this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025

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For some, it's #MeToo vs. #HimToo at the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/canada

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Outside the London, Ont., courthouse where five former world junior hockey players are on trial on sexual assault charges, supporters of the complainant — carrying signs reading, "I believe you E.M." and "We Believe Survivors" — have been confronted by #HimToo movement backers with signs of their own: "5 careers ruined" and "E.M. cheated."

"Inviting guys for a three-way with a woman might not be the right thing. It might not be something you want your sister to partake in," said the man, giving his take on a text message entered as evidence. "However, it is not illegal when a girl is consenting to this. It is not criminal when a girl consented to this. Michael McLeod has had his career ruined. Hopefully, [McLeod's lawyer] David Humphrey can go and exploit what this girl's lies are."

(McLeod has pleaded not guilty to a second charge, of being a party to the offence for allegedly inviting players to his hotel room to engage in sex.)

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[–] BlameThePeacock 10 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

This shit is too grey for the courts to handle properly.

Even with a video or audio recording, it's impossible to know state of mind.

As we see with this case, they can actively be saying yes or engaging with people and then say they felt they had no choice but to participate.

Without video or audio recordings, these things almost always come down to context at best, or just they said/they said at worst.

How can our justice system find anything to be true in these situations "beyond a reasonable doubt" at that point?

I'm not detracting from sexual assault being bad, it is, I'm just pointing out that there isn't a reasonable way to fix it that I've heard so far and we can't just believe every victim because we know that it's being abused (even if it's rare) by malicious actors to punish people that committed no crime.

The only actual solution I have at this point is we should just all start fucking robots, because people are stupid.

[–] Hacksaw 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

First of all I completely agree, and have no solution. Rape is by definition an intimate crime, generally all you have is he said/she said. That makes it hard to meet the criminal standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" which isn't far for victims. Weakening the standard isn't fair for anyone. We have to be innocent until proven guilty, I'd rather not live in a system where proving me guilty requires only the claims of one person and no evidence.

Our legal system was never designed for date rape.

I would like to add that it's made worse by organisations spreading false information about rape. For example drinking or drugs don't USUALLY invalidate consent. That should be obvious to anyone who has ever gone out on a date, had a couple of drinks then had sex enthusiastically with their new partner. Alcohol or drugs invalidate consent when either the person is clearly too intoxicated to consent/participate or has been given alcohol or drugs by someone in order to make them less able to resist sexual advances.

Unfortunately in cases like this it's easy for the "any amount of alcohol/drugs means no consent" messaging to convince someone that it was rape. Especially if it wasn't a good time, which isn't uncommon when having sex with a new partner. Then they put themselves through the entire legal process only to come out of the situation worse than they started.

These organisations aren't doing anyone favours by using definitions of rape that don't match legal ones.

Same with statistics. It's well known that the "most women are raped in university" type statistics are based on these types of faulty definitions. Generally the surveyed women report NOT being victims. What these organisations don't understand is that overreporting statistics only makes people suspicious. If statistics don't generally match lived experiences people are going to become suspicious of the concepts. Then when a victim steps out they're subject to an unfair amount of suspicion: did you get raped by the common/legal definition or the definition used in these types of statistics. This is an additional trauma victims don't deserve.

Definitions are important and we need to adopt common definitions of rape and sexual assault across the board instead of self serving ones to make big numbers and confuse young adults.

[–] Dtules 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I don't know that I agree that social definitions always have to match legal definitions.

Legal systems tend to be conservative and it's social progressive groups that push the public consciousness enough to eventually shift the legal system.

Until 1983, marital rape wasn't legally considered rape in Canada. The social understanding that you could rape a spouse needed to exist before the laws could follow.

I agree that it's nuanced and people need to be educated on the difference between legal definitions and social definitions, but I don't think what you're proposing is the only way.

[–] Hacksaw 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I 100% get where you're coming from. That makes total sense. I guess I was thinking of one specific context and over generalized. There is definitely room for nuance and to expand definitions of crimes through social efforts.

I think I was focused on the idea that we should be careful with strong language like rape, genocide, fascism, etc. Using them too liberally, or in ways that don't match their severity undermines the position of victims like rape victims, Palestine, or whatever the fuck is happening to immigrants in the US right now.

It's definitely a step too far to say that the only valid definition is the legal definition.

[–] Dtules 3 points 4 days ago

Yeah, that's fair

[+] rekabis -7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

we should just all start fucking robots

That’s… not going to work out like you think it will.

When the subject of men having sex with robots comes up, feminists end up in fits of frothy rage. Ostensibly because “robots cannot give consent”, but that’s a blatantly bullshit answer at every conceivable level.

With all the criticism women give men for treating them as sexual objects, you’d think they would be overjoyed that it’s coming to an actual end. You’d think they would be relieved that it won’t be happening anymore, and that men can now turn to a sex robot for sexual relief.

But scratch beneath the surface - as in, dig deeper to actual motivations - and in many cases it’s because women are losing their status as sexual objects, and are deeply threatened by that loss of power over men.

It’s no different when a man that a woman has absolutely no interest in stops paying attention to her, and stops being a so-called “beta orbiter” -- a fair number of women go nuts and try to destroy his relationship with the new woman, or start a campaign of belittlement and harassment (especially if there is no other woman), calling him an incel and coordinating with her peer group to socially shame him for not paying attention to her anymore. It’s all about the leverage they can extract out of men, and not any actual interest. A man turning away is the loss of a potential or actual source of resources/entertainment/ego. And that just cannot be allowed to happen.

Which is why the single biggest opponent to sex robots are feminists. Especially the “kill all men” ones that lead the movement. They are the ones fighting sex robots with all the fury they can muster, even though men’s trivial access to sex robots will mean far fewer women being pestered or harassed or assaulted or raped.

You’d think a dramatic reduction in harassment, assaults, and rape would be a good thing, but where sex robots for men are concerned, it’s apparently a horrid evil.

[–] Dtules 4 points 4 days ago

Where... are you seeing "kill all men" discourse in Canada?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Good old “both sides” journalism

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago

It's some men playing the both-sides game.

Don't blame a journalist for reporting on it.