Though I especially want to know what feminists think of this, non-feminists please feel free to participate too!

In another thread, I'd posted the following:

As a man who has experienced physical sexual assault from a woman, I'll share my perspectives on due process here.

I never reported the act to the police for the following two main reasons:

Shame. I did contribute negligently to my own sexual assault by making myself unreasonably trusting and vulnerable towards her, a situation she then exploited through the element of surprise.

Lack of hard proof. Even a rape-kit test would have proved only that a sexual act occurred, not whether or not I'd consented to it.

In spite of the above, I totally oppose rape-shield laws since while a woman can sexually assault a man, she can also make a false accusation.

I even believe that the accused should have a right to a hearing under an inquisitorial system on request.

That said, I do understand the inherent conflict that exists between excessive sexual freedom and adequate sexual protection under the law. I'll explain below.

If all but the lack of consent itself is legal, and the lack of consent is the hardest part to prove, then in such a legal framework, victims must simply accept that reality, not promote rape-shield laws.

Here in Canada, purchasing sexual services is a criminal offense, and this could help to deter rapes against sex workers. For example, I pay a woman for protected sex and then rape her without a condom, so she decides to file a police report.

Even if the prosecutor cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that I'd raped the woman, the prosecutor has the alternative option of proving beyond reasonable doubt that I purchased sexual services to have me convicted under Canada's sex-buyer law. The onus is then on me to either refuse to pay the woman for sex or, at the very least, ensure that she is giving her enthuastic consent so as to give me no reason to believe that she might falsely accuse me of raping her afterwards.

Now let's take it one step further. Imagine that we made fornication an offense punishable by a heavy fine that doubles for each repetition of the offense. Then if I rape a woman and she files a police report, even if a prosecutor cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that I raped the alleged victim or that I paid her for sex, the prosecutor could still have me pay a heavy fine under the consent-to-fornication law by proving beyond reasonable doubt that I gave my consent to fornication. The onus would then be on me to either refuse to give my consent to fornication or, at the very least, get an email, text message, or other clear proof from her that she is giving her consent too. That way we'd both be violating the consent-to-fornication law so as to remove any incentive her her to file a police report since she could be found guilty too.

Now let's take an even more extreme example. Under the age of sixteen in Canada, my consent to sex with a woman is legally invalid. As a result, once the prosecutor proves my age and that the woman at least consented to sex with me, the prosecutor can get that woman convicted of statutory sexual assault of a minor. As a result, the woman must think more seriously before agreeing to have sex with me.

A major problem with the above concerns an inherent conflict between excessive sexual freedom and adequate sexual protection under the law. Feminists want their cake and eat it too. They want both absolute freedom and absolute protection under the law even though the two are mutually exclusive options.

I could hypothetically imagine a situation in which, starting at the age of fifteen, I could sign into my online passport account and, from there, self-exclude from the freedom to give consent to fornication for five years auto-renewable under threat of a heavy fine that doubles for each repetition of the offense in exchange for making it an offense for a woman to encourage a self-excluded man, beyond merely giving her enthusiastic consent, to give his consent to fornication. The onus would then be on the woman to first confirm the man's status before encouraging him, beyond merely giving her enthusiastic consent, or at least to ensure that he's truly consenting and won't experience later remorse and report her. Since both consenting to fornication and incitement to do so could be easier to prove beyond reasonable doubt (such as through email or text messages) than actual sexual assault, they would thus provide a more effective deterrent against it.

In the end though, we as a society must acknowledge the inherent conflict between excessive sexual freedom and adequate sexual protection under the law and then decide how we want to balance these. Either way, feminists must make a choice on the matter and can't have it both ways.