Assange and Chomsky Appear Arm-In-Arm at Ecuadorian Embassy

[Cha]

67. This is Sweden's Law on Rapists..

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The allegations against Assange are rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. He's accused of pinning one woman's arms and using his body weight to hold her down during one alleged assault, and of raping a woman while she was sleeping. In both cases, according to the allegations, Assange did not use a condom. But the controversy seems to center on the fact that both encounters started off consensually. One of his accusers was quoted by the Guardian newspaper in August as saying, "What started out as voluntary sex subsequently developed into an assault." Whether consent was withdrawn because of the lack of a condom is unclear, but also beside the point. In Sweden, it's a crime to continue to have sex after your partner withdraws consent.

In the United States, withdrawing consent is not so clear-cut. In September, for example, prosecutors in North Carolina dropped rape and sexual battery charges against a high school football player because sexual contact with the alleged victim began consensually. The dismissal documents cited a 1979 North Carolina Supreme Court ruling, State v. Way, which says that if intercourse starts consensually, "no rape has occurred though the victim later withdraws consent during the same act of intercourse."

So if you initially agree to have sex and later change your mind for whatever reason - it hurts, your partner has become violent, or you're simply no longer in the mood - your partner can continue despite your protestations, and it won't be considered rape. It defies common sense. Who besides a rapist would continue to have sex with an unwilling partner?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/10/AR2010121002571.html