Consent and sexuality – the murky waters of the Assange rape allegations

Hello all! Even though it has been extensively covered by the feminist community, I thought I’d post some reflections on the lessons for the Left from the Assange rape allegations. Enjoy!

Trigger warning: this article contains references to sexual assault that may cause distress to survivors.

When I heard reports that Julian Assange, co-founder of whistleblower organisation Wikileaks, had been accused of sexually assaulting two women I was shocked and reluctant to believe them. The possibility that someone so seemingly committed to holding governments accountable for their human rights crimes could themselves be a perpetrator of such a fundamental assault on a person’s autonomy is a hard one to stomach. As a community blogger from Feministing.com commented, “most people have a resistance to believing that people ‘like us’ – people who do things we like and admire – could be guilty of acts we don’t like or admire”. I was no exception.

And I was not the only one shocked or in denial about the allegations. Michael Moore urged us “not be naive about how the government works when it decides to go after its prey” and to “never, ever believe the ‘official story’”. Journalist John Pilger called the sexual assault allegations a “political stunt”, while Assange’s UK lawyer Mark Stephens stated “The honeytrap has been sprung”. Assange himself claimed to be a victim of “revolutionary feminism”. It was at this point that something seemed to have gone wrong. Two women had alleged that they had been sexually assaulted, one raped, and prominent members of the so-called progressive left were encouraging the public to instinctively dismiss their claims. How could this have happened?

Some of their distrust was understandable. Wikileaks and Assange were in the process of challenging the right of the most powerful country in the world to control information, including evidence of war crimes. Assange had faced death threats while Sarah Palin encouraged the US government to pursue him with “the same urgency we pursue al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders”.  

Still, the women claimed that Assange had been responsible for “one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape,” according to a statement from Scotland Yard. Early reports of the allegations were quickly misconstrued to mean that the crime centred on the accidental breaking of a condom, while rumours that unprotected (consensual) sex was illegal in Sweden flew through cyberspace.  The first incident, described in the actual allegations, is alleged to have occurred when one of the women, referred to as Miss A, returned to the flat she was allowing Assange to stay in while in Stockholm. Miss A claimed that Assange repeatedly prevented her from reaching for a condom by holding her arms and pinning her legs. After Assange agreed to use a condom, he is alleged to have “done something” to it in order to break it. Five days later, Assange is alleged to have initiated unconsensual sexual contact in the form of rubbing his genitalia against Miss A. The other woman, Miss W, alleges that after having consensual sex with a condom at least once, Assange proceeded to have unprotected sex with her while she was asleep and therefore unable to consent. Surely these allegations deserve serious contemplation.

Whether these allegations of sexual assault are true, no-one can yet know. Yet it seems logical to admit the possibility that they may be. For public figures like Michael Moore and John Pilger to brush them off as a political conspiracy seems rather too close to the denialism seen too often in rape cases. So-called feminist Naomi Wolf took the discourse to another level when she claimed that the communication surrounding the alleged sexual assaults of both women constituted “model cases of sexual negotiation.” While Naomi Wolf may consider it to be a desirable situation for an individual to initiate unprotected sex while one’s partner is asleep, in Sweden, the UK and Australia such an act would be considered rape, unless agreed to at a prior time. However, notable human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson seemed to entertain similar sentiments when he said, while representing Assange at his extradition hearing this month, that because the alleged assault of Miss W occurred within the context of consensual sex, “[i]t’s not natural to call this rape”.

These statements from notable members of the political community betray a disturbing misunderstanding of what meaningful consent entails in the context of sex and seem to trivialise the experiences of many survivors of sexual violence. For years, anti-sexual assault campaigners have sought to emphasise that consent cannot be assumed. Consenting to one sexual act does not mean one is consenting to all sexual acts. Consenting to taking off one’s clothes does not mean one has consented to intercourse. Consenting to sex once does not mean consent can be assumed for all subsequent sexual acts. The idea that a person cannot be raped by someone they have previously consented to sex with is a relic from times in which womens’ sexuality was viewed to be the property of their male husbands. This was seen most obviously in the fact that rape within marriage was not criminalised in Australia until 1981, prior to which a wife was deemed to have consented to unlimited sex in her wedding vows.

Consent, in Victorian law, is defined as a ‘free agreement’ that cannot exist in a situation of fear or coercion. Thus it seems to make perfect sense that even within the context of consensual sex, an individual must be free to withdraw that consent at any time and have that desire taken seriously.

Sadly, it is likely we will never know the truth of the Assange rape allegations. Two major potential biases exist – the bias usually faced by sexual assault claimants within the legal system and the bias against Assange created by the intense media coverage. But regardless of whether this particular case is valid or not, the issue of sexual assault and consent in society seems to be misunderstood still. And the worry is that for every public commentator who minimises the crime alleged against Assange or who attacks the character of the claimants, more sexual assault survivors will stay quiet and deny their own experiences.