Good news from Maryland:
The state’s highest court ruled this morning that a man can be charged with rape if he ignores a woman’s calls to stop — even if she had previously consented to the sex.
Maryland now joins seven other states whose courts have concluded that a woman can revoke her consent after intercourse begins.
Although it is unclear to me from the information provided in the article whether the ruling made sense in this individual case (it’s always hard to tell from limited and sometimes slanted news stories – they’re reporting on one paragraph out of 76 pages of decision, so I assume there was a lot going on in the case that they don’t address in the article), the principle is very important, and I’m glad to see it affirmed in one more state. On the most basic level, if you are hurting someone and they ask you to stop, you stop. That’s living a decent life 101 and it always saddens me how much trouble so many people seem to have with this idea.
[...] Via SAFER [...]
[...] Via SAFER [...]
Please go read Cara’s post at the Curvature or Feministe – she always says what I really wanted to say but didn’t quite manage. She’s got lots more information about the case and some excellent analysis. In general, if you don’t read her already, you should be.