5 ms·

If I recall the evidence was always pretty weak. I don’t have time to find the news article from back then, but it was “sexual assault” because he didn’t wear a

If I recall the evidence was always pretty weak. I don’t have time to find the news article from back then, but it was “sexual assault” because he didn’t wear a condom and at the time the woman (perhaps plural) didn’t want to really participate. Could be wrong though... Does anyone have some news from back then?

ceejayoz 7y ago
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/julian-assange-explainer-819208/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/julian-ass... > Assange, who was aware that it was the expressed wish of the injured party and a prerequisite of sexual intercourse that a condom be used, consummated unprotected sexual intercourse with her without her knowledge. > Assange deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state. It is an aggravating circumstance that Assange, who was aware that it was the expressed wish of the injured party and a prerequisite of sexual intercourse that a condom be used, still consummated unprotected sexual intercourse with her. The sexual act was designed to violate the injured party’s sexual integrity.
- Nerdfest 7y ago
  There was also some chatter about the woman being a former CIA operative. The whole thing has smelled so bad right from the start.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    There's chatter that the Queen of England is a lizard shapeshifter. The claims that one accuser was a CIA operative appear very, very thin. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/07/rape-claims-julian-assange https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/07/rape-claims-ju... > What has most engaged the conspiracy theorists and Assange's more excitable defenders, however, are a few key incidents in Miss A career, in particular that she is said to have worked in the Swedish embassy in the US, and wrote her university thesis in 2007 on a vision of Cuba after the death of Castro.
    - kkarakk 7y ago
      In may she was quoted as saying "she wanted to reopen the case at any cost" and "get justice". I guess she's cool with it now? /s
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        Victims and prosecutors disagree on the path forwards regularly.
- not_a_cop75 7y ago
  The elites that he would attack would easily do the same, so I suppose these accusations are all tit for tat. I mean it's totally acceptable in this day and age to attack someone for something that you yourself do all the time.
- pluma 7y ago
  That's literally rape. If you consent to a sex act, that doesn't mean you consent to any sex act. If you "switch holes", or "lose the condom" or simply don't put one on at all, without consent, that's a non-consensual sex act and thus rape.
  - wolco 7y ago
    If you lose the condom it doesn't make it rape. It makes you a loser who will probably be a social outcast. If you agreed before to kiss for 10 minutes but stop after 5 it doesn't make it rape either. If the person asks you to stop and you refuse that's rape. If she finishes first and asks you to stop and you continue that is rape. But you don't need to have a detailed conversation agreeing to everything beforehand. If you try something and the other person doesn't stop the action it is not rape. You could both agree not to do something beforehand and end up doing that act and it wouldn't make it rape unless one party refused that action during the attempt.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      If you agree to "we can have sex if you wear a condom" and then secretly take off the condom, that's rape. The sex being had was not consensual.
      - wolco 7y ago
        If you take that point of view and use a different example it sounds foolish. If we agree to have sex while she has a blindfold on but only if I wear a clown mask. If I take off the mask before sex and she watches the tape later she cannot claim rape. Or do you think that's rape as well?
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        1. I think it's extraordinarily disingenuous to compare protected vs. unprotected sex to whether or not one has a mask on. The consequences of unprotected sex - pregnancy, STDs, etc. - are potentially deadly. 2. Yes, your example describes non-consensual sex, i.e. rape.
- deiznof 7y ago
  These are just the original accusations, this is not a summary of established facts.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    The parent comment gave a somewhat inaccurate picture of the allegations, hence my linking them.
cmrdporcupine 7y ago
"didn't really want to participate" is basically the definition of sexual assault.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Your definition of sexual assault is dangerously lacking in nuance. Most people who have had long term sexual partners have had a time or two where they "didn't really want to participate" but did anyway without much/any complaining for the sake of their partner. Are all all those instances "basically sexual assault"? Watering down the definition of sexual assault to include instances where nobody felt assaulted in any way does not result in it being taken more seriously.
  - pluma 7y ago
    Spousal rape and sexual abuse were legal in many places for a long time (and still are in some), doesn't make it not rape and sexual abuse, though. "Informed enthusiastic consent" isn't so hard to figure out, is it? If you feel like you're being pressured into something you don't want, that's still non-consensual even if you don't put up a fight.
    - zepto 7y ago
      I think most people feel like they are sometimes pressured into work they don’t want to do, but we don’t call that slavery. Frankly maybe we should, but until we do it’s going to be hard to make this a bright line.
    - wang_li 7y ago
      Voluntarily doing something you’re not excited about is different than having something done to you you don’t want done. It’s not kidnapping if I agree to go with my wife to visit her sister. It is rape if I agree to sex with a condom but the other party removes it. It’s also rape if I agree to sex with someone and then they engage in sex a second time while I am asleep hours later.
  - happytoexplain 7y ago
leftyted 7y ago
I do think it's likely that, assault or not, Assange behaved in an unaceptable way toward these women. He has often been quoted mentioning that he has children all over the world with various women. Surreptitiously removing a condom would be in character. If true, his attitude reminds me of Jeff Epstein's plan to "seed the human race with his DNA" by impregnanting a bunch of women on a ranch he owned. These people see their own supposed genius as justification for violating moral norms. You can still think Assange is right (or at least important), but he's a deeply flawed person and it's not all propaganda.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  Or the fuckingham palace apparently.
- harry8 7y ago
  >"Surreptitiously removing a condom would be in character." You provide zero evidence for that naked assertion. > it's not all propaganda. If it has no evidnce and no substance as it seems no to, the rationale behind it is of academic interest alone. Maybe it's pure malice? Maybe it's jealous rage? Maybe it's delusional? Maybe it's propaganda? Maybe it's just not interesting what caused it - it shouldn't be to the legal process. Substance is everything. What seems like a strong lack of it here, stinks.
  - leftyted 7y ago
    > If it has no evidnce and no substance as it seems no to, the rationale behind it is of academic interest alone. Maybe it's pure malice? Maybe it's jealous rage? Maybe it's delusional? Maybe it's propaganda? Maybe it's just not interesting what caused it - it shouldn't be to the legal process. Substance is everything. What seems like a strong lack of it here, stinks. What I'm doing is what you're doing and what everyone should do: synthesize information into an opinion. I don't claim knowledge, but I have a model of the world, of how people act, and I'm feeding various information into that model and using it to generate an opinion. You have a different model and you've generated a different opinion. That's fine. But to conclude that people can't form certain opinions absent evidence is naive. Human beings are not courts of law. I made no comment about whether Assange should be convicted in a court of law. I only said that I think he did something wrong and that, if I'm right, I see his behavior as representative of a pattern wherein certain people view themselves as above normative morality.
geofft 7y ago
The charge was always pretty consistent as "sexual assault" as you described, yes, with "rape" having a specific definition in Swedish law. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange... It sounds like the women didn't really want to pursue the case (which is not at all uncommon in sexual assault cases!), they just wanted to track down Assange and make him take an STD test after he had unprotected sex with them, and the police said, well now that you've told us this, we're going to tell the prosecutor. (One plausible interpretation is that the assaults did in fact happen as described and that the Swedish justice system was pressured by the US to prosecute it aggressively with the goal of getting him into US custody - the two are not necessarily contradictory.)
- vidarh 7y ago
  Personally I think Assange may well genuinely have believed it was US involvement - rape sentences in Sweden are short and lenient enough that evading charges for years makes no sense unless he was scared of something else. But of course that does not tell us anything about whether or not he was right. At the same time I suspect the oddities in how the case was pursued is more likely to simply have been about domestic Swedish politics - both the prosecutor and one of the lawyers involved are known to have favoured a stricter handling of rape cases, and it's plausible they saw Assange as someone getting away with something they wanted to make an example of. So he may well have been genuinely worried for all the wrong reasons. Of course this is just a hypothesis.
  - im3w1l 7y ago
    > rape sentences in Sweden are short and lenient enough that evading charges for years makes no sense unless he was scared of something else Yes he was obviously not running from the Swedish sentence. I used to think that must have meant he ran from the US. But another theory could be that he ran from the reputation hit.
nabdab 7y ago
> and at the time the woman (perhaps plural) didn’t want to really participate. AFAIK, the sexual interactions where consensual as they occurred. But the two woman withdrew consent after the fact as they learned he hadn’t been wearing a condom (and they discovered he’d been with both of them).

ceejayoz 7y ago

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/julian-assange-explainer-819208/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/julian-ass... > Assange, who was aware that it was the expressed wish of the injured party and a prerequisite of sexual intercourse that a condom be used, consummated unprotected sexual intercourse with her without her knowledge. > Assange deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state. It is an aggravating circumstance that Assange, who was aware that it was the expressed wish of the injured party and a prerequisite of sexual intercourse that a condom be used, still consummated unprotected sexual intercourse with her. The sexual act was designed to violate the injured party’s sexual integrity.

Nerdfest 7y ago
There was also some chatter about the woman being a former CIA operative. The whole thing has smelled so bad right from the start.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  There's chatter that the Queen of England is a lizard shapeshifter. The claims that one accuser was a CIA operative appear very, very thin. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/07/rape-claims-julian-assange https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/07/rape-claims-ju... > What has most engaged the conspiracy theorists and Assange's more excitable defenders, however, are a few key incidents in Miss A career, in particular that she is said to have worked in the Swedish embassy in the US, and wrote her university thesis in 2007 on a vision of Cuba after the death of Castro.
  - kkarakk 7y ago
    In may she was quoted as saying "she wanted to reopen the case at any cost" and "get justice". I guess she's cool with it now? /s
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      Victims and prosecutors disagree on the path forwards regularly.
not_a_cop75 7y ago
The elites that he would attack would easily do the same, so I suppose these accusations are all tit for tat. I mean it's totally acceptable in this day and age to attack someone for something that you yourself do all the time.
pluma 7y ago
That's literally rape. If you consent to a sex act, that doesn't mean you consent to any sex act. If you "switch holes", or "lose the condom" or simply don't put one on at all, without consent, that's a non-consensual sex act and thus rape.
- wolco 7y ago
  If you lose the condom it doesn't make it rape. It makes you a loser who will probably be a social outcast. If you agreed before to kiss for 10 minutes but stop after 5 it doesn't make it rape either. If the person asks you to stop and you refuse that's rape. If she finishes first and asks you to stop and you continue that is rape. But you don't need to have a detailed conversation agreeing to everything beforehand. If you try something and the other person doesn't stop the action it is not rape. You could both agree not to do something beforehand and end up doing that act and it wouldn't make it rape unless one party refused that action during the attempt.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    If you agree to "we can have sex if you wear a condom" and then secretly take off the condom, that's rape. The sex being had was not consensual.
    - wolco 7y ago
      If you take that point of view and use a different example it sounds foolish. If we agree to have sex while she has a blindfold on but only if I wear a clown mask. If I take off the mask before sex and she watches the tape later she cannot claim rape. Or do you think that's rape as well?
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        1. I think it's extraordinarily disingenuous to compare protected vs. unprotected sex to whether or not one has a mask on. The consequences of unprotected sex - pregnancy, STDs, etc. - are potentially deadly. 2. Yes, your example describes non-consensual sex, i.e. rape.
deiznof 7y ago
These are just the original accusations, this is not a summary of established facts.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  The parent comment gave a somewhat inaccurate picture of the allegations, hence my linking them.

cmrdporcupine 7y ago

"didn't really want to participate" is basically the definition of sexual assault.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Your definition of sexual assault is dangerously lacking in nuance. Most people who have had long term sexual partners have had a time or two where they "didn't really want to participate" but did anyway without much/any complaining for the sake of their partner. Are all all those instances "basically sexual assault"? Watering down the definition of sexual assault to include instances where nobody felt assaulted in any way does not result in it being taken more seriously.
- pluma 7y ago
  Spousal rape and sexual abuse were legal in many places for a long time (and still are in some), doesn't make it not rape and sexual abuse, though. "Informed enthusiastic consent" isn't so hard to figure out, is it? If you feel like you're being pressured into something you don't want, that's still non-consensual even if you don't put up a fight.
  - zepto 7y ago
    I think most people feel like they are sometimes pressured into work they don’t want to do, but we don’t call that slavery. Frankly maybe we should, but until we do it’s going to be hard to make this a bright line.
  - wang_li 7y ago
    Voluntarily doing something you’re not excited about is different than having something done to you you don’t want done. It’s not kidnapping if I agree to go with my wife to visit her sister. It is rape if I agree to sex with a condom but the other party removes it. It’s also rape if I agree to sex with someone and then they engage in sex a second time while I am asleep hours later.
- happytoexplain 7y ago

leftyted 7y ago

I do think it's likely that, assault or not, Assange behaved in an unaceptable way toward these women. He has often been quoted mentioning that he has children all over the world with various women. Surreptitiously removing a condom would be in character. If true, his attitude reminds me of Jeff Epstein's plan to "seed the human race with his DNA" by impregnanting a bunch of women on a ranch he owned. These people see their own supposed genius as justification for violating moral norms. You can still think Assange is right (or at least important), but he's a deeply flawed person and it's not all propaganda.

raxxorrax 7y ago
Or the fuckingham palace apparently.
harry8 7y ago
>"Surreptitiously removing a condom would be in character." You provide zero evidence for that naked assertion. > it's not all propaganda. If it has no evidnce and no substance as it seems no to, the rationale behind it is of academic interest alone. Maybe it's pure malice? Maybe it's jealous rage? Maybe it's delusional? Maybe it's propaganda? Maybe it's just not interesting what caused it - it shouldn't be to the legal process. Substance is everything. What seems like a strong lack of it here, stinks.
- leftyted 7y ago
  > If it has no evidnce and no substance as it seems no to, the rationale behind it is of academic interest alone. Maybe it's pure malice? Maybe it's jealous rage? Maybe it's delusional? Maybe it's propaganda? Maybe it's just not interesting what caused it - it shouldn't be to the legal process. Substance is everything. What seems like a strong lack of it here, stinks. What I'm doing is what you're doing and what everyone should do: synthesize information into an opinion. I don't claim knowledge, but I have a model of the world, of how people act, and I'm feeding various information into that model and using it to generate an opinion. You have a different model and you've generated a different opinion. That's fine. But to conclude that people can't form certain opinions absent evidence is naive. Human beings are not courts of law. I made no comment about whether Assange should be convicted in a court of law. I only said that I think he did something wrong and that, if I'm right, I see his behavior as representative of a pattern wherein certain people view themselves as above normative morality.

geofft 7y ago

The charge was always pretty consistent as "sexual assault" as you described, yes, with "rape" having a specific definition in Swedish law. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange... It sounds like the women didn't really want to pursue the case (which is not at all uncommon in sexual assault cases!), they just wanted to track down Assange and make him take an STD test after he had unprotected sex with them, and the police said, well now that you've told us this, we're going to tell the prosecutor. (One plausible interpretation is that the assaults did in fact happen as described and that the Swedish justice system was pressured by the US to prosecute it aggressively with the goal of getting him into US custody - the two are not necessarily contradictory.)

vidarh 7y ago
Personally I think Assange may well genuinely have believed it was US involvement - rape sentences in Sweden are short and lenient enough that evading charges for years makes no sense unless he was scared of something else. But of course that does not tell us anything about whether or not he was right. At the same time I suspect the oddities in how the case was pursued is more likely to simply have been about domestic Swedish politics - both the prosecutor and one of the lawyers involved are known to have favoured a stricter handling of rape cases, and it's plausible they saw Assange as someone getting away with something they wanted to make an example of. So he may well have been genuinely worried for all the wrong reasons. Of course this is just a hypothesis.
- im3w1l 7y ago
  > rape sentences in Sweden are short and lenient enough that evading charges for years makes no sense unless he was scared of something else Yes he was obviously not running from the Swedish sentence. I used to think that must have meant he ran from the US. But another theory could be that he ran from the reputation hit.

nabdab 7y ago

> and at the time the woman (perhaps plural) didn’t want to really participate. AFAIK, the sexual interactions where consensual as they occurred. But the two woman withdrew consent after the fact as they learned he hadn’t been wearing a condom (and they discovered he’d been with both of them).