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Disney’s movie, Frozen, captivated little girls across the world. Equally, feminists have successfully promoted their own version of “frozen”, persuading our criminal courts that rape victims often suffer “tonic immobility” which renders them incapable of resisting their plight.
“I froze” has become the uniform description covering every oddity in the rape victim’s behaviour – a description that’s rarely challenged.
But men’s physiology is seen as irrelevant. Science on male bodily processes plays no part in criminal investigations and proceedings.
Yet this issue is central to determining guilt or innocence in revoked consent cases.
With the new affirmative consent laws, not only is consent required throughout sexual activity, but women can pull the plug whenever they feel like it.
And men are expected to snap to attention and withdraw.
Easier said than done, you might say. Most judges assume there’s no problem in expecting an immediate male retreat in response to the female red flag.
Never any consideration of whether he even noticed the flag, or whether she was waving it clearly, or maybe that he might have been frozen, rendered immobile due to surprise and shock.
There’s a fascinating article on relevant legal issues — Consent Interruptus: Rape Law and Cases of Initial Consent, by University of Western Australia law lecturer Theodore Bennett.
He quotes feminist scholars who say the claim that men don’t have immediate control is “factually unfounded”.
Not so fast, says “Anton Crabtree”, an expert in Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) – which plays a vital role in investigations of human error in situations like plane crashes.
Crabtree’s disguising his identity due to academia’s tricky ideological climate.
Crabtree makes a compelling case that HFE examination of male neurocognitive and physiological limitations is also relevant to whether men crash and burn in the bedroom.
“The absence of the rigorous assessment and well-established scientific considerations of Human Factors analysis is a glaring omission to any claim of a fair system of justice for persons accused of sexual assault after revoked consent,” writes Crabtree in the academic paper he is preparing.
Bennett describes a case involving a man who was charged with sexual assault after being set upon by three young girls.
They pulled down his pants and a seven-year-old then commenced fellatio without his consent. The judge commented this “did not occur as the result of any voluntary act on his part”.
Yet the man was convicted because he failed to extract himself quickly enough.
The law deemed that this was sexual assault because he “voluntarily” allowed the act to continue “for a few seconds” by not moving.
The man testified that because of his impaired vision he tended to freeze in response to unexpected events. Crabtree comments that the man’s experience “would be a genuinely startling event and freezing is a normal non-volitional reaction to startle”.
Crabtree points out the startle or freeze response is well recognised as an involuntary reaction to a sudden, sharp, unexpected stimulus.
This would apply to any man enjoying a consensual sexual experience who is suddenly told the deal is off. He’s now having non-consensual sex. Which means rape. Which could mean prison.
Crabtree explains that after the initial shock, it takes time for a man’s body to be capable of the much slower cognitive assessment and decision-making process required to process that troubling message, particularly when his body is subject to the sensory overload associated with high levels of sexual arousal.
It is Crabtree’s view that instantaneous withdrawal will rarely be possible in these circumstances – arguing women should be required to ensure their message revoking consent is not only sent but received and understood.
Yet Theodore Bennett’s summary of relevant case law mentions an alleged victim who revokes consent by saying “Wait.”
What’s that supposed to mean? Surely, she could simply be saying,: “Slow down and wait for me.”
Effective communication of consent received no attention from judges in Australia’s most famous revoked consent case, involving Kevin Ibbs, a Perth man known as the “30 Second Rapist” because he was convicted of sexual assault after continuing for 30 seconds after his partner revoked consent.
The whole thing was a set-up, with Ibbs’ wife arranging for her best friend to have sex with him and then revoking consent – so that she could get the marital home.
It worked a treat. Ibbs ended up in jail. Eventually he was acquitted.
By then Ibbs had lost his reputation, all his assets. He eventually committed suicide.
The woman in this case revoked consent by announcing very late in the proceedings that it was “not right” because Ibbs’ wife was her best friend – hardly a clear statement that she was withdrawing consent.
Yet the judges argued Ibbs’ response should have been “nearly instantaneous”.
We can expect to see much more of this blatant injustice, as affirmative consent laws really start to bite.
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