Aaliyah Palmer, 19, in North Carolina went to a house party in January this year. She met a man who she liked and they began hooking up.
It was a busy party. The apartment was filled with men and women – mostly from the military. Palmer and her date went to the bathroom for some privacy but when he pushed her against the bathroom sink and began violently pulling her hair out of her head, the sex turned to rape.
Palmer said ‘no’ repeatedly. She asked him to stop every way she knew how. She told him he was hurting her. The assault lasted two hours but, in the eyes of the law in North Carolina (NC), Palmer wasn’t raped.
She had consented initially and, in NC, that is enough to excuse whatever comes next.
“Suddenly, the pain kicked in. He had begun to grip the base of my hair very tightly, and I could feel individual strands being removed from my scalp due to the force,” Palmer wrote for Babe.
“This was the point I told him he was hurting me and when he ignored what I was saying, I asked him to stop. He told me to be quiet and relax, refusing to stop.
“I chose not to fight him as I knew he was stronger than I was. I chose not to run, because I did not know the men who would be waiting for me on the other side of the door.”
Top Comments
Rape is extremely difficult to prove at the best of times but this law complicates it further! It's so hard when a lot of the time it vomes down to one persons word against the other and that we are discussing an act that is not actually illegal in the first place- it's literally all about context. The victims state of mind has to be proven and this can often be very difficult in cases based upon evidence before and after. Rape victims are judged so harshly that they're reluctant to report which is why it goes unreported mostly- and being problematic to prove accounts for a lot of this reluctance. It becomes a blame and shame game. I can't imagine this law will help victims to feel comfortable enough to come forward. This law needs to be reassessed.
The United States, land of the free, everybody!
Well, this guy went free anyway!
Ha, good point!