Speaking of Condoms: Specific Swedish Charges Against Julian Assange Aren't About Actual Rape But... "Sex By Surprise"??!!

What is "sex by surprise"? Well, that still sounds like rape, but the Swedes have a charge for a guy who says he'll use a condom but then doesn't.

Gizmodo claims that that's what Assange is accused of, according to Assange's lawyer.

Police reports obtained by the Daily Mail show that Assange met the two women who denounced him at an August 11 event that was held in Stockholm by the Social Democratic Party. The first woman denounced him because the condom broke while having sex at Assange's apartment. Both were seen acting normally the next day.

The second woman's statement to the police is strange: The 27-year-old photographer said she went to the event because she's fascinated by Assange. She managed to get into a lunch with him and other people. Two days later they talked on the phone and she invited him to her apartment 40 miles from Stockholm, paying for his ticket because—according to her—Assange had no cash or credit cards.

She complained that "he paid more attention to his computer rather than me" on the train ride, and that "the passion and excitement seemed to have disappeared" when they arrived to her apartment. They had sex using a condom. The next morning, they had sex again, but this time Assange didn't use a condom. According to the New York Times, friends of the woman say that he did not comply with her appeals to stop when the condom was no longer in use. Assange claims that she didn't force her and that sex was always consensual. She didn't accuse him of rape, but of not using a condom.

Huh.

Thanks to Dave @ Garfield Ridge.

Related: Krauthammer says use every legal tool against Assange, and then some.

Hmmnm... From AOLNews:

True, one of Assange's accusers sounds tailor-made for those who think Assange is being set up in Sweden by dark CIA-backed operatives who want him smeared or silenced for his document dumping with WikiLeaks. She's a 31-year-old blond academic and member of the Social Democratic Party who's known for her radical feminist views, once wrote a treatise on how to take revenge against men and was once thrown out of Cuba for subversive activities.

But others say Assange, who denies any wrongdoing and says the sex was consensual, may have just run afoul of Sweden's unusual rape laws, which are considered pro-feminist because of the consideration given issues of consent when it comes to sexual activity -- including even the issue of whether a condom was used.

In fact, the current prosecutor, Marianne Ny, who re-opened the case against Assange, has been active in the proposed reforms of Swedish rape laws that would, if passed, involve an investigation of whether an imbalance in power between two people could void one person's insistence that the sex was consensual.

I linked it for that last paragraph. Think about that. An "imbalance of power" can void consent.

posted by Ace at 01:39 PM

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