Large Fierce Mammal

Image by {link: http://comics.com/steve_benson/2010-12-10/}Steve Benson{/link}

I’ve been following the saga of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, with great interest.  I support this kind of uncovering of government secrets. I think it will go a long way to helping keep people honest, a rarity in government.  Wikileaks does not post rumors, hearsay, opinions, just “classified, censored or otherwise restricted material of political, diplomatic or ethical significance”.

A few days ago, Joe Biden, Vice President of the United States, called Assange a “hi-tech terrorist” because he’s endangered people’s lives and occupations. Hmm. One might be sympathetic to that view, and those poor, poor people. Unless you take into account what Assange actually did. He uncovered corruption. Biden is also having a hard time conducting business because “World leaders now want to meet him alone, without accompanying staff members”. Gee, I wonder why.  Imagine a world where heads of government have some accountability! What a horrible tragedy.

I’m over-simplifying things, I will admit.  I understand that there were classified documents leaked that have nothing to do with corruption. The documents regarding the war in Afghanistan are something that I firmly believe the public should be exposed to. Most people have a very sugar-coated view of war. But that’s a subject for another post.
I live in a country that has a full democracy, so I suppose that I expect a certain amount of forthrightness from a government that you wouldn’t get in a dictatorship. I very much believe that citizens of a country have a right to know what their elected members of government are up to, yet many Americans in particular, don’t seem to care. As Heather Mallick observed in her 2007 book Cake or Death:

I read BBC Online’s report on the Bush Administration threatening The New York Times for reporting that the government is secretly studying the bank accounts of American citizens. It includes comments from readers. And there he is, the typical American, John of New York telling the world, “If your transactions are completely legitimate, then why should you be worried?” John, if your colon is completely empty, then why should you object to a search of your anal cavity?

People put a little too much unfounded faith in governments. Perhaps with more disclosure, they might someday be worthy of that faith.
I want to be informed. I hope I’m not in the minority.

Now, about this rape charge. The mainstream North American media, specifically in Canada, have not really gone into details. They keep mentioning “rape charges” or “sexual assault”, and, accordingly, the viewers come to their own conclusions. I was more than a little flabbergasted at discovering what this charge of “rape” entailed.

For those who aren’t familiar with the circumstances, let me sum up. Sometime in August, Assange had sex with two women in Sweden (I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more, but two women have admitted to it, anyway). They talked, found out he didn’t use protection with either of them (yes, I KNOW he did with one but the condom broke), and freaked out. They couldn’t reach Assange so went to the police to see what could be done to locate him and force him to be tested for STDs. Charges for assault came up and were dismissed because of insufficient evidence. Then months later, their stories changed and he is now charged with 4 counts –
1: using his body weight to hold woman 1 down
2: unsafe sex
3: pressing his penis against her back (?!?!?!)
4: having sex with woman 2 while she was sleeping.
Sweden apparently has some… “progressive” laws. Assange denies the accusations, of course.

Let me address this point by point.
1 – the forcible sex part was not mentioned in earlier accounts, and contradicts earlier statements made by the accuser. But I do have to point out that any woman who has had sex with a man in the missionary position has certainly been held down by her partner’s body weight. I don’t find that objectionable. If you do, perhaps you should have sex in another position.
2 – unsafe sex? First of all, if you state that you want to use a condom but don’t check that your partner is wearing one, you probably shouldn’t be having sex. Second, if you DO notice that he’s not wearing a condom, but you have sex regardless, then the onus is completely on you. To blame the man I had sex with because I realized later how stupid I was… I really can’t even fathom how this scenario can come about. I grew up knowing that my protection was my responsibility. If I wanted to have sex and required my partner to have a condom, then I should be prepared to produce one and put it on myself. This was taught in school, to 13 year-olds. But then, I wasn’t raised in a country where women are infantilised. I would NEVER leave my safety, health and well-being in the hands of a man I just met.
3 – Pressing his penis against her back? WTF? This is so stupid, it’s completely beneath me to comment.
4 – Sex while SLEEPING? How heavy a sleeper do you have to be to not notice that a man is having sex with you?! If rousing someone from sleep to have sex with them can be considered rape, then I guess I’m guilty of committing rape too. I don’t think my husband minds. You’ll have to ask him.

Before people jump on me for making light of a serious topic, I want to make perfectly clear that I consider rape and sexual assault VERY serious. I was sexually assaulted. I know what it’s like. Having gone through that, I find it reprehensible when women use that as a weapon against men who have wronged them, when no actual rape or assault has taken place. It’s life changing for the accused, often times life-wrecking. A rapist deserves to have his life wrecked, certainly. But someone who was just a dick, who gets accused of such a heinous crime… I sincerely hope that’s not that case here. However, we need to remember that Assange is only charged with these offenses. What the hell happened to presumption of innocence? Why do people need to be reminded that he is innocent until proven guilty? Yes, in Sweden too. It happens that people get charged with horrible offenses that are very highly publicized, to be proven innocent later, but the public remembers that they were charged with something. They will always be the one that did something wrong and got away with it. It taints them forever. So yes, I take accusations like that very seriously.

Is Assange a douche bag? Undoubtedly. But he is also doing something that I consider worthy. Does that mean he’s innocent? Absolutely not. But I do find the timing, story-changing, and all of the other bizarre aspects of this case to be more than a little suspect. And I will do him the damned courtesy of assuming he’s innocent until proven guilty.

That this whole thing stemmed out of just wanting to find Assange to have him tested is preposterous beyond belief. If he had sex with two women in the span of three days, I think one can safely assume there were, and will be, more women to add to that list, especially considering that he is now enjoying celebrity status and an unusual amount of people are blogging about how sexy they think he is. Considering his propensity to not use condoms, and assuming he was clean to begin with, he may have JUST contracted something and a test might not show anything yet. My advice to those women is to get themselves tested, and then do it again in six months’ time. And don’t be so foolish next time.

There is one big lesson to be learned here – don’t fuck in Sweden!