The headline on this article "'No' means nothing once sex has started" is NOT a correct assertion about this ruling.

The opinon of the Maryland court goes to great length to analyze the law of Maryland on this point. It explicates the (appalling) history of rape law in the English common law. It concludes that the law of Maryland is that, once a person consents to sex, the withdrawal of consent during the act does not make the act rape. It then says that this rule: "would not have been a bar to a conviction for common law assault for any continuation of the sexual act against the complainant’s will after the withdrawal of consent."

So, it's still illegal, it's just not rape. We may all agree that it SHOULD be rape to keep having sex with someone who is saying stop, but let's not incorrectly characterize this decision.

Many years ago I got very interested in an intelligent attractive woman. However, she would not even go out on any sort of date with me. One day I ran into two of her friends. They told me that she liked me but was not going to be easy. They advised me to go over to her apartment and "take her". So I went over and let her know what I was there for. We struggled for a half hour before I finally subdued her. She never said no or stop and could have easily yelled and gotten help. After that we were lovers. She knew that I really wanted her. Anyone who would have seen us would have been convinced I was raping her. But that was her way and it was kind of fun. Never took all that effort again. She initiated sex as least as often as I did. I would have loved to have married her, but she was on a track for an advanced degree and a professional career and I was looking for a wife who would be a mother. So all sex is not quiet or easily understood.

This piece is misleading, wrong, and hypocritical in about fifteen ways. Let me count a few of them:

1) "Consider for a moment what this means: that once intercourse has started, a woman has no legal right to stop it. Not if it hurts, not if it feels wrong, not if something starts going badly. As soon as you say yes and begin the act, your freedom and ability to make and act on your own decisions simply evaporate." Wrong. As someone else has already pointed out, you may not get nailed for rape, but you can get nailed for about five other kinds of sexual assault, and spend a lot of time in jail. You have every legal right to stop it, dear.

2) It's not the court's problem, here, it's the legislature. The law isn't ambiguous. The court did nothing wrong. They have to enforce the law as it is written.

3) The facts of this case make it a lot less "terrifying". This is a bunch of dirtbags in the back seat of a car. Everyone's been smoking pot. The alleged rapist is wearing a condom. He asked her if they could have sex, and she said "yes" -- he didn't attack her. She said he had to stop if it hurt. The victim had already had sex with one guy, and after she asked the second guy to stop, he delayed for ... ready? Five seconds. Everyone's testimony corroborates, with one exception. She says he stopped after five seconds, he says he stopped immediately. And this case has been in court for three solid years, including an appeal, a mistrial, and now it's going to be tried again. Because he didn't stop fast enough. You have to really, really rely on technicalities to paint this as some kind of brutal assault. Get real.

"And think not just twice but three and four and five times before you agree to shag someone. It shouldn't have to be this way."

Why would you ever NOT think seriously before having sex with someone? It's one of the most intimate things you can do with a person. The idea that it can be entered into lightly just baffles me.

This 2 for 1 thing of yours is kinda creepy. You seem to think it means that you're a great lover, an "all about the woman" kinda guy, but to me its sounds very controlling. I mean, I'm usually a one-timer unless there's a lot of time in between or I'm just ridiculously, abnormally turned on. But if I end up in bed with you, it sounds like I have to fake a second time just to get you to come and stop it already. And I'm not a big fan of faking but I'd basically have to just to have the sex end after a decent amount of time since I'd probably be getting all numb or chafed.

You claim to sometimes having to do all kinds of crazy stuff to get a woman to this supposed point as well. Why such an obsession with a second orgasm? Whats so bad about just coming once and having it be a great one? Do you not feel like "the man"? Creepy and controlling, yessiree.

Or not yet or not now or now but not really or I changed my mind or I'm in the wet spot. Yes means something or other, or it doesn't or 5 minutes from now it means something else, or not. Let's call the cops. I can accept that. I can also accept we are at the point where men and women should have as little to do with one another as possible. A truce or an armistice or maybe just indifference is in order. In the meantime lets tear up all the laws regarding constructive abandonment because honestly, it's just too risky. Sorry.

Let's say you meet a really hot guy like a Brad Pitt type or whatever makes you squirt a bucket of cum. And let's say that you're gettin' the groove, gettin' all self-lubricated at the mere sight of him while listening to some of dat Barry White shit. You've consented just slightly to sex with the phrase "Oh yes, yes, yes. Take me now, you megamuffin stud! Baby my hoohoo is ready for a poundin'!" and you know, having read sex-ed manuals that you're going to now impale yourself on his nine-iron. So he sticks his shlong in and you're riding it and riding it but then you realize that he's a grower not a shower and you've just consented to a man with... a deceptive five-foot penis.

Now, what if, in this completely implausible situation, you say "no" to this circus satyr and he still keeps growing while doing the act until your labia is ready to split? The nerve of this pig man! Is it rape? Yes! Oh yes!

So since, as we all know, the law should account for completely implausible situations that only occur in cartoons, I think a woman should have the right to sue any man just because he is a man, because he has a penis and because men are just stupid animals that don't know what "no" means. We have to stick it to da man. Tell him that gynofascist matriarchy is the way of the enlightened 21st century and if not, imprisonment!