Stop Sexual Assault and Sexual Violence Speaker at York

[Gogonostop]

The idea that verbal language is necessary for sexual consent is naive and false. There is a thing called body language.

[DateSafeProject]

@Gogonostop Couples that have been together for decades still misread each other's body language. If you think you can read body language, then you would have no problem asking to receive consent. After all, your partner would say, "Yes" if he or she really wants to be with you.

[Gogonostop]

@DateSafeProject

"Couples that have been together for decades still misread each other's body language."

Quite possibly. But a "yes" that is sarcastically intended as a "no" can be misread as well. When we talk about sexual harassment, we say that we don't care how the message is intended, we care only about how it is received - when the man is the speaker. But when the woman is the speaker in terms of body language, all of a sudden the responsibility is on the receiver of the language.

[DateSafeProject]

@Gogonostop With all due respect, your statement is legally inaccurate. The law of consent is not based on gender. To categorize "men this" - "women that" is unfair to all genders and to relationships as a whole. In addition, this video is not about harassment. You will notice the video speaks of sexual assault.

[Gogonostop]

@DateSafeProject

WIth all due respect, some Jim Crow laws did not specifically target blacks either - just those whose grandfathers did not own land prior to the emancipation proclamation. It "just so happened" that 95% of those affected are blacks. And it just so happens that in 99% of rape accusations, those accused are men. To say it is gender neutral is simply not true. And regardless as to whether this vid is about harassment, the same functions - the solicitor and solicited - apply.

[DateSafeProject]

@Gogonostop Do you know the percentages of actually convicted rapists in cases that go to trial (which means the DA thinks they have enough evidence to convict and that number DOES NOT include all the assaults which go unreported)? Do you know the percentage of sexual assault cases which are found to be false accusations? Since your premise is built on the concept a huge percentage of only men are falsely accused of the crime, please share what you believe those percentages are.

[Gogonostop]

@DateSafeProject

No one knows with absolute certainty the % of rapists that are convicted, or what % of accusations are false rape accusations, or what % of rapes are unreported. Anyone who claims they know with absolute certainty the nature of the most private and nebulous of crimes is either dangerously misled or a fraud. We can only be certain that a significant number of false accusations, unreported rapes, etc, occur.

[Gogonostop]

@DateSafeProject

Men are the majority of those accused of sexual assault. They are the vast majority of those we see on television and read about in newspapers. They are the vast majority of those in prison for the crime. I don't need a study to tell me that. And quite frankly, most studies about sexual assault are so filtered and jaded by political ideologies and fraudulent methodologies that they are (unfortunately) worthless.

[DateSafeProject]

@Gogonostop And yet most survivors do not get justice and their assailant is not in prison. For all those people you mention being in prison, they only represent a small number of the actual sexual assaults which occur every year. Yes, males commit the majority of sexual assaults and so you would see them on TV and in the media more often when discussing rapists. At the same time, females are in prison for committing the crime.

[Gogonostop]

@DateSafeProject

"And yet most survivors do not get justice and their assailant is not in prison."

You are absolutely correct. I believe this is also the case with survivors of false accusations, which is why I believe that unreasonably expanding the definition of nonconsent for the sole objective of snagging more convictions of those accused is a bad idea, because it empowers false rape accusers to send innocent people to prison.

[Gogonostop]

All language can be misread; thus the idea that the absence of affirmative consent (a verbal "yes") should be the sole determining factor in proving nonconsent is naive at best. Essentially, a woman could sarcastically say "yes" (and mean "no") while raising her hand in protest, and if the man proceeds anyway he could claim not guilty of sexual assault because she verbally said yes. By your idea, we shouldn't consider her body language at all, and the man would walk free. Bad idea.