# Boundary between seduction and rape? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 1, 2010, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728 "2010-10-01T15:20:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728/41 "2010-10-04T01:28:19Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Men who engaged in coercive sex themselves wrote the laws, & no one has bothered to change them. Just out of curiosity, what on earth are you suggesting the laws should BE? What law could be written, with any hope of fair and practical enforcement, to make it illegal to not be an asshole? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728/42 "2010-10-04T01:52:54Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > What law could be written, with any hope of fair and practical enforcement, to make it illegal to not be an asshole? Your Freudian slip is showing. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728/43 "2010-10-04T02:26:58Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Just out of curiosity (and because it’s late and I’m having trouble thinking about this on my own), what scenarios caused rape law to exclude such things? The potential for abusive prosecutions? They weren’t excluded as such. It wasn’t a process of writing laws and thinking “how can we make this scenario not rape.” Rape started out as a crime against men - women were chattels, and raping a woman was either a crime against her husband (conversion of his property) or her father (devaluing his property to the extent that she is less marriable). As law developed, and as society developed to recognize women had certain rights, the twin requirements of force and absence of consent developed. Force is a physical concept here - saying you won’t give someone something unless they sleep with you isn’t rape, even if they wouldn’t otherwise, and even if they will die without what you are withholding. Well, I can see certain circumstances in certain jurisdictions where it would be, but, in general, its not. The way in which I could see it being rape is if a man, for example, takes a diabetic woman’s insulin, and she has no way of replacing it, and offers to give it back in exchange for sex. If, on the other hand, the man owns the insulin, then trading it for sex to the woman isn’t legally rape, though it may have other legal consequences. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728/44 "2010-10-04T02:28:14Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > “Do this or I’ll flunk you” doesn’t count as a threat of force? It’s not physical force, sure, but it still looks like force, to me. OK - let me rephrase. It’s not force as currently recognized in any jurisidiction I have seen. It is absolutely a factor which influences the decision making of the victim. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728/45 "2010-10-04T02:31:07Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > At the very least, it would fall under the catagory of “sexual harassment”. If the subject is a minor, it would most certainly be rape – wouldn’t it **Bricker**? If she is a minor, yes, but it would fall under that category whether or not he threatened to flunk her. The crime there would be sex with a minor, and the threat would be irrelevant to it. It might, however, be a factor that persuaded the prosecutor to bring charges, or act as a sentence magnifier. On second thoughts, it is possible there is a jurisdiction that in its elements of statutory rape includes such a scenario and criminalizes an action that would not otherwise be criminal. I don’t know of any such law, however, but rape laws often include a “position of authority” factor. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728/46 "2010-10-04T16:09:54Z")
the rapist in the webcomic decided not to go through with it. [Why yes, I did mean to call him a rapist.](http://www.pholph.com/strip.php?id=5&sid=3394) ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728/47 "2010-10-04T17:03:32Z")
I’m not sure I get it. Did he give up because she was too passive, or was she clenching too hard for him to penetrate? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728/48 "2010-10-04T17:13:02Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > I’m not sure I get it. Did he give up because she was too passive, or was she clenching too hard for him to penetrate? I took it to be the latter. The expressions on her face speak of a lot of tension and fright. She’d never had it that way before and didn’t know what she should do. I understand that it’s not intuitive. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728/49 "2010-10-06T20:38:43Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > the rapist in the webcomic decided not to go through with it. > > [Why yes, I did mean to call him a rapist.](http://www.pholph.com/strip.php?id=5&sid=3394) Seems she [agrees](http://www.pholph.com/strip.php?id=5&sid=3395) with your assessment. ---
**Author:** ![lalenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@lalenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalenin)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728/50 "2010-10-07T13:56:13Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Inspired by, of all things, a web comic- (Warning! Utterly NSFW!) > > This page and the one that follows it: > [noparse][http://www.pholph.com/strip.php?id=5&sid=3392[/noparse]](http://www.pholph.com/strip.php?id=5&sid=3392%5B/noparse%5D) > [noparse][http://www.pholph.com/strip.php?id=5&sid=3393[/noparse]](http://www.pholph.com/strip.php?id=5&sid=3393%5B/noparse%5D) > > Now let me make myself clear: I believe the depicted scenerio is morally and pyschologically rape; but legally, can someone be charged with rape for basically being a manipulative bastard who takes advantage of someone’s fears and weaknesses? Well, if you go to the next page it seems that it was only [attempted psychological rape](http://www.pholph.com/strip.php?id=5&sid=3394). ---
**Author:** ![PoliticsNut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@PoliticsNut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoliticsNut)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728/51 "2010-10-07T19:20:00Z")
Technically if the person does not say no then the other person can not be charged but if the other person is under the influence of alcohol they can be or if the person is in an authority of power. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728/52 "2010-10-07T19:22:48Z")
Technically this is incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728/53 "2010-10-07T20:01:39Z")
At least he was right about Vladimir Putin. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boundary-between-seduction-and-rape/555728.md?page=2)