11 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: On what women want
This article dances around the topic so much it forgets to really make a point. All it boils down to is if you have sex you didn't ask for or enjoy, it would be a good idea not to say the opposite. Brillant. I did appreciate their point about trusting the words that come out of the mouths of adults. If we subtly begin treating women as if they can't reasonably be trusted to consent to *anything*, that has some serious consequences down the line. I just wish the author did more with this discussion and made an actual judgement.
Comment by BigBennP at 21/01/2025 at 12:33 UTC
9 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Part of the problem is that psychological manipulation combined with personality problems and/or mental health disorders is a tough nut to crack.
I've spent some time working as a child welfare lawyer.
In that time, I handled more than a few cases where women stayed with abusive and, in many cases, violent partners at the expense of permanently losing custody of their own kids. Sometimes, they go to Great Lengths to engage in deceptions about this. I've also handled cases where men did the same.
I handled a case where a woman continued to stay with a man who had molested both her daughter and granddaughter. Over the course of 2 years, she purported to separate from him and legally divorced him only to remarry him and move back in with him after the court case had closed. The authorities were no longer watching. When the truth was discovered and the children were taken back into foster care, she first tried to say that no one had told her she couldn't do that, because the court case had been closed, and then admitted she had deceived everyone and been in a relationship with the man the entire time. Her own lawyer called her a case study and codependency.
I handled a different case where a woman continued to stay in a relationship with a man who had quite literally locked her in a room and attempted to set her on fire. She insisted to a disbelieving judge that he was a good man and a good father and should be given a chance, despite social workers and counselors trying to give her opportunities to separate herself. When he went to jail and then bonded out, they were not permitted to have contact, and she actually facilitated him installing a secret trap door in their trailer so that he could come and go in secret.
I handled a case with woman was in a relationship with a man who was violently abusive, and on the 3rd or 4th century and he had punched her and knocked out two teeth after she had confronted him about seeing another woman, she was captured on a recorded telephone call at the jail plotting with him to pretend to separate so they could get custody of the kids back.
I handled a case where the mother of two children was patently narcissistic, a serial cheater, and regularly using meth. She would tell easily falsifiable lies in court and be repeatedly caught out regarding drug use. Her husband was otherwise a stable guy and was repeatedly told that they could not get the kids back if he stayed with her and he would just say that he didn't know what he would do if they were separate. This was despite him being the primary earner in the house.
The mandate for any court in a child welfare case is to do what's in the best interest of the children and to protect the children. Those types of cases are always hard because there is one parent who is perceived as the victim of the other parents' bad acts. However, at a certain point the system does recognize that they are adults with free will and imposes consequences.
From a legal perspective it is always tricky when you have a criminal case with a victim who is uncooperative. When you talk about domestic battery, the system has adapted to the point where it proceeds whether or not the victim wants in some cases.
When you talk about sexual assault it's trickier, because there is always the defense of consent. The legal burden of proving that consent did not exist is different from the societal expectation. A victim in such a case will always be cross-examined on what they did to indicate that consent did not exist.