fickle: (fuck off and die)
Fickle ([personal profile] fickle) wrote2006-09-15 12:02 am

Scottish rape laws.

Read them.

Trust me, I couldn't phrase it anywhere near as well as they have.

But just to convince you to click, here are some choice excerpts:

In Scotland, it [rape] can only be committed by males upon females, which appears to mean by persons biologically male at birth upon persons born biologically female.

Translation: If you're a guy, tough luck. You can't accuse anyone of raping you, because it couldn't have happened.

But where the accused has no involvement at all in producing the victim’s state of insensibility and where he happens upon her by chance and has sexual intercourse with her when she is totally unaware of his presence and intentions, then it cannot be established that she demonstrated unwillingness. Therefore, it cannot be shown that any force was used to overcome unwillingness which never existed in fact; therefore, there is no rape.

Translation: If you find an unconscious girl and fuck her, it's not rape.

What have come to be known graphically as “oral sex” and “anal sex” do
not qualify as rape and digital penetration is not sufficient to constitute rape.


Translation: Rape = penis into vagina with lots of violence or threats thereof. Nothing else counts. And that is why guys can't get raped -- they don't have vaginas! Wow. Groundbreaking theory there.

Just read it. I'm hissing, snarling and wanting to shake the fucking idiots who came up with those definitions, so I think this is about as much commentary as I can dish out.

Edit:

Lysander [PWNED, care of Fickle] says:
And then there's the added bonus of the fact that rapists were allowed to cross-examine their victims in court and use any and every bit of info they had on prior sexual history until the law finally was passed to stop that after a girl committed suicide after being cross-examined by her rapist for five days straight during which he wore the same outfit he was wearing when he assaulted her and made her hold up the panties she was wearing at the time for the court. Repeatedly. I hate them all and want them to die.

(Anonymous) 2006-09-16 11:32 am (UTC)(link)
That document was dated April 2001, and it was written in response to a notorious case from March 2001.


  • March 2002: Rape redefined to simply mean sex without consent (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1886660.stm)
  • November 2002: Personal cross-examination by the accused rapist was banned (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2384143.stm)
  • May 2004: Rape broadened to include anal and oral penetration (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3675057.stm) (text of law (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2003/30042--b.htm)). Use of a penis is still required for "rape" (section 1), but use of "anything else" (section 2) carries an equal punishment of life imprisonment, as does any instance where the offender was penetrated by the victim (section 4).


You might have wanted to do a quick search before you all started foaming at the mouth, or at least ask a Scottish person who actually follows the news.

Malcolm

[identity profile] fickle-goddess.livejournal.com 2006-09-16 08:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, good. Not to having been wrong, but to knowing that it's not as bad as it looked. Still could use work, though (http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=53&id=877832006), but thanks for the comment and links.