Leah critiques two Telegraph articles about a 2017 Oxford sexual assault case, showing how one article omits the victim's intoxication while the other uses it against her. She argues that lubrication and moaning aren't proof of consent, that alcohol nullifies it, and that teaching consent doesn't mean someone practices it.
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Hello, curious folk. My name is Leah from Life's Experts, and in this video I would like to comment on a very recent article around an incident that has happened in Oxford. And both of these articles are from the same newspaper, The Telegraph, and they present one article, the account of the boy, one article, the account of the girl. Let me just read you the titles, and I'm sure that you can figure out what this is about, because I don't want to be planting ideas in your head already. Okay. The article that I first encountered was the boy's account. It reads, Oxford medical student claims he didn't rape fellow student because he taught consent workshops. The other article title reads, Oxford student raped by classmate says she could not have consented because it was against the rules of her open relationship. What I'm gonna do now in order to give you a better understanding of what is happening here and what I'm seeing is basically read a little bit from each article to give you insights and then comment. First, going back to the boy's account and side of the story. So it begins like that: an Oxford medical student who denies raping a fellow student has told a court he understood consent because he taught workshops on it to young people. He was accused of raping another student while studying in Oxford in April 2017 after she let him stay over in her bed After a party, he claimed he had only begun having sex with her after 10 or 15 minutes of kissing and sexual touching. The court heard in which I'm not gonna say the names. I'm just gonna say Mr. and Miss whatever. Mr. claimed her vagina was lubricated and she was moaning. When the guy took questions on how he could have known she was consenting, the court heard he pointed out he worked for. For the Sexpressions charity where he taught children as young as 12 years old about healthy relationships. He said, I have taught about consent, I care about consent, it is something that I know. I have lots of friends who work in that sort of area. This whole thing has sort of bothered me a lot. And then another quote from him says, this was a person who I was Pretty certain, just pretty certain, was awake, and when I went to penetrate her, she said something. I do not recall the exact words, but she made it clear she did not want to have sex with me. Naturally, I was mortified that I had gone further than she wanted to go. Obviously, in retrospect, I wish he had done verbal consent, got her to sign a legal document, but that is not really how it works in my experience. Okay, let's go on to the girls' account and what kind of things they've published in The Telegraph. So it starts— the article starts with, an Oxford student who alleges a fellow student raped her said she could have not consented to having sex with him because it was against the rules of her open relationship. Then it says, the young woman told the jury she had woken up to find Mr. On top of her, raping her after a night where she had described herself as 8 or 9 out of 10 in terms of being drunk, having had a bottle and a half of wine. Although she had told friends she thought he was attractive, the jury of 7 men and 5 women were told she had decided— she had decided he was off-limits under the terms of her open relationship with her boyfriend. It goes to say that at the party that they were both in, they made out, they were intimate of some sort, and they were intimate before they went to bed. They were intimate consensually, but then things went further. It says, I went to sleep saying, I'm not going to have sex with you. What bothers me is the next line. Eleanor Laws representing Mr. Someone Suggested the alleged victim had engaged in consensual kissing and sexual touching while they were in bed together, before she had gone to sleep, and after she had woken up. Yes, this is true, and the girl does not deny it. She says for a brief moment before I realized what was going on. Okay, so let's go back to commenting, right? The first thing is that I must. I am shocked about is that in the first article about the boys' account, there is no word or mention of alcohol. You try searching that article for alcohol, drunk, or intoxication, or intoxicated, all the variations, you're not gonna find such a word there. It doesn't really speak about it. Second, just because you teach consent to 12-year-olds does not really mean you understand it yourself or that you actually practice The first thing I see here is he says he understands consent, he cares about consent. Well, I'm sorry, you do not understand consent if you were actually going through with sex when you or the other person or both of you were intoxicated. If you know your ABCs, etc., around sex education and consent education, you'd know that A drunk person cannot consent, full stop. It doesn't matter. This is the other thing that bugs me, is that the girl is using her type of relationship to basically say, I couldn't— or relationship rules to say, I could not have consented. Yes, you can consent to having sex with as many people as you want outside of the terms of relationships. This is how cheating happens, and a lot of people do that, and they can't say afterwards, I I was raped because I could not have consented because I was in a closed relationship that was monogamous. I was in an open relationship and it was against the rules of it. No, you can still consent to these type of encounters. The problem is that she was intoxicated. This is why she could not have consented. This is the biggest picture of why she could not have consented. Nor would he, realistically speaking. If it was the other way around and she woke him up with sex or more intimacy, etc., he could not have said, yes, let's do this, because he was intoxicated as well. The other thing that bugs me is in the article about his account, he says, he claimed he had only begun having sex with the girl after 10 or 15 minutes of kissing and sexual touching, in which he claimed her vagina was lubricated and she was moaning. Lubrication is not a sign of consent, nor is moaning. Obviously, in retrospect, I wish we had done verbal consent, got her to sign a legal document, but that's not really how it works in my experience. End of quote. I don't say you can't sign a contract verbally or non-verbally, literally on paper, when you're drunk either. When you're drunk, you don't sign papers. You don't get your teeth fixed. You don't get a piercing or a tattoo or anything like this because you're drunk. Because you're drunk. That's it. And besides, her account says, I went to sleep saying I am not going to have sex with you. Isn't that verbal confirmation of her intent? To not sleep with him? I don't know what is, if that isn't a clear verbal message that we have completely missed out on his article. Even the lawyer's point of view that she had consented to making out with him and therefore that was consent to having penetrative sex is bust when you look at consent. We need more education to the court system. We need more education for lawyers. We need more education for police officers. We need more education for adults, folk. I'm gonna stop my passionate rant over here now and say if you want to learn more about consent, abuse, etc., in organizations, systems, society as a whole, institutions, all of it, please just contact me. I'm easy to reach and I'm happy to work with organizations that need that extra education and insight. And in the meantime, if you want to comment, please do in the comments below or send me an email at contact@lifesexperts.com. I'll see you again in another video. Bye!
