By finding him guilty but not punishing him, he will be made to feel guilty and the chance of him reoffending will be prevented, without socially impairing the man
What a load of horse shit. “Letting him get away with rape penalty free will ensure he doesn’t do it again” is some crazy fucking logic. Seems like knowing there are no consequences for your actions would make repeating the offense significantly more likely.
It’s funny that the court would explicitly legitimize the idea that some people deserve to be “socially impaired” and others do not despite committing exactly the same crime.
Funny in the sense that it contradicts the entire foundation that the legal system is based on and makes the court look illegitimate and deliberately corrupt.
I’m sure this concept of non-punishment will now be applied to many other cases across social classes, right?
Right…?
This reminds me of the rapist Brock Turner, aka Allen Turner, the rapist.
Yes, the rapist Brock Allen Turner is also the first thing that crossed my mind. How he got away after raping that girl and now is even trying to change his name.
Oh Allen Turner? Who started using his middle name instead of Brock Turner? Because he raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster? That guy? (Brock/Allen Turner?)
I just want to be sure I’m thinking of the right guy…
https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/06/us/sexual-assault-brock-turner-stanford/index.html
This Brock Allen Turner right?
Does the rapist Brock Allen Turner still live in Oakwood Ohio, a wealthy suburb of Dayton Ohio?
Hey all, anyone who cares about/is interested in knowing more about the crime committed by the rapist Brock Allen Turner should read Know My Name, written by the woman who was actually assaulted, Chanel Miller.
I highly recommend listening to the audio book, as she reads it herself and has a powerful voice.
This article feels super rage bait-y to be honest. Like my first reaction at the title is of course, being like “thats fucked up” but as im reading it, it feels like this article was written in a manipulative way. There’s no sources at all, can’t find any using English google, decided to literally figure out how to search Dutch google in Dutch just to find something more reputable and there’s only this one site, which has 2 articles, the only 2 links in either is one article pointing to the other, and another link to what is clearly (from the add/article layout) a Belgium tabloid of some kind.
Like nothing about the people involved or the situation, but this website is some shit, and so is the other one covering this. They may be on the right side of this story but this website itself feels incredibly un-credible, and I wouldn’t think to assume Belgium has some sort of news media problem where like, the gossip tabloids are the last bastions fighting for bodily autonomy and consent, where it would make sense that there is no other source.
Oh wow, something from Belgium showed up here. Obviously most reactions are the same here. But I would urge everyone to read more details about this. As there much more uncomfortable nuance here. One of those being that the dude is also in agreement he did something wrong. He also gave a relatively accurate description of the events of that evening that got proven with phone records and CCTV at different locations. Making his account of what happened at the least somewhat reliable.
Obviously the woman could not consent because she was drunk as fuck. And she’s allowed to get drunk as fuck without being taken advantage off. CCTV showed them kissing at the bar they met. Phone records show he tried to call her friend she was supposed to go home with. CCTV shows them going to that friend’s dorm and not getting in and waiting there for half an hour. Then they walk back to his place while kissing on the way there. The morning after his messages to her indicate he wants to continue seeing her. (https://m.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20250402_95297572?journeybuilder=nopaywall but it’s in Dutch)
Again, she could not consent, and he as the least drunk of both of them bears the responsibility of this. I do think he should have had some form of punishment above of what he got and for the woman’s feeling of safety a restraining order like she asked. And something that would have made mandatory counselling and follow-up possible. Not to mention that although justice in Belgium isn’t supposed to be revenge, it should also cause some sort of satisfaction for the victim.
This situation just shows that the definition of rape over the decades has become more complex and nuanced, but unfortunately the tools to deal with this have not. This dude definitely did something wrong, but he’s not just a vicious predator.
If they were both drunk, could either of them consent?
It really depends on how drunk you actually were at the time, and that’s what makes cases like this so difficult. Generally speaking, simply being drunk isn’t enough.
Hell, even being blackout drunk isn’t enough. Because you can be blacked out without being passed out; Blackout drunk simply means your brain isn’t recording things to your memory, so you won’t remember it after you sober up. Contrary to popular belief, alcohol doesn’t make you forget existing memories. It just makes it so you don’t ever commit things to memory in the first place. That’s what happens when you’re blackout drunk.
In order to be incapable of consenting, you need to be so drunk that you can’t comprehend what is happening. Because informed consent requires two things: Information anbout what is happening, and enthusiasm. You can have both, even while blackout drunk. Because you forgetting your enthusiasm the next morning doesn’t automatically make it rape. After all, you were informed and enthusiastic when it was happening, so you consented. If you were capable of understanding what was happening and were enthusiastic, it’s not legally considered rape.
And that’s a surprisingly high threshold to beat. You usually need to prove to the courts that you were basically passed out (and therefore unable to be informed about what was happening) before they’ll consider it rape.
Even if people would colloquially consider drunk sex rape, that’s not typically how the courts view it. And that’s a large part of why so many accused rapists get off without a guilty verdict; The victim basically has to prove that they were missing either information or enthusiasm to overcome the accused’s “they consented to it” defense. And if the victim was blacked out and doesn’t even remember the evening, that becomes extremely difficult to do without outside witnesses corroborating that the victim was passed out and/or combative.
And hell, in cases like the Brock Turner one, even when the victim proves that she was passed out, the rapist can still get away with just a slap on the wrist.
