My opinion

This is not one of the major crises facing the world, although it did command a chunk of the media attention: ie, the alleged rape of the housekeeper by former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Now the criminal case against him has been dismissed, because of the prosecutor's assessment that winning the case would depend on whether the jury will believe her or him, and she has already proved herself unreliable by lying to the police and to immigration officials about other matters. Note: this does not mean that DSK was acquitted; he may very well have committed rape. That has not been decided. But the criminal case has been dismissed. There is still a civil suit pending.

DSK has now given an interview, in which he claims that it was both "an error" and "a moral failing" on his part, and he regrets it "infinitely." Small wonder he regrets it, given the result that he had to resign from one of the world's prestigious jobs and lost his probably realistic ambition to be elected President of France.

He admits to having sex with the house-keeper, but claims that it didn't involve violence, constraint, or aggression. He also dismissed the separate claim of a French writer that he had tried to rape her during a 2003 interview, again saying that "no act of aggression, no violence" took place between them.

Which all leads me to wonder and suggest this: Perhaps Monsieur Strauss-Kahn does not understand what constitutes aggression and violence in a sexual encounter between a man and a woman: Does it have to involve ropes to tie her up, and knives or guns to threaten her, or fists and whips to beat her into submission? Or is simple over-powering strength and persistence, in the face of physical and verbal resistance, enough to constitute rape?

Perhaps DSK actually thinks he's not aggressive -- just God's gift to women (or that women are God's gift to him, his for the taking). Several other women have now come forward to talk about being hit on by him, both at parties and in work situations, in ways that seem inappropriate even in the particular setting. He sounds like the kind of narcissistic, powerful man who feels entitled to command sex from any woman he wants, whether she wants it or not.

Has anyone asked him for his definition of aggression?

Ralph