New laws on Consent are deeply-flawed

It enshrines a simple principle, ask before engaging in sex. If the person cannot answer then don't have sex.

Rape is common and hard to prove because people get off by claiming incapacity or assumed consent. If you have sex whilst drunk then you should be justiably concerned that you could fall fowl of this law

Is there any examples of where these new type of consent laws have been tested in court, Sweden has them in a few years and last year Denmark, Australia only introduced them last month.

It appears consent has to be given, how do you prove it wasn't without a contract recorded in some way? We're still in a he said / she said scenario in court, no?

So we removed the Catholic Church from the bedroom and now the state is lurking there

how progressive

Preposterous take.

The Church was legislating against actions between consenting adults, and in fact endorsed "the right type" of non-consensual sex in marriage.

This is tidying up legislation against actions where there is no consent.

Just the same as the "question" in the op asking if it will cause a rise in false accusations.

Who cares about examples over the last 20 years.

Would you not agree that one man being arrested or losing his job and reputation would be enough?

How about we start with proper sentences for sexual assault and work from there?

Where are you getting those figures and have you a breakdown by gender?

Also "The laws are to protect women and no surprise some people are upset about that"

From reading the Australian law it makes no reference to the sex of the victim.

If women are underreporting men must be multiples time that.

I don't think it's going to do anything to the 66% figure, if anything people could be more inclined to lie about who they are, that's also covered under the Australian law as non consent when you do that.

PlentyOhToole, I agree with the general thrust of your post, but it won't make people more cautious about sexual encounters when alcohol has been taken, its one of the side effects isn't it, lowered inhibitions, poorer decision making etc etc.

In theory it's great, but in practice I don't know how it's enforced unless all sexual encounters are deemed non consentual if alcohol has been consumed. Does this then auto default to the man being guilty of rape if both have had drink? Maybe that's correct as she clearly wasn't in a position to consent? But what if she gave a resounding 'yes' to sex on the night and next day regrets and she felt she was taken advantage of?

The 'guilty until proven innocent' approach worries me if this is the direction it goes.

And in particular

Determining consent in a drunken night out situation is I’m sure particularly difficult 

No, it's not.

If you aren't 100% sure that the person is saying Yes, and in a state where they are reasonably able to do so and will remember it later, then assume that they are saying No.

What case was that?

Indeed, but is their precedent for an acquittal on these grounds?

I don't ever remember reading about any case where an acquittal was gained on the grounds that the accused was píssed.

Given the consumption of alcohol would be a factor in the majority of these cases, it would be extremely odd if no one ever successfully received an acquittal if it was seen as a basis for a not guilty verdict. I'm very much open to correction on that, but nothing comes to mind.

It very much sounds like a law being passed for the sake of it and I don't actually understand what is to be gained from it, apart from an accused stating he/she hadn't been drinking. Which is more of mitigating factor when you think about it.

but isnt the issue with these laws, that even if the person is giving consent. If they've had alcohol, then legally they arent able to give consent? and how do you know its too much alcohol? Like ive had a few drunken fumbles in my time (not many, maybe 4 times, i prefer sex in serious relationships), and there was 2 occasions were we were both very very drunk. We both enjoyed it, but by the standards now, i think it was VERY risky if one of us decided the NEXT day that we are not ok with it.

Also, I think a large conversation goes silent in society that men almost never feel like they were raped, even though the same actions were taken to them. A woman can have sex with a guy who has been drinking (even if the woman is drinking too), and there's almost no societal backing that a guy could be the victim there due to intoxication. The same actions would occur, but because of our conditioning, we dont feel the same way the next day about it. I think thats very wrong then because the same laws wont be applied to both genders even though the actions were the same, all because we've been conditioned differently which brings it back to feelings guiding things.

I completely agree with that its a No unless you are 100% sure its a yes, but the law only activates AFTER the night of sex. That leads to a huge broad reinterpretation of events, and people are huge offenders of dodging personal responsibility. Its in our nature to protect ourselves by blaming others. A flaw in our characters sure, but a very persistent one.

I want to say that i really agree with your last paragraph. I think overall, its a step in the right direction, and is likely something at least providing a good set of tools to start with. I'm only fearful of the mis-allegations or a reasonable situation/mistake being interpreted as predatory which I've seen happen before so it scares me a bit.

If the law was just going to be used to target predators, absolutely 100% support it with my full heart. However, I've met some crazy people who would ruin a persons life so easily for the most fecked up of reasons. Replaying abuse dynamics, a coping mechanism, crazy trauma controlling them, vile personal accountability avoidance and some societally encourage victim roles.

I've had a friend who was charged with Rape. It was eventually thrown out of court, but SOOO much damage was done to his life because of the accusation. The girl turned out to be nut-job with wildly different stories, tampering with evidence (deleting messages and thinking the phone is only record lol). It really scared me how vulnerable a person is to the word rape.

Ive also had a couple friends who were raped, and its awful seeing they had no justice and were terrified of even going down that horrible path in courts. One victim though found out the rapist was put in prison 10 years later for a similar much more sadistic gang rape.

Also, I think a large conversation goes silent in society that men almost never feel like they were raped, even though the same actions were taken to them. A woman can have sex with a guy who has been drinking (even if the woman is drinking too), and there's almost no societal backing that a guy could be the victim there due to intoxication

That's generally not how rape works.

If he was anally penetrated against his will, that's rape. If he was tied to the bed and the woman had her wicked way with him as in forced him to have vaginal intercourse that's sexual assault.

I'm not aware of any cases of that TBH.

The isse of consent is being changed from whether the defendant had an honest, even if mistaken, subjective belief that the other person had consented, to an objectively reasonable belief as to whether the other person had consented. The UK, for example, has been using the word 'reasonable' rather than 'honest' for a good while.

The issue here is it was useless (and impossible really) to decide whether the defendent was being honest about what they said. If a defendant says that they honestly believed that the person who was virutally unconscious with alcohol but who managed a to slur out a 'Yes' to the question of whether they wanted a shag was granting informed consent, what should a judge or jury do in this situaton? And in fact, sometimes when judges were instructing juries about such cases, they have been more or less saying that a story has to be reaonable for the belief to be honest.

I'd be more concerned about this:

"The bill would also include the provision that self-induced intoxication would not be a defence to a charge of rape in relation to an accused's capacity to understand if he did have consent."

Consider a scenario where 2 gay men wake up in a hotel bed together. They bothe have foggy, broken memories of the night before. One man knows he was absolutely pissed drunk and in no way able to grant informed consent, so he reports what happened as rape. Polic investigate, and the hotel footage does indeed show the complainant reeling about the place drunk...but it also shows the accused, reeling about the place equally drunk, or maybe even more so.

I am not sure what would happen under the existing law, but under the new law, certainly, there is no such defence as 'I was too drunk to recognise that the other person as too drunk to consent'. It seems to me that either man could equally accuse the other of rape.

But perhaps that's no different to how it is now anyway.

We do prosecute male rape though. These are generally other males though.

Yes generally they are, its the non male on male rapes i have concern about the huge disparity.