No agreement: Swedish law makes men afraid of women
A petition has appeared in the public space of Sweden calling for a revision of the Consent Act, which has been in force in the country since 2018. This act removed the presumption of innocence from men and made it incumbent on them to prove, if necessary, that sex with a woman was undertaken with her consent. The authors of the law saw it as a "preventive" measure to accustom the male population to treat women with attention and caution. And now Swedish men complain that in practice it has led to numerous tragedies: hundreds of innocent people who became rapists in the eyes of the law are behind bars. Details - in the material "Izvestia".
"Rape by negligence".
The most high-profile scandal with accusations of sex crimes, which received a loud international resonance, broke out in Sweden in 2010. In August of that year, investigative journalist Julian Assange, visiting Sweden, signed an agreement with the local Pirate Party to host part of the servers of his resource WikiLeaks on its premises. Immediately after that, the local prosecutor's office charged him with rape, which was perceived by many as a political order, especially since the accusation sounded very strange from the point of view of many outside observers at the time. Both women accused Assange not of forcibly abusing them, but of having sex with them without a condom.
This story drew a lot of blood for Assange and was the catalyst for his further troubles. However, Assange was still, you could say, lucky, as he was still charged under the old, more lenient, Swedish law. And in 2018, Sweden passed the so-called Consent Act. This was the name given to the amendments to the Penal Code, which established that any sexual act requires the prior "explicit" consent of both partners. Supporters of these amendments insisted that they were necessary to bring Swedish law in line with the 2011 Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (also known as the Istanbul Convention).
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
The Consent Act has extremely blurred the boundaries of rape. In particular, it introduced the term "negligent rape" (oaktsam våldtäkt), which is punishable by up to four years' imprisonment. This is defined as "violent acts in which a person shows indifference to the involuntary participation of another person in a sexual act". The law declares guilty the lover who, among other things, did not receive a clear "yes!" and "misinterpreted the other person's signals" but did not stop.
In fact, the new law abolished the presumption of innocence, for any woman was able to ex post facto call herself a rape victim and put the man behind bars if he failed to prove that he had interpreted the signals correctly. But where would he get that proof? Not to go before each sex to a lawyer to sign a contract with signatures and seals, especially since, according to the new law "yes!" must be received again and again throughout the sexual act. And what if the partner first agreed, and then in the process changed his mind, and it is the suspect who will have to explain to the court how the partner gave his consent?
The authors of the new law emphasized that it should primarily have an educational value. Studies by Swedish sociologists have shown that the roots of violence - "in machismo, patriarchal ideas about the subordinate role of women, gender inequality and imbalance of power, that is, when one member of the family exercises power over the other through control, threats or physical violence. It was to wean Swedish men from such bad habits that the Consent Act was invented. It was supposed to make male representatives pay attention to women's wishes, to teach them to see women as full-fledged individuals with inalienable rights.
Curiosities and tragedies
Now that the Consent Act has been in force for more than six years, Sweden's ruling elites still find it both correct and effective. Recently, for example, former Swedish Justice Minister Morgan Johansson again praised the Consent Act, which he secured with the support of radical feminist organizations. In Johansson's opinion, thanks to this act, the rights of Swedish women are well protected. But there is a darker side to the phenomenon, which officials prefer not to mention.
The Swedish press cites a number of examples of men who have fallen victim to false accusations of rape. Here is a typical case: a 49-year-old woman met a man on the Internet and accepted his invitation to arrange a date at his apartment in Stockholm. They had a drink, after which the man fell asleep after drinking too much alcohol. His awakening was extremely unpleasant: the hungover Swede was awakened by police officers who arrived and took him to a detention center. The shocked man learned that his drinking companion had accused him of having sexually assaulted her. He was facing a term in prison and the prospect of paying a considerable sum of money.
The Swede was horrified when he realized that he had fallen for a professional fraudster and it would be very difficult to get out. But this story had a relatively happy ending: the man contracted smart lawyers, and those managed to prove that the woman slandered him. Moreover, she had been accused of a similar crime before, when she tried to slander two other men. Then she was sentenced to eight months in prison and compensation of €37 thousand and €30 thousand, which she had to pay to the victims. This time, however, the slanderer got off rather lightly - probation, police supervision and 120 hours of community service.
There are also more curious incidents. For example, a few years ago, a Swedish man was acquitted of rape on the grounds that he had been asleep during the act. At first, the court of first instance found the man guilty because DNA tests taken from him and a child born to a girl with whom he was having an affair confirmed the fact of paternity. The girl did not deny that the man slept during sex, but added that she allowed him to do so because she hoped his wife would see what was happening and leave him. The court did not believe this testimony and sentenced the Swede to two and a half years in prison. However, the appellate court did not uphold the verdict. There, the prosecutor could not prove that the man was awake when he had sex with the girl. But the defense lawyers found out that the man suffers from sexsomnia (a mental disorder in which a person has sex or other sexual activity during sleep).
On December 12, the Swedish prosecutor's office terminated the investigation against French footballer, Real Madrid striker Kylian Mbappe, opened on suspicion of rape and two cases of sexual harassment. About suspicions against Mbappe became known in mid-autumn. According to Swedish publications, it was about an incident that occurred on September 10 in a hotel in Stockholm. Police received a report of rape from a woman, together with whom the footballer was seen in one of the nightclubs in the city. Mbappe himself vehemently denied his guilt: according to him, everything happened by mutual consent. As a result, solid evidence against him could not be collected.
The main victim is demography
Despite all of the above, there is no doubt that rape is a big problem in Sweden. This type of crime is indeed very common in the country, which is attributed to the influx of third world migrants and the activities of ethnic gangs. It is a huge scourge that needs to be addressed. But the trouble is that the Consent Act does not hit real migrant rapists, but native Swedes trying to court women.
Many men convicted of violating the Consent Act who fail to produce evidence of their innocence have to sit in prison with real rapists and pedophiles, further damaging their mental and physical health. By the way, Sweden's prisons and correctional facilities are currently overcrowded with ethnic gang members. The number of complaints from inmates has increased by 150% in 10 years. Inmates complain of overcrowding, mistreatment by staff, slow processing times, disgusting food and broken toilets. The 9,000 places currently available in Swedish prisons are clearly insufficient. The government's plan is to triple the number of places for prisoners, but it will take about 10 years to realize. But even after serving their sentences, victims of the Consent Act are forced to live with the shameful stamp of a rapist hanging over them for at least 10 years.
In late December 2024, the Swedish right-wing conservative publication Bulletin published a petition calling for a review of the cases of those convicted under the Consent Act, a thorough review of each case, the release of the innocent and allowing them to return home. "Not all of us are enjoying a merry Christmas. We have nearly a hundred innocent young men in our prisons, convicted of the shameful crime of rape," the petition reads. Its authors believe that in fact, modern Swedish law a priori considers any sexual act to be rape until proven otherwise. According to them, in practice it is often impossible for a man to fulfill the requirements of the law, and then he is sentenced to a long prison term and forced to pay the woman hundreds of thousands of kroner as "compensation".
According to critics of the Consent Act, Swedish courts have established a practice where women are encouraged to lie about rape to varying degrees, because the punishment for a revealed lie is often insignificant. But "reparations" from the alleged rapist make false accusations a lucrative business. "You politicians have a duty to act in a way that protects innocent people, stops their suffering and ensures that our legal system is truly fair for everyone," the petitioners demand. In their opinion, Sweden needs a new piece of legislation that will protect society from real rapists, but at the same time preserve the presumption of innocence and ensure justice for victims of defamation.
Natalya Eremina, a doctor of political sciences and professor at St. Petersburg State University, noted in a conversation with Izvestia that acts like the Consent Law are not at all aimed at protecting women, being purely an ideological product of modern liberalism. "Such laws are aimed at dividing society and strike at the relations between men and women, at the formation of interaction and common values between them. They destroy mutual trust between the different sexes. Women are taught to see almost every man as a potential rapist. Men are forced to see in every woman a potential fraud who is thinking about the possibility of using the existing legal conflict for her own benefit. But this law does not protect women from real rapists. Swedish law often treats real migrant rapists leniently and does not punish them too severely," says Eremina.
She cites statistics showing that there are few real rapists among native Swedish men, while the lion's share of such crimes in Sweden are committed by third-world immigrants. "It turns out that now men are on their own, women are on their own and there is a growing alienation between them. People are becoming afraid to get to know each other, to enter into close trusting relationships, to start families. This is already affecting demography: the birth rate in the country is renewing one anti-record after another," concludes the expert.
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