After much legal wrangling, which involves the country of Sweden, where Assange has been accused of Rape, in November 2016 it was finally agreed that Sweden could question him at the embassy, rather than Assange leave there and go to Sweden to face legal issues. So Sweden did, and apparently got a DNA sample too.
Assange claims he is not concerned with the Rape charges but cannot walk free because Great Britain will arrest him and before you know it, he'll be charged with crimes against the United States of America. I think he has every reason to believe this is true. He is not being detained in the embassy by Ecuador, and yet, he risks walking out that door.
Some think of him as a hero, man who is letting the citizens of the world know the truth providing a searchable database that probably no one person has ever read word for word. His organization thinks of themselves as Journalists, while even Journalists have more discretion.
Because so much else has been going on, such as the U.S. Presidential election, which Wikileaks may have influenced against candidate Hillary Clinton, I feel that the charges of Rape that are partially responsible for Assange's stay at the Embassy, have been almost ignored for some time.
Now, I do not know that Assange committed Rape. But I realize that the definition of Rape is confusing in this situation.
When people hear the word "Rape," they almost always imagine some form of physical violence, and some women who are raped experience being abducted, beaten, tied up, and violated in more than one way, sometimes with objects other than a man's anatomy. Since the woman does not want to have sex, does not wish to be in pain, all this Power Over makes it clear that she has been badly disrespected and used, if not tormented. A woman who escapes from such a scene is often psychologically intimidated and suffers for years beyond any physical healing she might do. She may be turned off sex, have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, be deeply Depressed.
If she is brave though devastated, she makes it to an emergency room where she goes through an exam that can be difficult, her internal and external injuries documented, and she experiences the choice of also trying to put her rapist in prison where he belongs in legal courts that often assume that women are "asking for it" or cannot be raped by husbands, boyfriends, or dates, especially if they ever did have consensual "YES" sex with the person before. A woman experiences being devalued just for being in a female body. She experiences being treated as though she were not a person who should have a CHOICE to have sex, not just once, but EACH and EVERY TIME someone wants to have sex with her, even if she is in a committed relationship..
Contrast that with the form of Rape that Julian Assange was accused of. There was first consensual sex, so what's being discussed is the second time. The woman fell asleep and woke to find him trying to have sex with her, and without protection, that is the claim. A woman who is sleeping is not conscious to give permission. IS SWEDISH LAW overprotecting women? Is the law just craziness?
If a woman has not awoken to say yes to sex, there is a possibility that she could become pregnant, or infected with a VD. She could face the rest of her life with an unplanned for, unwanted child, having the hard choice or putting a child up for adoption, or the hard choice of abortion, and further, her chances at finding another man, maybe a man to love her who can accept all this, might not be so good. Perhaps a lover who can accept a woman who has herpes, HIV-AIDS, or is infertile through an STD, is out there, for her. Maybe someone who doesn't mind that she's got another man's child to support or has had an abortion. Yes, I know that some people find love despite everything. However, it's not uncommon for such women to find themselves considered damaged by other men.
What kind of man would, sneakily, put a woman at risk for all this?
When a woman is high or drunk, she may get sloppy about giving permission for a man to enter her body, may forget to ask or tell him to use protection, and if he is high or drunk, he might want to skip it or forget. The world is full of accidental children conceived like that. When a woman is SLEEPING, she is in no condition to give permission, to even hear the question being asked. She is not on a substance. She's just naturally doing what our bodies do when they need rest, sleeping, and she is NOT COGNITIVE. SHE CANNOT GIVE HER PERMISSION. Neither can, sad to say, women of limited intelligence; that they are taken advantage of sexually and raped more so than women who have a higher intelligence I have no doubt. One of my friend's sister who is of low intelligence was gang raped. A neighbor's sister was put on the Pill by her parents, because they are afraid she will be raped.
Men, overall, seem to need an education about this. I've overheard men say things to each other like, "I get all the women I want, I don't have to Rape." So perhaps some men think that Rapists are desperate men, but while they may be that true (and yes, I do know that Rape can be homosexual, lesbian, or a woman raping a man, but I'm keeping to the heterosexual because Assange is) there is so much else going on. Rape is extremely inappropriate behavior. It's criminal behavior. And often there's out of control anger involved. The rapist may be a psycho.
If you are a woman reading this, please educated the men around you on this issue such as your brother and platonic male friends, as well as, before you have sex with him the first time, a man you want to have sex with. Let him know that sneaky sex, without permission, without protection, without that YES, is not OK, not ever. It may not be the same as strong arming, clearly violent Rape, but it is still Rape.
Missy
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