Sex laws that make sense at last

[fluffymark]

The government is finally introducing a new long overdue Sexual Offences Bill, sweeping away all the old archaic and odd sex laws, and replacing them with ones that appear to make sense.
With luck, the new laws appear to be not only gender equal, but also sexual orientation equal, and use mutual consent as the main basis to their decision on what is legal. They've finally seen the light. Hurrah!

Oh, and to completely change the subject, theres a total lunar eclipse occuring from about 3am to 6am in the early hours of tomorrow morning. Yay!

Comments

[laumiere.livejournal.com]

The penetration clause is non-gender specific.

As a feminist it does rather hack me off as it seems to assume that women are incapable of taking any sexual responsibility.

Also, it's abolished the law that if a girl is forced into an arranged marriage either in this country or brought her and she is under 15 (which is still statutary rape) the husband can be charged with a rape offence. *grrr*

[fluffymark]

The way i read it, it's actually assuming drunk people can't assume sexual responisibility. Which is a fair point up to an extent, but it's a fine line about what you define as merely tipsy seduction, and what you define as too-pissed-to-give-valid-consent.

Not too sure what to think about the arranged marriage lark. Arranged marriages aren't neccessarily bad things, and some of them appear to work well, but there are obviously going to be a few cases where it's totally against the woman's will (or possibly even tha man's) and thats bad. Presumably though, in those cases, the lack of consent makes these new laws applicable anyway.

Re:

[laumiere.livejournal.com]

Apparently not. Because of the job i do i get all bogged down in this. The consent thing is actually very much contested, as any woman can go to a ppolice station say 'i've been raped' and the man involved has to *prove* he did his best to ascertain consent. I think the only way to do this without any doubt is to ask someone to sleep with you in front of policeman or someother impartial party, which would sort of kill the romance.

[fluffymark]

*nods* The sex police would be an extremely unromantic idea.

Incidentally, what is your job? *wonders*

Re:

[laumiere.livejournal.com]

Researcher for an anti-Violence Against Women feminist organisation. So besides having been raped myself, i have to deal with the laws, court proceedings, crass stupidity, myths etc surrounding rape on a regular basis.

And i don't hate men.

[fluffymark]

Oh eeeeep. Poor you. That doesn't sound like fun.

*hugs*

Re:

[laumiere.livejournal.com]

The job isn't so bad, it's good to think maybe you can help people.

[fluffymark]

*smiles* If thats your attitude, then you're a truly wonderful person. Helping people, and crawling through much red tape and stupidity to do it, is a proper good thing. Go you! :)

Re:

[laumiere.livejournal.com]

Thank you dearlyng :-)

[fluffymark]

*smallsmile* flattery will get you everywhere. Or so they say.

Re:

[laumiere.livejournal.com]

Except Morecambe.

[fluffymark]

*shudder*. Don't remind me. I gre up near there. Morecambe was my stomping ground as a teenager. The idea that theres now a goth festival there is very surreal for me. Eeeep!