Trigger warning

What a week. It looks like Todd Akin isn’t the only one who needs to be schooled on what constitutes as rape.

As Akin resists the pressure to withdraw from his senatorial campaign in Missouri, more news revealed that British MP George Galloway has come out with a pretty alarming defense of Julian Assange’s rape allegations by claiming that, come on silly, it’s not rape if she’s asleep! Yes, really:

“Even taken at its worst, if the allegations made by these two women were true, 100 per cent true, and even if a camera in the room captured them, they don’t constitute rape,” Mr Galloway reportedly said. “At least not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it. And somebody has to say this. “Woman A met Julian Assange, invited him back to her flat, gave him dinner, went to bed with him, had consensual sex with him, claims that she woke up to him having sex with her again. This is something which can happen, you know. I mean, not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion.”

“Something which can happen?” That statement is a mark of exactly what Galloway’s comments are truly about. It’s not a lack of awareness about what rape actually is, or the collective need for some kind of Sexual Assault 101 course for the Akins and Galloways of the world. It’s blatant rape denialism and victim-blaming as a means to defend the policies — and people — that these legislators support. Because our bodily autonomy and human right to not be raped is simply not important enough to their political interests, therefore must be denied and conveniently discarded. And there’s no denying that.