Have you ever made love in the middle of the
night and suddenly realized that your partner is still asleep? Well, if you
have, your partner is suffering from a strange disorder: Sexsomnia.
Also known as Sleep sex, this condition is
part of a sleep disorders group called Parasomnias. This disorder involves
having heterosexual or homosexual intercourse in the middle of the night; it
also includes oral sex and masturbation.
One of the factors of this disorder that you
do not remember anything the following morning, and the causes may be stress,
not having slept enough, or excessive consumption of drugs or alcohol. It is
more common in men than in women.
This year in the UK, a man named Stephen
Davies was accused of raping a teenage girl, and he claims that he suffers from
this disorder. He stated that he is innocent and that he doesn’t remember
anything of what happened. The accused presented evidence that their previous
partners had also experienced this “problem” when they were with him. On the
other hand, the defense assures that he was conscious during the act.
This case hasn’t got to a solution yet, but
researchers are starting to investigate more about this disorder, its causes, the
advantages and disadvantages, and how it can be treated.
Should this man be acquitted from his
charges?
Can you blame a disorder or an illness for a
crime you commit?
Whether we like it or not, if there are people who talk or walk in their sleep, others who eat cakes and take stuff from the fridge, there is also a guy (maybe more than one) who wants to have sex while sleeping.
ReplyDeleteI read a story about a father raping his daughter because he suffers from this condition and he was given “the benefit of the doubt” because there was no evidence that proof that he was awake.
If the person presents evidence that she/he has been suffering sexomnia it might be a possibility of let him/her free. The thing here is not start manipulating conditions in order to do whatever we want in detriment to others.
I think this man should not be acquitted from his charges. If he raped a girl he should pay for it, doesn't matter if he was slept or not, in his dream, he wanted to rape her. He commited a felony and this girl got hurt, therefore he has to go to jail.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the second question that you posed, I think Vera is making an excellent point that you might have missed here: use an illness as an excuse to avoid going to prison.
For me mental illnesses or conditions as sexomnia are no excuse to commit a crime, they are just a get-away to avoid prison.
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ReplyDeleteMy reaction to this entry is that this man should pay for what he did--it must be taken into account that this is a horrible crime--no matter what disease he suffers from. People who suffer from mental disorders such as mental retardation, autism, bipolarity, among others have also been penalized when they commit crimes, so why this person should be acquitted from his charges?
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