Above: Thordis Elva & Tom Stranger – the funniest double act since Lucan and McShane.
Christmas 1996: In Iceland, a teenage Thordis Elva gets drunk and is taken home by her Australian boyfriend Tom Stranger.
Yes, they did have sex. And no, she didn’t cry rape, what she did do, months later, was convince herself she had been raped. Even worse, she managed to convince him he had raped her!
By this time, Stranger had long since returned to Australia; he had been on some sort of student exchange programme. By his own admission, she wasn’t the only one who’d had too much to drink that night. Clearer? Nine years after this non-rape, Thordis wrote to him, and would you believe in 2017, these two jokers published a book together? South Of Forgiveness was published in both English and Icelandic.
How can we be sure this wasn’t rape, even though he says it was? There is a little thing called mens rea; he didn’t intend to rape her and thought she was consenting. As they had both consumed no little alcohol and she didn’t scream or attempt to push him off, that is hardly surprising. At sixteen, Thordis was also a virgin, and as he was only two years older it is hardly surprising that she felt bruised the next morning. Yes, sex can be romantic, but when young people do it for the first time it can be awkward for both parties and painful for the girl.
Incredibly, Thordis claimed that because of the trauma she suffered she became an over-achiever; she certainly speaks flawless English. Is that some sort of bizare endorsement? In the run up to the publication of South Of Forgiveness, the two began travelling together telling their story of rape and reconciliation. Understandably, wimmin’s groups were not too enthusiastic about his participation.
Before you file Thordis and her non-rapist under REGRET SEX, check out the later case of professed virgin Maria Rosario Brustenga-Vilaseca.
Above: Thordis Elva & Tom Stranger – the funniest double act since Lucan and McShane.
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