are based on the premise that women are male property and once the property is penetrated by another man, she’s deflowered and can’t be reflowered, so anything after the initial penetration is not of interest to a criminal court. No, I’m not kidding, read page 32. [[I read it, she's right]]
To make the situation even more distressing, it’s clear from reading the rest of the opinion that the victim of the rape wasn’t so much consenting as accepting the notion that she had to be compliant if she didn’t want to get hurt any worse. The assailant had already held her down and tried to shove his penis in her mouth, had already tried to forcibly penetrate her, and when he realized she was going to continue to offer resistance he said that he didn’t want to rape her, so she gave in and right after he started to penetrate her, she resisted again and he wouldn’t stop.
I weep for my daughter.
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