Category Archive

December 21 Update | In the piece below, and the lengthy comments thread that follows, most of us have taken it as a given that this week’s Guardian piece on the rape allegations against Julian Assange was a full and thorough summary of those claims. But a Guardian editor now says, in reply to charges that the paper quoted the documents in a way that was unfair to Assange, that their reporter actually “left out a lot of graphic and damaging material in the allegations because he thought it would be too cruel to publish them.”

On Democracy Now this morning, Jaclyn Friedman and Naomi Wolf debated the sexual assault allegations that have been lodged against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

In the course of the debate, Wolf repeatedly insisted that what Assange is alleged to have done could not have been rape because his accusers never told him “no.”

But here’s the thing. According to the published account that Wolf herself cited, one of them did tell him no. She told him no repeatedly and forcefully enough that he was first dissuaded from pursuing sex, then later complied with her demands.

Here’s the relevant passage from the Guardian:

Miss W told police that though they started to have sex, Assange had not wanted to wear a condom, and she had moved away because she had not wanted unprotected sex. Assange had then lost interest, she said, and fallen asleep. However, during the night, they had both woken up and had sex at least once when “he agreed unwillingly to use a condom”.

They start to have sex. He doesn’t want to use a condom. She insists. He refuses. He gives up and goes to sleep. They wake in the night. He doesn’t want to use a condom. She insists again. He complies.

And then what happens?

He fucks her in her sleep without using a condom.

She had awoken to find him having sex with her, she said, but when she asked whether he was wearing a condom he said no.

I’ll write more later about Wolf’s treatment of the other allegation, but this is just completely egregious. It’s frankly astounding.

And I should note that this particular debate has nothing to do with Assange’s guilt or innocence. In her Democracy Now appearance, Wolf — an Assange defender — assumed the veracity of his accusers’ claims for the purposes of the discussion.

And then lied about what those claims were.

Update | The video of the debate is now up online. Here are the most relevant quotes from Wolf:

“The Guardian account … doesn’t say that he had sex with either of these women without their consent.”

“Jaclyn, with full respect, where did they say no?”

“Of course I agree … that consent isn’t a given, and that obviously with every sexual act, everyone needs to be sure that everyone’s consenting. There’s no doubt about that.”

“Again and again and again Assange consulted with the women about what they wanted and they didn’t say no.”

Again: According to this account, Assange and W start to have sex. He doesn’t want to use a condom. She insists. He refuses. He gives up and goes to sleep. They wake in the night. He doesn’t want to use a condom. She insists again. He complies. She falls asleep.

She wakes to find him fucking her in her sleep without using a condom.

And Naomi Wolf calls this consensual sex. Unbelievable.

Second Update | A second part of the debate between Friedman and Wolf, which didn’t air during the original broadcast, has now been posted online. Here’s a key passage:

Wolf: Again and again and again, Assange did what Jaclyn, and everyone who cares about rape, and I, say you should do. He consulted with the women. … He stopped when women said ‘let’s talk about the condom,’ he discussed it, they reached an agreement, and they went ahead. He didn’t have sex with that woman when she was asleep. I agree that you need to be awake and conscious and not drunk to consent. We agree about that.

Friedman: He did have sex — that’s the allegation —

Wolf: Can you just bear with me?

Friedman: He started when she was asleep. That is the allegation.

Wolf: Well, you know — he started to have sex with her when she was asleep. Correct.

Friedman: And that’s rape.

Wolfe: She was half asleep. Then she woke up. Then they discussed how they would have sex, under what conditions, which is to me negotiating consent … they had a negotiation in which they both agreed not to use a condom, and then he went ahead and they made love.

Oof. Okay.

Let’s start by looking at the Guardian’s discussion of this incident — which is, again, the one that Wolf herself is relying on:

She had awoken to find him having sex with her, she said, but when she asked whether he was wearing a condom he said no. “According to her statement, she said: ‘You better not have HIV’ and he answered: ‘Of course not,’ ” but “she couldn’t be bothered to tell him one more time because she had been going on about the condom all night. She had never had unprotected sex before.”

So she’s asleep. Not “half asleep.” Asleep. She wakes up. He’s fucking her. He’s inside her. And what’s the “discussion” that follows? Is it initiated by him? No. Is it conducted on neutral terms? No.

It’s her asking him, while he’s fucking her, whether he’s complying with her previous explicit, non-negotiable demand that he use a condom.

And him saying he isn’t.

And continuing to fuck her.

And her giving up and letting him.

That’s the “discussion.” That’s the “negotiation.” That’s the prelude to their “making love.”

This isn’t a situation in which two people collectively negotiate the terms of consensual sex. This is a situation in which one person wants to do something, the person he’s with says no, and he waits until she’s asleep and does it anyway. Without asking. Without even telling her he’s done it until she asks him. And without stopping, once she’s awake and grilling him, to see whether what he’s doing is okay.

That’s not negotiation. That’s not discussion. That’s not ambiguous. That’s rape.

Third Update | Still watching. This exchange says it all:

Friedman: If someone asks me twenty times, do I want to have sex with them, or do I want to have sex without a condom, or whatever sexual act we’re negotiating, and I say no twenty times, and the twenty-first time I say yes because I am worn down, and because I’m being pressured and coerced and I’m afraid, and because I woke up to him already raping me, and I’m freaked out, that is not real consent. That is not a chance to have actual consent. That’s not legitimate consent.

Wolf: Well, I guess you and I will have to part ways.

Guess so.

Trigger Warning | There’s some very intense, very troubling stuff in the (377!) comments that follow. It’s also important to note that comments are now closed.

So explain something to me.

Why is this…

…provoking, complex, and transgressive, while this…

…is just jokey and sophomoric?

Is it the source material? The singers? The performance?

Or am I wrong about one or both?

The crops are all in and the peaches are rottening,
The oranges are piled in their creosote dumps;
They’re flying them back to the Mexican border
They’ll pay all their money to wade back again.

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be “deportees.”

My father’s own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters came working the fruit fields,
They rode on that truck ’til they took down and died.

Some of us are illegal, and others not wanted,
Our work contract’s out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to the Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

We died in your hills and we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died ‘neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.

The skyplane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning that shook all our hills,
Who are all these dear friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says they are just deportees.

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall and be scattered, to rot on the topsoil
To be known by no name except “deportees”?

–Woody Guthrie, 1948

Between 1994 and 2007, the Canadian Province of Quebec kept tuition at its public universities stable, access robust, and educational quality high.

In 2007 that tuition freeze was lifted, and a plan to hike tuition $50 a semester, every semester, for five years was implemented. That five-year period expires in 2012, and students are now bracing to oppose a dramatically more punitive tuition scheme. Union university workers, understanding that tuition increases typically go hand-in-hand with budget cuts, are joining them.

Tuition increases ranging from 50% to 135% have been proposed by various parties, as students put officials on notice that they will not accept such actions quietly. Thousands of students protested outside a summit on education funding last week, while tens of thousands more staged a one-day strike. Nearly two dozen student bodies have approved strike plans going forward.

As student activist Adrian Kaats wrote this week, “2011 is going to be one of the most interesting years in Quebec politics … in quite some time,” and students and campus unions are going to be in the thick of it.

I recently visited some of Quebec’s student activists, and came away mightily impressed. — I’ll definitely have much more on this story in the new year. Stay tuned.

The Senate will be holding a crucial procedural vote on the DREAM Act tomorrow (Saturday) morning. Most observers expect it to fail, but the list of who stands where is still pretty murky.

Two Senators — Kay Bailey Hutchison and John McCain — have come out against it in the last couple of weeks, while one supporter — Dick Lugar — wavered briefly before re-affirming his vote. But none of these announcements were at all surprising, and none changed the underlying dynamics of the vote.

I’m not going to try to do a full count just yet, because too much is still in play, but I will use this post to pass along what I know and what I learn over the course of today. Check back in for updates.

• DreamActivist released a new target list this morning, with just eight Senators on it — Democrats Kent Conrad, Mark Pryor, Joe Manchin, and Kay Hagan, and Republicans Sam Brownback George Voinovich, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins.

• And speaking of Kent Conrad, he’s a past opponent of the bill, but he gave a surprisingly positive response when asked about it late last week.

• As I noted last night, Democrat Ron Wyden — a solid DREAM Act supporter — was briefly considered a question mark for Saturday’s vote, due to upcoming prostate cancer surgery. But a spokesman has confirmed that though he’ll be away from the Senate for tests today, he will be back and voting tomorrow.

• I noted earlier this month that the White House had said that they expected to need seven Republican votes to pass the bill. No idea what that was based on, or if it’s still operative, but you can see my speculation here.

12:30 pm

• The Daily Kos has a DREAM Act “whip count” post up, but it’s pretty much worthless. It lists nine Republicans who are on record against the bill — LeMieux, Hutchison, Ensign, Kirk, McCain, Kyl, Cornyn, Graham, Gregg — as possible gets, while it portrays Dick Lugar and Bob Bennett, who are on the record as solid supporters of the bill, as question marks. It’s just not based in anything, as far as I can tell.

1:30 pm

• Just got off the phone with a staffer for Senator Snowe, who confirmed that “she’s planning on voting no.” Senator Collins’ staff said she’s still unannounced, and Landrieu’s staff promised to email me with a statement.

1:40 pm

• A staffer for Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) just confirmed for me that she’ll be voting no on the DREAM Act tomorrow.

• A new post up at the National Review’s “The Corner” blog says that anti-DREAM Act group Numbers USA believes they have 42 votes in opposition to the bill. They claim four Democrats — Mark Pryor, Ben Nelson, Jon Tester, and Hagan — as opposed.

3:00 pm

• I now count 39 38 announced votes against the DREAM Act, and 50 solid votes in favor. With 60 votes needed for passage, that means supporters need to win ten out of the remaining eleven twelve, or flip someone who has already declared against.

• Here are the eleven twelve I see as up in the air: Democrats Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, Jon Tester, Max Baucus, Joe Manchin, Claire McCaskill, Mary Landrieu, and Jim Webb, and Republicans Sam Brownback, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski. Edit: George Voinovich should be on this list. Sorry.

• At least two of the Senators on the above list, it should be noted — Jon Tester and Max Baucus — are widely seen as near-certain no votes, though they haven’t announced their plans yet.