Sean Connery: Just slap those nagging females

[smartestnumber5]

I happen to think he (Sean Connery) is a bit of an idiot. I like his acting, but never really cared for him as a person. What I disagree with your post is I think it's a reporters responsibility to report the facts and the information that's available to them. If the husband and wife say a marriage is happy, and there are no reports of trips to the ER then I don't see anything wrong with what she did. BW isn't the National Enquirer where the 'rumors' of abuse should be part of a story if she has no proof. While her celeb pieces are still puff pieces to me, she should still follow certain rules.

I have no problem separating the artist from the art.

So now, playing devils advocate, is it every adult consensual relationship where one strikes the other, and the other is ok with it that you have a problem with and you view as abuse? Should there be laws against it? What action should be taken against Connery if his wife doesn't have a problem with it?

I see what you're saying about BW being a reporter and thus having to report the facts as they are presented to her. I think perhaps she could have presented them in a different way, but I can see what you're saying.

Interesting devils advocate question. I'm not exactly sure what the law/court system currently does about this. I know a big problem in prosecuting is when women won't testify and don't want to press charges. I'm unclear, however, as to whether charges can be pressed despite her protesting if her testimony isn't needed (i.e. if there are other witnesses).

Anyway, I would advocate that the legal status of hitting be based on consent. (I'm pretty sure some courts have ruled that one cannot consent to be hit in S/M sex type things. I disagree with this.) So I think if there's hitting going on between adults and they consent to the particular instances of hitting (as one would in certain types of sex), then that should not be against the law. I don't think, though, that what happens with most cases of abuse fits this model of consent. I'm guessing usually abuse happens during a fight or when the abuser is upset about something. It is not as if in these moments an abuser asks a woman if he has her permission to hit her or a woman offers that permission. It seems absolutely clear at the moment of the hitting that the woman has not consented to being hit. And I think legally, that is what should matter--not what she says afterwards (i.e. I deserved it.) I think this is already how we treat rape. If there was no consent and a man forces sex on a woman that is rape and it doesn't matter how much the woman thinks it is her fault afterwards or whether or not she wants to press charges. He has still committed a crime.

Of course, one issue with the above is that we'd have to distinguish two different kinds of hitting. GF and I give each other love pats on the behind all the time. Though this is technically a kind of hitting, surely it's not something that should be illegal. I don't know exactly how we would distinguish something like that from hitting in a fit of rage with enough force to leave a mark. (I'm guessing there must be something in the laws that makes such distinctions already?) Also, I suppose an abused woman could claim that, even as she cries and screams in pain as she's beaten and begs her abuser to stop, she does consent to it. I think a woman who claimed this would be deluding herself, but legally I don't know what could be done about it.

Now, as to whether charges even if the woman doesn't want to press charges, I don't know. I don't know how that currently works in our legal system.

That would be my take. I'm sure there are problems with the approach, but it's the first thing that came to my mind.

 

[Feralpeg]

On another topic, some people have said they like him as an actor, not a man. I can see that, but I guess I don't usually employ that kind of distinction when I lust after or admire celebrities. I used to lust after Tom Cruise (not any particular character he played, just him), but after I started to realize how crazy he is I now find him revolting.

I like him as an actor. I think he is very talanted. I don't lust after him. I stopped lusting after actors a long time ago.

I have no problem separating the role from the actor's real life. I don't know what most of their real lives are like and I don't care. An actor is a good actor when they become the role they are playing. It is the character I'm concerned with, not the actor.