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Comment by mirekrusin | Hacker News Reader

It would be easier to judge if she said that she did not give consent.

You may be right, but you also have to agree that some people will pause before judging definite rape for described situation where girl accepts invitation to sleep in the same airbnb, without anybody else, with single guy, bringing bottle of wine, not mentioning she did not give consent, feeling bad afterwards. From that description it's really difficult to pass rape judgement - maybe it was, maybe not, what we know is that it was creepy at least for her.

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> some people will pause before judging definite rape for described situation where girl accepts invitation to sleep in the same airbnb, without anybody else, with single guy, bringing bottle of wine,

None of those things even remotely imply consent for a sexual advance. Those are all things that should be fine for anyone of any gender to do together without there being fear of a sexual assault.

Anyone who looks at that list and thinks that it's ok to have unwanted sexual intercourse because they happened to have a bottle of wine in an AirBNB I'm not sure I want to associate with.

My point is that she doesn't mention she didn't want it, said "no" or anything that implies not giving consent.

She says that he 'insisted'. Typically someone 'insisting' on something implies an initial 'no'.

And furthermore, "not saying no" is not the bar for consent. An enthusiastic, unambiguous yes is the bar for consent. Not giving consent is the default, assumed position until that yes arrives.

> There was another time that he insisted on having intercourse regardless of me saying I didn’t want to.

Insisting doesn't mean doing it, does it?

In English, it can mean doing it. "I wanted to split the check, but he insisted on picking up the bill." For instance, could mean that the person paid the whole bill or that they are putting up a strong resistance.

It's unfortunately ambiguous.

> There was another time that he insisted on having intercourse regardless of me saying I didn’t want to.

I think you cut the list a bit.

As an thought experiment try to think that your husband/wife does those things with somebody (accepts invitation to sleep in the same airbnb, without anybody else, with single opposite sex, bringing bottle of wine) - would you be worried? And if yes, why? Is it not even remotely possible that somebody would feel weird about their partner doing it?

One thing you’re missing here is that sexual consent is an ‘in the moment’ thing. Someone might be coming over to your place fully intending to have sex with you and then change their mind. You have to respect that.

Absolutely, agree. One thing you may be missing is that description doesn't mention anything like that happening and the opportunity to mention it is right there. Why wouldn't this be mentioned if it happened?

It literally mentions she tried to decline but he insisted.

Not in reference to the first event.

It says "there was another time that he insisted ..." which unfortunatelly forms ambiguous sentence, it's not clear if it happened or he just insisted and that's it.

Later paragraph reads "I maintained friendship with him for a few months after May, because I was convinced that it was all consensual ...".

I'm not a lawyer but the case of "being convinced of consent" at one time and after few months changing mind about the situation and realising it was not a consent makes an interesting case.

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