Finally got to reading Critical Mass yesterday and saw the post from Friday on date rape Ireland meets campus PC. Back many years ago, I read an historical novel by Dorothy Dunnett, which had portions of the old Irish Brehon law as chapter headings. One of the portions she used dealt with just this subject. If I understood it right, sex at a planned encounter was never rape, because the woman had agreed to it by making the assignation and then showing up. If the encounter is not the result of a previous arrangement then the sex is legal until the woman screams. If she doesn't scream, she can't go back later and say it was rape, just as today, it's not rape (supposedly) until one party says "No". The difference is that with the requirement of a scream, the law is saying that to say "No" one must say it is such a a way that a reasonable third party would agree that it was indeed a "No". Seems pretty simple and elegant to me.
If anyone out there knows more about Brehon law than I do (not that that would be difficult) please let me know if I've got it wrong!
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