One is a fantasy and the other isn't. One is assault and the other isnt. If you're incapable of telling the difference, and treating the two things very differently, then you need help.
A powerful man aggressively and forcefully taking sex from a woman is something (most?) women want and enjoy when it happens. The obvious existence of their fantasies helps quantify this. People DO, often, want their fantasy to be reality.
The actions we describe can be interpreted either way in that there is NO difference between the physical conduct of the male in this case. Just, sometimes after the fact, the subject response of the female, which may not even be accurate accounting of how she felt at the time.
Not necessarily verbal consent, no, a lot of it is contextual. But none of this is really relevant to outright assault.
Her laugh and relative lack of resistance is context. Apparent constructive consent isn't much of a defense for a man.
Then you're preferring a world in which men are absolved of the responsibility to not rape people.
You're preferring a world in which men are sent mixed messages (even she concedes her response was to laugh and later not, in a public area, not say a word: I promise you: if some guy stuck his erection up my butt people on the other side of the Earth would hear me screaming my objections) and women have no agency, no will, no responsibilities, and can cause a man a great deal of suffering on a whim rather than simply say a single, one syllable word. And they can cause this harm decades after alleged "abuse" is said to have occurred. I put in quotes as, after review, I don't think SHE was sure what she thought about the encounter.
Someone in a traumatic situation may well react with shock, denial, or emotional withdrawal. It is not reasonable to expect everyone to respond with emotional and logical clarity-- not least because millions of people are vulnerable, less verbal, or neurodivergent in lesser or greater respects. And this is all aside from the fact that assault frequently goes alongside implicit threat. That includes the threat that objection will invite retribution.
Retribution? She's getting $5 million. She's written books and done multiple interviews about it. This includes after he was POTUS. She is not afraid. She was 52? 57? when this happened? She was a grown up.
I expect adult women to act like adults.
I do not think, from your writing, that you do.[/quote]
Escalation is an implicit part of making out, something everyone and courts recognise. The legal expectation is that a person making out desists if told their escalation is undesirable, or otherwise should have known that the escalation was undesirable.
Would you believe me if I told you that there are schools of thought in law schools that want my explanation to govern? If not, I'll try to find some links for you.
