,
6 tweets,
1 min read
Read on Twitter
Media (NYT, WP, BBC) squeamish about reporting what Julian Assange is accused of in the rape charge reopened today. The allegation is that the morning after a woman refused to have sex with him without a condom, she awoke to find him penetrating her without one on.
Statute of limitations has expired on allegation that Assange surreptitiously ripped a condom with another woman at about the same time, and that he lay on top of that woman while they were making out and tried to prise her legs apart against her will.
Want to be explicit about one piece of this, for a couple of reasons. In the case that Sweden just reopened the investigation of, it's alleged that Assange refused to use a condom, was convinced to do so, and then woke his partner the next morning by penetrating her without one.
So the allegation is that the previous night, she made sex contingent on use of a condom, and he eventually agreed after trying to convince her to change her mind. The next morning he evaded that restriction by penetrating her before she was fully awake.
Given that, the surreptitious non-use of the condom and the penetration while she was sleeping were each violations of consent.
This is what makes the remaining charge a rape allegation, and why it is still prosecutable while the statute of limitations for the other charges have expired.
